I stare out of the carriage window, letting my eyes flicker over the miles of empty sand. It's the day after the feast and we've on our way back to the capitol, having left Rizsava in the hands of a newly appointed governor. One of Sholu's allies, of course, a former daughter of the Noraya who now has a city to her name.

I don't know why I even bother looking out of the carriage. I'm not really seeing anything, not when my mind is still tightly tethered to the night before. Even though the heat and light of the mid-day sun penetrates our small traveling coach, warming my arms and face, I think of nothing but what happened in the dark.

I can still see his grey eyes boring into mine, full of an urgent fervor I could not and cannot understand. They almost seemed to be asking me a question, I decide. His lips, though, his lips asked nothing. They demanded. They took without hesitation.

I shudder at the memory. It was a moment, just a moment, but it pushed me so far from my center. Plunged me so deep into the cold water of shock, then the furnace of indignant anger. Is that why he did it? I wonder. Was he trying to unsettle me? Was it just another power play?

What else? I think to myself. What else is he capable of? It had to be another game, another way to prove his power over me. He took the liberty because he could, that is all.

But there was something more in his eyes. Something bright and burning and wild, like a comet streaking brilliant through the cold darkness of space. I've always seen his eyes as grey stone, unfeeling and immovable, but in that moment they were molten as lava flows. And if I'm honest with myself, that scared me. It still scares me.

I turn away from the window and sigh, clenching and unclenching my hands for movement's sake. I can't let myself be thrown so easily by one kiss. It was just another game, I promise myself. Its whole purpose was to unnerve me. I can't let it. Can't let him win.

"Are you thinking about the trial?" Kaza ask.

"What? No. Why would you ask?" I reply, pulled back into the present by his searching gaze.

He shrugs. "You're nervous. I was just wondering why."

"I am not nervous."

He snorts. "You've spent the last two hours picking at the seams of your tunic, wrapping your hair around your finger, and fidgeting in your seat. Your eyes rove about like desert nomads. Something is bothering you."

"It's the confinement," I lie, turning my face from him. "I hate carriages. Being locked in a box for hours on end."

He shrugs. "If you say so." I can tell he doesn't believe me.

I frown but say nothing. A long silence stretches between us, broken only by the sound of the carriage wheels rolling slowly over the sand, and by the roar of the river in the distance. Kaza tries to talk to me once or twice, but my replies are terse. One-word answers stop his questions from becoming conversations. I need quiet. He's right: I'm nervous. Close to cracking. It's been a long two days, and I feel brittle. I finally snap at him to leave me alone, and he does, settling into the motion of the carriage without another word.

____

We stop to water the horses by the river later in the day. It gives me a chance to stretch my legs, to flee the confinement of the carriage for the vastness of the desert. Kaza guards me from a few meters off, still feeling my repulses from earlier and judging it best to leave me be. The other guards ignore us, too busy polishing their unused weapons and laughing at bawdy jokes to notice a prisoner and her watchdog. Servants flitter about like water bugs, brushing the horses, watering them, and refilling canteens from the rush of the river.

I stand on the bank, my sandals in my hands, watching the water flow by. It's calming, the crashing of rapids pushing other thoughts from my head. I stop worrying about the Kyorin and the feast and the kiss and the plan for Halima's escape and just listen.

It's almost like it used to be, when we would come to the river before holy days. Everyone was quiet then; you could hear the buzzing of desert insects and the crunch of sand underfoot, and every rustling of fabric or cough as we walked from Arzsa to the mouth of the river. It took a good half a day, and by the time we arrived we were covered in a sheen of sweat. Minuscule particles of sand and dust clung to our traveling garments. The older amongst us were out of breath, struggling to stand tall because to stoop would be shameful.

The entire family would congregate around the river, led by a priestess of Zsavina, and one by one she would purify us. Wash away our sins with the water of life so we could stand cleansed before the goddess.

I would fidget while waiting for my turn at the riverside, shifting from foot to foot, playing with the hem of my tunic, even whispering quietly to Shira, who always told me to be quiet. The silence, the long wait, the solemnity bored me. I wanted to run, to jump into the swirling, crashing water and swim like I used to do as a child, before the decorum of womanhood settled over me like a shroud.

But soon enough it would be my time, and the priestess would lay her hands on my shoulders and I would speak the ceremonial words. Vessel of the goddess, I have sinned. I am stained by the earth. I am made unclean and unfit to call myself a child of Zsavina.

Then would come the coldness of water pouring over my hair, and the old runes drawn in river mud on my forehead. She would press my shoulders down, into the river, and my entire body would go rigid from the chill. Still, the chill felt purifying then. I honestly believed the pain was washing away my sins, making me new again.

