Knowing her luck, the next arrow would find its mark.

  Yasha had never been much of a runner. Better to move at one’s own pace, no? That wasn’t always an arrow’s pace, though. Another twanged loose, snagged her hair, and tore a tangle from her scalp.

  She grinned. “See, Eber? They’ll run out before long.”

  He blundered alongside, shouldering an over-stuffed bundle, clasping a spear too long for him. “No, fool. They’ve plenty more.”

  True. Yasha shouldn’t tempt fate. She was the target, after all, her neck and back open to arrows and worse besides.

  Not to mention, her wings.

  Eber’s shimmered nearby, dusky of plumage, wind hissing through their long, graceful pinions. The sound unsettled Yasha, like the rattle of bones in a charnel house. She hated wings and could well do without hers.

  Not a one of us can fly, so why’d the gods pin them to our backs? Are we baubles gone wrong, ornaments to gawp at? What good ever came from the Vegamites?

  A wineskin dangled at her side, sloshing, tempting her to partake. Maybe a sip could quell the drumroll in her chest. She pulled the stopper with her teeth and swigged down. The spirit was grainy, spiced with cinnamon. Her nerves calmed.

  “Where’s Sheeba?” Eber asked.

  “Careful,” Yasha said. “Don’t say her name too loud.”

  Pillars lay toppled at every turn, never far from the odd block of granite or limestone. Murabite ruins, doubtless untouched for hundreds of years. Another graveyard made by the Vegamites.

  Yasha clambered up the ramp of an old ziggurat, its surface pocked and crumbling. She stumbled more than once, and Eber also fought for footing. To the right loomed tumbledown walls whose jagged holes peered out into the night.

  Lines of camelry kept pace outside, kicking up plumes of sand that sparkled with moonlight. The riders wore bronze scales that flashed too cleanly, unmarred by gore and grime. Their neat, oiled wings hardly spoke of blooded warriors. Yasha sighed disappointment.

  Still, their bows gave her pause. Masterworks of horn and sinew and acacia. They could do permanent damage in the right hands.

  Exciting.

  Another snap of bowstrings. Arrows took wing like birds of prey, and Yasha ducked. Air whooshed overhead, followed by a series of thuds. The opposite wall had been peppered, shafts sprouting from old cedar panels. Eber squealed at the sight, then pulled ahead.

  Yasha hurried after him. The night sky stretched endlessly, glittering. No signs and wonders to be found, only uncaring pinpricks of light. The Fisher cast a starry net toward the horizon, as if trying to ensnare Yasha.

  “Keep moving!” Eber cried.

  “Pace yourself.” Yasha ducked under a broken archway, glimpsing the Eight-Pointed Star and the Navigator. “I’m not carrying you if you get tired.”

  Footfalls thundered closer, too heavy to be those of mere camels. Yasha stole a glance outside. The bowmen nocked another round of arrows. Moonlight threw their mounts into sharp relief.

  Dunehides.

  Far from mere camels. Shaggy, built like fortresses. Their beady eyes glistened with bloodlust, and stones exploded under their padded feet.

  Eber gasped at the sound of them closing in. “Why aren’t you fighting back?”

  “Saving my strength,” Yasha said. “I’ll need it for what’s coming.”

  “Whatever’s coming, it’s already here.”

  No. Things could always get worse. Her manservant would do well to remember that. Like anyone else, Eber was only ever a hair’s breadth from utter ruin. Why let yourself be rattled when you could save that strength for the next pitfall?

  They descended steep steps and left the ziggurat in their dust. Above, the Shepherd reached out toward the Leaping Star. Yasha wasn’t much of a stargazer. Did this sky bode good or ill?

  Likely ill, judging by those burial mounds in the distance, shot through with weeds and vines that crackled in the night wind. Or maybe this was a stroke of luck, as the dunehides would have trouble picking their way through.

  No sooner did Yasha coo in relief than a figure edged around the nearest mound. Her breath caught. She threw her arm out to stop Eber. The figure padded closer, taking shape in the murk.

  A Gilgamite.

