Alone, she listened to Korbyn’s harsh and fast breathing.
She felt his forehead for signs of a fever. His skin was slippery with sweat. Don’t you die on me, she thought at him. Fingers shaking, she checked her stock of medicinal leaves. She’d used up half her supply already, and the remaining stash was a pathetic handful of dried weeds. She’d have to be more sparing in the future, if there was a future. Liyana banished that thought.
After a while, she ducked out of the tent to tend to the last horse. She was a roan mare, though it was difficult to tell beneath the salt, dried blood, and pus. Liyana remembered that Fennik had named her Plum after her fondness for date plums. Gently Liyana peeled back the bandages Fennik had applied to check on the wounds. Most seemed clean, and none oozed. She secured the bandages again. Plum was in better shape than Korbyn. Patting the horse’s neck, Liyana looked out across the salt flats. She saw no one and nothing. All was still.
Carefully she offered the horse a few sips of water. She drained the dish gratefully and whinnied for more. Liyana poured her a handful of horse-meal pellets instead.
Returning to the tent, she checked her own wounds, and then lay down beside Korbyn. She closed her eyes but her muscles stayed tense, waiting to feel the earth shake again. Eventually she slept.
She woke to the sound of a horse whickering. Poking her head out the tent flap, she asked, “Plum, what is it?” In the distance, she spotted a cloud of salt dust. In its center was a horse, walking toward them. “Fennik!” She waved. But as the horse drew closer, she saw it wasn’t the same horse—this horse was black and white, and it had no rider. Korbyn had named this horse Windfire.
The horse swayed as she walked, but she didn’t slow. She trudged toward them step by painful step. After nearly an hour, Windfire reached them, and her legs folded underneath her. Plum nuzzled the other mare’s neck.
“Good to see you,” Liyana said as she lifted off the saddle and the supply packs. She poured the horse-meal pellets and (very carefully) a small amount of water, and then she examined Windfire’s wounds. She saw only superficial cuts, which had ceased bleeding and dried in the hot air. The horse should recover—assuming we don’t all die, Liyana thought.
She spent the rest of the day alternating between Korbyn and the horses. She tried not to think about how little water remained or to count the hours since Fennik had left. She listened to Korbyn’s shallow breathing, and she tried not to think at all. As night fell, Liyana remained outside the tent with the horses and watched the stars spread across the sky. She located the goat constellation (Bayla’s stars) above the forbidden mountains and then the raven constellation near the eastern horizon.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?” a voice said behind her.
She twisted around to see Korbyn emerge from the tent. He plopped down beside her and proceeded to strip off his bandages. The skin underneath was healed. Liyana touched the smooth skin, and then all of a sudden her cheeks were wet.
Kneeling, he cupped her face in his hands and caught her tears in his palms. “Don’t bring back our writhing friends,” he said gently.
She stared into his eyes and gulped hard once, twice, until she no longer felt as if she were splintering. He was alive! Her skin shivered where he touched it. “Whatever you did worked,” she said evenly. “They left.”
“I summoned water elsewhere.” He studied her. “Let me fix you.”
She wanted to object—he’d only just recovered—but before she could frame a reply, he’d rolled up her sleeves. Concentrating, he focused on her. In a few minutes, the bite sealed shut. He repeated this for the other bite marks. Everywhere he touched tingled, and it took all her strength not to scream, You’re alive! She told herself that it was relief on behalf of her goddess. When he finished, she touched her healed skin and then his. His skin felt warm and smooth, and her fingers lingered.
He was watching her fingers. “Surface wounds are simpler than a knife through internal organs.” His voice sounded rough, and she met his eyes. They stared at each other in silence for a moment. He then looked away. “What happened to the other horses? I only see two sets of bones.”
The worms had stripped the two fallen horses bare. Poor Misery, Liyana thought. “They ran off. Only this one, Windfire, has returned so far.” She was pleased that her voice sounded normal. Her ribs felt tight, as if they’d been knit closely together, squeezing her lungs.
