Pia clucked her tongue but didn’t quit brushing her hair. “Without the gods, we’d perish. We need them to revitalize our clans—to fill our wells, bring life to our herds, and instill health in our children.”
“Or we could simply move somewhere we don’t need gods,” Raan said. “Move to where there’s water. And fertile land. Leave the desert.”
Pia dropped her brush.
Liyana heard the words but they sounded foreign. Leave the desert? But they were the desert people! She couldn’t imagine not feeling the sand beneath her feet or the wind tangling her hair or the heat searing her lungs. It was a part of how she breathed. Outside the desert . . . she’d shrivel like a ripe date in the sun.
Fennik had quit currying the horses. “If we leave, we lose ourselves.”
“Better than losing our lives,” Raan said.
“We’d lose our way of life!” Fennik said.
Raan snorted. “Oh, and that would be such a loss. Half my clan poisons themselves with alcohol. The other half works themselves to death trying to squeeze life out of dry rocks. We can’t heal our own sick. We can’t save our babies. I lost two sisters because my mother’s milk wouldn’t come. She didn’t have enough water to make milk. Yet her brother was drunk every night. He drank away my sisters’ lives. And you want to preserve this? Haven’t you ever wondered if there could be more out there? If life could be better?”
“I have all I could wish for,” Pia said. She resumed brushing her hair.
“This is a pointless conversation,” Liyana said. She tossed a handful of dried horse manure and then a clump of dried leaves onto the fire. The leaves crackled and fizzed. “Fennik’s right. We are the desert.” She wiped her hands clean and crossed to Korbyn. Dropping down next to him, she closed her eyes.
Picturing her lake, she inhaled. She felt the water fill her like the sweetest air in her lungs. She reached out toward the desert—her desert, her beautiful home that she would never leave because it was as much a part of her as her body and how dare Raan even consider leaving! How dare Runa even suggest that their choice was wrong! Liyana had spoken the truth—she was the desert! She was the sand. She was the sun overhead. She was the hot wind. She was the cracked earth and the rocks, the barren hills and the stone mountains. She was the brittle bush that held its strength coiled tight inside, waiting for the moment to unfurl its leaves. She was the snake that hunted for a desert mouse in the cooling evening air.
As if from a distance, Korbyn’s voice drifted toward her. She sensed him, a shimmer that spiked inside flesh, and she touched the other vessels, smooth swirls of energy within their bodies. She could tell the difference between mortal and divine souls, as Korbyn had claimed. “A snake hunts near us,” Korbyn said.
“I feel him,” Liyana said.
“Draw him closer.”
She felt the snake slither over the sand. It hitched its body sideways. Its tongue tasted the air. This way, she coaxed it. She felt the snake slither, felt the sand on the scales of her belly. She inched across the desert, closer, closer.
“Now think of the shape of your body and the feel of your own skin,” Korbyn said. “Reshape yourself inside your body, and release the excess magic.” She remembered the length of her arms and the curve of her legs. She felt sweat clinging to her back and prickling her armpits. She poured herself back inside her own skin. She imagined the excess magic flowing away from her, and she felt it dissipate.
Opening her eyes, she wiped her forehead with her sleeve. “Did it work?”
“You tell me.” He pointed.
Fennik raised his bow and aimed an arrow at the sand. The horses rolled their eyes and stamped their feet. Pia stroked the neck of the closest horse, cooing to it.
“I felt the magic,” Liyana said, awed. “I summoned it.”
The cobra reared.
Fennik released the arrow. It pinned the snake to the sand. He stared at it. So did Liyana, Raan, and Korbyn.
Raan found her voice first. “You . . . But you’re a vessel.”
“She finally did it,” Pia said. “Sacrilege.” But the word lacked heat.
“Tasty sacrilege,” Korbyn said, picking up the snake.
Liyana collapsed backward in the sand and smiled up at the stars.
