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"Because I cannot teach you the true dance. The true dance must be found. It is what the Shimat want to see."

She takes two of the cords and ties them around our waists, and joins us together with the third. It's knotted to us in a way where it can slide freely around our waists, but there's only a couple feet of slack. I don't like where this is going.

"They will whisper it into your ears. You will need to learn how to listen."

"What's this for?" Airos asks, tugging the cord. It jerks me toward him, and I give it an irritated yank in the other direction.

She intertwines all her fingers and clasps her hands tightly together. "For most, this is what takes months. Moving together. You will have to go beyond yourselves tonight. Break through."

Then, as if she hasn't just given us the most nonsensical set of instructions of all time, she turns around and starts to walk away.

"Wait, where are you going?" Airos says.

"I have nothing else I can offer you," she says. "This is your trial."

"But how will we even know if we've figured it out?" I shout.

"You will know. Or the Shimat will come, and it will not matter."

We're alone now.

"This is the worst dance competition ever," I mutter. "What a fucking mess we've gotten ourselves into."

I try to sit down, completely forgetting about the damn rope tied around our waists, and nearly drag Airos down on top of me. Then, when I get back up,hesits down. “What are you—Dammit!" I stumble and fall right into his lap, but quickly fling myself off and onto my back on the sand.

Airos frowns off into space. A length of his sweat-darkened hair hangs over his eye like a curtain.

"We can't just leave these people to their fate, nor can we abandon ours," he says. "But what's before us is an impossible task."

"Well, maybe my fate is to help these people," I say. "What would we be if we just walked away? If we left Azin and Onar out there?"

He shakes his head. "And the others waiting for us? The whole realm? You're a Chosen omega, Jackson."

I sit up. "If we run away from this, it's gonna chase us. We'll never be able to forget what happened here. I think you know that."

I can feel that Airos already has ghosts chasing him. I've seen them in my dreams and memories that somehow have trespassed into my brain. The island. A village. A frightened child.

Al'Phaer.

I feel that these fragments come from him, but I'm afraid to ask him. I'm afraid of being right, and I'm afraid of what it would mean. What hasheseen?

"You're right," he says. "We have to try. So, what do we do, then?"

I can't help but smirk. The answer sounds ridiculous coming out of my mouth. "I guess we have to fucking dance."

13

AIROS

The rope appears to be cursed with an impudent desire to immediately knot itself around any available limb or pull taut at precisely the wrong moment in our attempts to practice the dance in some kind of unison. I'm trying to stay conscious of Jackson, to make sure he doesn't fall in a way that might harm the child, but that's exactly when I find myself wrapped up like a python's prey.

"You step this way, I step that way," Jackson says angrily.

"That's exactly what I did!"

"Bullshit!"

"Watch me," I bark, pointing at the ground.