text: Anjoliaa burned black as pitch, as if the Lord of Unmaking had rained fire from the sky.
  
  Luna smelled it long before she saw it, but the revelation was still shocking. When she crested the northern hills, following the broad muddy track of the road past a massive, clawed tree, the smoke seemed to rise up forever.
  
  Shoratau to Anjoliaa had taken her five weeks. If high summer had come later, she would have frozen out there. Shoratau to Harajan nearly ended her. At one point she hadn't eaten for nine days. But the Tai Mora had cut a broad swath of destruction from Harajan to Anjoliaa, and she was able to pick through what they left behind. Though the armies were hungry, Luna had the advantage of knowing where many people hid their foodstuffs. Homes burned, but the simple root cellars surrounding the remains generally stayed hidden under melting snow and mud. Her feet were bruised, and she knew she'd lost at least a couple of toes. She hoped it wasn't more.
  
  From this distance Luna saw the tangled ruin of the city stretching on and on, all the way to the harbor. Two tall ships lay smoking there, and she could see three more sturdy ships in the distance, whether Tai Mora ships or foreign ones assessing the damage, she was uncertain. Anjoliaa was supposed to be the last intact harbor in the south, Luna's only way off the continent for hundreds of miles. Back in Harajan she thought she'd beat the army there by at least a week. But hunger and illness had gotten the best of her, and that left her standing here in the muddy tracks of an army that had burned the city below and was now nowhere in sight. She saw no camp outside the city, and no movement inside it.
  
  Luna stopped at the edge of the road. She carried a stout walking stick to help steady her. The frostbitten foot no longer hurt, but made it difficult to walk. The road she had followed since passing by Kuonrada – also burned out and empty now – went another forty paces ahead, then met a massive sea of muddy tracks at least half a mile wide. The muddy churn flowed from the top of the rise all the way into the city, as if some massive beast or force had plummeted from the sky and onto the hill, then run screaming into the city.
  
  A warm wind buffeted her, pushing up from the sea. She picked her way forward. She had come too far to stop.
  
  As she descended toward the city, she saw a party of three figures coming from a copse of trees about three quarters of a mile distant. She paused to assess them. They looked tall and tattered from here. They didn't have mounts. Refugees. She shifted her route so she angled further away from them, heading toward another part of the city. When they shifted their course, too, she walked a little faster.
  
  They began to run.
  
  Fear knotted her belly. She had no cover out here, and only the stick to ward them off. Luna glanced behind her at the broad, scaly tree she had passed.
  
  Luna scrabbled across the muddy ground, making for the tree. Her pursuers gained. She hurried faster.
  
  They neared. Luna heart the slap of mud. Her breath sounded loud, so loud. She could not feel her feet. They felt like two wooden blocks at the ends of her legs, propelling her forward. If Luna fell she would break.
  
  She slipped once and found her balance. Fingers tangled into her coat. She slid out of it. The cool air struck her. She stumbled. Clawed for the tree.
  
  There were no branches within her reach. So she launched herself at the trunk of the tree and jumped, stretching her arms and fingers like a bird about to take flight.
  
  Her hands found the branch. She crawled up. Her first pursuer grabbed Luna's shoe. She kicked out of it and climbed higher. Luna was smaller, lighter. She climbed. Higher and higher, until the slippery yellow branches bent dangerously under her weight.
  
  Below her, her pursuer had slowed. The two men on the ground yelled encouragement.
  
  The branch beneath the man bent. He reached for Luna's bare foot. "Maggot!" the man said.
  
  Luna kicked the hand away. Crushed his fingers.
  
  The man lost his balance.
  
  The branch snapped. He pinwheeled his arms and fell.
  
  He fell with a bloody thump to the ground below. His companions went to him, calling, "Rasaa, Rasaa!"
  
  His leg was bent unnaturally beneath him. Luna saw the broken white bone poking up through his knee.
  
  The two men gazed up at Luna. One yelled, "We're coming back and burning you out, maggot!"
  
  One of the men went off, back toward the burning city. That worried Luna more than anything, because it meant there were more than three men. They most likely meant to sell her, after they did whatever it was with her that amused them. Now that one of them was injured, they would be angrier, and Luna knew all about what angry people did to those they had power over.
  
  Luna listened to the man wailing below. He wailed for a long time. The sun moved across the sky, low. The days lasted much longer now; if she was further north, it wouldn't truly get dark, just fade to dusk for a few hours each day. Winter in Saiduan. She wondered if she would ever see one again.
  
  Her thoughts drifted. Roh yelling, face perfect and beautiful, even pinched in hunger, hair greasy after weeks without washing. Brave, confident, yes, but confidence that made him so very stupid. He had never been owned. He didn't know what he was giving up. Pressing the book into Luna's hands. Wide eyes, and fear, yes, but the confidence was still there, the belief that death was for other people, not for him.
  
