Shararat’s smile spreads wide across her face in the dark, warm and evident as she replies softly, “Oh, thank you. Atlantis is stunning, isn’t it?” Compared to the flat, dry, hot territories on Salem (whose greatest variety seems to be the density of the sand underfoot), Atlantis is full of wonder. Everywhere one looks there is something new to be seen: strange, glorious fauna and all manner of critters, large and low, living their lives in the jungle or on the rocky terrain skirting the cliffs. There’s so much more depth here.

“I don’t know how much luck I’ll have now as a mare,” she says. “I was leaner as a girl, and full of daring that makes me shudder a bit to consider now. I don’t think it ever occurred to me that I might fall,” she muses. “Although I had Ailill with me, and it is hard to imagine anything terrible befalling anyone in his company.” Her voice warms further as she speaks of the golden stallion. With her brother-sun and the ocean Fathersound, Shararat had not lacked much for enjoyable company as a girl. Iftikhar had been the one sour note among all her joyful songs.

Perhaps that is why she has made so little attempt to get to know the horses mingling on Salem. Her single foray into her mother’s homeland left a terrible taste on her tongue, one Shararat must subconsciously associate with desert dwellers. It is not the breeds who inhabit the sands of Salem that she is leery of, but the hearts and minds of those who voluntarily inhabit such a harsh climate. The black mare has no desire to become a withered spirit chapped by the unrestrained winds of the Desert or the Dunes. She is meant to bloom beneath the sun, not become dry and brittle as she fights to consume every drop of life.

“Indulge in curiosity, Faolain,” Shararat says with easy laughter, inviting the mare to relax her hold on social niceties. “I’ve not come from Paradise, no, but Salem. I am exploring the Islands as I never did as a girl before I decide where I’ll settle. If I settle.” She had not decided, not really, until this moment that perhaps she will not return to Salem when she is through with her adventuring. No one waits for her there, after all— Bahadir has been as absent as she, and Ak Burun? Well. Her white-nosed confidant is not easily discouraged: Shararat’s absence from Salem will be duly noted and the black Arabian tirelessly pursued. She has never known her friend to fail at anything and will not be surprised when Ak Burun catches up.

Her attention focuses again on Faolain in the jungle’s dark, her nostrils flaring as she recalls the strength of her companion’s scent at the borders. “You lead the Ridge, yes? Is Ailill still living here? Last he and I spoke he mentioned this being his home, though he did not give me the details of who else resides here. He invited me to visit— oh, dear, I suppose I should have lead with that.”