Kassandora stared up at Waeh, her eyes went to the horizon. Over the dunes in the distance, a line had appeared. A line of gold and silver glimmering in the Sun. An army. Anassa could not e here fast enough.

  “I’m sending Raptor Two to HQ then.” Kavaa said quickly. “Do you wahere?”

  “No, I’ll get him, you get someone else. Kassandora said anything or anyone.” Anassa replied into her telephone. “Uood? I won’t be answer when I travel, if you find something then-“ Anassa blinked as Kavaa’s smooth voice actually interrupted her.

  “I uand Anassa.” Kavaa said promptly. “I’ll go myself.” The Goddess of Health dropped the call. At any other time, it would have annoyed Anassa, not now. She put her phoo the pocket of her dress and took a step.

  The ndscape fshed underh her. The sandy mountain range of tral Kirinyaa, with its odd tree and brambles and road. Skies above. A mile gone just like that. Anassa took aep. More mountains underh, jagged cliffs between by winds of like coiling silken scarves that swept in from the east.

  And aep. Anassa fshed across the blue sky. Appearing for a mere instant, a blink. A tiny little dot in the blue sky as she took a step. A matter of perspective it was, a molehill was a mountain for the ant. But at the end of the day, Anassa was ner than the world, there was no camera to make her realise its tiny scale. If the world was an ant, then she was a bacteria, she was of Arda, and Arda could not be reasoned into being small.

  And Anassa started to run. Not the light jog that dignified nobility but the ferocious sprint of a fleeing dog. She didn’t look below herself as the ndscape fshed with every step. From sandstone mountain to green juerspersed with rivers and streams. A spttered cobweb of blue water in a sea of green.

  Animals stopped as they looked up at the Goddess of Sorcery fsh above them. Hunters blinked in fusion as they saw Anassa fsh in the distahen in the oasis of blue sky right above them, then disappear as she took yet another frantic step. Children in odd vilges pointed curious fingers and talked about ghosts and spirits of folktales as they looked at the person up above cross the sky in the fsh of an eye.

  And Anassa kept running. She kept running as sweat burst out over her dress, she kept running as her legs started to shake. She kept running as she felt the exertion of sorcery hit her. To cross a try in a day was a mere walk. To cross a try in an hour was a feat even she was barely capable. She pushed the tiredness away, she drew out a reserves of magic that had been untapped. Strength that owered by adrenaline and panistead of thought and will.

  And Anassa kept running. Cold air rushed past her as the grand jungles gave way to the prairies even further south. Farms started popping up over the ground. Signs of civilization became on. She passed over a highway filled with trucks heading north east. She passed over cars and small towns. A rge city, a blemish of pale sandstone and crete on the red dirt and the nd around it, was cleared in five steps.

  Kassandora k unmoving as she looked up at Waeh. The man was looking around. Her neighb divisions would not e fast enough. They were miles away, tanize a unit like that, to outfit the men, to load them into trucks. An hour. An hour easily.

  She did not have an hour here. Waeh looked around curiously at Kassandora’s troop, each man kneeling. Those with ons had dropped or holstered them. And then he looked at Kassandora. He took a step towards her. “You may speak.”

  “I have nothing to say.” Kassandora bit back. Waeh looked almost disappointed in her.

  “I ake people ge their wills.” He said sadly. “Maisara and Fortia are ing to capture you. Fortia has decided to be merciful, you will go back to your cell in the Mountain.” Kassandhed into his face.

  “And? What will that do?”

  “We won’t have another situation like this. I exist now.” Waeh said. “You will not break out again.” Kassandora only smiled up at him.

  “They said the same about Leona.” Waeh nodded sadly.

  “That they did.” He shrugged. “Leona was a bright soul. I knew her.”

  “I knew her more than you did.” Waeh accepted the statement without ent.

  “A, your sisters still killed her.” Waeh replied. Kassandora’s eyes beamed a challe the God. She didn’t want to die, but now, with him about, there was an eveer method at impriso. They could just put her in a room and Waeh could ao never leave.

  “That they did.” Kassandora repeated his words back at him and Waeh shrugged.

