Fences crisscrossed the torn earth. They stretched as far as Jane's eyes could see, and their wires glittered with glass. A short distance away, the earth dipped into a narrow trench. And just in front of the trench—

With trembling fingers, she conjured magefire. The light threw into sharp relief the figure of a man, barely more than a boy, with wide, staring eyes. Shaking, Jane reached across the ground to touch him. He was rigid, stiff and cold, his clothes crusted with blood and dirt. A little further along was another body, and what looked like half an arm.

She suppressed a whimper.

The first body wore the same light green uniform she had seen on the tsar's soldiers. The second body wore a blue uniform, like the Kanachskiy soldiers they'd fought in the forest.

I'm in the war zone between Somita and Kanach, Jane thought with horror.

She was abruptly aware of how bright her light was. If she was in a war zone, calling up magefire was the equivalent of screaming "I'm here!" and setting off sparklers. As if to prove her point, a blast cleaved the night. She put out her light and dropped to the ground, a hand over her head. Another blast followed. This one was so close it made her ears rattle.

Terror swamped her. Some part of her, she realized stupidly, had thought the godstests would be controlled, measured tests of her ability. She had never imagined she might be deposited on the ground, surrounded by dead bodies, in the middle of a war.

She was going to die. She was going to die, and her godstest had barely begun—

Stop it, she thought. You're being ridiculous; you've been studying for weeks, and anyway, if you fail right now, minutes into your first godstest, what will people say? You can't fail now, you'll be eaten by a dragon! You'll never make it back to Earth!

Anyway, there was no way to call off the godstest now. Even if she did yell to the gods that she wanted to give up, they would probably ignore her.

Jane didn't know how long she crouched on the cold ground, shivering, before a third blast hit. This one was so close that debris and glass shards lashed her skin. A noise drew near – a steady beating – the flapping of wings –

Cover. She hurled herself across the ground, into the trench, pressing herself close as possible to the wall. It was hard to find her magic, but she tried to summon a concealment charm, gathering shadows around her to hide herself, to draw attention away from her white nightgown and pale leg-warmers.

A moment later, the wyvern came into view. It was close enough that Jane saw the orange of its eyes, the silhouetted rider on its back. Jane pressed herself into the wall of the trench, half-burying herself in loose earth. She knew her sloppy concealment would never have fooled anyone in daylight, but in the shadow-steeped trenches it ought to be enough—please, please let it be enough—

The rider paused. His head turned slowly, as though scanning the area –

– and then, with a great whupping of wings, he flew away.

Jane collapsed, shaking with relief.

She had to get out of here. Maybe that was the objective of this godstest: escape the war zone without dying.

If she was going to leave this trench, she needed to protect her feet. Glass poked the skin of her heels, and it was only a matter of time before she cut herself. She thought of trying to levitate herself, but she knew she'd run out of magic before she made it across the battlefield.

Her eyes fell on the Kanachskiy soldier's boots.

It took a lot of willpower and no small amount of cringing to pry the boots off the dead man. Their exteriors were coated with mud and dried blood, which seemed resistant to every attempt she made to clean them. She really, really hoped there were no deadly blood-borne diseases in Mir.

She slid on the boots, which were absolutely too big for her, the soldier's jacket and pants, which weren't much better, and finally, picked up the soldier's machete.

It hummed in her hands.

Odd, she thought. She hoped it wasn't cursed.

She strengthened her concealment charm and clambered to the top of the trench.

The ground was scattered with glass and dark patches that might have been oil. The structures she had initially mistaken for fences were actually brambles, but they were the strangest, most regular bramble bushes she had ever seen, and their leaves seemed to be glazed with glass. Shimmering whirlwinds scoured the landscape. Jane didn't know what they were, but they looked magical, and she resolved to avoid them if she could.

The trench she'd just left was small, and it didn't extend much farther than the bodies she'd abandoned. A mile ahead, she saw dark patches that might have been forest. Behind her was more forest, but it looked even farther away.

Ahead it was, then.

She strode forward resolutely, about to hack a path through one of the brambles, when a glint from the thicket caught her eye. That was when she realized the brambles, in addition to their lethal glass thorns, were laced with sharp, cobwebby wire.

