She felt the plants and the rocks, the wind and the heat. She felt the birds and the snakes and the scorpions . . . and the people. Six of them were by the grove of trees. All human.

Abruptly Liyana stuffed her soul back inside her body and released the excess magic. She was panting and dizzy from the effort of working a second magic so close on the heels of summoning water. Laying her forehead against the rocks, she caught her breath.

She had to help them! But how? Her magic wasn’t strong enough to do anything useful. Still clutching the cacti, Liyana listened as Pia’s song cut off.

Unable to wait any longer, she emerged and jogged toward the grove. She didn’t see anyone as she got closer. The camp was all still there—the fire pit with the still-smoldering embers, the packs with all their supplies, the hollowed-out cacti—but Pia and Raan were gone. The open tent flap billowed in the breeze. The sand around the tent was covered in footprints. From the way the sand was churned, Liyana guessed that one of them had fought. Maybe both. She didn’t see blood, and her chest loosened a little.

Please, let them be alive.

Dumping the cacti on the ground, Liyana ran toward the hill. She clambered up it. Staying low, she peeked over the ridge.

Down on the plain of golden grasses, she spotted them: four white-clad soldiers with the two desert girls. From this distance, they looked as tiny and fragile as dolls. She wished she could reach out and pluck them away to safety. What good is magic if you can’t save anyone? she thought. She should have stayed at the tent. Maybe she could have helped. Most likely she would have been caught too, but was being left behind truly better?

She watched them cross through the field toward the encampment. Pia had said that they wouldn’t be found unless the soldiers knew where to look. Korbyn and Fennik must have been caught.

Feeling sick, she sank back behind the hill and put her face in her hands. I failed them, Liyana thought. I failed everyone. All her companions were gone now, and she was alone, just as she had been all those weeks ago when her clan had walked away without her. She might as well have stayed in that oasis for all the good she had done.

Eventually Liyana returned to the tent. She crawled inside and curled into a ball. She thought of Jidali and her parents and Aunt Sabisa and Talu and all her cousins; of Runa, the magician of the Scorpion Clan; of Ilia of the Silk Clan; and of the Falcon Clan and their despair. She knew what that despair felt like now.

But she’d come so far! She’d crossed the desert. She’d survived two sandstorms. She’d caused a bush to bloom and water to fill cacti. She’d taught a god to dance. She could not simply declare defeat!

Forcing herself to sit up, Liyana pulled her pack closer. She searched through it until she found her ceremonial dress. She fingered the soft panels and let the fabric rub against her skin, which was worn from wind, sand, and sun. Quickly, before she could change her mind, she changed into the dress. She let the soft cloth fall around her like gentle rain. Using Pia’s brush, she combed her hair, braided it, and wound it onto her head. She tucked Jidali’s sky serpent knife into her sash, and she slung her waterskin over her shoulder.

Trickery had failed. Hiding hadn’t protected them. So she was going to try the direct approach. After all, what more did she have to lose?

Liyana crossed the last stretch of desert as the sun painted the west with splashes of rose and ocher. She climbed the hill without slowing. Her skirt swished around her legs. The dying sun prickled the back of her neck. She tried not to think about what was happening to Korbyn or to the others, or what had been done to Korbyn and Fennik to cause them to give up the location of their camp. She tried not to think how ill-conceived her plan was or how little chance it had to succeed. She stood on the crest of the hill and looked down at the empire’s army.

Her mouth felt dry. She licked her lips, and she took a sip of water. There were soldiers, white-clad specks between the tents. She saw guards on horseback riding back and forth on the perimeter. It would only be minutes before one of them spotted her, silhouetted against the dying sun. Legs trembling, she walked down toward the plain.

She strode into the tall, golden grasses. She let her arms sway by her sides, and she felt the tops of the dry grasses tickle her palms. This was the world beyond the desert. The air tasted the same, but she felt as if her whole body was screaming at her to turn and run.

She glanced behind her. Far away, above the sunset, she saw a sky serpent. He caught every color of the sunset in his glass-like scales. She wondered if these invaders saw how beautiful her desert was.

She had crossed halfway to the encampment before one of the soldiers thundered toward her. She stopped and waited for him. He had a bow aimed at her. “You trespass on the lands of the Crescent Empire!” he called.

“I am Liyana, the vessel of the goddess Bayla of the Goat Clan.” Liyana raised her arms so that her sleeves fell back to expose her tattoos. “I demand an audience with your emperor.”

Chapter Nineteen

The Emperor

The emperor pored over a stack of judgments. He couldn’t second-guess his judges, not without hearing the testimony for himself, but he needed them to know that he could overrule them if he chose. It was the best he could do at this distance from the palace.

Trust your people, his father had often said. An emperor isn’t one person; an emperor is all people, the embodiment of the empire. Rule with them, not over them.

He did trust them, at least most of them, on occasion and with supervision.

He added the flourish of his signature to a parchment, and then he massaged the back of his neck with one hand. Later, once they were within the desert, he wouldn’t have the leisure to attend to matters from the capital. He’d have to trust his people—just like they were trusting him now.

Suppressing a sigh, he picked up the next judgment, yet another petty land squabble. The number of cases had drastically increased due to the drought. Everyone was scrambling to hold as much land as possible, as if that would grant them security while their empire’s future shriveled around them.

“Your Imperial Majesty?”

The emperor raised his head. A soldier saluted him. He hadn’t knocked, a military habit that the emperor hadn’t tried to break. If a matter were important enough to bring to his attention, then it was important enough to skip the pleasantries.

“Our perimeter guards have apprehended a desert person,” the soldier said.

The emperor set down the judgments and straightened, aware he resembled a dog who had spotted a hare. The army often caught stray desert men near the border, but they rarely brought the matter to his attention. “And?”

“She demands an audience with you.”

“A bold demand,” the emperor commented.

“She was armed with only this.” The soldier laid a knife on the emperor’s desk. “A family heirloom, she claimed, and her gift to you.”

The emperor examined it. The blade was as clear as glass but felt harder than steel. He tested it on his desk, and it scored the wood as if the desk were sea foam, not the heart of an oak. He was certain that the blade was made from the scale of one of the glass sky serpents. His pulse raced, but he kept his voice as calm as a still lake. “Beautiful.” His scout had said that the serpent’s scales had cut like swords. The existence of this knife proved that the desert people had ways to defeat the sky serpents—yet another reason he needed them as part of his empire.

“She came to us in formal dress, unlike the other nomads we’ve encountered. She claims to be something called a ‘vessel,’ presumably a position of authority within her clan.”