The churning mud sucked at Zezili’s boots as she slogged across the remains of the camp. Her legionnaires milled about the field, gutting corpses from navel to neck to check if the dajians had swallowed any valuables before the raid. Zezili couldn’t imagine dajians having anything worth stealing in a camp like this, but some had been known to flee their owners after stealing from them. She heard the grumbling of her women as she went; easy slaughter was appreciated, but not cheap slaughter. Fighting that paid in nothing but blood would sour them quickly. She made a note to have a hundred kegs of cheap wine hauled in after the next raid. Mounts – a skinny dog or pox-ridden bear – were good prizes, too, for the most exuberant killers.

Monshara waited at the center of the field. She sat astride her great black-and-white bear. Zezili had left Dakar behind; she had no interest in tacking him up just to watch some petty bit of magic.

Four riders came through the camp, riding great bears like Monshara’s. They didn’t look like Monshara, though. They looked the same way Hofsha had – like Dhai. Zezili’s skin crawled. Were they opening a door of some kind to Dhai? Why would the Dhai want to kill dajians? They were petty pacifists. They’d vomit at the sight of blood.

“So what exactly are you going to do now?” Zezili called.

“My sovereign wishes to meet you,” Monshara said. “These agents of mine will open the way. I’ll keep them with the legion from here on out. We may need them.”

“Opening the way… to where you’re from?”

“Yes.”

“Are they some kind of mutant jista?”

“Nothing so grand. These are friends of mine. Omajistas.”

“Omajistas?” Zezili laughed. “There aren’t…” She caught herself. What had Anavha said? “I opened a door.”

“We put these omajistas in place many years ago,” Monshara said.

“Years ago? Oma’s a myth.”

“Like Rhea?” Monshara said. Zezili rankled. “Oma appears from between spaces. One cannot track it like a comet. Even Para, Tira, Sina are irregular bodies. We can make estimates, but their appearances can sometimes be erratic like their powers. Oma was not close enough to open a gate in those days, when my omajistas came here. We had to force it. As we will do today. Many died.”

“How many?”

“A small country,” Monshara said, “called Saloria.”

“The whole country?”

“Yes.”

“What’s worth killing a country over?”

“We knew what was coming,” Monshara said. “The sky has darkened on our world for decades. Bloody sunsets, first, as whatever poisons the satellites emitted as they decayed rained down on us. Then amber skies, and now… Well. We knew we didn’t have much time. When Para rose, it brought the full brunt of the decay it gathered from the spaces between things. It’s diseased. Now we are, too.”