The girl threads her way deeper into the canyon, nimbly traversing the rocks.

I trail her, every sense on high alert for the first hint of our pursuers. By the time I’m satisfied we’ve evaded Iddo’s men, dawn has begun to fade the only slice of starry sky we can see. We’re safe for now. Though one thing is certain—they’ll keep coming.

A Ranger never yields the hunt.

I draw even with the girl and gingerly stretch. My side aches, but the fire in the wounds has cooled. “Which way?”

She tilts her face to the sky, then squints down at her locket. It’s engraved with what appears to be constellations. I surmise she’s trying to get a reference point between it and the sky. But dawn edges closer, and the stars are blinking shut one after the other.

She gives a frustrated huff. “Map’s decided to take a nap. May as well make yourself comfortable, Shield.” She catches my eye. “Is that what I should even be calling you? ‘Shield’?”

A derisive laugh escapes my lips. “I expect my days as Shield are numbered. It’s probably already a lie to call me that.”

She stares at me, tapping her foot.

I sigh. “Ash. Call me Ash.”

“Ash? What kind of name is that?”

“Er, mine?”

“Is that your real name?”

“I just said as much, didn’t I?”

“Ash.” Her Aphorain accent draws it out like the sound people make when they’re shushing a child.

“And you, Scent Keeper’s Apprentice?”

“I wasn’t her apprentice.”

“Good. That would have been a mouthful. Nisai said your name was … Karel? Rikal?”

“Rakel.”

I arch an eyebrow. “What kind of name is that?”

She lets it drop.

The girl hunkers down next to her satchel and points to a water-smoothed boulder. “Sit.”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re not going anywhere until nightfall. Your wounds need checking. No doubt some split last night.”

“They’re fine.”

“Sit.”

I decide it’s not worth arguing about and hunker down on the rock. She kneels at my wounded side and produces the same knife she used when she first stitched me up.

“What do you think you’re—”

Too late. The scrap of silk that was my palace vest gapes open from sleeve to hem and slips from my shoulder. She wastes no time moving on to the ties of my armor, loosening the laces that run up my side with surprising deftness. My vest comes free and I suppress a shiver as the cool air of desert dawn washes over my torso.

The girl hisses a breath through her teeth.

“Bad?” I ask.

“The opposite,” she says, her expression a mix of awe and suspicion. “It’s … beginning to heal.”

My mind scrabbles for something to deflect her curiosity. I attempt a smile. “Only thanks to you patching me up so well.”

She frowns, seemingly unconvinced.

I gesture to my shucked vest. “You, ah, seem to know your way around armor.”

She blushes, suddenly appearing self-conscious, and keeps her eyes on her work. “Military family.”

Judging by her curt tone, I won’t be getting any further details. She begins cleaning and rebandaging the wound, and I send a relieved prayer to merciful Azered in thanks for the silence that ensues.

Later, I find myself pacing the length of the canyon. At any other time, this place would feel miraculous. Pools cascade as clear and blue as polished aquamarine. Rock figs cling to the canyon walls with ancient, gnarled roots, their canopies fringing the water in shade.

If only I wasn’t too on edge to appreciate it.

The slow passing of the day chafes me rawer than a new pair of boots. I climb to the rim to regularly check for signs of Ranger scouting parties.

If the Rangers catch up to us, only Kaismap knows what they’ll do to the girl. And for my part? We’re in unprecedented territory. Though I’d wager they’ll come up with something more creative than incarceration. Something that makes the five hells look heavenly.

But what other option did I have? I serve Nisai, first and foremost, not the Empire. His life comes before politics, and my life is forfeit if his comes to an end. I was damned if I did, damned if I didn’t.

The sun approaches its zenith painstakingly slowly, glaring into the canyon as if the gods are on the side of the Rangers. I retreat to the shade of an overhanging rock, where Rakel hunkers in the dust. She’s using a stick to draw lines on the ground, then smooths them over with a hand and starts again. Her locket lies beside her.

