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Both of us turn to watch the gamboling hummerlets as they bob and weave near the front of the cave. I look up, but no, we didn’t miss some grand manor house when we stumbled in the first time. There’s nothing but the craggy side of the mountain facing us with one rude cave-like opening.

“You think it’s going to rain again?” I ask nervously.

“Probably, yes. I think we should get up to the top of the ridge as fast as we can and see what we can see. Then we can explore the caves without worrying so much.”

“Fair.”

The wind picks up as we mount the craggy trail, and every chance I get, I brush more of the rock dust from my clothes, my hair.

I tuck my gloves into my belt and spit into my hands to clear yet more of it from my face.

Fortunately, my saliva isn’t enough for the ash to harden into stone.

I’d never thought I’d be terrified of getting caught in a rainstorm, but now I think it’d mean certain death.

Finally, we reach the top of the ridge, and Fortiss lets out a startled cry. I scramble up beside him, then take a sharp step back.

“ No ,” I whisper.

A massive heap of a Divh lays curled up in a circle in a basin not dissimilar to the one where we crash landed. It looks like it’s been here for easily a century, its enormous body covered over with a thick layer of cement, the ebony sections of its carapace barely visible now.

But it hasn’t been here a century. Wings that once allowed the mighty creature to soar high above the Protectorate all the way to the Blessed Plane are now caked in rock, and its long slender tail spiked at the end curls almost to its head.

The creature is almost as large as Gent, and I know it to be one of the deadliest, most fearsome Divhs I’ve ever encountered.

The great scorpion Divh commanded by Lord Protector Rihad.

We stare, dumbstruck at the sight…

And then it moves.

“Talia! No!”

I barely hear Fortiss’s cry as a sudden anguished wail of pain and loss unleashes in my mind. I can’t think—I can hardly breathe—but I know this cry isn’t coming from Gent or from any of the Divhs that are bonded to me. It’s coming from Zhang.

Zhang . I never knew the name of Rihad’s scorpion. I never wanted to ask, especially once my gender became known. Warriors could speak of their Divhs among themselves, but a woman in the Protectorate could be killed if she so much as sounded the name of one of these great creatures out loud.

How many centuries have we lived under such lies?

And for what? For what ? Because women were better connecting with Divhs?

That was our big crime? Not that we were better warriors, not that we were stronger, braver, or better at strategy.

But because we could connect to these mighty creatures and understand what they need…

What they need.

Another blast of despair washes over me, and I slip, tumble, and fall down the mountainside until I reach Zhang’s head. The hummerlets race up to me and spin around in noisy celebration as Fortiss trails behind me. He stops short as I drop to my knees, coming level to Zhang’s half shut eye.

“Why are you here?” I whisper, lifting a hand as Zhang exhales heavily.

“Talia! Careful.” Fortiss bounds up to me, pulling me forcefully away as a burst of fluid coats the ashy bowl before me. The rock dust burns away.

“Everything about Rihad’s scorpion is death,” he warns. “Its very breath is poison. So is its blood, and so is its skin.”

“Him,” I say quietly, straightening. “His name is Zhang, and he breathes poison because it burns away the rock dust in front of his eyes and doesn’t let it harden to stone.

He’s been trapped here, unable to leave, unable to return to the Blessed Plane, Fortiss.

When Rihad went down a month ago, he didn’t send his Divh home.

He sent him here . Zhang crashed into this basin, just like we did, but he didn’t recover in time before the rains came. He’s been trapped here ever since.”

“But why here?” Fortiss demands. “Why would Rihad send him…” He breaks off, his eyes going wide. “It has to be the crown of wings,” he whispers. “ This is where it is.”

Zhang’s reaction to Fortiss’s words is a massive convulsion. A new wave of panic rolls through me, but when I turn, Fortiss is already backing away from the scorpion’s head, heading toward the center of the basin. He shuffles his feet, kicking up dust.

“There’s no way it’s here,” I call out, though I eye the ashy bowl with concern. Clearly, the recent storm we barely escaped didn’t reach this far, if all this ash is still here.

“Oh, come on. Why do you think Gent threw us both over the wall? He had to want us over here for something.”

I think about Gent’s mournful howl when he and I had spied into this barren, blighted land—had he known Zhang was here? I hadn’t noticed anything but the tiny glimmer of light…but had Gent known more than he let on?

Fortiss exhales an excited breath. “It’s here—we both know it is,” he mutters. “Can’t you hear it humming?”

I jolt in surprise, and a flicker beside me has me glancing back to the trapped scorpion’s eyes.

The shiny black surface shivers as Zhang’s eyes practically spin in their sockets, but there’s no denying the image burned into my mind.

The crown is here, Fortiss is right. But I don’t hear any humming, and frankly—I should.

I won the tournament, after all. I earned the winged crown. Not Fortiss.

“How is it connecting to him?” I mutter, and another image surfaces in my mind— Rihad in his chambers, the fire leaping high in the grate. I’m watching Rihad as if I’m the one standing in the fire, I’m the mighty Sahktar and skrill, all bound up as one.

I jolt, curling my lip in disgust. I need Rihad, I realize. I…I yearn for him to free me, desire it with a desperation that vibrates in my very bones. I will promise him anything —any power, any service, any treasure. Anything to set my people free.

Even the long-lost crown of wings.

What was sundered shall be ? —

“I found it!” Fortiss’s shout explodes my vision, and I gape at him as he turns toward me, holding something high in his fist.

The image of him wearing that golden circlet, collapsed on the floor of the Eighth House with my arrow through his heart, stabs through my mind.

A teeth-rattling boom! rips across the sky as the skies betray us once again.

And this time, the screeching cries of the hummerlets can’t save us.