Well, that explained the magical machete.

The first swing of the machete nearly caused her to lop off a toe. She adjusted her grip and swung again. Gradually a path began to clear through the brambles. Silently, she thanked Olesya and Kir for the training they had put her through this past month.

It was achingly hard work to clear a path through the nearest thicket. By the time she had made her way through two or three lines of hedge, her arms screamed with pain. At least one good thing came from all her machete-swinging: whereas before she had been freezing, now she was sweating profusely. A couple more times, she heard the sound of wingbeats in the sky, and ducked low to the ground, strengthening the force of her Concealment. After her arms grew too sore to reliably swing the machete, she alternated between Levitating over the hedges and whacking at them to form a path.

The breeze, which had till now been steady, was picking up, and one of the whirlwinds she'd noticed earlier was closing in. This close, she could see the whirlwind in stark detail. The shimmering aspect of the whirlwind, which she'd originally thought was just a trick of the moonlight, was actually shards of broken glass, moving so fast they were barely visible except as flecks of glitter in the whirling maelstrom. At the last second, the tornado turned from its trajectory toward her and headed for the woods up ahead.

She shivered. That had been far too close!

At least now there was a gap in the hedge not far from where she was standing, courtesy of the whirlwind. She hurried through the gap and towards the forest, bypassing the maggoty remains of a dead wyvern.

She had almost reached the forest when she heard it: the low, deep rumble of voices, somewhere close. She froze, clutching her machete.

The voices were coming from a trench just ahead of her, barely visible beyond a brambly-looking thicket. If she had not paid attention, she might have stumbled blindly into the trench.

She lowered herself to the ground and crawled toward the lip of the trench until the voices became distinguishable.

"... get the shivers, and those eyes it had, you en't never seen such a horrible shade of red – it was like lockin' eyes with a nightmare..."

"What's his holiness doing here, anyway? D'you know anything?"

"They say he's come to track down a prisoner or summat, brought a pack of sorcerers with him from the capitol. I'm just tryin' to stay out of their way. The city boys can try an' impress them if they want, but them's no place for the common soldier, tha's all I'm sayin'—"

Jane reinforced her concealment charm and, slowly and carefully, peered over the edge of the trench.

Two soldiers sat across from each other. They looked roughly Casimir's age, and they were eating what might have been the least appetizing stew Jane had ever seen.

But that was not the main thing she noticed.

The soldiers were wearing blue uniforms.

Blue.

The color of the Kanachskiy.

In her head, Jane swore, silently and prolifically.

This was followed by a strong urge to cry.

She had come all this way, braved all the hedges and wyverns and tornados, and now she was going to have to do it all over again—

No.

She was exhausted. Her hands bled from too many cuts to count, and her shoulders ached from her earlier efforts with the machete. She was damned if she was going to turn around and cross that deadly field again tonight.

Silently, she crept backward, until she was sure the soldiers couldn't see her. Then she followed the trench, crawling on hands and knees to avoid being spotted.

The trench seemed to go on forever. Eventually, she found a deserted stretch and dropped into it. She began to walk, thankful for the darkness. It must have been well after midnight. She passed two soldiers as she walked, but both seemed too sleepy to pay her or her stolen uniform much notice.

After awhile, the trench narrowed and dipped. The earth tunnel gave way to stone passages, which branched and curved. Parts of the floor were so worn, her boots slipped as she tried to get purchase, and the stones bore worn carvings, which were hard to make out in the dark.

She descended a staircase, turned a corner, and emerged into a hall of stone caskets.

Jane blinked.

She was clearly in some kind of crypt. It was a massive space, with pillars supporting a vaulted ceiling, and line after line of stone caskets, all in various states of decay. Torches dotted the walls at regular intervals. The air was cold and damp.

Jane edged past the nearest casket and scanned the vault for a nook where she could hide. She would have to eat at some point, but surely she could lay low for awhile, regain her strength, and head back across the field the following night. She was exhausted. It had to be two in the morning; her eyes kept fluttering shut.

She found a casket close to the wall and curled up in its shadow, tucked her borrowed clothes around herself as best she could, and fell asleep.

She awoke, a short time later, to the sound of voices.

