“Taigan!” She moved up against the wall. She saw nothing that looked like it could hold her weight. She screwed her courage and jammed her good foot onto a small spur beneath her. She tried to lever herself up. The spur broke. She fell.

“I’ll play your stupid game,” she muttered. But not as he would expect.

Lilia led the bear over to a nearby rock. She climbed up onto the rock and slid onto the bear.

Left or right? She looked back at the streambed. The broken pipe curved to the right. If whoever had built this pipe built them the way they did in Dhai, the pipe would be going downhill. She would go north, following the cliffside until she found a way across it, and then come back south until she either found Taigan or found where Taigan waited for her. If he had waited.

She heard the call of a bird, close, and urged the bear forward. In places, the way was impassable. She had to crawl around large boulders and knotted trees. The bear looked behind them often, snuffling, and she worried about predators. She found shelter that night in the arms of a tree, and tied herself tight so she didn’t fall off. In the morning, she went on, stopping for water when she found it.

After two days, the long curve of the cliff tapered away. She crawled up the loose stone and shale, grabbing at knotted roots and bushes. At the top, she yanked on the bear’s lead and urged it to follow.

She rode the bear the rest of the way, heading south again, back to the place where Taigan had abandoned her.

It was midday when she heard Taigan say, “That was clever but wrong.”

Lilia started. Taigan dropped from the draping of a cluster of dense trees, twenty feet above her. He landed neatly in front of Lilia, sending up a little puff of dust, agile as a cat.

“I’d rather be clever,” Lilia said. She slid off the bear.

Taigan walked past her, to the lip of the cliff. He gazed at the streambed below. “Three days I waited, expecting you to fly back,” he said. “Then I realized what you’d do and came to meet you. You really are just a plain little scullery girl, aren’t you?”

Lilia dropped the bear’s lead and met him at the edge of the precipice. “I’m sorry I’m not what you thought I was,” she said.

“I don’t understand why you’re unteachable,” he said. “Perhaps you’re too old. That was a concern. The ones I’ve worked with before were still children, and most were from Dorinah. They had more discipline, and more…” He stared intently at her. “Fear. It made them easier to train.”

“You know you’re fighting Dhai, don’t you? Another kind of Dhai.”