I wake up with the snarl still on my lips. I can feel that the spark of fire I'm already craving is gone.

"Thelios," Belen greets me flatly.

"Where is she?" I panic. She's not here. What if she's lost to me forever?

"Yes, about that. You need to take it down a notch, Lios. That's Death's Daughter. You wanna know what happened to the last male who flirted with her? Three horned vipers bit him. He died in agony, Lios. Stay away from that female."

I blink at my friend. Anger scorches me, but even my demon dismisses his warnings. He's just trying to help us. He doesn't realize... this isn't flirting. She is my life.

I rise with a groan, ignoring Belen's skeptical expression. "Did I miss the elemental ceremony?"

Belen folds his arms over his chest. "Yes. I rescheduled."

I rub my sore head. "You didn't have to hit me so hard, you fucker."

"Yes I did," he snaps.

I glare at him. "She's my Fated, asshole. Even Death himself can't stop it."

Belen's arms drop. He looks at me, wary, sad, "don't be too sure about that, Lios. Death... my nan..."

"What, Bel?" I prod when his voice trails off. Stumbling a little, I right myself and pull off my blood-stained shirt to change.

Belen is staring at my chest. "Nan says there's a war. She told me that it's why it took so long for a decision to be made about a new Captain. Death is a god, Lios. We can't understand his plans."

I look at him askance. "You realize that as Recondites we swear to serve the gods, right?"

"I told you that, fucker."

"So why are you telling me not to trust Death?"

"Because," Belen mutters, "he's fucking scary."

"Well, his daughter is mine, and I won't give her up for anything."

"We're going to lose another Captain," he laments. "I'll choose your burial site. Or do you want to do it? There's a nice spot right in front of the shitter."

I punch him in the gut hard enough to get him to stop whining like a little bitch.

"C'mon, let's get this ceremony over with."

"'Over with' he says," Belen croaks out, straightening back up. "I hope the fire test burns off your dick. It may be the only way to save your life."

As we walk towards the door the sky darkens. I look up and curse under my breath. "To the fields, Bel. That's a hailstorm."

"How the fuck do you- Lios! Captain!" he shouts out behind me.

---

My belly is so full right now. Gods, it feels good. Alnue poured three of those flasks into my wine as I drank and ate with Sera and Tafia.

The wine is flowing and I am drunk. I guess it worked out, because we can't see anything the Recondites are doing right now, anyway. There's a hedgerow and a mausoleum in the way.

The streets over in War are celebrating the naming of a new Captain. We can hear them singing and laughing. But, the actual barracks and training grounds of the Recondites are dead silent.

I giggle.

"What's funny?" Sera slurs.

"The Recondites are being dead silent, get it?" I snort out a laugh. "It's so funny," I giggle.

"Because we are in a cemetery?" Tafia asks me.

"Yes, and because dead people aren't quiet." I start laughing harder. "They're so noisy!"

It takes me a minute to realize that Sera and Tafia aren't laughing.

I sober up, "does that make me odd?" Tears come into my eyes.

"No! You were already odd!" Tafia hurries to reassure me. She crawls to her knees and cups my face with her palms. "You were already odd," she insists, swaying drunkenly. Alnue finishes pouring the flask into my cup and rolls his eyes at her.

Sera snorts, "ghosts are loud? Shouldn't they be quiet?" She flings her hand out. "They're being quiet. Ghosts, be quiet!" she shouts.

We all start laughing again. This feels nice.

"I'm odd," I say happily. I tilt my head back, closing my eyes, and let the sun warm me.

I am falling asleep when I hear a clatter. I frown, "Mushu, stop making noise."

He hisses softly next to my ear. I force my tired eyelids to open, blinking at the bright sunshine.

Tafia and Sera are curled up, asleep. I smile at the sight of my friends.

"What is it, Moosh?" I ask my gargoyle when he starts tugging on my sleeve. He looks up at me, his ears laid back against his head, orange eyes dull with worry.

I hear a soft grunt, another clatter. The wind picks up, leaving me chilled. I smell the desert, the tombs, the fires of sacrilegious burning.

Fear rips through the alcoholic haze. "What's out there?" I ask him softly.

His eyes are darting around, furtive. "Goddsss," he hisses.

I shake Sera and Tafia awake. "We need to go," I breathe out.

We are all feeling the effects of too much wine, but something in my tone brings both females to their feet almost instantly. Or, maybe, the sense of urgency is from the dark clouds rolling over our perfect summer sky.

"Gods, that a big storm," Tafia mumbles.

A rumble of thunder fills the sky. "Hurry!" Sera shouts. As we start to race towards the temple the skies open up.

Large chunks of ice start to fall. I gasp in horror. A hailstorm heralds disaster for the city. The crops are not done growing, the fields will be damaged if the storm is too large.

Pieces of ice the size of a male's fist start to hit the ground around us.

Into the mausoleum

"Under the hedgerow!" I grab Sera's hand and yank her backward. She shrieks, but doesn't argue, just follows me through the hole under the prickly bushes. The three of us scramble, the only thing saving us from pelting hail is my gargoyles, flying overhead with wings outstretched to shield us.

