No one owns the sky

No one owns the question why

I say, stolen love tears you apart, but—

We can give love away

Make a bridge of the heart

In the storm’s fury, ember hearts burned out and spirit slaves turned to poison dust. The fiend tower sank a few feet. Awa stroked Djola’s feverish face and sang in his ear.

No one owns the clouds or the dew

The mountain rocks, the color blue

No one owns the leaves or the breeze

The rushing river, the frothy seas

We belong to ourselves

Or maybe to the bees

Djola roused from his stupor. “A new version?”

“Yari could never leave a song be.”

The strap on Djola’s conjure bag sliced his shoulder. Blood dribbled into the mouths of fiends below. Their heart embers sparked brighter. They leapt up, sucking the air for more blood. Djola shook her. “Take a good look at what chases us.”

Hezram’s sneer on a hundred faces chilled Awa more than empty eyes. Drunk on stolen dreams, Hezram had lost himself, lost the world. “I promised and—” Djola might be Bal’s father, a master forced to slave on a pirate ship and give his daughter to an enclave to save her. Awa needed to fly Djola to the seventh region for Bal. “And…”

“What?” Djola asked. “Can you see beyond the void?”

Awa closed her eyes and willed them away from the fiend tower. Hezram couldn’t be everywhere; that was a bluff, an illusion to steal the speed of thought from her. Awa opened her eyes to a grove of flowering trees untouched by creeping void. She dropped them into the bushy crown of a young raintree. The supple branches dipped low and flung them into a black velvet sky. Fragrant petals cleared her mind. “The conjure woman smelled of raintree blossoms…”

“Zst!” Djola’s bag slid down his bloody left arm.

Awa grabbed the strap. “I can carry this for you.” The bag weighed nothing. She slung it over her shoulder. Beyond a splash of green aurora, she spied the bridge of stars. Endless arches of light cut into the deep dark. “I see a way.”

“Good.” Djola twisted free and flung her toward the aurora. His cape fluttered about him, giant black wings. Without the conjure bag he glided easily.

“What are you doing?” Awa chased him.

“Hezram tracks us still. Take my bag. Escape.” Djola feinted away from her. He was fast again. “Get to Emperor Azizi. Warn him against disaster before it’s too late. Build no Dream Gates in Arkhys City.”

“What do I care if the Arkhysian Empire crumbles away?” Awa shouted. “Warn him yourself.”

The fiend tower burst beyond smoke into black sky.

“Here I am,” Djola shouted, and the tower tilted toward him. “Take me if you can.”