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Once more Kylara looked down from her perch next to a drowsing Prideth. The silly beast had wanted to glut herself on wherries, but for all her enjoyment of pleasures best left unnamed, Kylara did have some understanding of personal discipline. Stewarding the young queen's growth and development had become the focus of Kylara's existence, not least because Kylara's own status depended on it.
Kylara's golden beauty, formerly the envy of everyone in the Lower Caverns, was going to remain the envy of everyone in the Lower Caverns, and the entirety of Benden Weyr, even if it meant she had to terrorize the drudges into providing the best unguents and lotions. Nor did she stint when it came to securing the finest oils to soothe Prideth's perennially itchy hide. The Weyr might suffer from the stingy tithes of the Lords Holder, but Kylara didn't see why she, or her dragon, should want for anything.
Kylara would not readily admit it, but caring for Prideth was a rare pleasure, and one of the few times she prioritized someone other than herself. The growing queen glowed with health, her hide diligently oiled. Speculation abounded on her adult size, her wingspan in particular. She was, Kylara thought affectionately, more beautiful than Kylara herself—sun and sun, orbiting each other in mutually affectionate regard, mutual sun-touched glory.
For once, however, unguents and lotions did not dominate Kylara's thoughts. Her gaze slid back, in spite of her own best, or worst, intentions, toward the other queenrider. The one who attracted attention that Kylara considered due herself.
The one who was, in the betting pools of the Lower Caverns, considered the winning possibility for the next Weyrwoman
An anomaly, everyone had whispered in Benden Weyr. They'd understood Nemorth's last, vital clutch to contain but a single queen egg, upon which the Weyr's fate depended. That egg had produced golden Ramoth. A spectacular draconic specimen, to be sure. Kylara conceded as much, secure in the knowledge that Prideth was more spectacular.
But a second queen had hatched at the same time, to the consternation and delight of onlookers. That egg, which everyone had taken for a bronze of unusual vigor, had cracked open to reveal Prideth. A queen of unusual size, if accompanied by an unusually sweet disposition, a contrast to her domineering rider.
A great relief from the Weyr's standpoint, to be restored to two queens instead of decrepit old Nemorth. The inevitable phrase, which no one uttered twice in Kylara's hearing, was we have a spare. As though any queenrider with a modicum of self-respect would settle for a life as a spare.
Prideth's head turned, the great eye whirling with orange flecks amid the ordinarily contented greens and blues: a flash of anxiety. You are the queenrider who matters, she said. And then: My left wing...?
"Of course, dear one," Kylara said, locating the problem spot with a practiced eye and slathering her hands with the oils formulated with sweet-smelling herbs to her exacting specifications. Prideth's wings did trouble her lately. Kylara attended to the hide with renewed vigor—renewed hope. For Prideth's wingspan, already impressive, suggested that she would be immense when she reached her adult growth. At least the gluttony with which she set upon the luckless herdbeasts and wherries was going to good use.
Kylara's eyes narrowed as she assessed Lessa, hard at work scrubbing Ramoth's hide just as Kylara did the same with Prideth. With her keen vision, Kylara could evaluate everything about that slight yet haughty figure. Slender, but irritatingly and definitely feminine. Lessa might never challenge Kylara when it came to sheer voluptuous presence, but that blade-like posture had a magnetism all its own. The way Lessa commanded F'lar's undiluted attention spoke for itself.
Kylara excelled, too, at reading body language outside bedroom contexts, for all her reputation. Lessa carried herself upright, not like the drudge-like creature she'd originally resembled. Her bearing spoke of a growing, unendurable confidence. She didn't move about Benden Weyr like a drudge, no matter how much the task of the moment might resemble those that the drudges carried out.
Despite the shock of being selected as a queen candidate, Kylara had quickly adapted—and just as quickly dismissed the others as threats. She'd basked in her assured victory. How was she to have divined that meddler F'lar would roust a last-second candidate out of ruined Ruatha, wretched Ruatha? If only Lessa had chosen Hold over Weyr—but Kylara admitted that no one who had experienced the all-encompassing, radiant adoration of a dragon could ever go back to an ordinary life.
Accustomed to direct action, Kylara fretted and chafed at the current restrictions that circumscribed her life. After all, the Weyr and its dragons would determine the next Weyrwoman, a role currently vacant. Kylara preferred the vacancy in that it meant that she had not been removed from consideration. She was, perhaps, the only one in Benden Weyr who entertained such a sentiment.
"Grow," Kylara crooned to Prideth as she worked the last of the oils into the taut, gleaming gold hide.
Inevitably, Lessa rose from Ramoth's side and headed directly for Kylara. Good: none of this drudge-like skulking about, which would have been insulting to everyone involved. They were not friends. There was no point in denying their rivalry.
"She grows well," Lessa commented with a blandness that could not have been better calculated to infuriate Kylara.
I grow, Prideth agreed, so placidly that it instantly quenched Kylara's upsurge of pique.
Kylara wondered, sometimes, if dragons were quite as oblivious to their riders' shenanigans as the teachings claimed. Prideth had a positive gift for defusing situations before they became situations. Given Kylara's predilection for drama, Prideth had ample opportunity to practice.
"And your Ramoth as well," Kylara said with the frosty civility that she'd learned as a Lord Holder's daughter—but then, they were two of a kind, a resemblance that she preferred not to dwell on.
The slight wrinkle between Lessa's brows betrayed genuine concern. "Your diligence during flying lessons is commendable. But it isn't as though the queens' wing"—some wing, with only two queenriders—"will see much danger in case of Threadfall."
Ah, that was what bothered Lessa. Kylara had hardly earned the reputation of a diligent student or hard worker except where it advanced her position. Nor did it escape her notice that Lessa hedged about the possibility of Threadfall, a sign that she didn't trust F'lar's doom-and-gloom predictions as much as some assumed.
When Kylara identified a problem, however, she wasn't just willing to apply herself, but to go above and beyond. Manora said, reluctantly, that Kylara's skill with salves and herbs was an asset to the Weyr and that under other circumstances, she might have worked alongside a Healer or Masterhealer. That obsessive focus, born of Kylara's interest in maintaining her own beauty, now spurred her to the study of weather patterns, aerodynamics, training regimens for her dragon as well as herself.
"It's the least I can do for the Weyr's sake," Kylara said, widening her eyes just enough to project sincerity, but not so much that it was obvious she was baiting the other woman. Besides, she was sincere. She meant to be Weyrwoman. Any improvement to her circumstances would, naturally, elevate the Weyr's standing.
Had she caught Lessa's gaze dipping to Kylara's bodice, cinched a notch too tight so as to emphasize the curves there? Kylara dipped in a curtsey to hide her smile. That might bear further investigation.
"My regards to F'lar," Kylara added, to see how Lessa reacted. "Unless you think I should speak to him in person—"
Lessa cleared her throat. "That won't be necessary. I'm sure your duties keep you busy." She stalked off, faster than was strictly decorous.
Kylara stared after her, no longer bothering to conceal her delight at the reaction she'd provoked.
None of the teaching songs spoke of what happened if none of the bronzes, or an unusually well-favored brown, flew a queen during her mating flight. Kylara did know that queens were separated if their flights would occur in close succession, one of the few useful morsels she'd extracted from R'gul's tedious pontifications. All she needed was a little chaos.
Prideth might not be the first to rise in her mating flight, but when that day came, Prideth would fly faster—farther—