The sand is blowing in my face as I trek out to the tombs of the damned. High on the desert plains, I can see watchtowers sitting, forlorn and dark, on the plateaus surrounding the rocky valley below. They were built centuries ago by the first settlers of the city. Some of the old scrolls I have been pouring over for the last month claim that they are the first buildings to be constructed in Tmari. That somewhere there is another city, a buried city, a first temple swallowed by the sands, built by the gods themselves to contain the one whom Nateos refused. Now, these towers are unmanned, forgotten themselves by all but some.

"Lord Thane?" one of the six warriors who came with me, Carnak, addresses me through the handkerchief plastered over his face.

"Carnak?" I yell back.

"Sandstorm is getting worse. Should we seek shelter?"

Yes. No. I have no idea. Getting caught in a sandstorm would be horrific, but holing up in one of those bleak towers seems like we'd be inviting trouble.

"Keep moving, we'll shelter in the tower at the mouth of the valley," I finally decide. The sandstorm will hopefully dissipate by morning when we travel down into the valley. It all depends on what direction the wind is blowing in.

Step by step we walk, until the sand is blowing hard enough that we have to stop and tie ourselves together.

"Hold onto the rope with one hand," I order. All seven of us are single file, now. I lead them, hoping that I don't step off of a cliff and pull us all down with me. Claws extrude from my fingertips and I let the scales ripple over my skin to protect my body from the pelting sand. My demon is watchful, his glowing red eyes peering through the sand at something that I can't see.

When I can't see my own hand in front of my face I reluctantly allow him to take over our sight. The more control I grant to my demon, the harder it is to take it back, but we could all die out here in this mess.

He looks through the desert, a mournful howl ripping from my lungs, surprising me. I catch my breath, my feet stumbling. He wants more control, more of my body to shift into his beast.

I fight him. Lucky the raging sandstorm distracts him from taking me over and focuses his attention on getting to that tower. Relief floods me when I see the door to the tower just a few lengths in front of me. I force his eyes to recede and let my own lead me to the door.

The heavy wooden door to the tower is solid. At first I think its locked, but I press it in and it finally cracks enough to let us spill into the room.

Coughing, brushing off the sand and grit from my face, I look around for a torch. Seeing one in the far corner I stomp over, leaving a trail of sand behind, and fumble in my pocket for my flint. My fingers are clumsy from my claws, but I can't retract them, yet. I don't have that much control.

When I finally get the torch lit two of the males shut the door, heaving it back into place and shutting the storm out.

"Where the fuck is Gray?"

I look around the tower room, startled. It's one, round room, about triple the length of a full-grown male. A rickety wooden staircase, half-rotted away, is in one corner. There is nothing else. There is nowhere for a Tasuri warrior to hide. Gray is missing in the sandstorm.

"Was he at the end of the fucking rope?" I snap out.

"No, Lord Thane, he was tied in front of me," Holsten says, his face paling.

Fuck. How is that possible? "Get everything secure. Eat. Sleep. We head out again in the morning."

No one argues, no one pretends that Gray has a chance of surviving the sandstorm.

I kick a lump of sand in the corner. "Fuck!" I leap backward as a familiar rattling noise, accompanied by a hiss, meets my ears. Out from the sand slithers a horned viper, only a few hands long, but deadly and venomous.

I hit the snake with my dagger right between its eyes. It goes rigid and rattles again, almost instantly dying.

"Shit," Holsten exhales in relief.

"Keep your eyes peeled for any other snakes," I tell them.

We all settle in with the wind howling like a raging demon, stronger than any of us, outside.

---

I want to cover my ears with my hands like a frightened child. I can hear sorrowful whispers echoing in my ears. They have become louder, stronger, this past month. At first I couldn't tell the difference between these voices and the voices of grief. They all blended together in a macabre symphony as they filter into my head.

I don't hear these ghosts as often as I hear grief. They tell me a secret. Only one secret, over and over. Rejection.

I burns my heart, setting my soul on fire and turning my thoughts to ash every time I hear one of those wretched souls crying for their loss. They are so confused, so shattered, their souls have been willfully rent in two by the other half.

