Sirsha found her power linked to Div’s for one brief, terrifying moment. It felt like staring into a void, into some empty grasping where the only emotion was hunger. A ravening need for more.

  There should have been something else in that space. Something to balance it. But it was yawning and mindless and it gnawed at Div’s insides, not because it was malevolent, but because it simply knew no other way to exist.

  Div smiled and seemed to swell like a tick engorged on blood. She met Sirsha’s gaze, and the Jaduna girl found that she was in the tent and not in the tent. Her feet were planted, but her mind was being drawn forward, into the now-white eyes of this creature that looked like her mother. Sirsha stared into the abyss, tipping down, called to the maw by a void within herself.

  Some part of you broke that day your family cast you out, a voice crooned in Sirsha’s mind. The humanity drained out of you and left you a shell. You are tainted. You shall never love. Come, child. Come to one who will understand, for I, too, am empty.

  The voice was the Raani’s and it sounded so reasonable, like Ma when she tried to persuade Sirsha to cooperate, to help the Kin track the Karjad when she didn’t wish to.

  But now, instead of digging in her heels, Sirsha listened. For she was older and wiser. She understood the loneliness of leaving her Kin, of trading one moment of weakness for years of forced solitude.

  Sirsha stepped forward, reaching out to the Raani, when a hand grabbed her by her neck and yanked her back.

  R’zwana. “Traitor!” she screamed. “You were to give us the signal. I knew we couldn’t trust—”

  J’yan pulled them both away from Div, lashing out at her with his battle magic. Div’s simulacrum dissolved and she collapsed into a seething, snarling mass of tortured gray shadows. She created her own weather, an ill wind that whirled around the small tent like a tiny, vicious cyclone.

  “Bind her!” R’zwana screamed over the wind. “Bind her!”

  Sirsha threw her binding magic around Div again, but it disintegrated as if being gobbled up. “I—I can’t—”

  J’yan strained to hold Div in place, but Sirsha had felt the creature’s power. She knew Div was toying with him.

  “J’yan, stop! She’s too strong. She wants you to use your magic! She feeds off it!”

  “Go then, coward!” R’zwana shoved her. “Run, like you always do!”

  R’zwana drew on her own limited ability to bind, but it wasn’t enough. Her power had always been a droplet beside Sirsha’s ocean.

  Div took slow steps toward J’yan, a stalking animal. Sirsha grabbed his hand and pulled, but it was as if his feet were rooted to the earth.

  “Let go, J’yan!” Sirsha screamed. “We need to run!”

  “Hold it while I bind it, J’yan!” R’zwana gritted her teeth, her own magic like a tattered string of yarn around Div’s swelling, writhing form. “Or we’re all dead!”

  “We can’t, R’z!” J’yan dropped to his knees, magic fading. “Sirsha’s right.”

  But by now, they were all pulled into the creature’s strange, pulsating gravity, unable to back away.

  Div’s voice transformed into a menacing, earthy growl, and though she had no face, Sirsha could feel her smile. “Who first?”

  R’zwana grabbed Sirsha and shoved her at Div. “Take her! She’s more powerful!”

  Sirsha had grown used to R’zwana’s rejections. Her insults. But seeing her sister trying to feed her to a soul-devouring spirit fiend was a different sort of violence.

  She had no time to grieve. Because Div ignored R’zwana and Sirsha, instead lunging for J’yan.

  J’yan’s gasp was swallowed by Div’s hungry snarls. His body went limp and crumpled to the ground as Div hunched over him, his beating heart throbbing beneath her lips.

  Sirsha opened her mouth to scream, but she couldn’t even take in a breath. As J’yan’s heart grayed to ash, a wretched cry tore from her chest.

  R’zwana stared in horror. “No—you should have taken her,” she said. “Why didn’t you take her?”

  As Div fed, R’zwana whirled on Sirsha, and the hatred in her gaze could have peeled the bark off a tree. Sirsha considered leaving her sister in the tent to die. But J’yan wouldn’t want it, and she’d do this last thing for him. Her survival instinct took full hold, and she grabbed R’zwana’s elbow in a vise grip and dragged her out of the tent.

