The next evening, we stopped in a quiet town nestled within the Duskwood’s wide trees. It was a sleepy, dreamy place, the wooden houses grown straight from the tree trunks, their upper balconies perched on low boughs. The town glittered with tiny, firefly-shaped lanterns that hung from eaves and overhanging branches. Hae stopped at the edge of the town, nudging us forwards with his snout. Andiya said he’d been there before with Jiyi, and knew it was safe.

We left Hae behind in the woods as we stepped into the light of the lanterns. I couldn’t be seen with two daemons, or the locals would know that one of them wasn’t bonded.

Just off the flattened earth trail that marked the centre of town was a small inn. Hanging vines formed a curtain before the door, warm light spilling out from between the dark red leaves.

Andiya touched my shoulder. “I promise to be on my best behaviour.”

My neck felt hot at the memory of our last stay at an inn. “Are you ever?”

“I suppose not. What fun is that?”

We took a table in the corner, the few somnolent bar patrons paying us little mind. I relaxed in my seat. No one had any reason to be looking for us, in Bel Arben. There was no way for Seylas’s influence to reach us.

The barkeeper approached, and said something apologetic in a language I didn’t recognize.

“She said she’s sorry, but she doesn’t speak, Go-ah,” Andiya translated. “It’s our outfits.”

“Novoski?” I asked, and the barkeeper sighed in relief.

“A little,” she replied. After she brought us our drinks, she asked “Where are you headed?”

“Hirondell,” I replied, naming a large city just by the Glass Bridge. “Looking for work there.”

“Don’t get many Go-ah around here. Only one I know is a lovely woman, though. Sharp as a whip. Maybe you know her? Big lion bonded.”

My heart stung. Jiyi. “Sorry, no.”

“Ah, well. You watch yourself once you’re out of the woods,” the barkeeper continued. “Things aren’t so safe for outsiders at the moment.”

“Why not?”

The barkeeper’s face fell. “You’ve not heard?”

“No. What’s wrong?”

She sighed and went to grab me a tall shot of dark liquor. “Put that in you. You’ll need it.”

As I drank, Andiya’s mind brushed mine. “Don’t panic when she tells you.”

“You know?”

“Those men at the next table are talking about it. Pretend it's stupid. Pretend you’re Go-ah, so you don’t care.”

I handed the barkeeper the empty glass.

“News came a few days ago. The Drahko and the Canavar have declared war. So drink while you can.”

Like Andiya said to, I forced my expression neutral. Even if my mind was quickly spiralling.

“Seems I’ll be heading home, then,” I said, passing my panic off as resignation. This wouldn’t matter to a Go-ah. I had no stake in this war, besides my potential job prospects. But, Creators, what the hell was—

“Steady,” whispered Andiya.

“How? There’s a war coming, and the Shrikes control Maxsim, and they still have the princess, and I’m what? Drinking in the woods?”

“You’re travelling through enemy territory in an effort to save your archon. Don’t downplay it.”

She was right. Andiya was right. I had to stay calm, get out of my head. We could do this.

“Yes, we can.”

I excused Andiya and I, feigning exhaustion. As I went down the narrow, empty hall to my room, Andiya took my arm.

“I believe we will succeed, Rozin,” she sent. Andiya stood on the tips of her toes and kissed my cheek, just briefly, just a flutter. My heart stopped. “I believe in you.”

The kiss filled my dreams, sending me off to a gentle sleep.

*

We left as the sun rose, riding Hae through the widening gaps in the trees. The forest floor wound down sharply, and Hae bounded down the rocks. The air thickened with the smell of salt. Sure enough, we emerged on a hill overlooking a jagged beach. A small port on stilts sat on the water, sailboats and barges bobbing pleasantly beside it.

Hae looked at the boats and whined. Andiya asked him a question, and he nodded. Understanding dawned on her. “Hae, you beautiful beast.” She gave him a giant kiss on the head. “Hae wants us to sail to the Glass Bridge. Seylas isn’t going to look at some civilian fishing boat, is he? We can slip right by and reach Kaelta before he even knows we’re there. No bloodshed, no chance for that big group of daemons he has to take me down.”

“So. Which one of you is going to be my bonded?”

“Well, obviously I’m going to …” She paused, frowning. “Wait. Hae’s tattoos.”

“Yep.”

“So I’m to … play dead?”