“Follow the way of the stars,” she mutters between a series of curses that wouldn’t be out of place in a barracks.

“What was that?”

“The engravings on my locket were supposed to be a map.” She points to the largest star etched in the silver, then at its counterpart in the dust. “I figured this one was a marker for where we need to go.”

“Surely you weren’t trying to follow a single star. You realize they traverse the sky each—”

“I don’t have Rot for brains, all right? I get that they move. But this one isn’t a real star. There’s no match for it in the night sky between the snowfox and the winged lion constellations. Not even close.”

I frown. She’s right. I can’t recall noticing anything bright between Kal and Tozran.

“And I think these are also odd ones out.” The tip of her tongue peeps from the corner of her mouth as she marks another five points in the dust. “But I’d have to check at night.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve dragged me into the desert to search for a place that may not even exist, with a map that may not even be a map, and you’ve no idea how to read it?”

“I didn’t drag you. And if you could turn the mind behind that sharp tongue to helping me figure—”

I hold up a hand. “Just … I need a moment.”

She falls silent.

On one of my earlier surveys of the canyon rim, I’d collected some melons not much bigger than my fist. I’ve no appetite after this latest revelation, but I need to think about something else while I calm down. I cross to where I’ve stacked the fruit, take out my knife, and slice into the thick gray-green skin.

“I wouldn’t eat that if I were you.” Rakel’s voice is more singsong amusement than warning. She’s now perched on a nearby boulder, riffling through the pack I’d hastily thrown together last night.

I pause, knife still sticking in the fruit. “It’s a melon. It’s not going to bite me.”

“Sure. Akrol melons are melons. But they will bite you. In the arse.”

I give it a sniff. “Is it poisonous?”

“Nope.”

“Then I’m eating it.”

“Fine. But if you manage to get past the bitterness, don’t complain to me when your guts turn to water.”

I glance sidelong at the black mare. “Do horses eat them?”

“Nope. Too much sense for that.”

She resumes her search in the pack, then holds up Nisai’s journal. “You never said what this was.”

“I’d prefer you didn’t touch that,” I say, flinging the melon across the gorge in disgust.

“What is it?”

“It’s personal,” I snap.

She raises her hands. “Hold your nose. I’m not trying to pry.”

“Hard to believe when you’re pawing through someone else’s belongings.”

“I just wanted to know how it could help us.”

“I’d reckon nothing could help us at this point.”

She shakes her head as she replaces the journal in the pack. “You’ve got to get over this failed-before-we’ve-even-started thing.”

“Pardon?”

“You’re acting like you think this is impossible.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Maybe. But if we don’t try, we won’t find out. So can we focus on the ‘doing’ bit and not the ‘failing’ bit for now?”

“You obviously don’t comprehend what’s at risk here. What’s against us. I came after you because I thought you knew something, something useful that could help Nisai, and all it turned out to be was a nursery tale. This venture was doomed before it started. I should never have left.”

She stands and balls her fists at her hips. “You’ve never failed at anything before, have you?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve never screwed anything up. You’ve always been on top of things. In control. Everything has gone your way. You’ve lived in a palace all your life. It’s all been … roses.”

If she only knew.

“I bet you didn’t have to even try when they gave you arms training. You just strolled out there on the arena and your opponents didn’t stand a chance, am I right?”

Taken aback, I answer honestly. “Close combat is the one thing that comes naturally to me.”

She lets out a short laugh, full of contempt, but I can’t tell if the derision is of me, or her, or something else entirely. “So you’ve never failed anything. But now you’re facing it, you’re terrified. Most of us didn’t grow up in the imperial capital, living prettily perfumed lives. Some of us have to live every day with The Fear.” She makes it sound like each word deserves its own sentence.

“The Fear?” I venture.

“The Fear that there may never be anything else. That we’re nothing and will always be nothing. That no matter how hard we work, how dedicated we are, we’ll never escape our lot. Does that stop me hoping? Taking the long odds? No.”

