Bowstrings thrummed. Arrows whistled through the air. Screams erupted around Aida as they funneled down another narrow ravine. She whirled as fleeing freedmen and -women fell around her, clutching at the hafts of red-fletched arrows jutting from their flesh. A shout blasted out from her strings, shattering the rock face above from which the Legion's archers launched their volley. More of her people died as rocky debris rained down, but she'd found from bitter experience that even more would die from raining arrows if she didn't.

Her breath came in ragged gasps. Every swallow felt tinged with broken glass and a rough rasp was all that remained of her speaking voice. An exhausted mass of her followers, ex-slaves, and fleeing citizens struggled along after her as they fled for the "new" Thorn the Vale Legions weren't supposed to know about. She'd estimated over a thousand people had come with them as they raced from the city. Maybe five-hundred were left now after the endless clashes, ambushes, and harrying assaults from the Legions they'd endured in their flight. More besides died to slips and falls, rockslides, or drowning in narrow canyons where the water ran fast and surprisingly deep.

"Viviana, ask them where that damn Thorn is. Are we almost there?"

Viviana shouted at the Calm loci or whatever the hell they called the freed leaders guiding them, then turned and nodded as she paused to retie the ribbon holding her lustrous chestnut hair back. Sweat ran down her sculpted face despite the cool water streaming around their angles across the slick stone. "They say we are close, Dynast. Just a few more twists and-"

A new wave of shouts and screams erupted around them. Ghillie yanked Aida down as a clutch of javelins thudded into meat and bone all about. Aida leapt back to her feet to see a small unit of Legionnaires charging forward from a side ravine that channeled into the wider one Aida and her people packed into. Said Legionnaires crashed into each other, swearing, as Aida rose dripping from the water, their eyes wide with recognition. In the frantic last few hours of their flight from Berujat's Fleshmarkets and city sprawl, the Legions had learned the bloody way to fear Aida.

A few tried to sprint and close distance to her while others scrabbled for extra javelins.

All were too slow.

Aida's scream blasted half of them to gore and buried the rest in collapsing stone as she brought their ravine down on their heads.

"Thanks Ghillie," Aida croaked, patting the slight woman on the shoulder.

Throat, Ghillie signed back.

"Yes, I'm losing my voice," Aida said, rubbing her neck. "And that would be bad. Good thing we're almost out of this hell hole. I hope."

Ghillie shook her head and plucked gently at a wire at Aida's throat. Aida touched them and found one had snapped like an over-wound guitar string. She guessed the others weren't far behind.

"Need industrial grade," she muttered to herself. "These things probably weren't designed for this kind of abuse."

"Dynast," Viviana gasped and tugged at Aida's shoulder.

Aida sighed and turned. "What now? Did you-"

Viviana collapsed against her, rough wood scraping against Aida's arm as she fell. The bloody bronze point of a javelin jutted from Viviana's back.

"Goddammit!" Aida swore, cradling the woman and dropped down to her knees. She glanced up and spotted a lone survivor of the soldiers she'd just blasted, but he was already toppling over with one of Ghillie's needles spearing his throat. "Bastards."

"Viviana!" Alerestro cried, shoving his way to them. He yanked Viviana from Aida's grasp, clutched her against him, and rocked back and forth, and sobbing. "No, no, no, no, my sweet. This is not how we were fated to end."

Viviana smiled up at him, blood staining her teeth as she caressed his face. "We but fill our roles in the great play. It is not up to us to decide how... our act ends, merely how well we performed our roles. And we played our parts to perfection, my love."

"This was not your role," he said, his tears mingling with the blood soaking Vivian's dress. A cynical part of Aida marveled at the contrast in him: however genuine his emotions had seemed in the past, now that she could see the depths and strength of the real deal, she realized how shallow and feigned the man's regular charming persona ran.

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He drew the bronze knife from his belt and placed the point against his chest. "We were to exit the stage together years from now, but it seems our time on the stage ends much sooner."

"No, my love," Viviana said, coughing up blood as she stayed his hand. "My part ends, but yours occupies the stage... a bit longer. We decided to change course once... no changing again now. We'll meet again when your arc... is over and not before."

"No, no, no, no," he muttered, brushing her cheek with his fingers.

Ryk pushed his way to them, taking the situation in with half-a-glance. "We have to keep moving."