* * *
At dawn Liyana used magic to locate tubers buried beneath the earth. She dug them up and had them shredded and fried before Korbyn finished summoning water. She also located a second snake, the mate to the prior night’s dinner. She failed to coax it into moving—she wasn’t strong enough to overcome its natural instinct to lie on a rock to soak in the early sun—but she was able to direct Fennik to it, increasing their food supply.
“Nicely done,” Korbyn said, handing her a full waterskin.
Liyana felt as though he’d handed her the moon.
“Keep the heads away from Raan,” Korbyn told Fennik. “We don’t need her getting any clever ideas about poison.”
“Unlike some, I don’t kill to get what I want,” Raan said.
Stiffly Pia swept toward the horses. She did not feel her way as she normally did, and Raan was forced to scoot backward. “Korbyn’s vessel was a sacrifice,” Pia said.
“Convincing someone that murder is justified doesn’t make it any less murder.”
Fennik hefted a saddle onto a horse. “In my clan, such talk would have gotten you punished a long time ago.” He cinched the saddle around the horse’s stomach.
“Ooh, the big, strong warrior is afraid of the truth.”
He strapped his bows onto the horse. One bow, two, three. He handled them as if he wanted to use them on Raan. “I don’t fear words. Or death. Only failure. That, I fear. But your fear . . . your fear will condemn your clan. Don’t you have anyone you care about other than yourself? What about your parents? Brothers or sisters? Cousins? Friends? What about the children in your clan? The babies? The not-yet-born?”
“She had sisters,” Pia said. “She said she had sisters who died as babies.”
Raan leaped to her feet. “I am thinking of them! You have no idea—”
“Enough,” Korbyn said. He sounded colder than Liyana had ever heard him sound. “I never expected to have to babysit humans. We’ve already lost more time than I’d planned.”
“What is your plan?” Raan asked. “Where are the deities? Who has them? How are they trapped? Can they be rescued? You could be leading us to our deaths while our clans wait and wither—”
Korbyn laid his hand on her shoulder, and Raan slumped to the ground. He then picked her up with more care than Liyana thought she would have, and he placed her in a saddle. He looped the reins around her so that she wouldn’t slide off while she slept.
Pia smiled brightly at them, the sky, and the desert in general. “The day has become so much more pleasant!” By feel, she located the horse that Fennik had saddled for her, and she mounted without assistance for the first time.
As they rode away from their campsite, Korbyn kept his horse beside the sleeping Raan. Liyana matched his pace. Once Fennik and Pia pulled into the lead, Liyana said, “Raan did raise valid questions in her rant.”
Korbyn nodded gravely. He then leaned and checked the strap that secured Raan to her mare. “To answer her: You follow me because I am charming. And yes, I do know where we are going.”
“You could share that information with us,” Liyana said.
He rode for a while without answering. She waited and watched the sand swirl in the wind as if twirled by an invisible finger. Finally he said, “Not yet.”
“You should trust us. We want what you want.”
He looked pointedly at Raan.
“She’s asleep,” Liyana said.
“Have I ever told you the story of how the parrot once cheated the raven? Once, the raven was a bird with jewel-colored feathers brilliant enough to dazzle the sun itself. The parrot, a drab, brown bird at the time, was jealous. . . .”
Jerking upright, Raan slammed her heels into Plum. The
horse jolted forward, and Raan urged her into a gallop. She raced across the desert.
“She’s the parrot,” Korbyn said.
Fennik yanked his horse’s head in her direction, preparing to chase after her.
Korbyn stopped him. “Let her run,” he said. “It may make her feel better.”
Liyana watched the sand billow in the wake of Raan’s horse. She hoped that Raan didn’t allow Plum to overheat. “She’s heading toward her clan.” Without water for herself and her horse, she’d never make it.
“Poor Raan,” Pia said. “So much rage to so little effect.”
“What happened to the parrot?” Liyana asked.
“He plucked the raven, and then, fearing punishment, fled the desert to live in the rain forest. But once there, he discovered that he was no more beautiful than any other bird or flower. So every night, he flies above the forest canopy and pines for the desert he left.”
