As dusk came to Sissine, Hope awoke. She had slept all day, trapped in anxious dreams. She threw her silk covers against the wall. Her body was exhausted from tension. She couldn’t help mulling over the dreams. In one she had been in the navigation room of her palace, hovering above the star-map floor.

Only those of pure royal blood had been allowed in to the navigation, so her mother had dealt with her tutoring. As Hope traced the great lines of the sky and predicted harmonious paths for their city to take, the Queen had watched silently, never offering advice or help. Only tutting or flinching slightly every time Hope made a mistake. She had hated those lessons, more than duelling blindfolded, more than the painful tattooing of arcane power into her body.

But her dream had been a strange twist on the reality. Her dream mother was encouraging and warm. Even though the map changed and warped and Hope tried and failed, her mother kept encouraging her. Never in her life had the Queen spoken a kind word. The collision of real memory and dream imagery brought tears to Hope’s eyes. She sniffled and wiped her eyes. Treacherous dreams.

She stretched and stood up on her bed. The floor was covered with sheafs of paper, arranged in a crude mockery of the star-map in her palace. This would have to do. She leapt gently to the floor and picked her way to the telescope at the window. She was surprised she had found such an instrument here, but Sissine was a crossroads filled with all manner of goods. It was polished brass and the finest mirror that could be ground down here. It was serviceable.

She aligned the telescope with a fiery eastern star that was already visible in the darkening sky. She knew its secret name, how it had formed, and why it dwelled in the east. From her home this star had looked like a roiling disc, she had read the halo of power around it and memorised its secrets. Through this telescope it looked like a twinkling red ember refusing to die. No wonder the magic down here was so primitive, they could hardly read the mysteries of the sky spread out above them. They were like wasps chewing paper from a great library. No matter it being a speck of light; she knew the star and from this beginning she could tread her gaze across the heavens and track down her home.

After hours of searching and narrowing down where the great flying city might be, she stood and rubbed her neck. She would rather carve a glacier down to a finger-bone than work like this. That was a strange thought. One of Brunhilde’s sayings. Hope had never seen a glacier. Or snow fall, for that matter. She had seen clouds dropping white storms of sleet and snow. But only from above. Perhaps before she returned to her home, she should visit Brunhilde’s home and see the glaciers and snow.

More searching less thinking about primitives. She worked the dials of the scope minutely, searching for stars she recognised. There should be a pattern in the sky, one left by her cities passing. She expected to see it here. No. Then there. Still nothing. Every movement was calculated and checked on her maps. What was she missing?

She leapt onto her bed. Light rose from her hand to illuminate the room. The sky was all there. Everything. She had written down everything. She must have. She dropped to the floor and traced her fingers over one of the sheets, carefully checking every line and star.

Cold dread prickled her skin. She realised that it was not everything. There were gaps on the paper. Gaps invisible to her unless she concentrated hard. Missing signs of power. Stars that could be petitioned for power were not on her charts. She could see their namelocks in her head. But she had not written them down. She picked a star close to her, The Nostril of Yamu. A bright blue star that led directly into the brain of Yamu. She had called on it in a ritual to memorise forbidden tomes of the Great Library with only a glance at each page. She could see the namelock in her head, the shining white and blue lines curling into circles upon circles. The opening into the brain, the air that revitalised the mind.

She took up the pen again and her hand cramped. She could not write it. She opened her hand and drew the namelock in the air with her magic. It shone and began to open. She felt the power of the star begin to stream out. Sharp, stimulating air wafted into the room. She could think more clearly now. She erased the sign and the power ceased. Again, she tried to write the same sign on the paper but could not.

Those snivelling worms. Her tutors had been so jealous of their knowledge they had dared place conditioning on her. Or perhaps they were just as conditioned? Whatever the truth it was another insult on her list of petty vengeances, more reason for revenge against her mother and her court.

She raised her hands and slammed them down on the floor. Paper fluttered and nearby sheafs began to curl and smoke at the edges as her magic washed over the floor. She swallowed her light immediately and grabbed papers, patting out the burning edges.

Her temper would undo all this work, she had to be more careful. That lunk Brunhilde did have a point, sometimes Hope’s anger did lash out ineffectively.

Why was she thinking about that brute when she had to undo this magical shackle? She had a puzzle to solve that a barbarian, who had never been taught the slightest bit of secret knowledge, could never help her with. She should review her knowledge of namelocks and forbidding spells, not sit here thinking about a barbarian, who had never been taught anything of the flying cities. Who had never been taught.

A barbarian who had never been taught in the cities. Who could not have any forbiddings engraved on her.

“Yamu, my thanks for your insight.” She made a sign of thanks to the god.

Her mind still buzzed from the small power of insight she had opened. She could use Brunhilde to help her. She was versed in her own crude runes and curious about Hope’s. She couldn’t have any secret spells of forbidding upon her.

She needed that ox-brain barbarian. She threw on her robes, and strapped her scabbard to her waist. She took her many-coloured cloak and clasped it across her shoulders. She closed the window and left her room to go searching in Sissine.

The streets were filled, with travellers and stalls and sellers. Houses in Sissine were dull adobe squares, built around and on top of each other in haphazard fashion. Cafes lined the alleyways and the larger roads were filled with stalls selling food and even entertainers.

A gaudily dressed peddler was leading an elephant through the main street. Travellers were gawking and cautiously petting its huge ponderous legs; the locals ignored it.

