Chapter 19

  Anthea stood by the mother stone, watching the salt drift down from a hot blue sky and slide off the surface of the monolith. She reached out a hand and laid it on the stone. Glassy smooth, black, cool to the touch despite the heat. Anthea knew deep magic when she saw it. Emmius claimed to hear it, or ‘her,’ whispering to him. Emmius said it was very old. He was there now, beside the stone, his eyes closed as he listened to it. The mother stone interested Anthea, but it was not her concern at the moment.

  “She’s here,” said Zayana behind her, who had also come to investigate the stone. They shared a look. Rosma had just slain Akkama, and neither of them knew what to do about it.

  Rosma arrived a moment later. She swooped from the sky atop one of the manta rays, black and leathery. She slid off her mount and dropped to the salt as it glided back up to the skies and shadowed them briefly with a ripple of its broad wings.

  “I am here,” said Rosma. She had her spear over one shoulder and a belt of spare waterskins over the other. Her pink-flecked conch shell hung at her side. She wore nothing else; Anthea knew this was because clothing was uncomfortable against the scaly blue arda that covered her. Parts of her looked pink, just as Emmius had said, though the color had faded. Rosma approached with a limp, hunched over, one hand on her side over a deep wound. That wound concerned Anthea. It meant Rosma had not been able to locate Fiora either.

  Rosma limped past Anthea directly to Emmius. She reached out a scaly webbed foot and shoved him. His eyes popped open in surprise as he fell over sideways onto the salt-dusted blue sand. He stared at Rosma with a mixture of disbelief and apprehension.

  “I apologize,” said Rosma. “I was made a fool. Yet rest assured, all has been made right.”

  Emmius gaped at her, blinked slowly. “Uh…well like okay. It’s fine. I mean like apology accepted. But like are you okay?” Anthea shook her head slightly in wonderment. Somehow Emmius, the most predictable of them all, found ways to surprise her. Could his heart harbor no resentment toward one who had nearly killed him not three days before? Or did he simply not care enough to be bothered with something so tiring as holding a grudge?

  “Yes,” said Rosma, unperturbed.

  “Well like Anthea told me you wouldn’t still be mad but just to make sure I found you some azurite. That’s, you know, copper carbonate.” He rummaged in his tattered pockets until he produced a handful of vibrant cobalt ore. He held it out to Rosma, hesitated, then added, “I think I found some dioptase too, hang on.”

  “There is no need, Emmius,” Rosma declared. She turned away from him, but not before snatching a single fragment of azurite from his outstretched hands, with such speed and precision that Emmius didn’t appear to notice. Rosma addressed Anthea, observing the brilliant blue stone as she spoke. “Is Fiora here?” she asked.

  “No,” said Anthea. “We haven’t been able to contact her.”

  Rosma directed her cold blue eyes at Anthea. Then her attention turned to the mother stone. “What is this?”

  “It’s the mother stone,” said Emmius.

  “According to some story Rasmus heard,” said Zayana, “it might be something called a wardstone. Summoned by the gods in ancient times as a seal, or a ward, against a great evil.”

  “She’s from another place,” said Emmius.

  This tidbit was news to Anthea. “Another planet?” she asked.

  Emmius shook his head. “Naw, man. Like another kind of place.” They all watched him for a moment as he stared in fascination at the shiny black rock. “She’s not very nice. Oh hey Zayana I totally found some for you too. Check it out, there was just some kammererite like over there.” Emmius checked his pockets, then began digging in the sand around him as though he might have buried his rocks like treasure and then forgotten about them. Which was possible.

  Rosma lost interest in Emmius and the stone. “So. I am here. Where are the rest?”

  Anthea led them back to the base of the transistor station where she’d been staying with Emmius and Acarnus the past few days. It was no cloud-crowned mountain, but the station was growing on her. The sunrises and sunsets from the top were as spectacular as those on her mountain. All the salt in the air did something strange with the refraction of light. Sometimes at dawn or twilight it seemed the whole sky was aglow as the salt snow itself became luminous. Acarnus did not appreciate it like she did, but he nevertheless sat with her up there every morning.

