The words slid beneath the music's tide and finished a beat before the pipe's final note trilled into flat silence. Chest heaving in and out, Rayanah let the pipe drop from her lips and clutched it to her chest. Her gaze remained distant, fixed on something above the horizon.

A jittery sense of foreboding filled Amina even before she turned to look. It closed like a fist over her hand, like rough hands thumbing her ribs as they curled around her, holding her in place while she took in the sight of the dark shape balanced atop the horizon. It grew with every second, the fuzzy outline of wings scissoring the sky around a huge, four-legged body. A beast, and not just any beast. She'd fought this one this very morning in the arena. It should've been dead at her feet while the city cheered, but instead it was here: free, unharmed, and coming for her again.

She wasn't afraid. Beasts did not scare her, despite the exposed prickle in her fingers reminding her that she lacked the dust required to defend herself. What froze her was the look in Rayanah's eyes. It was tight and messy, emotion a rose amongst thorns, yet relief still shone in the slight curve of a smile.

Shock was a brittle damn that swiftly gave way to a tide of anger, and when Amina moved, it felt like an explosion. Tension snapped cleanly against her skin. She charged out of the shade, her shout ringing. "You are a traitor!"

Composure shattering like glass, Rayanah whirled, stance stiff and alert like a beast viewing its reflection in a blade. Her cloak flung a wild arc with the movement, crashing like waves into one side and tearing back from the other to reveal the clothes beneath it. They all flowed and rippled, too big and utterly strange. It seemed she'd changed entirely in the smattering of minutes it had been since she'd fled. Amina wrinkled her nose. What kind of mage would choose to dress that way?

It was the choice of someone that was running from something and only further proof. Head held high, she stomped forward and pointed at the approaching beast, a stretched-out shadow over Rayanah's head. "You summoned that thing! You're with the beasts! Did you help them attack us?"

Fear washed over Rayanah's face. She stepped back, one hand retreating beneath the folds of her cloak. "No," she said. The word fell softly. "No, I didn't."

"I want the truth," Amina snapped.

A dry gust of wind churned the air around them both, swirling the sand. Rayanah's gaze bounced from her to the grey beast behind, just as it slammed into the ground a few paces from the barrier. Amina felt the thud in her toes. Black eyes blinked at her from over Rayanah's shoulder, and she bared her teeth, sinking into a crouch, heels pressed hard enough into the ground to squash the fear wriggling in the pit of her stomach.

"Wait," Rayanah started to say, but Amina didn't listen to traitors. Simple, burning righteousness coursed through her veins, and that song was far easier to hear. The beast had seen her, too. Their mutual fury clashed.

With an earth-shaking moan, it charged before she did. Rayanah leapt out of its way with a gasp, tripping over the long hem of her cloak and tumbling into the sand. She began scrambling to her feet immediately, but Amina didn't have the attention to spare to track her progress, so quickly cast in the beast's lumbering shadow. Her heart smacked into her ribs. At the last second, she dived aside, steps not landing with quite the fluidity she wanted. Her confidence had felt like steel, but it was rusting already. It cut at her when she tried to cling to it.

Stumbling to right herself, she reached for her hip, fingers rooting inside her skirt's sewn-on pouch. They came out empty. She must've known to expect that, but still it made her heart skip and awoke a chiding voice at the back of her mind that sounded far too much like Isra. Where was her sense? Why hadn't she grabbed a knife? Why did she always have to rush in so blindly, to have these kinds of thoughts when it was already too late?

It was all she could think of now: the bone blade lying unused in the sand, a hair's breadth from her reaching fingertips. Her mind scrabbled in similar fashion for a plan.

Instead the beast swung its head, teeth bared in a rumbling snarl, and its jaw slammed into her shoulder. She slipped and fell in a highly undignified panic. A jolt went up her spine. She sat up fast, fisting the sand. She craved nothing more than for it to dissolve into dust against her palm, to roar with fire, but it stayed only lukewarm and gritty against her skin. She flung it at the beast's face anyway.

Specks scattered into its large eyes, and it reared back with a cry, inky pupils narrowing to agitated slits. In the sliver of space that left between it and her, Rayanah thrust herself. Taken by a sudden bout of disbelief, Amina could only stare from the ground as the traitorous mage dug in her heels, a dagger clutched in both hands and aimed at the beast's snout while her body blocked its path.

Her brief sprint had torn the hood from her head. The same charcoal hair spilled out, but the long, sleek locks had been severed starkly close to her neck, leaving behind a choppy, uneven mess that fanned out behind her ears. Left so unruly, it made her look as feral as the beast she faced.

"Meag," she said, the sound strained. "Calm."

The beast snorted, still blinking the sand from its eyes. It bent forward, wet nostrils flaring, tasting the air around the mage. Its forelegs thumped the ground, leaving shallow grooves behind. Its teeth still showed.

