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But it’s already too late.
The moment the boys are in close proximity, the mist’s tendrils lash out, each one so fast, there’s no time to dodge—not that the boys would have even tried, given how enthralled they are.
“White Hands!” I shout, whirling to her. “What do I do?”
Except my former mentor suddenly seems leagues away too, her body disappearing into the darkness. By the time I turn back, the mist’s tendrils are snapping again. Then they’ve wrapped around me, searing ropes radiating white-hot pain that I only dimly feel since I’m still firmly seated on Ixa. Within moments, my friends and I, and even the gryphs, which have remained close beside us all this while, are hurtled through the air into a sound-muffling, all-encompassing darkness, heat buffeting us from all directions, slicing through our black leather armor and skin.
“No!” I shout when Ixa is wrenched away from me by the wind.
The moment we’re separated, all the pain he muted explodes across my senses. Tears burst from my eyes, but I can’t feel them past the sheer, overwhelming agony. My entire body is on fire, lightning bolts sparking under my skin.
“Ixa!” I shout. “Britta! Someone! Anyone! Somebody help me!”
There’s no reply, just that heat searing into me, that wind, hurling me around like a doll until, finally, there’s a great whooshing sound. Just like that, I’m slammed down with such force, all the air explodes from my chest, replaced instead by more agony, spreading like a wave across my body.
And then I open my eyes, and I see the twinkling of stars.
3
It’s still night where we are, but there are no longer any pink ruins, no longer any silver trees. Only the heat remains, pressing down on my chest like a hand, slicking my hair to my skin and my armor to my body. I look up at the stars, willing my breath to return. Every part of me is throbbing now, my body a mass so raw and inflamed, it’s almost too much for me to turn my neck when I hear my friends and their gryphs falling beside me.
“Oh, me belly,” Britta groans, but I still don’t move to fully face her.
The pain—it rolls over me in waves. Agony, constricting me. And it’s chased by another feeling, a nauseating certainty deep in my gut. There’s something wrong about this place. A constant, eerie echo seems to vibrate every time I so much as breathe.
Something is lurking in the distance. Some sort of creature. But it’s not ready to reveal itself yet. I have the awful feeling, however, that it will soon enough.
Then a cool, scaly body drapes over mine. Ixa’s. Ixa here, he says reassuringly in my head as the pain recedes.
That feeling—that unnerving wrongness—remains, however.
This place is unnatural, but of course it is. It was created by gods drunk on desperation and power. I can only imagine what abominations we’ll soon encounter.
Thank you, I reply quietly to Ixa before I sit up and take in my surroundings.
The first thing I see is sand, all of it as red as the blood that once proved girls’ so-called purity in the ritual we all endured once we turned sixteen. Entire dunes, as far as I can see. Everywhere I look, sand, sand, and more red sand. And enclosing it all, that strange new sky, which, upon closer inspection, looks nothing like the one I just left behind. Here, the stars are nearer, nebulas spinning so close, I could reach out and touch them if I wanted. And at their edge is absolute darkness, giving the strange impression that this place is a lifeless bubble—just sand, sky, and nothing else.
Except there’s life here. I still feel those creatures, their movements an ominous thrumming under my skin.
“Deka, are you all right?” Keita rushes over, only to stop just as quickly, an uncertain expression on his face.
He tentatively offers me a hand, the gesture hesitant. He knows, as well as I do, that even the slightest touch can be excruciating.
When I don’t move, Keita swiftly retracts his hand and glances away, but not before I see the hurt flickering over his face. It’s one thing to know that physical touch can hurt me, but another entirely to be confronted with the reality of that knowledge.
Awkwardness, that awful state I’m steadily becoming used to, sprouts its venomous thorns once more. Keita and I used to have a rhythm, a certainty in each other. Now we have lapsed silences and hands that don’t touch.
I swiftly rise, trying not to wince when waves of pain roll over me. “We should scout our surroundings,” I murmur, scanning the dunes, which ripple outward in an endless sea of red.
I squint, focusing on something protruding from the dune just beyond ours. It’s an immediately identifiable skeleton: human from head to midsection; hands reaching out in a soundless, eternal plea; equine forelegs uplifted as if to defend their owner. Talons cap them instead of hooves. An equus, an intelligent hybrid that wanders the deserts of the Southern provinces. More skeletons like it litter the dune behind it, all of them half hidden by the sand.
Nausea churns my stomach.
“So this is where the enticed go,” Britta says grimly as she comes to stand beside Keita and me. “How many otas ye wanna bet there are very few, if any, survivors of this place?”
“None,” I reply. I wouldn’t put any money on survivors. I turn to the others. “Feels like it’s some sort of holding cell from which the gods harvest their food.” Food, of course, being humans and other sentient beings.
“A hidden world dedicated to sacrifice…” Belcalis shakes her head, her lips curling in disgust as she mounts her white-striped gryph and rides over.
