Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton

Daverak, but she did not like him. She had spent time in his establishment, but she had never felt at home—the greatest pleasure in visiting Berend was returning home afterwards. Now there would be no home, and if she visited Agornin it would be as a guest, and everything in the establishment would be changed.
    Those of her family who loved her and cared about her seemed to believe that she would soon leave Berend’s establishment for one of her own with Dignified Londaver, a friend of Daverak’s. Haner herself doubted it strongly. She liked Londaver, but their association thus far was limited to two dances at Daverak last Year’s End, since which time he had not even come to call at Agornin, though she had asked her father to invite him. She did not think his preference for her was sufficiently strong that he would take her with only eight thousand crowns, nor even the sixteen she would have ifshe and Selendra considered themselves to have pooled their resources. Londaver was not a Dignified by rank, as Bon Agornin had been, but was Dignified by nature of being heir to his father’s Illustrious status. Berend had taken forty thousand crowns with her when she married, and Haner had no reason to imagine that Londaver would accept less than Daverak had. While her father was alive and there was plenty of time for him to accumulate more gold, this was no obstacle. Now it seemed that in addition to her other sorrows it had loomed up to divide Haner forever from a dragon she felt she could have been happy to marry.
    Small wonder then if her wing-beats were half-hearted as she rose up from the station and back around the mountain to the place she must learn not to call home!
    Only Avan awaited her. “Daverak has gone off to see the farmers and make sure they understand him,” he said, imitating Daverak’s tones cruelly. “As if our farmers need that kind of telling.”
    “Oh dear,” Haner said, alighting gently beside her brother and settling herself comfortably sejant beside him. “I do hope he doesn’t introduce too many new ways of doing things and change everything.”
    Now Avan, as a rising young dragon in Irieth, was in general in favor of new ways of doing things and change, but in this instance he agreed with his sister absolutely. “He says he thought of installing me as bailiff here, but as soon as he said it he snatched it away from me again, saying he had offered it already to some cousin of his.”
    “But you said you couldn’t live here,” Haner said, timidly.
    “I couldn’t live here and take a place as Dignified in the neighborhood. But with Daverak’s backing and as his bailiff I could have overseen the place and made a home here for the two of you.”
    “Oh Avan, you’d have sacrificed yourself and your career for us,” Haner said, much moved.
    Avan preened himself a little, seeming to grow longer in the sunlight. Now she mentioned it, he would have been sacrificing himself for his sisters, and although he did not forget that he need not have quite given up his hopes and that the safety of the position had also been a factor in his considerations. He allowed those to recede into the back of his mind and enjoyed his sister’s admiration as she made much of him. They remained on the ledge and talked of Avan’s nobility, and old times, and idly watched a cart creeping towards them along the river road.
    “That will have come from Daverak to take back your dowry,” Avan said at last, indicating the cart.
    “How I wish I did not have to go there,” Haner said.
    “It might be awkward for you when I am taking Daverak to court on all our behalfs,” Avan admitted.
    “Awkward? It will be impossible. I cannot put my name to any such paper while I am living under Daverak’s protection,” Haner said. “Selendra will no doubt join with you, and I do see that you are quite in the right to seek reparation, but please don’t ask me to help you.”
    “He might make himself unpleasant, but he