Cirasa held his hand towards the stars, keeping track of the one called Prizare. "It's a lone star that only appears every twelfth of the month until its end," he said as they walked through the vast farms of Calca.

With Lanbridhr a desert, Calca shouldn't even have a farm. Not only was Xanthy proven wrong by having one farm existing, the rows upon rows of orchards and crops seemed to prove her wrong a thousand times over.

They had spent the whole afternoon walking through Calca's markets, at least those who stayed at the edge of the Oasis City. Xanthy even got to taste Lanbridhr's delectable liquor that seemed to flush ice down her throat. It was a good way to combat the dry, desert heat.

That trip was enough to drown out her worries and let her forget who she was for a while. She'd give anything to feel that way forever.

As the sun faded and the stars and moons replaced it, Cirasa had spent the past few minutes tracking a star called Prizare after the line in Pelrise's song. "Why is it called the transparent star?" she ran a hand against the back of her neck as she craned it to the sky.

"Hmm?" Cirasa lowered his arm and turned to Xanthy. "Prizare has a habit of disappearing in the middle of its visible time. It gets shadowed by different stars and constellations, but it's still there."

Xanthy pursed her lips. "Why do you think Pelrise chose it as his star?"

"Probably because it's hard to follow," Cirasa looked up again and tapped Xanthy's shoulder. "Look, it's gone now."

Xanthy inclined her head and indeed, amid the mass of twinkling lights and the four moons in the night sky, its glow was nowhere to be found. "Where did it go?"

"It's still there," Cirasa said. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "Some stars are just brighter than others that it fades."

Xanthy stuck her bottom lip out, catching sand particles in it. "That's sad." Still, to be overshadowed by others, to vanish out of the sky—what a dream.

"It got us to where we need to go," Cirasa shrugged. "That's the stars' purpose, I think. They guide us to where we have to go, no matter how dim or, in our case, how transparent, they are."

"You know, you could be a mighty poet," Xanthy bumped her shoulder against his.

Cirasa gave her a mocked bow before smoothing his hair off his forehead as he straightened. "I already am.".

"You should let me hear your works sometime," Xanthy chuckled. Amusement felt so foreign to her now. Why was that?

"Yeah, but not now."

Xanthy knitted her eyebrows. "Why not?"

"Because we're here," Cirasa stepped aside to let Xanthy see what's behind him.

Xanthy leveled her gaze at the landscape before her. Tall crops with green stalks and pod-shaped fruits growing in bunches at its tip fell line after line that stretched towards a horizon Xanthy had to squint to see the end. A scraggly line of dark rocks traced the spot where the sky met the earth. What was that?

"Excuse me, sir!" Cirasa called. Xanthy turned to see the shard fairy bounding to a man dressed in a faded tunic hanging to his knees. What was Cirasa doing? A groan escaped Xanthy's throat as she bounded after her companion. She caught up with the shard fairy just as he asked the man, "Do you know where we can find a horn made of anchor ivory?"

Xanthy slapped Cirasa's arm and glared at him. Why, they could go and announce to everyone that they're searching for the chalice, too!

The man scratched the tip of his hooked staff against his brown beard. "That would be in the pen near the Devil's Mouth," he pointed west with his staff. Xanthy narrowed her eyes at the rope cinching the man's waist up to three or four rounds. What was that used for? Herding? "There's a herd there that we don't engage in," the man was saying.

"Who owns these animals?" Xanthy said before Cirasa could open his mouth. "Why don't you engage them?"

"Too dangerous," the man shook his head, his graying hair bouncing against his head. His accent was thick with a drawl Xanthy only encountered in Alkara when the brownies would talk in their swift dialect. Was that accent popular in all the northern territories? "Too deadly," the man circled his hand in the air as if choosing the right words. "Too... carnivorous."

Xanthy knitted her eyebrows. "Carnivorous?"

"Yes, carnivorous," the man repeated like it explained everything. He turned and began walking, forcing Xanthy and Cirasa to follow. "My brother ventured there once to retrieve one of the flock that had wandered there. Came back missing an arm."

Xanthy's face paled. The man looked down at his sandals scratching against the dry soil. "My aunt went there to try to skin them for wool. She never came back at all."

Cirasa sidled close to the man. "But the horn?"

The man stroked his beard. "It is rumored that the animals are protecting an ivory horn from thieves. Don't waste your life by going there."

