Vessel

Chapter Thirteen

Overhead, the stars filled the bruise-black sky. Liyana breathed deeply. The night air crinkled inside her lungs instead of scorching her throat.

“You can still change your mind,” Korbyn said behind her. He was close enough that she inhaled his scent. “Magic is forbidden to vessels because it is dangerous. If you try to reach too far . . .”

She realized that this was the first time they’d been alone since the other vessels had joined them. Behind them, Pia and Fennik slept cocooned in their sleeping rolls. The horses dozed in a semicircle around the tent. “I don’t need to work miracles,” Liyana said. “Just teach me enough to help.”

“Magic isn’t about miracles,” Korbyn said. “All we do is speed up or slow down what happens naturally.” He pointed to a shriveled bush a few feet in front of them. His arm brushed against hers, and her skin tingled. “For example, this plant is capable of blooming. We can induce it to bloom faster. But we can’t cause it to sprout wings and fly.”

Causing a plant to bloom was a miracle. Talu couldn’t cause a bush to bloom. She could improve its health, thicken its roots, and mend a few leaves, but not cause it to defy the seasons. Liyana wondered what Talu would say if she saw Liyana alone in the night desert learning magic from their goddess’s lover. “How do I begin?”

“Sit.” Korbyn pointed to the hard ground next to a shriveled bush.

Liyana sat cross-legged. She patted her thighs to wake up her sore muscles. Korbyn joined her on the ground, his knees almost touching hers. He didn’t look at her, and Liyana wondered what he was thinking. She wished he’d tell her a story, like he used to when it was just the two of them. It had been easy to talk to him then. She tried to think of words to say.

“Your soul fills your body.” He paused. Wind whistled across the dry earth. A desert owl cried out. “You can nod to show you’re engaged in the lesson.”

“I assumed that was an introduction.”

“I am attempting to be pedagogical,” he said. “I have never taught anyone before.”

“The stories say that deities were the ones who taught the first magicians. In fact, Talu said that Bayla instructed Talu’s many-times-great-grandmother—”

“I was busy at the time.”

“Doing what?”

“Creating a mountain range.”

She tried to picture a mountain bursting out of the ground. Staring at this boy-man-god, she wondered what it would feel like to change the shape of the world. “Truly?”

“We needed a valley. It took a very, very long time. Several lifetimes, in fact.” Reaching out, he put his hand on her chin and turned her head so that she faced the bush instead of him. He released her, and she had to fight the urge to look at him again. “Your soul fills your body. So to work magic outside your body, you must expand your soul. In other words, if you want to cause this bush to bloom, you need to make it a part of you, at least temporarily. Once you’ve done that, then you can use magic to influence it.”

She nodded, though she had a thousand questions.

“You may ask, ‘Where does the extra soul come from?’ After all, your soul is a fixed size—it fits your body perfectly. So how can it expand? The answer is that the ‘extra soul’ is magic drawn directly from the Dreaming.” He smiled broadly as if he were pleased with himself for explaining the matter so clearly and concisely.

“But how—”

He tapped her forehead with his finger. “By concentrating. You’ve seen me in a trance. I am connecting to the magic of the Dreaming with my mind. You can learn to do it too. Only reincarnated souls and deities can.”

Sorting through the questions in her mind, Liyana opened her mouth to let them flood out. She hoped that these were questions he’d answer.

“Your soul will be lost.” Pia knelt in the opening of the tent, holding the flap open with one hand. Her milky eyes seemed to encompass them both. “Your body will wither and die without it, and your clan will perish.”

“She isn’t wrong,” Korbyn said in a cheerful voice. “A body without a soul cannot survive. You must maintain your connection to your body throughout the process, or you risk losing yourself.”

“It is wrong to take such a risk,” Pia said. “If the gods thought it an acceptable risk, it would not be forbidden.” Her voice was earnest and sweet. She had a hint of melody when she spoke that made one want to listen to her.

Liyana felt fear curl inside her gut, but she kept her voice confident. “The gods never anticipated any vessel, much less multiple vessels, needing to make this kind of journey. If they had known, they may have made an exception.”

Pia smacked the side of the tent with her palm. “Fennik! I need you.”

