Chimera Fields crawl

the answer frustrates zharille further and she almost snaps her teeth at the woman's face! the urge is there, the tension in her neck, the bracing against instinct. no, wrong! you smell of little man, of desert. of red rock. her tone is accusatory; what else could it mean except that racharra had abandoned the lake entirely? putting aside that she had been a girl when zharille had vanished — now she was a woman, and she was moving freely in this wilderness. so why not take the lake back? why had she stayed with the people of the desert? these things she could not ask the way she wanted, and so she would not.

miho? drusk? the—other, the girl. she had forgotten the name of one of her children somewhere along the way, but she at least knew there were four of them. maybe she had forgotten a fifth entirely? her eyes narrow. it does not matter. there were others, that was the point. are they desert?

one of them must still hold power where they were born. if they did not retake it, then why had zharille gone back for them? it had not been for her children that she had brought akashingo there; that had been the bargain, but that had not been everything. she had to ensure that greatwater would remain claimed—but by all likelihood it had fallen and gone forgotten.

desert not home. she states flatly, petulant and soured by the exchange.