Then she would let me up and bestow upon me a beatific smile. Child of Zsavina, rise. You are unmade and made again by the holy water of life, by the blessings of the Goddess. Through her mercy, her love, your stains are stripped away. Rise, and greet the world anew.

And so I would rise, and it would feel like a second birth as I stood on shaky goosepimpled legs and dragged my dripping body from the River Imer.

I sigh, then bend over and lay my shoes on the bank. I look around; no one is watching. Even Kaza has turned away. With a small smile I take the first few steps into the river.

As soon as my feet touch the surface I let out a small hiss. The water is bracing, having retained the chill of the desert night. I only grit my teeth and wade in deeper, letting the cold claim my toes, my feet, my ankles, my calves. Letting the water soak through my thin leggings and the bottom half of my traveling tunic. I embrace the pain, the cutting sharpness, because it clears my mind even more than the sound of the water did. It takes me back in time to the holy days: I can almost feel the hands of the priestess on my shoulders, pressing down.

I lower myself gradually, inch by inch, biting my tongue to keep from shouting as the cold touches fresh, sun-warmed skin. By now my feet and legs are numb. I keep going, down and down until I'm kneeling in the silt, until my hair spreads out around me like a white fan. Then I go down farther, dunking my head beneath the surface.

I hold my breath, staying underwater, where all is dark and quiet. I want to be dark and quiet, I think. More than that, I want to go back to a time when I believed the river meant something more than water. I want to be reborn.

Then strong hands grip me, pulling me up from under my armpits. I cough and sputter, inhaling a great gasp of air as I'm dragged out of the river.

"Are you crazy?" Kaza yells, his eyes frantic. "Were you trying to drown yourself?"

"No," I answer. Then I think of how long I must have been under to feel this light headed, and how I clung to the underwater world like I belonged there. "I don't think so," I amend. "I would have come up eventually."

"You would have passed out," he remonstrates. "The current might have caught you and carried you away. Goddess, O'otani, I knew you were reckless, but I didn't think you were suicidal!"
"I'm not suicidal," I scoff, my reproachful glance interrupted by another fit of coughing. There's river water in my lungs. "I said I would have come up eventually."

He looks at me with doubt in his eyes.

"I wasn't trying to drown myself." I repeat seriously. He sighs.

"Just go back to the carriage. We can wait there."

"No," I reply, jutting out my chin. "I'll be back in that cage with wheels soon enough. For now, I want to watch the river."

He sighs again, running his fingers through his short hair. "I could order you back to the carriage," he threatens.

"You could," I admit. "Then I would ignore you, and you'd have to use strength to move me. It's up to you, guard."

"Guard," he mutters. "I thought you called me Kaza now."

I shrug. I don't hate him like I used to, and I'll admit there's a strange sort of kinship between us, but I'm not his friend. I owe him nothing, least of all obedience.

"Fine," he says darkly. "Stay. But I stay beside you. There will be no more attempted drownings."

"I was only indulging in a memory," I say. "I know you won't believe me, but it's true."

"A memory," he replies, as if tasting the words. He stands beside me now, facing the water. "So it was a memory of drowning?"

"No," I snap. "Not of drowning. Of cleansing. This is holy water, you know."

"I didn't know you believed in that."

"I don't," I say. "Not really. But then again, I don't know what I believe anymore. Maybe the water is holy. Maybe the goddess does watch all."

"Maybe," he admits. "Or maybe we're alone. I don't know which thought is more terrifying."

"I still pray to her," I say, more to myself than to him. "I don't know that I believe, but I still pray. For me, for Halima, for Shira." And once for him, though I'll never admit it.

"I pray, too" he tells me, "but I don't pray to her. She seems so cold to me now, after all I've seen."

"Then who do you pray to?"

He shrugs. "I don't really know. I just... pray. And hope maybe someone's listening. All I want is to be heard."

I wonder, is that what I want? To be heard? I fear that if I started speaking I might never stop, that I might become a river myself, an outpouring of memories and emotions to flood all of Shikkah. Inside me there's an ocean capable of drowning men. Of drowning myself.

We stand side by side for a long time, watching the water flow away from us. I try to think of nothing, but instead I think of praying, and then I think of Shira. He is my prayer. Every night and every morning his name escapes my lips, along with an amorphous plea of please. Please let him be alive. Please let him be far away. Please let me see him again, even though I know the last one is a fallacy. He's gone from me, one way or another.