Bursting out of the tent, Fennik grabbed Pia’s shoulders. “Are you all right?”

“I am fine,” Pia said. “But this”—she waved her hand toward Liyana, Korbyn, the bush, and the desert beyond—“is unnatural. We cannot allow this to continue.”

Fennik looked from her to Liyana to Korbyn and back again as if they’d suddenly crowded around him. “I . . . She . . .”

“Fennik!” Pia’s voice sounded as though he had slaughtered a kitten for dinner. She clung to him. “You said you agreed with me! If we embrace unnecessary risk for the sake of expediency—”

“If we keep arguing, none of us will have strength for the ride tomorrow,” Liyana pointed out. “You don’t want to be the one to slow the rescue of your goddess, do you?”

Fennik awkwardly patted Pia’s arm. “If the gods wished us to know magic, we would have been taught it. But . . . we are four days from the hills. Even if we find the Scorpion Clan quickly, we still need the Falcon Clan.”

Pia let out a gasp like a tiny wounded animal. Without another word, she vanished into the tent. Muttering a curse, Fennik ducked into the tent after her.

“Korbyn is a god, and he wishes it!” Liyana called after them.

“Thank you for noticing,” Korbyn said. He flashed a smile at her, and she felt the warmth of his smile pour over her. “Shall we begin? Close your eyes and look inside. Follow the course of your breath. Feel the pulse of your blood as it throbs through your veins. Feel the limits of your skin. Truly inhabit your body. Only then will you avoid the fate that Pia fears.”

Three hours later, Korbyn called an end to the lesson.

Liyana crawled inside the tent without looking back at the leafless bush. She curled into her sleeping roll and was asleep before Korbyn even settled into his.

She resumed the lesson at dawn, sitting cross-legged on the sand while Fennik packed up camp and Pia combed her soft, white hair.

Approaching her, Korbyn said, “You must be anchored to your body when you work magic. You cannot waver.” He shoved her shoulder.

Liyana toppled to the side. She caught herself with the heel of her hand. “Ow.” She glared at him.

“Keep concentrating,” Korbyn said. Whistling, he strode over to the horses.

She continued to practice as they rode. She focused on her calf and thigh muscles as they jolted and shifted with Gray Luck’s stride. She felt the wind as it blew grit against her face cloth. She felt the fabric of her clothes move across her skin. She counted her breaths. Every time they halted to water the horses, she listened to her heartbeat.

“We could spend a year on simply this,” Korbyn told her that night. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a year. So let’s skip ahead.”

Across the campfire, Pia looked horrified, an elegant expression on her doll-like face. “If she dies, so dies the hope of her clan. I will not allow you to endanger an entire clan with this recklessness.”

“Pia . . . ,” Liyana began.

“I will sing so that you cannot focus,” Pia warned. “If you cannot focus, then you cannot work magic.” Filling her lungs, Pia shrieked. Liyana covered her ears as Pia’s scream-song reverberated inside her bones. Crescendoing, Pia’s voice rose an octave higher. It felt sharp enough to slice the sky. She stopped and smiled at them. It was not a sweet smile.

Liyana rubbed her ears. The notes still echoed inside her skull. “How exactly do I focus with that?”

“You outlast her,” Korbyn said with a shrug. “She’ll lose her voice eventually.”

“I have trained for my entire life,” Pia said. “It will be some time before my voice runs out. I can last all night if I must.”

Korbyn sighed and then stilled. Watching him, Liyana saw the moment that he entered a magician’s trance. Only a second later, Pia crumpled.

“Pia!” Fennik cried. Lunging forward, he caught her. Her body draped gracefully over his arms.

“Shh,” Korbyn said. “She’s asleep.”

“You did this?” Fennik asked. Liyana thought she heard a tendril of fear in his voice.

Korbyn smiled cheerfully at him and then turned to Liyana. “I want you to imagine a lake in a valley. Once you picture it correctly”—he tapped her heart—“you will feel it here.”

As Fennik carried Pia into the tent, Liyana concentrated.

