The air stank of damp fur, fresh blood, and something worse that Kaleb couldn’t put a name to. He crouched low, cold and cramped, surrounded by beasts of all shapes and stripes.

  His new body felt wrong.

  Every time he moved, his hooves scraped the floor and sent a shudder through his bones. After all those years of walking on two legs, he couldn’t make this four-legged gait work. He hated every second of it.

  Jaspeth fared little better. He was still a twisted part of Kaleb, growing above the hoof of his left foreleg, bloodshot eyes glaring through a malformed muzzle. Kaleb longed for his brother’s voice, anything but that low, pitiful braying. Sharing a body had always been bothersome, aye, but it’d never been this lonely, this quiet.

  Kaleb twitched at every frog’s croak, goat’s bleat, and jackal’s howl. He couldn’t afford to drop his guard, not with all these beasts skulking in the shadows. Shapes moved just out of sight, wings slapping the air, fur brushing his side.

  The chamber was hotter than a furnace, enclosed in towering brick walls. Beasts milled around in cramped folds, restless. Giraffes craned their necks, looking for escape. None dared to, though. Not a soul among them had the nerve.

  A few paces off, two gazelles clashed, their horns locked in some savage struggle. Kaleb darted to the side, hooves skittering on the ground. A snail squelched beneath his hoof, crushed into a smear of slime and shell. A scaly creature with jagged teeth tore into a heifer’s gutted carcass. The blood was green, for all shades of red had been washed out of the world.

  These new eyes, damn it.

  Kaleb couldn’t see the space in front of him either, only his flanks. That didn’t make dodging the press of fur and bone around him any easier. He stumbled over a tail, colliding with something solid. A dog-faced baboon turned, snarling, and hammered a fist into Kaleb’s brow. His vision burst into stars.

  Kaleb found his bearings and ended up nose-to-nose with a snarling hyena, its fangs glistening. He let out a braying screech, then clopped off. Why this form? Not the lion, nor the wolf. A donkey, cursed to cower until his last breath.

  Doors screamed open at the far end of the chamber, only to slam shut just as quickly. Five guards marched in, their horned helms shimmering in the dim light. One raised his lamp, squinting at the beasts that filled the room.

  One elephant trumpeted loud enough to make Kaleb’s head swim.

  “Quiet,” barked the rightmost guard. “You’ll spend the rest of your days in here if you don’t. Where’s the donkey? Her Excellency calls for you.”

  The gate to the fold creaked open, and Kaleb stumbled past a flock of clucking, hissing ostriches. The guard who’d spoken earlier gave his ear a cruel twist, pinching it between thumb and forefinger. Kaleb winced, staggering through the doorway.

  What awaited him? The thought of threshing wheat and hauling heavy loads had crossed his mind, but no. Sidoniya had something else in mind. She’d trembled at the mention of Yasha. Had he wronged her somehow?

  Kaleb limped into another chamber.

  Tables groaned under the weight of food: necks of beef, wings of geese, haunches of lamb, all slick with honey. His gut gave a lurch, reminding him it hadn’t seen food in almost a day. Wall reliefs had been chiseled into frozen soldiers, holding no comfort. The faces were cruel, condescending. Harp strings keened from some dark corner, and the ivory clatter of clappers echoed like rattling bones.

  Whores lounged in the heart of the chamber, naked save for chaplets sagging on their scalps. They hailed from many lands, their skin ranging from the palest olive to the darkest ebony. Some fanned themselves with flyswatters, eyes half-closed in disinterest, as if waiting for something to happen.

  Kaleb pushed forward, his own hoofbeats loud, strange on the cold floor. His handler stopped abruptly, the man’s gaze fixed ahead. Kaleb snuck a glance himself, trying not to draw attention.

  Seven steps. That was all it took to reach her. Seven steps to the dais, and you’d find yourself in the presence of a goddess. Or something worse besides.

  Sidoniya, Queen of Hezebel.

