But Inaya was staring up at the filtered blue light coming in from above, watching it slowly darken and fade all together, blanketing them in blackness.

32.

“It’s a lot of fucking rope,” Nyx said, eying the bundle knotted securely to Kage’s back.

Kage was used to carrying her gun; the weight of the rope was nothing. She endured their chatter only because in the many weeks she had traveled with these people, she realized very little would shut them up.

“It’s a lot of fucking wall,” Safiyah said.

They finally stopped in the shadow of the Wall. Kage, Nyx, and Safiyah led. The others were still far behind, bickering over rations.

“That,” said Safiyah, pointing to the seemingly sheer face of the Wall, “is why I need a Drucian.”

Kage watched Nyx try to figure it out. This section of the Wall was different from the rest, and Kage could see why immediately. Three hundred strides up the face of it, there was a crack, a crevice.

Kage faced the bare rock wall while Safiyah and Nyx spoke. The Wall was a lovely thing, she supposed, as much as anything outside could be. She scouted the climb as they bickered. Once she saw the best way to the top, she simply stepped onto the rock face and began to climb. The mutters of those behind her faded quickly. It was easy enough to let their words become nonsensical. Making any sense out of Nasheenian was difficult on a regular day. Doing so while scaling a wall was nearly impossible.

They nattered on, though, until one of them finally noticed that she was climbing. Then, cool silence. If it meant keeping them quiet, she would climb for days.

Though the Wall appeared to be sheer from far away, it was not. There were irregularities here, caused by some malformation in this part of the Wall. It was her size and dexterity the magician had needed, that was all. What concerned her was only that the magician had known enough about Drucians in general to bet that Kage could scale the Wall. Fat-fingered Nasheenians and their flat-footed magicians would be useless on surfaces like this one. But Kage had grown up climbing walls. None quite so tall as this, perhaps, but the mechanics were the same.

And if she fell off and died, well—at least then Nyx or the fukushu-sha couldn’t kill her.

The magician had taken them far from the city, an hour before first light. But from this height, Kage could already see the city plainly in the distance, a dusty smudge in the shadow of the Wall. As she climbed, the wind picked up, and she had to stay focused. She paused on occasion to remap her route to the crevice. Her arms began to tire, and she had to rest more often. The wind became insistent.

Breathe.