Chapter 1

Tabeya slipped a flower behind her ear as her face dissolved in an onslaught of ripples.

She blinked at her distorting reflection, at the afternoon sunlight sparkling off the little waves laying waste to it, then plucked the bright blooms from the water before they floated away.

Cradling them in her cupped palm, she turned to the large golden cat crouched beside her. "Ishtar, do you mind?"

The lioness lapped at the edge of the water, each flick of her tongue meaning death for Tabeya's art. Her ears pricked ever so slightly at Tabeya's words, but she gave no response.

"Hey, I'm talking to you." Tabeya scooped some water in her empty hand. It slipped between her fingers, cool like the late afternoon, sparkling like jewels when Tabeya tilted her hand over the lioness's head.

With the first drop that touched her fur, Ishtar retreated, a golden blur of motion. She lingered out of Tabeya's range, her amber eyes watchful, her gleaming fangs bared.

When the last of the water dribbled from Tabeya's palm, Ishtar swiped at the water with her massive paw, sending a wave Tabeya's way. It drenched the front of her red woollen dress, leaving a dark mark that looked like blood.

"Not fair!" Tabeya held the cold stain away from her body. "Your hand is bigger than mine."

Ishtar inclined her head to the water as if saying, 'That's not my fault. Besides, you started it.'

"Fine." Tabeya stood. "I'll go somewhere else, then." She wiped her wet palm on her dress and pretended she didn't hear the tufted tail brushing against the grass or the paws padding after her as she followed the winding course of the river, her sandalled feet sinking into the wet clay.

Tabeya knelt beside the river upstream. Ishtar reappeared in her line of sight two steps away, lapping at the water as casually as if she found herself here by chance and not because she was a born stalker.

"Ishtar, please. Can I have a few moments for my flower portrait? The river goes on for miles. You're welcome to drink wherever you want, just not here."

The lioness didn't falter in her drinking. Tabeya may as well not have spoken, but she knew Ishtar was listening.

She was always listening, especially when Tabeya called her from her tower window or screamed across the hanging gardens, but she always had a will of her own.

Tabeya gave a dramatic sigh. "Surely you can humour me, just this once. It's my birthday, after all."

Tabeya expected Ishtar to continue drinking water as if she hadn't heard her plea. Instead, she looked up at Tabeya with a strangely human expression in her eyes.

Maybe she wasn't as immune to Tabeya's excitement over the past week as she had pretended. Maybe she did understand how important today was.

It was Tabeya's eighteenth birthday.

At first glance, it was no different from the birthdays Tabeya had spent wandering the gardens with Ishtar or sitting up in her tower with Nungal, her guardian, but it felt different.

It thrummed with unrealised potential. It was a rosebud days away from bursting into flower, a caterpillar concealing itself in a cocoon in anticipation of its transformation.

Tabeya wanted to bloom. She wanted to discover who she would be in a world of other people. She wanted to be a butterfly, spreading her wings against the wind.

She wanted to be many things—a warrior, a princess, a legend—but she was just a girl living in a tower at the edge of nowhere with only her mysterious guardian and her lioness for company.

A deep, solemn sound rumbled at the back of Ishtar's throat. She gave Tabeya a quick lick on her cheek.

Tabeya rubbed the coarse fur of Ishtar's ears between her fingers. "I accept your apology, but I'll only forgive you if you let me put flowers by your ears."

Ishtar replied with a low growl. If there was anything she hated more than water, it was flowers. When Tabeya waltzed among the blossoms, the lioness stayed far away from them as if repelled.

"Of course I didn't mean it literally."

The lioness followed Tabeya's gaze to the reflections staring at them from the river's surface. The water rippled gently with its own rhythm and will, Ishtar's long forgotten.

"I'll do mine first."

The water buoyed up the bright yellow bloom's soggy, drooping petals as Tabeya placed it on her reflection, starting above her ear. She added another, then another along the line where her dark hair met her forehead, until it reached her other ear, forming a floating floral headband.

Tabeya set more flowers along the curve of her shapely mouth, then looked at her eyes. They were blue, she knew, having seen her reflection in a circle of bronze in the palace ruins, but the water rendered them pale, almost transparent.

She placed a flower over her eyes to add some colour. It was the wrong one, but art wasn't meant to be accurate. It was meant for expressing oneself.

Tabeya sat back to admire her masterpiece. "See? It's not that bad." She leaned forward again so that the flowers realigned with the features they imitated.

Ishtar's low growl disagreed.

"Don't be silly. I'm not going to hurt you. Now, keep still."

Tabeya draped her arm over the lioness's shoulders to hold her in place if she tried to escape, despite knowing her strength was no match for Ishtar's.

When Tabeya had first met Ishtar, she had been ten years old and immediately resigned herself to death by lioness.

The lioness had made her intentions clear with a rough lick on little Tabeya's hand and a jerk of her head that invited Tabeya to follow her through the secret passage that stood open behind her, the only way out of the tower other than the window.

Tabeya was fortunate that the lioness saw her as a friend and not food, even luckier now that the lioness didn't move, just tilted her head like she was royalty being waited upon.

Tabeya placed a flower above reflection-Ishtar's ear and another by her other ear.

"Don't you look beautiful, Your Majesty?"

Ishtar was a Queen among lions, and she had never looked more the part than today.

The lioness gave a growl that didn't sound as regal.

"What, don't you like it?"

Ishtar growled again, the sound like bones clattering.

It banished the day's warmth from Tabeya, turning her insides cold. She knew that growl.

Tabeya leapt to her feet, gazing up at the orange sun peering over the horizon, as reluctant to bid the day farewell as she was. A wisp of wind flurried past, lending its coldness to the wet mark on Tabeya's dress.

