Empty-handed.

  Migva grabbed Sirsha’s hair and dragged her to the outer wall of the shack, pinning her next to a barrel and a rusted rake. “What game are you playing?”

  “No game!” Sirsha gasped. “The gem dealer’s lover must have taken it. I swear that’s where I put it!” Sirsha didn’t bother controlling the shrill fear in her voice. If nothing else, it might keep Migva from decapitating her.

  Migva released Sirsha, disgusted. “You’re stupid and pathetic.” She gestured to another of her gang. “Kill her.”

  “No—no, please—” Sirsha cowered—rather convincingly, she thought. Until one of Migva’s minions grasped her neck.

  At which point Sirsha latched a hand onto the rake and swung it up into the man’s nether regions, relishing the bastard’s howl of rage and pain before spinning the rake into the side of his head. Sirsha shoved him at Migva and darted into the shack, bolting the door behind her. It wouldn’t hold back the gang for long. But it might delay them enough for her to get the hells out of here.

  She swept up her boots, her blades, and her pack before diving into the bedroom. The ugly dog painting lay on the floor, and the hidden cabinet gaped open, empty. Ah well.

  Sirsha threw herself into the closet, fumbling with a tiny latch on the floor as the front door splintered open. The latch gave and Sirsha was through, barely managing to close it before Migva’s goons flooded the room. She padded down a narrow tunnel and through a secret door to a back alley. Once outside, Sirsha squelched through the mud, stopping at an alcove a few houses down to look back. Nothing.

  She stripped off her socks and shoved the dark red leather boots on. She might get blisters, but skin would grow back. These boots fit like a glove and had carried her hundreds of miles. She wasn’t about to dirty their insides.

  As she eased out of the alcove, someone shouted ahead of her.

  “There she is!”

  Sirsha flung one of her poison-tipped needle blades at the scout and ran, a fading groan telling her she’d hit her mark.

  Exits. Exits. Sirsha knew the Roost well—better than most who passed through here. Problem was, Migva lived here too. There were countless less-traveled paths out of the Roost—most of which were incredibly dangerous.

  Sirsha knew of one that no sensible person would traverse. She headed for it, flitting from alley to alley, one eye behind her. She thought she saw movement and crouched low in the shadows beside a tavern. When no one emerged, she continued until she reached the eastern outskirts of the settlement.

  The Roost was sprawled in a narrow space between two immense rock faces. From afar, the rocks shot straight upward, appearing impassable. Sirsha knew better. She picked past the outlying huts and tents, and made for a fissure in the stone. The opening was just wide enough for her. She pulled on a pair of gloves and began the dangerous climb up.

  The rain made it treacherous, and soon she was sweating. As she picked up speed, she heard a scrape from below.

  A face peered up at her. Even from a distance, Sirsha recognized Migva’s lupine features, twisted into a snarl.

  “Bleeding hells,” Sirsha muttered. She’d like to think that Migva would slip and fall to an unceremonious death. But the girl was like a Jibautian spitting cockroach—mean and strong and impossible to kill. Sirsha looked to the thin slice of sky above, the rain-bloated clouds illuminated by a stroke of lightning. Everything hurt. Her bones felt like shards of glass. But it wasn’t far to go.

  Sirsha grimaced as she climbed. Every time she looked over her shoulder, that bony wretch was getting closer. When Sirsha emerged from the fissure onto the cap of the rock face, Migva was a mere twenty feet behind, and Sirsha panted with exhaustion. She clambered forward, squinting in the dark.

  The rock ahead sloped down toward the Jutts—land formations that looked as if the earth had grown spikes. Beyond was the Serran Mountain Range. It would be spectacularly foolish to traverse the Jutts in this weather.

  Which was why Sirsha staggered toward them. The way down to the Jutts was steep. But if she was careful, she could avoid tumbling head over feet into the wide chasm below, and reach one of the thin rock bridges she knew lay in that direction.

  “Come back here!” Migva screamed, hands shredded from the climb.

  “When has that order ever worked for you, dog-face?” Sirsha slipped and went skidding down the slope toward the chasm, her fall halted when she smashed into a ridge, jarring every bone in her body. Lightning flashed and she jumped at what looked like a figure ahead, huge and hulking, standing near a spot of flat land beside a boulder.

