A pulse which vanished a moment later. I think Kahhe believed I wanted to pinch off the blood flow, and was trying to assist me; and so she did, but not in the way she intended.
Her action told me what I would not otherwise have known: that Draconeans can voluntarily control the blood flow to their wings. When in strong sunlight or near a fire, they open those vessels and draw in as much heat as they can, but when they go into the cold, they reduce the flow to their wings, the better to preserve that heat.
They cannot do this forever, of course, as it greatly restricts the mobility of that limb; and the longer the wings remain dormant, the longer it takes them to return to full function. (It is for this reason that spreading the wings is a dominance challenge, at least in winter; to leave them exposed is a test of endurance.) Judging by the way she moved in the aftermath of the strangers’ visit, Kahhe had strained a muscle swooping in to hide me, likely on account of the cold and lack of blood flow. But it is a very clever adaptation—a kind of localized anatomical hibernation.
The notion of hibernation should have occured to me much sooner. (No doubt the more scientifically inclined of my readers have thought of it already, and wondered that I have not addressed it before now.) In my defense I can only say that I had spent my entire tenure in that village either unconscious, in hysterics, or reeling from the flood of new information; and as a consequence, I had the attention span of a gnat: no sooner did I begin pondering one aspect of the puzzle than some equally interesting angle distracted me.
But as soon as I thought of it, I was certain that the rest of the village’s inhabitants had not gone to winter quarters—or rather, that “winter quarters” for them consisted of hibernation. It is a common biological response to cold weather, for it allows the organism to survive on a much reduced diet when food is scarce; I had seen its more unusual summer cousin, aestivation, among the desert drakes of Akhia.
The Draconeans could not all go into hibernation, for they would wake to find their yak herds annihilated by the harsh winter. (Wild yaks may survive without undue trouble, but their domesticated kin have more difficulty.) My three fought their instincts, staying awake through the frozen months to ensure their kindred’s livestock would be waiting when spring came. They ate tremendous quantities of food—a fact I had noted but, having nothing to compare it against, had assumed was their ordinary diet—and chewed a certain leaf in much the same fashion as human men chew tobacco. Initially I abstained from trying the leaf myself, knowing that what was edible to them might not be so to me; but Ruzt pressed some upon me when I had an abscessed tooth, and although the taste was unpleasantly astringent, it helped to numb my mouth while she drained the abscess. After that I chewed it somewhat regularly, for I found it improved my health and mitigated the effects of the high altitude.
Not long after I examined Kahhe’s wing, I tried to ask about hibernation. Our communication was not anything like fluent enough yet to cover such a topic, and so once again I had to ask in mime, pointing at empty houses and then feigning sleep. At first I thought my meaning still too muddled, for Ruzt only cocked her head and then walked away. As this persisted, however, I became certain that she understood me perfectly well, and was using incomprehension as her shield against my questions. I did not press.
You must not think that I had suddenly mislaid my curiosity. My list of mysteries to solve was a kilometer long; but language was still a tremendous barrier, and moreover I was eternally cognizant of the fact that the line between “prisoner” and “guest” might be exceedingly thin. That my three hostesses were friendly to me, I was certain—well, certain in two cases; Zam still gave me a wide berth whenever she could, and watched me with a gimlet eye. But Kahhe’s swift action to hide me when the neighbours came calling made it obvious that I could not expect so hospitable a reaction from their kin.
And whether I was correct about hibernation or not, I knew beyond a doubt that eventually the other inhabitants of Imsali would return. When that day arrived, I needed to be out of the Sanctuary and back to my own people, which I could only do with the help of my three caretakers … or I needed that trio to be my shield against whatever might come next.
*
My communications with Ruzt and the others improved dramatically when I realized that I was thinking too much like my husband.
This was ironic because I had been trying not to think about him at all. I was frequently unsuccessful; over the past five years I had grown accustomed to having Suhail at my side, and his absence felt like a missing limb. As I have said, though, I often lost myself to despair in those days, for it was easy to imagine that I would never escape the Sanctuary (how ironic that name would then be!), and therefore would never see him again. I could banish my demons with unyielding determination to prevail … but this only worked for a time, and drained me tremendously. It was better to lose myself in the challenges I faced, addressing what lay immediately before me, rather than allowing my thoughts to stray too far ahead.
But one cannot live in a marriage like mine without each spouse shaping the other—not when one of your primary joys lies in sharing your interests and fields of knowledge. It was only because of Suhail that I had made as many linguistic strides as I had, and I followed his principles and theories in establishing a common vocabulary with my rescuers.
My change of course came about because of a brilliant dawn. A nightmare had woken me, as it often did; rather than disturb the sisters with my restlessness, I slipped quietly through the door to the antechamber. I had to bring my outer clothing with me, naturally, for the air there was cold enough to give me frostbite if I did not take care—and there is nothing like the unforgiving slap of freezing air to wake a person. Since sleep was now beyond me, and I had gone to such effort in dressing myself in all the necessary layers, I thought I might as well go outside.