Wirrin missed the desert. As pretty as the plains between Epatlok and Ahepvalt were, with all their long grass and winter flowers, Wirrin wasn’t enjoying the easterly breeze coming in off the ocean. If Wirrin wasn’t enjoying the breeze Yern, who had brought no extra clothes, was having a terrible time.

The rawhide backpack was done, not that there was much in it, but it certainly didn’t do anything for the biting wind. Wirrin was thinking they should have crossed the Boclas back at the river divergence. There was a sheep farm on the far side of the river where Wirrin had worked for a while, more than a decade ago. They would probably have something warm to spare.

They could have cut across the fields toward Hekaulget, where they would have some goat or alpaca leather for warm clothes. But Wirrin wanted to avoid anywhere there might be mages on the way to Ahepvalt.

Yern, who was as hunched in on herself as she could get, wrapped in one of Wirrin’s blankets, and walking directly to her left to try to get out of the wind, complained. ‘Can’t you just shoot a gazelle or something?’

‘It’d take another few days to cure it,’ Wirrin said. ‘You’re dragging the blanket on the ground.’

‘Yeah, well it’s way too big,’ Yern groused. ‘Aren’t you from the snow? Don’t you have any warm clothes?’

Wirrin didn’t think she’d ever shared her clothes with anyone. It just hadn’t occurred to her. Her winter jacket would be just about a dress on Yern, but it would probably be better than the blanket.

Wirrin’s winter jacket enveloped Yern more than the blanket had, hanging off her shoulders and drooping past her knees. But at least it didn’t drag on the ground.

‘Stop laughing,’ Yern glowered.

‘Stop being so small,’ Wirrin smirked.

‘I’m working on it. It’s a slow process.’

‘Just need to eat more,’ Wirrin said.

‘You would know,’ Yern muttered. ‘You eat like you’ve never seen food before.’

‘Every day is a new day,’ Wirrin smiled. ‘I’ve never eaten that meal before. Being stabbed in the lungs is hungry work.’

‘I haven’t been stabbed in the lungs,’ Yern pointed out.

‘If you’re cold, you should eat more,’ Wirrin said. ‘I used to only eat this much when I was in the mountains.’

‘Now you’re a mage you have to eat more, is it?’ Yern asked, a curious sort of frown taking over from the annoyance.

‘Must do. I’ve been hungry since I found Mkaer,’ Wirrin said.

‘All those new mages back home, they all started eating more,’ Yern said.

Wirrin hadn’t noticed, but she expected Yern was right. ‘Something to do with Ulvaer, no doubt,’ she said. ‘Fiend of Hunger and all.’

‘They’re all so hungry,’ Ulvaer rattled. ‘They need to eat. Nothing wrong with that.’

‘Unless they eat everything at the hetavatok,’ Wirrin thought. ‘Or everything they had stored back at your statue.’

‘No fear of that,’ Ulvaer cackled. ‘There’s always more food.’

Wirrin and Yern struck off the path to have lunch in a stand of trees. It didn’t help the wind as much as Wirrin had hoped. Wirrin made Yern eat more than usual before they packed up and set off again.

Even if she looked ridiculous in Wirrin’s winter coat, Yern stopped complaining about the cold. It had really been her only complaint anyway. Yern was totally enamoured with the river, which was by far the biggest body of water she’d ever seen. And all the winter flowers, green grasses, and crop fields were just as enchanting.

Wirrin was quite enjoying watching Yern have all these new experiences. She was barely even annoyed at how slow she still had to go, since it gave Yern enough time to gaze in absolute wonder at the world around.

Three days out from the river divergence, Wirrin and Yern were just passing the edges of Epatlok’s farmland on the far side of the river, tame fields giving way to tall grassland undulating in the wind.

Wirrin felt the barge coming down the river behind them. It felt very like something slithering over the ground, but less focused. Wirrin was just wondering if her range in water was the same as her range through the ground, when the barge started steering across the water, closer to the side she was on.

There was nothing coming the other way.

Wirrin pulled Yern off the road beside the river, into the drier plains on this side of the water. ‘Someone’s coming on that barge,’ she said.

The barge in question was only just over the horizon behind them, obvious in the overhead sun. It looked like an ordinary barge to Wirrin, but she could think of no reason for it to cross the river like that.

Yern’s hand gripped the hilt of her sword.

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‘Don’t do that,’ Wirrin said. ‘You’re a threat if you have a weapon.’

‘I could be a threat,’ Yern grumbled.

‘If you’re a threat, you’re worth killing,’ Wirrin said.

Yern let go of her sword hilt, but her hand hovered around it.

‘Try to keep out of it, please.’ Wirrin made eye contact.

Yern’s eyes were wide, but her jaw was set. She looked very small in Wirrin’s massive coat.

The Boclas was slower here, past the divergences at Louyava and Epatlok, but the barge was still much faster than Wirrin and Yern. There was no chance of finding somewhere to hide before it reached them. Wirrin just wanted to get further from the edge of the water, try to make it harder for someone to jump on her.

And jump was what someone did. Five mages, obvious in their thick robes, rode the barge down the river toward them. One put their hands on the shoulders of two others and they seemed to drift to the bank, like the way War mages moved. Another, separate, War mage drifted off the boat, landing closer to Wirrin. The last leapt, confident in their physical capacity.

