The difficulties of the river journey had reduced the number still further. She was not certain how many had reached the cocooning beach. About ninety, she thought, but the graver news was that fewer than twenty of the survivors were female. And all around her, exhausted serpents continued to die. Even as she thought of it, she heard Tintaglia speak to a human worker. “He is dead. Bring your hammers and break up his cast. Work it back into the troughs of memory clay. Let the others keep alive the memories of his ancestors.” She could not see, but she heard the sounds of Tintaglia dragging the dead serpent from his unfinished cocoon. She smelled his flesh and blood as the dragon devoured his carcass. Hunger and weariness cramped her. She wished she could share Tintaglia’s meal but knew that it was too late for eating now. The clay was in her gut and must be processed.

And Tintaglia needed the food. She was the sole dragon left alive to shepherd all of them through this process. Sisarqua did not know where Tintaglia got her strength. The dragon had been flying without rest for days to shepherd them up the river, so unfamiliar to them after decades of change. She could not have many reserves left. Tintaglia could offer them little more than encouragement. What could one dragon do when faced with the needs of so many sea serpents?

Like the gossamer recollection of a dream, an ancestral memory wafted briefly through her mind. Not right, she thought to herself. None of this is right; none of it is as it should be.