Menes scuffed at the ground like a restless bull as Ilati approached Eigou. The old man seemed intently focused on the clear waters of oasis, stirring them with a palm frond. Without looking up, their sorcerer spoke. “Are you ready to enter the desert?” 

Ilati straightened up despite the pain through her body. If this was to be an audience with a god, she should meet it with the calm of a priestess, even though she felt more like a broken reed. “I am.”

“Good.” Eigou stood up and flicked the piece of palm frond into the water. “I will give you a skin that should hold you over for a day, perhaps longer if you are careful. Go into the dunes as far as you dare, Ilati, and see if she will speak to you.” 

The priestess nodded. As far as you dare. Would anything short of piercing the heart of the desert itself impress the Mother of Night Winds? “Will you two be here when I finish?”

Menes nodded. “We will stay. Not forever, but long enough for you to enter and return.” 

“If you do not die.” Eigou’s reminder sent a pang of fear through Ilati’s stomach. “We have talked away enough time. Go. We will keep our vigil here at the oasis and hope for your return.”

Ilati nodded when the old man handed her the smaller goatskin they had, filled with water. She slung it over one shoulder and tied it in place with a leather cord. It ached against her bruises, but it was the best way to carry it and keep her hands free. “If I do not return, pray for my people. No one else will offer them respite.” 

She turned and limped into the desert, the oasis fading into mirage behind her with every step. The fabric she had used as a veil now covered her head as a scarf, worn loose around her shoulders to allow the movement of air. Eigou had given her water for a day, but she knew in her heart of hearts that only deeper would interest the wild goddess she was chasing. 

Trudging through the loose sand felt more arduous than walking on packed earth and it did not help that she was climbing dunes, many of which rose like temples worthy of titans before her, almost a thousand cubits at their summits. They would have dwarfed even the greatest ziggurat of Shadi and the mere sight of one from standing at its base sucked the breath from her lungs. Once she reached the crest, she could follow along it to the peak and then along them, like great waves of earth frozen in eerie patterns. There was no sign of a serpent or scorpion, so she considered herself fortunate as she walked. 

The heat was almost unbearable here. When she slipped and fell, she scorched her shins and hands, not to mention almost losing her water supply. All around the air shimmered and waved in the heat of the day. She had every intention of pushing as far as she could before resting. 

Thirst was a demon that could not be exorcized. It burned in Ilati’s throat and mouth, consuming even her spit until it felt like her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth. Only water cured it, and the less she drank, the more the thirst grew and grew, demanding more and more. 

Ilati had lived in the temple shade for much of her life, and before her vows had played idly in Shadi’s vibrant gardens. Not once in her life before now had she been forced to contend with privation. She was the treasured daughter, groomed to rule the temple of the patron goddess of the birthplace of civilization. There was no room in that for hunger, thirst, or the punishment of damaged limbs and battered muscles.

The Desert of Kings, as unknowable in its own way as the surface of the moon or the depths of the ocean, was her temple now. With a cloudless, beautiful blue sky above and the temperature of an inferno baking her alive, Ilati still found herself feeling some little thread of hope. If she could just follow it, surely she would find something that would help her, no matter the thirst burning her throat or the hunger gnawing at her stomach. Her body still ached from several brutal beatings, the outline of hands now livid on her wrists and throat.

Her first day in the desert ended without ceremony, the sun sinking slowly behind the desolate dunes. She stopped to rest on the ridge of a true titan of a dune and watched in awe as the light striking the sand turned it red as blood.

A wind picked up after dusk as Ilati sipped at her meager water, racing across the dunes. It whipped sand around her, striking her with a biting chill. She slipped her scarf off her head and wrapped it around her shoulders. Even doing it, she knew that there was no way the fabric would be enough if it continued. 

Soon she was lying on the top of the dune, clinging to the heat left in the sand as the desert winds howled, stripping away her comfortable warmth. She tucked the wrap and her goatskin of water under her head as a pillow and tried to sleep beneath a brilliant gibbous moon. 

The desert had other ideas. 

Eyelids heavy with sleep, it took Ilati a moment to realize that she was not alone here on the peak of the dune. She felt the stirring at her ankle and woke suddenly, twisting to see a scorpion scurrying up her leg. 

