Movement at the edge of the pit.

  A taloned hand, wreathed in dark flames, clawed its way out.

  Two instincts warred within me, and only when the one had won did I realize the fight had occurred. My hands flexed at my side, and I was halfway into a guard stance before the urge not to draw a weapon on my chosen overrode every battle sense screaming within me. Centuries of experience hated what dragged itself out of that pitfall, spiked cold certainty in my bones that the thing which survived deserved to die.

  And then the flames went out, leaving a panting Hasda prone on the ground.

  “Sorry,” he whispered, arms shaking as he pushed himself up. “I didn’t mean to…That wasn’t…” Sweat flew as he shook his head. “I lost control.”

  “You lived.” I couldn’t keep the scowl off my face, but neither could I keep my distance. Holding his arm, I helped him to his feet. “That’s what matters. No reason to let yourself fail so close to the finish.”

  “I saw my reflection.” Face pale, his unfocused gaze drifted to the distant city. “All it would have taken was a single step through that glass, and I don’t think I would have come back. I don’t know why I didn’t.” He went still. “They were all around me. Hands, everywhere. Teeth. Nails. Bones.” A shiver racked him. “Holes in places they shouldn’t be.”

  “What glass?”

  Although his eyes found my face, his focus didn’t. “A metaphor which is not. A boundary which, once crossed, cannot be uncrossed. A vision of what could be, and likely will.” He shook his head again. “It’s like the tuzshu is no longer bottled, but me. No matter what, if the vessel cracks, I shatter.”

  “Hey.” I firmed my grip, pulling his gaze back to reality. “No fate is certain. If you can’t control the djinn, I’ll put him to earth right now.”

  His smile was sad. “I think we both know it’s too late for that. But I wouldn’t, even if you could. There’s…” Frowning, he let his eyes drift back towards the city in the distance. “Saran will be by my side to the end. You have misgivings, as do I, but I know him well enough to know that we will make it through this together.”

  I sighed. “I know I don’t talk about my former champions, and for good reason. More than I would like spent themselves achieving goals beyond the reach of mortals.”

  He gave me an uncertain look, one I couldn’t hold.

  I turned my face away so I could voice the history that needed to be said. “My first two heroes flourished in the early days of Carthia. When I was first, and only, the God of War, and when the infant isles sailed from their birthplace for the first time. The first threw off the yoke of the land which had seeded ours, and the second made Carthia synonymous with trade. But my third champion suffered from my lack of temperance.”

  “Dad, I—”

  “Let me finish.” I took a breath. “While Carthia had established itself among the merchants of the Great Sea, not every nation took kindly to our upstart. Especially those who were likewise in their maritime infancy. Maithanni was a landlocked country, save for its singular port, Ahaltala. Although they lagged more than a century behind Carthian progress, they made up for it with aggression, both in commerce and conflict.”

  Dropping my hand, I sighed. “The success of my first two champions blinded me to human mortality. The Maithanni guarded Ahaltala with the same fierceness they showed at sea, maybe moreso. It was their sole foothold in naval trade. And so I sent Victis to conquer it.”

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  “And he failed?”

  I barked a laugh. “Hardly. He passed through their defenses like a living specter, and he paid accordingly for that sorcery. By the time the Carthian ships—barely enough to be called a fleet—landed, he had spilled countless bowels on the docks, his own among them. His final breath he used to name the entrails a sacrifice befitting the task we had set before him. That I had set. And I’d yet to touch the Mantle of Death that would have let me ferry him gently into the afterlife.”

  Hasda’s face hardened. “I’m not going to waste myself completing this Trial.”

  “No?” My eyes stung a little as I tried to pin him with my sternest look. “You nearly crawled out of that trap a creature less than human. Despite the fact that your single-minded drive to confront the Stitcher has pushed you closer to this monstrosity, you’re hell-bent on diving head-first into the fire. And you’re nowhere near ready for the only sure way to avoid this doom.”

  He blinked.