  A moment later, it was dark once more and she wasn’t sure what she’d seen. Her distraction cost her. Migva knocked into her, tearing the breath from her body.

  Sirsha lurched forward, and Migva’s gaze caught on the thin gold chain around Sirsha’s neck. Her eyes shone with sudden greed, and she lunged for it, sending both of them rolling down the rocky slope. They were approaching the chasm too fast.

  “Stop, you idiot!” Sirsha screamed as Migva tried to rip the chain off. “You’re going to get us killed!”

  But Migva was past caring, and all Sirsha could do was try to fend her off with one arm while scrabbling for a grip with the other. There were knobs of rocks here, vines, ridges. If she could grab one, she could arrest her fall.

  Just before the slope dropped off into the gorge, her fingers caught on something rough. An old dead vine that she felt a sudden and abiding love for. She latched onto it, and though it stretched taut as gravity pulled her and Migva closer to the cliff’s edge, it did not give. Sirsha shoved her thumb in Migva’s eye and kicked out viciously. The Roost rat released her, startled at the sudden attack. She hurtled down into the darkness, her panicked scream echoing until it was suddenly cut off.

  “I did warn you,” Sirsha muttered. She didn’t dare move. She was practically vertical, with no clear sense of what was anchoring the vine. Gingerly, she felt for a foothold.

  As she did so, the vine slackened. Sirsha fell, dropping away into death. Bleeding, burning hells. Sharing a grave with that pasty-faced bitch. What an end.

  Until quite suddenly, she was hovering. Not dead. Her beloved vine stretched taut and she held on to it for dear life, dangling over the Jutts’ maw. Inexplicably, the vine began to inch upward.

  No, Sirsha realized. Someone was pulling it upward. Quickly. After only a few minutes, she was out of the crevasse, and she tried to get a look at whoever had saved her. She saw a flash of a lamp and a huge figure before the rain blurred her vision. Seconds later, a hand pulled her to a flatter spot on the rocky slope that had nearly killed her.

  “You can let go. You won’t fall from here.” The voice was a deep rumble that Sirsha didn’t recognize. Lightning flashed and she caught a glimpse of an unfamiliar man. He was taller than her, with light eyes and dark hair. His face was grim—marked by sorrow. He appeared to be twice her age.

  “Are you Sirsha Westering?” he asked. “The tracker?”

  Before he could so much as think about drawing a scim, she had a knife to his throat, the blade cleverly concealed in a strap on her wrist. “It’s pronounced Seer-shah. And who wants to know?”

  She expected anger from him, or irritation. Men didn’t like being bested by the likes of her. But he smiled and nodded downward. He held a blade to her stomach. As quickly as it appeared, he was flipping it back into his belt and holding up his hands.

  “I’m a client,” he said. “And I’ve got a job for you.”

  4

  Aiz

  Oh, Aiz. You poor, stupid fool.

  Aiz couldn’t move. Couldn’t plunge the knife into Tiral’s neck, couldn’t shift it even an inch. Tiral grinned, squeezing her wrist until she cried out and dropped the weapon.

  He swiped it up and backhanded her so hard that she flew off the bed. One word pounded through her brain. No. No. No.

  “Did you really think you could kill me?” Tiral sounded almost delighted. Humiliation coursed through Aiz. He kicked her in the stomach, and she dropped to her knees. Tiral laughed.

  “That’s better. Beg for my forgiveness and I’ll make sure your death is quick, and that none at your cloister suffers for your stupidity.”

  Aiz didn’t care about a quick death. All she wanted was for Tiral to hurt. To know pain and suffering. Yet she knew he was offering a gift, final though it was. The cloister, the clerics, the orphans. She hadn’t considered what he’d do to them if she failed.

  “Or don’t beg.” Tiral smiled. “And I’ll let the Questioners take you apart limb by limb in the Tohr with all your precious clerics.”

  Aiz stared down at her pale hands, scarred from a childhood in Dafra slum. A lock of hair fell in her face and she held herself still. The Tohr’s vermin-infested cells were peopled with broken Snipes who’d defied the Triarchy. Your anger will be the death of you.