  “Get off me— Get—”

  “Shut it!” Sirsha hissed. “You’re going to get us bleeding killed!”

  R’zwana looked around at the busy camp beyond the tent, dazed. Perhaps finally understanding the precariousness of their position, she fell quiet, following Sirsha as she ducked behind a hay wagon and then led them through the camp pell-mell, desperate to get away from that creature and its endless hunger. They avoided notice through sheer luck.

  Sirsha stopped near the camp’s perimeter, her hands on her thighs as she tried to catch her breath.

  R’zwana finally spoke. “What—what was that thing?”

  “I don’t bleeding know!” Sirsha shoved her sister, her anger and grief at J’yan’s death taking over. “I told you it was too strong! You didn’t listen, you awful, pig-headed—”

  “If you’d bound it when I said, J’yan would still—”

  Sirsha reared back and punched her sister square in the face before she could finish her sentence. R’zwana staggered, dazed, and then collapsed. Sirsha resisted the urge to kick her, instead dragging her sister beneath a weapons cart and out of sight. She’d wake up soon enough and figure her own way out of the camp. Whether she survived or not—

  Well, that was her problem. Sirsha looked back once toward Div’s tent. “I’m sorry, J’yan,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”

  Then she ran.

  36

  Aiz

  It was the sound Aiz hated the most. The savage snapping of a human body, followed by growls of Div’s gluttonous feasting.

  They’d left the cavern of horrors, Div holding Aiz like one would a sleeping child, flying as if she had a Sail. But there was no canvas above, no seat below, no Loha.

  “How is this possible?” Aiz had gasped at the bite of wind in her face, shuddering so badly she feared Div would drop her.

  “I am the spirit of Holy Div reborn, child. The greatest windsmither to live. I do not need a Sail to fly. Neither do you.”

  The Tribal Desert stretched beneath them, the brown earth gleaming like the furred back of an animal, the Jack trees glowing gold and pink as the sun rose.

  “What do you mean,” Aiz asked, “that I don’t need a Sail?”

  “You have my power at your disposal.” Mother Div’s dark hair streamed behind her like a flag. She offered Aiz a beatific smile.

  Then she dropped her.

  Aiz screamed as she fell, scrambling for the wind. She was going to die, and as Ruh’s terrified face flashed through her memory, she realized she deserved to die—

  A burst of power surged through her, like sunlight flushing her veins. She gasped, arresting her fall with such ease that she shot into the air a few feet before leveling. Mother Div drifted down beside her with the grace of a falling petal.

  “That is just a taste,” she said.

  Over the next week, Mother Div healed her broken leg and taught her how to harness the wind, not just to fly, but to use as a weapon. Within days, Aiz’s rudimentary control was magnified. She leveled trees. Tore a roof off a barn. Cracked the neck of a steer. She’d left everything in the cavern—her book, her pack, even her aaj. She needed none of it.

  They moved quickly across the countryside at night, finding shelter during the day. The few times they ran into other travelers, Aiz interacted with them while Mother Div watched.

  “My curse is not only that I must feed on the young and innocent,” Div explained. “I am also unseen to all but you.”

  Aiz looked askance at Mother Div when she said this. She’d seen her feed, and it was clear Mother Div’s prey saw something before they died.

  But Aiz didn’t ask for an explanation, for who knew what horrors Mother Div might speak of? Aiz’s sleep was already plagued by nightmares. Mostly of Quil staggering through a sandstorm. Ilar! he called. Ilo! In the dream, he discovered her trail and followed her through the blue-veined canyon, past the strange runes and carvings and into the Durani’s chamber.

  Stop, she tried to scream. Do not look.

  His steps quickened and he drew his scim. It fell from nerveless fingers as he entered the chamber. As he gasped in horror at the blood splattering the walls, Aiz’s scim abandoned, her pack sticky with viscera.

  She watched as he found Ruh.

  Oh, Idaka, if you knew the still horror of a child dying from starvation, she thought, or the terrible silence of a slum where every adult has been conscripted, you might understand why I allowed such a sacrifice.

