We land with a thump just before the Eastern Gate. I rush to the doors as if I can easily push it open.

It's thrice my height. I thought, from far away, that it was made of some sort of black metal, but up close I can see that it's twisted bone, blackened from fire and grey with age. At eye height there are skulls embedded as bricks, their eyeless sockets and grinning teeth a macabre statement.

"The gates at the true directions are like this. The River Crone comes from the South and then flows out under the Palace. The Northern Gate is somewhere in the palace. The Western gate is where we entered the city," Ililie tells me as he looks at the gate with a look of faint dread.

"How does it open?" I ask him.

He smiles weakly as Nasir lands next to us. "You're the goddess, excuse me for saying, My Lady."

I look at the Gate again. "Can you fly me over?" I ask both of them.

This time it's Nasir who picks me up and flies to the top of the Gate. He reaches the very top and moves just the tiniest bit over, before he and I are blown backwards.

He lands shakily. "No, Princess, I can't."

I bite my lip and look at the Gate again. In the center of the mass of skeletal construction are long bones crisscrossing over each other.

Grimacing, I reach out gingerly with one hand and see if they are loose. I twist and it moves, fractionally. A roar of rage is bellowed down the streets behind me. I scream in turn, startled.

Oh, it's Urto. Apparently the War god isn't blessed with wings.

Swallowing down my distaste I grab the bones with both hands and yank. This time it moves, nearly into a straight vertical position. The gate groans. At the bottom it creeps open just slightly.

I step back and look at the crack. Fingers of souls are creeping under, seeking the city through just the smallest fraction of space.

"You open it, I'll rush under. My Lady, follow me underneath close as can be, understand?" Ililie says.

"I am the better fighter, Ililie," Nasir says calmly. Ililie looks at him, but nods shortly.

Nasir lays down on his stomach, ready to move. With his claws and blade he slices at the greedy fingers, driving them back from the crack under the Gate.

Ililie works fast, turning the crossbones with ease.

Just as Nasir can almost fit through, a black shape, screeching in anger, rushes through the opening from the city into the Field of Lost Souls.

"Belen-cat!" I cry out. Ililie opens the gate a little more and Nasir is through. I hear him issue a battle cry on the other side of the Gate. I am about to follow him through when Ililie shouts in horror.

I turn, fearing Urto, but all I see is Taffy-kitty, attacking Nasir. The Basru backs off, worried about harming my pet. Rasted and Gired slide under the wall, then Belen-cat.

I meet Ililie's shocked eyes just a moment before I dive through the opening.

I have not felt grief here in my father's realm. It accompanied me everywhere and all of the time in the above. But in the Underworld, I was free from it's grip. Because of that, I was able to ignore my purpose in assuaging grief, in order to focus on bonds.

In the Field of Lost Souls, I feel grief. It is not the burgeoning storm of grief I felt in Tmari as the city fell. Nor is it the sharp taste of shocked grief of a loved one or the soul-deep grief of a rejected Fated bond. This is grief that winds its way through the air like arrow-points or a rope...

Or a bond, Mara.

Several bonds, actually. The Field is grey, the grass is grey, the sky is grey, even the souls are grey.

My Belen-cat and Taffy-cat look like terrifying beasts as they chase away souls from me, but they don't look nearly as out-of-place as a bewildered Nasir.

Standing in an empty circle, swords of black blade drawn and held in a loose threat, wings tucked back, scales and spikes on full display, Nasir is brandishing a threat to souls who seem determined to avoid him completely.

"What is happening, My Lady?" he asks me slowly. He turns, and I see that his normally light brown eyes are becoming as grey as the world around him.

I gasp, "what color are my eyes?"

"Dark, My Lady, dark-ah-brown," he says with only the slightest hesitation. He lowers his sword, but doesn't sheath it. "I feel so strange here," he murmurs, looking at the lost souls who are wandering around.

I turn and see souls at the Gate, clamouring to climb it. But... there aren't as many as I thought there were. In fact, the view from the balcony at the Palace of Irkalla showed a very different scene. I had seen hordes of souls, a mass of the lost ones practically attacking the Gate. There are really only a few dozen, at most.

"What do you suppose makes them different?" I ask Nasir. When he doesn't answer I turn sharply, expecting to see him engaged in some sort of battle.

Instead, I see him standing, looking lost, his face slowly losing animation. His sword slips from his grip and falls to the grass.

"Nasir!" I shout his name, grabbing his arms and shaking the male. It seems to jolt him out of his state of fugue a little. His eyes widen, showing a flash of brown.

"What is wrong, Nasir?" My cats come to me, winding around my body and his.

"I have done terrible things, Princess," he murmurs. A tear rolls down his cheek. It falls on my hand, and turns to ash.

Gasping, I pull away from Nasir and touch the ash with my fingertip. It feels smooth, a chalky substance. I look down as the tear falls to the ground below my feet. Through the sparse, grey grass I see that the earth is chalky and grey. Kneeling, I touch it. It's the same. Am I standing on eons of tears shed by lost souls?