  “I thought you would be more talkative.”

  “There is nothing to discuss between us. You have bested me.” Kassandora forced an apologetie. This battle and this war had been lost then, so she o start pnning for the future. She had wormed her way into Kavaa’s and Helenna’s and Iniri’s, into Maisara’s and Fortia’s minds. How hard would it be to trick a God less than a quarter her age? “I would like you to grant mery men.” That was good, it would imbue an aura of loyalty to her. Loyalty, even to opposition, was a respectable trait.

  “It is not my mercy to grant.” Waeh said.

  “I have one question.” Kassandora asked as politely as she could. “If you will a.”

  “Ask away.” Waeh replied zily.

  “With your power, why do you not rule the world?” Waeh sighed and smiled.

  “All of you have asked me this before.”

  “You as in who?” If she got him talking, maybe he would slip, any scrap of information was important at this point.

  “As in Divines of your era. You, Maisara, Fortia, Essa, even Zerus asked it once.” Waeh said as he looked around. “The answer is simple. I do not rule it, because it is not my world to own. We live in it, together, not alone. I already have a home, that is enough for me.”

  And Kassandora took a deep breath. Visions of power, delusions of grandiosity, fantasies of eminence could be exploited. A heart satisfied was a fortress imperable.

  This would be harder thahought.

  “ARUSEI!” Anassa screamed through the air as she circled over HQ. The tents of the Kirinyaan nomads were there in the distahey would be able to hear her at this distance. Men came out to look at her in the sky. The Headquarters were Kassandora’s doing, it was a camp that had all her tiny little touches: Wide roads, vehicles trundling along them. Campfires in front of every tent, those anised by block, with lots of room iween for easy movemeween them. Airfields, those had been filled before this war started, now only a few jets sat there. Raptor Two, bck, it’s tip painted yellow with its fines was being fuelled up on the runway. There was a small mound, and then a sea of ash, where the Jungle had once been. Now the edge was starting to sprout flowers and grass.

  Anassa took aep and appeared over the Kirinyaan camp, all round huts made out of sticks and dried grass weaved into walls. She fell from the sky, the sprint over the eion had almost exhausted her. The natives came out immediately as they watched the Goddess fall. Anassa grit her teeth and tugged on the final reserves of energy she had left, this run had been more exhausting than a battle with Alsaria, then anything else she had e across. A stitch had formed iomae eight hundred miles away, but she had still pushed herself. She had to.

  Kassandora o be saved. Not because she was managing the war, the war could go to hell and be lost a thousand times over for all Anassa cared about it. Kassandora o be saved, because Kassandora was Kassie. Because Kassie was family.

  The men moved out of the way as Anassa plummeted further. She made one final step. From the air onto the ground, her foot slipped on the red soil and she tumbled onto the ground. A bruise was nothing, Anassa scrambled to her feet immediately. “ARUSEI! ARUSEI!” She shouted.

  A tall Kirinyaan man came to meet. Dark and muscled, his chest bare and scarred. “I am Arusei.” The man said. “You are the Red Witch.” Anassa didn’t care what title he gave her. It didn’t matter at this point. They should be on the pne already.

  “I NEED YOUR SON!” Anassa shouted then calmed herself. She would take his son with this entire group sughtered if she had. “Kassandora is captured. We need a person untouched by Divines. No blessings, not even Kavaa’s healing, none of Iniri’s food, nothing. Nothing. NOTHING!” Anassa shouted.

  The group of dark men around her fell silent. All eyes turo Arusei as the man looked up at Anassa with dark eyes. He didn’t even blink, there wasn’t a shred of fear as he faced the Goddess of Sorcery. “Goddess Kassandora is captured?” He asked slowly.

  “YES!” Anassa screamed, throwing her arms up into the air. “NOW! WE O GO! BY PLANE! NOW!” She calmed herself again, screaming never helped in these situations. “She’s been captured by-“ Arusei interrupted her. Arusei actually interrupted her. Anassa could not remember the st time a Divine, much less a mortal interrupted her.