After four more days of travel, Liyana had pictured her lake in the valley so many times that she could see it in perfect detail. Her lake was framed by sheer, granite cliffs, and it opened onto a valley that was filled with a lush spread of green grasses, thick groves of trees, and cascades of wildflowers. The lake itself was a perfect oval, and its clear, blue water reflected the cloudless sky above. It lapped at a pebble shore. Each pebble was a different shade of quartz that sparkled in the sun like a precious jewel.

So far, though, she had yet to draw out any magic from the lake. She hadn’t caused a single plant to bloom or a drop of water to surface through the rocky ground.

Liyana was not impressed with herself.

On the plus side, though, Pia had quit objecting to the lessons, thanks to Liyana’s lack of success. And Fennik had added a dollop of much needed humor when he had claimed he had enjoyed the evening quiet while Liyana practiced because it helped him calm his thoughts. In unison, Liyana and Korbyn had commented, “I didn’t realize you had thoughts.” They’d burst into laughter, while Fennik fumed for the next hour.

But that was the only time she’d laughed.

Liyana felt the passage of time as if her heartbeat were counting away her chances to reach Bayla. She couldn’t explain why she felt such urgency, but it pulsed through her veins. She was acutely aware that once they collected two more vessels, the demands of that many mouths would slow them even further, and she didn’t know how far they had left to ride after that. So she continued to try—and continued to fail.

Once they entered the hills, she had to quit practicing as they rode. Thousands of loose rocks were scattered over the terrain, and riding required everyone’s full concentration. No one wanted a hoof to slip on a rock, even if Korbyn could heal a lame horse.

By late morning, the sun beat down on the rocks, and they had to stop. Korbyn caused a trickle of water to well up in a dry streambed. Liyana and Fennik soaked cloths in the water and then squeezed it into their waterskins. The horses licked the wet rocks.

In the shadows of the rocks, Liyana resumed her practice while the others rested until the horses were ready to proceed. As she moved to mount, Fennik stopped her. “The terrain is worsening. We must walk the horses.”

Leading Gray Luck, Liyana walked beside Korbyn. The pace, as they picked their way over the rocks, felt far, far too slow. She chafed at their new speed.

“Can you tell if they’ve had their ceremony?” Liyana asked.

“I could tell if they’d succeeded,” Korbyn said. “You could too, once you learn. Once you can draw magic from the lake, you will be able to feel every rock, bird, and soul around you. Divine souls feel . . .”

“Divine?” she supplied.

“I was going to go with ‘glorious’ or ‘amazing,’ but ‘divine’ will do.”

“So either they haven’t tried yet . . . or we’re late.”

Korbyn halted and held up his hand. Behind him, Liyana patted Gray Luck’s neck and slowed the horse to a standstill. Holding the reins of the other horses, Fennik stopped them as well. He put his other hand on Pia’s shoulder to signal to her to stop.

“What is it?” Pia asked, her crystal clear voice ringing over the stones. “Have we found the Scorpion Clan?”

An arrow thudded into the ground at Korbyn’s horse’s hooves.

“Yes, we have,” Korbyn said calmly.

Shouts echoed on all sides as warriors sprang from behind rocks. The horses reared and shied, and Liyana fought to control Gray Luck. Fennik pulled down hard on Pia’s horse’s reins as she clung to her horse’s neck. Snorting and huffing, Gray Luck walked backward in a circle, and Liyana saw an array of arrows and spears trained on them. Attempting to keep her voice light, she said, “I’ve already been stabbed. Fennik was tied to a stake. I think it’s someone else’s turn. Pia, would you like to volunteer?”

“I beg your pardon,” Pia said.

Fennik shielded Pia by guiding his horse in front of her. “Do not even joke about her being injured.” Eyes on the warriors, he leaned to reach for one of his bows.

All around them, the warriors tensed. Some crouched, spears ready. Liyana saw bowstrings drawn. “Fennik,” Korbyn said. Listening for once, Fennik halted.

For an instant, no one moved. No one even breathed.

And then Pia began to sing. Raising her chin, she let the notes pour out of her mouth. Her melody cascaded over the rocks and echoed through the hills.

“Is that her answer to everything?” Liyana asked under her breath.