  First came its stench, that horrid blend of mud and oil. Its scaly skin caught starlight like the many shimmering facets of a diamond, spellbinding. Its necklace rattled with bones and feathers and fetishes, and its spear was tipped with deadly flint.

  Yasha shoved her manservant forward. “Remember, saving my strength!”

  Cursing, Eber dropped his bundle and leveled his spear. His wings unfurled, feathers stirring in the same breeze that set his robe fluttering. The beads along his sleeves clacked in tandem with his footwork, not given to stealth and midnight excursions.

  The Gilgamite lunged, but Eber sidestepped and redoubled his grip. He checked the next blow, bronze scraping flint, sparks leaping in orange arcs. The Gilgamite feinted once, twice, thrice before angering Eber. The latter roared and ran his foe through the belly.

  The Gilgamite hacked up black globs of Tohu. More spurted from its belly, trickled around Eber’s spear, and pooled on the stony ground. Yasha would’ve collected some, but time was against her.

  Eber pulled his spear loose, the shaft stained black. The Gilgamite clamped its hands over the wound, but Tohu spewed in sheets, draining what strength remained. Then came a gurgling death rattle.

  Eber’s lips remained tight. Yasha edged closer to see what troubled him.

  Three more Gilgamites. They wore dried reeds and bleached bones, creeping closer with outstretched spears. Yasha drew her shepherd’s crook. Always thorns in her side, these abominations. Couldn’t they leave her alone?

  Something clanked out of sight, drawing nearer. Yasha gulped, fearing the worst, and indeed it came to pass when a band of Vegamites marched into the maze of scrub and stone. They’d traded bows for axes and shields. Yasha hadn’t anticipated them seeking her out on foot, for they’d sat so easy in their saddles. They approached now, clad in helm and scale, sandals cleated with bronze.

  “Yasha,” one growled, eyes shaded in deep sockets. “You brought this scourge upon us. The Gilgamites are your fault.”

  No arguing with that, so she shoved her manservant into the press of enemies. “Don’t fail me, Eber!”

  He cursed again, then stabbed his spear into the nearest Gilgamite. Everything was hard to follow, a song of bronze and flint, screams and howls. Eber kept a tight guard, parrying, circling this foe and that.

  Yasha raised her crook. Focus on the breeze, feel its ebb and flow. She wrapped air around the hooked end like honey around a ladle. Her forearms quaked, muscles screaming. She felt everything from a distance, the keen edges of axes, the deadly tips of spears.

  Startled grunts erupted from the Vegamites. The bright sheen of their helms and scales and greaves faded, lost to growing splotches of rust and patina. Yasha poured herself into the air, corrupting every inch of bronze. Armor cracked away in jagged clumps, leaving her foes exposed.

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  Eber staggered back to her side, wearing a fresh film of sweat. “Sorry I’m not better with Tohu.”

  “I taught you well enough, ingrate,” Yasha snapped.

  She inhaled, and her chest grew with the effort. Wind skirled past Eber, stole into Yasha’s lungs, and filled her to bursting. Only when she exhaled did she regret breathing so deep. A gale howled up from her lungs, shredding her from the inside out. Vegamite and Gilgamite alike took notice, then came a sound like a thunderclap.

  Dust spread in a haze that choked Yasha.

  Bodies were tossed skyward, dashed against rocks. Spears snapped. Shields splintered in clouds of sawdust. Gilgamites landed bonelessly, necks twisted. One Vegamite groaned, his dirt-caked wings splayed in defeat. Blood leaked out between the scales in his armor, but with a grain of luck he would survive.

  Yasha wasn’t so sure about herself.

  She doubled over face-first in the gravel. “Carry me, Eber…”

  He cast around as shouts and footfalls echoed closer. “They’re behind us!”

  “You already knew that.”

  Eber muttered something that got drowned out in the wind. He hefted Yasha up and across his shoulders, then ran. The world whirled in blurs of black sky and brown earth.

  “Faster,” Yasha hissed.

  Eber sprinted faster indeed. He’d do anything for her, wouldn’t he? Yasha wasn’t sure if she’d do the same for her manservant. She was a drunk, a swindler, a murderer, the kind of person whose sins crammed tight like sheep in a pen.

