Raven went next. “You are the flap of dark wings behind the clouds, the clever thinker in the branches, the Misunderstood, the sharp claws and sharper beak. You are the bold hunter, the unexpected warrior, the Child of the Sky. You are the First Daughter. You are Raven.”
Fire nodded, and Raven was surprised to see liquid diamonds sparkling in her eyes. She said, “You are the Unburning Child, the devourer of the weak, the breaker of branches, the licking flames. You are the fierce warrior, the unquenchable torch, the Child of War. You are the Second Daughter. You are Fire.”
“We are the Three Daughters of the Rising Sun,” Raven said.
“As one, we cannot be defeated,” Whisper said.
“Not today. Not ever,” Fire finished.
The ritual completed, they sank back into silence. Whisper’s eyes closed. Fire’s never seemed to blink, capturing the flames in flickering reflections. Raven stared past the Unburning Tree, to another time, another place.
She loved playing with her faata’s long, twisted braids. She was always grabbing them and roping them around her arms. He would grab her and twirl her around and she would scream with delight. Fire would rush to her rescue, sometimes overzealously, her flames creeping down her arms, forcing Faata to dance back, howling at her. Whisper was always the last to join the fray, grabbing Faata’s leg and refusing to let go, making him drag her around like a prisoner chained to a metal ball. Her brothers, Fox, Fang, and Falcon would always just watch, too self-important to get involved.
“Oh Faata,” Raven said aloud.
“I miss him,” Whisper said, opening her eyes.
Fire shot an annoyed look between them. “He is the enemy now. Our brothers too. We rule with strength. He rules with fear. We will give his people a new life, one worth living.”
Of course, Raven agreed with her sister on this point—slavery was wrong. Unnatural. One should not control another, not like that. But it didn’t change the fond memories she had of him. And the memories didn’t change what they needed to do.
The guanik’s rough skin undulated beneath Raven. She barely felt its steps, which were so seamless it was almost as if it slithered like a snake rather than walked on four powerful legs. It was the largest they had and her favorite. She called it simply Iknon—The Big One. Her whips dangled from both of its sides, coiled in perfect circles.
The Calypsians lining the sides of the procession didn’t make a sound, watching them go with blank-eyed stares. It was no surprise Calypso was known as the Silent City—even war wouldn’t rouse them from their heat-induced stupor.
But Raven knew it wasn’t lack of passion or sadness that silenced them. No, it was their strength. They were survivors, a people who thrived on duty and honor and victory.
And they would emerge victorious, as they always had, for thousands of years, long before the Crimeans arrived in their warships, back when their enemies were the forest dwellers in the east, the barbarians in the north, the nymphs and sprites of the western woods.
Raven lifted her chin proudly and faced forward, hundreds of guanik ridden by the guanero stomping behind her. Hundreds more marched on foot, bearing sword and shield, whip and club, dagger and spear. They were three thousand strong, a full quarter of the strength of Calyp. The remainder of the army was spread out throughout the southern peninsula, guarding the borders from the constant threat of invasion by their enemies.
Fire led the war party from the city, her sword raised high, sheathed in flame. Her arm must be growing weary, Raven thought, but her sister’s limb didn’t so much as tremble nor falter, not until they’d departed the shadow of the last of the sandstone dwellings. She is so strong, Raven marveled. A little reckless, but strong. Stronger than I. Perhaps it was better that Fire ruled. Perhaps she would be the one to finally end the twelve-year-long civil war with their faata.
Raven didn’t look back at Calypso—couldn’t look back knowing her sister was holding vigil at the apex of the tallest pyramid—Calyppa—lighting a new candle every day that passed in her sisters’ absence. I will return, she promised the wind, breathing out and sending her message back to Whisper. In her mind, she pictured one of the candles blowing out, and her sister smiling in recognition.
