The third fish screamed in Jiang's voice before he could swallow it.
He spat it across the cold ledge.
The fish struck red stone, slapped twice, and gave his two-part emperor cry through a pair of silver gills. Its first note rose thin and sharp. A lower note rolled beneath it in the same rough pulse Jiang felt inside his own breast whenever he called across bad weather.
Aylin had been smiling when she nudged the fish within reach of his beak.
Her smile vanished at once.
Jiang stared at the thing flopping between them. Two earlier rainfish sat warmly in his belly, not nearly enough after the molt. A third had seemed like a modest request from a penguin who had just helped drop a storm bell into a cataract.
He had asked for food, not an impersonator.
Their chick darted out from beneath its mother's breast.
