Joy wells in her heart when her searching fingers trace the edges of Eleusinia.

She has passed through the desert. She has reached the far side of the chessboard. She is alive, or soon will be.

She opens the door and her joy dies on the threshold.

Her throne world is desecrated.

Not annihilated, as Oryx's was. The pillars and terraces and courtyards still retain their shape. But the roots have rotted, and the geometry festers.

She should have known she would not be the only one to plan for such eventualities.

Oryx's bootprints pucker like scars in the labyrinth that was once only her own.

She sits a while beneath Sjur's statue, then follows his tracks through the ruins of Eleusinia, back to the Dreaming City.