CHAPTER NINE

Far to the west

Beyond sand dune and stone

Dragons and men

Knelt to the emperor's throne

Shan Alee

Shan Alee

When may we return home.

Enfri breathed in deeply and felt warmth surrounding her. The familiar scent of dried herbs filled her nose, and she heard the crackling of a fire. As her eyes fluttered open, she saw that she lay in her own bed. The storm still raged outside, but Enfri was home.

The last notes of the song she heard faded. The silence they left behind was filled by the winds blowing and the rain hammering against the walls and the roof.

The voice belonged to Deebee.

Enfri pushed herself up to a sitting position and looked around her home. Everything was in order, just as she had left it. The only thing different was the cauldron simmering in the hearth. Judging by the scent, it was vegetable soup.

Deebee sat in Grandmother's rocking chair at the bedside. She looked so small while in a chair meant for someone many times her size. Deebee averted her gaze and wouldn't look Enfri's way. Ashamed.

"I was worried when you didn't return," Deebee said, her eyes shut tight. "I could smell the storm coming, and I couldn't find you."

Enfri pulled her blanket around herself. She wanted to tell herself that everything had been a dream— that she had imagined it all. The sight of her best dress, caked with mud and hanging beside the hearth, proved that it had all been real.

She looked at Deebee, and the dragon flinched as if she could feel Enfri's glare on her. Enfri was furious. She was hurt, scared, and confused.

A war raged within Enfri's heart over what to be hurt by more. That the assassins were her father's killers and no one ever thought to tell her, or that there was a dragon's curse on her.

"I'm so sorry, Enfri," Deebee said. "This isn't how I wanted it to be. I should have stopped you. I should have told you the truth before you left."

Enfri let the blanket fall away from her. She was in her nightdress, and there were welts on her arms and legs. They looked suspiciously like claw marks. Deebee must have changed herself into something large enough to carry her home from where she collapsed in the storm.

Deebee stood on the rocking chair. Her voice rose to a pleading tone. "I thought I could protect you like Yora told me to. I was wrong."

Enfri could taste something herbal on her tongue. Deebee had given her something. It tasted like vex sprouts, best for exposure and exhaustion. Enfri felt like a fool. It had been an idiotic, childish thing to do, running off into the countryside during a desert storm. Enfri was lucky to be alive.

She was thinking of anything she could. Anything to ignore what Deebee was saying for one more moment.

"Enfri, I..."

"Stop," Enfri hissed.

Deebee snapped her mouth closed, a stricken look of pain in her eyes.

"Deebee," Enfri said slowly. She had difficulty keeping her voice under control. "Will you... Will you please change into a human for me?"

She hesitated at the request. Then, Deebee bobbed her head. "As you wish."

Enfri slowly raised her eyes. Deebee now sat in Grandmother's chair, a worried expression on her human face. She was unclothed, and her silvery skin and gold hair reflected the firelight.

It wouldn't stay bottled in any longer. Enfri flung herself from the bed and wrapped her arms around Deebee's waist. She buried her face into Deebee's stomach, and her whole body shook as wretched sobs left her throat.

"I'm sorry," Enfri cried. The words tumbled out of her in a frantic rush. "Tell me what I did wrong, so I can make it go away. Take the curse off of me, and I'll never do it again. I swear. Please, Mama. Please!"

Deebee's arms enveloped her and held her close. She made hushing sounds, but Enfri couldn't stop crying. Deebee tried to get Enfri to look at her, but she kept her eyes shut tight. She couldn't bear to see it. If she saw the same hateful look that Mother always had in Deebee's eyes, it would destroy her.

"Flames take me," Deebee said in a whisper. "Why? Why didn't I see? How could one of the mighty be so blind?"

"Please," Enfri begged. "I didn't mean to make you angry with me. I'll do whatever you ask. Please, don't hate me."

"Oh, dear love." Deebee stroked Enfri's hair and clutched her tight. "I've wronged you more than I can bear. I failed you. I failed Yora. He asked me to protect you, but I couldn't save you from my ignorance. I know so little of humans, and it's caused you more suffering than I could have imagined."

Her tone changed, as if she spoke to someone else.

"What have you done?" Deebee murmured. "Winds and flames curse your grave, Mierwyn. What have you done to our sunrise?"