It was the last who shouted to Wirrin, a golden heart gleaming in the sunlight. ‘Wirrin, we’re not here to fight.’

The other use of moving away from the river was that it put all the mages close to the water. Where the barge was dropping anchor and slowing down.

‘Stay here,’ Wirrin instructed, staring down at Yern.

‘Flesh is not trustworthy,’ Ulvaer rattled.

‘Be very careful, Wirrin,’ Mkaer rumbled.

Wirrin stared at Yern until the girl nodded and looked away.

‘If you’re not here to fight, what do you want?’ Wirrin called back, moving closer, away from Yern. Her hand rested on the handle of her knife.

‘We want to talk,’ the Flesh mage called.

Wirrin rolled her eyes. ‘I got that much. What do you want to talk about?’

Aside from the two War mages, the other two wore flower pendants.

‘Do you all want to talk?’ Wirrin asked. ‘Or do Vonaer and Azavaer have some reservations?’

The Flesh mage flinched. ‘You shouldn’t…’ He took a deep breath. ‘We all have reservations. But you have clearly achieved something previously unheard of. It is better to understand than not.’

Wirrin pressed her lips together. ‘Have any of you tried?’ she asked. ‘Surely you can speak to one of your other Gods and ask?’

The Flesh mage clenched his jaw. ‘None of us have tried,’ he said. ‘It’s…’

‘It’s not the done thing?’ Wirrin smiled. ‘You don’t talk to the others? Pick one and that’s it? I wonder why it was unheard of.’

‘Our mages would speak to the others at altars quite often,’ Naertral burbled. ‘It was often easier to find an altar than a mage, if we wished to communicate.’

‘Except for Ulvaer,’ Mkaer rumbled.

‘Symbols are so uninteresting,’ Ulvaer rattled. ‘My people are my symbols.’

‘You couldn’t speak to each other at an altar?’ Wirrin thought.

‘No,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘Only after we had been joined to you could we speak to each other.’

‘The others would not agree to it,’ the Flesh mage said.

‘Then I’m not the one you need to talk to, am I?’ Wirrin said. ‘Either your Gods agree to disregard Vonaer and Azavaer or you speak to them, surely?’

The Flesh mage flinched again.

Wirrin stepped closer.

‘Careful,’ Mkaer rumbled.

‘Do you know your God’s name?’ Wirrin asked.

‘It’s not my place,’ the Flesh mage said, through clenched teeth.

‘Do you want me to tell you?’ Wirrin asked.

The Flesh mage grabbed her around the throat. A wave splashed over the two growth mages and splattered the robes of one of the War mages.

‘Azavaer could save them,’ Wirrin rasped. ‘Will you?’

She could feel the blood beating through the mage’s veins. Could feel his heart beating evenly. He was full of water. That was interesting.

He let go.

‘You two stop that,’ Wirrin called, hoarsely.

The plants stopped moving behind her.

‘What can I do for you that you can’t do for yourselves?’ Wirrin asked. ‘How I got to be here doesn’t matter, surely?’

‘If it were so easy, you would not be the first,’ the Flesh mage said.

‘Ulvaer, do you think you could convince some of your mages to go to the swamp?’ Wirrin thought.

Aloud, she said: ‘Even if I tell you how I did it, what use is that information? You won’t do it, will you?’

‘A brand new phenomenon is interesting,’ the Flesh mage said.

‘It’s better to know how to prevent it happening again, perhaps,’ Wirrin said. ‘If you don’t know how it works, you’ll be stuck with the fear it’ll happen again. Maybe next time, it’ll happen to someone more motivated.’

‘You seem motivated, Wirrin.’

‘Think what I could have done with the element of surprise, back in the south,’ Wirrin said. ‘If I really were motivated. Perhaps I’m like you: interested.’

The Flesh mage stared at her, jaw working.

‘Is it time to fight, do you think?’ Wirrin asked.

‘Have I said how much I like you, Wirrin?’ Ulvaer cackled.

The Flesh mage grabbed Wirrin by the throat. Water seeped through the skins of the three mages she’d doused. Wirrin grabbed her knife and did her best to stab the Flesh mage in the neck.

Instead of being stabbed, the mage’s neck split before the point of the knife, opening to let the blade through suddenly empty space. The mage grabbed her arm and suddenly Wirrin couldn’t move her hand.

Sand blasted up between Yern and the remaining War mage. Wirrin couldn’t speak to tell Yern to run, not that it would have done any good.

The mage’s flesh was solid in a way that none so far had felt. The water that lapped around his ankles could find no purchase. Ulvaer’s magic felt like eating butter, unpleasantly soft and yielding. It could not press its way into the mage’s flesh, reach all that water waiting to be dried up.

A stone passed through a hole in the mage’s forehead, completely missing his flesh. He stared at Wirrin. ‘You will tell us, Wirrin.’

Wirrin’s lungs stopped working. That may have a good thing. It meant she couldn’t keep arguing with him. Her whole body flopped as if her bones had suddenly disappeared.

Yern was doing her best to bite the mage who had grabbed her. Her sword was laying on the ground several metres away. The last thing Wirrin managed to do before she blacked out was send a shower of stone shards after the War mage. He was out of the way before they left the ground.

‘That was fun,’ Ulvaer cackled.

‘Easy for you to say,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘You have more mages.’

‘If he meant for her to be dead, she’d be dead,’ Naertral burbled.