The rain was falling the wrong way. Maeda groaned, trying to open her eyes. Her left eye was swollen shut, but she forced the right one to open, then immediately wished she hadn’t. The whole world spun around her. And the rain was definitely falling the wrong way. The thought stood out like it was an important detail, but her eyes flickered shut again and she lost the idea before she could follow the thread further. She moved along in the darkness, blood rushing to her head, suspended in the rain . . .

Maeda twitched awake again. She shook out water from her nose and opened her eyes. This time both eyes opened, but she blinked as water hit her, stinging her face. Where was she, and what was she doing out in the rain? Maeda swayed. She looked around and flinched as she swung toward a metal beam twice as wide as she was tall. A chaotic piece of memory washed over her. She was on the Bridge.

Focus, she berated herself.

What was she doing out here? Searching for something . . . ? Keeping Errol alive? Yes. That was it. Fool boy would ruin their one chance to . . . to . . . she couldn’t remember.

Snatches of memory crowded each other out in her mind. Covert meetings; plans within plans; a sudden, golden opportunity to ingratiate themselves with Indara. Chancellor Indara, she corrected herself, regaining a fragment of certainty.

Maeda craned her neck, looking up—no, down—to take in her surroundings. Two others hung in the air near her, bound like flies in a spider’s web. A few dozen dark shapes descended ropes, carrying the prisoners with tethers bound to their harnesses. As she watched, two groups appeared among the captors. One team of about twenty were dressed alike, or at least followed a color theme. The other eight or ten wore a hodgepodge of ragged scraps. They appeared to all carry bone weapons, however. The jagged edges gleamed with wicked intent.

Wind gusted abruptly, pulling one of the climbers off the wall. Her weight tugged against the ropes, but the others clung tightly, absorbing the tug as her rope reached its end, and reeled her back up. They used crude climbing pitons to anchor themselves every few steps while two or three shimmied lower, staked in, and then belayed the rest of the climbers. The progress was agonizingly slow, but Maeda understood the wisdom in their approach when the breeze parted the clouds below her and she realized how high up they were.

She bit her lip to keep from screaming. Likely not even a Free-Fall Ring would save her from this height. How many hundreds of feet still to go to the ground? The climbers must be in incredible shape if this was their daily routine.

She lurched to a stop. The ropes tangled above her, and one of the climbers down below turned to unleash a torrent of oaths she didn’t recognize. Cursing had a universal language all its own, however, so it was easy enough to guess the meaning.

“Are all the crèche-dwellers as slow and clumsy as you lot, or did they send their most annoying team just to mock us?”

The uniformed climber from above spat before answering the man. “Did your mother hook up with the storm spirit before you were born, or are Shrikes just naturally ugly?”

The Shrike lifted a hand in another universal gesture.

“Watch yourself! The crèche doesn’t need you. This alliance benefits you more than us.”

Maeda stopped looking back and forth between the bickering pair. The pressure in her skull kept building, and the world blurred around her. She steadied her breathing, fighting off the lightheaded effect. A raindrop landed in her eye and she blinked, spluttering.

The smartly-dressed climber adopted a condescending tone. “Now they’re awake! Good job yelling, Shrike.”

“They’d still be asleep if you hadn’t stopped our seer,” the Shrike snapped back.

“Want me to cut you loose? The crèche doesn’t condone such cruelty. If our seer didn’t intervene, that old crone would have killed them all.”

The Shrike laughed bitterly. “That whelp Telyim doesn’t deserve to be called a seer yet. She’s barely been out of the crèche alone before.”

Maeda smiled to herself, despite the dizzying drop below her, as she listened to them squabble on and on. Factions under tension? A power struggle between two seers? She could work with that.

=+=

Maeda twisted away from her captor, snarling. She struggled against her bonds, straining to free her wrists so she could hit back. A burly man cracked her across the cheek with the back of his massive hand, snapping her head back in a blaze of pain. She staggered, lights bursting in her field of view, and dropped down to one knee.

His huge, blunt face pushed up next to her face, cracked teeth bared in a savage grin. “Five more points, and I win.”

Why did I suggest this game again? Surely there was a better way to go about things. Maeda shut down her internal complaining. She quirked one side of her lips in response to the Shrike. “And only ten more points until I win.”

The dark-haired man sneered. A scar distorted the skin on the left side of his face into a whorl of ugliness that framed the milky white of his one blind eye. “You’re an entertaining one, I’ll grant you that, but you won’t win.”

“I’m just woozy after your crone violated my mind. Nasty bit of work, but then, I’d expect that from the old witch.”

Silence fell around them for a moment. The big man turned his one eye toward the front of the group, but the old woman hadn’t heard Maeda’s insult.