I look back up at Nasir, only to find that he is wandering away from me. "Nasir!" I call out after him. He stops moving, but doesn't turn around. Belen-cat meows loudly, the sound seeming to split the air in the quiet. That's when I realize that all of the lost souls only seem to speak in murmurs and whispers.

Belen-cat is standing over Nasir's forgotten sword. I go to pick it up, trying to keep my eye on my lost Basru guard. It's heavy. When I'm holding it I struggle to walk to Nasir.

The male is still standing where I saw him last, a good thing, because when I am a hands-length away he starts to move again. "Nasir, stop!" I snap. He stops. "Sheathe this, will you?"

He takes the blade without speaking and puts it back in his belt.

"Where are you going, Nasir?" I glance around the Field. All of the bonds that shimmer so brightly inside Ersetu seem just as dull here as everything else. I can see the different colors, but they are faded as if they've gone through a good scrubbing a few too many times.

"I have to find them," Nasir says to me. He starts to walk again. Stunned, I follow, even as we wander up a slight hill and over the top.

"Oh, my goodness," I whisper. My voice is still louder than the lost souls'. Belen-cat lets out a low rumble of discontent and Taffy hisses.

Over the hill are the ruins of a city. Just stones remain standing, empty circles of tile floors with a few pillars. I can see what once was probably a temple, an arena, a grand palace, but not much remains.

The souls here have rejected Fated bonds. I glare at Nasir's broad back as he descends the hill. Did this male reject his Fated bond?

I can't see any bonds from Nasir except for the ones he has for being a Basru. No tainted bond of rejection spirals from his chest.

Then, Nasir doesn't walk over to a female or a male. He walks up to a couple. The tiny female sits next to a male who looks like Nasir. They aren't touching each other, just sitting, staring off into the land beyond them. Between them stretches their bond. I frown, it is twisted, blackened, and thinned, just like Tafia and Sera's. Unlike theirs, it also has a film of grey hanging over it, draping like moss.

Nasir sits down next to the male, his head bowed as if he is defeated. His eyes are fully grey, as if a burial shroud has been pulled over his irises.

"Nasir? What happened between them?" I prod my Basru warrior when he says nothing.

"I encouraged by brother, Adnan, to reject his Fated. She was Acera," his voice is dull and lifeless. "She killed herself... then... Adnan killed himself, too. It's my fault," he intones.

"Oh," I say. I look at the couple again. Reaching out, I place their hands together. Then I frown at myself. I did that with Sera and Tafia and, just like now, it didn't work at all. I look at their bond. I'm afraid to touch the strand. It looks so fragile.

Instead I pull at the grey moss-like substance. It falls apart in my hands, much like Nasir's tear did. I clean off their bond, then examine it more.

"Belen-cat, what do you think I should do?" I turn my head to see the cat chasing skeleton mice and not paying any attention to me or the lost souls.

"Ew, Belen-cat."

With a sigh I turn back. Maybe if I need to touch the bond? Tentatively I reach forward and brush it. The female jolts forward, gasping, "no! He hurt me. No." She moves away from the male. The male's head comes up to watch her instead of staring off into nothing. Then they both stop.

"Any ideas, Nasir?" I sigh. I turn to see my Basru warrior crying tears of ash.

It makes my own eyes swell with tears. I wipe away a few that escape and look at my fingers. The oil of the Underworld shines pink. In this grey place it looks brighter than normal.

Suddenly, Nasir falls to his knees, coughing. Grey ash plumes from his lungs. "Nasir!" I grab him, my oil-slicked fingers grazing his cheeks.

He sucks in a breath of pain, then leans into me, eyes flickering shut.

"My Lady," he whispers. His eyes open slowly and I'm relieved to see that they are soft blue again. "Where are we?" he asks.

I don't answer, just stand with his help. My tears glisten pink on his cheeks, two streaks that stand out against his skin.

I touch the frayed Fated bond with what is left of my tears. It spreads over the bond as if I'm polishing it. Black falls away, revealing the thin strand that glows gold. Nothing of the silver of Inanji's bond is left.

"What are you doing?" Nasir asks me in a hushed voice.

"I'm trying to help them, Nasir."

He looks at his brother, then his brother's mate. They are staring at each other. The male looks distraught and the female looks... angry.

"Leave me alone!" she snaps at him. "I don't want you near me!"

The bond twists and shimmers. It won't break. They are bonded by Fate, but no longer is it a bond of lovers.

This is what true bonds look like.

"Where are we? Why am I here? I don't like this place?" the female is panicking.

"Lost souls," I murmur.

"My Lady?" Nasir is grim-faced, glaring at his surroundings. His eyes keep drifting back to his brother, but his obvious first concern is, once again, me.

"You were affected by this place, Nasir. Lost souls, it must mean that there is something preventing them from entering the city. Something that traps them here."

"Why did we come here, My Lady?"

"Because of the souls at the Gate. Inanji accused me of causing that mob and I wanted to fix it," I explain absently. "I can fix it. She wants to accuse me of harming shifters? I'll show her harm."

