Chapter Eleven

The royal granaries, it turned out, were among the worst places hit by the destruction that Naratha and Darius' battle had wrought. As the guards escorted her through the wreckage, Tanitha couldn't keep the astonished dismay from her face. The stone walls of the buildings had been reduced to rubble, few pieces larger than her fist remaining, and literal dunes of millet, wheat, and chickpea had spilled out. The grains shifted underfoot like sand at low tide. Lines of human workers were hurriedly bagging the grain and carrying the sacks to carts, but the mountains of grain loomed impossibly tall regardless.

As they rounded a corner— or the scorched timbers and broken stone that remained of one, at least— Naratha and two other demons came into view, deep in discussion. Tanitha recognized one of them, a female demon by the name of Hathia. She was a stern-faced woman of middling height, with wings of a deep violet that faded to pale lavender at the tips, reminiscent of the sky at dusk. Tanitha had never had direct dealings with her, but she had seen her when passing by one of the open forums where low-ranking subjects could air grievances. The other, a male demon with wings that shone like silver, had to be Torius, the other arbiter Naratha had mentioned earlier.

"Ah, Tanitha," Naratha said as Tanitha and the guards approached. She gave a careless wave of one hand, dismissing the guards, who immediately turned away. Naratha's tone was pleasant— unnervingly so— but her gaze had lost none of the chill it had held earlier.

"I've just been speaking with Arbiters Torius and Hathia," she said. "They were of course surprised to hear the truth of the rumors regarding Prince Darius' choice in a bride, but they have nonetheless agreed to serve as judges in your Trials." Tanitha's brow furrowed briefly. She wasn't an expert on the traditions that surrounded the Trials, but she was fairly certain that there were typically three demons assigned to judge success, not two.

"We are honored to have been chosen for such an illustrious event," Torius said with a diplomatic nod, though Tanitha caught more than a hint of perplexity and doubt in his gaze when he looked at her. Hathia, for her part, wasn't bothering to hide those emotions and was looking Tanitha over with outright skepticism.

Tanitha kept her hands where they were despite a sudden intense urge to smooth out her hair and straighten her clothes. She was still wearing the tattered dress she had been wearing when she'd surrendered herself. For a moment, she wondered why Naratha was putting so little effort into lending any credence to the story that was being told, then just as quickly understood with a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. Whatever Naratha was about to task Tanitha with, she was certain Tanitha would fail. There was little point to bothering with additional verisimilitude.

"You're familiar with Karazhen's food storage policies?" Naratha asked Tanitha.

Warily, Tanitha nodded. With her experience monitoring the tithes given to the Sanctuary, she did have some familiarity with what was done with excess crops, as well as the times when the policies had proven their value. For instance, some twenty years previous, Sabria had laid siege to the city of Karazhen as part of a multi-pronged offensive to bring down the demon-ruled lands. It hadn't been a siege in the traditional sense of the word; more of a concentrated blockade against any trade ships. They'd also managed to set fire to some of the vast grain fields to the south of the city. It was said the smoke had choked the city for days.

Tanitha had always hated listening to the stories of that time; there were too many similarities to what she and Lithra had experienced on the streets of Spaudia. But unlike Spaudia, nobody here had starved, and despite the fear of what might happen if Sabria's forces reached their walls, the city had remained orderly. Karazhen's rulers, understanding the vulnerability that came with their dependence on the sea and trade, had been prepared for such an event. They'd opened the warehouses and storage facilities, distributing grains to the people. The rations had been small, and most people had needed to tighten their belts quite literally, but no one had starved during the conflict.

"The granaries are meant to be able to feed the whole of the city for a month," Tanitha said, in response to Naratha's question.

