Dragon's Time

EPILOGUE

“Terin?” F’jian called in surprise as he spotted the red-haired girl climbing up the ledge to the queen’s wing. The girl stopped and spun in place and he could see instantly that she wasn’t Terin.

“No, I’m Torina,” the girl said quickly, scowling at him with all the indignation of a woman just leaving childhood. Her eyes widened as she took him in and, in a whisper of surprise, said, “Grandfather?”

F’jian looked closely at the girl in front of him, with scarce more Turns than Terin had at Telgar Weyr, and saw the subtle differences in her face. He could see Terin’s features—and even his own—reflected and melded with other, unknown features to produce someone who was undoubtedly both Terin’s and his own granddaughter.

The young woman recovered before him and reached out, grabbing his hand and tugging. “Come on! Mother’s waiting!”

“Mother?” F’jian repeated dully, allowing himself to be led in a way that was so heart-breakingly similar to Terin’s marvelous, brilliant, brisk manner.

Torina shot a look over her shoulder, still tugging him behind her. “You know, your daughter.”

F’jian had a moment of panic. “Am I too late?”

“You’ll see,” Torina said, sounding all too much like her grand-dame. She craned her neck back once more, catching his eye and adding honestly, “I’m so glad you came, I was afraid I’d never get to meet you.”

The weyr they entered was not the same one that Terin and Kurinth had occupied so many Turns ago, and F’jian was surprised as the dim gold queen raised her head wistfully to greet him.

Greetings, Kurinth said. She was hoping you’d come.

“Father?” a silver-haired woman of later years said and rushed over, wrapping her arms tightly around him. F’jian hugged her back, as surprised at her frail bones as at the fierce love he found in her embrace. As if not to be outdone, Torina turned back and hugged her grandfather as soon as her mother had stepped aside.

“Come on,” Torina said, regaining F’jian’s hand and dragging him behind her once more into the weyrwoman’s quarters. F’jian shot her mother a bemused look, but she just smiled at her daughter’s staunch possession of her too-young grandfather.

With all the bustle F’jian had come to expect from Fiona or Terin herself, his granddaughter broke through the large throng gathered quietly around the weyrwoman’s bed.

A silver-haired man, his face lined with age and Threadscore, caught F’jian’s eye and nodded to him in greeting. “C’tov?”

C’tov smiled and reached over. “We’ve missed you,” the old bronze rider said. His lips twitched up as he added, “She and I would argue sometimes over who missed you more.”

“I’m sorry,” F’jian apologized.

“Don’t be,” C’tov told him firmly. F’jian thought to say something more, but his old friend shook his head once more and gestured toward the bed.

“Terin?” F’jian said as he knelt down at the edge of the bed.

“You’re still beautiful,” an age-strained voice spoke back, and he heard others reach out to help his only love sit up in her bed.

F’jian lifted his eyes to meet the green eyes of the age-wrinkled, white-haired woman in front of him. “So are you!”

Much later, after the toasts were drunk and elderly weyrwoman and elderly bronze rider took their dragons between on their last journey, F’jian returned to Ladirth and the rider astride him.

Quietly he climbed up and took his position.

“Are you ready?” Lorana asked him softly.

F’jian nodded. “I am.”

As Ladirth circled the Star Stones, Lorana said, “It will be a long cold journey between.”

“No it won’t,” F’jian corrected her. “Not with all these memories.”

As the blackness of between gripped them, Ladirth relayed a message from F’jian to Lorana: We might not be able to break time but we can cheat it!