They watched the shadow of dust recede. “She will have to run very far to reach a rain forest,” Fennik commented. He dismounted and tended to the horses.
Setting up the tent, they rested in its shade. Liyana used her magic to corral several scorpions. Once she sliced off their tails, she added their bodies to their food supply. She buried the stingers.
Soon Korbyn pointed to a cloud on the horizon. “She’s returning.” Together, they watched her fight with the horse’s reins as a determined Plum bore down on their camp. Pia shared her tuber cake, and they each nibbled it as they waited for Raan and Plum to cross the sand. When the cake was gone, Fennik stretched out to full length and propped his legs up on a rock. Liyana rested her chin on her knees.
“You used magic on the horse,” Liyana said.
“I might have . . . influenced her,” Korbyn conceded.
“Clever.”
“Delighted you noticed.”
As she got closer, Raan shouted a string of obscenities at them. Pia gasped with each one. Fennik looked disgusted.
“Impressive vocabulary,” Korbyn said. “I feel as though I should take notes.”
“I think she’s making them up,” Liyana said. “Half of them are not anatomically possible.”
“And the rest is . . . ill-advised,” Pia said.
Continuing to curse them out, Raan dismounted. Liyana packed up camp while Fennik fussed over Plum. Once the mare had recovered enough, they rode on without a word to Raan.
Her second escape attempt came that night. She didn’t take a horse, and Fennik caught her before she’d made it a hundred yards. He carried her kicking back to the camp and deposited her inside the tent.
“Are you trying to make a point?” Liyana asked. “If so, we get it. You don’t want to be with us. Well, we don’t want to be with you either, but we aren’t about to condemn your entire clan because of your personality flaws.”
“My clan could find another way to survive,” Raan said.
“They won’t, though,” Liyana said. “None of our people will leave the desert.”
“You don’t know that. If you”—she glared at Korbyn—“hadn’t given them false hope, maybe they would. If I return, they’ll know hope is gone, and they’ll find another way. Maybe a better way!”
“There is no other way!” Liyana said. Her fists clenched, and she had to fight the urge to shake Raan. “We can’t survive the Great Drought without the deities!”
“If we leave the desert, we could escape it! We wouldn’t need the deities!” Raan said. “Why should we follow them? Why follow him?” She pointed at Korbyn.
He smiled coldly. “Because you don’t have a choice.” He then walked away from them. They watched his silhouette fade into the blackness of the desert night.
In a panic-filled voice, Pia asked, “Did he leave us?”
“He’ll return,” Liyana said. “I don’t think he has a choice either.”
Chapter Fourteen
The Emperor
Golden grasses snapped beneath the emperor’s feet. Holding his horse’s reins, he surveyed the plain. Already his soldiers spread throughout the grasses. With expert precision, they sliced the stalks to store for later—he’d been told they made adequate horse feed, though humans could not consume them. Other soldiers scurried behind, establishing rows in which to erect the tents.
Beyond the plain, the land sloped up into a ridge that ran north-south. A few twisty black trees crowned the peak of the nearest hill. Leaving his horse, he strode toward it. His guard followed him.
He nodded to soldiers as they passed, and they paused to bow to him. He heard voices, cheerful, around him. The mood was light—the march was, for now, finished—and they’d camp here until they had collected enough supplies to proceed. He kept his face pleasant to maintain the mood around him, but was grateful when he’d passed the last of the working men and women. His stomach was a hard knot inside him, and his heart thudded fast within his chest. He climbed the hill, and then he stood on top of the ridge.
He was here, the border of the Crescent Empire, the border of the desert.
The emperor gazed across the sands.
Brittle plants pockmarked the sand, bumps of brown and deep green in a spread of tan. Groves of leafless trees huddled in spots closer to the border. But beyond . . . the desert spread and stretched. He felt his hands begin to sweat as he absorbed the enormity of it all.
