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“What does it say?” Ryn asked, dragging herself to her feet. She glanced around in search of water. Bastone didn’t reply right away, and she realized he was avoiding eye contact again. She swallowed against her dry mouth. “What does it say, Bastone?” she rasped, quieter this time.

“We’re heading out,” Bastone said suddenly, and Heva lifted her head from where she knelt, yanking up her visor and making a face at him.

“What? Now?” she asked.

“We were given orders that if you survived, you’re to go aid our divisions trapped by Sindahir Valley. Unfortunately…” He pursed his lips, his light brown hair ruffling in a gust of hot wind. “…there are a number of armies standing between us and them. You’re going to have to fight your way through. And if by some miracle of the Divinities you survive and actually make it across Sindahir Valley, you need to help the divisions there solve a stalemate.” He stuffed the parchment into his pocket and closed his eyes. Complete silence rang over Burn Division Twelve. “One of the armies you’ll face is a strong host that just obliterated Per-Siana Army Division Seventy-Five a few days ago.”

Ryn slid her mask off. “What does that mean?” Her voice was a weak interruption to the silence of her men. Everyone had gotten to their feet, expressions distraught.

“It means you’ll fight again tomorrow.” Bastone’s throat bobbed. The gales picked up, blowing his minty tea-soap fragrance over Ryn again. “And if you survive, you’ll fight the day after that. And the next day.”

Heva appeared and shoved Bastone’s chest with a sandy hand, leaving a smear on his leathers. “You must be crazy. You know that’s not possible for any division to do.”

“You’re a burn division,” Bastone reminded her through his teeth. He didn’t blink. He didn’t sympathize. He didn’t give anyone a way out. He simply said, “Orders are orders.”

He must have forgotten whatever he approached Ryn to say as he turned and left with the other soldier. His light brown hair ruffled, his fancy bow rattling on his back as he escaped toward the dunes. But he paused after a dozen strides, shoulders tight. Bastone whirled back, crossing the distance to Ryn, and he grabbed her hand. He shoved a folded parchment against her palm, and said, “I wasn’t going to give you this. I’m not your personal postman, Commander. But that old woman begged me to before we left.”

Ryn ran a thumb over the paper as Bastone fled again. She glanced at the ivory note, turning it over in her fingers, wondering what, by the Divinities, Bastone was talking about. The note made a crinkling sound when she unfolded it, and her brows tugged in when she beheld Adriel letters.

YOU HAVE EL INSIDE YOU.

YOU HAVE AUTHORITY OVER ALL FALSE GODS.

EVERY BATTLE BELONGS TO EL.

YOU ARE NEVER ALONE.

— G

Ryn’s fingers curled around the edges of the note.

G.

Geovani?

She dropped her hand and stared at where Bastone and the blond soldier were now a speck in the dunes. Then her gaze trailed over to Heva chugging back water from a jug, oblivious to the fact that the woman who’d raised her had reached out—to Ryn though, not Heva. Ryn thought of that veiled person in green back in the Mother City outside the prison. The woman had approached the soldiers by the wagon before they’d left for the desert.

Maybe because she wasn’t able to approach Ryn in person.

Geovani had been just a stone’s throw away, close enough that Ryn could have called out to her.

Ryn inhaled a tight breath. It had been months since she’d seen that woman’s face. And for the most part, Ryn had resented her in the time they’d been apart. Maybe she still did a little.

She lifted the note and read it a second time. This was definitely Geovani’s writing. And after Burn Division Twelve had survived the rescue of Liothin Karimi and the battle against the men who’d slaughtered Burn Division Thirteen… Ryn knew Geovani wasn’t wrong.

“I’m in the wrong,” she whispered. Her throat grew thick. She’d spent months furious at the High Priestess. At El. Even this morning she was still resentful despite choosing to follow El into the battle, but maybe El was trying to prepare her for something. She looked down at her armour, at her sword.

The late afternoon crept toward evening, pulling away the brief glimpses of light and replacing them with a shiver-inducing chill over Ryn’s damp skin. Blood speckled her gauntlets, a crisp contrast to the gold.

Yusuf shrieked behind her and a shuffle took place as everyone tried to dodge a racing scorpion. But Ryn’s hand rose to her chest as the noises became muted echoes of sound somewhere far away. Only her heart thumped in her ears.

She looked across the desert. It wasn’t obvious, but she could hear it crawling in—something far off like a crooked whisper, or a sharp sound sailing around. Not necessarily getting closer to Ryn. But getting closer to something.

Yes, El was preparing her. Now that she was listening, she could sense it approaching, something enormous.

Ryn began walking, and when division members called out and asked her where she was going, she bolted for the nearest dune, gritting her teeth as she climbed up the side with the weight of her armour pulling her down. She’d hardly exercised in prison. Hardly had the endurance to make it to the top. But when she did, she peered out at the desert, trying to see what was coming.

Everything before her darkened, the air turned cool, and visions appeared.