"Three months," Naratha corrected her. "Six, if times are desperate and rations reduced accordingly." Tanitha looked at her in surprise, her mind whirring as she tried to tally the sheer volume of grain that implied. "We expanded our storage capabilities after the last serious altercation with Sabria. Not that we want that fact advertised," she added. "We prefer our enemies to underestimate our resources as much as possible. We have vaults in the mountains in addition to the three main granaries of the city itself. Of those," she said, motioning to the wreckage around them, "these are the largest and most important. Unfortunately…" She trailed off, and for the first time in the conversation, there was a hint of her true feelings for Tanitha in her gaze, though it lasted only for a second. "Unfortunately, two nights ago, some damage occurred here," she said. Tanitha looked around, almost as aghast at the sheer level of understatement as at the damage itself. "I've obviously had other concerns demanding my attention, but this is an important matter. Removing the fear of starvation from the city is a matter worthy of a Trial."

Tanitha blinked. "What is it exactly that you want me to do?" she asked, trying not to let her growing apprehension sound in the words.

"Preserve the grain," Naratha said, her voice implacable and calm.

Tanitha stared at her, stunned. How was that even possible? Was it even possible? Exposed to sun and the damp sea breeze, some of the grain was likely already spoiling, and the rot would spread quickly. Tanitha looked at the people hastily scooping what they could into sacks and barrels. It wasn't enough, she realized, her heart sinking. Much of it would be lost by the time it could all be bagged and transported somewhere safe from the elements. Not to mention the matter of sorting, she thought despairingly, looking at the areas where the dunes of different grain met and mixed.

"How?" Tanitha asked, utterly bewildered.

"Torius and Hathia are both familiar with the details of what must be done, but as to how it can be accomplished… that is purely your decision. You may ask them for information, but not for aid." She turned to the two other demons. "A moment, please. I'd like to give my son's chosen bride a few words of encouragement."

Both demons withdrew several paces, moving out of earshot. Naratha turned to Tanitha.

"How, precisely, does setting me to an impossible task prove anything to anyone?" Tanitha demanded before Naratha could speak. "This will only demonstrate that you are not interested in honoring Darius' wishes!"

"I personally can think of at least three ways you might accomplish this, one of them quite obvious," Naratha said, her gaze straying briefly to the line of workers bagging the grain. "If— or when — you fail, it is not because of foul play on my part." She looked back at Tanitha, who was trying and failing to keep her incredulity from her face. "Hathia and Torius have been told only what others know of this situation," Naratha said. "That Darius chose you, and that you are to be allowed to complete the Trials accordingly. They do not know what led to this, and it will remain that way. One word from you to them or anyone else about Darius' current condition , and I will have you torn apart."

Tanitha suddenly felt weak in the knees. Naratha regarded her coldly for a moment, then gestured to the ruins. Was it Tanitha's imagination, or did her nails look sharper, more clawlike, than they had moments before?

"Solve this, if you can," Naratha said dismissively. With that, she spread her wings. One mighty flap launched her upward, the sound loud enough that Tanitha jumped, startled despite herself.

Tanitha took a deep breath, refusing to let her gaze follow Naratha's departure, then turned to the other two demons. Both watched her with eyes that gave a faint eerie glow in the firelight of the torches and lamps, like lions or jackals. It occurred to her with more than a small stirring of discomfort that either of those options might have been preferable.

"Where is the grain being taken?" she asked, forcing her voice to remain level and calm. The two glanced at each other, clearly still skeptical.

"The only space that can contain all of this while the granaries are rebuilt is the vaults in the mountains," said Hathia. "But…"

"It's the matter of transportation that's truly problematic," said Torius. "We don't have the vessels to contain large amounts of grain. We've been rotating them, delivering what we do have to the vaults and then bringing the vessels and bags back to do it again. But…" he shrugged, "… clay vessels break. Bags fray and split. We've put out a call for more from every quarter of the city, and that's yielded some results, but it isn't going to be enough. We estimate that we can only expect to save about a quarter of this before rot and exposure makes the rest unsalvageable, barring extraordinary measures."

"Extraordinary measures?" Tanitha asked. "Such as…?"