  As he held Ruh’s body, as he convulsed in grief, she longed to reach out to him. Hold him. She had used him, but she cared for him too. His grief rekindled her own, and she would always awaken with her face wet.

  “Was it real?” she asked Mother Div the first night she had the dream.

  The cleric nodded. “The last vestiges of the First Durani’s magic,” she said. “Haunting us still. Let me ease the dreams away, child. For I am a mindsmither and such a task is simple for me.”

  But Aiz shook her head. The dream reminded her of her sacrifice. It hurt. And she deserved the pain.

  A week after leaving the chamber, Aiz waited at the beach on the southern edge of the Empire as, thankfully, Mother Div found sustenance far away.

  Aiz felt a tug in her chest—Div’s tether to her. It grew thinner the farther the cleric went, yet never wholly disappeared. When Aiz willed it, Mother Div would return. But she could offer Aiz no power unless she had fed.

  It was a relief to have her gone. They couldn’t read each other’s thoughts, but each knew the other’s will, the tenor of her feelings. It was suffocating.

  Right now, for instance. A piercing hunger consumed Aiz, the kind that stank of death, the kind that she had grown up fearing. It was followed by a sudden fullness, as if she’d consumed a marvelous, nourishing meal. The feeling faded quickly, but it happened again and again. Until finally, Div was satiated and returned to Aiz. As she approached, Aiz looked away from the blood on her hem.

  “I brought you a gift, daughter.”

  Something glimmered in Div’s hand, and she opened it to reveal a block of Loha as big as a goose egg. It was more than Aiz had ever seen at once, even in the Aerie forges where the metal was alloyed. Enough to innervate a hundred Sails.

  “You took this from an Empire soldier? A Mask?”

  “From two.” Div’s face glowed with pride.

  Aiz reached for her patience, finding what little remained to her. Div, she’d noticed, had a propensity for doing things by force. The product of being imprisoned for so long, perhaps.

  “We will not steal the Loha,” Aiz said. “We must still treat with the Empress of the Martials. If all her Masks are dead, and we come requesting the metal on their faces, she will not be inclined to hear our offer. Come. You have fed enough. We make for Kegar.”

  Div bowed her head, and though Aiz watched for resentment, she felt none.

  “You must eat too, my daughter,” the cleric said with a motherly attentiveness. “Let me bring you food, and then let us rest so you have the strength for the next leg of our journey.”

  They made their way south, Div traveling far for her sustenance. Aiz felt every death. Over time, the deaths grew more plentiful. Though not more necessary.

  Div, Aiz realized quickly through their bond, was taking more than she needed.

  Not long after leaving the Empire, they reached the border between Diyane and Kegar, marked by the snowy blue pinnacles of a massive mountain range. Dawn approached and they spiraled down to a forested clearing before the first rays of light broke the horizon. Mother Div brought Aiz bread and fruit she’d pilfered from somewhere, then waited eagerly for Aiz to set her free to feed.

  After Div disappeared, Aiz set the food aside and focused on the cord between them. She waited for hunger, then the satiation. The third time it happened, she yanked on the cord with all her might.

  Div appeared almost out of the air, crashing to the earth, kicking up a cloud of dust and pine needles. Her face and hands were covered in blood, and a ravenous frenzy appeared to have consumed her.

  “That’s enough.” Aiz tried to steady the tremor in her voice. “No more. I know your strength. Three hearts are more than enough to get us across the mountains.”

  “I will not be strong enough for you!” Div warned as the bloodlust in her face faded. She wrung her hands. “What if you fall because I cannot keep you aloft?”

  Aiz sensed no lie in the cleric’s concern, and she softened her tone. “I think you don’t realize how much you take, Mother Div. I blame the First Durani and what she did to you. She was truly a creature of spite, for these sacrifices are unnatural and counter to who you were in your first life. That’s why you have me. I’ll decide how much you need. And I say that you cannot feed in Kegar. The mother of our people cannot harm her children.”

  “How will we beat back your enemies? How will you defeat the false Tel Ilessi, Tiral?” Mother Div entreated.