  Earrings, bangles, and rings adorned her, beaten from gold, her sun-kissed skin looking like metal itself, the finest bronze. Her sheath traced the curves of a form that made the world around her dull by comparison. A wild-eyed eagle perched on her shoulder, its beak gleaming. At her feet lay a drooling leopard.

  Maidservants hovered at her sides. One fanned her with a plume of feathers. Another slid a sandalwood comb through her black tresses. A third knelt at her feet, washing them in a basin with the reverence of a sinner before an altar.

  Standing before the dais were those merchants from earlier. Their crone of a leader steadied her scepter with shaking hands. “Thank you, Your Excellency, for the hospitality. We set sail on the morrow.”

  Sidoniya raised a foot from the basin, water dripping off her. “Leaving so soon, Chalaq? Hezebel has not yet woven its charms around your heart?”

  Chalaq’s lips tightened, but she managed a thin smile. “There is no place I would rather be, but my duties call to me. I must answer.”

  “Mefithys awaits, doesn’t it?”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “Indeed. Their jubilee approaches. What about you?”

  Sidoniya’s laugh was painfully overwrought. “Mefithys will not have the honor of my presence. I’ll send worthy envoys to bear my favor instead. Diplomatic, wouldn’t you say?”

  Chalaq leaned on her scepter, frowning. “You know best, Your Excellency. You know best . . .”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “If I may, Your Excellency…” Chalaq trailed off, sucking her teeth. “Are you certain you want those thieves from earlier?”

  Sidoniya’s eyes darkened to a shade that sucked the warmth from the room. “No one knows what I want better than I.”

  “Of course, Your Excellency. However, there are better places for them. Mines, perhaps. Work that could be of use to the Artificers.”

  “Those two belong to me,” Sidoniya said, her tone final. “Don’t forget your place, Chalaq. I’m a queen, and you’re nothing but a glorified moneylender. Is there anything else to discuss?”

  Chalaq paled, shaking her head. “No, Your Excellency. We shall retire for the night.”

  Sidoniya rose from her seat, her maidservants rushing to slip her feet into silver sandals. “Good. You wouldn’t want to be one of those poor souls who never returns from Hezebel.”

  The merchants shuffled out of the chamber, finally free of the queen’s suffocating presence. Sidoniya noticed him now, Kaleb. She descended the steps, her smile wide, dangerous. A lioness savoring a kill. Kaleb shrank back, his hooves clattering against the floor.

  Sidoniya seized a fistful of his mane, tugging him closer with effortless strength. “Yasha’s disciple, is it? And that foolish girl, she’s with you too?”

  Kaleb whimpered, cold spittle clinging to his lips. This woman was nothing like his master. Yasha had a way of drawing you in, even if you hated yourself for it. Sidoniya was something else entirely, a thicket of brambles that clawed at anyone who dared come too close. Kaleb, cursed to be close, could feel them digging into his soul.

  She tightened her grip on his ear, unyielding. “As we speak, my men scour the streets looking for Yasha. He’s out there somewhere, I can feel it. I once gave him everything, do you hear me? Everything! He came to Hezebel not long after my fifteenth nativity day. I remember it like a scar. My mother was queen at the time. At her beck and call were the finest stargazers, the finest. They divined that soon a stranger would enter Hezebel. That stranger, they said, would be my lover, my destiny, the one to complete me. And then Yasha came.”

  Sidoniya stepped back, releasing Kaleb. “We were bound, he and I. Two pieces of the same soul, or so I thought. He made me believe that, but he didn’t stay. I was so young, so stupid.” She swallowed. “When he left, he took everything with him. He’ll do the same to you, fool. Promise you the world, then leave you wondering why you ever trusted him at all. But now he will answer for his sins.”

  Or I will.

  Gnashing her teeth, Sidoniya tore herself from Kaleb’s side. “Yasha will lower his guard soon enough. He’ll come to feast, thinking himself safe, in control. My whores will scatter themselves at his feet, hungry for his favor. But that’s the moment. That’s when I’ll strike. I’ve waited ten years for this, and I will not be denied.”

