“My mother,” Lilia said. “Some people say she’s dead, but I’m going to find her.”

The Kai smiled, but it was a sad smile. “You’re a woodland Dhai,” the Kai said. “I can tell from your accent.”

“And you’re one of the Dhai from the valley,” Lilia said. “But where is your army?”

The Kai laughed. “Army? I’m not sure what the woodland Dhai tell their children, but there is no army here. We are a peaceful people, just like you.”

“But I saw you with a sword.”

“I’m sorry, child, I’ve never picked up a weapon in my life.” She hesitated, then said, “It must be very confusing to lose your family. Don’t fear. We’re your family now. Everything may seem very different for a time. But we’ll help you get through it.”

Lilia thought to ask her about the sky, too, but the Kai was already moving on to the next child.

The Dhai people in the valley were not at all what she thought they were. In truth, she wondered if these were really the same people who burned her village, or if she’d dreamed the whole thing after all.

For many years after, Lilia dreamed of treegliders. Some years, she even forgot about her promise to her mother. But when she was fifteen, well after Tira’s descent, when Para, the Breathmaker, bathed the world in blue light, she made a sketch on the back of a book in the temple library. She drew the trefoil with the tail her mother had pressed into her flesh. Then she handed the book over to her best friend Roh – a novice learning to draw the breath of Para – in the hope he’d find some record of it in the temple libraries she didn’t have access to. She wanted to know how much of her memory of her former life was the terrified fantasy of a young girl.

“What’s this for?” Roh asked as he pondered the paper, bouncing back on his heels.

“I’ve been a coward too long,” she said. “It’s time to be brave.”

He laughed. She didn’t.

That night, for the first time in over a decade, Lilia did not dream of a bloody Dhai army.

Chapter 1

1

Because ruin so often came from the sky, borne by fickle satellites on erratic orbits, Shao Maralah Daonia did not think to look to the sea until it was too late. She expected the next wave of invaders to come in over land after falling from a tear in the sky, the way they had the last six years.