Sky Woman: Book One of The Empress Saga

CHAPTER SIX

I met Yora for the first time when it was nearing the end of autumn, when the harvests were freshly stored in the granaries and the farmers awaited the first snows. A time of preparation and worry. Will the snows be too deep? Will the animals have enough feed? Much worry and nothing left to be done. One can only pray to the spirits on the wind to be kind. Prayer and hope.

In those days, I was without purpose. Shan Alee was long dead and the Dragon Emperors were lost to the ages. I had not seen another of my kind in decades. It was a lonely time for me. I sometimes found myself believing that I was the last dragon in the world.

I wandered the nations and observed the comings and goings of the humans. Sometimes, I stuck my nose into their business. A kindly woodsman with a family to feed would check on his snares and find that a host of game had been driven straight into his clutches. An innocent man led to the gallows would have his noose nibbled through, and the true culprit would find the proof of his crime mysteriously delivered to the guard.

People praised the winds when they saw these little miracles, but spirits had nothing to do with it. I didn't mind being ignored. Dragons don't require recognition, but I'll admit that I sometimes thought it would be nice to receive a thank you. Just once.

For years, I wandered from place to place until I found myself in Althandor. Not one of the many conquered provinces, mind, but the true Althandor. The land I explored was and always had been Althandor since the advent of mortal magic. In this nation, there was a small village on the edge of a desert. The people who lived there called it Sandharbor.

That was when I found something I had not seen in a very long time. I learned of a woman, a widowed foreigner, said to have arrived in the night from some distant land. She claimed to have fled a war, and there was no reason to doubt her. Althandor was newly victorious in another conquest, and refugees were far from uncommon.

She came to Sandharbor as a penniless and pregnant wanderer. Her brown skin and golden hair marked her as an outsider, but the folk of the village weren't a cold-hearted people. They took her in and gave her shelter and work. When the time came for her to give birth, the village's sky woman saw to her without asking for so much as a copper.

I watched from the rafters of the inn room that had become a birthing chamber. The sky woman pulled a squalling child from the outsider and lay it on her breast. The child was a boy, with hair as gold as his mother's. The woman smiled at him, she wept, and she named him Yora.

The newborn baby cried for a time, and I thought it best to take my leave. It was my first time witnessing the birth of a mortal, and I found the whole experience draining— saying nothing of the poor woman. I remember thinking that humans should just lay eggs like civilized creatures and be done with this horrid practice.

Then, the most remarkable thing. I looked back one last time. The baby boy was staring at me up in the rafters. I've since learned that infants that young are all but blind, but I swear, newborn Yora looked into my eyes and grew calm. He no longer cried. As his mother sang an old lullaby, he watched me fall in love with him.

I knew then that I would be his protector. I would see him safe from the cruelty that tore down Shan Alee. Yora was destined to become the truest friend I would ever know.

Time passed, but I remained nearby. My urge to move on had vanished. Though I often left the village to see to my own purposes, I always returned. I no longer felt the pull of the wind or the song of the horizon. I wished to stay.

Yora grew quickly by my reckoning. His mother was poor, and they lived in a hovel on the village outskirts. While he slept, I would spend the night curled up beside his basket. Rats and other vermin learned to keep their distance from that place. It was safe there, though I was careful that neither he or his mother learned a dragon now lived with them.