He licked his lips, suddenly uneasy looking. “Don’t let her here you say that.”

“Or what?” Maeda said, goading him.

He shrugged. “She doesn’t like people much. You’re lucky to be alive. Say, what did she mean, calling out an Outsider? Ain’t never seen you before in the wilds. And I’d’ve remembered if you’d shown up at a crèchemeet. Where’d you shelter? You sound funny.”

“Not half as funny as you look,” Maeda spat.

A woman wrapped in sealskin chuckled. “Sounds like you’ve got a fine catch, Khaada!”

Khaada waved her away dismissively. “You’re just jealous that I won’t let you scalp them. I don’t think you’ve ever met anything you won’t skin for dresses.”

Not sealskin. Actual skin. Maeda tried not to let herself dwell too long on the little white trinkets she’d strung around her neck and ankles. They bore an uncanny resemblance to knuckle bones, but it could just be coincidence, she told herself.

Undeterred, Khaada circled back to his line of questioning. “Which crèche raised you?”

“I raised myself,” Maeda said, and that may have been the first truth she had shared with them for the last few days. They thought they were a hardy people, growing up in the shadow of spirits and storms, but at least they had each other to rely on. Maeda knew what it was like to be truly alone.

“No one makes it out here alone, especially strangers like the lot of you. Never seen such a short man as your loud friend over there, or anyone quite as big as the scaled man. Were you all cursed at birth?”

Jarkoda hissed angrily, but any words he had died in his throat. They’d soon figured out to keep a wet cloth shoved into his mouth so he couldn’t burn them with flames. He didn’t seem to have much trouble breathing, but they drenched him with water every time he looked a little too menacing—which was often.

Khaada whirled and lashed out a kick at Maeda in the middle of his next sentence. She’d expected it, since he’d gotten too talkative for anything other than a ploy, and a quick lean to the side allowed the strike to pass by harmlessly.

“I’m a disgrace for letting you score five hits,” Maeda snapped. You’re too slow to have a chance without these restraints. Untie me, and I’ll take on you and your creepy trophy collector at the same time.”

Khaada shrugged and drew a serrated bone knife. “Fine by me. Nowhere to run.”

Maeda rubbed the blood back into her wrists and ankles after Khaada cut the bonds. At a glance, she confirmed his statement: they were surrounded on two sides by the pounding surf, and behind them a snarl of rocks rose higher than the three-story accounting houses of the bank guilds back in Laurentum. They’d been lowered to the ground, unceremoniously hanging from a rope upside down, Khaada roaring with laughter at the sight. Ahead, strange creatures flitted in the shadows, and given the uneasy looks that passed from hunter to hunter each time a beast roared in their direction. Maeda didn’t want to take her chances with the vicious creatures.

They trudged along on one of the many man-made islands that supported the Bridge. In times past, nothing but open sea had existed below her feet, but the builders had spent nearly a hundred years hauling rock and sand and silt into the middle of the vast harbor, mixing it in with cement, and building mountains in the sea. Strange to think that she stood on a mountaintop, although only the summit stuck out from above the water.

Her old teacher, Isadora, would have called it a metaphor for life: an uncertain journey with dangerous, untrustworthy companions, overtop the unseen true foundations of existence, laid down by others she would never meet. The thought brought a familiar ache. Isadora would have loved this place. She was always on a search for the perfect “crucible of the soul” that would properly test her mettle.

Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t see Khaada’s blow until it caught her in the ribs, doubling her over, but this time she managed to keep her feet thanks to her newfound freedom. “If I’d any idea how easy pickings it is over here, I would have sailed to the Bridge years ago with a proper squad of death dealers. Creepy place, but the people are weak.”

The bone-necklace woman stalked up to Maeda. “I don’t care if you’re Khaada’s prisoner instead of mine. Call me weak again and I will add your bones to my collection, Outsider.”

Maeda punched her in the face, cracking her captor’s cheekbone.

The woman crumpled to the ground without a sound, the shock of the pain and the angle of the blow instantly knocking her senseless. Maeda nudged her with a toe, then shrugged and bent down to loot the body. She stripped off the necklace and put it around her own neck. “Does that count double?”

Khaada stared at her, mumbling a few words.

Maeda’s foot shot out in a straight kick, aiming for his solar plexus. He staggered back, slipping on the moss-covered trail, and went down with a thud.

“Three points,” Maeda declared, daring him to argue her scoring. “You’re only ahead by two, now. Not so tough.”

The main group doubled back to surround them. A wiry man with knobby elbows pushed through the crowd and stood over Khaada. “Enough! Your game ends now, or I take your claim. She’s making a mockery of you two. You’ll pay the healer for her injuries when we return home. Bind her and move out.”