Enfri was picked up off the floor with ease. Deebee held her in her lap and rocked her as if she were a baby. It was warm, and Enfri felt her fear and her pain recede as she lay cradled in Deebee's arms.

"Listen to me, girl," Deebee said firmly. "You have done nothing wrong. None of this is your fault. You are blameless, and I will tear apart any who say otherwise. Flames judge me, but I have more claim to this sin than anyone."

Enfri couldn't speak any more. She clung to Deebee as tightly as she could.

"You..." Deebee swallowed. "You called me..."

Winds, I called out to her like she was Mother. Enfri was mortified. She hadn't even called her mother mama since she was a little girl.

Deebee's voice grew fierce. "How could she? I knew she had changed, but not like this. That blazing woman, if she stood here now, I would..."

Enfri cringed.

Deebee calmed herself immediately. "I'm sorry, love. Be still, and let it all out."

"But why?" Enfri asked. "Why can't anyone remember me?"

Deebee sighed. "I was a fool to think you wouldn't discover what I've done. Janwyn kept it a secret for so long that I thought it would be easy. You mortals, you never cease to surprise me."

The shutters clattered in the window frames. The storm was only getting worse.

"It isn't a curse I've placed on you, Enfri. At least, I didn't intend it as one. It's a ward. Have you read of the known schools? The Law of Five, perhaps, or the Ethereum Weave?"

Enfri shook her head. Mother had been adamant that magic should be the furthest thing from Enfri's mind at all times. Enfri had had fantasies of growing up to be a wizard, but that had been stamped out early.

Deebee sighed. "Magical studies take years to learn just the basics. Even dragons aren't born with all such knowledge, and we're closer to the Ethereum than any mortal. I will say it as best I can."

She brushed tears from Enfri's cheek as she explained. "Wards are... a rewriting of the world's rules. Either breaking an old one or the placement of a new one. When a ward is cast, it is centered on something. A place, usually, but they can also be cast upon a person. Do you follow?"

Enfri nodded.

"Good. I could lecture you about the precise method, but you're more concerned with the effect. The easiest way to say it is that your ether..." Deebee frowned, then shook her head. "No, you said you're not educated about the Weave. Your being doesn't... stick... to that of others. This has multiple ramifications, the most noticeable is that mortals find it difficult to recall memories of you. Those memories exist, but it's like chasing smoke in the mists. Should you stand in front of them, make yourself known and press, they will find those memories. However, without your ether present to guide them, they will rarely think of you on their own. Left to themselves, they would recall little more than the fact that a sky woman lives up the road on the desert's edge."

Enfri thought she understood. Haythe remembered meeting the assassins and coming to the sky woman's home, but Enfri, she faded into the shadows. She could only be pulled out of them through purposeful effort.

"Is that why no one seems to remember that Mother and Grandmother are dead?" Enfri asked. "If the ward is on me, why aren't they remembered either?"

"Magic is carried in the blood, remember? The magic of the ward passed to anyone living who shared your blood. It didn't affect your mother as strongly, and Janwyn even less, but it was enough. You three were safe."

"But... why?" Enfri made herself look up at Deebee's face. She didn't find what she feared to see in her eyes. It wasn't hate or anger she saw, but guilt and remorse. "Why did you put this ward on me? How can being forgotten protect anyone?"

Deebee rose, taking up Enfri in her arms as she did. Winds, but Deebee was strong. She placed Enfri on the side of her bed, then transformed back into her regular, diminutive form.

The little dragon paced the floor. "That is... No, I won't hide it from you. I should never have hidden it from you. Let the essence of every spirit curse me."

"Hide what?" Enfri asked. "Does it... have to do with how Father died?"

Deebee stopped in her tracks and whipped her head around to look at Enfri in surprise. "What do you know of... Ah, of course. The blacksmith." Deebee clawed at the stone floor. "Your father was killed by the royal assassins. That is the root cause of all of this."

There was a flash of lightning through the shutters of the window. Moments later, a low rumble shook the walls. Grandmother would have called that an ill omen.

"Why did they kill my father, Deebee?"

"Because..." Deebee sat on her hindquarters and wrung her claws. "I wasn't there. I haven't heard an accounting of what happened, but I know enough. I... felt it when he died. Your father was killed because an assassin discovered what he was."

"But, he wasn't anyone," Enfri said. "He was just a spearman, a village boy who answered the crown's call for soldiers. You told me his mother was a penniless refugee."