He looked her over. "Such as bringing someone with remarkable abilities into the equation," he answered. "Which I believe was requested yesterday, but it's been clear enough that other matters have commanded Her Majesty's attention."

Tanitha ignored the hint of a question in his voice, Naratha's threat regarding Tanitha's silence on certain subjects still quite prominent in her mind.

"Indeed," she said, keeping her tone bland. "And what happens if that much grain is lost?"

"Escalating grain prices in the city coinciding with reduced portions for the needy, and the possibility of additional unrest as rumors spread that the royal house might not be able to provide adequate food in the case of emergencies like famine or siege," he said promptly. Tanitha bit her lip, her mind flashing back to Spaudia, to what happened when people started fearing starvation.

The demon looked thoughtful. "Although Alethia of Zharen might have mitigated the possibility of that last one," he added.

Tanitha frowned. Alethia had mitigated the possibility of siege? "How so?" she asked.

"Well, she's capable of maintaining a large leviathan form," he said casually. Tanitha tried not to stare as she belatedly remembered Darius telling her about that; she hadn't made the connection until that moment of exactly how strong the demon who'd been sent to kill her was. Oblivious to her discomfiture, Torius continued, "Having someone that powerful in the area does quite a bit to reduce people's anxiety about sieges and the like, especially when it seems Sabria is inclined to be aggressive." He eyed her. "With all due respect, when we were summoned as judges for Trials, I rather expected that she would be standing where you are right now."

Tanitha hated the fact that she agreed, but she kept both frustration and despair from her face. "With all due respect to you, I'm uncertain what good a sea serpent would do in moving mountains of wheat and millet," she said calmly, though she knew implying that a lone human girl could possibly be any more use was absurd. "Excuse me for a few moments. I need to think."

She turned away from the two demons, walking slowly along the border of one of the hulking dunes of millet. All around, workers scurried to and fro, gathering grain into sacks and lifting them into carts. Gods, what was she supposed to do?

At that moment, a vivid blue damselfly zipped by, then abruptly transformed into none other than Alethia of Zharen.

Tanitha leapt back, her heart stuttering violently. Alethia looked exactly as she had that day outside Darius' Hold, practically radiating strength. And though there was no outright malice in her gaze at that moment, Tanitha didn't doubt that could change as quickly as the demon could shift form.

"There's no need to look so frightened," Alethia said with a light chuckle. "You're practically a public figure now. I can't do anything to you. Not directly, at least." Tanitha swallowed, her heart still racing. What on earth was Alethia of all people doing here?

Alethia lifted herself with easy grace to sit on one of the stone blocks that had once been part of the granary's wall. "So," she said, looking around. "I understand this is one of your Trials."

"So it would seem," Tanitha said, trying to keep her voice level as she looked over the damage, keeping her gaze deliberately away from Alethia, and very much clinging to what the demon woman had said a moment previous about not being able to harm her here. She hadn't forgotten the way Alethia had looked at her the moment they'd stood across from each other at Darius' Hold. Alethia's gaze had lost its predatory focus, but the way she was looking at Tanitha now— with cold amusement— was scarcely any better.

"Interesting," Alethia said, leaning back on the heel of one hand. She looked dispassionately around, then asked, "How do you plan to handle this, exactly?"

"I'm considering my options," Tanitha said, keeping her voice equally neutral. Showing fear wasn't any wiser at that moment then it had been the first time she'd met this woman. "Is there something I can help you with, my lady?"

Alethia's eyebrows flicked up in surprise, but then she smiled. It was a chilling expression. "Her Majesty didn't tell you?" she asked, her tone deceptively light. Tanitha watched her warily. "I've been tasked with leading the arbitration of these Trials," Alethia said. "I will be making the ultimate determination regarding whether or not you are successful at each of them."

Tanitha's throat seized. "I'm sorry?" she managed. "You— you are in charge of monitoring these Trials?"

"I am." There was a catlike satisfaction in Alethia's gaze, the sort of expression that Tanitha would have normally found infuriating if it hadn't held such a promise of pain.

