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Chapter One

Lalivero dust swirls into Sheba's mouth as she calls into the empty home. Her hand pushes past the hanging curtain of beads, its image of a fertile forest distending.

"Felix?"

There's no response, but that's not so strange. He might just be down at the market, or working up at the smithy. That's what she tells herself. But she knows the time of year, and it's around this time that -

Irritated, she shucks off that thought with her priestess' shawl. The dyed silk flutters to the ground like a spent shell; she stretches lithe arms, glossy with sweat. The crops seemed to wither overnight. And when that happens, she spends long hours of dancing in the traditional colours to appease the gods. And her people. When she moves with the winds - when the long strips of cloth trace her motions, showing for the people what they can only feel otherwise, she shoulders all their cares and their anxious wishes.

Unburdened of their names, she moves through her home in Laliveran gauze. She takes a candle from the mudroom and strikes flint against stone, kindling the wick. The house is empty save for the rustling of screen on the windows, and crickets outside creaking like old bones.

She doesn't pick up any deliciously embarrassing (or erotic!) thoughts floating around the house, so that settles it. No one's home. She makes her way to the kitchen and sets the candle on the table. She unhooks a pan from the wall and sets it on the brace, lighting the coals beneath with a small spark. She fetches some herbs and mixes them with salted meat from the icebox and potatoes from the pantry, sautéing them with a bit of olive oil. She doesn't even particularly like this dish, but it's his favourite. She only makes enough for herself. She hums snatches of a Laliveran folk tune between bites.

She knows she'll stumble across a letter from him. This time it's when she opens the cupboard and finds a fresh box of her favourite ginger snaps. The letter is half-rolled over the top layer, crumbs on its edges.

Sheba's eyes scan the page, lips shaping the words. She tosses it on the table when she's done.

She moves still humming and extracts a slim volume from the shelf. Goes upstairs and out onto the veranda, where the crisp breeze coming from the ocean carries salt and reminds her of travelling.

She thinks about following him. She knows where he's gone. It's not as if he hides it. Thinks of sending a pmigeon to Piers, nagging him for his age, asking for passage. He's doing research for Kraden, noting what Alchemy's changed. "Investigating strange phenomenon." She almost sees him now: the high-collared tunic, the hat pulled down low, smoking dramatically on the bow of his ship... She wants to go: she misses the creak of timber, the sway of the sea.

The book closed under her hands, it seems she's always been a prisoner of some sort. The Jovian steps to the balcony and curls her hand around the baked stone rail, still warm from day. The house next door is softly lit, and she discerns the colourful sheets hung out overnight on the line. Laughter wafts out with the smell of stir-fry, the no-longer young voice of her brother. He's seventeen this year, taller than her now. Sometimes, lying awake under the drift of the palms, late at night she hears his low tone and girlish giggles, and feels old.

Faran doesn't want her to leave. For ten years he's insisted that she stay. That Lalivero needed its goddess. With townspeople developing powers of their own, many needed her for help and advice. She retorts that just as many turn away, scoffing at a so-called divinity others can learn and use. She likes it that way. She doesn't want to be an idol... all the time. She loves her homeland with all her heart - missed it when in Tolbi. Missed it just as much when she was travelling. But ten years...

Kraden'd said that Faran was her only family that counts. She sees her adopted father turn older each day, hears his bones groan. His voice as strong as ever. When the whites began to show in his hair, he'd laugh all the more and ruffle hers, the years not touching her. She looks in her late teens, she knows. She's heard it so many times it's burnt in her brain:

What else could we expect from the holy child of Lalivero?

She heard it in a different tone from Kraden when he visited, after she straight asked him how she'd do in childbirth.

He looked at her a long time over his half-moon lenses, thoughtful. "Wait, my dear. You've not developed enough physically, not robust enough, for it to be free of complications." Then that sarcastic glint in his eye. He knows how much she hates it. "What else could we expect-"

"And reading books will make your eyesight even worse, so you better stop that at once!" she points imperiously, before they break up into laughter.

She longs to be nobody again. Sometimes the mask is a part of her skin.

Her fingers are cool on her cheek as she leans on her palm and stares up into the night sky, resplendent with stars. The moon is low and full on the horizon, like a ripe pearl. "I'll leave," she says into the cool night, the spices. The garden quavers in starlight and the freshening breeze. There's something sure within her, like a deep stone. She's often called it "destiny." She remembers what Felix said to her when their groups marched peacefully side-by-side through the Suhalla, soldiers and Proxians sharing a path. Before she knew his story, how he'd been torn from one family and thrown into another.

"When home stops feeling like home," the mysterious boy says, "you leave." She thinks boy because though the other leaders all look calculating, there's something trusting in his earthy eyes. She keeps close to him, makes small talk. If something happens, she thinks he'll be her way out.

She'll talk to Faran tomorrow. She doesn't have to look after her brother anymore, and there are other priestesses in Lalivero. She'll say it's a pilgrimage. She'll try not to look into his eyes. She can't take that.

"A pilgrimage." Sheba tucks the words inward, holds them close. Maybe she'll see Felix out there. Haha, it'll teach him a nice lesson when he comes back, and she's not there. She can almost see the expression on his face.

And suddenly, she can see his face: crystal clear and painted in horror.

And then the full force of the premonition sweeps over her, and Sheba is ripped out of her body and hurled hundreds of metres into the air and ages through time, with a tornado in her soul.

Afterwards, Faran will attest that a single word splintered the night sky and sent the Laliverans rushing one and all from their homes, for the desperate and unbidden cry was as much in their minds as in their ears.

"Anemos!"