“Drair isn’t in the cells,” the girl says, flipping her braid behind her. “I talked to the Xelani. They said Prior Aarin has the key.”

  “Xelani?” Tygoh mumbles, hand on the dagger at his hip. He stops at the end of the stairwell to listen, poking his dark head around the corner.

  “So where is Prior Aarin?” Anarah asks. She is standing behind his shoulder, her hand on the wall.

  The girl shrugs. “Didn’t say.”

  “Great.” Tygoh huffs a breath through his chest and slips into the hallway. It is dim, lit only by torchlights hung along the outer walls. The hallway curves around each side of the dome, and his line of sight is cut short in every direction. He snarls, silently cursing the designer of this revolting sand pit.

  “It’s not very big,” Lark whispers from behind him. “There’s a library and a mess hall to the left. Not sure what’s on the right.”

  Tygoh waits for his fiancee’s gasp, a short inhale of breath that erupts from her when books are near.

  “Tygoh…” she says quietly.

  He feels her hand on his arm, sees her pale skin bright against his tan. His eyes meet hers, insistent and blue. He nods, pointing his chin down the left hallway. “For a few minutes.”

  They travel down the hall in a tight group, hands itching for their weapons. Tygoh can feel the warm air from outside blowing down the hall. Behind him, the tiny blacksmith’s breath becomes louder and louder as they step through the dim.

  “You okay back there?”

  “Shut up.” It echoes off the walls.

  “Damn it, Viet.”

  As they approach the library doorway, warm candlelight spills onto the floor and two voices can be heard drifting amongst the parchment. Tygoh feels his chest tighten, and he frantically forms an excuse to feed them upon their arrival. He takes a deep breath and steps through the library doorway, the two women behind him. Two men, both wearing long robes, are standing near a large wooden lectern, a yellowing tome lying open upon it. The older man, his dark hair shaved close, has his finger pressed to one of the pages, tracing a line through the lettering. The other acolyte, a thin young man with shaggy blonde hair, is standing next to him, his back to the door.

  Tygoh, removing his hand from his sword, clears his throat. Their heads bob up, eyes shooting to the doorway, and Tygoh becomes aware that his skin is not the same color as theirs. His breath hitches. He swallows hard, then bows his head lightly.

  “Sorry to interrupt. I’m here on business for the Queen of Denand. I’ve been asked to speak with Prior Aarin.”

  The younger alchemist shoots his superior a look, his eyebrows knitted. The elder nods, closing the book on the lectern and stepping to meet Tygoh, his hands clasped neatly in front of his robes.

  “May I ask what business this concerns? You may save the details, as I’m sure the queen values her privacy,” he says, his voice gravelly. The man’s lined face is stern, stiff like the bark of a tree.

  Tygoh grits his teeth together. He can hear Lark breathing behind him, each inhale shaky. He wills her mentally to calm herself, but he’s positive the sentiment doesn’t land.

  “I’m here with an update on the trade agreements.” He raises his chin, determined to keep up appearances.

  The elder hums, looking at his hands momentarily. “Does not the queen usually send a missive with the captain for trade communications?”

  Tygoh stiffens. “Yes, of course. However, I believe the queen felt this message too important to risk exposure.” His dark eyes slide to the left, where he can see Anarah, her hands clasped in front of her, head down. “There have been some changes,” he adds, meeting the acolyte’s eyes again.

  The man’s hazel eyes stare into his own, as if calculating the risk. Finally, he nods. “The women behind you will need to remain outside.”

  He can hear Lark’s abrupt shift, the clink of her sword against her side. Tygoh looks back over his shoulder, his nose wrinkled, and the girl opens her mouth. He purses his lips, jerking his head sideways once to shut her down. He turns again to face the acolyte. “These women are envoys hand-picked by Queen Silon herself. I am merely their guide,” he says.

  The elder’s eyebrow goes up and his thin lips part. After a moment, a sigh heaves through his shoulders and he looks down, shaking his head. “I’m sure the High Warlock can make sense of this,” he hums. “Not my jurisdiction.” He clears his throat, meeting Tygoh’s eyes again with a small smile and waving a hand toward the doorway. “Shall we?”