Tanitha swallowed. "But… you had no input into what the Trial would be," she said, remembering Alethia's apparent surprise when she'd seen the task to which Tanitha had been set.

"That's true," Alethia said lightly. "Of this one, anyway." She pushed a wave of dark hair back from her face, the motion both casual and effortlessly elegant. "We'll see if I have the opportunity moving forward."

Tanitha suspected that Alethia was hinting more at the possibility of Tanitha failing and no more Trials occurring than at a possibility that Naratha might not allow her further influence than she'd already been granted. She tried to dismiss the thought, to little avail.

"So," Alethia said. "What is your plan for this? It's not as dangerous as Trials often are— we'll have to see if that can be remediated moving forward— but it does seem to be an appropriate level of difficulty." She tilted her head in mock consideration. "Most demons would find this very difficult," she mused. "I wonder how a human might manage."

Tanitha bit the inside of her cheek, not sure if she'd ever experienced such a peculiar blend of annoyance and dread. "Oh?" she asked, forcing her tone to remain polite despite the warring emotions. "And how might a demon decide to address this?"

Alethia chuckled. "I won't be answering that sort of question," she said. "We wouldn't want anyone to think you'd received undue assistance, after all. Especially not from your arbitrator."

Tanitha pursed her lips. "That's true, of course," she said, her tone still perfectly courteous. "I wouldn't want to put either of us in an awkward position, and I certainly wouldn't want anyone to question if there might be a conflict of interest here." Alethia raised an eyebrow, and Tanitha couldn't help but let a hint of irritation creep into her voice as she continued, "In fact, since you are arbitrating, my lady, we probably shouldn't be conversing at all." With that, she turned on heel and began to walk away, her movements tight and clipped. Alethia didn't respond, but Tanitha could still feel her eyes on her back as she walked.

About thirty paces later, she stopped, looking over the dunes of grain. Workers were still scooping it into bags, but it clearly wasn't going to be enough. Tanitha leaned against a scorched timber, biting the inside of her cheek. Was this task actually impossible? Or was there some solution, something that would be obvious to a demon? Was this just to illustrate that she was too much a human to be considered as Darius' bride?

Her heart ached at that thought. Bride… She knew what she wanted. She knew who she wanted. But did he truly want her in return? Or was this, as Naratha had said, purely a matter of politics? A way to cover the compromised position that Tanitha had put him in? If she somehow succeeded, was she in reality only binding him against his will, and this time, tighter than she already had?

She put the thought away firmly. Right now, it didn't matter. Because if she didn't succeed, if she didn't pass this Trial, she would never have an opportunity to find out. She'd never even be able to speak with him, most likely. She'd return to her cell, waiting until the day Naratha's questionable mercy expired.

She took a stiff breath. That wasn't going to happen. Alethia had said this would be difficult for a demon, which seemed to imply that she'd already thought of at least one way someone powerful could address it. As had Naratha, apparently. Tanitha had no idea if she actually was powerful enough to do anything about this, but she wasn't going to sit here and be stymied by lack of ideas.

Motion caught the corner of her vision, and she glanced up to see a black and grey bird— a scald-crow— swooping down. An instant later, it transformed, and she jumped violently, hand over her heart at Prince Kaion's sudden appearance.

"Tanitha?" he asked, clearly confused. He looked her over, then scanned the scene. "What… what are you doing here?"

Tanitha bit her lip. He'd told her himself that she shouldn't trust him, but the fact of the matter was that she had perilously few allies.

"Queen Naratha offered to renegotiate terms," she said, keeping her voice low. Kaion looked at her, an edge of discomfiture coloring his expression. "I'm to complete the Trials traditional to a prospective bride."

He stared at her for several seconds. "You agreed to that?" he asked, his voice strained.