"... men don't like them, don't trust them, quake in their boots when they draw near –"

"Then perhaps you need to better discipline your men."

Jane stiffened.

"Your eminence, Lord Zakhar, forgive this unworthy one, but for those untrained in magic, they are... unsettling, a danger to morale. The soldiers talk, they whisper to each other in the trenches—"

Slowly, hardly daring to breathe, Jane peeked out from behind the nearest casket.

Two men stood in the center of the vault. The first was tall, with black hair that fell almost to his shoulders. The second was broader, with a balding pate that reflected the torchlight.

"Why should their whispers concern me?" The tall man – Zakfhar, Jane thought – spoke in low tones, but each word fell on her ears like a knife. He had a cold voice that reminded her of northeast winters, and hard, glittering eyes. "They have their Oath-spells. As do you."

"And you can command me to be silent, if you wish to."

The portly man bowed his head, trembling.

Zakhar laughed. "Not today, Commander Alek. It is not good to silence all dissenters. But I would advise you to control your men."

He surveyed the vault, turning on his heel to survey first the far wall, and then the part in which Jane hid. Heart in her throat, Jane retreated into the shelter of her casket, both hands tight over her mouth to muffle her breathing.

"Yes," she heard him say, after what felt like eons. "This will do. The sudok might damage the caskets, but this vault is beyond saving anyway. The four sudok that are already in the barracks will be transferred to the crypt come morning."

"But –"

"As long as the entryways are blocked, they will cause you no trouble." A thread of irritation had entered his voice. "They cannot tunnel through stone, and four of my sorcerers will remain here to guard them. The sudok in the north are the ones we will deploy, as a first test of their strength. If my contact in Sengilach is true to their word, we shall soon have Dalnushka in the palm of our hand. If not, we shall need to modify our strategy..."

His voice faded. The footsteps retreated up the staircase, until only silence remained.

Jane waited another minute, until she was sure they weren't coming back. Then she sprang from her hiding place, clutching her machete so hard her fingers felt numb.

She couldn't wait until tomorrow night to return to Somita. The thought of the monster that had dragged her here, with its lethal claws and blood-tinged scarlet eyes, made her insides crawl with terror. There were sudok here—here, in this encampment—sudok that would shortly occupy this very hall! And she didn't like the sound of this Zakhar person at all. Judging by the commander's deference, he seemed like a powerful sorcerer.

She bit her lip. She wanted to go back the way she had come, but Zakhar and the other man had just gone in that direction. Instead, she started in the opposite direction, down the long hall. It felt like forever that she walked past stone caskets and old bones and withered, dusty skulls. The torchlight glimmered eerily across the graves, and it was with considerable relief that Jane finally passed the last row of caskets and exited the vault.

She emerged in a tunnel with multiple branches. After a moment's thought, she turned, and was about to follow the left branch – which should take her toward the trenches, she hoped – when a low moan caught her ears.

She froze.

The sound came again, low and ragged and tortured. It echoed toward her from the right-most corridor.

Part of her – the callous, self-serving, hateful part—wanted to ignore the sound and keep moving. Jane quashed it down.

I have to be brave, she thought.

Her grip on the machete tightened.

The stench hit her before anything else, a putrid odor of blood and urine. Fighting hard not to gag, she surveyed her surroundings. Prison cells met her eyes, a series of small enclosures, each barely big enough to fit a full-grown man. The bars of the cells were not metal but magic, thin rods of silver that shimmered and sparked.

Queasy with dread, Jane squinted past the bars, into the belly of the nearest cell.

A man lay on the floor.

He was thin and gaunt, clothes in tatters, legs and arms crusted with blood. His feet were bare, and his skin was pallid, damp with sweat.

As Jane approached, he raised his head, and Jane, already half-knowing what she would see, stared, horrified, into the face that was at once familiar and strange, friendly and terrifying.

"Jane?" her brother whispered.

--

Ugh, sorry for the delay. I'm the worst (also, this chapter for some reason was a nightmare to edit!) Thanks so much for reading, and to my husband for valuable editing contributions! If you enjoyed this chapter, don't forget to vote or leave a comment. Special thanks to Shewholovespineapple, Celticwhovian, LuvishmaMu, Yin_not_Yang, and Likeforrealz! You guys rock!