Whether it was deadly or not, Ilati had no desire to feel its sting. She froze, forcing herself not to flinch or do anything that might provoke the scorpion. It was the size of her hand and the color of the sands around it. If she had been casting about with her vision, she would have been hard pressed to see it, but on her flesh, the eight legs were very apparent. Cold fear coursed through her body. There were many stories of magi who killed their enemies with scorpions just like this, though in the stories they were usually larger and dark colored. 

This was in K’adau’s domain, so surely it would be deadly in the fearsome goddess’s image.

The creature paused on her chest with a twitching stinger, a strange collection of eyes evaluating her with a mix of suspicion and indifference. She was not a meal for it and the painfully even breaths she was taking were slow enough not to startle the creature into aggression. 

A brief flick of its tail and it went on its way, scurrying down her arm and then down the dune in search of a prey it could actually consume.

For at least an hour afterward, Ilati lay awake with the skin-crawling sensation of its legs across her body. Scorpions were dangerous creatures and apparently not averse to approaching her. She didn’t loathe them, but she held little love for them.

They were so small, yet deadly. How was it that such a delicate looking creature could menace even fully grown men?

Ilati eventually slept, huddled on the dune’s peak. Her dreams ignited Shadi’s destruction all over again.

—“It will be simply done. Our army is twice theirs,” Duga said, his shoulders squared with kingly confidence. The lanky young man was eager to prove himself. Kullah had endured no wars since his father pushed back a roving incursion of Sut Resi barbarians from the south, the steppe nomads that constantly troubled civilized lands. 

His twin nodded sharply, raising his chin. “If we break them at Gibil, we need not fear them here.”

“Very well,” the great Amar-Sin said, a slim man with threads of gray appearing in his coal-dark beard. Ilati’s father wore the armor and grandeur of a king well as he leaned back in his throne. A glimmer of uncertainty appeared in his eyes as he looked at his twin sons. “Return to me covered in glory. Return to me alive and unharmed, both of you.” 

Duga and Kia both bowed to their father. “Have we ever disappointed you?”  

He smiled faintly. “No. I will stay in command of the forces that will hold Shadi.”

Ilati stood quietly to the side, uncertainty knotting her stomach. “Is it wise to send them?” she whispered to her mother. 

Queen Eresh stood regal and proud, perhaps more so than even her husband. Amar-Sin’s melancholies often left him ragged, where his wife was the steadying hand. “They are the sons of a king, Ilati. They must prove they are worthy to call themselves the children of Amar-Sin.” 

Ilati plucked at the sleeve of her temple robe. “Do I have to prove it?”

Eresh turned to her daughter, exasperation at her lips. “Must I explain to you the difference between men and women, Ilati?” 

The comment was so preposterous it almost made Ilati laugh despite her anxiety. She had been a priestess of the goddess of love for six years, and had opened her arms to both. “No, Mother, I know it well.” 

“Then be still.” Eresh was legendary for her firmness and every syllable sat like carefully stacked bricks of fired clay, cut and chosen to make the strongest section of a wall.

She wanted to heed her mother, but there were dark, terrible words twisting in her thoughts. She heard more rumors of Nysra than anyone else at court and every insinuation left her dreaming a cold dread. Surely this would not be so easily won as Duga and Kia thought. 

When her brothers left the hall, she followed them. She knew better than to try and reason with brash Duga. It was the younger twin who was more thoughtful. She caught Kia by his hand and pulled him back just before he could step into the private complex of the royal family. 

“What’s wrong, Ilati?” Kia said, his brow furrowing at the sight of her worry. 

“I am afraid for you. I am afraid that Nysra will be more dangerous than you think.” 

Her brother put comforting hands on her shoulders. “He has already tried to wheedle a surrender out of us three times. He is no great king.”

Ilati forced herself to smile, but the impression it left was a falseness, an unease. “That was not the tone I would say his messenger took.” 

“No. He was the soul of impoliteness.” 

The priestess shook her head. “Duga should not have taken his head. Please don’t go, Kia. Your place is here. Who will defend us?” 

“Father is here.” 

Ilati squeezed her brother’s hand. “He has not been a warrior since he broke his knee hunting. Please stay, Kia. Do not leave me to chase death.” 

