“Eshe?” she said. But he was dead, of course. The same way her whole squad had died, melted up by some mine she had triggered instead of clearing.

She saw Ahmed a few steps away, and Kage just behind him. Ahmed didn’t hold a gun, but a long length of garroting wire. Isabet was crouched near Kage, behind one of the formations. Three dead Aadhya lay on the ground, with no visible open wounds. One’s head was cocked at an unnatural angle, and the other two looked like they had been garroted.

Surrounding them all were over a dozen living Aadhya. They said nothing. Did not move. Simply watched.

“Is this what you wanted, you bloody cats?” Nyx said.

She released Eshe’s body and drew her sword. She hadn’t seen Safiyah or Khatijah, which meant they were either dead or in hiding. She brought her sword to her own throat.

“Get the fuck out of here. I’ll call the sand myself, and my team will shoot each of you in turn. It’ll eat us all together. That’s a fine thing, isn’t it? All of us dead because Shani got jealous about who was fucking who? That what you want?”

It wasn’t until the silence stretched that she realized Shani may have been the only one among them who could speak Nasheenian.

The women stood in silence for some time. Nyx looked them all in the eye, but reading them was impossible. She didn’t know what lines had been crossed. Didn’t know what they respected, what they revered, only that this rogue woman had been insulted enough to want to fight her, and murder Eshe as an afterthought.

Sweat ran into Nyx’s eyes. The grit between her toes itched, and she wondered if she had bleeding blisters down there, wondered if the sand would slowly suck her dry—toes first.

Then the women began to turn away. First one, then another. They covered their faces with the ends of their turbans as they went. The women were so long-legged that they were lost among the formations within just a few strides.

It wasn’t until the last was clear that Nyx let her arm relax. The blade slipped from her fingers. She made herself look at Eshe.

Ahmed and Kage approached. She stared at Eshe’s melted eye sockets. Wondered if he’d ever convinced his white bitch to love him.

And that thought, oddly, was the one that cut her deepest.

She rounded on Kage. Took her by the collar. Smashed her up against one of the structures. It spurted a fresh gush of mucus.

“And you. You, you fucking maggoty cat in heat, you worthless fucking Drucian rag. This is your fucking fault. What the fuck were you doing fucking red women in the desert? This is what comes of it. This. This is your fucking doing,” Nyx spat.

Kage turned her cheek away. “It is private.”