  The guys were playing cards in the shade of the tower. Acarnus and Derxis looked like children on either side of Rasmus as they sat before a table that Emmius had built from the turquoise sand. Since Emmius had made it, it held together like sandstone. They were all in their usual attire: Rasmus shirtless in coarse overalls, Acarnus in dark goggles and grey overcoat despite the heat, and Derxis in his resplendent priestly robes of rainbow-limned saffron. The cards must have been Derxis’s, for they were brightly patterned in shimmering colors, and the fools were matte black. The sight of Rasmus playing with normal-sized cards never failed to amuse Anthea.

  Rasmus laughed uproariously at some comment of Derxis’s as Anthea approached. The sound echoed through the reefs. “Rosma,” said Anthea while they were still out of earshot, “please do not attack Rasmus.”

  “Why should I not?”

  Because we don’t need another one of us dead. Because in the one-sided dispute between you, he is in the right. Because Derxis says that a continuation of your narrow-minded pursuit of a skewed ideal will doom us all. “Because you’re wounded,” she said.

  She accepted this, so Anthea took a chance and added, “Derxis as well.” She could guess where the pink had come from. Rosma made a noncommittal sound in response. That was fine; Derxis could take care of himself. In fact, it would not be terrible if someone took him down a notch for one of his pranks. Anthea had once lost half the length of her hair to one of his jokes.

  The players looked up from their game as Anthea and company approached. “Seven,” Acarnus observed.

  “I had thought Fiora would be with you, Rosma,” said Rasmus, clearly concerned. They were all worried about Fiora’s uncharacteristic silence, but only Rasmus was sworn to be her shield.

  Rosma’s presence generated an uncomfortable silence. Derxis motioned at an empty place at the round table. “Care to join, Rosma?” He had laid aside his mask for the game of cards. If he expected Rosma to attack him for his most recent prank, Anthea could not tell from his expression.

  Rosma declined the offer and elected to go investigate the nearby coral.

  “Seven,” Anthea agreed. “At least we know where Jeronimy is. Anyone care to give him a call?”

  There was a moment of silence. Acarnus volunteered at length with evident reluctance. “Just a moment,” he said. He gazed at nothing through his staring black goggles. Then he said, “Jeronimy. We are…” He paused. “Yes. I…yes. No, I am not going to say that. No. Very well; I will ask.” He turned to Emmius, who had wandered over aimlessly. “Jeronimy wishes to inquire about the state of your mental health.” For a brief moment, Jeronimy was loud enough in Acarnus’s earpiece that they all heard him shouting and could nearly discern his usual medley of insults and curses. Acarnus cringed at the noise; Derxis stifled a giggle. “He wishes to clarify that he is not concerned, but merely curious,” Acarnus added.

  “Um like okay I guess tell him thanks for asking. I mean I’m either good or I’m not so it’s like fifty-fifty, right?”

  Acarnus stared at Emmius for a moment before telling Jeronimy, “He is functional.”

  Nearby, Derxis collapsed, gasping for breath between soft guffaws.

  “Acarnus,” said Anthea, “tell him to get over here.”

  Acarnus relayed the instructions, waited for the response, and said “Jeronimy is suggesting that we all perish by a variety of creative means.” This puzzled Rasmus, exasperated Anthea, and caused Derxis to roll around with hilarity. After a pause, Acarnus said, “I am aware, Jeronimy, but I have no intention of repeating that.” A pause. “Then come and tell them yourself.”

  Acarnus sighed, looked up at Anthea. “Anything else? I fear Jeronimy is in no mood to…exist.”

  “Tell him that I appreciate his geniality and cooperation as always,” Anthea replied.

  Acarnus did so with a ghost of a smile. Everybody could hear Jeronimy raging when Acarnus severed the connection.

  Zayana approached, shot Derxis a concerned glance as the color priest regained control over himself and returned to the card game, and said, “That was Jeronimy?”

  “Can you guess what he had to say?” Anthea asked with an eyebrow arched at the princess.

  “Did it begin with ‘fuck,’” said Zayana, “and end with ‘you?’”

  “In more words, but yes,” said Acarnus. “I am sure you would rather not know the specifics.”

  “Typical,” said Zayana with a curious mixture of vexation and fondness. “But I have other news now that we’re all here. I just heard this morning, from the Majesty, that the shrike has been destroyed.”

  That stopped the game; Derxis froze in the middle of disrupting Rasmus’s straight. Everyone looked at Zayana in shock, except for Acarnus, who looked with mild interest. “Apparently it was overwhelmed by a great horde of voidbound,” she continued. “There is no more shrike.”

