Page 6 of Kian

“Scared?” he guessed.

“Excited,” she told him, shaking her head. “We’re going on an expedition. I guess there’s not much up there but fish?”

“And the old Bhimanium mines,” he said, offering her no additional information.

She sat quietly for a moment, then turned back to him.

“We have a long way to go,” she pointed out.

He nodded once.

“So, why aren’t we going?” she asked him.

“We’re waiting for the convoy,” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“It’s a dangerous journey,” he said. “We’re safer in a group.”

“We?” she asked.

“Do you see another sled?” he asked. “More dogs?”

She narrowed her eyes and shook her head.

“Well, there you go,” he said. “We’ll be riding together.”

“But then how am I supposed to get anyplace once I’m there?” she asked. “If you need the dogs to get back, I’ll be stranded. Oh, right. You’re a dragon. You’ll justfly.”

She smiled at the thought. If she could fly she wouldnevertravel anywhere in any other way.

“That won’t concern us for some time,” he said flatly. “I will be staying with you and the whelp for twenty years. I’m sure I can find a ride home in that span.”

Kinsley blinked up at him.

“I’m sorry,what?” she asked.

“It is my sworn duty to watch over that whelp until she comes of age,” he said. “Twenty standard years.”

He had said exactly what she’d thought he’d said. But she just couldn’t get her head around it.

Twenty years?

She stared at him stupidly, trying to assimilate this new and staggering information.

“Convoy,” he said in a voice that almost sounded bored.

She turned to see the tundra practically coming to life over her right shoulder.

Three dog sleds, each pulled by its own team with one or two people at the helm, and a huge fourth sled, pulled by something decidedly larger, moved swiftly over the lichen.

The first arrived quickly and two men hopped out.

“Sheriff Barr,” the smaller man said, extending his arm to the Invicta warrior, and flashing an ivory-toothed smile.

He was Terran, and his sheriff’s uniform was neatly pressed and tight over his round belly. His badge glimmered in the afternoon light.

“Kian,” the warrior said, clasping his offered arm and shaking once. “Here on guard duty. This is Kinsley Agate and her daughter.”