What am I to do? I am one of those souls, myself. My father saved me, coated my bond with Thane in numbing oil and hacked at it with his scythe until nothing remains but the weakest thread.

These souls don't have fathers who are gods. They are alone, suffering, wandering. That is the worst part, that their pain doesn't end with death.

I want to help them. Anything... something... I must be able to do something to help them.

Soon, Daughter.

I sigh bitterly. Not even my hands over my ears will block out my father's echo in my mind.

Frustrated, I decide that what I need is an outing in the city. I missed the bread delivery this morning, but the meat is coming soon. I may be able to sneak out then.

The grief from the First House has gone on, unabated, unending, for over a month, now. It makes me think I'm going crazy. Their House is in utter turmoil. Three deaths have been buried in the desert as the Damned. It's a desperate situation, but my own grief at losing Patriarch Rimon makes me decidingly unsympathetic. It's not the First House's fault the Patriarch died, but it does make me think that Fate is playing with them. The one male in the city who was best equipped to handle the Forgotten and he dies just before the worst of situation. Such bad luck, it must be kismet.

The door to the empty kitchen is wide open when I skulk into Banio's cooking area. I have to hide, not just to sneak out, he smacks me with his wooden spoon if I ever linger too long in his kitchen.

When my sandaled feet hit the cobblestone streets I take off with the leather soles slapping the stone. I run, my feet keeping time with my heartbeat. Thump, thump, thump-thump.

My gargoyles follow me silently, their own tails swishing along, claws skittering across the street. I'm careful to talk to them and pet them sparingly unless we're in the temple. At first I only spoke to them when we were alone, but they were so sad. They started to look more and more like stone and less alive. Their green and orange eyes were turning grey. It makes me tearful just to think about it.

How selfish of me. What do I care if shifters think I'm crazy?

I am lost in thoughts, not paying attention until I crash into Mishu.

"Mishu!" I whisper-yell.

He gives me a disdainful look. Then flips his tail and points at the building I was going to walk straight into.

We are outside of the House of the Mother. I can hear what I think is one of the rejected singing the song of lament inside.

"Oh," I say quietly, abashed, "thank you, Moosh."

His ears quiver and he tucks his tail under his body. Slowly he waddles to me and reaches up to take my hand. He is getting pudgy. Too much grief, lately. I will have to put him on a diet.

I let him play with my fingers while I listen.

Why? Why did this happen? What do I do? I miss him... I don't know what to do.

Always, they ask, 'why?' I don't have an answer for them. On and on, these ghosts will ask that tormented question.

"Mara? What are you doing here without an escort, young Lady?"

I spin around in surprise to see the High Priestess of the Mother, Deanna. I am ashamed to admit that for months I never bothered to learn her name. Patriarch Rimon always addressed her as 'priestess,' so I was forced to ask, finally. I asked her at Patriarch's funeral. It took her a few minutes to stop crying long enough to choke out even one word to me.

"I..." my voice trails off. I rub my hand over my heart. Thinking of Patriarch's funeral always makes me want to cry, but I don't want to burn holes in my clothes, today.

Priestess Deanna smiles at me softly. "We haven't any recent deaths, so I presume you're here for a visit?"

I feel my lips curve up into a smile under my viel. "Yes!" I say it eagerly, maybe too eagerly, because she lets out a laugh and takes my hand.

Mishu lets go of my fingers and grumbles a bit as Priestess Deanna tugs me inside the small delivery door to the temple kitchens. He is hungry.

I sit down at the long table in the kitchen and take off my viel, accepting the mug of warmed cider from Deanna. She always has this drink to offer, instead of wine. I suppose when you are responsible for so many children you get used to having their drinks.

"So, young one, how are things at the temple with Patriarch Skinflint?"

I choke on my cider. A bubble of laughter wells up in my throat. What a fitting name for Patriarch Salbin. He is known far and wide as... frugal.

"It's going well," I say when I recover. For everyone but the First House, I say to myself.

Deanna smiles smugly at my laughter. "I'm glad you're doing better, sweet child. I was worried, you know," a shadow crosses over her face. "The gods are fighting," she murmurs. "My goddess... she sees them arguing and it hurts her. They are her family, you know."

