“Yes, Asrai,” he says in a whisper that seems to shudder straight through her.

“Can anyone hear us?”

“No, Asrai,” he says, the word Asrai sounding delicious on his dark purple tongue.

He has a purple tongue like his snakes, Tierney distantly notes, a bit amused to be admitting her attraction to this surprising trait. And he smells like cool, summer shadows. In the dark of night...

“I don’t think Vogel can be fought in the obvious way,” she says, struggling for composure in the face of Viger’s mounting thrall. “And I think the threat he brings is different from anything Erthia has faced before.”

“I second this, Asrai,” Viger says, his mist darkening further as Tierney takes hold of his other arm, his grip firming on her. “Vogel brings a threat to Death,” Viger says, unease rippling through his power.

Tierney eyes him. “How can anything bring a ‘threat to Death’?”

He’s silent, their eyes locked as they float in the darkness in a loose embrace.

“I will try to show you,” he finally says. “On Xishlon. Before I deploy west to call on the desert serpents in defense of the East. I will find you, and I will show you.”

“I want that,” Tierney concedes, feeling an unexpected pang over his upcoming departure. “Show me what you mean on Xishlon. And then help me fight the deeper battle underneath the obvious one.”

The battle for the natural world, Viger thinks into her mind, reading her fear for the Vo. For all the rivers. For the natural matrix’s undoing.

“Yes, Viger,” she agrees as she holds his lulling, midnight stare. “The battle for the natural world.”

CHAPTER FIVE

RED DESERT

Sparrow Trillium

Agolith Desert
Central Desert lands
Sixth Month

“Be careful around the Crow,” Ulluwyn warns Sparrow, a grimace on the blue-hued soldier’s mouth as her sapphire eyes flick toward Thierren. “I see the way he looks at you.”

Ulluwyn raises a brow at Sparrow in unspoken meaning and Sparrow holds her earnest gaze as offense flares. It’s chafing, how Ulluwyn has taken on the unasked-for role of Sparrow’s protector during their small band’s journey east across the vast, storm-riddled desert.

When Sparrow much prefers Thierren’s company and aid.

They’ve been traveling for weeks now with a Vu Trin contingent, journeying toward a hidden desert portal that will take them to Noilaan. Gratitude rises in Sparrow every time she considers how Thierren negotiated passage to the East for her as well as her young charge Effrey, the small dragon Raz’zor, and Aislinn Bane, the longed-for journey secured with the understanding that Thierren, Effrey, and Raz’zor would join the Vu Trin military, forces that Thierren has been secretly aligned with for months.

But still, much to Sparrow’s dismay, Thierren’s undercover work for the Vu Trin has done little to foster acceptance amongst this particular group of sorceresses.