  Why should Eber risk himself for her?

  “Yasha.” His voice snapped her back to the present. “Look.”

  She did. Eber halted at the edge of a cliff whose walls plunged into darkness. Behind, their enemies thundered closer.

  Eber shook his head. “They’ve caught us.”

  “Jump,” Yasha said.

  “Are you mad?”

  “Prefer being taken back in chains?”

  “Better than being a stain on a rock,” he huffed.

  “After all this time, I’d expect a certain level of trust.”

  His eyes flickered. “Allow me a prayer.”

  “A short one.”

  He pinched his eyes shut, sighed, and mouthed something elaborate, probably a psalm. If one had to pray a few hours before sunup, nothing good was about to happen. Eber prayed a hundred and more times a day, yet somehow the gods never took notice. His lot in life had grown so sorry that one wondered why he prayed at all.

  Yasha hadn’t been raised among the Vegamites. Their gods hardly knew her, didn’t care to stick barbs in her face. Good. Priests spoke of a bygone time when gods had deigned to live alongside mortals, but Yasha preferred living now, not having them breathe down her neck. If you asked her, it was always better to—

  Damn it, Eber was still praying!

  “I said short, didn’t I?”

  “Give me more—”

  Yasha slammed her elbow into his head, throwing him off balance.

  A startled yelp escaped him, and he tumbled into the chasm. Yasha joined him. The fall was steep, four or five bowshots. Enough to shatter their bones against the rocks. Eber dropped his spear, and it plunged into the murk.

  The world jolted to a halt with a forceful plop. They’d landed. Not upon stone, mind. A soft, woolly bed instead.

  Yasha eased upright, her robe soaked, dripping strange white droplets. Still, there were worse ways to land. She grinned at her old friend. “Many thanks, Sheeba.”

  Eber lifted his face from his bundle. “By the gods, what happened?”

  “Welcome, Eber,” said a singsong voice.

  He blinked at the cloud. “It can’t be…”

  Yasha brushed fluff from her robe. “How long were you waiting, Sheeba?”

  Eber shifted, sending ripples through the cloud. “Her? Sheeba?”

  “Hold tight.” With a graceful swoop, Sheeba buoyed upward on a tailwind. “Keep your voices low.”

  Yasha’s belly fluttered as the cloud moved beneath the cover of darkness, out of sight from the bowmen above. Eber shook his head in disbelief.

  “Surely you’ve seen stranger things,” Yasha said. “Anything’s possible with Tohu.”

  “Not that. Why didn’t you tell me? Had I known, I might’ve jumped sooner.”

  She wagged her finger at him. “You need to get used to casting lots, Eber. Sometimes, it works.”

  “Yes, sometimes.”

  That earned a laugh. “Don’t worry. Your troubles are behind you. As for me… Well, I still have many lots left to cast.”

  “Seems I don’t have a choice,” Eber said. “Or is this lowly manservant mistaken?”

  “Of course you have a choice,” Yasha said. “I daresay you’ve outgrown your station.”

  “You’re going back to Toramesh, aren’t you?”

  “You know me too well. In truth, I’m the one without a choice.”

  “You’re not of their blood. Azavel is long gone. Let it rest.”

  “It survives through the Toraphites. My debt to them will be repaid.”

  “I won’t be joining you. I can do without those Gilgamites.”

  “They’re not so bad.”

  “They won’t stop until you’re dead, Yasha. Are you so eager to share in Azavel’s curse?”

  Good question.

  It was the ninth hour of the night. A waning moon loomed over the temple where they’d sought refuge. What remained of the temple, that was. Not a ruin so much as a ruin of a ruin, its blocks gleaming under the light like bones laid bare. Skeletons of once-grand archways remained, bearing reliefs of forgotten gods, their faces rendered featureless by time.

  Yasha sank to the ground. Do I dare do this? Do I dare cast everything aside? She disrobed. Her nipples prickled against the chill. She flexed her shoulder blades, back muscles pulling taut, her wings unfurling with a rustle. She reached for the sickle lying before her, the haft cold to the touch, complete with a wicked bronze blade. She offered it to Eber.