“You have to admit it’s effective,” Korbyn said. Around them, the warriors lowered their weapons. Pia continued to sing. Wordless, the song was a soothing melody that was at once as sad as a farewell and as uplifting as a child’s laugh.

“You know, I think I like her,” Korbyn said.

“You’re just happy you don’t have to heal anyone,” Liyana said.

“True.” Raising his voice to be heard over Pia’s song, Korbyn called to the warriors, “I am Korbyn of the Raven Clan! These are my companions! We bring word of your goddess! We must speak with your vessel!”

One of the men laughed. “Good luck with that.”

Liyana felt as though her innards had curdled. Oh, goddess, we’re too late.

“It is vital!” Fennik said. “We must speak with her immediately!”

“You can try,” said the man who had laughed. “Pretty sure she’s still drunk.”

Soiled clothes and empty jugs were strewn over the camp. Tents were pitched askew on boulders. Liyana picked her way through the debris. Behind her, Fennik had chosen the expedient solution of scooping Pia into his arms and carrying her. Left on the outskirts of camp, the horses grazed on the scant, tough grasses—they could not navigate through the rubble.

“There are no bodies. No blood. I don’t understand this,” Fennik said. “It looks as if they were attacked, but I don’t see any wounded.”

Korbyn marched in front of them with zero regard for where he stepped. As Liyana hopped over another shattered pot only to land on a soggy shirt that reeked of urine, she thought that he might have the right approach.

Pia clung to Fennik’s neck. “Are we in danger?”

“We are late,” Korbyn said.

Liyana felt her stomach clench. Men and women perched and sprawled on the rocks. Some looked listless. Others celebrated. And others clutched jugs and waterskins as if they held all the liquid that remained in the world. Perhaps, for this clan, they did.

“The waste here . . . I do not understand it,” Fennik said, frowning at the jugs. “They cannot be immune to the drought, can they?”

An old woman lurched out of a tent. She wore a headdress of bones and feathers that dangled down to her ankles. The bones clacked together as she moved. “You!” She leveled a crooked finger at Korbyn. “Bah! You again, pretty talker. You can change your face, but you can’t change your soul.”

Korbyn swept forward in a bow. “Runa, you are just as beautiful as you always were.”

“Humph. None for you today. Runa has standards, she does!” With that, Runa lurched back into her tent. The door flap smacked her on her wide rear.

“You can’t know her, can you?” Liyana asked. Once he was summoned, he’d come straight to Liyana from his clan. The old woman must have mistaken Korbyn for someone else.

“She was younger then. Same sunny personality.”

Fennik frowned at him. “Impossible. She would need to be . . .”

“One hundred sixteen years old, yes,” Korbyn said. “Mathematics are not your forte, are they? She always excelled at convincing magicians and deities to heal any ailments.” A smile danced on his lips. “It was fun being convinced.”

Pia sniffed. “Spare us the details of your lascivious youth.”

Liyana quit walking. “You didn’t! What about Bayla?”

He shrugged. “She was with Sendar. I was pining.” Eagerly he began climbing the slope toward the woman’s tent.

“Korbyn, we have a mission!” Liyana called after him.

“She’s the chieftess,” Korbyn said.

He swung the tent flap open. Liquid splashed him full in his face, and he staggered back. Liyana gasped. To waste liquid, be it water or liquor . . . An image of the wide-eyed child from the Silk Clan flashed through her mind.

Spitting, Korbyn wiped his face. “I’m honored I rate the quality refreshment, but you’ll wish you hadn’t wasted it.”

Runa stuck her head out of the tent. “Eh, I’ll lick it off you.” Cackling, she pointed at Liyana, Fennik, and Pia. “Oh, look at their faces! Don’t worry, children. My husband would have his testicles for trophies if we revisited old times.” She wagged her finger at Korbyn. “You watch yourself, my boy.”

Korbyn laughed, and his laughter echoed off the rocks. A few of the Scorpion Clan warriors stared at him. Others, sprawled by their tents, laughed with him.

“You always were a force to be reckoned with,” Korbyn said.

“You’d better believe it,” Runa said. “I hear you want our vessel. Go take her. We’re done with her.” She waved her hand toward the northern side of camp. “Fair warning, though—she’ll be less happy to see you than I am.” Smiling, Runa spat in Korbyn’s face.

