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E SME KEPT A firm hold on her brother’s hand—though her grip was less about keeping him close and more about not getting lost. Arryn had led her far underground. Each passageway tunneled deeper, crisscrossing others, forming a confounding, sinuous labyrinth.

Even Crikit, who clattered behind them, danced in occasional circles as if trying to get his bearings.

“How huge is this place?” she finally asked. “It’s more like a buried maze than a village.”

“True,” he admitted. “By my reckoning, Tosgon is about a half league across and nearly as deep.”

“That large?” Esme tripped a step in shock, then collected herself. She decided it was time to challenge him with a more important question, one he had avoided until now. “Arryn, tell me. How did you come to be here? Why didn’t you ever return?”

She felt him pull away, but she squeezed his hand harder.

“Answer me,” she pressed him, refusing to let this go.

He finally sighed, his shoulders sagging. “I don’t like to talk about it.”

Clearly.

“It’s a grim tale that weighs on my heart even now.” He turned his gaze aside, as if in shame. “When I left four years ago, I had no intention of being gone for so long. You must know that.”

“I do—but go on. After the slavers attacked our clan, you left for the deep desert. With a small clutch of the god-bound, including your mentor, Aeldryn Tann. You all sought guidance that could only be found in the deepest sands. But none of you returned. Did any of the others survive? Are they here, too?”

Her brother’s shoulders sagged deeper, bowing his back. “They are not. Though, as far as I know, they might still be alive.”

“What do you mean?”

Arryn gave a small shake of his head, as if refusing to return to that time, but he did. “During our sojourn, we traveled west into the desert for six months. Aeldryn Tann believed any answers to the fate of our clan could only be found at the farthest reaches of the Chanaryn lands. But eventually, our water ran low. We grew plagued by mirages and phantasms. Still, Tann urged us onward. As sunblinded as he was, I should have forced him back. But Tann said he heard a golden song whispering to him from the deeper desert. It called to him, demanding he continue this holy journey.”

Esme wondered if the shaman’s blindness, coupled with a trace of bridle-song, had allowed him to perceive an inkling of what lay beyond the farthest reaches of the Chanaryn territory.

Is that what called to him?

Arryn continued, “Then we stumbled upon a deep wellspring that allowed us to replenish our water. Tann took this as a sign, but now I fear it was only luck—which in this case, proved to be neey augurani. ”

She winced.

Bad luck.

“We traveled another two months,” Arryn said dourly. “Then as our water started to dry out again, we came upon a small party of Chanr? hunters. They saved us and led us back to these lands.”

Her brother’s breath grew harsher. “But we weren’t saved. As we slept in a small cave at the base of a high cliff, strange noises woke me. It sounded like rocks hitting the sand. Fearing a collapse, I rushed outside and found the desert studded with glowing bronze statues. Another landed out of the sky, striking the ground hard.”

“The t?wee, ” she murmured, using the Chanr? word for ta’wyn.

“I didn’t know if they were gods or daemons. Still, I fled in terror, hiding in a cluster of boulders. The t?wee stormed into the cave. I heard screams, shouts, cries of agony.”

Arryn turned to her with glazed eyes. “Still, I… I stayed hidden.”

Esme reached to her brother’s arm, but he pulled away.

“The others were dragged out, too bloodied to resist. Then… Then they pulled Aeldryn Tann into view. In his blindness, he struggled to understand, beseeching with prayers. One of the t?wee leaned closer, as if listening, but I suspect it was only to examine the shaman’s cloudy eyes. A moment later, the old man was lifted to his feet by his throat. With fiery strength, the t?wee ripped Tann’s head from his shoulders and tossed his body aside.”

Arryn staggered a step at this horrific memory.

Esme could guess what had motivated that heartless act. The ta’wyn needed laborers. The shaman had been judged to be too old, too enfeebled, and of no use to leave behind as breeding stock. So they had callously removed this burden from the desert.

“They took everyone else.” Arryn turned and gripped Esme’s arm. “And I stayed hidden.”

The agony of that choice plagued him.

“There was nothing you could have done,” she said softly.

“Better I had died trying.”

“No,” she said firmly. “A useless death is not bravery.”

He waved this off.

She tried to shift the conversation slightly, while wanting answers. “What became of the others? You said they might still be alive.”

Her question only seemed to agonize Arryn even more.

“I pray they are not. On rare occasions, the Chanr? have recovered one of their own. I witnessed one such woman, who was more skeleton than flesh. Whatever the t?wee do to their prey, it leaves them empty and lifeless, as if waiting for some instruction to move. Still, if you look deep into those sunken eyes, some spark remains, trapped in that shell.”

Esme had to force herself to ask her next question. “What happened to the rescued woman?”

Arryn gave her a hard look. “It was no rescue. She was taken into the desert, and her throat was cut. It was all we could offer her. The mercy of death. But the men I abandoned in the desert…”

Arryn shook his head.

Esme began to understand why her brother had never tried to make his way back home. Even if it had been possible, guilt anchored him here.

“Someday I must grant them the same mercy,” Arryn whispered. “To make up for my cowardice.”

Esme tried to console her brother again, but he rebuffed her.

“I don’t wish to talk about it any further.”

She didn’t press him. They continued on in silence. The only noise was the shuffle of their sandals across the smooth stone and the clatter of Crikit’s legs.

Still, her brother slowly collected himself. His shoulders drew back, his back straightening. He started to move more quickly, as if escaping the story behind him—or maybe it was the pull of what lay ahead.

They had crossed hundreds of doorways, sealed by blankets.

But he drew toward one.

Upon reaching it, he parted the drape. From inside, someone scolded him, but a joyous eruption followed next, a merriment that pushed back the grimness.

Arryn dropped to a knee, his arms held out.

A barefoot child barreled out and leaped into his arms. “Papa!”

Esme stiffened in surprise.

Papa?

Arryn stood and carried aloft the giggling child. A woman appeared at the doorway. She was striking, with shining skin, long curls of oiled hair, and beautiful lashes. She was especially glowing as she rested her palm atop a prominent belly, her other hand supporting her back.

The woman eyed Esme up and down, perhaps believing she might be a rival to Arryn’s affection.

Arryn banished this concern by pulling the woman closer with his free arm, then introduced them. “This is my heart-bound, Yazmyn.” He hiked the child higher. “And my daughter, Asha.”

Esme’s eyes widened as she swallowed down tears.

“Asha?”

Arryn nodded.

It had been their mother’s name.

Arryn placed his palm atop the full belly of his heart-bound. “I’m hoping for a boy.”

Esme understood what he implied, a way to honor their father, too.

She whispered a single pronouncement, “Kash’met…”

It was the Chanaryn word for the ceaseless turn of life: the shifting of seasons, the changing faces of the moon, the circular scrabble of the fiery molag god, Pecche’kan, in the sky. But more importantly, it addressed the rolling of one generation into another.

Esme read the simple joy of kash’met in her brother’s face.

As she stared at his happiness, she realized Arryn had not remained in these lands solely to mete out mercy for past faults.

But also in hope for a better future.

Recognizing this, Esme intended to do everything she could, expend all her strength, give all her blood, to make that dream come true.

Even if I have to fight a Dragon.