  I found myself trembling, although I couldn’t parse the cocktail of frustration, rage, and fear that fueled it. Or wouldn’t. But I clenched my fists and pressed on. “Even when I became the God of Death, I couldn’t save my fallen champions. Peklo claims all souls, draws them down its gullet, until every last one is devoured in oblivion. Leaving a lasting legacy lessens the loss, but the waves of time eventually reduce even the strongest mark to an indistinct lump. Only divinity brings you outside its grasp.”

  “And Saran complicates my potential transcendence.” Uncharacteristic sardony sullied his voice. “I know you want to protect me and provide a future surpassing normal mortal scope, but I…” He sighed, a younger echo of my own. “I know it’s because of all you’ve already done for me that the ambrosia healed, instead of sickening me, like it did my men. And I understand that the road of a hero is long and uncertain, and even with you and Malia watching over me I’m in danger at every turn. But these Trials are about me proving my worth, not a testament to my patrons’ more than generous provisions.

  “So I’ll see this Trial through. And to do that, I need to do things my way. Please.”

  I shook my head. “While I know you believe what you’re saying, I can’t trust that djinn of yours. You very nearly lost yourself against non-divine enemies. How will you keep yourself when facing a god?”

  Scowling, he stepped back and crossed his arms. “Because now that I’ve seen the edge, I know where the line is and how to avoid it.”

  “Many a sailor has been lost to waves they thought tamed.” My heart hurt at the way his frown deepened, but I wouldn’t withhold the truth to bolster false optimism. “It’s not a failure of character to find something beyond you.”

  “Be that as it may, I must persist in this endeavor.”

  My eyes narrowed. “You know something. Did Phemono? have another vision?”

  That caused him to avert his gaze.

  I sighed. It was bad enough she’d had that branching glimpse of Hasda’s future, with the only certainty being his Trials concluding after this one. While I’d tried to keep that from Hasda, I was pretty sure he’d discovered it somewhere along the way. But if she’d seen something else, and kept it from me…It boded no good tidings.

  Unclenching my fists, I forced myself to relax my muscles as best I could. “How much did she convey to you?”

  His finger beat a furious rhythm on his arm. “She said not to tell you about it, lest it, uh, ‘influence’ your actions. But considering you found it out…”

  I grunted. “Her sight seems to have shifted from certainties to probabilities. Just tell me what you can, and we’ll steer clear of self-fulfilling prophecies.”

  “She saw my fight with the Stitcher.” He dropped his gaze to his boots, which were absently scuffing the grass.

  When he didn’t continue, I rolled my hand. “That’s it?”

  “Not like, in a vision. Well, it was a vision, but she saw me battling him. Like, she was physically there, witnessing it.” His eyes met mine, betraying a cocktail of emotions as jumbled as mine. “Obviously she wouldn’t say how the conflict went, but what she saw in the Stitcher upset her.” He paused. “Where’s Gunarra?”

  “Gone.” I frowned at the subject change and the recent, raw wound it touched. “Although she implied she wasn’t willingly in league with the Stitcher, she was wholly responsible for pitching you headlong off the metaphorical cliff in the hopes you’d fly.”

  He gave me a confused look.

  “The pit wasn’t the Stitcher’s trap alone.” I pointed past him at the hole he’d clawed from. “She—rightly—judged that you hadn’t fully assumed the role of a tuzshu, and she tried to bind herself to you as your nirarin.”

  “But I thought you held that bond.”

  “Which she was pleasantly surprised to discover.” I glared at the sudden flash of djinn fire across his chestplate. “Has the battle rush worn off?”

  “Mostly.” He shrugged, then more slowly rolled his left shoulder. “A little sore from the fall, but nothing broken.”

  “No bites? Scratches? Blade wounds?”

  Another shrug. “They bore no swords, and Saran’s flames kept them off, as far as I remember.”

  I grunted. “We need to find a stream to get you washed up and inspected. I’m sure you’ll appreciate the delay, but I’m not letting you face off against an unknown quantity of increasing murkiness without first making sure you’re free of infections and curses.”

  “Really, I’m fine.”

  I shook my head sternly. “You can fight, but not until after this. I’ll withdraw you from the Trial otherwise.”

  Dropping his head, he acceded.