Dragon's Kin Read online

  Zenor joined them, grabbing Nuella’s free hand. Kindan smiled as he watched Nuella squeeze Zenor’s hand back, tightly, and then wrap her arm around his shoulder.

  “If you kiss him, then everyone will know,” Kindan whispered in Nuella’s ear.

  “Good,” Nuella whispered back. She grabbed Zenor’s face and kissed him soundly on the lips. The gathered crowd roared with laughter at Zenor’s obvious surprise.

  “Look after him, please,” Kindan begged her when Zenor managed to pull himself away, red-faced with embarrassment and joy.

  “Haven’t I always?” Nuella replied. Then she frowned. “But Kindan, what about you?”

  A figure separated itself from the shadows. “I think I may help.” It was Master Zist. “This is an official offer from the MasterHarper of Pern,” he said, pressing a parchment into Kindan’s hands. Kindan unrolled it and nearly dropped it as he read the words.

  “I may be a Harper?” he asked, eyes wide.

  “Well, you will certainly have the opportunity to try,” Master Zist said with a smile. “No doubt they’ll be pumping you for all this lost lore on watch-whers.” He leaned in close to Kindan and said in a voice for his ears alone, “You will do fine, lad, just fine.”

  “So, Kindan,” Natalon asked with interest, “what will you do?”

  “I think I’ll sing,” the newest Harper of Pern replied.

  Dragon’s Kin is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A Del Rey® Book

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group

  Copyright © 2003 by Anne McCaffrey and Todd J. McCaffrey

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York,

  and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada

  Limited, Toronto.

  Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  www.delreydigital.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

  upon request from the publisher.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-46199-5

  v3.0