“Thank you for speaking with me,” Thymara replied hopelessly. She turned and walked quietly away. The silver, she decided. The injury on its tail needed to be cleaned and bandaged. Thymara suspected they’d be traveling in or near the river water, and untreated, the acid waters would enlarge and ulcerate the injury. As for the skinny copper dragon, if she could find some ruskin leaves and catch a fish, she’d try worming him. She wondered if ruskin leaves worked to cleanse a dragon’s system. Studying him as she walked toward him, she decided that they couldn’t hurt. There was no one she could ask for advice for physicking a dragon. If he got any thinner, he’d die soon anyway.
Abruptly she realized there was someone she could ask. She turned back to the blue dragon who was regarding Thymara with ill-concealed hostility. Thymara steeled her courage. “May I ask you a question about dragons and parasites?”
“Where did you learn your manners?” The question was followed with a hiss. None of her breath reached Thymara, but the mist of weak venom that rode her breath was faintly visible.
Thymara was jolted. Cautiously she asked, “Is it rude to ask such a question?” She wanted to take a step back but dared not move.
“How dare you turn your back on me.”
On the dragon’s long neck, the “frills” of scaled plates were lifting. Thymara hadn’t understood their use before, but from all she knew of animals, such a display would indicate aggression. A brilliant yellow underlay was revealed as the scaled flaps rose like the opening petals of a reptilian flower. The dragon’s large copper eyes were fixed on her, and as Thymara met that gaze, the eyes appeared to slowly spin. It was like watching twin whirlpools of molten copper. The sight was as breathtakingly beautiful as it was terrifying. “I’m sorry,” she apologized hopelessly. “I didn’t know it was rude. I thought you wanted me to go away.”
SOMETHING WAS WRONG, and Sintara didn’t know what. By now, the girl should have been completely infatuated with her, on her knees, begging for the dragon’s attention. Instead, she had turned her back on her and started to wander off. Humans were notoriously easy prey for a dragon’s glamour. She opened her ruff more widely and gave her head a shake to disperse a mist of charm. “Do you not wish to serve me?” she prompted the girl. “Do you not find me beautiful?”
“Of course you are beautiful!” the human exclaimed, but her stance and the rank scent of fear she gave betrayed that she was frightened, not entranced. “When first I saw you today, I chose you as the dragon that I most wished to care for. But our conversation has been . . .” The girl’s words trickled away.
Sintara reached for her thoughts but found only fog. Perhaps that was the problem. Perhaps the girl was too stupid to be charmed by her. She searched her dragon memories and found evidence of such humans. Some were so dense that they could not even understand a dragon’s speech. This girl seemed to grasp her words clearly enough. So what ailed her? Sintara decided on a small test of her powers, to see if the girl was susceptible to her at all. “What is your name, small human?”
“Thymara,” she replied instantly. But as Sintara began to gloat at her leverage, the girl asked her, “And what is your name?”
“I don’t think you’ve earned the right to my name yet!” Sintara rebuked her and saw her cower. But Thymara stank of true fear with no traces of the despair that such a refusal should have wakened in her. When the human said nothing, did not beg again for the favor of her name, Sintara asked her directly, “Don’t you wish you knew my name?”
“It would make it much easier for me to talk to you, yes,” the girl said hesitantly.
Sintara chuckled. “But you don’t seek it in order to have power over me?” she asked sarcastically.
“What power would your name give me?”
Sintara stared down at her. Could she truly be ignorant of the power of a dragon’s name? One who knew a dragon’s true name could, if she employed it correctly, compel the dragon to speak truth, to keep a promise, even to grant a favor. If this Thymara was ignorant of such things, Sintara certainly wasn’t going to enlighten her. Instead she asked her, “What would you like to call me, if you were choosing a name to know me by?”
The girl looked more intrigued than frightened now. Sintara spun her eyes more slowly, and Thymara actually came a step closer to her. There. That was better. “Well?” she prompted her again. “What name would you give me?”
The girl bit her upper lip for a moment, then said, “You are such a lovely blue. High in the canopy, there is a twining vine that roots in the clefts of trees. It has flowers that are deep blue with bright yellow centers. It has a wonderful fragrance that entrances insects and small birds and little lizards. Even it is not as beautiful as you are, but you remind me of it. We call the flowers skymaws.”