"What are they fighting over?" I ask.

She heaves a sigh. "Bonds. Worshippers. Houses."

My fingers tighten on my cup, "Fated bonds?"

"Mmm," she hums her agreement. "Too many rejections, spurning the gift that Fate has given. There are consequences when you reject the other half of your soul. Souls live on, Mara. You understand that, but not all of us do."

I shiver. Fate. Not a god or goddess, but something deeper, something more. There are shifters that believe that going against Fate brings nothing but chaos and sorrow. Our souls... well, Priestess Deanna is right, I do know about the suffering of souls. Very well.

"Why are the gods so upset about mortal souls? It can't be rejections. There aren't that many."

Priestess Deanna wrinkles her nose at me. "You, young one, know of the pureblood battles?"

I nod my head, slowly. This is not the conversation I expected to have when I snuck out of the temple.

"The gods and goddesses, some of them, are riling up that battle. Who will be worshipped by the Tasuri, the Acera, the shifters? As we become more divided, they fight over who will have the loyalty of each group, then we fight more. It's cyclical, you see?"

I take a sip of cider, thinking. "But... Priestess... is that not why we have Houses? Each god receives their own temple, their own set of worshippers to make sure that they are honored?"

"That was the reason for the Houses. But, when certain Houses shun their own because of purity and others are burdened with those shunned shifters, then the balance of worship is thrown off, understand?"

I do understand. The First House... for example... rejects and shuns non-Tasuri, then the Second House, this House, receives an overflow of rejected, desolate, orphaned shifters.

"When I first saw you..." Priestess Deanna continues, but her words stop suddenly when a young Acera walks into the kitchen.

"Oh, I'm sorry," the young female mumbles softly.

Every hair on my body rises. My gargoyles gather around her, staring at her with eyes bright in curiosity.

She is surrounded by grief. It envelopes her, obscuring her features, moving and breathing with her like a living parasite. It immediately repels me, like rotten food swarming with maggots. It nearly makes me gag in my cider.

How did I not know of her? Priestess Deanna said that no one had died recently...

"Come in, Tafia. Come and sit, child," Preistess Deanna says to her.

"No, I'm alright..." the female's voice trails off...

Come inside

"Come inside," I hear my own voice echo my father's from a distance. The grief around her both attracts and disgusts me. I need to see it up close.

She obeys me with a jerky stride, not common at all to shifters, more common to Acera, but there is something very odd about it.

It's only when she sits that I see her eyes through the fog of grief. Bright yellow, slitted vertically like a cat's. She's a shifter... but she has no demon, no beast, no animal, inside of her.

Where is her other half?

Why? Why? Why?

It hits me just as Momo thumps me in the chest with his tail. His eyes are fixed on the grief surrounding Tafia, but none of my gargoyles makes a move to dine on it.

She's a rejected. She's alive. Which means the voice I am hearing...

Where is he? Why?

Is her beast.

My breath catches in my throat. I can't feel her grief, can only see it. I don't hear Tafia's voice in my head because it's not hers.

Oh, Nateos, what do I do?

Find the Beast

Really? And how do I do that? This is not my temple, to move about freely in. Maybe I can ask for a tour?

Maybe... I can hear the beast nearby, her lament continuing endlessly. She must be close. A tour is not the worst idea I ever had.

"Do you have gardens?" I blurt out. They must have gardens.

"Yes," Priestess Deanna replies, her eyes watching me closely. I try to be careful to not give anything away, but the female is not the High Priestess for nothing.

"Tafia, why don't you show Mara the gardens?"

Tafia looks at me sharply, surprise clear on her face. The cloud of grief clears for just a moment as she takes in the red hair peeking out of my headpiece and my dark eyes, my body encased in the light grey robes of the Death temple.

"Of course," she mumbles, losing animation as quickly as it came.

I follow her. She makes no attempt at conversation and neither do I. My mind is tumbling. How is it possible that a rejection would yank her beast from her body? Is that what is happening? I see in the spirit realm too often to be absolutely certain. I need to find the beast, the shifter part of her. I need to see if her cat, because I think that's what she is, is really somehow out of Tafia's body.