  Her gaze flicked back to Kaleb. “We’ll wait for him here, no matter how long it takes. And you, disciple, you’ll be here for the end of him. Watch his ruin. Watch how easily it all comes down.”

  Sidoniya fluffed a pillow, then sank into the cushions among her whores.

  Her fanbearer, a wide-eyed slip of a girl with lips that begged to be kissed, swatted the air as if the heat didn’t weigh on her as it did everyone else. The queen’s brow glistened with sweat. If Kaleb had a voice, he might’ve had the decency to tell the girl to go faster.

  Sidoniya raised a hand sharply, eyes narrowing. “Do you want me to melt in this heat?”

  The girl’s already wide eyes widened yet more. “No, Your Excellency…”

  “Why do I feel as though I’m wrapped in wool? Do you know that feeling?”

  Sidoniya seized the girl’s wrist. Kaleb turned away, daring not to look. The room filled with the girl’s strangled gasp, and then bleating.

  When Kaleb forced himself to look again, there it stood. A white-fleeced sheep at Sidoniya’s side. The girl was whisked away before a manservant appeared, as if summoned by the gods, bearing a meal for Sidoniya. Cakes stuffed with fruity paste, piled high on a platter. The scent of pomegranates filled the room.

  Sidoniya attacked the plate like a starved jackal. She didn’t offer a single morsel to Kaleb, her newest pet. By now, he’d have gladly buried his face in a trough. The more his belly groaned, the more the hollowness ate away at him.

  Come the second hour, Sidoniya’s gilt sandals had worn ruts in the marble floor. Back and forth she swanned around, muttering to herself, whispering things that only made sense to her. If Kaleb could survive this madness, then nothing short of the gods themselves could kill him.

  Then there was that noisy, insufferable girl from the square. Nebu. The one with that mouth that never stopped, full of nonsense and too much joy for anyone’s good. She had to be dead. If she’d managed to avoid it, it’d be a bloody miracle.

  A messenger arrived in the third hour, panting, his face sweaty as he dropped to one knee. “Your Excellency, we’ve found the one named Yasha.”

  Sidoniya jerked like a lioness yanked out of a dream. Her hand shot out to steady herself against the nearest pillar. “You’re certain?”

  The messenger nodded. “He’s the one you described. We surrounded him outside the hot springs. He surrendered without a fight.”

  Her breaths came heavy now. She straightened, smoothing the folds of her sheath. “Bring him in.”

  Yasha swaggered into the chamber, flanked by two guards, his staff dragging with an indolent scrape against the polished floor. He yawned, his eyes skimming the whores who stood at the ready, waiting like flowers to be picked. Lissome men and women, young, perfumed, chosen for his pleasure.

  Kaleb stamped his hooves impatiently on the flagstones, but he might as well have been a buzzing fly for all the attention Yasha paid him.

  Sidoniya watched from the corner, her lips twitching as if struggling to hold a grimace inside. She took a breath, moved, her steps a clumsy attempt at grace.

  When she reached Yasha, she let her fingers trail across his chest. The touch came off as hungry, desperate. “A banquet. All for you, my love. Everything you desire. All of it.”

  Yasha didn’t look at her. For everything she’d said, he stood silent, distant. Had he lost his tongue? Impossible. He never stopped prattling around Kaleb.

  Sidoniya made a sweeping gesture to catch Yasha’s attention. “Spit in your cupbearer’s face if it pleases you. Or sample whores from a hundred lands, each more beautiful, more eager than the last. Whatever you desire.”

  She kissed him, but it was a mark of ownership rather than affection. She turned on her heel, a sharp crack of her sandals echoing. With a glance over her shoulder, she said, “I will return once you’ve sated your hungers.”

  The whores descended upon him with the hunger of creatures starved too long. Slender bodies pressed in, soft lips, perfumed necks, all of it for him. Yasha stood unmoved, his eyes lost in some thought beyond all of it.

  Sidoniya disappeared, the faintest echo of her laugh slipping into the chamber as the sound of lust and hunger overtook it.