One day a sphinx came to the city at the center of the world, ate half of the guests at the prince's wedding, and settled to roost atop the palace.

The cost to free the city of this beast? A single tear from her eye. The cost of failure? She eats you.

Sacmis watches as her mother dances for the sphinx. The beast crushes her under one lion's paw and leaves her broken in the sand. Her mother, the finest dancer in the known world, failed. The sphinx remains, her stony heart still unmoved, waiting for the next artist to try.

A tale of finding your place in the world even under the most difficult circumstances, "Tear of a Sphinx", a short story that brings to life an Egyptian-like city on a river that ties into the "Goddess-Bereft World" series.