Keffria propped her elbows on the table and leaned her face into her hands. “And this now feels like a punishment for that. If Sa thought I undervalued my children, might he not take them from me?”

“Perhaps. If Sa had but a male aspect. But recall the old, true worship of Sa. Male and female, bird, beast and plant, earth, fire, air and water, all are honored in Sa and Sa manifests in all of them. If the divine is also female, and the female also divine, then she understands that woman is more than mother, more than daughter, more than wife. Those are the facets of a full life, but no single facet defines the jewel.”

The old saying, once so comforting, now rang hollow in her ears. But Keffria’s thoughts did not linger on it long. A great commotion at the entrance to the hall turned both their heads. “Sit still and rest,” Jani advised her. “I’ll see what it’s about.”

But Keffria could not obey her. How could she sit still and wonder if the disruption were caused by news of Reyn or Malta or Selden? She pushed back from the table and followed the Rain Wild Trader.

Weary and bedraggled diggers clustered around four youngsters who had just slung their buckets of fresh water to the floor. “A dragon! A great silver dragon, I tell you! It flew right over us.” The tallest boy spoke the words as if challenging his listeners. Some of the laborers looked bemused, others disgusted by this wild tale.

“He’s not lying! It did! It was real, so bright I could hardly look at it! But it was blue, a sparkly blue,” amended a younger boy.

“Silver-blue!” a third boy chimed in. “And bigger than a ship!” The lone girl in the group was silent, but her eyes shone with excitement.

Keffria glanced at Jani, expecting to meet her annoyed glance. How could these youngsters allow themselves to bring such a frivolous tale at a time when lives weighed in the balance? Instead, the Rain Wild woman’s face had gone pale. It made the fine scaling around her eyes and lips stand out against her face. “A dragon?” she faltered. “You saw a dragon?”

Sensing a sympathetic ear, the tall boy pushed through the crowd toward Jani. “It was a dragon, such as some of the frescoes showed. I’m not making it up, Trader Khuprus. Something made me look up, and there it was. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It flew like a falcon! No, no, like a shooting star! It was so beautiful!”

“A dragon,” Jani repeated dazedly.

“Mother!” Bendir was so dirty that Keffria scarcely recognized him as he pushed through the crowd. He glanced at the boy standing before Jani, and then to his mother’s shocked face. “So you’ve heard. A woman who was tending the babies up above sent a boy running to tell us what she had seen. A blue dragon.”

“Could it be?” Jani asked him brokenly. “Could Reyn have been right all along? What does it mean?”

“Two things,” Bendir replied tersely. “I’ve sent searchers overland, to where I think the creature must have broken out of the city. From the description, it is too large to have moved through the tunnels. It must have burst out from the Crowned Rooster chamber. We have an approximate idea of where that was. There may be some sign of Reyn there. At the least, there may be another way we can enter the city and search for survivors.” A mutter of voices rose at his words. Some were expressing disbelief, others wonder. He raised his voice to be heard above them. “And the other thing is that we must remember that this beast may be our enemy.” As the boy near him began to protest, Bendir cautioned him, “No matter how beautiful it may seem, it may bear us ill will. We know next to nothing of the true nature of dragons. Do nothing to anger it, but do not assume it is the benign creature we see in the frescoes and mosaics. Do not call its attention to you.”

A roar of conversation rose in the chamber. Keffria caught at Jani’s sleeve desperately. She spoke through the noise. “If you find Reyn there… do you think Malta may be with him?”

Jani met her eyes squarely. “It is what he feared,” she said. “That Malta had gone to the Crowned Rooster chamber. And to the dragon that slept there.”

“I’VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING SO BEAUTIFUL. DO YOU THINK SHE WILL COME back?” Weakness as well as awe made the boy whisper.

Reyn turned to regard him. Selden crouched on an island of rubble atop the mud. He stared up at the light above them, his face transfigured by what he had just witnessed. The newly released dragon was gone, already far beyond sight, but still the boy stared after her.

“I don’t think we should count on her to return and save us. I think that is up to us,” Reyn said pragmatically.