"Mister, we have to," Xanthy sighed. "That horn is important."

A flash of concern passed through the man's features. "Then, come with me," he spread his arms. "The best I could do is to give you a hot meal before your execution."

That's how they found themselves seated on a cramped table with five children, two adults, and four creatures that looked like condensed versions of the raslione that were as big as a grown fairy. Well, after hearing about the herd they'd been keeping, Xanthy got why they needed herding creatures this big.

Xanthy shoveled the steaming meat into her mouth, not bothering to ask what kind it was. Any meat was good as long as they filled her stomach. She continued eating and bit her tongue before she could ask for seconds.

The shepherd introduced himself as Bick. Her own chewing was so loud in her ears that she didn't remember the children's names. When the meal finished, Greema, Bick's wife, cleared the table. The children slid off their seats and began playing, screaming at each other as they went.

Xanthy's heart twinged. Such a simple family. Such a simple life.

As soon as dinner was over and the bowls washed and dried, Greema passed Xanthy a satchel with a spare tunic and trousers. Xanthy's jaw dropped. "You shouldn't have," Xanthy said, guilt weighing in her chest. "You need these."

"Please, it's the least we could do," Greema said with a gentle smile. "I hope you succeed in whatever you're going to do. It's dangerous. Why do you even want to go there?"

Xanthy pursed her lips. "I am saving a friend," she raised her eyes to meet Greema's dark ones.

Greema, to her credit, nodded and didn't ask any more questions. The woman sighed, her pointy ears twitching. "Take care out there."

Cirasa reached forward and shook Greema's hand. "We will," he dipped his head. "Thank you for your help."

They went out of the shepherd's shack, their stomachs full and their supplies loaded. Xanthy's gut churned. What lies ahead wasn't guaranteed. The trek out of the shack and across the plain increased the volume of Xanthy's heartbeat in her ears. Bick left them when they were halfway between the murder herd and the man's house. From there, Xanthy and Cirasa continued on their own.

Shadows grew clearer as they approached. At first, the horizon looked like a bunch of dark clouds. Then, the clouds gathered mass, grew darker, and developed heads. When the fog in the horizon has cleared enough and Xanthy could glimpse what awaited them in the distance, a ball of dread dropped in her stomach. "No, no, no," she stepped back. "Not those infernal beings again."

Cirasa turned to Xanthy with his eyebrows meeting in the middle of his forehead. "Again?"

"T-those are flesh-eating sheep. Graspel," Xanthy pointed to a herd of hulking gray creatures as large as estates. "They eat flesh—"

"Obviously," Cirasa rolled his eyes.

"—a-and run very fast. And have very bad breath. And are very, very bad. Bad sheep," Xanthy's mind flashed to that fateful day in Asopus.

"You said 'very' four times," Cirasa held up the same number with his fingers.

She slapped his arm. "You haven't even met one," she waved her arm in the graspelis' direction. "It almost ate my face off. Now imagine a herd of them!"

"I don't need to imagine. The herd's right there," Cirasa shook his head and crossed his arms. The wind wasn't a good companion especially when it was howling against the dry ground like a caged dagrine. "Besides, now that there's a lot of them, maybe it's not just your face that's going to be eaten."

Xanthy whirled to the shard fairy. "Who's side are you on?!"

"Just kidding," Cirasa chuckled before raising his palms. "How do we survive this?"

"We don't," Xanthy turned back to the herd grazing silently beyond them. "We're doomed."

Cirasa grasped her shoulders and leveled his face with hers. "Hey, we got this," he gave her a light shake. "We're halfway already. We can do it. Repeat after me: We can do it!"

"We can do it..." Xanthy stared at the fence surrounding the herd. Whoever invented fences, Xanthy could kiss them forever. She rubbed her arms. "Okay, where is the thing?"

Cirasa studied the pen. From their distance, there were at least twenty graspelis present. Each one was big enough to flatten an estate. Gray heads protruded from midnight black wool, unlike the cloud-white coats those from Carleon had. The sheep munched on grass but the ominous glint in their red eyes was a dead give-away that they fancy meat too.

Cirasa snapped his fingers and pointed somewhere in the center. "There, by the end of the pen, almost to the line of caves."

"We can't destroy that fence if we don't want to unleash a herd of disaster-graspel on the whole oasis, right?" Xanthy turned to Cirasa.

The shard fairy nodded. "Got it. So we run towards the cave, then?"