Wiping his cheek and neck with his sleeve, Korbyn trotted down the slope back to them. “Believe it or not, I deserved that,” he said cheerfully.

Pia looked disgusted. “Water is life.”

“I think there are a few stories you haven’t told,” Liyana said. It seemed the safest thing to say. Korbyn whistled as he crossed through camp, aiming for the north corner. She shoved the image of Korbyn and that woman into the back of her brain. She had no right to feel . . . whatever it was she felt, even on behalf of Bayla.

Men and women were sprawled between the tents. A few whispered and pointed at them as they passed. Some laughed. Liyana tried to ignore them.

Korbyn climbed the rocks toward a lone tent perched precariously on a boulder. Liyana, Fennik, and Pia followed him. He held the tent flap up, and they all entered.

Inside was a young woman. Her telltale vessel tattoos were visible. She wore a sleeveless tunic that was stained with grease and blood. Near her was a heap of shredded silk and silver bells—her ceremonial dress, destroyed. Her hair flopped over half her face. Several thin braids were stuck to her forehead and cheeks. She snored loudly.

“This is she?” Fennik said.

“Is that her snore or a pig’s?” Pia asked, wrinkling her nose. “And what is that odor?” Liyana guessed it was the dried vomit in the corner, but it could have been the girl herself. Or both.

Korbyn nudged the girl’s leg with his toe. “Good morning!”

Groaning, the girl opened one eye. “Outta my tent.” She leveled a finger at each of them. “Don’t like you. Or you. Or you.”

“That’s okay,” Korbyn said cheerfully. “We probably won’t like you either.”

“She cannot be the vessel,” Fennik said.

Oh, goddess, it was going to take hours to coax this girl into sobriety, much less convince her to come with them. Liyana wanted to scream. Every day they encountered more delays! She thought of her family, facing day after day, believing that Bayla would never come, believing they were doomed. And this girl, this drunk, pathetic girl, was keeping Liyana from saving them.

“Set me down, Fennik,” Pia said. “I want to go to her.” Fennik lowered her to the ground, and Pia felt her way across the room. She knelt next to the girl, and she patted her hand. “We’ll find your goddess. Everything will be okay.”

The girl bit Pia’s hand.

Yelping, Pia snatched her hand back and cradled it to her chest. Fennik rushed to her and wrapped his arms around Pia’s shoulders.

The girl giggled.

“What’s your name?” Korbyn asked.

“Raan. Raan, Raan, Raan. Rrrrrrr-aaaaaaa-nnnnnnn, ra-ra-ra-ra . . .” She swirled her fingers in the air as if she were conducting music. “Na-na-na-na . . .”

“Sober her up faster,” Liyana said to Korbyn. “We can’t talk to her like this.” Liyana had once seen one of the herder boys in this state. It had taken him hours to be coherent. Aunt Sabisa had dumped a pitcher of precious water on his head.

Korbyn knelt next to her. “Don’t bite. I bite back.”

Giggling, the girl Raan gnashed her teeth together.

Laying his hand on her shoulder, Korbyn concentrated. Over the course of a minute, the girl’s face flushed and then paled into a sickly green and then settled in the normal range. Liyana noticed she had nice brown eyes, now that they weren’t dilated. In fact, she was beautiful, if you discounted the disheveled hair and stained clothes.

“Do you feel better, Raan?” Pia asked solicitously.

Raan scowled at them. “What did you do?” She searched through the piles of blankets that had been tossed around her tent. “Aha!” She displayed a waterskin as if it were a trophy.

Korbyn intercepted it and tossed it across the tent. “You’re done celebrating.”

“But it’s a new era! We are free!” Scrambling across the tent, she fetched the waterskin, took off the cap, and lifted it to her lips. Crossing the tent in three strides, Korbyn covered the opening with his hand. “Aw, don’t let it go to waste,” Raan said. “Once the drink is gone, it’s gone. This is the last of it. Can’t make more without a miracle.” She seemed to find this amusing. “Come on. Half the clan is celebrating with me.”

“And the other half?” Pia asked, distaste clear in her voice.