The first portion of the journey was relatively easy, the dry, dusty landscape flat and firm. The soldiers talked and laughed, their demeanor relaxed. As it should be, Raven mused. We have an entire desert between us and battle. The wind was warm, but not as stifling as it could be. Raven pushed back the scarf covering her shaved scalp. She ran a palm across her skin, feeling the roughness of hundreds of new hairs poking up.
“Enjoying the ride?” Fire asked, looking back.
“I prefer the wind under me,” she said. “But yes. We are fortunate that the weather is mild.”
“You and your dragons,” Fire commented. Raven’s sister had never taken an interest in the dragon brood that had been hatched when they were infants. Perhaps because you can breathe fire on your own. Raven, on the other hand, had spent countless days with the dragon masters, interacting with the young dragonia, learning their unique personalities, their temperaments, what they liked to eat. Fire didn’t understand the dragons the way Raven did—they were like cats, almost humanlike in terms of the differences between them.
Fire saw them only as weapons of war, powerful beasts that could lay waste to their enemies.
Of course, that was true, too. Raven had seen firsthand what they could do, during the annual testing. Though the dragon masters insisted the dragons were not ready for true battle, already their scales were like triple armor plate, their flames as hot as a thousand fires, their claws like whetted daggers.
Give them another year, Raven thought. They will be unstoppable.
As usual, the mention of the dragons drove a wedge between the sisters, almost as if they spoke different languages. Silence reigned, and Raven focused on the stripe of deep blue growing larger against the cracked brown terrain.
The distance fell away as the sun boiled overhead, eventually simmering toward day’s end. Dusk was announced by the crashing of waves.
Two decades ago, the Scarra Desert was connected to Calyp by a narrow strip of land wide enough for a hundred soldiers to walk abreast of each other. Now, the land masses were separated by a flowing waterway—the Canal of the Rising Sun—which allowed Dragon Bay to flow into the Burning Sea, and vice versa. If the Scarra and the rest of the Four Kingdoms were the body, then Calyp was the head, severed by a watery slash through the neck that took a dozen years and the efforts of a thousand slaves to complete, including the enormous bridge that now spanned the gap.
According to Raven’s maata, completing the canal had been her faata’s obsession from the moment they married, and a source of great contention between them, particularly because of his use of Teran slaves for the project. Two years after the bridge was completed, her parents severed their marriage pact and civil war erupted in the south.
Originally, Vin Hoza claimed the main use of the canal was to provide a direct shipping lane from the growing city of Citadel to Phanes, but Sun Sandes had soon realized the other, true purposes:
First, to provide an avenue for Phanecian slave traders to travel to the fighting pits of Zune to sell their slaves into a life of combat, and most likely, death; though all of the Sandes knew the fighting pits were a necessary evil in order to punish criminals and maintain peace in their land, none but her Aunt Viper loved them. And second, to offer Hoza another source of slaves—the Dreadnoughts, the large barbarian island that had been conquered by the Calypsians years earlier.
However, despite Raven’s hatred of what the bridge represented—slavery—she had to admit it was a true marvel. Supported by enormous stone columns, the bridge spanned such a great distance that Raven could barely make out the opposite side, which faded into the thickening evening murk. The bridge rose on a gradual incline until it reached its center, where it once more descended to near sea level. This “hill” was necessar
y so that even the tallest ships would be able to pass safely beneath it.
Fire stood next to Raven, taking in the wondrous sight. “If Faata can do this with a thousand slaves, what can he do with an army of ten thousand, or a hundred thousand?” she asked.
“Conquer the world,” Raven said. She was beginning to wonder whether her younger sister had been right about attacking now. The longer they gave her father to grow his army, the greater his advantage would be.
Except for the dragons, Raven thought.
In any case, it didn’t matter now, there would be no turning back once they reached the desert.
“We’ll camp here tonight,” Fire said. Eager guanero passed the message back through the ranks, and soon their own thousands had erected a makeshift camp, sprawling across the dry land. Leaders like the Sandes’ sisters and the other guanero slept in tents, while the rest of the soldiers passed the night under a blanket of red, green and gold stars.
