Xessa had never known anything like it, and the nobility of their sacrifice – the sheer fucking heartbreak of it – was enough to steal her breath.

It also strengthened her will. Ejab fought the Melody now, and so would she. She’d fight and die, or she’d fight and be taken captive, but she’d never give up. Because despite the losses and the hopelessness and the death stalking them, they were holding. And with every day that they held, they dealt more death to their enemies. They could still win this. They had to win this.

Xessa stretched and twisted, trying to get a sense of her body and the limits imposed on it by fatigue and injury. She ate and drank and pulled on her repaired armour. Ossa lay on a mat, his ears twitching but the rest of him unmoving. An arrow had skewered his shoulder the day before and he could barely walk. He’d endured so much in the last days, his flesh torn and muscles strained. He had to rest. She spent a few moments hand-feeding him and stroking his ears, shaking away fear at the thought of fighting without him at her side. None of the warriors had dogs and they managed well enough.

Xessa took a deep breath, sheathed her knife and collected the spear and blowpipe. She stepped over Ossa and left without a goodbye. She told herself it was because she didn’t want to disturb him, but really she couldn’t face the thought of it being the last time she ever kissed her dog.

Xessa found Lutek, Eja Esna and High Elder Apok standing on the council house’s gently sloping roof with Toxte and a few others. She climbed the external staircase and then looked down over the city. Her husband and his dog greeted her with kisses, but the sight of Ekka just made her stomach tighten again. The sky was boiling with clouds – the eja part of her cringed, but the rest of her, the Xessa who was thirsty, stared at them with hope.

The roads and buildings and plazas were milky-white, wet limestone and puddles and containers reflecting the stone-grey air, but Xessa didn’t concentrate on those. They weren’t the Sky City, not really. The city was retired ejab, tense and failing and doing their duty. It was children crying for dead family, crying for thirst, for fear. It was wounded warriors stumbling towards the healing caves, and shamans with sacks of medicine walking the walls and waiting at gates and scrabbling for plants and bandages that were running low. It was fear and panic and the whiff of defeat.

On both sides of the city the Melody were a dark mass, slashed with bright feathers and kilts and decorated shields, stark against the black stone and trampled shrubs. Archers kept them out of range while the first wave of warriors and armed civilians poured out of the gates to meet them.