  Luna's heart hurt.
  
  The tree shook.
  
  Luna jerked her head up, realizing with a surge of icy fear that she had started to nod off. Her arms and shoulders hurt; her legs ached. The two men were still there. The uninjured one had settled against the trunk. He no longer looked up at Luna, but out toward the city where his friend had gone.
  
  Luna huffed out a little breath. She gazed down the length of the trunk, and found a clear path through the bare branches to the man's head, thirty feet below. Luna took one stiff arm away from the tree trunk and grabbed the utility knife at her belt. Hesitated. If she waited until dark, the man might bed down under the tree, giving her a greater chance of stabbing him somewhere vital instead of just angering him. But his friend might return by then.
  
  She pulled the knife. Got a line of sight on the man's head. She began to uncurl from the tree, shifting as quietly as she could.
  
  Falling was going to hurt.
  
  Luna dropped the knife.
  
  In the next breath, she released herself from the tree trunk and fell after it.
  
  She banged into branch after branch, slipped and slid, hanging just long enough at each level to break her fall. The man below shouted.
  
  Luna landed on him. Luna grabbed the man around the neck with both arms and squeezed. She put his legs around the man's torso. Hung tight.
  
  The man roared. Blood gushed from a wound on his head. The knife had grazed his skull. Luna saw the knife in the grass and squeezed harder. The man was bigger, stronger, but like Luna, he was hungrier and leaner than he should be, tired, and Luna had the advantage of surprise.
  
  She held on. Whenever the man breathed out, Luna gripped tighter. The man clawed at Luna's arms. Smacked her into the tree. Luna leaned forward, over the man's shoulder, so he couldn't hit Luna's head against the tree.
  
  The man stumbled. Fell to his knees.
  
  Squeeze. Hold on.
  
  Do you want to be someone's flesh again, bound to another?
  
  Squeeze.
  
  The man's fingers found the knife.
  
  Luna felt hot, sharp pain in her left shoulder. She turned his face away, to the right.
  
  Squeeze.
  
  Luna saw a vein on his shorn head throbbing, throbbing. Heard the wheezing. Pulled tighter.
  
  The man collapsed.
  
  Still, Luna hung on.
  
  She held the man tight while he twitched, held him close until the fight left his body, the muscles relaxed, until the man became meat.
  
  Luna released him. Her arms were stiff. She rolled off the body. Grabbed and sheathed the knife. She crawled a good distance from the body and caught her breath. The injured man lay another few paces away. He had shouted himself hoarse, and now lay silent. If he dared move, the ruined leg beneath him would shift.
  
  Leave him or kill him?
  
  Luna pulled the coat from the body and replaced her own with it, though it was much too big. She used the man's belt to knot it securely around her. Took the man's pack. Found some food, fire making tools, more than she had owned in weeks.
  
  As she threw the pack over her shoulder, she heard a muffled thumping behind her, and turned just in time to see the dark form of a bear rider cresting up over the rise.
  
  Luna ran the other direction, away from Anjoliaa and up the coast. She might lose him in the trees there, she might—
  
  Luna tripped. Fell headfirst on the muddy ground. Mud filled her nose and mouth.
  
  The rider caught her by the collar of the massive coat and pulled her up.
  
  Luna yanked out the knife, and waved it at him.
  
  "Luna?"
  
  The rider was tall and lean, hair butchered to shoulder length, knotted against his scalp in braids. He wore a long black tunic and leather trousers under a dog hair coat. Luna hardly recognized him, even swinging from his grip.
  
  "…Kadaan?" Luna whispered.
  
  "Where is Roh?"
  
  Kadaan lowered Luna to the ground. Luna panicked. Would he leave Luna here, if Roh wasn't with him?
  
  "The Tai Mora have him," Luna said. "He told me to bring the book to Dhai."
  
  "The book? You lost Roh, but not the book?"
  
  Luna started to pull off the too-big coat.
  
  "Don't," Kadaan said. He glanced back at the dead and injured men near the tree. "Their friend is just behind me, with three more. Pushed into a tavern saying he had a Dhai up a tree, maybe a Tai Mora. They will eat you if you stay."
  
  "How did–"
  
  "Come with me."
  
  Luna bent at the knee, and made an awkward attempt at the two-fingered salute of subservience.
  
  Kadaan caught her up again, and pulled her up on the bear behind him. "No time for that," he said.
  
  Kadaan circled the bear around the other side of the tree and took off toward the coast. They rode all the way to the beach, where the sea had carved out great caves. Luna saw people down on the beach. When the walkers caught sight of them, they scurried back into the caves.
  
  "Who are they?" Luna asked.
  
  "Refugees from the city. A few were able to flee ahead of the army."
  