"It seemed a better option than sitting in a cell counting the days until my execution," Tanitha said, barely audible. He took a step back, clearly aghast. Tanitha gestured broadly, encompassing the destruction around them. "I'm to preserve the grain," she said, fighting to keep any hint of how crushingly impossible the task felt from sounding in her voice. She nodded toward Alethia, who was observing them from her position some thirty paces away. "Lady Alethia is arbitrating, apparently."

" Alethia is arbitrating ?" He followed her gaze, then visibly paled as he turned back to her. "Ashen Halls," he muttered. "You're even worse than Darius. The moment I turn my back, you decide to… Depths of the Abyss, you agreed to the Trials ?" he demanded.

Tanitha tried not to look annoyed. "I did, and I need to concentrate so I can decide how to address this one," she said, trying to keep her tone from going curt, with limited success.

He put a hand to his forehead. "Gods," he muttered. "It's like you prefer the idea of a creative death." He abruptly turned away, which was just as well, since Tanitha didn't have any reply to that statement. "Listen, just… play for time, all right? I'm going to see if I can put a stop to this."

"Why?" Tanitha demanded. "So that I can just go back to my cell and then be quietly disposed of?"

"Because my brother will never forgive me if I don't," he shot back. Tanitha's heart lifted at that, but she kept the rise of hope from her face. "Just don't do anything foolhardy for a few minutes. If your intention to do this hasn't been formally announced to the public I might be able to stop this. Can you do that?" he asked. "Avoid being foolhardy? Because if you're as much like Darius as I'm starting to think…"

"It's not foolhardy to take a risk when the alternative is death," Tanitha said flatly.

He made a face. "That's a ‘no,' then," he muttered. With that, he turned toward Alethia, walking toward her purposefully.

Tanitha kept the pair of demons in her peripheral vision as she turned back to the task at hand. They appeared to be having a spirited discussion— or at least, Kaion was. Alethia, for her part, was sitting languidly with one arm braced behind herself, as if she hadn't the slightest care in the world.

Tanitha pursed her lips, determined not to give Alethia one more second of her attention. The demon woman would have killed her already if it had been an option. The fact that she hadn't yet meant she was not, at this moment, a threat to Tanitha. Not beyond serving as a distraction when the task was already impossible.

She twisted her hands together, gripping them tightly. Literal mountains of grain, threatened by spoilage and an ever-dwindling amount of time. Prince Kaion had told her not to do anything foolhardy, but what did that even mean? Her only real asset was soul-speaking, and what possible application did that have here? She could have pulled her hair out. Alethia had said the task was difficult, and Kaion seemed to think that it might be dangerous to her somehow, but what could she do that demons would shy at?

An answer suddenly struck her, and a chill ran over her as she glanced at the lines of workers, some of them rolling barrels toward the carts waiting to transport them. One of the reasons that human soul-speakers were so sought after was the fact that demons were very loath to use their abilities directly on their subjects. Darius had explained it to her once; overt methods of control, he'd said, were a sure way to build resentment and hatred. And so the demons typically stayed their hands, preferring to be seen as at least primarily benevolent. Despite how strange it might seem to Tanitha, the demons truly did see their position in the world as precarious. The situation's urgency notwithstanding, Naratha wouldn't instruct her demons to simply force human hands to the task of preserving the grain. Tanitha frowned, considering. This situation, though serious, wasn't so dire that any demon would risk doing that. But Tanitha was not a demon.

Was it even an option, though? Putting aside the revulsion she felt at the idea of outright puppeteering other humans, could she even do it? Gently nudging people's minds such that they didn't notice her passage was one thing; actively controlling their motions as she'd previously done with birds and insects was quite another. Humans were complicated beings, and they tended to fight against outright control, at least according to the scrolls she'd read on the subject. Not to mention the sheer number she'd need to make a difference…

She suddenly went still. Sheer numbers…

She whirled on heel, then bolted over to Hathia and Torius. Alethia, who hadn't moved from her perch, watched but did not intervene.

"I need a map," Tanitha said, breathing quickly. They looked at her, perplexed. "I need to see where all this is going," she said, motioning first to the grain, then to the carts. "Quickly, please."