Raan shrugged. “Drowning their sorrows. They didn’t like me much anyway.”

“I cannot imagine why not,” Liyana muttered. She crossed her arms. All the time to journey here, and this was what had waited for them. This girl would be a greater drain on Korbyn than Pia was. At least Pia tried.

Raan pointed at her. “I heard that. Who are you people and what are you doing in my tent? Did Runa tell you where to find me? I shouldn’t have punched her.”

“You punched your chieftess?” Pia’s voice rose an octave.

“You’re a judgmental little thing, aren’t you?” Raan said. “Do I enter your tent without an invitation and ruin your party? If you must know, she blamed me for the failure of her barbaric ceremony. And while I am thrilled it failed—”

Pia clenched her delicate hands into tiny fists. “You disgust—”

“Enough,” Korbyn said.

“She celebrates the demise of her clan!” Pia said.

“I rejoice that the goddess wants us to find another way to live,” Raan said.

Korbyn stepped between Pia and Raan. He laid his hand on Pia’s shoulder, as if to prevent her from charging bull-like at the larger girl. “We need her, and she needs us, whether she knows it or not.”

“I don’t need anyone,” Raan said. “That’s the whole beauty of being free.” She spun in a circle with her arms raised in the air, and she kicked at the clothes and blankets at her feet.

“You are not free,” Pia said. “You have responsibilities to your clan. You must die so that your people can live. Like the rest of us.”

Raan quit dancing and stared at them.

Pia rolled up her sleeves to display her tattoos. “Fennik, Liyana, show her.”

Flexing his biceps, Fennik showed his tattoos.

“Our goddess chose not to come,” Raan said. “She granted me life!”

Liyana didn’t move. By the tent flap, she watched the others argue with Raan, trying to convince her that this was the correct course, explaining their mission and their reasons, and resorting to guilt (from Pia) and threats (from Fennik) and reason (from Korbyn). Raan refused to believe them. When Korbyn poured her waterskin out, Raan pummeled his chest. She then shouted obscenities until Pia covered her ears with her hands and screeched as loud as a whistle.

Liyana backed out of the tent. She let the flap fall down, muffling the sound only slightly. Men and woman clustered at the foot of the boulder, listening to the drama and taking bets on the outcome. She walked past them. A few men whistled at her. A few women laughed. A few children ran up to her and tugged on her sleeves. As before, she ignored them all.

She marched directly to Runa’s tent and barged inside.

Runa was dunking her fingers into a bowl of honey and then licking them, slurping as she sucked at her knob-like knuckles. “Excuse me, child?”

“You aren’t as drunk as you were pretending,” Liyana said. “I’ve seen drunk before. You wanted to throw liquor at Korbyn because it was fun. I’ve wanted to throw things at him too. He can be infuriating.” She thought of how closemouthed he was about their final destination. “But this isn’t about him. Or me. Or Raan. It’s about whether our clans survive. Our deities have been kidnapped, and Korbyn says we need the deities’ vessels in order to rescue them. He won’t want to leave until Raan joins us.”

Runa blinked at her. “Let me guess. Raan is refusing.”

“You forced her to submit to the ceremony, didn’t you?”

“It required three of our warriors to ensure her presence.” Runa dug her fingers back in the honey and scraped the bowl with her nails. “We had to threaten her cousin’s life before she would dance. But she danced while I filled the words with magic and sent them to the Dreaming. Yet still Maara didn’t come. Perhaps . . . you speak the truth.”

“You need to force her again,” Liyana said. “You must exile her. She has a strong self-preservation instinct. She’ll know the only way to survive is to come with us.”

“And when the time comes for her to give up her body for our goddess?”

Liyana hesitated. “We outnumber her.”

Runa chuckled. “Your friends are in her tent trying to convince her, aren’t they? But you, you are here. You are a determined one. And clever.”

“The needs of the many outweigh the desire of one.” Liyana felt as if Talu were here, whispering words in her ear. “She can’t be allowed to kill your entire clan simply to hoard a few more years of her own.”

“Ah, the certainty of youth,” Runa said. “You care a lot about a clan that is not your own. I wonder. . . . Is this out of a sense of what is right or out of a fear that you may be wrong?”