I start marching through the ruins of the city. Nasir follows close behind, his sword once again held in his hands at the ready. I'm not concerned about threats here. Not when Belen-cat is napping under a tree with grey leaves dropping every once in awhile.

I find another couple. Their bond is tarnished, just like Nasir's brother's was. It comes clean easily, just a quick scrub of my fingers. When their bond shines golden, they both wake up just like the others.

I heal seven bonds before I run out of tears. With fourteen shifters now following me, I march back to the Gate. With purpose. This has reinvigorated me. If I can't find Tafia or Sera to tell the gods what Inanji's bond did to them, then I can use the souls that are following behind me.

We reach the Gate to find the mob dispersed. There is only one figure left standing in front of the Gates. Large, looming, a black presence in a world of grey.

"Hello father," I greet the god of Death with a sense of deep unease. "You look upset?"

"I am livid, daughter," he grounds out as if he's suffocating on his anger. "What were you thinking!" he explodes in fury, slamming his scythe into the ground. The grey grass under the blade turns black, then back to grey as ash. The souls behind me shrink back in fear. A couple of them shriek.

It catches my father's attention. He strides to me quickly, pulling me into his arms protectively. "Where did these souls come from?" he scowls at Nasir threateningly.

"Sire," he responds quickly, "the Lady Mara has spared these souls from this place."

"Spared them?" my father blinks at the fourteen souls. "I think," he says slowly, "Mara, we need to talk."

I take a deep breath and pull away from him. "Where is Urto?"

My father gives me a measuring look. "On the other side of the Gate, furious and threatening to destroy my city."

I nod. "And my males?"

His eyebrows quirk upward. Embracing me, he says quietly, "even Urto's blood won't heal them this quickly, daughter."

"Inanji?"

He pulls back. "In her rooms."

"Enlal and-"

"Mara," he interrupts me gently. "There are souls here that are not friendly. You were not supposed to come here. Although," he glances at Belen-cat, "you were not alone."

"I want to present these souls to the gods," I tell him earnestly. "I want them to see what Inanji has done."

My father nods. "Yes," he says slowly, "but first, you and I will speak."

He turns and reaches for the Gate. I watch him eagerly, fully intending on sneaking back to the Field of the Lost as soon as I can. He turns a brass handle on a small door next to the Gate and it opens easily.

I huff.

My father tosses me a pointed look. "You are not to come back here, Mara."

"Not alone," I clarify.

"Not at all, daughter," he says through gritted teeth.

A booming voice interrupts our argument. "Give me back my female, Nateos," Urto growls out.

I gasp when I see the War god standing in the center of the street waiting for us. Red flames lick out from his eyes. He looks larger than life, and incandescent with fury.

"Is she yours, Urto? I sense no bond between you two."

I feel myself knocked to the side as Urto charges at my father, letting out an impossible cry of rage.

I scream as my father swings his scythe, catching the War god's blade with his own.

"Stop!" I scream. I'm ignored as Nasir and Ililie tug me away from the battling gods. "Father!"

I look around frantically. I don't know much about fighting, but I can tell that Urto has the advantage. A small cut on my father's cheek is bleeding grey, and not healing. That's how I know, my father doesn't have that ability to heal himself instantly.

A skeletal hand grabs my sleeve. I pull away instinctively, only to feel those fingers tighten. A hiss of anger makes me turn my head sharply away from my father and Urto to see an elderly female clutching at me. Her eyes are milky-white and filled with rage. She's familiar, somehow.

I recognize her when she hisses again. Across her mouth are marks from binding and her tongue is swollen as if something had been jammed inside. A wound across her left breast shows old blood on her robes. Her wrists show indents from manacles.

She is the Forgotten grandmother from the First House. The female that Inanji freed to raise the undead army.

I start to scream. I grab her and she grabs me. Belen-cat tackles her from behind and I fall with her, refusing to release my grip on her. My assassins, so quiet that I almost forgot about them, join the fight, pinning her arms and legs as she squirms against the unseen hands.

Ililie grasps me, trying to pull me away, and I start to shout. "It's her! The Forgotten! Don't let her escape!" Only she's not trying to escape, her claws raking over my assassins with nothing to show for it. Nasir attacks the grandmother, but there are other souls with milk-white eyes pouring through the still-open doorway next to the Gate and he is forced to turn away from the lesser threat to face down this new one.

"Close the Gate!" I shout. "Don't let her escape!"

Some of the fourteen souls run to the door, trying to stem the tide of souls fighting to get through.

"Close the door!" I scream.

One of the souls screams back, "I'm trying!"

Huge hands slam the door shut. Urto spins around, his red eyes taking in the scene. The grandmother yanking at my hair, Ililie trying to separate us. Fourteen souls, grey from being Lost, but slowly regaining color in their cheeks and eyes, stare at him and me in turn.

"What the fuck is going on?"

"This is one of the Forgotten that I buried," I say breathlessly. "Inanji set her free to raise the undead army."

Urto looks at my father. "I demand a meeting of the gods, Nateos. Enough of this game. I will not tolerate this any longer."