They glanced at each other, and then Hathia shrugged. She knelt at the edge of one of the dunes of spilled millet, flattening a section with one hand. Then, she began to sketch lines with one finger in the grain.

"This is Karazhen," she said, marking out a half-circle abutting a shoreline that was roughly rendered but nonetheless immediately recognizable as belonging to the Akkenthian Sea. "The Ankara Mountains, and their foothills," she continued as she drew. She marked a dot, then drew a winding road leading from Karazhen to the foothills of the mountains. "That's the vault." She looked up to meet Tanitha's eyes as she stood, her expression polite, though the faint edge of skepticism in her gaze still lingered. "Does that serve?" she asked. "Or do you need a more precise representation?"

"How far is it by cart?" Tanitha asked.

"About four miles beyond the city gates."

"And as the crow flies?" Tanitha asked, her heart still beating hard. Gods, this was foolhardy, but if she could make it work…

The two glanced at each other. "Perhaps just under three?" said Torius.

Tanitha clasped her hands together tightly. She didn't know the outer limit of her own range; she'd never had the opportunity to test it in a way that allowed her to also measure it. A mile didn't sound outside the realm of possibility, but she was far less certain of anything beyond that. Even if she could get to that midpoint, with a mile and a half in either direction, it was too much for what she'd been considering. But… there was nothing that said she needed to remain in one place.

"With respect," Hathia said, "This matter is growing more urgent. Might I ask that you make your attempt quickly? Or…" She trailed off, but the unsaid words— that Tanitha should admit defeat and thus allow someone else to address this— hung in the air.

Tanitha ignored the implication. "I am going to need to be taken to the vaults," she said.

"Apologies, but you'll need to arrange that yourself," Torius said. Hathia nodded agreement. "Direct aid is forbidden in a Trial."

Tanitha bit the inside of her lip in frustration, then glanced toward where she'd last seen Alethia and Kaion arguing. Neither were anywhere to be seen, but while she doubted Alethia had actually left, Kaion had probably gone to speak with Naratha. And since his stated goal was to stop her from doing these Trials, she needed to move quickly. What was it he'd said? If her intention to complete these hadn't been announced, perhaps he could put a stop to them?

Which meant that the easiest way to make sure he couldn't do that was to make what she was doing very obvious to a large number of people.

Without one further word, she sat down cross-legged on the cool stone ground. She pulled her sash from her waist. Both demons looked at her curiously, but she ignored them as she tied it over her eyes as a blindfold. Darkness had been her enemy for long enough, but it could also be a tool. If she couldn't see the enormity of the task, perhaps she'd better be able to persuade herself that it was possible.

She took several deep breaths, centering herself. She could do this, she thought. She could help this city, help Darius, and save herself. She just had to lean on her own strength.

No… She just had to stretch that same strength further than she'd ever even considered attempting before.

She let her awareness wash outward. As before, thousands of minds assailed her, the awareness suddenly far too much. She retracted for a second, taking several deep breaths, then tried again.

This time she consciously ignored the brightest sparks against the sea of darkness, the complex blazes of human and demon minds, searching for smaller pinpricks of light. She found them soon enough, and once she'd identified them, it was that much easier to find more, to focus exclusively on the small, simple consciousnesses she needed. She felt their attention on her as she delicately hooked her intentions into their minds, first one at a time, then in larger and larger groups as she found collections of them gathered together. She felt her concentration slipping slightly with the effort of keeping so many under her sway, and she reluctantly released the final handful. Extending herself to the maximum number wouldn't do her any good if she lost precision and control.

"What's she doing?" Hathia asked in a murmur. Tanitha barely registered the words, her mind feeling hazy with the number of directions that her thoughts were being pulled.

"Soul-speaking," Torius replied, sounding puzzled. "I think— she's either not using very much power, or she's subtle. But I can't tell who she's targeting. Or why."