The next morning, wind whistled beneath the bridge, hitting it side on like a slap from the broadside of a sword.
Standing beside the sisters, the broad-shouldered guanero war chief, Goggin said, “We’ll be knocked off like wooden thimbles.” It wasn’t the comparison Raven would’ve chosen, but then again, Goggin’s maata was a seamstress. She’d seen the large man darn a sock, and despite his sausage-like fingers, she had to admit his dexterity was impressive.
“We’ll stick to the middle, three astride, save for the guanero, who shall ride single file,” Fire said.
Goggin shook his head. “Thimbles,” he muttered again.
Raven laughed. “Don’t you know how to swim?”
“Aye,” he said. “Just like a rock.”
Fire said, “Then you can show the rest of us how it’s done.”
Raven knew her sister had never learned to swim either. As a child, she’d been far too focused on lighting things on fire to appreciate the one thing that could be used against her: water.
Raven, on the other hand, was an excellent swimmer, having spent summers with her Aunt Windy at Citadel, relishing the taste of the salt of Dragon Bay on her lips, the crystal clear waters teeming with beautiful multi-colored fish nibbling the glowing, incandescent reefs. No, she didn’t fear the water, but her ability to float would do nothing to save her from a sheer drop that would turn the Burning Sea into granite.
“We should wait until the winds die down,” Raven said, surprised to find herself agreeing with Goggin.
“No,” Fire said. “The weather masters advised that the Scarra is between storms.”
“I know. I was there. But they gave us a fortnight to reach the Spear.”
“At the most.”
“If half the army ends up in the sea, it won’t matter how quickly we reach the Southron Gates.”
In the end, Fire went ahead with the plan to cross.
Raven was frustrated with her sister’s stubbornness and recklessness, but she was the empress now, and Raven had no choice but to follow her command. But there was something else that worried her more, something in Fire’s crimson eyes that she had never seen before. At first she thought it was determination, purpose, but now she wasn’t certain.
They started across the bridge, following Fire’s orders, though many of the foot soldiers ended up traveling single file. The swirling winds pelted them from both sides, forcing them to stagger crookedly, as if they’d drunk too much simpre. Twice Raven was forced to dismount and coax Iknon forward as the large guanik refused to take another step, snorting and flicking its tongue.
Fire’s mount, like her, showed no fear, practically galloping across the bridge, reaching the end far before anyone else.
Eventually, however, they made it across, even Goggin, though his face was as white as the sifted sands of Citadel, his eyes wide and wild. “Within an inch of my life, I swear it,” he said as he kissed the sand, his thick lips coming away looking like a powdered pastry.
Behind them, the bridge was an endless train of soldiers, stretching all the way to the opposite shore, where a sizeable number had yet to step onto the stone walkway. Fire cursed under her breath. “We’ll lose an entire day at this rate.”
In truth, they lost two days, as nearly half the army was forced to wait for sunrise before starting onto the bridge. Led by Goggin, most of the soldiers passed the time fishing and drinking simpre, preparing a great feast to celebrate their arrival on the edges of the Scarra. And feast they did, late into the night, resting their sore feet and telling stories of the shifting sands of the desert, which had apparently swallowed entire platoons of easterners whole.
“The Scarra will allow only the most stalwart of men to cross its flanks,” Goggin declared, raising his fist in the air. He’d already polished off four skins of simpre, Raven knew—she’d been counting. After the second one, he’d removed his shirt and begun pointing to each of his dozens of scars and telling stories of where he got them. (He even claimed one—a long thin line across his abdomen—was from a dragon claw, though Raven knew for a fact it had been his ex-wife’s attempt to cut him open.) After the third drink, he’d removed his pants and started on the scars running up his legs. That’s when Fire had shaken her head in disgust and left. Raven had watched her go, wondering why she was acting so broody. Was it just the fact that they’d lost two days? For some reason, she didn’t think so.