"It's okay." Rayanah nodded slowly. One hand drifted from the knife's hilt and hovered while the other moved it with slow caution, bit by bit, until her arm stretched crookedly to the side and her hold on the blade loosened. Amina heard her draw breath. Then the knife dropped limply from her fingers, landing with a muffled tap. She nudged it away with a foot.

Amina's gaze zeroed in on it. She tensed, ready to make a lunge for its hilt, but her heart hammered, and this sudden, odd stillness was giving her a chance to catch her breath. She counted the seconds, eyeing the beast's unsettled movements.

"See?" Rayanah breathed. "I won't hurt you."

Amina's bruised fingers curled into the sand, throbbing. "Are you insane?" she hissed.

Her very reasonable protest went ignored, which provided a good enough answer as far as she was concerned.

"I'm a friend of Corvin's. Do you remember?" There was, at the very least, something to be admired in the way Rayanah's voice was levelling, hard with growing confidence. She clutched another object in her hand—the wooden pipe again, offered out stupidly close to the beast's jaws. "He gave me this. He said you would take me away."

The only waver came in those last three words. Something in Amina's chest wobbled in tandem, bumped up and down. Away?

The beast's nose tapped the pipe, a low, keening sound vibrating from its throat, before it threw its head back to toss its mane. Rayanah flinched, her bare heel pinning the edge of Amina's skirt as she stepped back. Rather than pounce, however, the beast trotted a smooth arc, then bent over with a modicum of grace, chin brushing the sand as its forelegs folded.

A beat passed. Rayanah breathed out a slow, shaky breath, shoulders sloping as if all the worry slid from her at once. She advanced towards the beast, cloak dragging behind her. Stuck by a bolt of panic, Amina snatched a fistful of the garment and tugged, gathering her knees underneath her as her strength grew.

Rayanah stumbled, one leg crossing the other in an awkward twist. Gathering her cloak, she fought back. When narrowed to slits and framed by the thin inky strands skimming her jaw—unnaturally long compared to the rest of her hair—her dark eyes were startling, a richer reflection of the beast's lightless gaze. The fierceness of it dug in like a needle to Amina's throat. "Let me go. This has nothing to do with you."

Amina shot to her feet. She stamped on the cloak's end, some empty desire for revenge satisfied when the older mage winced. "It has everything to do with me. You're ruining my life—everyone's lives!"

Rayanah's eyes cinched closed. When they opened again, they shimmered with a sudden splash of pity. Lips thinning, she turned her face aside. "I'm capable of nothing so grand."

"Then what was—"

"Your life will be perfect, Amina." Despite the feathery whisper of her voice, there was a bite to that statement. "Go back to it."

Amina bristled. She would not be blinded, pushed away like a child and ordered to close her ears to a problem. She would not be told to walk away. "No." She snatched Rayanah's arm, digging her nails in. "You'll tell me what's going on," she snapped, chin lifted to hold her captor's gaze.

Before Rayanah could fit in a reply, a growl cut between them. Amina hated the seize in her lungs, the way the air in them scraped her throat dry as it fled, and did her best to cast as subtle a glance as possible at the beast. Its lip had curled back, fangs stained an icky yellow. Its head began to lift.

Rayanah thrust out a hand with haste, panic sheening her expression. The beast didn't halt. Its nostrils flared, expelling hot, parched air that crackled in Amina's ears and blew through her curls, raking her cheek. She felt her pulse quicken and her knees grow weaker and forced herself to stand her ground. Rayanah had stopped it before. She would again, if she wasn't an utter fool. Wouldn't she?

The wild look in her eyes offered little confidence. They pinned Amina, full of chaos and conflict. "This is your last chance. Go."

Or maybe Amina was the fool, too brave not to run from this crazy traitor. But one mage would not kill another. That was more than a rule, greater than a law. That was a god's word. Neither of them could deny something so carved in Tehahzihbith's foundations, so essential to life itself. She glared, sealing away the shrivelled, pleading voice, that niggle of fear.

The growls clawed at her ear, closer now. She refused to look.

Rayanah pushed out a sigh through her teeth. "Amina—"

Amina shook her head. "No."

"Then I'm sorry."

She was so focused on anchoring herself in place that she didn't see it coming: an arm scooped her waist, fingers tangled in the back of her dress, and dragged her to the ground. Rayanah's arm twisted from her grip and came thudding down on her chest. She gasped and squirmed, but the woman's weight held her down, shoving her shoulders against the hard, burning sand. Pinpricked light flashed in front of her eyes. The image of the ivory knife spun in her mind, and fear claimed her as a crashing tide, impossible to resist, pushing sharp crystals of ice into the deepest parts of her.

I'm sorry. The words tumbled in circles, ribbons of water that parted at her touch, fragile and cold and answering nothing. In their spiral, she lost her grip on the world. Light fizzled out, and she was jerked beneath a wave of darkness, adrift in the depths below.

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