Free Amazon Challenge by Robin Roseau Page B

and I traveled alone. I adjusted the bedding so the girls had the inner chamber, Malora and I in the outer. There was room in the inner chamber for all of us, but I didn't want any question of impropriety.
    We stayed up late, telling stories, playing music, and dancing. There were a few stories that may not have helped my recruiting efforts, but everyone had a good time, including the girls. When they started to yawn, Malora declared it was time for quiet, and we ushered the girls to bed.
    I showed them the arrangements. Lia accepted with a nod then asked if Malora and I would sit and talk with them.
    "Climb into bed first," I said. "Call for us when you're all bundled up."
    We moved to the outer room, sitting on our own bedding, cuddled together, until Lia called us back. We slipped into their section of the pavilion, pulling blankets with us to huddle under.
    "Are you going to make us leave with you?" Lia asked.
    "No," I replied. "If you want to go, it will be your choice."
    "Not Daddy's?" Tamma asked.
    "No, not your father's. Yours." The lamp gave enough light I could see them communing with their eyes.
    "Are you really a queen?" Tamma asked Malora.
    "I am the queen of the Amazons," Malora said. "You will have to decide for yourself if that makes me a real queen."
    "So all the Amazons do what you say?" Tamma suggested. "All the time?"
    "If I order them to do something, yes," she said. "If they misbehave, I must punish them."
    "Do you have people beat them up?" Lia asked. "That's what Daddy does."
    "No," Malora said. "If they have done something so horrible they need to be punished in that way, I do it myself. Most of the time, punishments are not that severe."
    "Like what?" Lia asked.
    "When I misbehave," I said, "she's fond of dying my hair pink."
    Both girls thought about that for a moment and laughed. "I might like my hair if it were pink" Tamma suggested. "If I misbehave now, will you dye mine pink?"
    "No," Queen Malora sa id. "I will do something you won't enjoy. But you're not going to misbehave. Good guests don't misbehave, do they?"
    "No," she said. "I just wanted to see Daddy's expression when my hair was pink."
    "He would punish you again when he found out what you did to deserve a punishment," Lia pointed out to her sister. "Remember that time when Talla punished you for stealing from her apple tree, and then she told Mama, and Mama told Father?"
    "Oh," Tamma said. "I'll be good," she added. She looked at me. "I'm sorry, I forgot your name."
    "Maya," I answered.
    "Maya, why did you decide to become an Amazon?"
    I decided not to give her the entire story, but I'd been asked this question before. "Queen Malora told me about the demons," I said. "I wasn't sure I believed her."
    "Did she show you that ugly head?" Lia asked.
    "No," I said. "Remember, I killed that demon almost a year later."
    "Oh. I forgot that part," Lia said.
    "So she didn't have any demon heads to show me, and I wasn't sure there were demons. I had never seen one after all. But she got done telling me everything she could, and then she asked me, 'If our story is true, what do you owe the Amazons?' And I decided I owed them a great deal, and I hadn't paid them anything at all."
    "You could have paid them in gold coins?" Tamma asked.
    "No," I said. "They aren't asking for money. They are asking for help, the kind of help you can't buy with money. So I agreed I should pay them in what they needed most, and what Malora needed more than anything else was a companion."
    "Daddy will be angry if we go with you," Lia said.
    "I imagine he will," I replied. "That is not the reason you should stay. It is not the reason you should go."
    "What is the reason?" Tamma said.
    "You should stay if you do not believe us about the demons."
    "You showed us one," Tamma said.
    "It could be fake," Lia said.
    "Do you think it's fake?" I asked.
    She was quiet for a minute. "No," she said finally. "I don't think it's fake."
    "Good. Thank you for not calling me a liar. You