Dawn came. Warm sunlight caressed Brunhilde and woke her. She was lying on Hope’s bed, the Princess fast asleep beside her. She could smell burning. She lifted her head and sniffed the air. It was meat cooking downstairs. She relaxed.

Her mind still shook from the power she had channelled. She remembered dreams of floating oceans that glowed like fireflies, filled with ships like whales. She had swum through those oceans; she could almost taste the salt water on her lips still. She shivered, even in this morning warmth.

She moved out of bed carefully and dressed. She left Hope sleeping and went to find breakfast. When she brought back thick turkey legs and a platter of fruit, Hope was awake and meditating. The Princess was sitting naked in the sun from the window, absorbing the light.

“I have to head south to find Alexander,” Brunhilde said. She couldn’t keep the riches for herself, until she had given the unlucky merchant his fair share.

There was no reply. Brunhilde ate and waited for Hope to finish her meditation.

“We should head south, then,” Hope said. She came over to share breakfast with Brunhilde.

“Really? You’ve finished here?”

“Yes.” Hope ate in silence for a while, picking slivers of fruit and meat with her nails.

“Don’t you want to return home, up there?”

“I don’t know how,” Hope said.

Brunhilde searched her memory of tales from her family. None of them had ever visited a city in the sky. She knew tales of journeying across the ice seas to the place that spirits left the earth, and cousins that had fought their way to the centre of the Earth, but for this journey she had nothing.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?” Hope asked.

“That I can’t help.”

“It’s not your problem.”

“Friends share problems.”

“Do they? I’ve never really had a friend. All I’ve known are suitors, enemies, tutors, obstacles…”

“Truth be told I’ve never had a friend before. Family and neighbours, yes. But friendship is something forged, like a fine torc or sword. You fight almost as well as I do,” Brunhilde said.

Hope laughed, she didn’t know why. It felt good to laugh. They finished their meal and then went for a walk in the busy city.

Already awake, never really sleeping, Sissine was filled with wonders that Hope began to notice, through Brunhilde. The barbarian stopped at stalls, sniffed fruits and petted ugly animals, fascinated by it all. Perhaps the surface world was not as bland and empty as she had been taught.

Children would stop and stare at them, and whisper to each other. Occasionally a merchant who had watched their fight would offer them things. Brunhilde turned it all down, apart from the food.

“That was a good fight we had,” Brunhilde said. “When are you going to teach me those tricks of yours.”

Hope grabbed Brunhilde’s wrist and squeezed her thumb into it. Brunhilde cried in pain. Her hand went limp and numb.

“Look, where my thumb is. Strike that and you stop the flow of power into the hand,” Hope said.

Brunhilde rubbed her wrist where Hope had struck it. The feeling came back into her hand. She pushed her thumb into her wrist, but could not find the exact spot Hope had hit.

“Keep practising,” Hope said.

Brunhilde punched her wrist a few more times then dropped her arms.

“We should stock up on supplies for the journey. Salted beef and fish, and dried fruits, and a barrel of that yogurt,” Brunhilde said. Her eyes roved over the food sellers in the street. “Wine too, and some ale. Soak some of the fruit in the wine.”

She dropped her arm over Hope’s shoulders. Hope let it rest there. Instead of annoyance she felt safety beside the barbarian’s great frame. And fear at having to trust another.

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Hope’s skin crawled. The air prickled like an electrical storm was about to hit, but there were no storm clouds in sight. Something dangerous in the air. Her magic rose reflexively into a shield. Blinding light hit.

Brunhilde felt the earth fall away. She was blind. She squeezed tears from her eyes. What had happened? She heard screams and felt hot air dancing around her. Hope was shouting in her language, angrily.

Her vision cleared and she saw the broken crater that they had fallen into. Hope’s shield had protected them from a destructive blast. The clay earth had spattered up onto the walls around them. Broken stalls had tumbled down. She stood.

Two figures stood at the edge of the crater. They were dressed as merchants, but stood like warriors, dark blades in their hands.

One of the attackers dropped into the crater. His clothing shivered and changed as his disguised dropped. He was dressed in a tight dark robe with edges that glinted silver. His hand held a dirk, black and dull. He was dark and tanned like Hope, but his brown hair was shaved close to his head. Everything about his appearance was simple and efficient. He was here to kill.

Hope lashed out with a golden arc of power. He dodged and slashed with his dagger. Where magic and blade met, the golden light evaporated like smoke in a breeze.

