Chapter Twenty-Six, Part II

                                    

                                              
It took much longer to reach the island by boat than it had on the back of a dragon, even with the dragons towing the boat along. When they finally reached it, Tesa felt tenseness in her shoulders release. Although it would have been difficult for the Yennar Leian mages to get another boat ready fast enough to follow them, she didn't think it was impossible. Now, as dusk settled over the gently bobbing waves, Tesa took one last look behind them and still found nothing on the horizon. Maybe they would still come, but at least now Tesa had reached the island with the eggs. She allowed herself a moment's relief.
                          
Dragon calls filled the air as they approached the island. Dragons flitted about in the air above the beach, diving and dipping in the water. Orrie and Torun took up their ropes once more and with a burst of speed brought the boat close to the beach, before letting go and coasting onto the surface of the water themselves.
                          
Tesa thought Derol looked somewhat alarmed as the boat kept sliding over the water toward the shore. His hands moved lightly over the arrangement of stones on the flat platform that they called the tiller. She wasn't sure if it was what he meant to happen, but the boat sloshed to a halt as it neared the beach. Tesa could feel the hull scraping against the sand below. Derol turned with wide eyes and mouth agape, as if he were about to remark on the speedy landing. Then he looked toward the beach where the dragons frolicked, closed his mouth and shrugged.

                          
We can see the sand from above, came Orrie's voice to Tesa. The boat is fine.
                          
Tesa chuckled and relayed the message to Derol.
                          
"Next time, could they let me know ahead of time?" Derol said. "I think I used up most of the energy in these stones trying to slow us down after they let go. And it didn't even seem to work."
                          
Tesa scooped up a couple of the stones that Derol had gestured to. She looked at them in magesight. Gems of different colors that glittered in the afternoon light, in magesight they gave off only a dull glow. They held mostly water energy, and Tesa concentrated a bit and nudged some energy back into them that she drew from the water below them.
                          
"There," she said, and dropped the stones back onto Derol's tray.
                          
Derol touched them and gasped. "You can do that?"
                          
Tesa remembered that Derol hadn't been around her much since she'd learned of her magic abilities, or started her training.
                          
"How do they normally get filled?" she asked him.
                          
Derol frowned. "I guess I hadn't found that out yet." He looked thoughtful as he scooped up his tiller stones and dumped them into the leather pouch that he now kept at his waist. "I also didn't think about how we'd get off the boat with no dock," Derol added, leaning over the rail and looking down at the water. 
                          
Though the water was almost shallow enough for them to wade to shore, they still had to unload the eggs, so the dragons took turns flying the sacks to shore.
                          
Here's the last one, Tesa said to Orrie as she dragged the sack up the ladder to the deck. Orrie clutched the burlap gingerly in his front claws.
                          
The eggs are happy here, Torun says, Orrie told her. The sand is warm. 
                          
Tell them not to go hatching when there are no riders here for them, Tesa said.
                          
They won't hatch here, Orrie replied.
                          
How can you be so sure? Tesa asked.
                          
Orrie gave the mental equivalent of a shrug, then flapped his wings and made his way to shore with the last egg.
                          
His comment fed the low flames of the idea that had been growing in Tesa's mind since the day before. She had been ruminating on it since it sparked, and the more the idea grew, the more it seemed to be the right thing. Before she brought it before Malía or anybody else, she needed to talk to someone about it first, alone. Although to Tesa, her idea seemed overwhelmingly right and true, she needed to hear it out loud, explained in words to somebody else before she could present it to Malía. She just didn't know who to share it with yet.