If so, how must that feel? I never had a beast or a demon and still Thane's rejection was profoundly devastating. What must it be like to have your beast torn from you and lose your Fated?

And how is it that Thane's demon was fine if Tafia's beast is gone from her?

Questions, questions

My father can be so irreverent sometimes.

We travel quietly through gardens, sometimes stopping when a little orphan child skips over to us. My veil is still off, a fact that I am thankful for in the rising heat of the day.

It isn't until we reach the farthest corners of the garden that I see the beast. A cat, I was right, prowling the top of the northeastern wall, back and forth, her tawny coat rippling over a too-skinny body. I can see the cat's ribs, her patchy fur, her dull yellow eyes. She's clearly ill.

And, clearly, no one else can see her.

I watch Tafia sit on a stone bench, just under her own beast.

"I feel better out here," she murmurs.

The grief around her has lessened a bit. I look at her, then at the agitated cat. I have no idea what to do to help. I can't absorb this grief and neither can my gargoyles. I think it's not Tafia's grief. Not really. It's her cat's, but she carries the burden. Or, is Tafia's grief because her cat is missing from her? It is not a grief of Death, so what do I do to help her? To help them?

This is beyond frustrating. I can't see anything from Tafia that would help and the cat wouldn't listen to me.

Momo and Mushu approach the cat on the wall and I freeze. My gargoyles are less than half the size of that beast!

"Stop it, right now!" I snap at them. Tafia looks at me like I'm insane, but I don't care. She'll die from her burden soon anyway if I can't think of a way to help her.

"Get down from there! Mushu, Momo," I warn.

They don't listen, because they never do, and with a twin shove, the cat comes tumbling down, hissing and spitting while my gargoyles chortle meanly.

I'm about to scold them for being such horrible little beasties, when I see it. The cat strolls past Tafia, rubbing her head on her shoulder. Tafia shivers, her whole body quaking. The black cloud shifts, lightens a bit.

The cat leaps back onto the wall and Tafia slumps over, but I saw it. I saw the thread, a dull copper color, leading out towards the northeast. The cat yowls, a hair-raising cry of sorrow, and begins to pace again. The northeast, the Fourth House, the Water god.

"Is your Fated from the Fourth House?" I ask Tafia.

She doesn't answer, just crumples into tears. Her cat is pacing still, but her attention is divided between Tafia and the city. I don't think the beast can leave Tafia more than she already has.

"You are rejected and your beast has left you," I say out loud. I ignore the weeping girl on the ground. "How do I fix this?!" I shout into the air.

Cut it

My gargoyles shove the cat off the wall again. I leap forward and my fingers brush that dull copper line. I feel a zing, the wealth of sorrow from the bond that connects Tafia's beast to her Fated is enormous.

I have nothing to cut with. Not even a small knife, which, now that I think about it, is foolish of me.

Mishu appears, a wide grin on his face showing all his sharp teeth. He hands me a kitchen knife, small, a paring knife of good quality, but nothing special.

The cat is on the wall again. Another shove, and I leap forward, slicing the paring knife down. I miss. The cat leaps up, back to the wall. The instinct of defending herself against a little Acera with a knife is gone. All the poor creature can do is try to reach her Fated.

Another shove. Another. Another. Tafia has stopped weeping, pressing her back to the wall in stunned wariness of the insane female trying to slice apart nothing. I'm a sweaty mess by the time I manage to nick the bond, just slightly. Tafia screams, as does her cat. It distracts the animal and the beast finally turns her attention on me. Claws rake over my right shoulder. My gargoyles leap to my defense, sending the cat whirling, hissing and spitting as she attempts to fight off multiple attackers. Mishu takes a strong swipe, too, black blood flying. Screaming, I slash again, hitting the bond straight on.

Silence falls. I hear nothing. Then, a ringing noise. Shadows leap in front of me. Males, warriors, swords and knives flashing in the light. Strong arms wrap around me, the knife in my hand disappears. I see my gargoyles, circling me, wings flapping.

I meet a pair of brown eyes shining in curiosity. I see the demon inside of the male. Red, glowing eyes. Fangs dripping and claws curling. A beast of infinite power and fury. The demon bows to me.