“He is still a fine general.” Kia kissed her forehead. “Have a little faith, Ilati, and burn offerings for us every day that we are gone. Zu would not abandon her favored princes, no?” —

—the twins clustered closer to the deathbed of the great Ilishu the Conqueror himself, the fevered wreckage of the man who had united all the warring cities of Kullah and used their combined might to conquer the north and west, until on all sides the vast expanse of his kingdom had been bounded only by the sea and the great Desert of Kings. 

They said when the gods cast Ilishu, they had broken their mold, for Amar-Sin was nowhere equal to the task of maintaining the great empire. Already grand Kullah was losing its luster like a stone touched by the evil eye, rebellions in various provinces heralding the end of the domination by the land between two rivers.

Age was the one foe Ilishu could not slay, though many suspected he would fall on his blade in the morning to choose the moment of his own death in defiance. Ilati was not old enough to really understand as she stood between her brothers, looking down at the weathered warrior now on his last breaths. 

“He who would be my equal, where I have gone, let him go!”

They had. Like all living things would do at their end, the twins had followed their grandfather to the grave— 

—Ilati stood at the threshold of the ziggurat with her fingers locked with her mother’s so tightly that their hands were white. Before them unfolded an inferno on all sides, the reeking smoke of torched fields and reed roofs unable to obscure the sight of the enemy’s soldiers flooding into the city on all sides. They had Shadi surrounded. There would be no escape. “Why are they doing this?” she said through numb lips.

“Does it matter?” Like a fresh flint, Eresh’s voice struck sparks. She gripped Ilati’s hand tighter. “They will come here.” 

“What do we do?” 

“Your father—“ 

A soldier sprinted through the open doors, wild-eyed and bloody. “The King is dead!” he wailed with a strangled cry, almost catching in his throat.

Ilati felt like she had been stabbed. She grabbed the soldier with her free hand, pulling him over. “Are you sure? How do you know?” 

Tears streamed from his eyes. “I was beside him when the spear struck his throat,” the soldier whispered. “I am so sorry, Lady. I tried to stop the bleeding, but it was everywhere.” He raised his hands, still covered in fresh blood.

The light in the Queen’s eyes died. The love of Amar-Sin and Eresh would burn forever in legend, as it had outshone the sun in life. All that remained was the cold stone of the face of the Queen of Kullah. 

Ilati pulled her motionless mother back to the sanctum, trying to stir any feeling left in her. “Mother, we have to do something while we can. Father wouldn’t want—“

“They will come for us, Ilati,” Eresh said, her voice hollow. “I will not be taken as some prize of war for Nysra. Neither should you.” 

Before Ilati could even react, the gleam of bronze caught her eyes. Then blood, so much blood—

In light of the morning desert sun, Ilati wept. It was not the sweet tears of an overwhelmed lover, but the hacking sobs of those who died alongside their departed loved ones. The horrors of Shadi’s destruction were mocking demons who tormented her with vision and sensation alike. What had her people done to deserve such a fate? Where was Zu? Surely if nothing else, selfishness would have forced the goddess to defend her own temple? Her own priestesses?

When the war started, her father had said many times, Do not involve yourself, Ilati. It is so ugly and you are meant for beautiful things.

Now all Ilati had left to hold was ugliness. 

It took her minutes of crying and rocking to realize that the water-skin she clung to in her sleep was empty. She would have to return to Eigou and Menes with nothing to show for her trek. 

Ilati struggled up into a sitting position, sweeping away the tears. She looked back towards the west, away from the rising sun. Eigou and Menes were that way. She could struggle back and find them.

She sucked in a deep breath and scrubbed at her face with a dusty sleeve. Then she looked east, deeper into the great dunes. What did it matter if she died alone here? She had already lost everything.

Her only consolation was the feeble hope that K’adau could help her, but the goddess had not shown herself. 

Why would she? You have walked a day and wept. 

Ilati grit her teeth. If she had to die in the desert, to become just another set of bones consumed by the sands, if that was the best she could do, then she would do it. At least she would die with a purpose in her heart, not out of despair. The desert was her chance to change, to prove she was more than a discarded toy, to purge herself of hated Zu and every trapping of that life. The Nadaren had taken everything from her, but she would not die like a stone.

She turned east towards the heart of K’adau’s domain and strode deeper into the desert with all the confidence she could muster in her injured form.

I will stop Nysra or I will taste oblivion.