  “There is instead, I suppose,” said Acarnus, “a remarkably formidable horde of voidbound.”

  “It is the end of a great legend,” said Rasmus with a sigh. “One of many ends now approaching.”

  “It’s too bad,” said Derxis. “I was hoping the shrike might help against the Grim King.”

  “The shrike cannot be controlled,” said Anthea, though some kind of arranged confrontation between those two had also been a potential idea of hers for some time. “This means the voidbound are becoming a greater threat than I thought. We cannot be dismissive about the danger they pose.” They all nodded in agreement.

  “Understood,” said Acarnus. “I will improve my surveillance network.” Anthea gave him a smile.

  The three resumed their game while Emmius watched. Zayana pulled Anthea aside into the nearby shade. “We lost contact with Fiora right after Akkama died,” she said.

  Anthea nodded. “I know.”

  “And Rosma never saw a body.”

  “I know. She would have said.”

  “There’s a chance Akkama’s not dead.”

  Anthea looked closely at Zayana. The princess could not hide the hopefulness in her voice. “I’m not sure anymore if that’s a good thing,” Anthea said. “If she survived…”

  “I’ve been checking. I still don’t sense anyone nearby.”

  “Stay vigilant. The situation is still salvageable.”

  Another burst of Rasmus’s laughter drew their attention to the card game. Derxis sighed as he folded a hand. “Acarnus, could you not count the cards?”

  “My apologies,” Acarnus replied. “Would you also like me to play with my eyes closed?”

  “It would not hurt MY chances!” boomed Rasmus.

  They were betting fragments of shell and coral. While Rasmus had only a few bits to his name, Acarnus and Derxis sat behind small mountains. A mathematical genius versus an unbluffable mind reader. Then Emmius joined the game.

  “Poor Rasmus,” said Zayana so that only Anthea could hear. They shared a smile. “There’s a medkit in the station,” Zayana said. “I’ll take a look at Rosma.” She departed, gliding with practiced grace across the sands, her black and violet starred gown brushing the salt.

  The dynamic of the game changed drastically once Emmius joined. It became a new kind of game: three against one. Beat Emmius. Defy the odds. How much could they do, even working together, with a deck that stacked itself in Emmius’s favor every time? The genius, the mind-reader, the buffoon who barely understands how to play yet seems destined by the fates for victory. And then of course Rasmus, bigger than all of them put together and with a jovial thundering mirth to match.

  Anthea watched them fondly. She needed them. All of them. They needed each other. That was what the dragons had told her, what the winds had whispered to her.

  Zayana returned with the medkit and after some nagging convinced Rosma to let her take a look at the deep wound. Rosma would have allowed no one else present to do so. Anthea was curious about that wound, curious about how Rosma had killed Akkama. She hadn’t said.

  “Anthea!” Hearing one’s name declared by Rasmus was always a somewhat startling experience. It was like being singled out by the gods from the heavens. “Care to join us?”

  “We could play fiver split,” Derxis elaborated, “if you join.” Fiver split was a game in which luck had little to do with victory, a game where bold risks and cutthroat strategy showed the stars.

  She nodded and took a place at the round sandy table between Derxis and Emmius. Acarnus dealt each of them five cards facedown and three face up. They took their secret hands and selected which card to keep and which of the remaining four to give to each opponent. The game began.

  Anthea was an excellent card player. She alone could occasionally slip a bad hand past Derxis, and she knew how to play wildly enough to put Acarnus off guard. Staying a few steps ahead of Rasmus and Emmius was no trouble at all, provided she remembered that Emmius was likely to have the best possible cards, even if he scarcely knew what to do with them.

  She won the first game.

  Rasmus told an unsolicited tale of the ancient gods that was only tangentially related to card games. Derxis interrupted it by passing Rasmus a card that stuck to Rasmus’s fingers and would not come off by any means of flicking and waving. Rasmus became so flustered that he accidentally broke their table before he thought of removing the card by biting it. They all laughed; Derxis was rolling on the salt, holding his sides. Emmius remade the table by scooping the sand with his hands and somehow forcing it to adhere into rocklike solidity; Acarnus fussily gathered all the cards and tried to keep them roughly in place without any turning over so that he wouldn’t accidentally cheat by seeing them—for if he saw another player’s secret cards, he literally could not forget it, and he was incapable of continuing to play as though he did not know. Once the data was in that wonderful mind, it stuck there for good, and he could not help but factor it in.