She shivered. "Nungal is almost here."

Her heart gave her the confirmation she needed.

Thump-thump, time's running out.

Ishtar didn't wait for Tabeya to follow, just sprinted towards the palace ruins they had left behind that morning. Tabeya started after the lioness, but her chest burned, wringing breathless gasps from her after a few steps.

Tabeya's legs wobbled with exertion. She couldn't keep up with Ishtar.

Tabeya wasn't a magnificent creature like the Queen of big cats. She was just a girl who had wandered too far from her tower, and she was going to pay the price.

She closed her eyes to steady herself in the world, but it was tilting, she was tilting, and the palace ruins were coming down around her.

A warm feline nose nudged Tabeya's hand. Ishtar tossed her head as if to say, 'Well, get on.'

Tabeya had no time or breath to ask if the lioness was sure or to ponder the logistics of the action.

Tabeya climbed onto Ishtar's back. She had barely tightened her arms around the lioness's neck before the big cat was sprinting, clearing distances in a single stride that Tabeya could only cover in several steps.

The palace ruins stood as tall as they could years after their prime. The markings on their walls blurred into one long, disjointed story. Palmettes blended into soldiers' round shields. Wagons morphed into kings' chariots riding into battle.

Peace turned to war. That was the story of this city, Bennam, and of every other in the Three Kingdoms. Maybe the story made sense after all.

Ishtar carried Tabeya into the darkest corner of the throne room. Tabeya slid off Ishtar's back as the big cat touched her paw to the wall to reveal the secret passage concealed within. The bearded man carved on the panel of the wall slid downwards, leaving a gap in his story for Tabeya to pass into.

"I'm guessing you're not coming."

Ishtar gave a soft growl in response.

It had only taken a single mention of Nungal's name many years ago for Tabeya to see that the lioness had a special dislike for her guardian. Nungal was right up there with water and flowers on Ishtar's list of least favourites.

Tabeya didn't understand it. The lioness had never met her guardian, as far as she knew. Maybe she had spied her from the shadows once or watched as she ascended Tabeya's tower.

But now was not the time to wonder about such things.

"Thank you" —Tabeya planted a kiss on the lioness's golden head— "for a lovely birthday."

Ishtar made an affectionate rumbling sound in goodbye. Tabeya felt her eyes following her as she stepped into the secret passage.

The wall closed behind Tabeya, sealing her in darkness for a heart-racing moment before the torches flickered to life, lighting the stairs up to the tower.

With every step Tabeya took, two seemed to appear in front of her. She had almost lost hope when she found herself at the gate to the cage she was never supposed to escape.

Tabeya stepped into her tower room. She had a few minutes until Nungal was here, judging by Ishtar's eagerness to get away. That wasn't much time.

Tabeya gazed down at herself. She had to make herself presentable before her guardian arrived.

The water mark on her dress and the mud stains at her knees spoke for themselves. She tugged her dirty red dress over her head and dropped it in a heap on the floor before hurrying over to her chest of clothing.

She snatched the first garment she touched. It was orange like the sunset—not Tabeya's favourite colour—but she didn't have time to be picky.

She slipped into the clean dress and stuffed her dirty one in the corner of her chest. She'd wash it later when the coast was clear.

She glanced out the window.

Light faded from the sky with every moment, trailing after the sun as it sunk beneath the horizon.

Tabeya touched the eight points of the silver Star of Ishtar sitting against her chest for protection, for comfort.

She remembered the first time she saw it, dangling from a jewellery stand in the Queen's chambers during her first exploration of the palace.

Tabeya had known then that the symbol of the powerful goddess was what the lioness who shared her name had intended for her to find.

The pendant possessed the silver, traitorous sparkle of the world beyond Tabeya's tower that Nungal would surely notice.

Lying on her belly on the floor, Tabeya pried open the secret compartment under her bed. Every jewel or tablet Ishtar had ever led her to was stashed here.

Nungal would never find them. She'd never know Tabeya's secret, that the cage she had created wasn't as secure as she had designed it to be.

Tabeya removed her Star of Ishtar pendant and dropped it into the secret compartment beside her other treasures.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the surface of a circle of polished bronze she had stumbled across a few months ago—just a flash of wide blue eyes and light brown skin—before she closed the compartment.

Tabeya got to her feet and stared around her room.

It was too neat, too like it hadn't been used for a day. That wouldn't do. Nungal wouldn't miss a thing like that, and Tabeya couldn't risk her asking questions.

She jumped on her bed to rumple it, then looked back at the creased blankets. Satisfied, she went to the kitchen counter, taking a plate from the cupboard and posing it beside the sink as if it was drying.

Tabeya's eyes darted around. The lock gleamed on the door across the room. Behind it lay a staircase leading up to a small bedroom—the only part of the palace Tabeya hadn't set foot in since Nungal stopped living with her.

The key that belonged to the lock had disappeared with Tabeya's guardian. Nevertheless, she kept an eye out for it in every dark crevice and cupboard in the hope that she might discover the mysterious room's secrets.

Tabeya smoothed her dress. What else? She was forgetting something.

Oh yes, her face!

She scurried into her bathroom. It was separated from the rest of her circular room by a crooked mud-brick wall that must've been built in haste for the tower room's former occupant.

Was she a princess or a prisoner like Tabeya?

Tabeya opened the tap and splashed water over her face to remove any incriminating dirt smudges. She smoothed her dark hair, feeling along her crown and her ankle-length braid for any flowers from outside her tower. There was none.

Tabeya sighed in relief. She was ready for Nungal.

Her heart nearly stopped when a voice as dry as dead leaves and wilted flowers cried, "Let down your hair, my little gazelle!"

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