He fingered the sky serpent knife on his desk. She ached to take it back, take back her link with her family. “Tell me why you are truly here,” the emperor said.

She thought of Bayla and the Goat Clan, of Pia and Fennik and their deities and clans . . . and especially of Korbyn. “The empire has never shown an interest in our desert before. Tell me why you are here.”

His eyes widened, the first crack in his perfect, sculpted face. He placed the knife down, folded his hands, and leaned back as if to contemplate her from a distance. “You do realize that you are addressing the emperor of the Crescent Empire.”

“And you are addressing a free woman of the desert. You are not my emperor. Therefore I am your equal.” She felt like a rabbit blustering before a wolf. Everything about this man, or boy, radiated power. He sat at a wooden desk, a luxury that Liyana had never seen. It looked as if it weighed as much as a horse. Behind him were wooden shelves graced by glass sculptures. Each sculpture was a masterwork of perfect details: a fox with fur tufts on his ears, a falcon with outstretched wings, a cat poised midhunt. . . . Each one was more beautiful than the next. Only an emperor could have such impractical extravagance around him. She waited for his response, expecting to be savaged like a rabbit by a wolf.

“Very well then,” he said. “I should consider you a visiting dignitary?”

Liyana’s knees felt weak with relief, but she locked them and held herself straight and strong. “Use whatever terminology you wish.”

“Hostile visiting dignitary?”

“Cautious visiting dignitary,” Liyana said. “I am not here as an enemy, unless that is what you are.” She took a deep breath and asked, “Are you?”

To her shock, the emperor smiled. It transformed him from a stone sculpture into a flesh-and-blood human being. She was stunned for a moment by how handsome he was, the perfect beauty of his face. “You are refreshingly blunt,” he said.

“My mother would agree with you on that.”

“I do not wish to be your enemy or the enemy of your people. Indeed the empire has much to offer your people. And I believe you have much to offer us.” He twirled Jidali’s sky serpent knife between his fingers. She watched the glass-like blade catch the candlelight. “Mulaf, as always, your timing is impeccable.”

Liyana turned to see a man with a thick beard and sunken eyes enter the tent accompanied by a trio of guards. The man wore the robes of a desert clansman, though she didn’t recognize the patterns embroidered on the blue silk panels. He bowed to the emperor while his eyes swept over Liyana. She took a step backward. His gaze felt like a lick of fire.

“She is Liyana, the vessel of Bayla of the Goat Clan,” the emperor said. “This is Mulaf, chief magician to the Crescent Empire. Mulaf, this woman is a visiting dignitary and my personal guest. Show her to a tent and then return to me. We have much to discuss.”

In contrast to the expressionless emperor, Mulaf was awash with emotions. His face twisted and stretched. His eyes narrowed then widened. At last he said, “I would be honored to escort her, Your Imperial Majesty. Please, accompany me.”

The trio of guards closed around her, and she was swept out of the tent flap without any chance to protest. Outside, other soldiers sealed into a line, effectively blocking her return. She looked back at the golden tent. She hadn’t asked about Pia and Raan, or Korbyn and Fennik, for fear that would endanger them further. Had that been a mistake? She ran through her mind what she’d said. Had she chosen the right words? Had she done any good at all? He’d seemed . . . interested in what she had to say. He’d listened to her stories. She wasn’t certain a clan chief would have done as much, and he was the emperor of a vast land. He had even let her speak with him alone, though she didn’t doubt that the guards had lurked mere inches beyond the tarp. But if she had expected a miracle . . . He wasn’t about to withdraw his army, and she had not found the stolen deities.

Now what? She hadn’t planned beyond speaking with the emperor.

With the guards, Mulaf escorted Liyana through the encampment. She noticed that all the tents were identical—green, triangular, and plain. There were no names or stories woven into the tarps. She saw no smoke from cooking fires within. All the fires were outside and tended by soldiers. She saw no children.

Liyana had expected the emperor’s people to look different from the sun-worn desert people, but she hadn’t expected them to be so different from one another. One had a narrow, pale face with a nose as pointed as an arrow. Another was dark skinned and wore a full beard. A third sported tattooed dots over his cheeks. All of them, though, bore the serious look of men and women with weapons. All of them, also, looked too thin. She saw pinched cheeks, bony shoulder blades, and uniforms that hung loosely on gaunt bodies. Everyone had a task, whether it was repairing a boot or fixing a meal or patrolling between the tents, but everyone paused to watch her pass—or perhaps they watched Mulaf.

She studied him as he shepherded her through the encampment. His beard was riddled with white, but he moved like a jackrabbit with a startled leap to his step. His eyes darted fast in all directions. She noticed he didn’t greet anyone, and no one greeted him.

“I didn’t know the empire had magicians,” Liyana said.

His smile was tight-lipped. “I have been blessed with good fortune.”

He led her to a nondescript tent, and the guards positioned themselves on either side of the tent flap. Mulaf ushered her inside. Inside, the furnishings were minimal. A few unhandsome blankets had been tossed around the floor as rugs. A cot with a thin pillow was set up on one side. A washbasin stood on a stand in a corner next to a pot. It all smelled faintly of urine. She wondered if she was a prisoner.

He dropped to sit cross-legged on one of the blankets. “Come. Sit. I apologize for not offering you tea.” He smiled broadly at her in what she was certain he meant to be a reassuring manner, and he patted the blanket next to him.

Liyana lowered herself onto a blanket several yards away from Mulaf. She wished she had her sky serpent knife.

“Tell me, my dear child . . . Liyana, is it? How did you escape your clan?” he asked. His eyes were as bright as a desert rat’s, and he leaned forward eagerly.

She stuck to the truth, or at least part of it. “My goddess didn’t come, so my clan exiled me.”

He clucked his tongue. “What a shock that must have been.”

“Yes, it was.”

He bounced to his feet and paced in a circle around her. “Bayla of the Goat Clan did not come. What a pity. What a tragedy.” Without warning he dropped to a squat in front of her. There was something about him that made her think of a bird fluttering with a broken wing. Instinctively she pulled her knees toward her chest and shrank away. “You are a lucky girl, you know.” He reached out and stroked her cheek with a fingernail. “You have an opportunity that no other vessel has ever had. You can make your own life in the empire. You can change your fate!”

She wanted to bolt out of the tent. The tarp walls felt as if they were pressing inward. She inched backward, away from Mulaf. “When did you escape your clan?”

He laughed like a hyena. “Years ago, my dear. Would you believe that I am over one hundred years old? I am from the Cat Clan. I was once their magician.” Popping to his feet, he paced again.

She’d heard of the Cat Clan. One hundred years ago, the clan had become extinct. An abnormal number of disasters had befallen them, one after another. They had been hunted by sand wolves, attacked by sky serpents, caught in quicksand. Stories about the Cat Clan were whispered late at night when the camp’s fire burned high enough to stroke the stars. If he were truly from the Cat Clan, then it was no wonder he saw the empire as a sanctuary. “It must be difficult for you to live with people who aren’t the turtle’s children.” She tried for a note of polite sympathy while she calculated the distance to the tent flap—she could reach it in three strides.