As if from a distance, Korbyn’s voice drifted toward her. She sensed him, a shimmer that spiked inside flesh, and she touched the other vessels, smooth swirls of energy within their bodies. She could tell the difference between mortal and divine souls, as Korbyn had claimed. “A snake hunts near us,” Korbyn said.

“I feel him,” Liyana said.

“Draw him closer.”

She felt the snake slither over the sand. It hitched its body sideways. Its tongue tasted the air. This way, she coaxed it. She felt the snake slither, felt the sand on the scales of her belly. She inched across the desert, closer, closer.

“Now think of the shape of your body and the feel of your own skin,” Korbyn said. “Reshape yourself inside your body, and release the excess magic.” She remembered the length of her arms and the curve of her legs. She felt sweat clinging to her back and prickling her armpits. She poured herself back inside her own skin. She imagined the excess magic flowing away from her, and she felt it dissipate.

Opening her eyes, she wiped her forehead with her sleeve. “Did it work?”

“You tell me.” He pointed.

Fennik raised his bow and aimed an arrow at the sand. The horses rolled their eyes and stamped their feet. Pia stroked the neck of the closest horse, cooing to it.

“I felt the magic,” Liyana said, awed. “I summoned it.”

The cobra reared.

Fennik released the arrow. It pinned the snake to the sand. He stared at it. So did Liyana, Raan, and Korbyn.

Raan found her voice first. “You . . . But you’re a vessel.”

“She finally did it,” Pia said. “Sacrilege.” But the word lacked heat.

“Tasty sacrilege,” Korbyn said, picking up the snake.

Liyana collapsed backward in the sand and smiled up at the stars.

At dawn Liyana used magic to locate tubers buried beneath the earth. She dug them up and had them shredded and fried before Korbyn finished summoning water. She also located a second snake, the mate to the prior night’s dinner. She failed to coax it into moving—she wasn’t strong enough to overcome its natural instinct to lie on a rock to soak in the early sun—but she was able to direct Fennik to it, increasing their food supply.

“Nicely done,” Korbyn said, handing her a full waterskin.

Liyana felt as though he’d handed her the moon.

“Keep the heads away from Raan,” Korbyn told Fennik. “We don’t need her getting any clever ideas about poison.”

“Unlike some, I don’t kill to get what I want,” Raan said.

Stiffly Pia swept toward the horses. She did not feel her way as she normally did, and Raan was forced to scoot backward. “Korbyn’s vessel was a sacrifice,” Pia said.

“Convincing someone that murder is justified doesn’t make it any less murder.”

Fennik hefted a saddle onto a horse. “In my clan, such talk would have gotten you punished a long time ago.” He cinched the saddle around the horse’s stomach.

“Ooh, the big, strong warrior is afraid of the truth.”

He strapped his bows onto the horse. One bow, two, three. He handled them as if he wanted to use them on Raan. “I don’t fear words. Or death. Only failure. That, I fear. But your fear . . . your fear will condemn your clan. Don’t you have anyone you care about other than yourself? What about your parents? Brothers or sisters? Cousins? Friends? What about the children in your clan? The babies? The not-yet-born?”

“She had sisters,” Pia said. “She said she had sisters who died as babies.”

Raan leaped to her feet. “I am thinking of them! You have no idea—”

“Enough,” Korbyn said. He sounded colder than Liyana had ever heard him sound. “I never expected to have to babysit humans. We’ve already lost more time than I’d planned.”

“What is your plan?” Raan asked. “Where are the deities? Who has them? How are they trapped? Can they be rescued? You could be leading us to our deaths while our clans wait and wither—”

Korbyn laid his hand on her shoulder, and Raan slumped to the ground. He then picked her up with more care than Liyana thought she would have, and he placed her in a saddle. He looped the reins around her so that she wouldn’t slide off while she slept.

Pia smiled brightly at them, the sky, and the desert in general. “The day has become so much more pleasant!” By feel, she located the horse that Fennik had saddled for her, and she mounted without assistance for the first time.

As they rode away from their campsite, Korbyn kept his horse beside the sleeping Raan. Liyana matched his pace. Once Fennik and Pia pulled into the lead, Liyana said, “Raan did raise valid questions in her rant.”

Korbyn nodded gravely. He then leaned and checked the strap that secured Raan to her mare. “To answer her: You follow me because I am charming. And yes, I do know where we are going.”

“You could share that information with us,” Liyana said.

He rode for a while without answering. She waited and watched the sand swirl in the wind as if twirled by an invisible finger. Finally he said, “Not yet.”

“You should trust us. We want what you want.”

He looked pointedly at Raan.

“She’s asleep,” Liyana said.

“Have I ever told you the story of how the parrot once cheated the raven? Once, the raven was a bird with jewel-colored feathers brilliant enough to dazzle the sun itself. The parrot, a drab, brown bird at the time, was jealous. . . .”

Jerking upright, Raan slammed her heels into Plum. The horse jolted forward, and Raan urged her into a gallop. She raced across the desert.

“She’s the parrot,” Korbyn said.

Fennik yanked his horse’s head in her direction, preparing to chase after her.

Korbyn stopped him. “Let her run,” he said. “It may make her feel better.”

Liyana watched the sand billow in the wake of Raan’s horse. She hoped that Raan didn’t allow Plum to overheat. “She’s heading toward her clan.” Without water for herself and her horse, she’d never make it.

“Poor Raan,” Pia said. “So much rage to so little effect.”

“What happened to the parrot?” Liyana asked.

“He plucked the raven, and then, fearing punishment, fled the desert to live in the rain forest. But once there, he discovered that he was no more beautiful than any other bird or flower. So every night, he flies above the forest canopy and pines for the desert he left.”

They watched the shadow of dust recede. “She will have to run very far to reach a rain forest,” Fennik commented. He dismounted and tended to the horses.

Setting up the tent, they rested in its shade. Liyana used her magic to corral several scorpions. Once she sliced off their tails, she added their bodies to their food supply. She buried the stingers.

Soon Korbyn pointed to a cloud on the horizon. “She’s returning.” Together, they watched her fight with the horse’s reins as a determined Plum bore down on their camp. Pia shared her tuber cake, and they each nibbled it as they waited for Raan and Plum to cross the sand. When the cake was gone, Fennik stretched out to full length and propped his legs up on a rock. Liyana rested her chin on her knees.

“You used magic on the horse,” Liyana said.

“I might have . . . influenced her,” Korbyn conceded.

“Clever.”

“Delighted you noticed.”

As she got closer, Raan shouted a string of obscenities at them. Pia gasped with each one. Fennik looked disgusted.

“Impressive vocabulary,” Korbyn said. “I feel as though I should take notes.”

“I think she’s making them up,” Liyana said. “Half of them are not anatomically possible.”

“And the rest is . . . ill-advised,” Pia said.

Continuing to curse them out, Raan dismounted. Liyana packed up camp while Fennik fussed over Plum. Once the mare had recovered enough, they rode on without a word to Raan.

Her second escape attempt came that night. She didn’t take a horse, and Fennik caught her before she’d made it a hundred yards. He carried her kicking back to the camp and deposited her inside the tent.