Blood Runner: Book Three of the Empress Saga

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

This is perhaps the strangest experience of my life, Enfri decided, and I once spent an hour as a baby goose.

"You see?" Varn asked from his perch on her shoulder. "The mortals are unable to tell the difference between Deebee and myself, and the dragons' nostrils are filled with the scent of human and horse. We are quite safe from discovery."

Enfri hummed, noncommittal, as she wove through a line of tents. The Librarian urged secrecy. He didn't want Deebee to know he'd come back, and he had blithely changed the subject when Enfri asked why.

Varn adjusted how his feet rested on Enfri's right shoulder, much like a cat kneading its paws. His tiny form was nearly identical to Deebee's. He lacked his horns and much of his physique, but he'd kept that beard of fleshy whiskers on his chin.

"To begin, Your Majesty, I've decided that I owe you an apology."

Enfri looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "For which part?"

Varn snorted, puffing out his whiskers. "Where to begin? Threatening to burn a city down on your head, calling you mad, revealing the cost of your elder magic before you'd learned much of it yourself, and any number of other missteps I've made in dealing with your new empire. In short, all of it. Humans did not invent foolishness. The mighty were well-acquainted with the concept long before you arrived in the world."

"You might have invented it, but I think we refined it to an art form." Enfri stepped over a mud puddle before continuing. "I'll forgive you, but can I ask what changed your mind?"

"Why, you did, of course. Did our Storyteller not tell you?"

Enfri shook her head.

"Blazing dragonet," Varn muttered. "Suffice it to say that I was confronted with what separates you from the likes of Shoen."

"It still can't be easy," Enfri said. "You remember dragon bonds as something horrible. You remember bond forgers as evil tyrants."

Varn peered at her, considering. "That isn't completely true."

"What do you mean?"

"I abhor answering questions with more questions, but consider this." He drew his head back and held a single claw in the air. "Do you think it strange that, even when knowing the truth of the old empire's darker side, the mighty still hold you in such high regard?"

Enfri bit her lip and nodded. "When Adar and the others started showing up, I felt so guilty. I still agonize over if I'm just taking advantage of them."

"You are so much like him," Varn murmured.

"Who?" Enfri asked. "Winds, not..."

"No, no," Varn assured her. "Not Shoen, nor any of the later emperors. You see, Your Majesty, Shan Alee truly did begin as the beacon to save the world from darkness. That is the empire I wished Deebee to remember. The one without slaves and cruelty. The Aleesh of ancient days saw themselves as the guardians of the world and all humanity. The gift of magic the spirits bestowed on them didn't give them the right to rule, but as you yourself said, it gave them the ability to serve. And that is why you remind me so much of Inwe."

"The first Dragon Emperor?" Enfri didn't know how to respond to that.

"Inwe was the man who brought his people together," Varn said. "After the demonic empires of the proteurim fell, Inwe and Darkoo the Majestic travelled the lands to free the mortals held in bondage by the remnants still loyal to the old masters. That was a dark and deadly era, thankfully lost to time. Inwe built his empire and remade the Continent into a safe haven for all humanity and for the mighty. Whatever his progeny became, it is engraved within our bones that the only reason we still exist at all is because your bloodline saved us."