Far in the distance, the mountains seemed to crack the sky. He fixed his eyes on them. The lake was there. He could feel it deep inside with the kind of certainty that he normally reserved for proven facts. In the middle of this barren wasteland was his people’s best hope for survival.
His two best generals climbed onto the hilltop beside him.
“Hostile,” General Akkon observed.
“It is a wonder that anyone survives such an environment,” General Xevi agreed.
“And it is the source of that wonder that will save us,” the emperor said.
The two generals studied the desert and the outline of the mountains with him. “The desert people will not take kindly to our invasion of their land,” General Xevi said.
“Hence the army,” the emperor said dryly.
“They are rumored to be a highly superstitious people,” the general continued, as if the emperor hadn’t spoken. “To them, those are the forbidden mountains.”
The emperor knew this far better than the general did. But the general never spoke without purpose so the emperor allowed him his speech.
“You must be prepared for resistance,” General Xevi said.
“You think I am not?” the emperor said. “Again, I did bring an army.”
“I think you are young,” General Xevi said bluntly. “And the scouting party has not returned.”
The emperor switched his gaze from the mountains to his two generals. “We have not yet crossed the border. Do you believe that we should turn back? Turn away from the only hope, faint as you may believe it to be, that we have seen for the past three years? Return without the miracle our people need?”
“I believe that your miracle will come with blood,” General Xevi said. “And you must be ready to both spill it and have it be spilled.”
The emperor kept his face impassive, as always. “You believe I am not.”
General Akkon snorted. “You are not.”
The emperor studied the desert again. “I will be,” he said.
Chapter Fifteen
Five days later, shortly after dawn, they rode into the camp of the Falcon Clan.
Liyana breathed in the stench of rotted meat. Three falcons tore apart a carcass in front of a tent. The birds didn’t budge when Liyana and the others rode past.
Unlike the birds, the people of the Falcon Clan did notice them. Drawn from their tasks and their tents, the men, women, and children of the Falcon Clan emerged to stare at Liyana and the others. Liyana blinked, surprised to find tears in her eyes, as a boy about Jidali’s age ran past them. He clutched a leather ball in his arms. A mother called to the boy with the ball, an
d he ran to her. He peeked out at them with frightened eyes. His clothes hung loosely on his body.
All the people had feathers in their hair and sewn into their clothes. Most of the men and women wore thick, leather wraps around their wrists, shielding against sharp talons. The birds themselves were everywhere, perched on the tents and on twisted branches that had been driven deep into the sand.
Korbyn dismounted first and called out a greeting. Liyana, Fennik, Pia, and Raan followed suit. Fennik loosened the saddles and curried away the worst of the sweat and sand. More people drew closer to stare at the new arrivals.
“I don’t like this,” Raan said softly.
Liyana tried to smile at the boy with the ball. His mother hid him behind her skirt. Liyana noticed that he was one of only a few children. Surely, the clan had others. “At least they aren’t pointing arrows at us.”
“Something’s wrong here,” Raan said.
“What do you mean?” Pia asked, her voice as high as a mouse’s squeak.
Korbyn pressed his lips into a thin line. “We must be certain before we leave.”
“But we just arrived!” Pia objected.
Liyana studied the faces around them. Their eyes were hostile, their cheeks sunken, and their shoulders hunched. She wondered what they were thinking, if they saw them as more mouths to feed.
“We must speak with your vessel!” Fennik called to them.
As if his words were a knife to flint, the men and women of the Falcon Clan burst into whispers. Several of them ran toward the center of camp—presumably to spread word of their arrival and their request. At the sudden activity, one falcon shrieked a cry. It fanned its wings, but it was tethered to its perch.
“We have at least piqued their curiosity,” Korbyn murmured.
Liyana patted Gray Luck’s neck. The mare shifted from hoof to hoof as if she could sense the unease that permeated the air. These people were clearly uncomfortable with strangers.
Shuffling through the crowd, a man approached them. He bowed low. “We would be honored if you would share tea with our chief and chieftess.”
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