  The three move backwards, cramped into the narrow hallway as the older man steps through, heading toward the northern side of the dome. He calls behind his shoulder to the younger man, standing dumbfounded in the dim of the library. “Ean, please return to the lecture hall. I will see you this afternoon.” The boy nods, slipping through the group and dashing up the hallway out of sight.

  As they follow the elder, Tygoh makes eye contact with Anarah, whose face is downturned. She shrugs, giving him a small smile he knows took effort to conjure. “Later,” he mouths.

  Lark looks bewildered. She creeps along behind them, her hand on her sword, eyes glued to the back of the elder acolyte’s head. Tygoh hesitates, then lays a hand on her shoulder, his skin barely making contact with the girl’s sash, which has been tied about her shoulders since they entered the desert. She flinches away, scowling at him, and his bravery recoils.

  They make it several yards before they reach another door. Their guide strolls past it and Tygoh peers inside. There are what look like a dozen bunks arranged in tidy lines, a couple of them cradling young acolytes, most of them empty. The space is sterile, not an article of clothing or an unmade bed found. An uneasy feeling creeps into his stomach. He shakes off the memory of seasickness, listening for any noises up ahead.

  Three more sconces pass on the right wall. Finally, they come to another doorway, this one with a worn wooden door, and the elder stops to knock quietly. They wait in the hallway with bated breath. Tygoh hears nothing, and the elder hums softly.

  “Perhaps he is indisposed,” their guide says, turning to face them.

  Tygoh opens his mouth to speak when a call from down the dim of the hallway interrupts him.

  “Stand back.”

  Nathis appears round the hall, his sword in hand, with Kelo following closely behind, dark hood pulled over his patchy hair. The general’s eyes are narrowed, intense, his pupils dark. Tygoh’s chest stutters. He moves the two women behind him to the outer wall with a guiding arm as Nathis stalks past. Kelo joins the girls, his peeling fingers fiddling with his sleeves. The boy’s face is drawn in with fear. The hallway becomes hot, cramped with too many bodies, and Tygoh can feel the fire building in his limbs.

  The elder acolyte stands tall, legs wide in a feeble attempt to block the general barreling toward him, and a polite protest comes spilling from his mouth.

  “Excuse me, sir. You are intruding upon-”

  “Move,” Nathis snaps, firmly directing the man in front of him aside as he reaches for the handle of the door. He begins to push, but the door moves slowly, a heavy grating noise coming from behind.

  “Immediately remove yourself,” the elder screeches, flattening his body against the wall.

  “Nathis, what-” Tygoh starts, his brows knitted, hand resting on the pommel of his sword.

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  Nathis interrupts again, his voice strained. “Drair has to be inside already. We’re too late.” He throws a shoulder into the door, his armor clanking against it.

  Anarah whispers from behind him. “No.”

  Tygoh can hear Lark’s scathing outburst before it comes. “That bitch!”

  Tygoh, face settling into solemnity, draws his sword and joins his mentor. The door is barred from behind, whatever furniture the assassin could find most likely laid heavy against it.

  “Drair!” Nathis calls. “Remember our conversation!”

  No answer.

  As they push, a crack of dim light begins to open up, and Tygoh can see into the far corner of the room. A slight man with peppery hair is huddled against the corner, his limbs pulled into his chest, his wide brown eyes glued to something in the center of the room. He can hear Drair muttering. Her voice is a low growl, the dark sound sending shivers down his arms.

  They heave together until the opening is large enough to squeeze through. Nathis, catching the edges of his armor on the walls, jerks through first, disappearing into the room. Tygoh slips through next, energy coursing through him.

  Inside, Drair is standing behind a man whom Tygoh can only assume is the High Warlock their guide spoke of. There is a leviathan tattoo across his forehead, gaudy and blue. The two are the same height, Drair’s coffee-colored skin contrasting with her captive’s light. Her katar is pressed to his throat, a rivulet of blood trickling down to stain the pristine white robes he wears. Her gaze meets theirs, vitriol burning within her pupils. To the right, Aslo stands with his back pressed hard into the corner. His little face is turned away, eyes closed, hands flat against the wall.

