Most cities were silent at night, lanterns dimmed, streets mostly clear. In direct contrast, Dombâng, a city built entirely on water, glimmered like a multi-faceted jewel, even from Maizuko’s vantage point several miles away where he was perched atop a steep ridge of white rock jutting upward from the sea like the jagged knife of a god, rent asunder in some great battle millennia past.

“There it is,” Sutra whispered.

Maizuko nodded slowly, leaning further out over the ridge’s edge, trying to swallow the lump fear had created in his throat. He’d been here before. This was home. This should be easy.

He could recall the features of the city as well as if he’d been there yesterday: the red lanterns made from the gutted carcasses of fish, the swallow-tail boats poled beneath bridges, the water growing murkier and more foul as one moves east with the current, the haze of white ash settled aro und the crematorium.

But things had changed since he’d been here last.

“We’ll approach by boat,” he said, turning back toward the rising sun, feeling something like confidence, a shred of scant courage, strengthen his limbs.

Sutra—younger, smaller, than he, a Tagar girl barely thirteen years old—stared at him, seemingly uncomprehending. Her pale face was dotted with freckles, a swath of darker snowflakes fallen across the blinding white whole, bordered by long black hair interspersed with jagged streaks of silver.

“How do we know the harbor isn’t guarded?” she said finally, her voice a quick hiss, almost a whisper.

“Of course it’s guarded. We’ll just have to get past the guards.”

Her eyes darted down to the distant city, then the glittering waters, then back up at him. Her tongue flicked up and wet her lips.

Taking her silence as an acquiescence of sorts, Maikuzo turned toward the first of many rough-hewn steps carved into the rock that led downward around the spike, but Sutra’s quick hand stopped him.

“I’ll go first,” she said, the words spoken almost too quickly to be coherent.

Raising his eyebrows, Maikuzo stepped backwards. The girl darted down the first few steps, then thrust out a hand to steady herself as her foot struck a raised ridge in the rock on the fifth step. He suppressed a small grin. So she was not invincible after all, not as much as she thought, at least.

***

The small rowboat scraped the rocks just beneath the water’s surface as Maikuzo pushed it outward. It was a far lighter task than he was accustomed to; Sutra was uncommonly small for her age, looking more like a girl of eight years rather than thirteen.

As they cleared the last of the shallows, Maikuzo lifted himself from the water and into the boat, his legs wet but not much else. The rowboat was hardly large enough to hold the both of them; it had clearly been intended for a single man only, with a bit of scarce room for fishing supplies. He had to fold his legs underneath him awkwardly in order to fit; Sutra, by comparison, sat comfortably with her legs stretched out almost lazily. The girl’s moods changed so quickly. She’d gone from fearful—no, “nervous” was a better word—to easy-going. Would she start attacking him next?

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There were enough problems to go around without the thought of his only companion assaulting him. Maizuko tore his gaze away from Sutra and shuffled around in the scant space until he was more or less facing the front of the boat. The thick mist brushed his face like the touch of a soft hand, the whisper of silk, droplets cooling on his cheeks. It obscured their way, an insubstantial barrier of shifting white. Where the mist was thinner, he could see here and there the glimmer of the coming dawn sparkling on the lake-water, and beyond that the distantly flickering red lanterns of Dombâng.

“We’ll have to paddle with our hands,” he said, his voice unnaturally loud in the predawn gloom. His breath misted before him in the chilly air. There were no oars in the boat, and if there had been they probably would have been rotten enough to be of no use.

They crossed the bay that way, pushing at the water with their hands, using the strength of their arms. It was amazing, Maizuko reflected as he ceased paddling for a moment to rest his aching arms, how much energy could be expended on nothing. They had come only a few hundred feet from the rocky, sorrowful place from which they had cast off.

“I’m going back to get something we can row with,” Maizuko announced. “Stay here.” He dove into the water before Sutra could utter a word, looking upward as he straightened himself under the surface. He hoped she wouldn’t attempt to dive in after him. That would put them in a very unfortunate position indeed.

The boat shifted on the surface of the water as Maizuko shot forward underneath it. He had swum these depths, the ones around Xinyi Rock, countless times before all throughout his childhood. He should have no problem getting back to shore and finding something to propel the boat, most likely a length of driftwood or something similar.

When he stepped ashore, dripping, locks of hair plastered in mats to the sides of his face, there was a strange silence in the rocks. Nothing moved. His breath puffed clouds of fog in the air before him. His feet, protected only by flimsy sandals, felt the sharp rocks of the beach keenly. The hair on his arms, which should have been slicked to his skin, rose, making him shiver as a gust of cold wind whispered along the base of Xinyi Rock. He looked backwards for a quick moment to see whether Sutra was still where he had left her; the boat bobbed on the waves four hundred feet out, just as he had left it. He could make out the girl’s distant shape.

He began foraging along the shoreline. Most of the wood he found was in short, fat pieces — no good for rowing. He needed a long pole of some sort, ideally two of them. His footsteps echoed around the silent rocks; he felt like an intruder, constantly watched by jealous eyes.

At last he found a good-sized stick that was shaped to his liking — when he picked it up, it was covered in slime from lying halfway in the water, and some gelatinous creature clung to the end of it, gyrating silently. Maizuko shook it off, doing his best to scrape some of the slime off on the rocks.

When he looked quickly backward again, Sutra’s boat was nowhere in sight.

Gripping the stick tightly in one hand, Maikuzo took a few lurching steps back in the direction he had come, his heart racing, his mind jumping to conclusions. Had the girl been devoured by malevolent water-demons? Spirited away by the fickle current? Or had she simply decided to abandon him and paddle off toward the city alone? He pounded his clenched fist against his thigh angrily, feeling a warmth spread as blood circulation was partly restored in his nearly-numb leg. Why would she do that?

He stumbled numbly along the shore, his limbs stiff and slow to respond. Bad luck followed him everywhere he went, he was certain of it. His whole life the Fates had never stopped playing jokes on him. Maybe that was what everything was. All of this, his whole life, just a cruel joke.

Something slipped silently, sinously from the cluster of rocks to Maikuzo’s side and wrapped him in a clammy embrace, its vicious grip stronger than iron. He struggled at first, then it seemed his body relaxed, and his thoughts softened. The thing dragged him into the darkness between two tall stones, and consciousness fled.