He passed Hope and bowed to her. The elephant followed his lead and bent down on one knee. It was an impressive beast. Huge, grey but with intelligent eyes and a trunk that curved powerfully and playfully around its master.

“Does it fight?” she asked.

“Certainly not. Little Mountain is the most peaceful creature in Sissine,” he said. As illustration Little Mountain grabbed the man’s hat and tilted it in mock salute for him. “A silver for a ride on my friend,” the peddler said. He held out his hand.

“I want war-beasts,” Hope said. How she would get any kind of army up into the sky was a problem she would surely solve later. She carried on walking.

“My brother knows a general who trains war elephants, perhaps you would care to meet him?” the man shouted after her.

She ignored him and pushed through the gawkers following the beast.

Brunhilde sat with a mug of wine and listened to the raucous sounds of the crowd around her. She had told every guard she saw of the ghouls she had hunted in the night. Most were uninterested. Even the merchants, who should be grateful, had nodded and smiled like she were a child boasting of a small feat. She hated this place. They cared only for coin and treasures, nothing of glory.

She took her pouch of runestones and emptied them into her lap. Her mother’s gift to her. The stones were black tourmaline, with firm and clear runes set into them. There were twenty left, of the fifty her mother had gifted her. She knew how to carve her own, but she lacked the precision and power of her mother. Rune-carving was not her speciality. Fighting was. Fighting and hunting. But that carried no glory here in Sissine. The stones clacked as she dropped them back into their pouch.

“Pretty stones,” a nearby guard said. His jerkin was dyed with purple squares. He was clean-shaven and held himself more like a dandy than a veteran fighter. “How much for one?”

“You have no coin that can pay for these,” Brunhilde said.

“Do they give good luck? Do they have magical powers?”

“Yes, and yes. All the more reason to keep them.”

“All the more reason to buy one! How much?”

“There is nothing you can pay me.” Brunhilde swigged the last of her wine. It was bitter and weak but it was slowly making her drunk.

“Don’t think me a poor guard. I’m a sergeant on the West Gate, I have quite a bit of coin,” he said. He leaned forward with a smile. He opened his arms to show off the fine stitching of his doublet’s sleeves.

Brunhilde snorted.

“A test of strength, then. Perhaps I can win one from you?” He put his arm out playfully.

Brunhilde grabbed it.

“If I win- oof.” His proposition was interrupted by Brunhilde’s immediate victory. He rubbed his hand.

“I wasn’t ready, and this is an unfair angle,” he said.

“Stand up. First to the floor,” Brunhilde said. She stood up.

The sergeant rose to his feet. He saw that Brunhilde was a full two heads taller than him.

“I think we should- oof.”

His back hit the harsh cobblestones. He felt bruised even through his thick doublet and jerkin. Brunhilde’s hand was on his chest, and her smiling face loomed above him. She looked around to see guards of all colours staring at her, shocked.

As Hope stalked through the crowds looking for her enormous travelling-companion, she heard the roar of an incensed crowd wash over the main street. A few locals turned to it and then went back to their selling. Something unusual enough to catch their attention. And something unusual in this city would likely be Brunhilde. She felt the inspiration of Yamu still working inside her. She slipped into a side street and found her way to the source.

She found the source. An open courtyard. A barbarian, drunk and wrestling. A crowd of locals, betting on the matches.

Sitting rugs had been rolled up hastily into an oval, making space around the barbarian. Locals around her were squeezed up close, but fascinated by the looming warrior in their midst. She was boasting and swinging her arms wildly, enjoying the attention. A youth was nursing his bruised shoulder and pushing out into the crowd, as another man squared up to take her challenge. Several merchants stood tall amongst the crowd on barrels. They eyed the newcomer and shouted odds and took bets.

The man took a kerchief of purple from his arm and held it above his head. It was a scrap of cloth that he held proudly like a war banner. He was stocky and fat with a thick black moustache and balding hair scattered like ash across his head. But his arms were muscled like a blacksmith’s.

“For the honour of the West Gate!” he shouted. There were cheers and jeers from the crowd.

As they closed, Brunhilde grabbed him in a hold, hefted him into the air and held him above her head like a piglet.

“For the honour of me, Brunhilde!” she shouted.

The crowd exploded. Guards in purple hung their heads, supporters in crimson, silver and gold rolled and slapped each other with glee. Money changed hands; odds were recalculated.

Hope was impatient to talk to Brunhilde, but she couldn’t help watch her fight. She was so carefree in her attitude; she had never worried of assassinations at parties of punishments for failing exams. She was a glorious monolith of a woman.

More guards from other gates tried their luck, and all of them failed. Even some brave youths with no colours were drawn into the competition fever. As she fought and took swigs of wine from friendly onlookers, Brunhilde became more drunk and more clumsy. Even then she could master any challenger. They could slip out of a hold and get her in one, but her preternatural strength made her unbeatable.

The challengers dwindled and the excitement of the crowd fell.

“No more? Has Sissine no more? Then remember this, the Red Sparrow who conquered all challengers in Sissine!” Brunhilde shouted.

The crowd raised their drinks to toast her.

“There is one more.”

The crowd turned as one to watch the newcomer strut into the circle. A tiny woman, with gold hair and a cloak of shimmering colours. Hope.

“No swords, no magic,” Brunhilde said.

“No swords, no magic,” Hope said.

The crowd fell silent and the two squared up to fight.