“Take care of your sisters,” Duja said, her throat tightening. She tore her gaze away from Bulan’s questioning eyes. Then she flexed her fingers and clawed deep into the earth. It rose beneath her and Imeria’s feet, before shooting off into a rippling wave that carried them away.

Duja transported them far from the Black Salt Cliffs. Paths so high above Mariit were scarce, but she didn’t need them to ascend to the mountaintop. She wielded the earth over the rolling foothills, weaving between the moss-coated boulders and whistling riverbeds and flowering pine trees, all the way to the summit of Mount Matabuaya. At the top of the mountain, several hundred feet above the capital city, lay a lake. It was small, not even a mile wide, and it was born from the crater below the rugged gray ledges that formed the mountain’s jawlike peak.

She released the earth at the edge of the lake, where it settled back beneath the surface with a shuddering groan. Imeria, who had been clutching Duja’s arm tightly, fell to her knees. She lay there, panting, as she caught her breath.

Duja didn’t look at her. She stooped low and laid her hand atop the lake’s smooth, glass-like surface. Her fingers trembled as she dug deep, the precioso thrumming dimly through her veins. The summit vibrated as she carved out a tiny island at the center of the lake. She gave a last tug, and a slender strip of land sprang out from the island to the lake’s edge, sending ripples across the water’s surface⁠—a footbridge.

“What on earth . . . ,” Imeria murmured.

Once more, Duja ignored her. Carefully, she stepped onto the bridge. The earth didn’t crack beneath her weight. She followed it, one step at a time, until she made it to the island. Then she turned around and waited for Imeria to join her.

“Oh,” Imeria said. “I think I understand now.” Gingerly, she planted one foot on the bridge, moving cautiously so as not to upset her injured ribs.

The narrow outline of Imeria’s figure wavered in the silvery fog. She glided toward Duja like a fevered fantasy that Duja had dreamed up when she’d been too young to know any better. A hallucination. A mirage. Neither of them spoke; the only sound was the dull pad of Imeria’s footsteps as they echoed across the water. Duja shivered as a zephyr breezed through the summit, rustling her tangled, dirt-ridden hair and the bloodred hibiscus flowers that poked through the rocky ledges of the crater. For a brief moment, it lifted the veil of mist hiding Imeria’s face from view. She stared at Duja, her slender jaw squared and her fine eyebrows arched in anger.

Duja’s chest tightened. Imeria had always been the braver, the lovelier, of the two.

She was the reason Aki was dead.