  “Drair, back away,” Nathis snarls.

  Drair, her blade still to the High Warlock’s throat, sneers back at him. “He owes this little boy his life back,” growls, bobbing her head to Aslo cowering in the corner.

  The man under her knife says nothing.

  Tygoh, looking around, begins to move the heavy wooden desk that had been placed in front of the door. Below his feet, parchment and quills litter the floor, puddles of ink spilled from broken bottles. He can hear Nathis sigh.

  “I understand, Drair. I do. But I’m not going to let you jeopardize any chance of amiable resolve to this. We’re talking kings and countries here, not vigilantes.”

  Tygoh opens the door and the others file in. Anarah hurries to the corner where Aslo is trembling, leaning down to meet his eyes and laying her hands softly upon his shoulders. Lark, shuffling behind Nathis, sees the blood dripping from the High Warlock’s throat and draws a sharp intake of breath. She sheaths her sword, blue eyes flitting from Drair to the terrified man crumpled on the floor. Kelo, the last to enter, curses under his breath, rushing to the corner where Aslo and Anarah are kneeling, and places his body between the young boy and Drair.

  “This isn’t what we want, Drair,” he shouts. His great black eyes are narrowed, lips splitting at the corners as he howls at the dark-skinned assassin. “Aslo didn’t need to see any of this. You’re a selfish, contentious liability. A loose cannon. We could have come to a feasible resolution together if you’d stayed at the-”

  Nathis holds out his arm. “Kelo,” he says softly.

  The skeletal young man stops mid sentence, snapping his jaw shut with an audible click. He drops his eyes to the floor, hair hanging. Had the boy any blood in his veins, Tygoh thought, there’d be a crimson blush to his thin cheeks.

  The others, shocked at Kelo’s outburst, stand breathless in the small room together. The High Warlock, his eyes an icy blue, is smiling.

  “I commend the fire in this group,” he says, chuckling.

  Drair jerks his body closer, bringing the katar under his chin.

  Tygoh holds his hands up and takes a few slow steps toward her, eyes locked onto hers. “I get it,” he soothes. “This man has cost thousands of lives. Not only the Xelinites’, but the lives of those children.” He waves vaguely toward Aslo. “We all want revenge. We’ve all been affected.”

  She interrupts him with a barking laugh, deep and raspy. The room quiets. “You don’t understand, lordling.” She tilts her head in his direction, her one uncovered eye squinting in amusement. “You’re the son of one of the rich bastards that massacred my people. Your father probably forced himself onto your mother, like an animal.”

  “How did you…”

  “But because your daddy was a vassal to the crown, you got the royal treatment. A ward of the king. Not lying with a slit throat in the driest parts of the desert.”

  Heat flushes through him, climbing up his limbs and bursting into his stomach. He holds back the flames that begin to crawl up his throat.

  Nathis steps between them, laying a heavy hand on Drair’s shoulder. She simply scowls at it. “What do you want from this?” he asks.

  Silence follows.

  Tygoh shakes his head, his lips curling. “She wants revenge,” he spits.

  Drair turns her gaze back to him. “You don’t speak for me.” She removes the knife from her captive’s throat, her other arm still wrapped about his shoulders, and rips the leather patch from her right eye. It falls to the ground. “I want this poor excuse of a human,” she slips the knife up against the warlock’s throat again, “to undo what he’s done. I want the Xelani released and the children restored.” She points her chin to Kelo, who stands stiffly in the corner, his hands gripping the sides of his dark robe. “I want the king’s brother to be able to walk through the streets without feeling the eyes of the world upon him. It’s a feeling I’m deeply familiar with. I want my people’s land back. I want my family back.”

  She turns again to Tygoh, her dark eyes boring into his. “And I want little lordlings like you to understand that your privileged lives will never touch the pain I’ve felt, regardless of your skin color.” She spits into the sand.

