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giving Ruth a proper scrubbing?”
    Having said his piece, Readis was delighted to be released to help bathe Ruth, who was his favorite dragon of all the ones he’d met so far.
    “Can I? Really?” And he looked up at Lord Jaxom.
    “Really, you can,” Jaxom said.
    Readis let out a loud yell as he jumped off the porch and pelted down to the shore where Ruth was afloat.
    When the boy was out of earshot, Jaxom turned to his parents. “I know for a fact that dolphins—what we’ve been calling shipfish all these centuries—came with the original settlers. And they speak? Amazing.” He glanced toward Ruth.
    “They’ll never be competition for dragons,” Jayge said quickly, flashing Jaxom a look.
    “No,” Jaxom replied with an easy grin, “nothing could be, but you seaside holders might want to encourage a renewal of the old friendship. Especially with the squalls you have.”
    “Hmmm …” Jayge was clearly taken with that idea.
    “You are
not”
—Aramina paused to emphasize the negative—“to give my son any more ideas than he already has.”
    “Why not?” Jayge said, blinking at her. “Catch’em while they’re young and train ’em up in the way they’re to go.”
    “Readis will follow you as Holder of Paradise River,” she began hotly.
    “And, as he is Holder of Paradise River right on the coast, I think it’d be smart if he is aware of all the possibilities available,” Jayge said, sweeping his arm out to include the sparkling waters beyond. “Of course, only when he’s old enough to appreciate the advantages,” he added as her expression turned slightly mutinous.
    “Can’t start ’em too young, you know,” Jaxom told Aramina.
    “You’re as bad as he is. Don’t tell me that Sharra would allow Jarrol to go careening about the coastline?”
    “We don’t have much of a one at Ruatha,” Jaxom said with immense good humor. “And speaking of my wife, I’d best get back to her. Surprise her with my early return. So I have your permission, Lord Holder, to use Paradise River sands …” He turned to Jayge.
    Jayge raised both hands in broad assent. “However much you need,”
    “Thanks.” Jaxom drank the last of the juice, made a satisfied smack of his lips. “That hit the spot. Now, to entice my dragon away from all his admirers.”
    Jayge, circling Aramina’s shoulders with one arm, waved a farewell. Then he looked down at his wife, always somewhat amazed that she had chosen to live her life with him.
    “Some people have affinities for the sea, others for runnerbeasts or dragons.” He gave her an encouragingsqueeze when her face clouded, hearing that preamble. “Readis has had a great adventure for a young lad. Let’s bend with it for the time being. I would like to hear what Aivas has to say about the shipfish, After all, love, we, too, owe our lives to them—and all that they brought us to. We ought, for the sake of our son, to listen to what is known about them.”
    She leaned into him, borrowing his strength once again. “He is just a little boy.”
    “Who will grow, I hope, into a fine sturdy man. Who will probably be as stubborn as his mother.” He grinned down at her.
    “Ha! And not just his mother by any means,” she replied tardy. “Just don’t force the issue, Jayge.”
    “I hadn’t intended to, but I must admit to being curious as to what Aivas will say about talking fish.”
    “Yes,” Aramina said, moving away from his side to take a sand-covered biscuit out of her daughter’s hand. “People can imagine such odd things in moments of stress.”
    “Didn’t we though!” Jayge’s grin was for their own rarely mentioned rescue. “We never thought to thank them, either.”
    Aramina gave him a long and indignant stare. “Considering we barely made it to shore, and never really thought the shipfish were
speaking
to us, why would we have?”
    The dolphins kept patrolling the waters off Pardisriv, hoping to ask mans to remove bloodfish. Most of them had the