I shared it. The Skill might be essential to the Prince's success. Neither of us put much weight on his truly slaying some buried ice dragon. The true value of the Skill would be that Chade and I could gather information and convey it to Dutiful to smooth the path for his wedding negotiations. "No. This is important, Chade. I think. Well, it might be. Because I dreamed a big blue lizard last night, too. Actually, the creature I dreamed was a dragon."

A moment of silence held as we considered this. Then Chade hesitantly attempted, "Well, it should not surprise us if you and Thick share the same dream. You are so often Skill-linked throughout the day, why shouldn't it bleed over into the night?"

"Because I don't think I was asleep when it happened. I was trying to do the Skill-walking. Fi— Tom says it was easiest for him to bridge over to it from a light sleep. So I was in my bed, trying to be asleep but not too asleep, while reaching out with the Skill. And then I felt it."

"What?" Chade asked.

"I felt it looking for me. With its great big whirly silver eyes." Thick was the one who answered. "Yes," the Prince confirmed slowly. My heart sank.

"I don't understand," Chade said irritably. "Start at the beginning and report it properly." This was addressed to Dutiful. I understood the double prong of Chade's anger. Once again, the three of them had attempted an exercise, and both Thick and Dutiful had experienced some success while Chade had failed. Underscoring that was the mention of a dragon. There had been too many mentions of dragons lately: a frozen dragon for Dutiful to unearth and behead, the dragons the Bingtown contingent had bragged about (supposedly at the beck and call of the Bingtown Traders), and now a dragon intruding into our Skill-exercise. We knew far too little about any of them. We dared not dismiss them as legends and lies; too well we recalled the stone dragons that had rallied to the Six Duchies' defense sixteen years ago, yet we knew little about any of them.