"She was," Deebee said. She spoke with hesitation. "She was, and so was her father. As was his father before him, and his before him, I expect. I don't know for how long she wandered or from where she came, but I can tell you one thing for certain. Wherever she was running from, that was not where her blood began. I told you that when I first came to Sandharbor, I found something I hadn't seen in a very long time. She was that thing, a mortal with golden hair and brown skin. Eyes of green and a will of iron."

Deebee leapt up to Enfri's knee and stared into her eyes. "She was of the race of Shan Alee. As was Yora. As are you."

Enfri's jaw nearly hit the floor. She thought she must have heard Deebee wrong. "Shan Alee? But that's..."

"Our ancestral home," Deebee said. She smiled at Enfri. "Yours as well as mine. I didn't tell you all those stories just because I enjoy the sound of my own voice, you know. I wanted to teach you, in my own way, of where you came from. The sky women and I decided it wouldn't be... prudent... for you to know the truth of your heritage at such a young age, but I wanted you to know of some things. An Aleesh girl should at least know of the first Dragon Emperor, the crystal fountains of the Opalescent Road, and the twenty-five orders of arcanist knights, shouldn't she?"

Enfri felt dizzy. She put a hand to her forehead to stop the room from spinning. "You... never told me stories about any knights."

"I didn't?" Deebee sounded genuinely shocked. She put a claw to her chin in a thoughtful pose. "Careless of me. That should be remedied."

"Deebee, I'm not worried about the knights. What about Father? Goodman Smith said the assassin killed him after his wound just disappeared. How is such a thing possible? Does it have something to do with him being a... What was it?"

"Aleesh," Deebee said. "It means 'beloved of the mighty'."

"Two syllables mean all that?"

"It's a very sophisticated tongue," Deebee said haughtily. "And yes, that did have to do with his heritage. Or rather... mine. I told you that Yora and I were linked, yes? It was a tradition of Shan Alee, and it happened as I watched him being born. Dragons could become bonded to our mortal comrades. Through that bond, we share our ether."

Enfri felt her eyes glaze over. Now she knew how Haythe must have felt listening to her talk about symptoms and herbs.

Deebee rubbed at her temple in frustration. It might have been more at her own failure to explain properly than Enfri's ignorance, but only just. "Life force. Magical essence. Soul energy. It's all ether. No matter the distance between Yora and me, if he was injured or weary, he could draw on my strength to recover. The assassin must have seen that and realized the truth. A golden-haired man who miraculously healed an injury could be nothing else."

"Amazing," Enfri whispered. "Is that how Father became such a hero at the Siege of Drok Moran? It's because he couldn't be hurt?"

Deebee scoffed. "Oh, he could be hurt. Believe me. I just helped him survive it. When he used our bond to heal himself, it wasn't a pleasant experience I received in return, let me tell you. I may be mighty, but I'm not infinite. No, Yora was heralded as a hero because he truly was one. He wielded a spear as if it were a part of him. He was tenacious and brave and cunning. That part of him had nothing to do with me."

"And Teularon?" Enfri ventured carefully.

"Don't speak of that place," Deebee said. "Please. Your father refused to let me come with him. He wanted me to stay behind with Janwyn and your mother. Mierwyn was beginning to show that she was with child, and Yora made me promise that I'd protect the three of you. He asked me to place my oath on it."

And then he died, Enfri thought. You've been bound to his last request ever since. "I don't understand why, though. He was just murdered. No warning or trial. The assassins hate Aleesh that much?"

"Hate and fear are two very similar things," Deebee said. "The kings of Althandor fear nothing more than the memory of Shan Alee. Our homeland didn't fall overnight. It was a war, Enfri. A war like none other the world has seen. Shan Alee's dragons and Althandor's assassins nearly sundered the world. Althandor would do anything to wipe out any trace of Shan Alee, and until I found your family, I thought they had."

Enfri stepped off of the bed and crouched next to Deebee on the floor. "That was the reason for the ward."

The dragon nodded. "The assassins were sure to ask of Yora. Where he came from. If there were others like him. Mierwyn was great with child, and Janwyn was an old woman. We couldn't run, so I devised another solution."

Deebee looked towards the window. The sound of rain striking the wood was beginning to lessen, and the winds were dying down.