  “Is he a sacrifice?” The man asked as if he didn’t want to know the answer. He held his breath as those eyes stayed fixed on Anassa.

  “What?” Anassa screamed. Did he not have a brain? Why would his son be a sacrifice? “NO! He o kill Waeh! Only an unblessed soul do it!” Arusei finally took a breath, his chest rising with it, his face losing the tension. The man looked as if he was about to colpse.

  “Very well.” He said and closed his eyes to take another breath. He shook his head as his lips curled into a smile. “I will get him, there is great pride in being chosen to help.”

  Kassandora thought of what to say to Waeh. Maybe there was a way to get information out of him. Maybe he would gloat in his victory. The man o have some innate humanity about him, people so fwless simply did . “You’ve won.” Kassandora said. She tested her powers and Joyeuse disappeared. Had he stopped? She tried summoning the bde. She knew she called on it, but It simply would not appear.

  “I know I have.” Waeh replied. “It wasn’t difficult.”

  “Was there a ce?” Kassandora asked. She had to make herself seem weak aed now, as if she had given up. Waeh shrugged.

  “Of what?”

  “Of me defeating you?” Kassandora asked. The God merely looked her up and down as Fortia’s and Maisara’s armies approached in the distawo more hiven their x pace. Fortia was obviously enjoying this, and she obviously wao make the moment st.

  “I don’t know.” Waeh replied. Kassandora sighed. What a perfeswer. What a dht perfeswer. It boiled her blood in anger. What was this man? Just the Paragon of pure good?

  “Will you tell me how you do it?” Kassandora finally asked. She did not care at this point. Waeh was stood in the tre of her army, she had more thahousand soldiers around her. All armed, and no one could so much as lift a fihe God raised an amused eyebrow.

  “I make humanity serve.” He said. “Divines are fually structs of humanity, so they serve too.”

  So she had been wrong. So Anassa bringing an unblessed man would do nothing. Kassandora sighed and shook her head. This is why information was the single most important element of wars. Ten men would defeat a thousand, a million even, if they had information.

  What a terrible power.

  Anassa boarded Raptor Two with Arusei and his son, Haki. Anassa had expected the son to be fifteen. Sixteen timistic. He was eleven. No wonder he had never o be healed if he wasn’t at the age of being allowed to leave the camp yet. There were men already in the pne, a full squad, Kavaa had sent Raptor Two with a team of skydivers, with plenty of spare parachutes. It would be a hot drop. “These men will expin how to jump.” Anassa said. “You will use a gun. Just aim and pull the trigger. Don’t think, just do it, uood?”

  Arusei patted Haki on the bad the boy nodded nervously. A tall child, like his father, with a face that would be handsome once he had matured. With close cut bck hair like his father. “I will o sleep tee my energy, these men will expihing else that’s needed.” Anassa poio the skydivers. They all pulled a salute for her. “Uood?” The two didn’t get a ce to answer.

  Anassa’s ringtoerrupted them. A stupid tune Fer had set on her phohat Anassa could not work out how to ge bad was too stubborn to beg for help. Anassa pulled it from her pocket. It was Kavaa. Anassa answered. “I’m heading back.” Anassa said quickly, Kavaa apparently wasn’t calling to check up on her.

  “Ana, Kass said anything or anyone, right?” Anassa let the fact Kavaa didn’t use her full name slide. Frankly, there were more important things to worry about at this point. Today, she would write off as the day of embarrassments, from disc her maids were spies to being interrupted by mortals to falling to the ground to having Kavaa not use her full name. And Kassie being captured. What a terrible day.

  “Anything or anyone, as long as its unblessed.” Anassa firmed. Kavaa made a sigh that sounded of success.

  “Well I have something, as pure as they e, it probably doesn’t even know what a Divine is. There’s just ohing though.” Anassa stared at her phone in surprise. How did Kavaa find someone so quickly? Wasn’t she in CR? Everyone located there was blessed. Was she hiding something? But then why reveal it now?

  “What? How?” Anassa didn’t care her voice was thhly undignified and bewildered at this point. “What’s the thing?”

  “It’s not human.”