“I’ll call them to us,” he said. He dropped into another trance. Liyana watched him silently. He was so perfectly beautiful. She breathed with him, evenly and deeply, and she wished she dared reach over and touch him again—just to reassure herself that he was alive. After a few minutes, he broke the trance and reported, “Only located three. One is in bad shape but close. Two others are on their way.” His voice light, Korbyn asked, “And where is our favorite warrior boy? Out searching for the horses?”
Liyana scanned the starlit flats. The moon bathed the white earth in a soft blue. She thought she saw shadows stir. “He took the healthiest horse and rode for help.”
She heard Korbyn’s breath catch in his throat.
“We didn’t know when you’d wake,” Liyana explained, “and we don’t have much water left. It was the sensible option.”
Korbyn shot toward the tent and quickly began to collapse it. “We need to catch him,” he said. “You pack. I’ll heal the horses.”
She began to pack up their camp. “Why do we need to catch him? What’s wrong?”
Laying his hands on Windfire, he focused on the horse’s wounds. As he worked and as she packed, she heard the clip-clop of hooves on the hardened salt. One by one, the other three horses trotted and limped to them, and one by one, he healed them.
When he finished, he lay down in the sand. She let him rest, either unconscious or asleep. Only a few minutes later, he opened his eyes and lurched to his feet. “Ready?”
Liyana reached toward him to steady him, but he turned toward Windfire and checked the saddle. “You need more rest,” she said. “Why can’t we wait until dawn?”
“The Silk Clan . . . does not like strangers.” He mounted Windfire, and she climbed onto another horse. She stroked her mare’s neck as the horse protested. Korbyn held the lead ropes of the other horses.
With the stars above, they rode over the salt flats.
Chapter Twelve
Flute music, carried by the hot breezes that swept over the cracked land, drifted across the salt flats. Riding on Gray Luck—a gray mare she’d renamed because she had lived despite a worm bite inches from her jugular—Liyana listened to the plaintive melody. It was echoed by a second flute and then a third. The notes swooped and soared as they spiraled up toward the stars.
“Beautiful,” Liyana said.
Korbyn didn’t respond. Instead he coaxed Windfire into a trot. Salt dust rose in a cloud under the hooves of Korbyn’s horse. The other three horses plodded after him.
“What do we do if Fennik is in trouble?” Liyana called after him.
“Try to get him out of it.”
She glared at his back. “Your plan seems vague.”
He shrugged as if unconcerned.
“You could have warned us that the Silk Clan is dangerous,” she said. “You seem to think you’re doing this alone. You’re not.”
“I noticed that.” He waved his hand at her and the injured horses as if she were also a wounded animal that he had to shepherd across the desert.
Her voice low so that only Gray Luck could hear, she muttered, “I didn’t realize pigheadedness was a raven trait.” Following in the cloud of salt dust, she trailed him to the Silk Clan’s camp.
Clustered on the border of the salt flats, each tent was swathed in white cloth that reflected the light of the stars, the moon, and the torches until it seemed to glow. Beyond them, far in the distance, were the black silhouettes of the stone hills, cutting into the starscape.
Drums had joined the flute music. The soft rhythm rolled beneath the interwoven
melodies. And then the voice started: a crystal clear voice that soared above the flutes and drums. A wordless melody, it was sweeter and clearer than any birdcall.
“She’s the vessel,” Korbyn said.
“How do you know?” Liyana asked.
“Oyri always chooses a vessel who can sing,” he said.
Liyana listened as the singer’s voice cascaded over several octaves. She thought of water running from a cup. Her voice was as beautiful as water. Liyana felt the notes seep into her skin, and she swayed in the saddle to the music. Her feet itched to dance to the drumbeat.
Ahead, the camp was still. No one came forward to intercept them. The outer circle of tents looked empty, as if they were waiting like shadows on the cusp of dawn, expectant and motionless. She thought that everyone must be with the musicians, obscured from view in the center of camp.
“Someday I’d like to see you dance.” His voice was so soft that she nearly missed his words. She wondered if he meant her or Bayla in her body. She felt herself shiver, and she told herself she merely felt the night wind worm through her clothes.