  Tygoh drops his head, listening to his breath cycle through his lungs. His leather-booted feet are planted in the hard-packed earth below, his heel swimming in a pool of spilled ink. All the anger he’d been holding, all the bitterness, sinks out of him into the floor. It is replaced by a rushing cold, ice in his veins, and shame rears its ugly head to face him. He chews his lip, hands shaking.

  “I know,” he whispers finally. His eyes do not leave his boots.

  There is a shuffle of clothing as Anarah pulls Aslo from the ground, the boy’s tiny hand clasped in hers. Tygoh can feel her gaze pining him to the floor. The robed man in the other corner, forgotten in the clamor, has crept along the wall behind them and slipped quietly from the room.

  “You’re right,” Tygoh asserts. He pulls his head up. “I don’t understand. I was raised under the tutelage of the Crown, which would have been a great honor for any man better than I.” He swallows hard, his throat dry. “But I squandered it. I spit in the face of those who would wish me a better life, something that was stolen from you.”

  He looks Drair in the face, taking in the features of the right side of her face that he’d never thought to ask about. “I’m sorry,” he says.

  Nathis, watching the woman’s arms begin to shake, reaches slowly for her wrist, hovering below the alchemist’s chin.

  From the corner, Anarah speaks. “There is another way, Drair. I’ll find it, I promise. I’ll make it my life’s work to fix this.”

  Drair releases a weak, scoffing laugh. “Fix it? How? Either way, someone loses a life they deserved.”

  “I watched the ceremony,” Anarah says. “The alchemists aren’t using their own magic to restore the afflicted. They’re using the Xelinites’. You can perform alchemy, Drair, drawing energy from some other source besides human bodies.” She shoots a glare at the High Warlock. “You are a catalyst to alchemy. You just need to find an energy source.”

  Drair stares her down, eyes blazing, as Nathis places a gentle hand around her right wrist, slowly pulling the knife away from the High Warlock’s throat. Her strength is dwindling.

  “I’ll find it,” Anarah repeats, nodding to the assassin.

  Drair shakes Nathis off, letting the man with the leviathan tattoo free of her grasp. His shoulders drop and he stands facing the room. His eyes betray no fear. Nathis grabs the alchemist by his wrists, pulling them behind his back, and nods to Tygoh. Finding nothing suitable for manacles in the chaos of the tiny room, Tygoh rips the bottom of his tunic and hands the strip of fabric to the general, who ties the man’s wrists together.

  Drair sheathes her katar beneath the bracer on her arm and shakes her arms out. She makes eye contact with Anarah again. “I’ll hunt you down myself if you’ve just bluffed me out of killing him,” she growls.

  “I understand.”

  “We’ll bring him to Taeg,” Nathis notes from beside the alchemist. “It’ll be a good little exercise in appropriate justices, I think.”

  Tygoh searches the room, realizing too late that Lark has disappeared in the action. He curses under his breath. “Where’s the girl?”

  A heavy sigh releases from the general’s lips. “Hopefully to get us something to eat,” he groans, rubbing the back of his neck.

  Kelo, standing silent in the corner, speaks for the first time in several minutes. “Why did you do it?”

  Silence follows as the group begins to understand to whom he is speaking. The alchemist turns to face the gruesome result of his choices, looking deeply into Kelo’s black eyes, noting the peeling skin on his bony fingers, the slight frame under the tattered robe. He inhales lightly, nodding at the fraying young man before him.

  “The thirst for power is an affliction some can’t seem to cure.”

  “That’s not good enough,” Kelo hisses.

  The alchemist draws his eyes upwards. “There are some things even us scholars do not understand. We humans keep repeating the same cycles over and over, hoping next time, it will work, that we’ll achieve the ultimate power, the ultimate happiness. It’s as close to the scientific process as I can think.” He returns his gaze to Kelo. “Yet I don’t believe we truly glean anything new from it. I suppose it’s the nature of people to want, and it’s the wanting that keeps the cycle spinning.”

  Kelo shakes his head, his lips curling, brow cinching. “So you take away pieces of others – literal pieces,” he jabs a finger at his missing nose, “so that you can continue spinning your wheel of greed?”

  “Do you not want your body back?” the alchemist says calmly.

  “Of course,” Kelo answers.

  “The cycle starts there.”