Aida rose angrily, gesturing at the bright, fresh blood soaking her tunic and pants. "So sorry to slow you down with my friend dying."

He sighed and pressed his fingers against his eyes. She noticed then that a cut had spilled now-dried blood across his cheek. A bloody bandage wrapped his forearm just above the steel bracer on the arm that held his spear. And his arm shook. From sheer fatigue she realized as he stared back at her with weary, bloodshot eyes. "If we don't move soon, the Legions capture every canyon and ravine leading from this one before we get to the Thorn. They surround us completely. What sort of mercy do you think they offer to a rogue Dynast, her heretic, traitorous followers, and a few hundred escaped slaves once they have us trapped? Of course you do-"

"You think I don't know that?" she snapped. "You don't think I'm not exhausted from all the running, the fighting, the dying? A unit of Legionnaires charged into us in a narrow bit a ways back and I couldn't hit them without bringing an entire loose rock face down on our heads and killed us all. Eth made the rest of us keep going while they butchered a hundred innocent men and women and children. If those Mothers Militant whoever-they-were hadn't showed up at the last minute to hold them off, they'd have killed a hundred more."

Whenever Ryk had looked at her back in the One Eighth or Heaven's Tread, a hint of humor had always twitched at the corner of his mouth and crinkled the corners of his eyes. Humor surfacing over swells of love. She took a step back when she he looked at her now, for the way he looked at her now held none of that, just exhaustion, impatience, and hints of... fear?

"I thought you couldn't be hurt," she said, seeking out a neutral ground as she gestured at his arm.

"Can see the future, but otherwise I'm still a man," he grated back. "Single-handedly fighting a dozen trained Legionnaires to hold them at bay while your people dawdle and trudge along isn't what-"

"Dawdle and trudge?" She said, incredulously, gesturing at the desperate, staggering families pushing their way onward in spite of their obvious exhaustion. Most remained naked, some bleeding from where shackles or chains still affixed to ankles or wrists. Many wounded limped in their midst while others carried children too small to keep up or dragged their sick or wounded fellows after them. "Are you even listening to yourself? What happened to the fearless hero I fell in love with back in Jadeye?"

"He dies," he said shortly, shouldering past her and off through the dense press of struggling refugees.

"What the hell crawled up his butt?" she said, turning back. "He's not the only one barely hacking it here."

Dead, Ghillie signed.

"Yeah, that's what he said-"

No.

Alerestro's wail tuned her instantly back into what Ghillie was referring to.

Aida knelt and put a hand on the man's shoulder, but he leapt up furiously, not seeming to care that Viviana fell lifelessly into the stream at their feet as he did so. Her arm bobbed in the red flow clouding out from her wound. The intensity of the hatred burning in his eyes made Aida flinch away.

"You did this. She died because of you."

"Uh uh, no you don't," Aida said, waving a finger at him. "I'm tired of everyone putting their shit on me. You were the ones who joined me, remember? Mother of Exiles, hello? The one banished by the Black Court for treason? Didn't think all the way through what that meant when you signed on or what? You were all gung-ho for marching off to Berujat and freeing everybody back in the One-Eighth."

"We knew all that, but you were the one who swayed her. She convinced me we shouldn't-" he cut off suddenly, his teeth grinding audibly as his gaze snapped away.

"Yeah, it's all my fault. Of course it is. And you shouldn't what? What were you supposed to do?" Aida said, anger surging to the fore over grief, sorrow, doubt, and worry. She butted her head against his, her temper flaring. "Someone sent you here to kill me right? To get into my confidence, spy on me, then betray me? Do tell, motherfucker."

They stood there for several long, heated seconds, tension ratcheting. Then Stiller was there, tugging at her sleeve.

"This isn't over," Alerestro promised as Stiller yanked at her instantly with one hand and pointed the direction they'd been traveling with the other.

"Ready when you are," she called back as Stiller began to jog. She hurried to keep up with him as he slipped and dodged between knots and clusters of struggling people.

She found Wake, Eth, Parathas, the Calm loci, and Ryk gathered around a Thorn. The Valeer wrapped herself around it, moaning in a way that had never ceased to be disturbing. The Thorn began to shift and expand in response.

"Enough," Eth said by way of cryptic greeting.