And when the draclings hatch, the sire-drake roars so as to tremble the earth. He spirals into the sky; he looses the wind and the thunder and the hail. Nor keeps the dam-drake silence, but, abandoned, wails most piteously; and thus abates the storm.
—The Bok of Dragon
Something was wrong.
Kaeldra knew it the moment she awoke. She sat bolt upright and strained her senses against the dark. The loft smelled of mildew and damp hay. A cold breath of mist wrapped around her shoulders and neck. Something—the seabird?—rustled in the room down below. Beside her, Kaeldra heard Lyf’s soft snoring. She reached out and laid her hand on Lyf’s chest and felt reassured, somehow, by its gentle rise and fall.
Gradually the blackness in the loft dissolved into vague gray shapes. Now Kaeldra could make out Mirym’s sleeping form in the far corner, could see the dark half-circles of Lyf’s lashes against her cheeks.
Everything all right. No sign of what had awakened her. No hint of anything wrong, except the prickling chill that crept up Kaeldra’s spine and fanned out across her back.
From far away came the bleat of a sheep, deep and mournful. Then two more, almost together, right after. They were restless, as she was, tonight.
The sheep. It was not yet lambing time, although sometimes there was an early snow-lamb. The Calyffs had had one last year. But Kaeldra had been watching, and none of the ewes was ripe for lambing.
It was nothing. They were restless, that was all.
Another bleat. Then another, and another. An overlapping of bleat upon bleat, coming slowly at first and then faster and fuller.
It was something!
Kaeldra threw off her blanket and pulled on her cloak. She thrust one foot into a fur-lined boot and had just begun to tie its leather thongs when she heard the door open below.
There were footsteps inside, then a voice, dry and urgent and low. Granmyr. A stirring of straw, then Ryfenn, Kaeldra’s second-mother, spoke, whining and afraid. “Must we now? Why could we not—?” Kaeldra heard; then Granmyr’s voice, short and sharp, cut her off. Kaeldra crept to the edge of the loft and leaned over. The two women’s shapes hunched over something on the floor, and then the cock crowed and the seabird shrieked, beat its wings against its cage. And the chickens were squawking and the goose was braying and the sheep were bleating all at once. Two soft arms slipped around Kaeldra’s waist, and she looked down into the small white oval of Lyf’s face.
“Kael, what is it?”
“I don’t know, Lyfling,” Kaeldra said. She crawled away from the edge of the loft and hugged Lyf to her. Mirym knelt, uncertain, in the corner. “Kael—?” she began, and then she ran across and laid her head on Kaeldra’s shoulder, something she had not done in twelvemoon, not since she had turned eleven and had got so smart.
Kaeldra wrapped her arms around Lyf and Mirym. They were trembling, Lyf and Mirym, and then Kaeldra, too, because they were trembling against her. No, it wasn’t Lyf and Mirym at all, but something else: the loft trembling against her legs, the air trembling against her back and face, the whole world trembling, vibrating, humming. She heard it with her body, not with her ears, and then it was in her ears, too, a rumble like distant thunder that grew louder and louder until it sang in her teeth and bones.
“Kaeldra! Bring them here!”
Granmyr stood on the ladder at the edge of the loft. Kaeldra crawled to her, Lyf and Mirym clinging. She lifted Lyf and handed her to Granmyr; they disappeared down the ladder. Then Mirym climbed onto the ladder. It shook and chattered against the edge of the loft; Kaeldra held on to steady it as Mirym went down.
Kaeldra was on the ladder now. It shuddered and creaked. Gray orbs were streaking through the dark. They made soft popping noises when they hit the floor. Pots. Granmyr’s ceramic pots, falling from the shelf. Then came a crack! and Kaeldra was falling. The floor lunged up and smacked against her shoulder and now the humming was so loud it was a roar, flooding the house, drowning out the sheep and the chickens and the goose. Kaeldra clapped her hands over her ears, but the roar kept on rising, almost human, exultant.
And then it stopped.
“Get down here! Now!” Granmyr’s voice sounded loud against the dwindling chorus of bleats and clucks. She stood near the open cellar door waving her arms.
“Kaeldra! Now!”
Kaeldra blinked. Why was she doing that? It was all over now, the trembling, the hum, the roar. Why was she yelling? Why was she waving her arms?
The wind came up out of the east, from the mountains. It screamed down the rocky slopes, tore across the graze, slammed into the house, and ripped off a chunk of roof. Thunder boomed; Kaeldra jumped up and ran for the cellar. Hailstones bounced and slipped under her feet. She followed Granmyr through the hole in the floor and down another ladder. The cellar door thudded above her. Kaeldra stood there a moment, hugging herself in the dark. Her shoulder ached where it had hit the floor. Her bootless foot tingled with cold. Then something warm and soft pressed against her—Lyf—and Kaeldra folded herself around the child.
“You’re dressed.” Granmyr’s voice came, close to her ear.
“Ah,” Granmyr said. She touched Kaeldra’s arm. “Listen.”
Outside, the wind howled. The cellar door shook with the rattle of hail. Somewhere to her left, Kaeldra heard Ryfenn, moaning. Kaeldra’s own heartbeat sounded loud in her ears.
And then—there it was.
High-pitched and plaintive, a new sound twined around the wind wail. It mingled at first, then, growing, dominated, hushed the wind entirely. It was not a human sound, but the feelings it voiced were human. There was triumph in it, but also the underside of triumph: regret, loneliness, despair.
It rose, a great soul-sung lament, then all at once it, too, fell silent, its echo retreating back across the moors into the mountains. And in the hush that followed, Kaeldra heard, or thought she heard, the pulse of a giant wingbeat, flying east.