  “We’ll find a way,” Aiz said. “As you found a way to save our people once before. But not with you feasting on the blood of innocents. If you must take the young, take those who are near death or hungry.”

  Aiz shuddered, remembering her own bouts of starvation. She would have welcomed death, if only it would put an end to the gnawing in her belly. Maybe for some, Div would be a welcome release.

  A few nights later, the lights of Kegar twinkled ahead of them. Aiz wept at the sight. The air smelled of Spire roses and fire pines. In the north, it was deep winter, but here in Kegar, summer crowned the mountains with the green and pink iceberry shrubs that awoke for only a few months.

  “Why cry, child?” Mother Div said as they set down near a mountain creek north of the city. “Did you think you wouldn’t see your home again? When I so diligently guided you?”

  “Our home.” Aiz wiped away her tears. Her desire to go to the cloister, to see if Noa and Olnas and Cero still lived, overwhelmed her.

  “You miss your friends.” Mother Div gathered wood for a fire.

  Sometimes, it was like this between them. Aiz had but to think something and Mother Div would pick up on it. Aiz wondered if mothers and daughters were similar. Mother Div had three children herself, long ago. Perhaps she would see them in the faces of their descendants, the Triarchs.

  “I tried to reach out to Cero before we reached Nur, when I still had the aaj,” Aiz said. “But he’s forgotten me, perhaps.”

  “Is he the kind to ignore you if you need him?”

  Aiz didn’t used to think so. But after weeks of silence, she wasn’t sure.

  “He didn’t want me to return to Kegar,” Aiz said as Mother Div lit a fire with a snap of her fingers. “But—but perhaps I could see him before I face Tiral. Talk over the plan with him.”

  “It was not Cero who survived the Tribal Lands,” Mother Div reminded her. “Nor Cero who freed me. You do not need him, Aiz. Whatever you require, we will do together.”

  But Div’s efforts cost her energy. And there was only one way to fill that deep well.

  “You do not wish for me to take sacrifices from among the people.” Div paced around the clearing. “But they should be glad to lay down their lives for their Holy Cleric, their Mother, for the Vessel of the Fount.”

  “It is one thing to take from among foreign populations, Div,” Aiz said. “I mourn the innocent, but they are not my people. Their leaders have long known the Kegari are starving and done nothing to aid us. I do know our people. They have suffered enough.”

  Mother Div nodded, but Aiz caught a flash of a feral hunger in her eyes. It was gone in an instant, but Aiz marked it. She could not have Mother Div losing control amid the coming battle.

  Aiz tightened her mental fist on Mother Div’s leash. The cleric resisted, ever so briefly, before capitulating.

  “It is for the best, Mother Div,” she said. “Trust me. Now come. Sit. You can mindsmith, yes? Enter dreams? Let us see how far your skill reaches.”

  * * *

  Four days later, Aiz was ready.

  It was a bright, clear day. Still cold, for Kegar was never truly warm, not even on the first day of summer. But beautiful. A day of promise. A day of death.

  Mother Div had brought Aiz much information since they’d arrived in Kegar. Dafra cloister was burned to cinders, its clergy scattered. But Olnas, Noa, and many of the other clerics and orphans had taken shelter in Dafra slum’s abandoned houses.

  Tiral’s reign as Tel Ilessi was troubled. The late spring raids had gone badly. The villages of Bula banded against the Kegari, burning their own fields and choking the skies with smoke. Most of the Snipes were starving and even the Sparrows, generally better-off than their slum-dwelling peers, were going hungry. Tiral had purged Dafra slum, killing entire streets of people for defying his rule.

  “The people are ready to cast out their false Tel Ilessi,” Mother Div said as the day of the Summer Rites dawned. “More so now for the dreams I gave them of better days ahead.”

  Aiz smiled. It had been her idea for Mother Div to use her mindsmithing to scatter hope among the Snipes. Visions of the Return—and of Aiz leading them.

  Aiz rose into the sky, Mother Div at her side, and surveyed the Kegari capital. Thousands would gather in the Aerie’s airfield to hear High Cleric Dovan recite the Nine Sacred Tales, and to entreat Mother Div to bless her people in the warm months.