Gale winds tossed the coach up and down and sideways as it bucketed away from the palace. Where we went I did not know. I clung to my sword. The bag of coins slammed into my belly, winding me. Where the chains had bitten into me to take the first taste of my blood, my chest throbbed like fire. The pain of that wound deafened and blinded me and I just lay there panting in the hope that oblivion would claim me soon. All I could do was tighten my hand around my locket and pray that if I had just been infested with the salt plague, then the disease would consume me quickly and with less agony than this.

“Blessed Tanit,” I murmured, “please bring me home.”

My blood seeped onto the floor of the coach, moistening and melting into the coach’s substance. Blood makes the gate.

I fell through.

The goddess caught me in her arms. She cradled me like a newborn, her brown face smiling down at me. Tears wet her cheeks. A crescent moon shone above her head to light the path for those who must walk into darkness.

“Choose, little cat. For you may have peace now if you wish it.”

“I just want to go home.”

Home is the people you care for, the ones who care for you in return.

Her kiss woke me back into the world. When I opened my eyes I found myself kneeling in a garden lush with pomegranates and ripe grapes and cascades of purple flowers. Before me rose a stone statue of the goddess wearing her lioness head, she who protects women but also gives them the strength to protect themselves.

The horns of a crescent moon sank into dawn. Pain pooled at my chest. Sticky blood oozed down my body to be swallowed by the damp soil. I blinked. A winter wind rattled through bare branches, for I now found myself huddled not in a summer garden but all alone and abandoned in an empty sanctuary. The air had a bitter, angry bite. Someone had stabbed me in the heart and then eaten out my head. I pitched forward onto my face.

A familiar and beloved voice spoke my name. “Catherine. My sweet Catherine, wake up.”

A familiar and beloved hand took hold of mine. “Cat, wake up! What on earth got into her to wander off to Tanit’s sanctuary when she ought to have been hiding inside like every other sensible person? I thought I was going to die of anguish when we got back and she was gone!”

“I should like to know what miscreant stabbed her in the chest. She’s fortunate it is such a shallow wound.”

“Look how her skirts are torn. I can’t leave her for a single day without her getting into trouble!”

Warm lips brushed my forehead. “She’s feverish. Let’s get her home.”