For an instant, she imagined dancing for him, feeling his eyes on her. . . . He must mean Bayla, she thought. She changed the subject, keeping her voice as light as she could, as if she were merely curious. “Did Bayla choose me because I can dance?”
“Are you asking ‘why me?’ If so, I cannot answer that for Bayla.”
“So how did you choose your vessel?” She tried to imagine another’s soul looking out of his eyes, and she couldn’t. Those eyes were Korbyn’s.
His face was in shadows, but she thought she saw a flash of sadness. He didn’t answer her question. “I do know you are not merely a dancer, Liyana. Only a few per generation can be vessels— and many of them become magicians instead.” He lowered his voice. They had reached the tents. Still no one approached them, and the music swelled louder. “Only someone whose soul came from the Dreaming instead of being born within his or her body can be a vessel or become a magician.”
“I have a reincarnated soul?”
“You do.”
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
Before Liyana could ask more, an elderly woman shuffled toward them. She held a torch in one hand, and the orange glow encircled her. Black soot stained the deep blue sky. Her skin was as dark as smudged charcoal, and in contrast, the whites of her eyes seemed to blaze in the torchlight. Wrinkles creased her face, swallowing her features, so that her cheeks resembled the inside of a fist.
Quietly to Liyana, Korbyn said, “I swear I will be more careful than I was with Sendar’s people. Even after burning my hand, I forgot there is true danger here. But I will not forget again, and I will not permit you to be harmed.”
Her breath caught in her throat at the vehemence in his voice, and she reminded herself that he had to preserve her for Bayla’s sake. Like the dancing, this wasn’t about Liyana.
Korbyn halted and dismounted. Holding the reins, he genuflected before the old woman. “We come with peace in our minds and song in our hearts.” Quickly Liyana dismounted and knelt beside him. She wondered if she should repeat his words as well. She opted for silence.
“I am Ilia, First Magician of the Silk Clan.” The woman closed her hand into a fist and thumped her chest with such force that she staggered back a step.
Korbyn continued to kneel. “It is said that Oyri of the Silk Clan once tamed one of the great salt worms to create the finest silk threads just for her. It lived beneath her feet wherever she walked, and when she wished to weave, it would spew threads from the earth in such quantities that it created new hills.”
“It is said, yes,” Ilia agreed.
“But do you know how Oyri tamed the great salt worm? She asked her friend the raven to create a river of water far beneath the ground that would follow her wherever she walked, leading the great salt worm to her.”
“We do not know this tale.”
“I am the raven,” Korbyn said.
“You claim friendship with Oyri?”
He bowed over his knee. “I am so honored.”
Ilia raised her arm. Her hand trembled, and the loose flesh on her arm shook. Then it stilled as her fingers splayed open—a clear signal. Suddenly and silently a dozen warriors stepped out from between the tents. Bows and spears were trained on Liyana and Korbyn. Liyana didn’t dare breathe. Her muscles felt locked in place. Korbyn’s pretty promise of safety would evaporate if they were both riddled with arrows. The magician Ilia lowered her hand, and the warriors lowered their bows and spears in perfect synchronization.
Retreating, the warriors disappeared into the shadows between the tents. Liyana felt prickles run up and down her spine. She knew the warriors were still there. “Fennik?” she whispered.
Korbyn shook his head nearly imperceptibly—either to say he didn’t know or not to ask. Or he could have meant that he suspected the worst. Fennik could have met these same guards and not fared as well.
“You may leave your horses here,” Ilia said. “My boys will tend to them.” She snapped her fingers, and two young men appeared from nearby tents. They scurried to the horses and unsaddled and brushed them.
“We thank you for your kindness,” Korbyn said. He bowed again.
Watching strangers curry the horses, Liyana wound her fingers in Gray Luck’s mane. The horse raised her head from the trough and nipped her shoulder with soft, wet lips. Liyana patted the horse’s neck and wondered if she would ever see the animals or gear again. She wondered if Fennik’s horse was here, hidden within other shadows. She saw hoof marks in the sand, but she lacked a tracker’s skill to distinguish them.