I feel hot, stupid tears welling up in my eyes. It hurts to think of him. It makes me ache. Once I could imagine that we'd be reunited, that he would come for me, that I would escape. I could play pretend like a child and live on hope the way other men live on bread and water. But something has changed; I can't fool myself any longer. I am yesterday's fire: I will kill Sholu Verlaina, and then I will go out. I feel this in my bones, in my core. I am never leaving Shikkah. I am never seeing my Izsai again.

Knowing he's safe, knowing Halima is safe, will have to be enough. I'll always have the memories, too, the ones I keep locked up deep inside of my mind.

I trace the scar on my inner arm and sigh. Kaza looks at me quizzically.

"What are you thinking about?" he asks.

"Blood in the water," I answer, turning my arm so he can see the vertical line I'm tracing with a chilled fingertip. "This is close to where my binding ceremony took place."

"Do you remember it?" he asks.

"Sometimes I think I do," I admit. "I think I remember the priestess's hands, and the sharpness of the knife as it pierced my skin, and the cold water rushing over me. But I was only one when they bound Shira and I; much too young to really remember. All of that is probably just cobbled together from stories I've been told."

"Maybe," he says. "Or maybe it's real."

"Maybe," I agree, letting my hand fall from the scar. It feels real. I can almost hear the priestess chanting in my ear, "asper adhari, mar asper cavi na." Born alone, but alone no longer.

I almost laugh. What a lie. I have never been more alone in my life.

__________

"Halima," I say, almost sigh, as she ducks into the small sleeping tent I share with Kaza. With only the soft light of the stars to illuminate her entrance she reminds me of a dream, a vision, something I might think up to comfort myself in the dark.

I reach out and grab her hand, and squeeze. She's real. Corporeal. I was worried she wouldn't come, but Sholu's consistent. During the day she's kept from me, travelling with the servants, but as soon as the night falls she comes into my tent like a gift from the moon.

That's what he wants me to think, probably. That she's another gift, like the dresses and the jewels. He rations our contact like it's a privilege so I remember at every turn that it can be taken away. I can imagine his twisting smile, his grey eyes flashing as he whispers I control both your happiness and your misery.

But not for much longer. Not after tonight. I smile at the thought, at the plan dancing wildly through my mind, igniting hope and pain and fear in the same instant. If it succeeds, we'll both be free. If it fails... I don't want to think about what will happen if it fails.

"Come lie down," I tell Halima, moving the blankets aside so there's room on the sleeping mat. She does, and I pull her small body against mine, protecting her from the cold of the desert night. She feels so small in my arms, and I remember what a child she still is. Only fourteen years and she already carries the weight of three lives on her shoulders.

"Did you do it?" I whisper in her ear, quiet so Kaza doesn't hear. He's lying with his eyes closed about ten feet away from us, sharing the tent again because I can't be trusted alone.

She nods, her head moving up and down where its pressed against my chest.

"Good," I breathe into her hair, smiling. "They're probably drinking it now. They'll be passed out still as stones in half an hour at the most!"

"If it works," she murmurs quietly, a quiver in her voice.

"It will work," I reassure her. "There's nothing to worry about."

"Nothing to worry about?" She breathes. "What if one guard didn't drink? What if the lanuli doesn't work on everyone? What if a servant sees me?" Her voice begins to rise. "Oh, miss, this can't work. This is impossible. I can't just run away from them: they're too powerful. They'll find me, and then they'll-"

"Stop it!" I mutter, hushing her. "You're too loud, Halima!"

"I- I'm sorry," she says, quieter this time, but no less frightened. "But we can't- this can't work. I won't make it, miss."

"Of course you will," I whisper, pulling her closer. "Of course you'll make it, little dove. You just have to trust me."

"I do trust you," she sighs. "Of course I trust you. But-"

"But nothing. We're doing this, Halima. This is the only way. The guard is too thick around Arzsa and if we get any farther from Rizsava you'll never make the walk back. Besides, we've come too far to go back now. The guards will know they were drugged when they wake up."

"I know," she whispers. "I know it's the best chance we have, the best chance I have, but..."

"But?"

"I'm scared," she mutters quietly. "Terrified, actually."

"No need to be scared," I say, kissing her forehead. She's shaking a little. "It will all be alright."

"But what if it isn't?"

"Then you fall on your knees and tell them you had no choice," I tell her decisively. "You say it was all your mistress's doing."

"But that would endanger you-"

"And it might save your life," I mutter back. "Promise me."

She pauses. "I promise."

"Good." I say with a small smile. "But you won't be caught, alright? You'll be fast, and lucky. It will all work out."

She nods against me, and then there's nothing left to say, so we lie in wait in the dark.