“Bring water, you fuck!” she wheezed.

But it kept cawing, kept circling.

“Fuck you! I had to drop her! Wouldn’t have made it… made it this far.” She was out of breath. Wheezing. Her heart pounded in her chest.

She caught herself drifting, swimming through a cool waterfall in Druce with Radeyah.

She fell again. Fell hard. The breath left her body this time, and she gasped for air, rolled onto her back, faced the star-studded sky.

Dying wasn’t so bad, so why did she keep trying so hard to live?

She stayed down.

Closed her eyes.

She was back at the waterfall again, laughing with Radeyah like some drunk school kid. She had never laughed so much as she had in Druce. How was that possible? It was a contaminated little slice of exile, with oozing bugs and rot that ate Anneke’s first three gardens and secretive little people who all pretended they couldn’t speak Nasheenian. But there was also a whole lot of quiet there—outside Anneke’s shooting range, at any rate.

When she opened her eyes, her whole body was moving. She was covered in bulbous armored bugs, big as her fist. They were chewing at her bloody chest.

Nyx let out a yell, pushed back. A few of the bugs lumbered off her, slow as some fat inlander. They were chewing at her bandolier. They’d broken open the containers of blood, and were lapping it up with thorny proboscides that needled at her skin beneath her tunic.

She tried to push them off, but her hands weren’t responding again. One of them crawled up the length of her: dainty little feet across her neck, her cheek. She gritted her teeth. It perched there on her face, waving its antennae. It came up on its hind legs, waved its front legs like a charging beast.

Nyx snapped at it with her teeth. It was like crushing a grape, or a balloon. The thing just burst, and warm, wet fluid spattered her face, wet her mouth. She choked on bits of the thing, spit it out.

Her fingers twitched. Responded. She grabbed one of the ones on her chest. Mashed it with her hand. It popped, spilling warm, clear liquid across her hand. Nyx slowly brought her hand up to her face, sniffed at the liquid and shattered carapace. It was odorless. She licked it. It was clean and clear, like… water.

Or tasteless poison.

But for a woman who had slurped down another woman’s blood and her own urine just a few hours back, that possibility wasn’t enough to put her off.

Nyx grabbed another of the bugs making a meal of Eskander’s blood, and twisted open the end of it, like pinching off the end of a woody fruit. She sucked out the liquid inside.