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H edley jolted awake, disoriented and confused. Darkness still reigned over the barracks and upon the world beyond. Through the small window near his bunk, he couldn’t spy even the smallest glimpse of stars, though usually the desert sky glittered with them.

But that night, the cloud cover was heavy—the promise of rare Arathian rain on the horizon.

There it is again .

One of the bells of Fort Mysai again filled the night with its deep, tolling groan—low and distant.

jerked to a sitting position in reply.

The bells of Fort Mysai never rang.

Within the darkness of the barracks, he sensed movement. Other soldiers stirred in the night.

“What’s happening?” someone mumbled from nearby .

shrugged in answer, though the gesture no doubt went unseen in the dark.

Gong.

“Is somebody dead?” one of the newer recruits asked. “The new queen couldn’t have died already, could she?”

“No,” rasped, though he didn’t know for certain. Slinking out of bed, he hunted for his boots and explained, “They’re only supposed to ring the bells when…”

The rest of his words withered on his tongue. Through the window beside his bunk, spied an arc of flame spiking through the air in the distance. In that flare of crimson, he saw the ramparts of the outer wall perfectly illuminated.

In that flare of crimson, he saw his fellow soldiers firing arrows into the night.

“Dane,” whispered to himself, his heart leaping.

His older brother was supposed to be on that wall, keeping watch.

But watch for what?

Fort Mysai was a safe post. A boring post. He had thanked the Lord on High when he and Dane had been deployed across the Straight to man the sleepy fort that encircled the far more bustling trade port of Mysai itself. But now…

Gong.

grabbed his sword from underneath his bed and launched himself toward the door as his heart rate spiked again. He didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t know what he was doing. All he knew was that he was going to find his brother and then—

The door burst open and the silhouette of his unit’s commanding knight, Sir Greysen Hunte, hurtled through. “Everyone up!” Sir Hunte barked. “To arms! Why are you boys still sleeping? Do you not hear the bell? Wilsham!”

winced when Sir Hunte called his name.

“Wilsham, where are you going?”

“Sir, what’s happening?” one of the other soldiers asked, sparing the need to explain that he had been mere moments from deserting his post.

“What does it sound like is happening?” Sir Hunte snapped. “We’re under attack! Everyone to the wall. Now.”

“Under attack?” echoed, his voice cracking. “By who?”

“Pirates?” yet another soldier guessed.

“Last I checked, pirates don’t ride Arathian war elephants,” their commanding knight snarled in reply.

That news was enough to steal ’s breath. Arath? But wasn’t Arath their ally? They’d been at peace now for—

“I said everyone to the wall!” Sir Hunte bellowed, and ’s body lurched into motion. He staggered out of the barracks along with the rest of his unit.

The night air was crisp as it always was, this close to Dry Reach. He had never understood how the desert could be scorching hot one moment and send him to shivering in the next.

Gong .

’s gaze shot upward toward the silhouette of the outer wall standing dark against the horizon. He hunted in vain for any sight of his brother.

Come on, Dane. Where are you?

But as stood there, desperately searching, another bout of flame arced upward from beyond the confines of Fort Mysai. That pillar of fire pierced the gloom.

Beautiful. Terrifying.

Boom .

’s entire world shook when that latest tongue of flame lashed against the fort. The ground beneath his feet rumbled with the impact. He pitched with it, nearly losing his balance.

The outer wall of the fort disappeared before his very eyes. Stone crumbled as if it were little more than a sand dune. Faceless figures toppled from the disintegrating ramparts and vanished into the night, swallowed by the yawning darkness beyond.

“Dane!” That word ripped itself from ’s throat on a guttural scream as he ran forward. He raced toward those tangled clouds of dust and smoke, which billowed forth from where the outer wall of Fort Mysai had once stood.

No. No, no, no, no, no .

“Dane!”

Before he could make it more than a few strides, an armored hand clamped onto his shoulder and drew him up short. He thrashed against the weight of it, screaming all the while, “My brother! He’s up there! He’s—”

“The Lord is with your brother now or your brother’s with the Lord,” Sir Hunte growled in reply while wheeling around. The commanding knight shoved him away from the smoking ruins. “Fall back!” Sir Hunte cried over the sound of muffled screams shrieking in the distance. “Fall back to the gate! Wilsham! I need you—”

Something suddenly whistled past them both, nearly brushing ’s ear as it went. When it thunked into the wooden post just in front of him, he stared at the dark-fletched arrow in mute disbelief. An arrow? But the outer wall had just been breached. There was no way they could be inside already.

