“If this place is anything like Khamar, you do not want to wait until the sun comes out,” she said as her eyes lowered to mine with the subtle threat. “If you are the moon, why are you afraid to move at night?”
The question struck me hard in the chest as I grew stiff with no exact answer. Instead, I looked away and focused on the bag buried deep beneath the sand that blew in this direction.
“I am the Great Sun’s daughter… I understand and know myself,” she went on. “From the moment I was born, I was told I am special. I am directly descended from the sun. When I was a little girl, my father would tell me that when I look up at the sun, that I am seeing my reflection. I see myself. I am not just Ayira Khamar. I am THEE Ayira Khamar. Daughter of the Great Sun King Khamar and a reflection of the Solhari people, my people. I am fluent in three languages, trained dancer, and I am one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful of my people. Why do you not know this about yourself? Does your family not tell you anything?”
“I am Maggie Grey,” I said. “That’s who the hell I am. That’s who I’ve always been and who I always will be.”
“Ohh…Maggie Grey,” she mocked with a frown before cutting her eyes to the sky. “You are nothing but a coward.”
I glared at her but had nothing else to say in response. Just sat there fuming with my knees brought to my chest. My black sweats were covered in bits of sand as I sunk my shoes into the gold grain only to lower my chin back on my knees. Why did I even fix my mouth to say Namir wasn’t enough? God… Now I’m stuck in the middle of the freaking Sahara Babylon Dubai desert with no food or water, just sand, and a princess who claims to be the sun the way they claim I’m the moon.What in fantasy book hell is this?!
“What are we doing?” Ayira asked impatiently. “Are we going to wait for someone else to grab us and disappear? Are we going to sleep until we wake up in the exact same place as before?”
“Again, you are free to leave!” I snapped. “You’re supposed to be this sun dragon freak, do something to get us out here!”
She held out her hand, extending her fingers to show her palm producing nothing. No flame, not even a burst of light.
“Your cowardliness has rubbed off on me,” she muttered.
“Okay,” I laughed. “Okay…I see…So I don’t care if you’re from Saturn to Mars and back. I will smack you back to the damn sun if you try me again. I’m too old for this back and forth. I don’t do that.”
“If that will get us somewhere else faster, by all means…” She said with an uppity tone as she blinked. “Do it.”
I jammed my tongue into my cheek, peering at her before looking away. I would do it too but what would be the point if she wouldn’t actually get smacked to the damn sun. Neither of us said anything as she looked around with protruding lips.
“This really does feel like home,” she whispered before reaching down to touch the sand.
“A hand grabbed my shoulder,” I said out loud. “A man’s hand for sure. Did you get a look at his face?”
“No.”
Glaring at her, I sighed. Even if she was lying, I wasn’t sure how it would help if she remembered his face. I pulled at the book that she managed to take with her from the library. The Old World of Sakuran. Turning towards the middle of the book, a black dragon with dark blue eyes spread across two pages, flying over a city deep within the desert. I’m almost certain this is what I saw in the sky but when I looked up, I could see the pink haze in the distance. The sun was beginning to rise which meant that the direction was east of here.
“This is where you grew up?” I asked, turning through the pages as I saw decorated black kings and queens dripped in golds and silver. There was a single man, darker than I, sitting on a woven throne holding a gold spear. Each finger was decorated with rings, his face was painted with markings and two women stood by his side with hair as long as Ayira.
“Sakuran is your grandfather?” I asked as I turned the page. “Maybe he’s the reason we are here…In this book, this is the old world so the magic used there must be ancient…”
“He was abusive, a tyrant, and a murderer. I doubt he is the reason we are here,” she said with her arms folded across her chest. “We are here because you represent the moon, and I represent the sun. Nothing else. I do not understand why you are avoiding it.”
“Because I want my fam…” I stopped talking when Ayira stood up to look east at the dim lit sky. “Forget it. You’re not listening to anything I have to say anyway.”
“I am not,” she replied.
Ayira sat back down and sighed. I felt guilty because I wasn’t sure where this uncertainty was coming from. I never had to deal with any of this before. I always had my parents, and grandma to fall back on. Then it switched to Namir and now…
Where did I lose my confidence all of the sudden?
“You are a follower,” Ayira noted. “You follow who you think is right and when asking for those to follow you, they don’t because you are not a leader. My father always says a leader does not ask for people to follow him. He just looks over his shoulders and sees them behind him.”
“You followed me here,” I said with a tight mouth as my jaw locked. “If I can recall correctly, you followed my every step to this exact point.”
“I did.”
“Yeah you did.”
“Where is the moon? Where is this Gaia they speak of?” She asked, her accent becoming thicker as she became more condescending. The princess act was no longer just an act, she was showing her true bitchy colors. It didn’t help that the sun rising gave her a sense of glow from behind as the light touched her skin. “Maybe she can come and walk with me to find out about this place…Maybe explore and see where we are and why…Instead of sitting around in the sand waiting for something else to happen.”
“Fine.” I slammed my fist into the sand, grabbed the book and stuffed it in the bag. Her eyes widened with surprise as if she was shocked her tactics of pushing me actually worked. “Let’s go on a fun adventure and figure out where we are and why…Shall we?”