  Anthea kept an eye on Zayana and Rosma. Those two sat together talking in the shade of a huge cylindrical coral. Rosma was holding a shell and explaining something about it to Zayana. Good.

  At some point in the second game, Emmius brought up the mother stone. She was of great interest to him, and it made Emmius feel special and proud that he could do something—talk to her—that none of them could.

  “She’s been talking more since you all came,” he said.

  Acarnus tapped his cards thoughtfully, selected one, gave it face-down to Derxis. “Is ‘talking’ a symbolic term,” he asked, “or is the rock actually intelligent?” He directed this question at Derxis.

  Derxis, who could not hide the fact that he was collecting the fools (he had four), took a look at Acarnus’s card and sighed sadly. “It’s like a mind,” he said, “but different. The way that your cooking, Acarnus, is like edible food.”

  “Could you touch it?” Anthea asked.

  Derxis took one of his face-up cards, the five of boxes, and flicked it over to Rasmus. “Maybe. But I don’t think it would be a good idea. It’s like Emmius keeps saying, I don’t think she’s very nice.”

  “I should think not!” exclaimed Rasmus. He selected a card and passed it to Anthea. As always, a little spark of static electricity shocked Anthea when she took it. “If it is a wardstone, then it is meant to repel an ancient and powerful evil.”

  Derxis frowned. “And yet…I can’t say it’s doing a good job. Why, just the other day, Acarnus tried to stew up some sky shrimp.” His arda pulsed; a soft mental touch pushed home the punch line. Acarnus’s cooking = ancient and powerful evil. Damn, he was good at that. Anthea had experienced Derxis’s minute comedic augmentation enough to recognize its influence, yet she still could not help but grin at the joke. She was not alone; everyone laughed. Even Acarnus almost smiled.

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  Rasmus laid down five lords prematurely. The rest of them, in an amusing collective overreaction, bombarded him with all their worthless dive cards, sinking his chances of victory far beyond any repair. Derxis and Rasmus laughed and laughed.

  Derxis took the second game, flying ahead of Acarnus in the final rounds.

  A slight breeze picked up and stirred the hot salty air of Prax. It reminded Anthea painfully of the constant, howling winds of her mountain. She missed those winds. So silent here. So still. The voice of the sky, muted.

  She chimed in response to the wind. Her crystalline wings glittered with light and rang gently; the wind swirled around her; it paused for her inhalation and swelled for her exhalation. The others at the table watched her as she played part of her Song—Rasmus pleased, Derxis expectant, Emmius spellbound, and Acarnus…

  Acarnus began to play along with her. His grey spines glimmered and hummed; his song joined hers. Swift and precise was his song, yet it joined seamlessly with her wild, flowing melody. Somehow it fit.

  Rasmus broke into a grin. He shrugged; his spines and his godshatter sparked and crackled with yellow energy, and his own strident music entered in. Strong, steady, and authoritative, a progression of notes that forced all else to harmonize around it, yet somehow it fit.

  Derxis next, his tune a wheeling chaos that scattered over the spectrum of pitch with wild unpredictability. Laughter made music. Somehow it fit.

  Then Emmius joined, his spiny ridges shining brown, the draconic tattoos seeming to come to life. His music was slow and placid, a bass foundation. And somehow, it fit.

  Zayana pulled Rosma close by, for this was something special, something that had not happened before. Zayana joined them, her arda sparkling violet. Her Song was ethereal, graceful, elegant. It danced within the music. Somehow it fit.

  Rosma watched, but did not join. She opened one of her water skins and doused herself with it.

  They required no instruments, though instruments would not have hurt. They could have danced, though perhaps that would have been easier had Fiora’s song joined theirs. Anthea knew all of their Songs. She even knew Jeronimy’s, though she had heard it but once. Her favorite Song, the one with whom her melody danced flawlessly, belonged to Acarnus. White and grey. Eagle and wolf. Somehow they were perfect, and the sensation thrilled her.

  Six, thought Anthea with what conscious portion of her mind wasn’t caught up in music. Not enough. But a start. Six in harmony, however briefly, however imperfectly. It was a tantalizing taste of something beyond, like the secret thrill of a dawn’s first light.