The metallic scrape of steel on scabbard from behind him sent scrambling for his own blade. Chest heaving, mind reeling, he whirled on his heel and looked upward, desperately searching the rooftops for the sight of enemy archers.

But the sound of Sir Hunte barking out more orders soon drew him back to the present. The grizzled knight shouted, “I said fall back! Wilsham, get to the Roost. Make sure Master Eldrede has sent word to the mainland.”

jerked his gaze downward to watch the knight squaring up in the alley, blade drawn.

A single sentinel in the darkness.

hesitated. “But what about—”

“I said move, Wilsham!”

asked nothing further. He just turned, sheathed his sword, and ran .

Another whistle raced past his ear. A scream of pain echoed out from his right. One of his fellow soldiers collapsed like a discarded marionette.

He didn’t stop. He didn’t look back.

He just ran.

The Roost, Sir Hunte had commanded. He had to get to the Roost, to Master Eldrede. But that Roost was carved into the outer wall. It might have not survived the collapse of the ramparts.

Like Dane .

That thought sliced through him—the searing reminder that his older brother might not have survived the collapse of the ramparts either. As he reached the stone steps leading upward toward the Gate of Exiles, he realized his feet had decided for him to flee to the mid-ring with the rest of his unit rather than follow the orders given to him.

swallowed down his fear, his panic, his worry. He tucked it all away, knowing it would all come roiling back to the surface the moment he had a moment to think.

But that moment wasn’t now.

Bodies passed him in the dark. Boots thundered on the stone steps. The warning bell had stopped ringing some time ago, and its absence left an eerie chasm in which he finally heard the low thrum of war drums in the distance.

His heart hammered out a frenetic reply.

This shouldn’t be happening. This wasn’t supposed to be happening .

“Out of the way, boy!” someone snarled in the dark before shoving aside and into the wall bordering the stairs.

A cry of pain exploded past ’s lips when his left shoulder crunched against the stone. He hadn’t had time to grab his armor before he left the barracks.

He regretted that now.

Screams beyond his own pierced the night. Screams of pain from behind him. Screams of frustration from in front as too many soldiers retreated to the Gate of Exiles looming above.

“Fall back to the mid-ring!” The cry went out, passed from mouth to mouth. “Fall back to the gate!”

“They’ve breached the wall!”

“They’re here in the outer ring!”

“Fall back! Fall back! Fall back!”

looked up at the tangle of bodies fighting to make it through the great gate crowning the flight of stairs. The air reeked of a collective fear—a worry they might not all make it through before they barricaded the gate against the Arathian horde sweeping through the outer ring.

He wasn’t going to make it.

Still wedged against the wall, snarled to himself. His shoulder smarted. His arm burned from being shoved into the stone.

His hands already ached at the thought of what he had to do next.

Turning into the wall, dug his fingers into the grooves between the bricks. He found a hold there while his booted feet scrabbled for purchase. Hissing through clenched teeth, he hauled himself upward, one hold at a time, making for the edge of the roof.

There was a reason Sir Hunte had commanded him to make for the Roost, out of all the men in his unit.

He was a farm boy.

Farm boys were strong. Farm boys were fast. Farm boys were resourceful.

Farm boys were expendable.

Pulling himself onto the roof with a groan, rolled to his back just long enough to spy a sliver of moonlight fighting to pierce the cloud cover overhead before he sprung to his feet.

He scanned the way forward. The slope of the rooftops rose ever higher until they finally reached the Gate of Exiles. He scanned the way back and spied in the distance, amidst the flicker of scarlet flame and the dance of smoke, that the tower housing the Roost looked to still be intact.

His body had already decided for him before his mind had considered the sheer stupidity of doubling back to the outer wall and following Sir Hunte’s orders instead of just fleeing to the mid-ring, where he would be safe.

The subtle downward tilt of the rooftops leading back toward the now smoldering ruins of the outer ring lent a sense of falling as he raced across each roof, leaping from edge to edge. There was no crowd up here. No press of bodies through which he had to fight .

He had only the open air, the smoke, and the acrid tang of something dark and foreign on the wind.

Something whistled through the air nearby. Something far too close for comfort. But this time, the something didn’t zip past him in the night. There was a thud, an impact, a burning pain lancing through ’s shoulder.