Khaada bowed. His jaw clenched and he narrowed his eyes, which tightened the skin on his face into a terrifying scowl. He drew his bone knife again, holding out the serrated edge. “Do not try anything stupid.”

Maeda flared her sensor field, gathering all its energy. She projected it toward Khaada, blasting him in the face with a disrupting array of sensations. It wasn’t made for offense, but the weak pulse was still enough to disorient him. Khaada stepped back, blinking. In the space of a heartbeat, she kicked the knife out of his hands and shoved him down.

He roared in anger, lunging at her. Maeda spun right, dodging his grasp, and scooped up the knife. She leaped onto a stone and launched into the air, slamming into Jarkoda’s captor. Before the man could recover his balance, Jarkoda tore the rope free of his grasp. Together they ran back toward the rock pile, Maeda slashing at Jarkoda’s restraints, hacking the twisted fibers apart until the halfdragon burst his bonds

He clawed the wet cloth from his throat, coughing. “Where is the dwarf?”

“Took ya knuckleheads long enough!” Gruvrik bellowed, barreling by with his human still attached to the rope around his wrists. He dragged the would-be captor like she was a feather, careening into boulders on purpose to bruise her, until she cried out and dropped the rope tied to his thick, hairy arms.

Shouts rose from their pursuers. Maeda ran after Gruvrik, who stopped just long enough for her to saw off the rope.

Jarkoda caught up and tossed a cudgel to Gruvrik. “Took this from your former guard.”

The dwarf grinned, experimentally swinging around the cudgel. It was nearly as thick as his own leg, but he handled it effortlessly. He gestured around them. “Nowhere to run. Backs against the rocks and make a stand to be proud of when you die. Poets ain’t gonna sing for the likes of us. ‘Course, they won’t know about us at all if we die, and if we live, they probably won’t make a song.”

He shrugged, then squirmed up on top of a boulder roughly head-height to Maeda. “I’ve got a great view up here! Must be nice, being tall.”

Jarkoda finally ripped the last strip of damp cloth from his mouth, spitting out the fraying pieces of fabric to the sandy ground. “I’ll need a moment to fuel my flames. Guard me until I do, and then I’ll end their entire existence in fire.”

They formed up against the rocky cliff. Maeda didn’t know how they would get back up if they survived. They had each ridden tandem between two other captors, gliding down through the sky from the Bridge proper on huge, leathery wings. It wasn’t true flight, but it was the most exhilarating thing Maeda had ever experienced. Coming to the Bridge might almost be worth it just for that flight. Almost.

The clansmen fanned out ahead of them, ensuring they had no escape to the sides. Two or three on either end started to climb the rocks, finding purchase in tiny crevices and cracks. If she hadn’t seen them climb with her own eyes, she would have called the cliff impassable. They were trying to flank the runaways, and she wasn’t about to let that happen.

“Gruvrik, I’m going to throw you.”

The dwarf’s head swung around to glare, a look of panic etched into his face. Even his beard seemed to turn white with terror. “You want to lose both yer hands, lass?”

“Fine! Then transform into some giant beast and stop those climbers.”

Gruvrik cackled. “Can’t. Takes me days to build up the stamina for that, unless I’ve got a stash of rum. Even with the entire cask, the last time will take me a week to recover from, and that’s if I eat well and don’t have to deal with the stress of listening to you.”

Jarkoda caught her eye from behind the dwarf. She nodded.

The halfdragon hefted the dwarf in both hands and let fly, hurling him twenty feet up the side of the cliff. Shrieking like he was going to die, Gruvrik caught the rocky crag at the top and pulled himself to his feet, then doded the cudgel Maeda threw after him a moment later.

He shot her a dirty look, but he charged into the first climbing team, scattering them like a pile of dead leaves, not seasoned warriors. He saluted with a wink, then turned his attention to the attackers on the other flank.

Maeda turned back to face the array of weapons pointed at her.

Khaada shouldered his way to the front, panting. He eyed her warily, newfound respect showing on his face.. “Last chance to surrender. We’ll call it a win for me, and we’ll let you live.”

Maeda leered at him. “I’ve already won, Khaada. You just weren’t paying attention. Walk away now, and I won’t take your other eye.”

He snarled and flung a knife at her, startling her with the quickness. She managed to turn to the side, but it still grazed her cheek.

He smirked. “Not so fast, Outsider. I’ve won after all.”

Maeda’s limbs grew heavy. She adjusted her fighting stance, each movement sluggish. What had he done to her? She picked up the knife, grunting with the effort to stay on her feet. It was plain and didn’t radiate any power. Fingers trembling, she put a hand to her face, feeling the cut. Just a scratch. Hardly worth considering.

Pain blossomed in her head. Maeda collapsed, and the darkness consumed her.