She snatches up her own pack. “And you know what, Shield?”

“What?” I ask, tone subdued.

“It would make it a hell of a lot easier if you tried something other than sitting there sniffing your own stink.” With that, she turns on her heel.

“Where are you going?”

“To wash if you must know. I can’t think like this, caked in dust and sweat and the rat stink of that cell.” Her shoulders slump. “And I can still smell smoke in my hair, in this.” She plucks at the nightdress she’s been wearing since we left.

“I understand, but—”

“I’ll go just around the next bend.”

I shake my head. “No. We should stay within sight of each other.”

“I have no interest in putting on a show for you.”

“Believe me, I have no interest in watching.”

She glares at me, fire sparking in her eyes. Then she stomps off toward the bend in the canyon wall.

I watch her go, bewildered in the wake of her conviction.

Somewhere between our makeshift camp and her destination, she stops at the edge of the pool. It’s short of leaving sight. Only barely, but still.

She sits on a boulder and I prepare to turn away so that I won’t notice her unweaving her hair from its travel-stained wrap. And I certainly don’t pay any attention when she sets aside her cloak, revealing arms banded by the sun like the sandstone of the canyon walls. And there’s no way I’m going to watch as she slips from her tattered, ash-smudged nightdress …

There’s a loud snort and pointed stomp behind me. I swing around to find a black muzzle inches from my face, teeth bared.

“What?” I ask, holding up my hands.

Rakel’s horse slowly, deliberately, turns her back on me.

I spend the morning with whetstone and oil in hand, working out the nicks and hairline notches in every blade I possess. I move on to inspecting my armor, but the servant who oiled it while I was drugged after the hunt did it so well it doesn’t need any work.

In between, I scout. I’m checking the canyon rim for the third time, wondering how long a bath can take a person, when Rakel finally returns, wearing her hair in a braid and a damp smock shirt over loose leather trousers.

“Better?” I ask.

“Much better.” She smiles. Actually smiles, one of her teeth snagging ever so slightly on her bottom lip. I’m surprised to find it disarming.

Despite myself, I smile back. “Only Kaismap knows how you fit so many things in that pack of yours.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your new attire.”

“This old thing? It’s just my nightdress washed and hemmed.” Her smile turns mischievous. “I used part of the offcuts on the belt, otherwise there was no way these were staying up.”

I peer closely at the trousers. “Hang on. Are those my—”

“It was very generous of you to loan them. Thank you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to check on my horse.”

We rest in shifts through the afternoon, though I can only manage a fitful doze. At sunset, we share a meal of dried figs, the last of the coarse barley bread, and a slice of oversalted Aphorain cheese. The stars seem slower to appear than normal—watching the dusk sky when your next move depends on it is like waiting for an oil burner to steam.

Eventually, Rakel points. “There, see? Between the fox and the lion. Nothing.”

The two constellations are in different parts of the sky from where they usually hang over Ekasya at this point in the starwheel’s turn. But it’s always easy to spot Kal—the milky patch of the gods’ realm where the scholars say there are more stars than the eye can see. It’s edged in seven brighter points, curving from the snowfox’s curious nose, along its back to the sweep of its tail.

I move behind Rakel and follow the guiding line of her arm. The sparkle of the stars at the tips of Tozran the lion’s feathered wings come into view. Between them is a distinct patch of dark sky.

She squints back at her necklace. “Some map. What are these stars meant to be? A constellation that appears at a different time of night? Or in the day? Or something else all together? Direction marker? A message? And where is this stinkin’ lost library in all of it?”

My mind casts back to her sketch in the dust, the line she drew like a letter w to connect them. Something tickles at my thoughts like an unreachable itch.

The way of the stars.

“It’s the canyon!”

“What?”

I reach for her locket. “May I?”

She hesitates a moment, then hands it to me.