  Zayana brought it to an end, perhaps prematurely, though who could say?

  “Some…someone’s coming,” she said, striving with her emotions. Had she been keeping watch even in the midst of the song? Good girl.

  Anthea wiped tears from her eyes unashamed and stood swiftly to her feet. Time for the Anthea she needed to be. “Colors?” She used the voice, the one she thought of as the ‘dragon voice’ because it was how she imagined a dragon might sound if it actually spoke. The I-know-what-I’m-doing voice. The never-give-up voice. The everything-is-going-to-be-okay voice. The one that made her friends look at her like they were doing now: reassured, ready, unafraid. The voice that she desperately hoped was not a lie.

  Zayana closed her eyes, concentrated. “A green. Coming fast. Very fast.” A collective sensation of relief washed over all of them, even Anthea though she did not show it. “And there’s another,” said Zayana. “A brown. Coming slower. From the…” She opened her eyes and oriented herself. “The west.”

  “Anyone know who the brown might be?” Anthea asked. No one knew. “Then be on guard. Keep alert, Zayana. It could be a scout.” The princess nodded. “The rest of you, be ready. Just in case. Remember the shrike.” She wasn’t sure why she added that at the end. Remember the shrike? She must have meant it as a warning. Everyone had thought the shrike invulnerable, or nearly so.

  Derxis pulsed with a subtle light, and the phrase ‘remember the shrike’ suddenly held a grave significance. There it was, heavy in all of their minds: the folly of overconfidence. Even the shrike could perish. Derxis winked at Anthea.

  For her part, preparing meant getting her scythe. She didn’t go far from it these days. It leaned against a nearby cluster of hardened polyps next to her traveling pack and her carved sky-ivory hairbrush (a gift from Acarnus), and she was just picking it up when she was briefly shadowed by a vesta leaping overhead.

  Catch skidded to a halt, leaving four parallel streaks of blue-green on the salty ground. Fiora dropped from his back and jumped up and down in excitement as she looked around at all of them, clearly in throes of indecision about who to hug first.

  Rasmus settled it for her by approaching. Catch, as usual and for his own strange reasons (perhaps jealousy?), attempted to run Rasmus down, antlers lowered. Even Rasmus could not casually ignore a direct charge from a vesta, yet it was no great effort for him to step aside at the last moment, and by force heave the vesta off-course and away. He clearly had plenty of practice at this. Anthea had once seen this routine happen half a dozen times before Catch decided to give up, but today Catch must have been distracted, for his first attempt on the life of Rasmus was his only one. He investigated the rest of them one by one, plodding around and stopping for a moment to give them each a taste of his intense silvery gaze. He nodded at both Zayana and Anthea when he came to them.

  Fiora, meanwhile, had hopped up onto Rasmus’s shoulder and was proclaiming that she had important news. Anthea thought she already knew what it was, but she joined the others around Rasmus and Fiora.

  “Listen!” Fiora shouted, squeaking in excitement. “I am really sorry I have taken this long to meet everyone, I am, it is just that she took my comm band and then, and then, I was just so mad that we ran around for a while, and then by the time I got back home I found out that you all were—”

  “Fiora,” said Anthea. “The news.”

  She nodded. “Akkama is not dead!”

  Reactions varied. Rosma ground her sharp teeth and cursed. Rasmus and Acarnus looked relieved, but both Zayana and Derxis showed signs of apprehension. Good though the news undoubtedly was, they knew that this meant trouble brewing.

  “In what condition did you leave her, Fiora? And how long ago?” Anthea asked.

  “Um…I healed most of her wounds, but she was…she was…” Fiora’s eyes widened and tears formed there. “Um, I left her really tired, and really hungry, and really mad. That was two days ago.”

  “Why did she take your comm band?” Anthea asked.

  Fiora shrugged. “Hers was working!”

  “How did she survive?” growled Rosma.

  “That’s not important now,” said Anthea. What was important was reconciling those two somehow before something even worse happened. But first… “Zayana, what’s the status on that brown?”

  “Here soon,” she said, closing her eyes. “Half a mile out. Their pace has picked up. Riding something, I think.”