We race into the building. The only light is from a few small openings and the door. Without sunlight the interior of the mausoleum is dark and gloomy.

I see Alnue holding a flame to a wall sconce. It flairs to life, seemingly by itself. If Sera and Tafia weren't so shaken, they would have noticed a torch lighting itself.

More light is welcome, however, as the sky outside grows darker and the sound of hail hammering the roof grows louder.

Tafia and Sera hug each other in the center of the room, eyes wide. Internally I sigh. So much for friends. They'll never want to see me again after this disaster.

To keep my mind off of my failed friendships, I wander the space. The mausoleum is comprised of this central, circular space, with six antichambers. Three of them are foyers to the outside, and three seem to be burial chambers for exalted Recondites; Captains, maybe. Chewing on my lip, I hug myself and search for Lier's grave. The Recondites buried him privately, so I'm not sure where in here he would be or if he's here at all.

After a few minutes I find him. Or, at least I find the carved stone in a corner of the central chamber. I'm disappointed. There's nothing special about his marker. It's just another stone floor tile, the carving of his name and rank a little more prominent because it hasn't been walked over hundreds of times yet.

"Nateos bless your soul, Lier," I whisper. A tear drops onto his stone, making a perfect circle on the hawk emblem carved next to his name. I quickly wipe off my tears before I can damage it even more.

"Did you know him?" Sera asks me.

I jump, startled. "Not really," I tell her. "He was the last Captain. He died... in the desert. When I was there."

"Oh," she says quietly. She looks at the stone. "Look, the hawk's heart is wet," she says, pointing at my tear.

I follow her finger to the gravestone. My tear does look like it burned through the very heart of the hawk. I shiver as guilt floods me.

Sniffling back more tears, I look up and blink my eyes to keep the tears away. In front of me is a wall hanging. My tears catch in my throat. I recognize the snarling demon. It's the same one from the stone tablet in the library at the temple.

I skim through it quickly, familiar with the tale.

"What does it say?" Tafia asks me.

"It's about the first Recondite," I tell her. "I read it in our library, but this version is a little different."

"Will you read it to us?" Sera asks me quietly. I think they both need a distraction from the raging storm... or maybe it's the dead bodies.

I clear my throat delicately, "The Last of the Recondite Captains. It's a prophecy, I guess," I say. "A male of the Great House is murdered by his kin as an infant and cast down into the Underworld. He is found by a pit viper, the female nursing him with milk and poison until he and his demon are strength unsurpassed. When he is old enough, the demons begin to attack him. One by one they fall. He grows more and more cold and emotionless until the ice in his heart cracks every time it beats. He is the warrior of the gods, but they cannot agree on who he belongs to. All the gods try to claim the warrior as their own, but only one shall succeed. The one who..." my voice trails off. I swallow and continue with a hoarse whisper, "who offers the warrior a way to warm his heart. He will be given a place amongst mortals, to claim his flame as his own."

We are all quiet. "The storm has ended," Tafia offers quietly.

I walk to the door. The ice has piled up to my shins just outside the mausoleum. It looks so bizarre, ice all around in the middle of summer. The storm clouds haven't abated, it is raining heavily, but the hail has stopped. I can hear grief. This storm has taken its victims.

"I need to get back to the temple," I start to say, but Tafia interrupts me.

"The Mother House will be out in the fields."

"The river may flood. The riverbeds are too dry in the summer to handle this amount of rain," Sera adds.

"We need to go help," I make the statement in a firm voice, but inside I'm waiting for my father's approval. I left the temple complex, technically, because the mausoleum is in War. Does that mean that my punishment is over, or was it just an emergency because of the storm?

"They need help," I add. "The Mother House... something has happened." I glance at my gargoyles. Alnue is reading the other wall hangings and carvings, his bat-eyes misty with happiness. Harku is staring at the ice chips that have fallen into the mausoleum with horror that only my clean little beastie would feel about frozen water on the floor.

Mishu, Mushu, and Momo are curled up next to me, for once not up to any mischief. They are eyeing the graves of the dead Recondites as if expecting them to rise from their graves at any moment.

It gives me pause, but no, there are no ghost Captains hovering about.

"Let's go, then," Tafia looks agitated.

We start to hurry from the mausoleum, only to realize that walking through ice isn't the easiest task in the world.

"Do you have any boots and sturdier clothes?" Sera asks doubtfully, eyeing the cloth slippers on my feet.

I understand her scepticism. I don't wear boots anymore thanks to Mishu's little habit. I have them, they're just all tied into knots. My clothes are temple robes and my summer ones are made of light half-silk, soft and airy, but not exactly meant for storms and muddy fields.

"There's no time to get them," I tell her firmly. I'm determined to help. I can hear the lamentations of the Mother House. The whispers are growing louder. War is quiet. So is Death. But the shifters of the Mother are mourning someone, maybe more than one someone.

Help him... Please help

"Alright, well, we can't crawl back under the hedgerow," Sera says, taking charge of our little group. "So let's head towards the gate. If we see a Recondite, well, I don't know what..."