He bit back a scream.

Shooting a look behind him, he spied a looming figure in the darkness two rooftops over, wielding a bow. But before the figure could loose another arrow, ducked and rolled straight off the edge of his own rooftop.

The world fell away, leaving tumbling into a stomach-lurching drop that ended far too quickly when he crashed into the alley below. With all the grace of a drunken sailor rather than a cat.

His right hip throbbed where it had caught the brunt of his fall. His left shoulder burned, his body acutely aware of the foreign object piercing him through that point. But he could see the tower housing the Roost just around the next corner.

He had made it.

Panting, lurched back to his feet and half loped, half limped the rest of the way.

The smoke unfurling into the night stung his eyes and choked his lungs as he went. That foreign scent he couldn’t quite place was even stronger here, and it burned his throat as well .

Coughing, he finally flung open the tower door and ducked inside before promptly slamming it shut behind him. The freshness of the air that washed over him was a welcome reprieve.

The Roost smelled as it always did—the warm, familiar scent of the usuri packed within their cages mingling with the mustiness of parchment and ink, and the coppery tang of the raw meat used to feed the usuri before and after their deliveries.

Compared to the world outside, the Roost was blissfully quiet—only the sleepy chirps of the caged creatures lining the walls punctuated the silence. Within that silence, convinced himself the elderly Master Eldrede had already retreated for the Gate of Exiles with the rest of those stationed in the outer ring.

And that conviction held true for all of a few moments—right until the old man in question hobbled into view, lantern swinging in hand.

“Eh? Who goes there?”

’s stomach lurched at the sight of the Keeper of the Roost. “Master Eldrede, what are you still doing here?”

Within the lantern light, the old man’s rheumy eyes blinked owlishly at him, a lack of comprehension shining there. The Keeper croaked, “Eh? Do you know how late it is, boy? What business do you have here?”

didn’t have time to explain.

Ignoring Master Eldrede, he launched himself toward one of the Roost’s desks and bodily shoved the heavy piece of furniture across the floor. It screeched inch by inch in audible protest as it moved.

A few of the usuri caged nearby hissed at the sound .

“What, what?” Master Eldrede sputtered with a slam of his cane against the floor. “What is all this?”

“Master Eldrede,” panted in between shoves, his battered body aching from the exertion. “Did you not…hear…the bell?”

“The what now?”

“The bell !” shouted as he finally slammed the desk into place, wedging it up against the door. Hopefully it’d hold. Hopefully no one else would think to double back to the Roost as he had, but if they did…

Hopefully it’d hold.

“The bell?” Master Eldrede echoed, hobbling after him through the Roost.

limp-jogged toward the staircase winding upward to the second floor. The usuri he passed, illuminated by the haphazard sway of the Keeper’s lantern light, chirped at him as he went.

But was looking for one usuru in particular.

“Alyx!” he called, taking the stairs two at a time. “Alyx, are you here?”

“The bells haven’t rung in all my time stationed here, boy,” Master Eldrede huffed from behind him. The older man’s voice grew more distant by the moment as outpaced him. “I don’t think they’ve rung in over two hundred years…boy…did you know you have an arrow in your shoulder?”

“Alyx!” called again when he crested the staircase. Without the Keeper’s lantern, he had to rely on what scant whispers of moonlight slipped in through the grimy windowpanes as he scoured the usuru cages.

Through the darkness he heard a quiet purr, and relief flooded him at the sound.

“There you are, girl,” he cooed to the sleek usuru already trying to weasel her way out of her cage. “I don’t have a treat for you today. We gotta move quickly now.”

When unlatched Alyx’s cage, the flying serpent unfurled her glossy wings and shot out into the darkness toward him. In the span of a single moment, she had wedged herself beneath the ledge of his jaw.

While she nuzzled into him with her scaled head, her quiet purrs reverberating against his throat, he frantically hunted for her harness and a bit of parchment.

“Quickly, girl. We don’t have time—”

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The sound of a crash from down below sent ’s heart to leaping into his throat again. Hands trembling, he scrambled to uncoil Alyx from around his shoulders so he could fit the harness to her.

Each of his breaths rattled loudly in the darkness of the Roost. His clammy fingers fumbled with the buckles meant to strap the harness around an usuru’s wings. Alyx hissed when he pinched her feathers between the strips of leather by mistake.

“Who are you?” Master Eldrede’s voice trembled up the staircase—thin and frail. “What are you—?”

