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right time. Not yet.”
    Sahara sighed. I just hope the right time
isn’t too late , she thought.
     
     
     

Chapter 7
     
    Since Jared had warned her away from the
training facilities, Sahara had taken to exploring the city when
she wasn’t helping Aliya in the Halls of Healing. To her surprise,
she’d discovered places within Albadir’s walls that made her feel a
peace she had not known in years. One was the orchard, with its
scent of ripe fruit and ribbon of gushing water. It was something
like her favorite haunt on her own homeworld, and it brought back
memories that she both feared and cherished.
    Then, on one of her longer rambles, she’d
discovered the apiary, with its dozens of beehives clustered on the
north end of the orchard. She had struck up a sort of friendship
with the wizened old beekeeper, and now he let her help him tend
the bees and harvest the honey. And there were the pastures,
rolling away to the east of the city, where the cows and sheep made
their homes.
    Tonight, she had stopped by the fields on the
way to the tavern, where she’d arranged to meet Jared for a drink.
She leaned on the fence, watching the cows lumber slowly through
the fields, and a great longing for the majestic and free-spirited
horses of her own world rose in her heart.
    “You have no horses,” she remarked to Jared
when she joined him. “Why is that?”
    Jared gave her a blank stare. “Horses?”
    Sahara set down her tankard and regarded him
in surprise. “You mean you’ve never seen a horse?”
    “Nor heard the word,” he answered. “They’re a
part of your homeworld?”
    Sahara sighed and twirled her mug on the
table. “They were, yes.”
    “They don’t exist any longer?”
    Sahara laughed scornfully. “Nothing good and
beautiful exists any longer on my homeworld.”
    Jared looked at her swiftly. “Oh, yes?”
    Sahara met his eyes, feeling a sudden sense
of caution. “Don’t you ever get bored?” she asked instead, hoping
to turn his mind to another subject. “I mean, is this it?”
    “Is this what?”
    “Is this all you do for fun?”
    “It’s a bit sleepy,” Jared admitted, “but
yes, this is it.”
    Sleepy didn’t even begin to describe the
place. The lighting was low and giant vats of ales slumbered in
dark casks along the western wall. Only twenty or so other people
were gathered in the long room, most of them young men with quiet
voices and fiercely intense faces. They clustered around tall
tables in knots of four and five, carrying on hushed
conversations.
    Three young women lingered at the bar, which
was by far the most cheerful part of the place. Its towering
shelves of exotic liquors were lit by strangely incandescent stones
of red and blue and green, and it spanned almost the entire expanse
of the north wall.
    Sahara sighed and glanced toward the corner
opposite their table, where two rough and burly men were engaged in
a somewhat serious dagger throwing game.
    Sahara studied them, her interest piqued at
last. She recognized one of the men as Armon, the captain
responsible for training the men at the firing range.
    He’s hardly better with a knife , she
thought, watching him throw a dagger into a target. And when the
other man’s throw went even wider off the mark, she shook her head.
As the men laughed and money changed hands, she turned to
Jared.
    “I could beat them.”
    Jared surveyed them over his shoulder for a
moment. “You don’t even know how to play.”
    “Yes, I do. I’ve been watching them. You get
three throws. And the one who comes closest to the center of the
target wins.”
    “There’s betting involved, you
understand.”
    “Sure.” She wiped her hands on her white
skirt and flexed her fingers. Then she grinned at him. “That’s what
makes it interesting.”
    “Sahara…” Jared began, but she had already
slipped out of the booth. He called after her, “What are you going
to bet?”
    She paused and turned back to him for a
moment. “I’ll bet a round of