The deaths had also destroyed their plan to capture one of the monsters. Tika had been the heart of the scheme; without her there was no way to proceed. In the initial aftermath, when dawn had broken and Tika hadn’t arrived, and then Zasso had been found with her throat slit and Vaqix wasn’t found at all – not for hours until warriors made the climb to the womb and found the corpses – the plan and its importance had meant nothing to Xessa. Now, as the days passed and the grief settled on them all, humid and stifling, the need to learn what these things were, to have one at her mercy the way people were at theirs, grew again in her stomach.

If she couldn’t take her vengeance on Ilandeh – her friend Ilandeh – then she would slaughter the monsters the woman likely believed were gods.

And not just Ilandeh. That fucking Dakto had gone with Lilla and his Paw, right into enemy-held territory. Who knew what he’d get up to. She’d gone to the council in a frenzy, barely able to sign she was so anxious, but they’d already thought of it. Dakto wasn’t the only Xentib refugee who’d gone, and Elder Apok sent twenty warriors off in pursuit to try and find them and warn the Paws they were with. Another dozen were combing the jungle below the city, looking for the killer.

The killer. Xessa snorted. It was Ilandeh and they all knew it. It had to be. That bitch.

Some of the residents of Xentibec argued that Ilandeh was another victim, not the killer, but that just caused relations between the tribes to sour further as the Wet strengthened and stores began to run low. There had been one mass brawl and two stabbings since the murders, and now armed warriors were guarding the district, as much to keep the Yaloh out as the Xentib in.

Malel, however we have angered you, know that we are sorry. If the Axib life was not enough, I pray those newly dead redress the balance. Watch over us, Malel, and you, our ancestors. Guide our hands and steps. Snake-sister, grant us your cunning.

Xessa sat in the doorway of her house and stared at a sky the grey of a dead fire, brooding. It seemed fitting, somehow, but nothing easy ever came on a day when the sun hid its face. Fitting, too, was the sudden cramp in her stomach, deep in the bowl of her pelvis, radiating out to sit in her hip bones, sick and hot.

She heaved herself to her feet and went inside, crossed to her clothes chest and pulled out the loincloth she used during this phase of her moon. She folded a thick pad of cotton into it, cursing her body when her nights with Toxte were still so new and intense, despite everything that had happened. Perhaps because of it.