“Play unconscious. Hae can carry you.”

“It feels as if every new place we go, I am meant to be dumber. First a bonded, then a mute. Now you want Hae to carry me like some child’s plaything.”

“You could carry Hae. But that might look a bit awkward.”

“Ha-ha. I never said I wouldn’t do it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t complain first.”

We tightened Andiya’s cloak, obscuring her features and her tattoo, and I strapped her to Hae’s back. As we approached the dock, a harbourmaster with sun-baked skin and a stripe of blonde hair approached us. He waved jovially.

“We’re looking for passage to—”

“Novoska?” He frowned. “Novoska, no.”

I pulled out a map and pointed to Hirondell. With enough luck, we could reach the Glass Bridge in minutes from the city.

The harbourmaster leaned over and saw the unconscious Andiya. Understanding lit his face. “Ah. Hirondell. Démone. Hirondell.”

He led us over to a rather shabby galleon. We paid, and a deckhand waved us on.

“Big démon,” he said, pointing at Hae, “sleep here.” He motioned to a spot by the cabins, tucked behind some barrels. With Andiya’s help translating, I awkwardly asked the captain for a tarp. We slapped together a makeshift shelter for Hae, suspending the tarp over piles of lashed barrels. We’d have to watch the skies for Seylas. Hae was far too easy to spot if he ever left his cover.

Nervously, the deckhand led me to a tiny cabin below-deck, his eyes following the unconscious Andiya in my arms. He quickly made his exit, and I locked the door.

“He’s gone,” I said in a low voice, the waves masking the sound.

Andiya sat up and threw off her hood. “That was humiliating.”

“As an apology, you can take the cot.”

She smiled toothily and hopped up, stretching out on the bed. She patted the thin space beside her. “Or we could share.”

I raised a brow at her. “This is your best behaviour?”

“It is. Don’t pretend to hate it.”

I sighed and lay down next to her. The ship swayed gently on the waves as we weighed anchor and set off.

“Things are getting bad,” I mumbled.

“Mmm. But that’s not our fault.”

“Seems like it is. Seems like all of this began when I bound a High Order.”

“And you told the archons to start a war, did you? You asked Maxsim to murder his sister? Everyone would have schemed no matter what you did.”

I closed my eyes, listening to the creaking of the ship, the hiss of waves against the hull. We’d be in Kaelta in days. I’d, without a doubt, be making the stupidest decision of my life. There was no guarantee that once I stepped onto the Glass Bridge, I’d ever step back off. Except for Andiya.

I rolled and pressed my forehead against her shoulder, curling in. She was so warm, smelling of the woods and the heat of the sun on a beach. Andiya let me lie there. She didn’t say a word.

The sea rocked me to sleep, nestled against Andiya’s arm.

*

We arrived at Hirondell without incident. I spent most of the days on the upper deck with Hae, watching the skies as Hae entertained the sailors by catching fish in his mouth, standing sideways on the hull. Our first dinner on the ship was a great tuna, dragged from the waves by a well-placed bite.

Hirondell rose as a crust of white, blue-roofed houses and colourful tent stalls, wrapping around a jutting peninsula of pale stone. Vicious galleons and sleek sloops moored on her shores, their sails flapping in the light wind. They all flew the dark green and maroon Drahko colours, some with the crossed dragon tails of their military, others with the eye and sunbeams of the Merchant Guild of the All-Seeing. Our ship pulled in alongside the largest vessel I had ever seen: three towering masts, a figurehead of twisting serpents, and bands of iron fused with the hull. Countless cannons peeked from its broadside.

“La Sarâge,” said a sailor, when he caught me trying to read the unfamiliar Arben script. Andiya quickly translated it to Storm.

With Hae behind me and Andiya once more limp on his back, we joined the flow of people through the main roads. I quickly realised why the harbourmaster had understood my wanting to visit Hirondell, and felt sick. We had to get out of here. It wasn’t safe—and I couldn’t stand to look at it. Not anymore.

Iron cages lay under bright tents, stacked on top of one another to save space. Merchants shouted prices over the din of a packed daemon market, ensuring buyers that their catches were strong, elegant, well-worth a lifetime. The perusing customers were all of the upper classes, fine-clothed and willing to part with exorbitant sums to find their ideal match. I caught the tell-tale gaits of mercenaries moving among them, searching for the most powerful, the most teeth and claws and fire-power. In the open air I saw only Bestials in iron cages and wrapped in thick iron cages to keep them “calm,” but some merchants had signs on their stalls: Elementals by request, and Sensors unavailable, do not ask, or the most sickening, Beauty to compliment yours, curated selections.

