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He presses his thumb against my mouth. “No.”

I pull back. “Denying it doesn’t make it go away, Azmar.”

His deep gold gaze scans mine. Several seconds pass. “Then I’ll leave with you.”

“No!” The admonition rings off the walls. I swallow again. “No.Everythingis here. All your sacrifices, your education, your friends, your sister—”

“Calia Thellele.” I’ve never heard my given name on his lips, and it shocks me to stillness. His voice is firm, his gaze unyielding. “All my life I’ve wanted change. I wanted some sort of progression in a citycenturies-set in its patterns. I wanted something different. Somethingexciting. You appeared from the dearth, and you were all of those things. I will miss Unach, yes. I will miss her dearly. But I knew what I was doing when I gave you this.”

He pulls from his pocket his bloodstone, fastened to the end of a thin chain. I gasp. When did he take it from Unach? Did shegiveit to him, after all she said about me? Azmar lifts the chain over my head, settling the bloodstone over my heart. And suddenly I’m whole again, all my forgotten and missing pieces fitted back into place.

I fall into Azmar, kissing him, almost knocking him over. I kiss him until I’m breathless, until our tears mingle and lips swell. Forehead to forehead, I whisper, “I’ll miss Unach, too.”

His arm winds around my waist and holds me close. I’ve become so unaccustomed to happiness that it hurts.

“She’ll hate me for this,” I mutter into his hair.

“She’ll forgive you,” he promises, tugging on his bloodstone. “She always forgives, in time.”

We follow the canyon, walking largely during evening and night. This time of year, the relentless sun blisters even the thickest of skin. Azmar has a hammock he can nail into the lip of the canyon when we can’t find cover to camp under. I’m convinced that a soldier or scout will spy us, or that a monster will brave the surface, but the journey is uneventful. For now, the battles are over. For now, I am at peace under the stars, with the first of the family a Cosmodian once promised me.

Two hundred miles north of the Empyrean Bridge, the canyon narrows and juts eastward, stretching to join the line of mountains that guard the northern border of Mavaea. I’ve never traveled as far as the mountains. My father’s map listed no townships farther north than Ungo. But north we go, foraging in the mornings, resting in the afternoons, murmuring stories in the evenings, making love in the depthsof night. I think of Azmar’s confession, of his desire for change, and wonder how tedious he finds our travel. But he never once complains, even when our food stores run low.

On the eighteenth day, we find something unexpected in the early morning hours. Something we might have missed, had we passed it at night. A trail through the sagebrush, narrow, packed, and winding. Forking away from the canyon where the crag snakes lurk, toward the shelter of the mountains. I feel in my gut that this is it, the path to Tayler’s home. A place that might accept me and Azmar. A place of hope.

We’ve only walked a quarter mile down the trail when I remark on the dimness of the day, as though the sun hesitates to rise. Azmar’s footsteps stop. I turn to see what the matter is. His head is tilted up, watching the sky.

“Lark, look.”

I look and see the most peculiar thing. A large, dark cloud creeps across the sky, smothering the sun and cooling the breeze.

A drop of rain strikes my cheek.