He lowered the bucket into the well. It smacked the bottom.

For a moment he stared into the well. Around them, the wind paused, as if it held its breath. And then Korbyn relaxed. “That should do it,” he said cheerfully. Yanking on the rope, he pulled the bucket up with careless ease. Water sloshed over the brim as he hefted the bucket over the lip of the well.

Liyana felt her mouth drop open. Her mother would have tapped her chin and told her not to catch flies. Or maybe her mother would have been stunned too. Talu couldn’t have done that. “Who are you?”

“I am Korbyn.” He unhooked the bucket from its rope and held it out to her. “Shall we?”

She didn’t budge.

He heaved another long-suffering sigh. “As tricks go, that one was easy. The water was there. It was merely a matter of causing the sand to settle faster than usual. Now if you want a real trick . . . Have you heard about the time that the raven tricked the moon into sharing her light?”

Liyana knew the story. She’d told it to Jidali once. But she could only stare at Korbyn. He had to be a magician, but to be so powerful . . .

“He flattered her beauty and told her that she must see herself,” Korbyn said. “He knew of a mirror, he said, where she could view her own beauty. He guided her to the sea. When the moon looked down at the rolling water, she saw her image broken on the waves. The raven complimented her shine and her color, but said it was a pity she wasn’t round like the world. He said that if she gave him a sliver of her light, she would be fixed. So she did.” He nodded at her, as if he wanted Liyana to finish the story for him.

Liyana swallowed. “But she still looked broken. So she gave him another sliver and then another until she was nothing but a crescent.” His smile broadened, as if he were delighted with her. Encouraged, she continued. “And when she realized she’d been tricked, she struck a deal: The raven would return her light bit by bit until she was full if she would then share it again with him bit by bit. And so it continues, month after month, waxing and waning.”

Korbyn beamed at her. “See, now that was a trick.” Whistling, he strode across camp with the bucket in his hand. Precious water spilled out, darkening the sand around him. After a second of staring, she followed him.

Korbyn set the bucket down next to her tent. The torn side fluttered sadly in the wind. “Your fire pit is . . . ahh, here.” He knelt beside a lump and proceeded to wipe away sand with his sleeve. He exposed her circle of rocks, as well as the remnants of her fire pit.

“What clan are you?” she asked.

He rolled back his sleeves for her to see the tattoos that decorated his arms. Black birds wound around his wrists and up to his shoulders.

“Raven Clan?” she asked.

Swirls twisted between the ravens in a pattern she knew very well, and she suddenly felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She had the same swirls on her arms. She looked up into his eyes. “You’re a vessel.”

Shaking his head, he winked at her.

“You’re a god?”

He laughed again, but she didn’t feel as if he were laughing at her. It was the joyous, glad-to-be-alive sound of a child. It cascaded over him and shook his whole body. She thought of Jidali’s laugh and how it would overcome him. You couldn’t help but smile when Jidali laughed. When Korbyn laughed, the sheer joy in the sound made her feel dizzy.

Liyana sat down hard on the sand opposite Korbyn. She stared at him, and he, still amused, stared back. She thought she should be able to tell—divinity should beam out of his eyes. But he seemed human. “Truly? You are the Korbyn?”

Instead of answering, Korbyn laid one hand on the charred sticks, goat dung, and dried palm leaves from her last fire. He concentrated for a moment, with the same blank expression she’d seen on Talu’s face when she was in a trance. Flames burst to life. He grinned at her as the fire licked his fingers. Smoke curled up.

She smelled a hint of burning skin. Korbyn’s face contorted as if he were confused. Liyana lunged forward and shoved his hand off the fire. She smothered the flames on his palm with her sleeves. Once she was sure the fire was out, she released him.

He raised his hand and looked at the red, puckered skin. Blisters ran up and down his palm. “That hurts,” he said, wonder in his voice.

Quickly Liyana grabbed the bucket and plunged his hand into it. “Keep it in there. I have aloe and bandages.” She dove into her tent and then emerged with her supply pack.

“My attempt to impress you has failed,” Korbyn noted.

Liyana lifted his hand out of the water. “We have to try to keep it clean.” She squeezed the aloe leaf, and the precious white sap smeared onto his palm. Moving quickly, she wrapped white cloth bandage around his hand. “You have a high tolerance for pain.”

“It’s a novelty,” he said. “I haven’t felt pain for a century.”

She knotted the bandage and then rocked back on her heels. She had no doubt about his identity now. No human would lack the instinct to yank his hand away from a fire.

He flexed his fingers. “Thank you. That was kind of you.” He then looked at the bucket and grimaced. “We may want new water for the tea.”

“Boiling fixes nearly any impurity.” She dug the one small pot out of her pack, and she poured water in the pot and then set it over the fire. “You’re in a vessel?” She was proud that her voice sounded so calm.

“I was summoned five nights ago, and I set out to find you.”

“Me? But . . .” All calmness fled, and her voice squeaked. “Your clan! Your clan needs you!”

“All the clans need me,” he said. “And I need you.”

She understood the words he was saying, but the order of them made no sense. “You left your clan to find me?”

“Deities are missing. Five in total. They were summoned from the Dreaming, but their souls never filled their clans’ vessels.”

Liyana felt as if she had been dropped back inside the sandstorm. “Bayla . . .”

“I believe their souls were stolen. And I intend for us to steal them back.”

In the predawn, the emperor walked through the dead garden. Orange trees had once filled this place with a fragrance so heavy that it thickened the air. Now the trees were bare, and the branches looked like bones. A gardener had meticulously combed the dry, dusty earth, trying to create beauty from death. The emperor knelt next to an empty flower bed and ran his fingers over the spirals and swirls. He scooped up a handful of dirt. His people hadn’t given up. Neither could he, no matter how impossible it seemed and no matter what his court said.

He heard them, even when they whispered, even when they didn’t speak. He’s too young. Barely a man. Their eyes accused him from every corner of the palace. His father had not been able to break the Great Drought, and he had been the finest emperor ever to grace the throne of the Crescent Empire. And now it was whispered that his son had a mad plan. . . .

He had dreamed of the lake again last night. He had walked through a valley framed by sheer, granite cliffs. Green had overflowed all around him. He had halted at the pebble shore of the lake. It had been a perfect oval, and the crystal blue water had been still. He had tossed a pebble into the water, and the smooth, glassy surface had broken into a million diamonds, each reflecting the sky.

Heels clicked on the marble stones that wound through the garden. The emperor let the dirt fall through his fingertips, and then he rose and turned to greet the guard. “Yes?”

The guard snapped his heels together and bowed. “Your Imperial Majesty. The court is assembled and awaits your decision.”

Inwardly the emperor sighed. He wished he could tell the court to wait another hour, another day, another year. But he didn’t have the luxury of emotions like that. The face he presented to the guard was as serene as the lake from his dreams. “Then I shall join them.”