  He shook his head. “I can’t do this.”

  “Come, you’re no stranger to blood. How many fatlings have you sacrificed?”

  “They never ask for it.” He snatched the sickle from her. “No one’s ever asked me to do such a thing.”

  “No one will ever ask you again.”

  Eber rummaged through his bundle, trembling, and fished out two long threads. He tied knots around the roots of Yasha’s wings, numbing them. “Don’t blame me if you…” He trailed off with a faraway look in his eyes, then set his jaw. “… if you die.”

  She drank from her wineskin. “This should help.”

  “It’ll be pain like you’ve never known, and you won’t be awake for most of it.”

  “Let this be goodbye, then.”

  He nodded. “Goodbye.”

  She clapped his shoulder and chuckled. “Can’t chide you for praying back there, can I? The gods did listen.”

  He didn’t share her levity, and instead his face darkened. “You misunderstand. I pray not for their favor, but for the strength to survive their indifference. You’d do well to remember that, especially where you’re going.”

  Heavens, enough. Her manservant should sooner worry about himself. Yasha knew what she was doing, didn’t she? “Get on with it.”

  Eber drew the sickle back, moonlight flashing across the blade in a silver smile. The first stroke was sharper than Yasha had imagined, stinging like a snakebite. Pain lanced through her. She pushed her tongue against the roof of her mouth. The next stroke had her cackling madly, like a hyena. She bit her lip, tasted salt blood. Eber sawed and hacked by turns, through flesh and feather both. Yasha’s teeth gnashed together like grindstones. The feeling flared out from her wings, touching her neck and scalp, every inch of her burning, writhing.

  Then came the moment, and the sickle cleaved the ligaments that kept her right wing rooted. The world exploded in blinding pain. An unending spasm coiled around the wound. Another heartbeat, and Eber severed her left wing.

  Hot, sticky blood pumped down her back. The world darkened, full of sounds near and far. Breaths, the rustle of feathers, the sigh of wind against stone…

  Yasha woke to searing heat.

  The reek of singed flesh curled through the air. Her back was melting. She mustered the strength to glance back. Eber crouched nearby, torchlight flickering across his face. He licked his lips, keeping a steady hand as he cauterized her wounds.

  If only she could reach out. If only she could find respite in those last drops of wine…

  Her manservant worked a pestle and mortar, crushing herbs and roots, stopping at times to admire his handiwork. He added oils and salves to the mixture, then poulticed her wounds. A welcome relief, soothing coolness meeting searing hotness.

  Eber drew bandages over Yasha’s collarbones and across her shoulder blades, tracing crosswise paths that sat snug on her wounds. After tying the last knot, he stood back.

  The place looked like a slaughterhouse. Blood stained the flagstones, seeping into the cracks between them. Yasha’s wings lay in dark puddles, still twitching. Instinct told her to bring them along, to preserve those parts of herself, but she couldn’t speak, let alone move.

  Eber dressed her in a robe spun from lambswool, almost comfortable enough to distract from the pain. She felt lighter without her wings, as though a yoke had been lifted from her shoulders.

  Yasha opened her mouth, but then her wounds itched, burned, and she swallowed against the pain. Those aching patches of flesh would take many moons to heal. So be it. Merely the birth pangs of a new life.

  Eber bore her across his shoulders and stalked ahead.

  Sheeba loomed outside, looking misplaced amid the sands and ruins, her tufts and whorls stirring in the wind. “Forgive me if I’m out of sorts, but it’s been a while since I’ve tasted freedom.”

  Eber nodded. “Freedom comes with its own troubles.”

  “Oh, I remember.”

  Eber lowered Yasha onto Sheeba. There was a soft give, like sinking into swansdown. The cloud surged beneath her, then lifted off the ground with surprising speed. Rocks, ruins, and battered outcrops shrank away below. Eber, too. Hopefully he’d find his way out there, not that Yasha favored his odds.

  Hers weren’t much better.

  After all, she still had many lots left to cast.