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CHAPTER 1

People lived because she killed And if that limpse, then so be it

On the occasional good day, Zafira bint Iskandar mused that she was braver than the sun itself Most days, she couldn’t wait until the evernight Arz was behind her and she was firmly rooted in the plains of her caliphate, daama snow and all

Today was one of those days, despite the antlers rough against her hands She stepped free of the cursed prison of a forest, pretending her sigh was due to her task being cohtly coiled fear unwinding in her heart Thesun kissed her cheeks in welcome

Marhaba to you, too, coward

Sunlight was always faint in the caliphate of Demenhur, because the sun didn’t knohat to do with the snow that should be sand

Before her, the sea of white rolled out s her a moment’s contentment in her solitude, even as her toes numbed and the air crippled her nose For in a caliphate where a woainst her, there was nothing easy about pretending to be a man Not when she had the curves of a woait of one, too

She dragged the deer carcass along, a trail of steam in her wake, the sullied snow an eerie crimson There was a promise in the air A stillness in the earth and in the whispering trees

It’s nothing Paranoia had a way of visiting when he was least desired She was a bundle of e, that was all

Sukkar nickered fro in with his near-white coat While shethe deer to her stallion’s saddle, he reiven him

“We had a good hunt today,” she said to the horse who hadn’t helped, and swung onto his back

Sukkar didn’t react, content with staring across the distance into the Arz as if an ifrit would leap out and s him whole

“Dastard,” Zafira said, a s lips

Though everyone was a cohen it came to the forest—each of the five caliphates that made up Araere afraid of the Arz, for it rimmed those lands, too It was a curse they’d shared ever since the land had been robbed of ht Zafira that the Arz was, in ht her of ways to use it to her benefit Ways to believe she could tame it, when in reality she could not No one could

His death had proved as much

Zafira steered Sukkar away fro and deeper into Demenhur But the Arz was such that it always delimpse She paused and turned

It watched Breathed Its skeleton trees reached with gnarled fingers steeped in swirling shadow

Some said it devoured men like vultures on the dead Yet Zafira returned, day after day, hunt after hunt She are each venture could be her last, and though she swore she didn’t fear est fear of all

Still There was a pulse deep inside her that relished those visits into the depths of darkness She hated the Arz She hated it so much, she craved it