Raven stood now, planning to join her sister in sleep. Most of the other soldiers were already asleep, as well as the guanik, resting their chins on their foreclaws, their deep breaths hissing between three rows of teeth. “So only men can cross the Scarra?” Raven said, a parting shot to Goggin, who was sitting on a thin layer of sand in only his underleathers. She knew Goggin was no sexist, but still she couldn’t resist.
“Women are the desert,” he slurred. “Hot and endless and as beautiful as the day is long.”
She flung him a tired smile and said, “Get some rest.”
She expected to find Fire asleep in her tent, but instead she was lying on her back outside of it, staring up at the stars. Without a word, Raven laid down next to her. One of the red stars shot across the sky.
“A sign from the gods,” Raven said.
Fire sighed.
“What is it, sister?”
“Nothing.”
“You’ve been…distant.”
“We are all distant from each other. We are like the stars. We can see each other, but only from a distance.”
“Not if you let me see you.” Raven had never been as close to her sister as she’d wanted to be. The rivalry between them had prevented that. But now, Fire’s final victory over her had swept that all away. And yet, she felt more apart from her than ever before.
“That’s impossible,” Fire said. With a final sigh, she rolled over and crawled into her tent.
Raven shook her head, trying to understand what she was missing. Another star rocketed across the dark sky in a blaze of light.
The next day they entered the Scarra, the hard-packed dust of Calyp giving way to thick piles of sand, as hot as lit coals under the blazing eye in the sky. Raven’s reptilian steed galloped up the first dune, its powerful legs churning over the thick terrain. Fire waited for her at the top, and they continued astride, racing down the backside before starting up the next hill.
Unlike the previous night, her sister seemed in good spirits now that they were on their way again.
Fire whooped and flung a fireball at a brittle dark plant known as morgotha—deathleaf—which caused asphyxiation when ingested. “Don’t want any of the guanik munching on that one,” Fire explained when she saw Raven’s raised eyebrow.
Raven shook her head. Her sister knew as well as she that the animals were intelligent enough to avoid a plant that would kill them. She also knew her sister enjoyed playing with her fire far too much.
As the sun continued to rise, the day became hotter, the rounded dunes acting as reflectors, sending the hot rays burning in all directions. Raven felt like she was b
eing boiled alive, even when she dipped her shawl in water and covered her bald brown head.
After Iknon clambered up a particularly large hill, she stopped to let the beast rest, offering it some water, which it lapped at with its long snake-like tongue. Fire was already three dunes ahead, her smaller guanik handling the heat and exertion far better than her own. Behind them, the line of soldiers that had appeared so regal, well-trained, and proud in the confines of the city, had been stretched, becoming a ragged tangled thread. Hundreds had fallen well back, struggling in the heat.
Goggin caught up to her, his own guanik nearly as large as Raven’s, and yet still laboring under the man’s immense weight and dual steel scimitars, which curled like silver waves on either flank.
“It’s as hot as the inside of a clay oven,” he said.
“I find it to be quite cool,” Raven said. “That breeze. Ah.” The wind whipping over the dunes was so hot she could almost see the air sizzling.
“What does that word mean—cool?” Goggin joked back.
Raven would’ve laughed, but her mouth was too dry, her skin too rough with sand, and she was afraid the edges of her lips might crack. They started down the dune, riding side by side.
“Many years have passed since I enjoyed the hospitality of Kesh,” Goggin said, determined to make conversation.
“I’ve never had the pleasure.”
“No? I suppose not. Why should the empress take her three daughters across the desert?”
“Tell me about the desert city.” Kesh was the only major dwelling in the Scarra, an oasis in the sand, a place to replenish water skins and rest in the shade for a while. The city had saved many lives over the centuries.
“No,” Goggin said.
“No?”
“You have to experience it for yourself.” He smiled broadly.