  Anthea considered for only a moment. She would have sent Jeronimy or Akkama to scout it out had either of them been present, for they were both well suited to such tasks. Instead, she said, “Be ready.” The tone of her voice said they should be ready to fight if necessary.

  For Derxis, this meant putting on his eerie wooden mask with its bulging, staring eyes. Emmius followed suit with that ridiculous dragon mask, though his combat ability was somewhat less than nil. Rasmus had nothing to do besides encourage Fiora to hop down. Acarnus always had his blades ready to go. Zayana took up her bow and stood beside Rosma to discourage her from doing something that would break open her wound.

  Anthea shouldered her scythe and positioned herself at the westmost point of their sandy clearing. She faced a long, low ridge of angular coral polyps encrusted with bright pink and blue lichen.

  The low, oscillating sound of a hovercraft reached her ears. A vehicle soon came into view. It crawled up the far side of the reef and then slid down toward Anthea. Sunlight glinted on the faded blue chassis of the scraped and dented land speeder. It carried a single rider, though it had room for several, and Anthea saw no active weapons systems.

  The driver, a tall female brown, pulled the speeder to a halt in front of Anthea. She dismounted gracefully, though her apprehension showed. She wore a plain brown shogunate-style kimono and her arda manifested as an array of broad feathery crystals that rose up from the back of her head and neck like a headdress. Peacock?

  “Who are you?” Anthea asked.

  “I…my name is Lex,” she said, her voice tremulous. “I’m here for…a color priest.”

  All eyes turned to Derxis—all save Anthea’s, which remained on Lex. The stranger was jumpy, and it was no act. Of course it wouldn’t be. Coming here to find a group of strangers, in these dangerous times? Unless Zayana was recognized as a princess of Meszria, Derxis was the only legitimate authority among them, not that ‘authority’ had much meaning these days.

  Derxis swaggered forward to stand by Anthea. “What do you require?” he asked, his voice quavering with barely contained giggles. No doubt this mystery excited him.

  “I need to speak with you,” she said. “Privately. Elsewhere.”

  Derxis turned his mask toward Anthea, seeking her approval.

  “Did you encounter any trouble on the way here?” Anthea asked. “Prax can be dangerous, as you no doubt know.”

  “No,” Lex replied. She gained confidence now that a color priest was present and apparently willing to help. “I was fortunate.”

  “And how,” asked Derxis, “did you know to find me here?”

  “The…” she swallowed. “The earth told me.”

  Anthea’s eyes narrowed. That had been a lie. She and Derxis shared a knowing glance. Still, Derxis wanted to help. And if he went with her, he would learn soon enough how she knew to find him here. He would likely be in little danger from her as well. But just in case…

  “Rasmus,” she said, shouting to be sure he heard, “Go with them. For protection.” The brown opened her mouth to protest but Anthea cut her off. “Prax can be dangerous.” She spoke in the voice that allowed no argument. Lex nodded in acquiescence.

  “Don’t worry,” Derxis whispered to Lex with a conspiratorial giggle. “He’s practically deaf!”

  Derxis and Rasmus followed Lex back to her speeder. “I expect a report every hour,” Anthea said as they boarded. Rasmus grunted in acknowledgement as he clambered aboard. His weight forced the hovercraft a foot closer to the sand.

  Lex took the controls, but paused before taking off. She looked around curiously. “Who’s been whispering this whole time? I can’t make out what they’re saying.”

  Anthea listened, but heard nothing.

  “Oh yeah that’s like the mother stone,” said Emmius from his seat in the sand nearby. “You gotta like get real close to really hear what she’s saying.”

  Lex only appeared confused. Derxis leaned close to her and whispered something. She nodded, turned the speeder, and slowly carted Derxis and Rasmus away for some privacy elsewhere.

  Fiora shouted at them as they departed: “Have a nice trip, Rasmus!”

  “Fool!” he returned as they drifted away. “My intention was never otherwise! HA HA HA!” Echoes of his laughter reverberated off the coral.

  “That was suspicious,” said Acarnus when the speeder had vanished around the side of the westward reef.

  Anthea nodded. Suspicious indeed, but of what? She couldn’t imagine the combination of Derxis and Rasmus coming to harm from a single daimon, and Zayana sensed no one else nearby. Come to think of it, the list of things that posed a threat to those two was short indeed. “I imagine,” she replied to Acarnus, still watching where the speeder had gone, “she had similar thoughts about us. Her most suspicious act was the trust she showed in appearing before us alone.”