Tanitha ignored them, gently tugging on the lines of intention she'd formed between herself and her targets to ensure they were securely in place. This done, she took a deep breath and solidified her instruction, her command to what must be thousands of tiny minds. Her hands gripped the fabric of her skirts as she focused her intentions. Then, she pulled.

For a moment, there was nothing. Then, a strange, distant hum sounded on the air. Tanitha vaguely sensed a shift in the attention of the nearby demons as they turned away from her, perplexed, but she ignored it, keeping her mind tightly focused on the task at hand.

The task of directing thousands of sparrows.

"Ashen Halls," Torius muttered. "Look."

Tanitha didn't need to remove her blindfold to know what they were seeing; she could see the approaching haze of chaos in her mind's eye. A vast murmuration of birds, an undulating cloud of them swarming toward the granaries from all quarters of the city.

" She's doing that?" whispered Hathia.

Tanitha staggered to her feet, feeling strangely disconnected from her own body as she wrenched the blindfold free. Still, she managed an uncoordinated dash to one of the empty carts awaiting sacks of grain. The driver was staring upward, murmuring a half-awed, half-frightened prayer to the gods.

She swung herself up beside him, clutching the edge of the seat to stop herself from swaying. Most of her focus was still tied up with controlling the birds, whose cries and chirps filled the air. The cloud of them swarmed above the granary in a vast swirling dome, and Tanitha had to try to speak twice before she managed the words she intended.

"The vaults," she said loudly, and the driver jolted, apparently having just noticed her. "I need you to take me to the grain vaults, now ."

"Do as she says, man," Torius barked when the driver balked in apparent confusion. Without a further second's delay, the driver seized the reins, and the cart lurched forward.

Relieved, Tanitha closed her eyes. Then, she returned her focus fully to the birds.

Carry , she thought, picking a swath of the cloud of birds above to follow the initial instruction, leaving the rest to continue their circle for a few moments more. Carry and follow .

She felt it when the birds angled their wings down, as they swooped toward the mountain of grain. She directed them exclusively toward the wheat, leaving the millet and chickpea for now. She felt it as they scooped up several grains each, as they turned their wings upward to rejoin the murmuration. She repeated the process through the entire swarm of birds, then set them to circling above the cart as the horses pulled it at a fast trot.

The murmuration was so dense Tanitha couldn't feel the warmth of the rising sun on her skin, couldn't hear any of her surroundings for the collective roar of thousands of wings. She barely had any sense of herself, of anything beyond the immense flock she was commanding. She had no sense of time or of its passage, completely immersed in her mind's enmeshment with the birds above her. After a time, it seemed more as if she was the flock of birds, as if her heart was beating in time with the movements of the flock, as if the swaying of her body matched the undulating waves of the avian cloud above.

After an interminable length of time, the horses came to a sudden stop, snorting loudly. The sound barely registered to Tanitha, even less somehow than the feeling of a hand on her arm, shaking her roughly. She opened her eyes blearily.

"Lady Tanitha!" Tanitha looked at the interloper, puzzled. Demon, someone she knew… yes, one of the demons from the granary. Hathia, she remembered abruptly, the name finally coming back to mind.

"We've arrived," Hathia said. She pointed ahead. "Look, the vaults."

Tanitha followed the line of the demon's gesture. Indeed, they were only a few hundred feet from massive doors of granite, already ajar wide enough for a cart to pass. Though it had to have been well past sunrise already, the world around her was dark and grey. She wasn't sure if that was from the swarming cloud of birds that still circled above, or from her own exhaustion.

Tanitha swallowed, then nodded. She closed her eyes once more.

There was some resistance from the birds— swooping down to collect grain was well within their normal behavior, as was flying itself, but this? Flying in a swarm into a confined passageway was against their nature, and surrendering the food they carried in their beaks all this way even more so. And so Tanitha pushed harder, overriding the birds' instincts. She kept her eyes firmly closed, feeling herself sway in her seat. She directed wave after wave of the birds in and out of the granary vaults, sending them to drop their tiny yet precious cargo into the bins, grain by grain.