Andiya’s mind brushed mine. “You’re upset. What is it?”

“A market. They’re selling daemons.”

The bond went deathly still. Rather than fire, a cold rage flowed up the bond like a river of ice. “Show me.”

I opened my mind and invited her in. A chill shot down my spine as Andiya slid into my eyes. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

I scanned the market to let her see it all. But she didn’t react, didn’t stir. A promise bit into my mind.

“One day, I will burn this to the ground.”

I led Hae through the throng. We attracted furtive looks, the wandering eyes of fat-pursed buyers. Hae’s golden mane glimmered in the burning sunlight, drawing small gasps and greedy whispers. But he was already bonded, his tattoo said. He was not for sale. Merchants tried to speak with me, but when I failed to respond to Arben, they moved along.

A merchant hopped into my path. “Great warrior,” he said in Novoski with a heavy accent. “What have you brought us?” He tried to approach, but a deep snarl form Hae kept him at bay. “Is that an elemental you have there? I’ll give you a good price—best in Hirondell.”

“No. Get out of my way.”

“Come, now. How much would convince you to part with your catch?”

“The daemon is spoken for,” I hissed through my teeth.

The merchant scowled. “Contracted?”

“That’s right.”

He swore and waved me off, disappearing back into the throng. Some nobles hired mercenaries to track down rare Elementals for themselves. He couldn’t buy what was already sold.

I fended off a league of merchants every step through Hirondell’s market. The sight of a humanoid daemon was like blood to a shark. All of them wanted the astronomical commission that a prize like Andiya would fetch.

My heart ached for the Bestials in the cages. Most were small, easy to hunt: no taller than person’s knees, covered in scales or feathers or fur, chirping through their bars or lying pitifully on their sides as the iron sapped their strength. In larger pens, weighed down with chains thicker than my arm, larger Bestials howled and whined and roared. One stall had a black tiraar, one a giant frilled lizard, one a sea-serpent in a stone basin of brown water.

No one in the crowd seemed to care. No one seemed upset that these poor creatures would suffer until their minds were carved away. Because they were just like me. They’d grown up fed the same lies. They thought the market was good—taming evil for our benefit. I wanted to stand on the rooftops and tell them they were wrong, we were wrong. But I couldn’t. The markets had lasted centuries, and they would have to last until I fulfilled my mission.

“One day,” I sent Andiya. A cage on a cart trundled by us. An Elemental—a man with skin like glittering ice—was caged in its bed, wrapped in chains that smoked against his skin. I met his pale eyes, hoping he could hear my resolve. “We will burn this down together.”

We finally emerged from the market into Hirondell’s core. Thin, sun-bleached streets wound around the peninsula in random patterns, narrowing and widening like the curves of a ravine. I’d heard legends say that Bel Arben’s coast was so warm because of the magic bleeding from Kaelta, chasing away the snow and winter. I had to open my coat and lay my cloak along Hae’s back. We’d stepped from the chilly shade of the Duskwood into burning midsummer.

I stopped to eat a kebab at a street stall, then followed the locals’ directions to the western edge of the city. All at once, the houses ended, the streets cut off to a sheer drop. An iron fence overlooked a man-made cliff of white stock bricks, the world beyond only a waste of bleached gravel and shimmers of heat. At the edge of the waste, where it met the ocean, was the Glass Bridge. It was the pale blue of a glacier’s chasms, its structure haphazard and half-melted. There were no rails, no pillars, no carvings. Only dripping glass that crawled over the ocean in a straight line, extending for leagues and leagues until it vanished into the horizon. No human had ever crossed it—and anyone who had ever flown or sailed the divide to Kaelta had soon found that the wind would never let them set foot in daemon lands. How was I meant to cross?

“The bridge requires permission,” sent Andiya, watching the bridge from my eyes. “And only daemons can ask for it.”

“But it’s Creator-made, isn’t it? Why would only daemons be able to cross?”

“Because humans don’t have magic.” A jolt of fear made me flinch. “Wait. Look to the left again. Right there. That man is looking at you.”

