---
Smoke hung in thin ribbons across the lower ground, not from cheerful campfires but from burned tar and broken siege engines.
Ikea stopped on a rise and set her pack down. She planted her hands on her hips and squinted at the mountain.
This, she told herself, is why you do not plan surprises for men who live on strategic terrain. You show up with a smile and a sultry idea and the universe says that is adorable, have a war instead.
A dry little wind tugged at her hair. Sand whispered around her boots. The desert did not care about her mood. It rarely had. She had once walked through a sandstorm that could strip flesh from bone and the storm had not noticed her either. That had been before she fell. Before the stars disappeared from her status and her power folded in on itself like wet paper.
She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed, searching along the thread of the Soul Road.