She opened her eyes just as she sent the last group in. "How… how much was that?" she managed, still keeping a tenuous hold on the remainder of the birds, feeding them loose instructions to hold to the pattern of circling her in an enormous loop. She finally managed to look at the demon, whose name had once again slipped from her mind. "How much of the grain did we just save?"

"About a quarter of the total amount, I'd estimate," Hathia said, more than a hint of anxiety in her gaze as she looked Tanitha over.

Tanitha closed her eyes. Gods, a quarter… that meant she had to repeat this feat three more times.

She returned her focus to the birds, this time sharpening her intention to one simple, easy command. Return, she thought, turning her gaze back to the city of Karazhen. The cloud of birds above roiled with the change in direction as the flock wheeled and soared back toward the city. She loosened her hold on them, keeping only the most tenuous connection so as to allow herself a moment's rest. Three more times… she could do it. She'd manage. Somehow.

"Take me back," she said, to the driver, fighting to contain the tremble in her voice. "Back to the city." She straightened, determinedly ignoring the look of apprehension Hathia was still giving her; she had the strangest sense that the demon's anxiety was on Tanitha's own behalf, and she couldn't allow herself to consider what that might imply. Gritting her teeth, she forced her shoulders back. If Naratha wanted a show of strength, she would have it.

"Take me back to the city," she repeated. "We'll return, and then we'll do it again."

The second round passed much in the way of the first. She kept her focus purely on the sparrows, her eyes closed against the world around her. She barely even noticed when they finished, when they began to return to the city for the second time. People were speaking around her, but the words seemed empty, as meaningless as the repeated barking of a dog. Her mind was elsewhere, entirely enmeshed with the flock, with flight, with the carrying of grain.

Seconds, minutes, hours… they melted together, passing somehow slowly and yet all at once, each increment of time the same as the next, indistinguishable as they stretched on to form an eternity. She just kept flying, kept up the steady hum of her wings as she transported wheat grain by grain.

Something grabbed her shoulder, and she lurched, skittering sideways in an attempt to flutter away before suddenly noticing how utterly wrong her body felt. How her feet were pressed firmly against the earth— when had she left the cart?— how her wings were not wings at all, but featherless arms that ended in hands, their shape strange and foreign. Her heartrate spiked with fear, and she opened her eyes, confused.

The person shaking her shoulders roughly was familiar to her, but she couldn't bring a name to mind. She tried to extricate her mind from the soaring place of flight where it seemed desperate to remain. She shoved herself back a pace from the demon lord— no, not lord. Prince. Prince Kaion.

"Tanitha!" he was saying loudly, almost shouting. "It's enough. It's enough. You did it. Let go of the flock." She looked at him, uncomprehending, and he swore. "Tanitha, let go, " he said urgently. "It's done."

She blinked several times. "Done?" she asked. Her voice sounded wrong somehow, strange and unfamiliar to her own ear.

"Yes. By the Awakened One, woman, get back in your own head. Stop. You did it."

Done… Tanitha could barely grasp the meaning of the word, and even once she'd managed that much, she couldn't see the sense of what he was saying. There was flight and freedom here. Safety from all that threatened her, a means of escaping the stone cell that awaited her. A means of getting away from the thousands of other traps. She could just keep flying.

She could leave all this behind. But she would never see Darius again.

The thought jolted her, and her breath caught. She finally looked up to meet Prince Kaion's gaze. "It's… truly done?" she asked.

"Yes," he said again. He shook his head. "You've a special kind of madness to you, do you know that?"

She didn't think madness was the right word. It didn't seem to encapsulate the strange floating sensation that she felt, the growing sense that she wasn't truly connected to her own body. But… she'd succeeded. It was done.

She tried to say something, but she couldn't seem to form words. Her eyes flickered shut, and the last thing she felt was a falling sensation as awareness fled from her.