Liyana thought of Jidali. Of Mother and Father. Of her cousins. She wasn’t wrong. “Will you do it for your people?” she asked. “Or if not for your people, then for Korbyn, for whatever he was to you and whatever you felt for him.”

Runa didn’t answer. She dunked her fingers into the honey again.

Liyana waited, wishing she could scream like Pia. She hated the taste of the air inside Runa’s tent. It was thick and smelled overly sweet. She felt as if the smell were pouring down her throat and permeating her skin. It made her skin itch, and she longed to run outside and let the desert wind scour her clean.

“Yes, I will,” Runa said at last. “But I will regret it, as will those who love you. And perhaps even Korbyn himself.”

Liyana fidgeted, and her horse shuffled beneath her. Up the hill, Runa was breaking the news to Raan, and Raan was not taking it well. Her reaction echoed through the camp.

Raan rattled off a string of expletives that caused Pia to wince. “You were wise to interfere, Liyana,” Pia said. “She will realize that this is the right course of action.”

More shouting, and then a crash. Raan had begun to throw pots and pans. “I am not certain she will realize that anytime soon,” Korbyn commented.

Liyana wondered how long they could afford to wait. She thought again of Jidali and how her clan must feel with despair pressing down on them.

“Do you think she’ll try to flee?” Pia asked.

“She won’t be allowed to jeopardize our mission,” Fennik said. “I’ll guard her myself.”

“But how will you prevent it?” Pia asked. “We cannot harm a vessel. Her deity needs her body to be pristine.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Liyana said.

Pia began to object.

“Her goddess only needs her alive and able to dance,” Liyana said. “If Raan tries to run . . . we blind her. She can’t run away if she can’t see where she runs.”

Pia paled.

“You are . . .” Korbyn paused, clearly searching for the appropriate adjective.

“Mother called me practical,” Liyana said. “Fennik, I am sick of delays. Will you fetch her? Carry her if you have to. And if she protests, we can tie her to a horse.”

“She isn’t going to like us very much,” Pia noted.

“I won’t let my family suffer because she wants to throw a temper tantrum,” Liyana said. She noticed Korbyn was staring at her. She refused to meet his eyes. She didn’t want to see what he thought of what she was saying. “We are leaving, whether she likes it or not. Fennik?”

Fennik strode toward the tent. A few minutes later, he emerged with a sullen Raan. His hand was clamped around her arm, and he was nearly dragging her.

Runa watched from on top of a rock. From where she stood, Liyana couldn’t read her expression. But she did notice that the clan’s warriors fanned out on either side of her. The rest of the clan huddled by their tents, watching and whispering. When Raan tried to run back toward Runa, the chieftess signaled to the warriors. Standing on the rocks all around the camp, the warriors raised their bows and spears.

Scooping Raan up as if she were Pia, Fennik lifted the Scorpion Clan’s vessel onto a horse. She kicked him once before she sank into the saddle.

“Fennik, tie her to the saddle,” Liyana said.

Raan shot her a glare. “Don’t. I will ride.”

No one spoke again as they rode out of the hills.

Slumped in her saddle, Raan refused to meet any of their eyes, which suited Liyana fine. One more vessel, Liyana thought. She wished she could urge her horse into a gallop and race across the desert to Bayla, wherever she was. Just one more. She hoped that the final vessel cooperated easily.

As the sun set and shadows stretched around them, they pressed on. By unspoken agreement, they wanted as many miles between them and the hills before they camped. On unfamiliar ground, Raan would be less likely to make an escape.

As the stars speckled the sky, they selected a stretch of baked clay punctuated by rocks and cacti to be their camp. Pia commenced her nightly ritual of brushing her white hair. Fennik tended the horses while Korbyn put himself in a trance to summon water and food. After drinking away their supplies in the wake of the failed ceremony, the Scorpion Clan had had little to spare.

Liyana pitched the tent and started the fire. All the while, she kept her eyes on Raan. The others, she noticed, did the same.

Huddled by the tent flap, Raan was glaring at Korbyn as he caused a bush to sprout leaves. “It sickens me,” Raan said. “Killing people so they can play at being human.”

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.”