Wiping his cheek and neck with his sleeve, Korbyn trotted down the slope back to them. “Believe it or not, I deserved that,” he said cheerfully.

Pia looked disgusted. “Water is life.”

“I think there are a few stories you haven’t told,” Liyana said. It seemed the safest thing to say. Korbyn whistled as he crossed through camp, aiming for the north corner. She shoved the image of Korbyn and that woman into the back of her brain. She had no right to feel . . . whatever it was she felt, even on behalf of Bayla.

Men and women were sprawled between the tents. A few whispered and pointed at them as they passed. Some laughed. Liyana tried to ignore them.

Korbyn climbed the rocks toward a lone tent perched precariously on a boulder. Liyana, Fennik, and Pia followed him. He held the tent flap up, and they all entered.

Inside was a young woman. Her telltale vessel tattoos were visible. She wore a sleeveless tunic that was stained with grease and blood. Near her was a heap of shredded silk and silver bells—her ceremonial dress, destroyed. Her hair flopped over half her face. Several thin braids were stuck to her forehead and cheeks. She snored loudly.

“This is she?” Fennik said.

“Is that her snore or a pig’s?” Pia asked, wrinkling her nose. “And what is that odor?” Liyana guessed it was the dried vomit in the corner, but it could have been the girl herself. Or both.

Korbyn nudged the girl’s leg with his toe. “Good morning!”

Groaning, the girl opened one eye. “Outta my tent.” She leveled a finger at each of them. “Don’t like you. Or you. Or you.”

“That’s okay,” Korbyn said cheerfully. “We probably won’t like you either.”

“She cannot be the vessel,” Fennik said.

Oh, goddess, it was going to take hours to coax this girl into sobriety, much less convince her to come with them. Liyana wanted to scream. Every day they encountered more delays! She thought of her family, facing day after day, believing that Bayla would never come, believing they were doomed. And this girl, this drunk, pathetic girl, was keeping Liyana from saving them.

“Set me down, Fennik,” Pia said. “I want to go to her.” Fennik lowered her to the ground, and Pia felt her way across the room. She knelt next to the girl, and she patted her hand. “We’ll find your goddess. Everything will be okay.”

The girl bit Pia’s hand.

Yelping, Pia snatched her hand back and cradled it to her chest. Fennik rushed to her and wrapped his arms around Pia’s shoulders.

The girl giggled.

“What’s your name?” Korbyn asked.

“Raan. Raan, Raan, Raan. Rrrrrrr-aaaaaaa-nnnnnnn, ra-ra-ra-ra . . .” She swirled her fingers in the air as if she were conducting music. “Na-na-na-na . . .”

“Sober her up faster,” Liyana said to Korbyn. “We can’t talk to her like this.” Liyana had once seen one of the herder boys in this state. It had taken him hours to be coherent. Aunt Sabisa had dumped a pitcher of precious water on his head.

Korbyn knelt next to her. “Don’t bite. I bite back.”

Giggling, the girl Raan gnashed her teeth together.

Laying his hand on her shoulder, Korbyn concentrated. Over the course of a minute, the girl’s face flushed and then paled into a sickly green and then settled in the normal range. Liyana noticed she had nice brown eyes, now that they weren’t dilated. In fact, she was beautiful, if you discounted the disheveled hair and stained clothes.

“Do you feel better, Raan?” Pia asked solicitously.

Raan scowled at them. “What did you do?” She searched through the piles of blankets that had been tossed around her tent. “Aha!” She displayed a waterskin as if it were a trophy.

Korbyn intercepted it and tossed it across the tent. “You’re done celebrating.”

“But it’s a new era! We are free!” Scrambling across the tent, she fetched the waterskin, took off the cap, and lifted it to her lips. Crossing the tent in three strides, Korbyn covered the opening with his hand. “Aw, don’t let it go to waste,” Raan said. “Once the drink is gone, it’s gone. This is the last of it. Can’t make more without a miracle.” She seemed to find this amusing. “Come on. Half the clan is celebrating with me.”

“And the other half?” Pia asked, distaste clear in her voice.

Raan shrugged. “Drowning their sorrows. They didn’t like me much anyway.”

“I cannot imagine why not,” Liyana muttered. She crossed her arms. All the time to journey here, and this was what had waited for them. This girl would be a greater drain on Korbyn than Pia was. At least Pia tried.

Raan pointed at her. “I heard that. Who are you people and what are you doing in my tent? Did Runa tell you where to find me? I shouldn’t have punched her.”

“You punched your chieftess?” Pia’s voice rose an octave.

“You’re a judgmental little thing, aren’t you?” Raan said. “Do I enter your tent without an invitation and ruin your party? If you must know, she blamed me for the failure of her barbaric ceremony. And while I am thrilled it failed—”

Pia clenched her delicate hands into tiny fists. “You disgust—”

“Enough,” Korbyn said.

“She celebrates the demise of her clan!” Pia said.

“I rejoice that the goddess wants us to find another way to live,” Raan said.

Korbyn stepped between Pia and Raan. He laid his hand on Pia’s shoulder, as if to prevent her from charging bull-like at the larger girl. “We need her, and she needs us, whether she knows it or not.”

“I don’t need anyone,” Raan said. “That’s the whole beauty of being free.” She spun in a circle with her arms raised in the air, and she kicked at the clothes and blankets at her feet.

“You are not free,” Pia said. “You have responsibilities to your clan. You must die so that your people can live. Like the rest of us.”

Raan quit dancing and stared at them.

Pia rolled up her sleeves to display her tattoos. “Fennik, Liyana, show her.”

Flexing his biceps, Fennik showed his tattoos.

“Our goddess chose not to come,” Raan said. “She granted me life!”

Liyana didn’t move. By the tent flap, she watched the others argue with Raan, trying to convince her that this was the correct course, explaining their mission and their reasons, and resorting to guilt (from Pia) and threats (from Fennik) and reason (from Korbyn). Raan refused to believe them. When Korbyn poured her waterskin out, Raan pummeled his chest. She then shouted obscenities until Pia covered her ears with her hands and screeched as loud as a whistle.

Liyana backed out of the tent. She let the flap fall down, muffling the sound only slightly. Men and woman clustered at the foot of the boulder, listening to the drama and taking bets on the outcome. She walked past them. A few men whistled at her. A few women laughed. A few children ran up to her and tugged on her sleeves. As before, she ignored them all.

She marched directly to Runa’s tent and barged inside.

Runa was dunking her fingers into a bowl of honey and then licking them, slurping as she sucked at her knob-like knuckles. “Excuse me, child?”

“You aren’t as drunk as you were pretending,” Liyana said. “I’ve seen drunk before. You wanted to throw liquor at Korbyn because it was fun. I’ve wanted to throw things at him too. He can be infuriating.” She thought of how closemouthed he was about their final destination. “But this isn’t about him. Or me. Or Raan. It’s about whether our clans survive. Our deities have been kidnapped, and Korbyn says we need the deities’ vessels in order to rescue them. He won’t want to leave until Raan joins us.”

Runa blinked at her. “Let me guess. Raan is refusing.”

“You forced her to submit to the ceremony, didn’t you?”

“It required three of our warriors to ensure her presence.” Runa dug her fingers back in the honey and scraped the bowl with her nails. “We had to threaten her cousin’s life before she would dance. But she danced while I filled the words with magic and sent them to the Dreaming. Yet still Maara didn’t come. Perhaps . . . you speak the truth.”