But the city was not lifeless. Nephilim still lived here. The half-mortals nested like hives of disease upon ruined flesh. They had raised huts of leather, bone, and the rotting flesh of their human victims. They dug through piles of bricks and peered from hovels. They danced upon the crumbled walls and they rutted on the beach north of the city. The city was still distant, but even from across the marks, the stench hit Issari's nostrils.

Her belly cramped and her eyes stung. Is my son among them? Is the child I birthed one of the city's new denizens?

Her throat constricted and her belly twisted as she remembered that night, remembered the creature leaving her womb, fleeing her, darting off into the night, an aborted child who needed her, whom she had betrayed. A monster. Her son. Issari did not know anything about his father, the deceiver who had visited her in her tent, but if she found his son here, would she be able to burn him?

She focused her attention back toward her task. She pointed.

"Do you see the hole upon the hill?" she said to Tanin. "That's where the palace once stood. That is the crack of the Abyss. Through that hole is where we'll find him."

Little of the palace remained, only the broken stems of a few columns; they rose like shattered teeth from the hill. The walls, the roof, the balcony where Issari had stood so often—all had fallen and lay strewn across the hillside. The memories of her home stung her, more powerful than the jabs of arrows.

Only a couple of years ago, she had stood upon her balcony in this palace, and she had gazed upon the sea, and she had imagined adventures in distant lands. She had been only a child then, a soft youth clad in cotton, a golden headdress resting upon her hair. Innocent. A child who dreamed of heroes and legends, who had never heard of the evil of the world.

My own adventure showed me this evil, she thought. And the distant lands I found were full of more terrors than heroes and legends.

She returned now to Eteer, but she was not the same child. She had grown into a woman, hardened, emptied, something missing from inside her, a child lost. An innocence lost. And she knew that even should the palace rise here anew, she would nevermore be able to gaze upon the sea again, nevermore imagine adventures, never more feel that innocent joy, nevermore dream like a child dreams, full of wonder.