  "Were you here?"
  
  "No, I was staying in the city. What is left of it."
  
  "How did you know–"
  
  "I put out word I was looking for two Dhai traveling from the north. One of my runners said a man burst into a tavern saying he had a Tai Mora up a tree. I believed that highly unlikely."
  
  "Are there no Tai Mora in the city? Where did they go?"
  
  "They used gates," Kadaan said.
  
  "This far south?"
  
  "Oma is rising. I suspect they can do what they want, now. Who knows where the army is, now?"
  
  "Why did you wait, Kadaan?"
  
  He did not answer.
  
  "There's no use going into the city," Kadaan said. "I heard Aaldian and Tordin ships have come by this beach the last two nights."
  
  "Payment?"
  
  "Expensive, but not set. They'll take whatever we have of value."
  
  "We don't have anything of value."
  
  "I'll speak to them."
  
  Luna slept and ate, curled in a tiny uninhabited cave, more like a divot in the stone, one of the few that offered buffer from the wind that wasn't occupied. Kadaan woke her at midnight, which rolled in with the tide.
  
  He led Luna down to the waiting rowboat. Luna trembled, listening to the men haggle with the shivering families on the beach. Jewelry and coins traded hands, and when there were not jewelry or coins, Luna saw parents sobbing over their young children, then turning around, shaking their heads. No, they would rather stay here than give over their children as slaves. Luna's heart raced.
  
  The big man beckoned Kadaan over. Luna hung back, watching the Aaldian man speaking. He gestured at Kadaan, then back at Luna. Luna stared at Kadaan and wondered what terrible bargain Kadaan would make, now, to ensure the book went to Dhai. When Kadaan glanced back at Luna, Luna lost her nerve, and turned away, she ran across the rocky beach.
  
  "Luna!"
  
  The rowboat, the mix of Saiduan accents, the sound of Aaldian, the smell of the sea.
  
  Kadaan caught her. Grabbed her around the waist. "Luna! Where–"
  
  "I won't go! You won't sell me!"
  
  "Luna, stop. No one's selling anything. You want to get to Dhai? Luna!"
  
  "You're a liar!"
  
  Kadaan pinned her against the ground. The stone bit into Luna's shoulders. Her heart pounded. Her whole body shook. The smell of the sea, the sound of Saiduan…
  
  "Enough." Kadaan held her arms. "They'll take my weapon, Luna. My infused weapon, in exchange for your passage. Do you understand? You are free. Free to go to Dhai. Deliver the stupid book. Understand?"
  
  Luna stopped struggling. "I'm not a fool. Just tell me."
  
  "I've told you. You want freedom? This is freedom. You'll be alone, you understand? You get on that boat, and you're alone. The blade is only good for one passage, though it's worth an estate. They have us at their mercy."
  
  Kadaan's grip eased. Luna sat up.
  
  "You hear me, Luna?"
  
  "Yes."
  
  "The harbor in Dhai is closed. The Tai Mora have invaded. But this ship is going to Dorinah. From there you'll need to get to Dhai."
  
  "I can't go to Dorinah. The Dhai are slaves there, too."
  
  "The only other option is Aaldia, then. They're traveling from Dorinah to Aaldia."
  
  "Then I go there. I can find a way to Dhai from there."
  
  "You won't know the language. You'll have no money–"
  
  "I'll find a way."
  
  "You'll be alone, Luna."
  
  Luna met his look. "I have always been alone, Kadaan. Don't you know that?"
  
  Kadaan stood. Held out his hand. "Let me put a ward on you, at least."
  
  "What kind? I can't be bound–"
  
  "Not that kind. A ward of protection. It will help protect you against the gifted arts. All right?"
  
  "For Roh?"
  
  Kadaan waved a hand at her. "Does it matter?"
  
  "That's why you're not going, isn't it? You waited here for Roh."
  
  "If I find Roh and I tell him I abandoned you here, what would he think of me?"
  
  "Set the ward," Luna said. Her heart clenched. Luna could not imagine anyone ever loving her so much as to travel over a thousand miles to find her.
  
  A few words, a wave of Kadaan's hands, and the ward was set. Luna's skin prickled. Then Kadaan led her back to the Aaldian rowboat.
  
  Luna watched Kadaan unsheathe his glowing blue weapon and hand it over to the second man in the boat, this one stouter than the first. The man murmured something over it, and nodded. The other beckoned to Luna.
  
  Luna climbed into the rowboat with four other refugees, the only ones able to pay the price.
  
  Kadaan stood on a rocky spur a few paces away and watched as they pushed off. The moons were out. The night was bright. So Luna knew Kadaan watched all the way across the water, until the rowboat met the side of the great Aaldian ship. Luna climbed up after the others. When she got to the top of the deck and gazed back, Kadaan was gone.