Sky Woman: Book One of The Empress Saga

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

"Am I just being silly?" Enfri asked. "I mean, really. Shan Alee? I'm getting ahead of myself and putting legendary names to things."

As conversationalists, megathons left much to be desired. The big reptile rarely looked up from his feast of grass and barley. When he did, it was to give the chattering sky woman a brief, bemused look.

Enfri took another bite of her peach, then washed it down with a long drink from her water skin. She sat on a fallen pillar underneath the peach tree. Her legs weren't long enough to reach the ground, so she kicked them idly beneath her. Between the shade, the babbling of the stream, and the scent of the plant life, it was as comfortable a spot for a picnic as there could be.

"Then again," she said through a full mouth, "who's to say it can't be Shan Alee? How many ancient cities beyond the sand dunes have roads like that one?"

The megathon grunted. It might have actually been a belch. The fool beast was packing away the barley fast enough that it was surely going to get an upset stomach.

"You're the one that lives here," Enfri said. "Can't you tell me one way or the other?"

That time, it was definitely a belch.

Enfri shook her head. "I wish Deebee would have told me. It might have been too painful for her to talk about. She hatched after it fell, but this was her homeland. That is, it should have been her homeland. Mine too, I suppose."

She scooted back further onto the pillar and hugged her knees to her chin. "I hate them. The Althandi. There are too many things I should've had that I don't because of them, this place, my father, my house, and even my horse. I was going to go dancing for the first time soon, too. It's like they delight in taking things from me."

The megathon snorted as he plodded towards the stream. His loud slurping made his disinterest towards Enfri plain.

"You're right," Enfri sighed. "Grandmother was Althandi. So's Haythe, Kiffa, and most everyone else from Sandharbor. I don't hate them. How could I? They're my... friends, I guess."

She could hardly blame the Smiths or the Cobblers for the fall of Shan Alee. If anything, she owed them a great deal. Sandharbor took in Yora and his mother, gave them a home, and made them a part of the community.

"I don't hate the Althandi," Enfri decided. "I hate Althandor. I hate the king." She wore a deep frown as she glared into the distance. "I hate assassins."

"Well, I certainly don't blame you."

Enfri was so startled that she dropped her peach. She whipped her head around to glare at the megathon, but the creature's head was still dunked into the stream. The giant lizard wasn't the source of the voice.

However, there was a patch of stone on the pillar that didn't quite match to the rest of it, a pebbly mound that might have been a broken edge exposed by the elements. Enfri reached out and put her hand on it.

Nope, just rock. A tiny weight then alighted on Enfri's shoulder. "Aha! I won this time. You never saw the snake curled up by the date palm. That was me."

"Deebee!" Enfri cried. She seized the dragon and held her so tightly that she squawked. "Where've you been? I was so worried when you didn't find me before I reached the spire."

"Winds and storms, girl," Deebee gasped as she struggled to extricate herself from Enfri's clutches. "When did you ever get so blustering strong?"

Enfri released her with some reluctance. "Sorry. You just gave me such a scare."

Deebee jumped down to Enfri's knee and preened her scales with a claw. "Unavoidable, I assure you. Believe me, if I could have gotten to you sooner, I would have, but there were a few things I had to take care of. Contingencies needed to be put in place, and I didn't want to risk leading Gain and those two pups to you."