He was middle-aged, dressed in a flowing white shirt and heavy boots, sat lazily on a bench tossing birdseed for fat grackles. But Andiya was right. Under his sunhat, he kept peeking at us.

“Look at his hand,” sent Andiya. “He has a bonding tattoo. So where’s his bonded?”

I met the man’s eyes. He held my gaze, frozen. A grackle turned to me, and its eyes were a bright, magical violet.

“Andiya—get up!” I shouted. The man shot to his feet, his grackle daemon taking flight and streaking towards us.

Andiya was on her feet in a flash, her coat thrown to the floor. She slashed a burst of flame before us, and the grackle dodged, squawking madly. Several passers-by yelped in shock and hastened away from us. I barely had time to grab Hae’s mane and scramble onto his back before a pack of bonded descended on us from the rooftops.

Hae howled in pain as a hyena-like Bestial sank its fangs into his back leg. Andiya blasted it away with a burst of flame.

Hae tumbled off the overlook, and we landed heavily on the scorched ground. He tried to run, but his leg was limp. Poison in the bite. Hae hobbled towards the bridge. Behind us, three Elementals aimed from the overlook while a mass of Bestials flowed over the edge, snarling and shrieking as they hit the earth. All along the upper fence, Shrike soldiers knocked ironbows. Seylas stood before them, glaring at us astride his hulking wyvern.

Spikes of ice flew from the Elementals. Andiya threw up a wall of fire, shielding us. A chain shot from a Subjugator’s hand, and I sliced at it with my blade. The iron shattered it. Hae picked up his pace, panting painfully as his injured leg dragged behind him. Magic rose in Andiya. She slashed flames all around us, beating back ice, arrow, and bites in a burning whirlwind.

“I can’t—” she grunted. “I can’t get a good shot!”

I remembered the explosion she’d made on the Korongorod. She’d taken time, moulded the flames, poured all her magic into a single blow. But not we were swinging desperately, doing everything to keep scores of daemons at bay.

Andiya whipped flames at a wolf-like Bestial, setting it aflame. An archer dropped from the overlook, screaming in agony. He hit the ground headfirst and fell silent. The Bestial collapsed, dead.

Seylas’s wyvern took to the sky. Behind him, a second wyvern followed, two riders on its back.

“Look!” I shouted. “On the other wyvern. They’re controlling Seylas’s mount!”

Andiya fired a quick bolt of flame at Seylas, then at the second wyvern. They simply banked out of the way, far out of range. Seylas loosed an arrow.

I yanked Andiya out of the way, but my blade missed, and the arrow stuck in Hae’s flank. He stumbled, but managed to keep going. Pale green flowed from his wound. I tore the arrow out.

“Let me shape your magic,” I said. Andiya nodded. As she blasted a wall of flame at our enemies, buying us precious seconds, I dove into her mind.

I met that thick, ancient fog, and gripped the magic I felt laying within. I pulled, narrowing it, willing it to take solid form. Andiya released control. The magic felt like clay in my fingers, yielding to my touch. I opened my eyes.

A bow of pure flame rested in Andiya’s hands. It tightened, the edges of the flames become solid, defined. I knocked Seylas’s arrow and wrapped her hand around the wooden shaft.

“You have one shot.”

Andiya angled the bow to the sky. Seylas banked, pulling away. Andiya’s eyes narrowed. A tongue of flame crawled up her arm and wrapped the arrow’s head.

“This is from Jiyi, you evil bastard,” Andiya snarled, and loosed the blazing arrow into the wide sky.

It shot forward like a comet, the flames flaring brighter, brighter, until they filled the sky with an impossible heat. Seylas dodged, but Andiya twisted her hand—and the flames shot brighter on one side, pushing the arrow left. Straight past Seylas’s wyvern, and right into the throat of the second.

The explosion shuddered the air. Seylas’s wyvern went limp as its master died in a ball of bright flame, and they plunged through the air. The bonded behind us stopped, freezing as their masters beheld their leader tumbling from the heavens. The bonded bolted for Seylas, magic flaring around them as they pooled their strength. Cushions of water and solid air slowed him, lessening his impact with the rough ground. Seylas didn’t get up. But I knew he wasn’t dead. I could feel it in my bones.

Hae kept moving. The Shrike bonded surrounded Seylas in a protective ring, obscuring him from our view. Andiya’s magic curled into a ball on her hand, growing bright. Part of me wanted to stop her. Yes, it was Seylas—but others, too. Others who were only soldiers on a different side. Were their lives worth this? Could I be who decides that?