  The death of you.

  Then she felt the ridges of her scars and the lick of flame. She heard the orphans screaming, and all she could think was how much she hated this snake of a man. The air in the room stirred as Aiz gathered her will, praying to Mother Div that this one time, the wind would do her bidding.

  For a glorious moment, the wind shot out like a whip, tight and brutal. Aiz nudged it tighter with her mind. Tiral grabbed at his throat, coughing.

  A second later, Aiz flew back, slamming into the stone wall. The air around her transformed into flaming needles, stabbing at her skin. She screamed, clawing at her face so frantically she didn’t hear Tiral until he was in front of her. He hauled Aiz up by her hair and leaned close, his breath hot against her ear.

  “I never let my guard down, Snipe.”

  She cringed, let him think for one instant that she was afraid.

  Then she spat in his face.

  His hand loosened enough for her to tear free and knee him between the legs. He doubled over with a groan. Aiz reached for the wind again, but this time, she didn’t try to control it. Instead, she fed her wrath into it, and it exploded out of her.

  The wind howled, knocking Tiral flat, tearing his bed to splinters, ripping his desk in half, and shredding the hearth to rubble. The window that faced the mountains shattered. A spark jumped, erupting into flame on a settee. Aiz shrieked in joy. Yes! She knew she could control the power that lived within her. She had always known. Now, finally, it was at her fingertips.

  In a moment, it was over. Aiz fell to her knees, so drained she thought her skin would shrivel away.

  Get up. Already, she heard distant shouts of alarm. She dragged herself through the debris toward the secret passageway. She could still escape. Warn Sister Noa to empty the cloister so Tiral couldn’t hurt anyone.

  Her hands shook as she reached for the door’s latch. It wouldn’t budge. She tried again, screaming in frustration, even as someone banged on Tiral’s door.

  “Commander Tiral? Commander!”

  A surge of heat. The fire had spread to the remnants of Tiral’s bed and fed greedily upon the wood.

  “Mother Div, help me.” Aiz choked on the smoke. “Help me, please.” Tears of dismay streamed down her face. There was no way out. She’d die here. And though Aiz had told herself that she was ready to leave this earth as long as she took Tiral with her, now she found herself thinking of Cero. Of everything unsaid between them—everything she didn’t let him say. Of Sister Noa, who would mourn her as if her own daughter had died. Of the orphans, and the stories of Mother Div that Aiz would never tell them.

  The flames closed in; the smoke thickened. Aiz dropped low and her hands touched something strange and soft in the rubble.

  Tiral’s book. The pattern on it reflected the spreading flames.

  The beams of the room groaned and the stone under the shattered window crumbled away. Snowy air swirled around Aiz, blessedly cool.

  “Thank you, Mother Div,” Aiz sobbed. “Thank you.” She crawled toward the opening, but as she did, Tiral heaved a breath. The bastard was still alive.

  Which meant even if Aiz did get out of here, he’d hunt her down.

  Aiz looked back at the book, the flames inches away from it. She didn’t know why it was precious to him, but perhaps she could use it as leverage. She snatched it up, wrapping it in its oilcloth cover and stuffing it in her skirt. Then she skittered toward the opening in the wall and squeezed out.

  Her belly lurched as she looked to the snow-covered ground far below, to the slick rock. But this was her only choice. She dug her fingers into a timber and began to descend.

  The wind tore at her, too wild to control, an enemy determined to bring her down. It seemed to be mocking her. Laughing, screaming her name. Aiiiiz.

  The rock beneath her left foot crumbled, and suddenly her leg was dangling in open air. She pawed at the wall, but it was smooth as glass, without so much as a crack in which she could wedge the edge of her shoe. Mother Div, help me. Please. Aiz’s arms ached at the weight of holding herself up. Her fingers grew numb.

  Then her foot slipped. Better to die like this than to starve or rot in prison, she thought wildly as the wind tore at her. At least it will be fast. Laughter bubbled up from her chest, shrill and brittle, transforming into a scream as she fell.

  * * *

  “Aiz. Aiz, damn you, wake up.”

