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A Fanfiction based on the "Immortals" series by Tamora Pierce

By Sivvus

This story is the sequel to "Desert". It should be able to stand alone, but it'll probably make more sense if you have read the prequel. :)

If you can't be bothered, here is a summary. It's rather long and complicated.

IF YOU HAVEN'T READ "DESERT BUT YOU'RE PLANNING TO, DO NOT READ THIS AS IT CONTAINS SPOILERS!

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SPOILERS

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The stories are set in the same timeline as The Immortals, although the majority of Desert happens when Daine is seventeen. Rather than recovering her sanity when her village hunts her, she is captured by a slave trader named Kavan, who is searching for gifted children to sell to Emperor Ozorne. He taunts her out of the "madness", and tells Daine that he will kill Cloud if she does not obey him.

Knowing that Daine believes the wolf pack will save her, Kavan kills the wolf cubs to scare them away. Daine doesn't know this, believing the People have betrayed and abandoned her, and submits to slavery. Cloud knows that the cubs were killed, but does not tell Daine- at first out of pity, but eventually because she knows Daine will not believe her.

Daine is taken with two other gifted slaves- an older girl called Katryn, and a young boy called Danny- to Carthak, where the three are trained as spies and assassins. Katryn is a powerful mage, relying on her ears and her ability to break shields. She is very secretive about her motives and her past. She is scornful of Daine, believing her to be "weak"- however, she begins to rely on Daine to help her with her blindness. Daine also cares for Danny, who was kidnapped from his family because he can see magic. The three form a family, if not a friendship.

During the slave's training, Tortall is struggling. The immortals run through the land, killing thousands. The country suffers a famine as the villagers die or cower in forts. Seeing its weakness, the lady of Dunlath and the Scanran lords invade the country. Starving and near-defeated, Tortall calls a temporary truce while it sends ambassadors to Carthak to ask for help.

Numair and Alanna travel to Carthak. Numair expects to be executed on his arrival, as a legitimate term of the truce. However, Ozorne welcomes the ambassadors and presents them with a gift- three young slaves to serve them during their stay.

Alanna is openly cynical about why Ozorne would act like this, and who the slaves are. Her suspicions are heightened when Numair (in hawk shape) is attacked by a second shape-shifter as he tries to contact Lindhall at the university. Numair fights off the attack and the shape-shifter falls from the sky. He lands and finds Daine, hurt and afraid, who warns him that he is in danger. She doesn't say from what, and after Alanna heals her, spins a story to make the threat seem less important.

Alanna knows she is lying, and finds Katryn spying on them with her gift soon after. She tries to convince Numair that all three slaves are dangerous, but he continues to try to talk to them. Daine is punished by Ozorne for letting Alanna heal her, and asks Cloud for advice.

Cloud is jealous that Daine spends more time with Danny than with her, and bitter that she is being treated more like a "pretty pony" than as a person. She refuses to speak to Daine.

Both ambassadors are angry at the irrational demands the emperor has produced for the truce. They realise that the emperor has no intention of helping Tortall. Alanna is shocked out of her fury when Danny asks her what the "pretty magic" is that she has around her neck. Realising the boy can see the Ember Stone through her shirt, she lets him see it. However, Katryn appears and drags Danny away before he can ask any more questions.

The next morning, Daine finds Katryn searching through Alanna's belongings for the stone, which she hid when she realised Danny could see it. Daine is dubious about stealing it, but Katryn tells her that after the "peace talks" of the day, Alanna wouldn't remember the ember stone at all. As a failsafe, Katryn makes a nectarine appear to be the stone, and takes the real ember to Ozorne.

Ozorne believes the stone to be the Dominion Jewel. He tells Katryn that Numair and Alanna had attacked him during the peace talks, and that they should be killed as traitors. He tells Katryn how to kill them so the other countries will believe the attack actually happened.

Daine overhears the meeting, and is appalled. She tries to ask Cloud's advice, but once again the pony is elusive. Returning from the stables, she runs into Numair. She tells him that she is an assassin, and that she is supposed to kill him. Numair takes her to talk to Alanna.

Alanna refuses to believe Daine when she outlines the plan, until Daine points out the spelled nectarine she is wearing. Amazed to find that her most prized possession is a fruit, she begins to believe Daine. Daine outlines Ozorne's plan. Later that night, when she is heading back to her room, Daine is confronted by Katryn. Katryn says that Daine is a traitor, and tries to kill her, killing Danny first because he tries to follow Daine.

Daine runs away, but is backed into a corner. Katryn, half consumed by the fire of her gift, tells Daine how she was blinded by her family because she killed someone with her gift. Bitter at Daine's ability to make friends, she relishes the thought of doing the same to her.

Before she can do so, Numair appears. He had seen the encounter and realised Katryn knew the Tortallans plan to escape, and had left to warn Alanna. When he returned, he found the corpse of Danny and trailed the two girls. Katryn scoffs at him as he casts shields to protect himself and Daine from her magic, and disbelieves him when he says he doesn't need to attack her- that she's being burned alive by her gift. Katryn begins charging a spell with the last of her life force to kill him, when she hears Daine pleading with her not to kill herself. She hesitates, and the spell slips from her hands and kills her.

Numair and Daine find Alanna outside Ozorne's bedchamber, where Alanna had jut cast a sleep spell on the guards. The three enter the room and confront the emperor, only to find that he has set an ambush for them. As they fight off the attackers, Ozorne tries to kill them with the ember stone. He is surprised it doesn't work, and concentrates on it. As his shields fail, Daine leaps on him in wolf-form and tears his throat out. She leads the way to the docks.

When they arrive, a Tortallan sailor sees Daine and is terrified. Hurt, and afraid that once again she will be outcast, Daine runs away. Numair follows her, and finds her preparing to ride out into the desert-where she will surely die. She tells him that she deserves to die, and she is afraid of people hating her like her village did.

Numair tells her she is worth saving, otherwise he wouldn't have followed her. He tells her that he and Alanna owe her their lives, and they wouldn't let her be an outcast. Comforted, Daine agrees to return with them to Tortall…