“Did the Queen send you?” she asked, though she expected no reply. “Go,” she said to Brunhilde. “They want me, you can’t fight these assassins.”

Brunhilde grabbed her runestones and her fingers found the one she wanted. She pushed it into the wrecked earth. Power sung through the ground, an old old song. From when mountains walked and wrestled with the oceans. The earth tilted, and a great back lifted from the ground. A huge golem of clay mud stood and roared. Its giant fist slammed into the approaching assassin and knocked him to the ground. It stood over him, pummelling him with its fists.

“We fight together,” Brunhilde said. “I’ll take this one you get his friend.

Hope ran forward without a word, and leapt onto the golem’s back, using it as a ramp to launch herself out of the crater. Her target threw a handful of rocks and dirt into her face as she landed, disorienting her. But she had trained in pitch black rooms, she knew how to protect herself without sight. She blinked gritty tears out of her eyes as she fended off the blows of the assassin. His dagger lashed like a dark cobra, but her shields struck at his wrists, deflecting all his attacks while her sight returned.

She let him get close and drew her light-dagger along his sleeve, cutting the material open and lashing his arm. There were no tattoos on him. He was a commoner then, trained from birth to be an assassin. With no tattoos to mark him he could be from any of the cities. She wondered if the other assassin was a tattooed noble. Who could want to kill her? Anyone from her mother to a rival of the court. Too many to worry about.

“Tell me where you come from. I’ll let you live,” she said. He was as silent as his companion. Bound to silence through magic, most likely.

In the crater, the assassin rolled away from the golem. As he tried to climb out of the put, the golem grabbed him and flung him back onto the ground. Brunhilde leapt over him, dropping her arm across his right to keep his blade hand trapped on the floor. He raised a knee and struck at her stomach, the same pressure point Hope had hit before. Brunhilde rolled off of him, managing to avoid the paralysing blow.

“You’re a tricky one, then,” Brunhilde said. She skipped forward, threatening a blow that he dodged away from easily. But now he was in reach of the golem. Thick earthen arms wrapped around him, squeezing.

“Where do you come from, nightblade?” she asked.

He writhed in the golem’s grip, reaching for something in his robes. She saw him reach up and push something into the golem’s chest. It creaked and the soft loamy earth dried in an instant. Her creation cracked like a glacier calving icebergs, bright light shone from inside it. In a matter of seconds, it had crumbled into great chunks; nothing more than earth again.

The assassin dropped to the floor, his blade ready in the air.

“Try your little dagger against me,” Brunhilde said. She spat on the floor between them and held her arms out casually.

Taking the challenge, he lunged at her. Brunhilde was tall but fast. In the late autumn she had sat with bears in the river to hunt salmon. The trick was to wait motionless like a harmless rock, then clap your hands together like a bears jaw’s snapping shut on a fat fish. She caught him and he wriggled like a salmon.

Pain, in her side. His dagger had caught her. She squeezed harder and coughed. The pain lanced up her side, into her chest. Dark magic or poison raced into her from the wound. She felt his joints crack. She dropped her foe and tumbled to the floor. Haze fell over her sight. She waited for the finishing blow, but she had disabled or defeated him. She saw the assassin lying on the floor nearby. He fumbled for another magical toy in his robe. Lines of power glowed around him, engulfing him in a netting of light. Her vision streaked as he disappeared into a column of light, rising into the sky.

“Going home, little salmon?” she gasped. Ah, that was a good insult. She would count this as a win. Brunhilde the Red Sparrow, who fought a salmon from the sky. The dirt was cold under her. Her thoughts petered out.

Above, Hope had finished her foe off. Two of them would have posed a threat, but a single common assassin was nothing to her.

She ruffled through his robes, looking for how he had got here, and how he might return. She found it. A Dead God’s coin, silky purple-rose coloured, made from the furthest night.

The toll for passage across the sky, payment for the sleep that brings death into awakening elsewhere. A way home.

She put the coin in her mouth and breathed out. Brutal Loss. His name had been Brutal Loss.

A light-coffin assembled itself from sunlight and the power of the coin. Hope’s hands shivered as she reached out to it. Brutal Loss’ namelock shone on the lid of it. Opening the commoner’s namelock was as easy as snapping a twig.

Light shone from the pit. The other assassin was returning back up into the sky. Beside the departing assassin, Hope saw Brunhilde lying motionless. Hope swore a curse to the gods and stepped into the light coffin.