"Soon after you were born, I cast my ward. It took nearly all of my strength, and it succeeded. When the assassins came, everyone remembered Yora and his mother because they weren't alive to be affected by my magic, but everyone else was starting to fade from their memories. The assassins even came here after finally learning that Mierwyn and Yora were close. I took you into the desert in case the worst happened, but the sky women were clever. They made the assassins believe that Yora's line died with him. With no evidence to suspect otherwise, they left and never troubled us again."

"Until yesterday," Enfri said.

"Unrelated matter," Deebee assured her. "They weren't even the same brood as last time. The ward's casting is locked. That means it's permanent as long as I'm alive. It was the only way I knew how to make sure that word never reached the assassins of a young girl in Sandharbor with golden hair. No one would remember that she existed long enough to spread the tale."

Enfri felt her heart begin to beat faster. She thought of what Jin said before she left.

"Deebee," Enfri said. "That assassin, Jin, she saw my hair. She touched it and said it was unusual."

A fluttering of wings betrayed Deebee's unease. "What? Winds and... No, if she suspected, she'd have tried to kill you on the spot. At least take you into custody. You're not a pureblooded Aleesh. You bear just as many features from your Althandi half. Your skin isn't quite as dark as Yora's, not much more than other mortal races who live near the desert. Your eyes are brown like your mother's, and..." Deebee abruptly shut her mouth and looked abashed.

"What?" Enfri asked.

"Your back," Deebee said reluctantly. "You lack the... err... stature of the Aleesh. Your father was well over six feet tall, and even his mother was a tentpole."

Enfri thought that this was the first time in her life she had ever been thankful for her disability. Nevertheless, she was still worried. "What if Jin mentions it to someone else?" she asked. "She might not know about Father, but she'll have to know other assassins who do."

Deebee let out a slow breath. "That won't happen, Enfri."

Oh. Of course.

Enfri wouldn't persist in Jin's memory. The assassins would remember that they had gone to a sky woman, but would recall next to nothing about her.

"Thank you, Deebee," Enfri said as she put her hand on the back of Deebee's neck. Despite her gratitude, she felt tears start to form in her eyes again. "They won't remember me. I'm safe because of you."

Deebee nuzzled her snout against Enfri's wrist. "That means the world to me, love, but I can't accept your thanks. I was thoughtless. I didn't think things through. It never occurred to me how it would affect you." The set of Deebee's jaw was determined. "I don't want to be the cause of your pain, Enfri. You asked me to take the ward off of you. I will."

"I thought you said it will last as long as you're alive?"

"I was the one who locked it. That means I'm the only one who can unlock it. People will begin to remember you again." The next part was said with some reluctance. "You could marry that apprentice... if you wished."

It was so very tempting, but Enfri saw the risks now. She didn't like it— in fact, she hated it— but she knew she couldn't ask Deebee to break the ward.

"If you did," she whispered, "Jin could remember me."

Deebee wilted. "I did it again. My elders always said I alighted on branches too weak to hold my weight. What a guardian dragon I turned out to be."

Enfri picked her up and held Deebee to her chest. "I would trade a dozen Haythes for one of you."

"The very thought," Deebee said. "A girl your age shouldn't imagine entertaining so many young men."

"Deebee!" Enfri cried out in shock. She then smiled and stroked Deebee's scales. "You know, if you wanted to keep it all a secret, you shouldn't have told me that the Smiths wanted to marry Haythe to me. They were soon to forget it, and of course I was going to start poking around."

Deebee snorted. "The stories will speak of Deebee the Blabbermouth. All figures of legend should have their fatal flaw." She closed her eyes and let Enfri continue stroking her back. "I need you to know that I'm sorry, Enfri. Everything I did, I did because I thought it was right. I was afraid I'd lose you over this. I'm sorry I hurt you."

Enfri was afraid, too. She still was. Of Jin and the king's assassins, of the solitude she saw ahead of herself, and of many other things. It was a sky woman's first and greatest enemy, and she had yet to overcome it. Enfri was so very tired of being afraid.

"I forgive you," she said.

Deebee nestled against Enfri and curled into a warm ball of wings and scales. "If you ever wish to be angry with me, be angry. Don't hold back, because it won't drive me away. We may sometimes disagree. I might get offended, or you might be disappointed in me. I haven't seen all of the world, Enfri, but I've seen enough to know that there is nothing in it that can stop me from loving you."

It was what Enfri needed to hear. Deebee had a talent for that.

END OF ACT ONE