"We'll blame Mara," Tafia says with a faint smile, "the Recondites are all intimidated by her."

She and Sera both snicker.

"Let's just hurry," I don't mean to snap, but the low laments of mourning are climbing, becoming a keening wail.

Please hurry... oh gods.... Lady help him

The two females don't react to my tone except to pick up the pace as we carefully skirt under overhangs and over cobblestone paths to the far eastern gate of Recondite barracks. It is only a few hundred feet away, but it takes a long time until we finally reach it.

"It's not locked," Sera says with relief. Of course it's not locked, who is stupid enough to break into the Recondite's barracks? Just us, I imagine.

We walk out into the neighborhood of War to see organized chaos. At least two homes on this street have had their roofs cave in from the ice. Lines of shifters are hurrying to move those family's possessions out of the damaged apartments before the rain ruins them. Others are cleaning up damaged tiles, broken items, throwing them into a couple of wagons hitched nearby.

I worry my fingers, the digits twitching with the urge to move faster through the icy mud. The street is beginning to flood, soaking through my thin slippers instantly.

No... Help him... no! No! Lady help him!

I grit my teeth, silently willing my legs to move faster through the thick, slippery muck. My heart is beating too fast. Even with my gargoyles helping to pull me through I can't go fast enough.

When we finally make it out of War and into Death we find the streets much the same. Fewer buildings are damaged here. Death neighborhoods are built more from stone than clay brick. The apartments have withstood the damaging storm better.

"Our apartment is there. It looks undamaged," Tafia points out. I glance over, but the apartment is hazy through the rain.

No! No! No! Help him!

"We should stop and get you some good shoes and a cloak... Mara? Mara!"

I don't stop when Sera and Tafia call for me. A feeling is welling up in my chest. The grief is shrieking in my ears, fearful. I have never felt fear like this mixed with grief before. Something in that frightened ululation yanks me towards it. I can't stop.

At the edge of the Mother neighborhood my feet stumble. I hear masculine shouts, see winged beasts flying overhead that dwarf my own gargoyles. The chaos here is not the organized action of before. This is a disaster. I move faster, my feet slipping in the mud, through streets I know to territory that is unfamiliar to me.

The houses here are packed together, precariously leaning over alleyways barely wide enough to fit a wagon through. Damage to these buildings is nothing new, some of them look uninhabitable, but I see eyes peering out at me, shifter eyes, skinwalker eyes, scurrying away from the drenched 'lady' like rats in the dark.

A distant part of me recognizes the danger I'm in. This is the section of the city that I'm not supposed to be in. The slums that small Acera females don't venture into unless they are making their living on their backs. My gargoyles are hovering, hissing and spitting in fury at every pair of eyes that peer at me.

Please hurry, Lady! Hurry... help him!

My breath is seizing in my chest. The desperation in that prayerful wail is being matched by words being screamed from a shack just in front of me. I think I've lost Tafia and Sera, but I can't pause to look behind me.

My lungs are burning from my trek through the city. I cough, the sensation getting caught in my throat from lack of air. Gasping, I wade into water up to my knees. The shack is perched at the edge of the river, sliding... sliding... it's being swallowed by the Euphrates. Buildings just to the left and right have already given up the fight to the mighty river, all that remains are broken pieces of the former inhabitants lives littered in the floodwaters.

I fall into the one-room shanty. Inside the water is nearly waist-deep. In the corner I see a male, pinned under a fallen beam. The water is nearly over his head. In his arms are two babes. A female her eyes wide in terror. She is helping the male, who I assume is her father, hold a small newborn with wings curling from her back.

Nearby is the body of a female, facedown in the water, partially crushed under rubble.

The male's eyes widen on me. Sorrow flickers across his face. "Nateos," he whispers. He glances down at his children and his face falls as if they are already dead to this world. "Do not take my children, Lady. Please," he begs me.

"I have to save him," my words echo, as if from far away.

"Please help my pa, Lady. Please," the girl pleads with me.

I take a step into the room. The male tries to get up, but his leg, I see now, is pierced through. I lack the strength to move it. I know that much. Father, what do I do?

He will help you

I take another step into the tiny house. It slides, boards breaking and stone crumbling into the water with a splash as it's foundation shifts. The male's head is dunked under water. The female child screams, clutching her infant sibling in one hand and her father's hand in the other.

I scream, too, a sound that rips from my throat in a voice louder than any I've produced in months and months... since that night broke my voice.

"Help!" I cry. My words suddenly echo the grief-stricken female's whose lament pulled me here. "Please help!"

The roof caves in. No, it explodes, torn away as if by the gods themselves. All I see is a shadow, colorful demons dancing as muscle flexes, black leather wings... I smell the desert again.

Rain pours through the roof. The shanty groans as if a living creature, giving up to the river trying to claim it.

"Help them," I whisper to the demon. Warm steel bands wrap around me, making me shiver at the contrast of heat and cold in our flesh. I look up to plea again with my savior.

My flesh grows cold. The sounds of the shanty being devoured by the river and the young female's pleas for help are drowned out by the shrieking of my soul as I stare into Thane's grey eyes.