“When I was keeping a lookout today, up on the rim, I got the lay of the land. There’s a branch of the canyon that curves in exactly the same way as a line drawn between those five extraneous stars.”

“Are you sure? Which way?”

“Farther south. We should be able to backtrack until the branches diverge, then follow the other until we reach this marker. If I’m right, two days at most. I can hardly believe the Library would be so close.”

Rakel shrugs. “As good a place as any. There’s no caravan trail, you can’t grow crops. The only place you’d be getting closer to is the borderlands, and heading there without a death wish is kind of like sitting on a sand-stinger nest to avoid being bitten. Why would anyone strike out into the desert in the direction of nothing?”

Curiosity, comes Nisai’s voice in my mind.

“Desperation, more like it,” I mutter.

“Sorry?”

“Exploration. That’s why someone might come out here. To learn something.”

She nods, expression thoughtful. “I suppose I could understand that.”

We gather our things and set out.

Other than a few short breaks, we walk all night. When the sun invades the gorge the next day, we rest beneath an outcrop, tense and barely saying a word. At times, the canyon floor is sand, the walls wide, so that Rakel can ride and I can keep pace beside her horse. When the canyon narrows so that there’s only the barest sliver of sky overhead, I take the lead and we walk in single file. Not long before the next dawn, when the sky illuminates to a gradually paling blue, I call a halt.

Beside me, Rakel pulls her horse up and slides to the ground, tying off the reins. “Don’t wander far,” she tells the mare, who immediately lowers her head, closes her eyes, and bends one foreleg to rest it on the tip of a hoof. Useful skill, being able to sleep on command.

Rakel shoulders her satchel and peers ahead. I follow her gaze. Around the bend in the canyon, the cliffs are in shadow. It’s a dead end.

But there’s something precise about one line in the rock, something that seems intentional rather than the result of natural erosion. Or it could just be my imagination.

“Stay there,” I tell Rakel quietly. “I’ll scout ahead.”

Keeping my back pressed against the canyon wall, I edge closer. If there does happen to be anything here, I need to assess how well it’s defended. I unsheathe a knife, angling the blade to mirror around the bend.

It’s deserted. Silent.

So far, so good. I creep closer.

At the dead-end cliff face, I discover my hunch is right. There’s a pathway, barely as wide as my shoulders, that veers sharply to the right so that it’s completely disguised from anywhere else in the canyon. I hesitate. The gap becomes a tunnel a few paces in, and the remains of several rockfalls are piled up around it. Who knows how stable the rest is. But it can’t stretch on for too long—there’s light beckoning beyond the gloom.

I take a deep breath, set my jaw, and venture onward.

Thirty, forty, fifty paces with my chin ducked to my chest and I’m emerging, blinking, into a circular ravine, the floor littered with rocks and long-dead vegetation the wind and seasons have deposited down here.

Another dead end.

“Well, dunk me in a tanner’s vat and call me Pong,” Rakel breathes next to me.

I turn on her. “I thought I told you to stay back there?”

“You did. And?”

I scowl.

“Look.” She points. “Under that branch of flood wood. Is that a flagstone?”

“Who would pave a dead-end ravine?”

Hands on hips, Rakel stares up at the facade. “I don’t have the faintest whiff. What I’m more interested in is who lives there now.”

“Shall we go find out?”

I needn’t have bothered asking. The words have barely left my mouth and she’s already leaping ahead. I shake my head and start after her.

Then I notice them. I’d first thought they were rocks that had tumbled from the cliffs over the turns. But rocks don’t bleach white like that. And they certainly don’t have two dark holes where eyes used to be.

“Rakel!” I bark. “Stop!”

She turns around, annoyance pinching her features, her feet still moving backward. “Come on! I can see an opening from here. This has to be it!”

“Seriously, Rakel. Don’t move.”

Her posture goes rigid. But she’s off balance. She teeters for a heartbeat, then stumbles back onto the flagstone behind her.

It sinks beneath her weight with a sharp, mechanical click.