“You need to force her again,” Liyana said. “You must exile her. She has a strong self-preservation instinct. She’ll know the only way to survive is to come with us.”

“And when the time comes for her to give up her body for our goddess?”

Liyana hesitated. “We outnumber her.”

Runa chuckled. “Your friends are in her tent trying to convince her, aren’t they? But you, you are here. You are a determined one. And clever.”

“The needs of the many outweigh the desire of one.” Liyana felt as if Talu were here, whispering words in her ear. “She can’t be allowed to kill your entire clan simply to hoard a few more years of her own.”

“Ah, the certainty of youth,” Runa said. “You care a lot about a clan that is not your own. I wonder. . . . Is this out of a sense of what is right or out of a fear that you may be wrong?”

Liyana thought of Jidali. Of Mother and Father. Of her cousins. She wasn’t wrong. “Will you do it for your people?” she asked. “Or if not for your people, then for Korbyn, for whatever he was to you and whatever you felt for him.”

Runa didn’t answer. She dunked her fingers into the honey again.

Liyana waited, wishing she could scream like Pia. She hated the taste of the air inside Runa’s tent. It was thick and smelled overly sweet. She felt as if the smell were pouring down her throat and permeating her skin. It made her skin itch, and she longed to run outside and let the desert wind scour her clean.

“Yes, I will,” Runa said at last. “But I will regret it, as will those who love you. And perhaps even Korbyn himself.”

Liyana fidgeted, and her horse shuffled beneath her. Up the hill, Runa was breaking the news to Raan, and Raan was not taking it well. Her reaction echoed through the camp.

Raan rattled off a string of expletives that caused Pia to wince. “You were wise to interfere, Liyana,” Pia said. “She will realize that this is the right course of action.”

More shouting, and then a crash. Raan had begun to throw pots and pans. “I am not certain she will realize that anytime soon,” Korbyn commented.

Liyana wondered how long they could afford to wait. She thought again of Jidali and how her clan must feel with despair pressing down on them.

“Do you think she’ll try to flee?” Pia asked.

“She won’t be allowed to jeopardize our mission,” Fennik said. “I’ll guard her myself.”

“But how will you prevent it?” Pia asked. “We cannot harm a vessel. Her deity needs her body to be pristine.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Liyana said.

Pia began to object.

“Her goddess only needs her alive and able to dance,” Liyana said. “If Raan tries to run . . . we blind her. She can’t run away if she can’t see where she runs.”

Pia paled.

“You are . . .” Korbyn paused, clearly searching for the appropriate adjective.

“Mother called me practical,” Liyana said. “Fennik, I am sick of delays. Will you fetch her? Carry her if you have to. And if she protests, we can tie her to a horse.”

“She isn’t going to like us very much,” Pia noted.

“I won’t let my family suffer because she wants to throw a temper tantrum,” Liyana said. She noticed Korbyn was staring at her. She refused to meet his eyes. She didn’t want to see what he thought of what she was saying. “We are leaving, whether she likes it or not. Fennik?”

Fennik strode toward the tent. A few minutes later, he emerged with a sullen Raan. His hand was clamped around her arm, and he was nearly dragging her.

Runa watched from on top of a rock. From where she stood, Liyana couldn’t read her expression. But she did notice that the clan’s warriors fanned out on either side of her. The rest of the clan huddled by their tents, watching and whispering. When Raan tried to run back toward Runa, the chieftess signaled to the warriors. Standing on the rocks all around the camp, the warriors raised their bows and spears.

Scooping Raan up as if she were Pia, Fennik lifted the Scorpion Clan’s vessel onto a horse. She kicked him once before she sank into the saddle.

“Fennik, tie her to the saddle,” Liyana said.

Raan shot her a glare. “Don’t. I will ride.”

No one spoke again as they rode out of the hills.

Slumped in her saddle, Raan refused to meet any of their eyes, which suited Liyana fine. One more vessel, Liyana thought. She wished she could urge her horse into a gallop and race across the desert to Bayla, wherever she was. Just one more. She hoped that the final vessel cooperated easily.

As the sun set and shadows stretched around them, they pressed on. By unspoken agreement, they wanted as many miles between them and the hills before they camped. On unfamiliar ground, Raan would be less likely to make an escape.

As the stars speckled the sky, they selected a stretch of baked clay punctuated by rocks and cacti to be their camp. Pia commenced her nightly ritual of brushing her white hair. Fennik tended the horses while Korbyn put himself in a trance to summon water and food. After drinking away their supplies in the wake of the failed ceremony, the Scorpion Clan had had little to spare.

Liyana pitched the tent and started the fire. All the while, she kept her eyes on Raan. The others, she noticed, did the same.

Huddled by the tent flap, Raan was glaring at Korbyn as he caused a bush to sprout leaves. “It sickens me,” Raan said. “Killing people so they can play at being human.”

Pia clucked her tongue but didn’t quit brushing her hair. “Without the gods, we’d perish. We need them to revitalize our clans—to fill our wells, bring life to our herds, and instill health in our children.”

“Or we could simply move somewhere we don’t need gods,” Raan said. “Move to where there’s water. And fertile land. Leave the desert.”

Pia dropped her brush.

Liyana heard the words but they sounded foreign. Leave the desert? But they were the desert people! She couldn’t imagine not feeling the sand beneath her feet or the wind tangling her hair or the heat searing her lungs. It was a part of how she breathed. Outside the desert . . . she’d shrivel like a ripe date in the sun.

Fennik had quit currying the horses. “If we leave, we lose ourselves.”

“Better than losing our lives,” Raan said.

“We’d lose our way of life!” Fennik said.

Raan snorted. “Oh, and that would be such a loss. Half my clan poisons themselves with alcohol. The other half works themselves to death trying to squeeze life out of dry rocks. We can’t heal our own sick. We can’t save our babies. I lost two sisters because my mother’s milk wouldn’t come. She didn’t have enough water to make milk. Yet her brother was drunk every night. He drank away my sisters’ lives. And you want to preserve this? Haven’t you ever wondered if there could be more out there? If life could be better?”

“I have all I could wish for,” Pia said. She resumed brushing her hair.

“This is a pointless conversation,” Liyana said. She tossed a handful of dried horse manure and then a clump of dried leaves onto the fire. The leaves crackled and fizzed. “Fennik’s right. We are the desert.” She wiped her hands clean and crossed to Korbyn. Dropping down next to him, she closed her eyes.

Picturing her lake, she inhaled. She felt the water fill her like the sweetest air in her lungs. She reached out toward the desert—her desert, her beautiful home that she would never leave because it was as much a part of her as her body and how dare Raan even consider leaving! How dare Runa even suggest that their choice was wrong! Liyana had spoken the truth—she was the desert! She was the sand. She was the sun overhead. She was the hot wind. She was the cracked earth and the rocks, the barren hills and the stone mountains. She was the brittle bush that held its strength coiled tight inside, waiting for the moment to unfurl its leaves. She was the snake that hunted for a desert mouse in the cooling evening air.