“Come,” Ilia said.
The old magician did not wait to see if her guests followed. Briskly she hobbled deeper into the heart of the camp. Korbyn trailed her. As they turned a corner, the torchlight stretched their shadows on the tent walls around them. Reluctantly leaving Gray Luck and the other horses, Liyana hurried after the god and the magician.
As they neared the center of camp, the music crescendoed. Other voices had joined in, but the soloist’s soared above them. She trilled impossible notes like some glorious bird.
“Oyri will be pleased with her,” Korbyn said.
“She is the finest singer we have had for generations,” Ilia said. “Even the winds quiet to listen to her.”
“May I ask for what she sings?”
“Judgment,” Ilia said.
The magician led them to an open circle. In the center, tied to a stake, was Fennik. He was shirtless, and his arms were bound behind him and twisted so that his tattoos were exposed to the starry sky. He was on his bare knees on the hard, salt ground. A silver dish lay below him. Sweat dripped from his face to his chin and then fell onto the dish with a ping. Gagged, he could not speak when his saw them, but his eyes widened and he strained against his bindings.
Around the stake were the drummers and other singers. Opposite them, in a throne draped with white silk, sat the soloist. She had straight, white hair, the same color as the salt, but her face was as soft as a child’s. She was tiny and thin, half the size of Ilia, and she looked fragile perched on the large throne. She didn’t look at Liyana and Korbyn. Others did, faltering in their drumbeats and losing their melodies as they stared. Soon only the soloist sang.
“May I ask what his crime is?” Korbyn sounded casual.
At his voice, the singing ceased.
The girl, the vessel, tilted her head toward Korbyn and Liyana. Liyana saw that her eyes were covered in a white haze, and she did not focus on anyone’s face. She seemed to stare at the air between the tents and the stars. “He came to us with no talk of friendship and no words of peace. He demanded obedience to his will,” the girl said. Her speaking voice was as beautiful as her singing voice. The words fell as if in a melody. “But ignorance alone would not condemn him. This man . . . this boy . . . this vessel abandoned his clan! Do you claim knowledge of this traitor?”
Ilia spoke
. “This stranger claims to be the raven, the god Korbyn. His companion is yet unnamed.”
“He is not alone?” the girl asked. “Speak, companion, so I may know you.”
All eyes turned to Liyana, except for the girl’s. She continued to focus on nothing. Shrinking back, Liyana looked at Korbyn for help. His face was unreadable. “I am Liyana, vessel of the Goat Clan.” She heard murmurs around her. She added, “But I did not abandon my clan, and neither did Fennik!”
“A person who would abandon her people surely would not hesitate to lie to save herself.” Unwinding herself from the silk on her throne, the girl rose. Instantly two men flanked her side. Cupping her elbows with their hands, they guided her across the circle, past Fennik, and stopped in front of Liyana and Korbyn. Her milky eyes still did not fix on them. She’s blind, Liyana thought. She had never heard of a blind vessel. “You, trickster god, know all about lies. What lies did you tell these vessels to convince them to leave their clans?”
“Shockingly, none,” Korbyn said. He sounded vaguely surprised at himself.
She drew herself tall, her petite frame stiffening. “I am Pia, vessel to Oyri. Are you here to tell me your lies?” The power in her voice sent her words soaring across the camp.
Liyana noticed that the warriors had surrounded them again. Several had raised their bows. “My clan left me,” she said. “Bayla didn’t come. We do not lie!” She inched closer to Korbyn until her arm brushed against his. His hand found hers. She wondered if he was reassuring her or himself. His face remained calm.
“Five deities have been captured and imprisoned in false vessels,” Korbyn said. “We need five vessels to save them: Goat, Horse, Silk, Scorpion, and Falcon. We seek your help in the rescue of your goddess.”
“We do not believe my goddess needs rescuing,” Pia said. “She is Oyri. She is our strength and our light and our song.” She spread her arms wide and sang the final words.
Liyana heard Korbyn sigh. “For the first time in my existence, I tell the truth, and I am greeted with lack of belief. This is the universe laughing at me.”