Another voice spoke. “Here, you are as strong as your soul.” Fennik walked toward them. He looked as he had on the day she’d met him, dressed in his clan’s traditional body paint and loincloth. He had his bow and arrows strapped to his back, and he held a waterskin as if he had been on a hunt. “Pia’s soul is very strong. She will contain him.”
Pia beamed at Fennik. He planted a kiss on the top of her head. Reaching up, she looped her hand into his, and his hand enveloped hers. Their smiles at each other seemed to exclude all else. Pia had never smiled that fiercely when she was alive.
Here, she was not ephemeral.
“Fennik . . .” Liyana searched for the right words.
“The rules of the living world do not apply here. You should see the horses!” Fennik swept his arm open. Behind him, across the sands, a herd of horses ran. Their jewel-like hides gleamed in the sun, and their manes and tails streamed in the wind. “I am in the process of creating my own herd.” He smiled at her, and Liyana thought he exuded light too, a leak around him that blurred the air. The horses vanished like smoke. “You will love it here, Liyana. Release your worries. You have finished your task.”
“Nothing is finished!” Liyana said. “The sky serpents are attacking the clans and the empire’s army. They will destroy everyone! I must find Jarlath. His people need him more than ever, and I cannot leave until I know my clan will be safe.” A horrible thought occurred to her. “Jarlath’s soul is here, isn’t he? He dreamed of the lake. He must be a reincarnated soul. Please tell me he is here. And Raan. Where is Raan? Did she find her way?”
“Right here,” Raan said with a wave. She was perched on a rock near Pia as if she’d been there the entire time. Lush grasses ringed her rock, and purple flowers grew beside her. The blossoms swayed in the wind, and the grasses were bright green, incongruous with the sand all around. “Glad you finally remembered me. I was beginning to feel unloved.”
Liyana felt a tightness in her chest loosen. At least Raan was whole. “Don’t tell me you forgive me, too, and that the Dreaming is happy meadows and bubbling brooks and that you’ve released your anger at your death and embraced eternity?”
“Of course not,” Raan said. “But I can torment him until I feel better, so that helps.” Raan punched Mulaf in his shoulder. He flinched, but he did not look at her. His eyes were fixed on an empty patch of desert. “He can see his lost love, but he can’t talk to her or touch her. We won’t let him—and truth be told, neither will she. She has watched him through the years and hates what he has done in her name.”
Liyana studied the empty desert and tried to imagine what he saw, a woman he’d loved and lost so long ago. In the distance the dunes seemed to rise and fall, undulating like water—a trick of the light, or a trick of the Dreaming.
“Do you remember the stories of the Cat Clan? How they suffered tragedy after tragedy until they were extinct? He caused those tragedies, as revenge for her death,” Raan said. “We will make sure he does not find peace too easily.”
“But you will.” Gracefully Pia rose and embraced Liyana. She smelled like honey. “If you try, you will find peace and understanding here. All you must do is look for it.”
“I don’t need to find peace,” Liyana said, pulling away. “I need to find Jarlath, and I need to find a way to take him back.”
“If finding him will grant you peace, then you will find him,” Pia said serenely.
“But you can’t take him back,” Raan said. “It is . . . too difficult to return to one’s body.” Liyana heard the pain in her voice. “Besides, his body must be dead by now. Don’t seek him for that reason. You’ll only break your heart.”
“I healed Sendar,” Liyana said. “I can heal him.” She strode away across the sands. She didn’t want to hear any more about peace or the glorious wonders of the Dreaming. She wasn’t finished with the real world yet. “Jarlath!”
Behind her, she heard Pia say, “Let her go. She will return soon enough.”
“Jarlath, appear!” She felt tears on her cheeks, and she didn’t wipe them away. He must be here, she thought. He’d dreamed of the lake.
She walked for miles. Above, the sun crossed the sky. Shadows blossomed over the sand dunes and then spread. The sand shifted in color from red to gold. She didn’t feel the heat or thirst or hunger.
Liyana stopped. She took a deep breath. “You aren’t real,” she said to the desert. She thought of Korbyn. He’d raced Sendar across this desert, and he’d won by moving the finish line.
Cresting a sand dune, a gray mare trotted toward her. She could have been a twin of Gray Luck. Her saddle and bridle were already in place. She slowed in front of Liyana and whickered in her hair. Liyana felt the horse’s hot breath on her ear and neck, and the tickle of the horse’s lips as Gray Luck’s twin nipped her shoulder. Liyana patted the horse’s neck, and then she swung herself into the saddle.
It felt so familiar to ride across the sands, and yet at the same time so foreign to ride alone. Ahead she saw an oasis—it shimmered into view as if the wind had blown it into existence. She saw a collection of tents, familiar tents in the style of the Goat Clan. Liyana kneed Gray Luck’s twin into a trot, and then she reined in.
“I want Jarlath,” she told the desert firmly. She would reunite with her clan in the real world. The oasis wavered as if it were a mirage, and then it vanished.
In its place she saw a solitary figure sitting with his back toward her. She nudged Gray Luck’s twin into a canter. Reaching the figure, Liyana dismounted. As she moved to care for the mare, the horse vanished. She spun around, afraid that Jarlath would have disappeared too. But he remained, unmoving.
He sat by a pool of water. The water was a perfect circle in the sand. Its surface reflected the sky. “Jarlath?” She placed her hand on his shoulder. “Can you hear me?”
He did not look up. “You’re dead. I had hoped you weren’t. Too many are.” Jarlath pointed to the water. Distorted, she saw the clans’ camp in its reflection.
Bodies were strewn between the tents. Sky serpents attacked the living from above. She couldn’t hear the screams, but she could see the faces twisted in pain and fear. Children were plucked from the ground, and warriors lay beside their elders in pools of blood and dust. Soldiers plunged into the mountains only to die at the talons and teeth of more sky serpents. But worst of all, as the serpents continued their relentless attack, squadrons of soldiers and desert warriors fought one another.
“What are they doing?” Liyana cried.
“Some in my army blame the clans for the fact that I haven’t returned. . . . Perhaps my guards remember my order: If you kill me, they slaughter.” His voice was wooden. Dead. “Others seek to find me, further enraging the sky serpents.”
“Come with me,” Liyana said. “We have to leave.”
“You cannot leave death.”
“Our souls have left before,” Liyana said. She put her hands on his shoulders, wanting to shake him into life again.
A sad smile ghosted across his face. “Always so brave and so stubborn. I am not a fool, though. I know what happens when a soul leaves a body. I have no living body to return to.” Then his eyes lit up. “But you do! Bayla is in your body, keeping it alive. You could return!” He grasped his arms. “Yes! You must stop my people from fighting yours. . . .” The light faded from his eyes. “Until the sky serpents kill them all.”
Both of them watched through the pool.
“The gods must stop this,” Liyana said.
He pointed at Maara. Sweat poured down her face. Deep in a trance, she deflected a sky serpent from above her. “Even they are not strong enough.”
“All the gods must stop this.” Liyana rose to her feet as an idea shaped within her. She scanned the desert around her. “We need an amphitheatre with stone steps. Cascades of flowers. And the sound of birds.” Closing her eyes, she visualized it exactly as Bayla had once described it—the gathering place of the deities. She placed the steps in a semicircle around them. She chose every desert flower she’d ever seen plus some from the valley, and she pictured them spilling down the sides of the steps. She imagined the trill of birds.