  “Agreed,” said Acarnus. “Desperation, it seems. She was nervous.”

  “Can you find her in your databases?”

  “Already working on it,” he said. “But as you know, the data is incomplete.”

  Anthea surveyed the rest of them. Catch had vanished. Fiora and Zayana were fussing over Rosma, who tried not to show that she appreciated their concern. Emmius had decided to sit down in the sand and zone out, gazing vacantly at nothing. According to Acarnus, Emmius had smoked no crystals since they’d come to Prax. Yet he appeared curiously free of withdrawals.

  Anthea and Acarnus approached Rosma, who was firmly rebuffing Fiora’s attempt to heal her wound.

  “You shall not,” she said, batting away Fiora’s outstretched hand. Rosma had never allowed Fiora to try to heal her because of her belief that this would transfer her disease to Fiora. Since nobody knew anything about her disease, or her curse as she claimed it truly was, nobody could convincingly argue otherwise. Fiora, still tired from healing Akkama, did not protest strongly.

  “How are you?” Anthea squatted down nearby. With Derxis and Rasmus gone, Rosma might loosen up.

  “I shall live. The wound shall heal.”

  “What about your sickness? Is it worsening?”

  Rosma stiffened at the mention of her condition. Yet it was plain before them all: the blood seeping from the wound Akkama gave her was black as night. It looked very wrong against her beautiful azure scales. “It shall not matter,” Rosma said, averting her eyes.

  “It matters to me,” said Anthea. “Is it getting worse?”

  Rosma ground her sharp teeth. She nodded ever so slightly. “I fear my debt to thee shall go unpaid, Anthea,” she whispered. “A poor investment those years ago when thou risked thy life for mine.” Her eyes moved to her spear. The tooth at the end was a memento from that encounter.

  “You’re not just an ‘investment’ to me, Rosma,” Anthea replied. A dark, shameful corner of her mind muttered an addendum she’d never speak out loud: given your repeated efforts to kill my other friends, you’re better described as a liability.

  “Where’d Catch go?” asked Zayana.

  Fiora looked around and shrugged. “He was sad you didn’t bring…the unicorn.” She just barely avoided saying the name, which might have summoned Zsythristria at once.

  “She was busy,” said Zayana.

  Anthea stood and walked out into their little clearing, scanning. Surely there were things that needed doing. A watch was hardly necessary with Catch around, but…

  …

  …

  ?

  …

  Anthea stood, gripping the scythe, gripping it tightly, so tightly her fingers popped. She breathed, and the wind stirred with her breath, her arda shining. She thought: something is wrong.

  Something is wrong.

  She turned slowly, carefully, saw Rosma lying nearby. Rosma’s eyes were closed. Fool.

  (Fool? Why?)

  Fiora and Zayana had stepped aside, talking about unicorns. Acarnus was gazing at nothing, reading text inside his goggles. No one was paying attention. She could walk right up to Rosma. Good.

  (What? Why is that good?)

  She could walk right up to Rosma and kill her. A single

  (What?)

  swift strike, the blade of her scythe tearing

  (No!)

  out the throat.

  Anthea stepped forward.

  (No!)

  Another step.

  (she tries not to take another step; she does not even know how to stop herself)

  Another step.

  (she can’t stop herself)

  Another step. Almost there. Acarnus is looking at her, noticing that something seems off.

  (Acarnus, stop me!)

  Another step. Just one more. Acarnus is still watching, curious but not alarmed. Trusting.

  (please, Acarnus! Rosma, wake up!)

  Anoth—

  (no.)

  She stopped just shy of Rosma, just beyond the reach of the scythe. Her foot moved.

  (NO)

  It sets itself down. She is close enough. Acarnus is now concerned. But he’s too far away to stop her, as long as she does it quick—

  (no no no)

  She begins to raise the scythe from her shoulder.

  (please stop)

  Ever so slowly, she reaches to seize it with both hands.

  (I will not)

  She stops, holding the scythe almost high enough, almost in position,

  (I. Will. Not.)

  And she is ready for the swing

  (I WILL NOT)

  And she stalls, her body trembling, her muscles in tight knots. Acarnus begins coming toward her, now alert, now suspicious. Her muscles tense, ready to strike…