Xanthy eyed the line of trees that bled off from Calca's border meeting Rabante's. "Yeah, seems logical."

"Ready?" Cirasa dropped into a stance.

Xanthy's eyes widened. "Wait—"

Cirasa rushed forward like he always did. Xanthy bit back a scream of frustration and ran after the shard fairy. Was this guy really older than forty? Cirasa reached the fence and swung over the fence. He was in. Xanthy waved her arms over her head, trying to get his attention. She didn't get it.

The sheep grazed on the pen, their tails swishing behind them. They chewed on grass like some poser dagrine. Xanthy clenched her fingers. These liars. They'd eat flesh the moment they smell one.

Which, in retrospect, were currently Xanthy and Cirasa. She sucked in a deep breath and entered the pen as well. Cirasa was almost to the other end of the pen. Truly, there was a pole where an ivory horn was slung standing by the fence.

Xanthy squeezed her way between two fluffy graspel butts and stalked towards Cirasa who had swung to the other side of the pen. "Don't rush off like you always do!"

Cirasa grinned as Xanthy followed him out of the fences' bounds. "And I also do this," he plucked the horn off the pole before Xanthy could stop him. A loud bleat shattered all calm in Xanthy's nerves.

"Oh, for Rudik's sake!" she screamed at no one as the grass behind her shifted. She felt gazes stabbing her in the back. "Run!" she pushed Cirasa forward. The shard fairy, thankfully, obliged. The sheep bleated again. Her ears recoiled at the torture of it. She forced herself to run faster as the sheep trampled through the wooden fence like it's just a minor rock on the path. Gods help them.

"Run!" Xanthy screamed at Cirasa who had the nerve to stop to admire the large beasts. The shard fairy snapped out of his reverie as soon as the nearest sheep bared its fangs. Oh gods, they're hungry. And tired of grass for who knew how many years. "Into the cave!" she yelled.

"What makes you think they won't go there?" Cirasa yelled back.

"Oh great heavenly gods, it's your idea!" Xanthy's voice speared through the air in a shrill line.

Cirasa slid the horn's handle by his torso, freeing up his hands. Thundering hooves slapped the soil and seemed to make the ground shake. Xanthy did her best to run—she really did—but the graspelis were just faster even with all that wool. Her sword was useless with those creatures' wool as thick as Nyxis's face.

The mouth of the cave loomed closer. Just a little more. Then, one of the sheep leaped.

Holy-godsdamned-freaking leaped.

It landed close enough to bite Xanthy's knees off her thigh. She shrieked, her swiping for her sword. She smacked its snout with the flat of her blade, startling the graspel enough to stop it in its tracks for a while. She gritted her teeth and poured more energy into her legs. Gods. Gods. Gods. She hated running. She hated graspel. Oh, gods.

They reached the mouth of the cave. Xanthy halted to a stop as spikes of rock as thick as her body dangled from the ceiling. This...

The sheep zoomed closer. No time to think it through. She slashed her sword upward, slicing the spikes in two. The pointed half crashed to the floor, piercing the compact soil and embedded themselves there like a makeshift fence. It's enough.

"Go!" Xanthy yelled to Cirasa who snapped into action without a word. She swung and slashed, her sword cutting rocks as hard as teeth like they're butterbread. Queen's breeches, she deserved a basket of butterbread after this. If everything was going to be over, that was.

Spikes fell into the ground and stuck to the soil. Soon, Xanthy had built a graspel-barricade made of rocks. Black masses of wool stayed at the cave's lip as they bleated in anger. The cave's hollow space only echoed the painful sound a hundred times more. Xanthy's ears rang.

After a while, the graspelis lost interest in chasing Xanthy and lumbered back to their pasture. As soon as the thunder of hooves faded in the distance, Xanthy collapsed against a fallen spike and closed her eyes. Her back and her neck were slick with sweat.

What a nice time to be alive. Really.

"Oh gods," Cirasa hunkered, bracing his legs with his hands. "That's a tough exercise. Remind me to bring one of those to Helinfirth. A great way to tone one's body."

Xanthy gave a shaky laugh. "A shard fairy through and through."

Cirasa froze as if the statement struck a hidden chord. Xanthy raised an eyebrow at him. "What?" she asked.

The shard fairy shook his head before blinking. "Nothing," he sighed. "It's nothing."

That's when one of the spikes jutted out of the wall and speared for him.