A wet gurgle preceded another thud as the Keeper was cut off mid-sentence.

leapt toward the nearest desk, accidentally knocking over a pot of ink. Cursing quietly to himself as the dark liquid soaked into the edges of the nearest piece of parchment, he grabbed a quill, dipped it into the spreading pool, and haphazardly wrote upon the marred sheet:

Fort Mysai under attack. Arath—

The thud of two pairs of boots coming up the staircase saw him abandoning further details in favor of just grabbing the still wet note and stuffing it into the case now strapped to Alyx’s back.

His time was up.

“Ah, there he is,” a woman purred from somewhere in the darkness behind him. Her voice was warm. Intimate.

whirled to face her, his arms wrapped protectively around Alyx’s sinuous form.

Two silhouettes lingered in the deep shadows of the Roost—one male, one female. Both were far taller than he was. But it was the one on the left who gave him pause.

The woman.

There was something queer about her eyes. Something off . They seemed to glow in the dark like a cat’s eyes, molten in their golden gleam .

swallowed hard and took a step backward. The little usuru in his arms hissed out a warning to the approaching strangers.

His ma had told him stories about women with those sorts of eyes. Stories he thought had just been stories meant to keep him and Dane from misbehaving when they were young.

But here she was—one of his childhood nightmares in the flesh.

“You’re a…” began, his throat dry, his voice hoarse. Swallowing, he tried again. “…a…a witch .”

Within the feeble light trickling through the nearby window, he thought he saw the woman smile. “So they tell me,” she cooed back to him, earning an annoyed-sounding hiss from the man with her.

“Hand over the usuru, boy,” the man demanded.

But the woman drew a dagger from the sheath at her hip. It slipped forth soundlessly, its blade as dark as the ink staining the nearby desk.

Though he was sure it was simply a trick of the eye, that small knife seemed to absorb what little light existed within this part of the Roost, making the space around the weapon’s edge all the darker for it.

tightened his grip on Alyx, sending the sleek usuru to squirming in protest. He knew he would have only one opportunity to do this—only one opportunity to win Alyx’s freedom so she could carry her message home, to Elmoria.

“He’s going to misbehave,” the witch rightfully surmised in the split second before threw himself backward into the bookcase just behind him. The pain in his left shoulder jolted from a dull throb to a hot, searing agony when he inadvertently forced the arrow embedded there even deeper with the movement.

Glass shattered and spilled across the floor like motes of stardust when the corner of the bookcase toppled into the window, giving him the opening he needed.

“Fly, girl! Fly!” screamed to Alyx as he twisted his body and tossed the usuru toward the broken windowpane. Though the large Arathian lunged for her, the winged serpent slithered her sinuous body through the yawning maw of broken glass and into the starless night before the man could grab hold of her escaping form.

She was free.

Bracing his own hands against the window’s ledge, breathed a sigh of relief when Alyx’s silhouette climbed fast into the night—a streak of shadow and little more.

Within a single breath, his relief frosted back into a heart-wrenching fear when another body suddenly crushed itself against his back and something sharp ripped its way into his chest.

Eyes wide, tried to breathe, but he no longer had any breath. He tried to move, but he no longer had any strength.

The witch held him fast, her left hand digging long fingernails into his skin through the thin fabric of his tunic. Her right gripped the dark blade that now pierced his heart, hilt-deep.

There should have been pain. There should have been a fresh, burning agony searing his nerves. But there wasn’t.

Instead, there was a deep and resounding cold rippling through his chest. It sank ever deeper, like so many claws peeling through flesh and bone to pierce at something far more profound. Something that went far beyond mere blood and sinew.

His soul.

“You’ve been very bad,” the witch whispered to him, her breath ghosting against his ear with those four words.

Nausea gripped ’s stomach at the sensation.

Though still he struggled against her hold, it was ultimately in vain. Whatever strength he had left had oozed right out of him the moment Alyx took flight.

Now it was long gone, carried away upon the usuru’s shimmering wings as she made for the shores of Elmoria, far across the Straight.

“Must you always play with them, Skatia?” the Arathian man snarled to the witch as the world around continued to fade into a frigid haze.

Darkness crept in at the edges of his vision as the woman holding him whispered directly against his ear in a further brush of lips to skin, “Don’t mind him, darling. He’s only jealous…”

Jealous? Why would anyone be jealous of this?