A dark shape charged at us. “Uh. Andiya?” I said, not believing what I saw. “Andiya, look!”

A mass of riders galloped across the waste. At their head, a man in a sunset cloak—a tiny bonded flying overhead. Damian.

Andiya whipped the ball of flame at him.

“No!” I screamed. Andiya gripped my shirt and shoved me against Hae’s back. A dome of flames rolled over us as the explosion rocked the waste, the world vanishing behind fire and heat and a blast so loud I thought my ears would pop. My cheek grated against Hae’s scales. I tried to force myself up, but Andiya was too strong. I rode out the explosion with a horrible ache in my heart.

The dome fizzled away. Dust clouded the air. I coughed, ash and powdered stone coating my hair, my face, my lungs. The light wind kicked the debris in whorls, and I collapsed from Hae, coughing as I picked through the dust. My foot hit empty air. Andiya gripped my shirt and yanked me back before I fell off the edge of a cliff.

“Don’t be stupid,” said Andiya. “You wanted him alive, so he is.”

I waited for the dust to clear. When I realised what she had done, terror gripped me. I’d forgotten, in these weeks together, what Andiya was capable of. What her being a High Order truly meant.

She’d carved the waste in two. A vast, smoking canyon tore the ground, so deep that the rocks breaking off the sides took several seconds to hit the bottom. On the other side, Damian’s party coughed and hacked and struggled to their feet. They were filthy, but unharmed.

“I shielded them,” said Andiya. “Cost the rest my magic to do it.” She wiped dust from her arms. “Don’t know how to focus the blast very well.”

Damian’s eyes met mine across the canyon. They were a mix of anger and confusion. Did he know Andiya had spared him? That she’d risked herself by shielding his followers?

A white streak plunged through the dust and drove a dagger into Andiya’s chest.

I screamed in agony as Sarangerel flapped away from us, vanishing back into the dust. I felt like I was being cut in two. Then I was on the ground, clawing at the wound I didn’t have. My vision went white. I was certain I would die. No one could live through pain like this.

This was it.

But … it couldn’t be. Something I’d thought long dead flared in me. I cared. I cared if this was the end; if it was over. I still had so much to do, so many people that depended on me. This wouldn’t, couldn’t be it.

Gasping, I dragged myself to Andiya. She wasn’t moving. With all my strength, I gripped the dagger. My fingers refused to tighten. I gathered everything I had. Hae’s claw curled around the dagger’s hilt. Together, we hauled the iron blade from her chest. It was barely a finger’s width from her heart. Even a High Order would die. Andiya would die. And so would I.

Hae pulled me up with his paw. I breathed through the agony, trembling, dizzy, and dragged Andiya up to Hae’s side. Together, we managed to rest her on Hae’s back. Somehow, we were moving. I felt cold. I shouldn’t feel cold. The sun blinded me. It burned the waste, casting the stones in a thick mirage.

Grey smoke poured from the gaping wound in Andiya’s chest. I pressed my hand to it. Smoke seeped through my fingers.

Hae’s claws clicked on glass. The bridge stretched out endlessly ahead of us. Kaelta was still so far away, waiting across leagues and leagues of glass and savage ocean.

Sigils flared to life under Hae’s paws. He balked, sparks of lightning flaring underneath his step. We couldn’t pass. Without Andiya, we didn’t know how to ask permission.

Hae stumbled, and Andiya and I fell from his back. I struck glass, ears ringing. I couldn’t go further. The last thing I wanted to see in my life was Andiya. I jerked my head on the glass, reached my hand out. My fingers brushed her scarlet hair, winding in it. I forced my eyes to stay open, taking in her beautiful features one last time. Smoke wisped from her chest, spilling over the bridge, over her hair.

Shafts of light cracked through the bridge’s glass. They surrounded us in a torrent, fizzling and crackling like electricity. I went blind in a flash.

When my eyes cleared, we were still on the bridge—only the land beyond me was not a waste, nor a white stone overlook, but a beach of smooth black sand.

Voices rose in alarm. The daemon tongue. Figures rushed over, dressed in light clothes of intricate geometrical patterns. Their skin was grey, pale blue, emerald; horns curled from their white or orange or golden hair. Daemons. Kaelta. I closed my eyes and let death come.