  Dragging her eyes open was, possibly, the most difficult thing Aiz had done in her life. Cero’s pale, handsome face appeared over hers, his expression angrier than she’d ever seen it.

  “You are a Spires-forsaken fool,” he hissed. “What were you thinking climbing that wall? Why is the Aerie on fire?”

  Aiz’s temples pounded, and she felt the back of her head. It was soaked with blood, though she didn’t feel a wound.

  “Don’t touch!” Cero snapped, helping her sit up. She recognized the stark gray walls of the cloister. They were in one of the antechambers that bordered the courtyard. Through a window, Aiz spotted Sister Noa setting up the meager morning meal.

  “How—how long since—”

  “It’s been hours. I was waiting for you to wake before getting Noa. Didn’t want her heart to stop at the sight of you. You fell almost forty feet. It’s a miracle you’re not dead.”

  “No—no.” Aiz tried to stand. “I can’t be here. He’s going to come for me—”

  Cero bade her sit, his anger fading. “Aiz. You’re injured. You’re not making sense. Take a breath and tell me what happened.”

  “You became a pilot,” Aiz whispered. “I didn’t. It’s—it’s not fair—”

  “You were born knowing the world isn’t fair. You work around it like always.”

  “I can’t!” Aiz said, wishing to the Spires that she could think more clearly. “I must go, Cero. I tried to kill Tiral. Then I took something from him.”

  Cero’s face blanched. “Tell me he’s dead.”

  Aiz shook her head. “He was alive when I escaped. He knew I’d planned to kill him, to get revenge for the orphans. All this time I’ve been sleeping with him, trying to gain his trust. And he knew.”

  “Spires, Aiz. I could have told you that he uses people.” Cero looked away, his words bitter. “Pretends he cares so he can toy with them.”

  “You too?” Aiz whispered, feeling strangely relieved when Cero nodded.

  “Once, after you weren’t chosen for the flight squadron,” he said. “I thought if I talked to him—got to know him—I could convince him to let you train more.” Cero laughed bitterly. “I was naive. He used me, and when I brought you up, he—”

  Cero went silent at the sudden thudding on the courtyard gate. A sneering voice rang out.

  “Clerics,” Tiral called from beyond the cloister’s outer wall. “Do let me in. I’d like a word with one of your wards.”

  “You shouldn’t have brought me here,” Aiz said. “He’ll punish the entire cloister if he finds me.”

  Cero hauled her to her feet, steadying her when her legs turned to rubber. “He won’t find you,” he said. “Come on.”

  As Sister Noa approached the gate, Cero pulled Aiz into the cloister’s serpentine hallways. They made their way down a short flight of stairs and into the kitchen storeroom.

  “You’ll have to leave the city,” Cero said.

  “No. I stole this book from him,” Aiz said. “I’ll hide it, and then I’ll beg for mercy for the cloister. The book is leverage. Tiral will kill me, but I’m dead anyway, Cero. Of starvation or in one of his wars.”

  Cero stiffened as he pulled her through a door and into a hallway of the cloister she hadn’t seen. “Don’t be pathetic,” he snapped. “You’re worse than the Hawks. The second things get a bit tough, you fall apart.”

  “A bit tough?” She glared at him. “What do you call our entire existence?”

  “A gift,” he said. “Walk faster.”

  The words snapped her out of her self-pity, so quintessentially Cero that she wanted to hug him. But he was already moving. Aiz ran to keep up with his long strides, following him through a narrow gap in the rubble and through a hallway carved with runes. This was part of the ancient structure erected after the migration—or so Sister Noa had told Aiz when she was a girl.

  “Cero,” she said. “Listen.” They were deep in the bowels of the cloister, where torches were few.

  “Do you hear them?” she whispered. “Voices. Tiral’s soldiers are in the tunnels. We should split up. You can’t be seen with me.”

  “Patience, Aiz,” Cero said. “Almost there.” He led them deeper below the cloister, where the ground grew slick with moisture. Water rushed distantly.

  “How do you remember all of this?” Aiz asked. “I couldn’t find my way back to the cloister if you put a blade to my throat.”

  “Didn’t you ever wonder what I was doing while you were begging fairy tales off the clerics?”