A tear streaked down ’s cheek. Confusion and fear mingled into one beast within his heart as the jewel on the hilt of the witch’s dark blade suddenly shone with a prismatic light from within.

He could spy wisps of something swirling inside that gemstone, as if those vivid hues were being pulled from somewhere deep within himself to fill the jewel’s dark confines.

“Don’t worry, dear one…” th e witch cooed.

Pinned in place, he watched on.

None of it made any sense. His ma’s stories had never mentioned anything like this—nothing at all about cold, dark blades and gemstones that thrummed with an eerie luminescence.

As the world faded further from him, stole one final glance out into the night. It had been several moments since Alyx’s silhouette had disappeared from view.

She was gone. She made it.

…But I won’t.

“Lord save me,” gasped through swiftly numbing lips when that realization fully struck home. He didn’t want to die. He wasn’t ready to die.

Not now. Not like this.

Anything but this .

At the sound of his whispered prayer, the witch could only laugh.

“Your Lord has no power here, boy,” she hissed against his ear once her amusement subsided. Scorn dripped from each syllable. “This is Arath . Only the magic of Our Lady Below reigns upon these sands. And She hungers . ”

gasped again, his back arching when the witch dug her dagger all the more deeply into his heart as though in punctuation to her words.

“Mysai…belongs to Elmoria…” he protested, trembling with the effort of uttering even those few words.

The darkness was roiling in quickly now. The cold borne from the witch’s blade had taken root deep in his chest. His heartbeat slowed. His breath weakened. Each draw of air into his lungs was a trial of its own.

“Nothing in Arath belongs to Elmoria,” the Arathian man snarled from somewhere behind him and to his right. “Your people tried to claim these lands and failed. We pushed you out.” A tch sounded. “And then we grew fat. We grew lazy,” the man continued with obvious distaste. “Your people may have held Mysai these two hundred years, boy, but that ends tonight.”

That aching cold had crawled its way into his extremities now. He tried to flex his fingers, but he could no longer feel them.

Not like this , pleaded again, this time inside the murky haze of his own mind. Please, not like this.

Perhaps the witch and the large man were right.

Perhaps the Lord on High couldn’t hear him all the way here in Mysai.

He was so far from home. So far from the shores of Elmoria. Far from the mist-bathed fields of the little farm his family had worked for Lord Tollere in the barony of Leinor since before he was born.

Eyelids heavy, ’s head finally lolled back to slump against the witch’s shoulder. All he could do now was wait for the end to finally come. It wouldn’t be long.

But then the cloud cover visible just beyond the panes of the broken window before him finally shifted, allowing shafts of moonlight to spear downward at last.

The pale light illuminated the vast expanse of the Arathian desert beyond the fallen outer wall of the fort. Sand dunes stretched as far as the eye could see. Rocky cliffs were a mere afterthought upon the landscape even further beyond that.

Dry Reach.

It was the deadliest swath of no man’s land this side of the Straight. No Elmorian ever patrolled its expanse because no Elmorian ever returned from those patrols. Only the Arathians knew how to cross Dry Reach and survive the trek.

But wouldn’t he rather die in the heart of the desert than fade away within a witch’s arms?

Fight .

That word—that command—pricked at the edge of his consciousness unbidden.

Run.

He didn’t have to die tonight. He wouldn’t die tonight. Not now. Not here.

Not. Like. This.

“Let me go!” screamed as a sudden spark of rebellion ignited in his chest with all the abrupt fury of dry tinder catching flame. Strength beyond that which he had ever known before suddenly burned within him—a defiance that sent him thrashing one last time against the witch’s hold.

He thrust his right arm back, twisting the full weight of his body into the motion. A cry of pain exploded from the woman keeping him pinned when his elbow caught her in the ribs.

Her hold on him loosened. Her dagger slipped from his chest. An opportunity presented itself.

threw himself forward .

The world shattered in a shimmer of broken glass and starless night as he flew through what was left of the Roost’s window and tumbled out into the darkness. The cold desert wind greeted him in free fall while he wheeled through the air.

He greeted it in turn with open arms.

Lost and alone but free, let himself sink into a deep and vast nothingness at last. His final thoughts as he fell toward the desert dunes stretching endlessly below were a fever dream swirl of Dane, the collapsing ramparts, the flicker of Alyx’s wings, and the hypnotic gleam of the witch’s fiercely golden gaze as he was swept away and dragged down…down…down…

…deep into the unknown.