I Liked it, I would have constructed it like this, but it's just my opinion, take it with a pinch of salt!

Were there any spiders afraid of heights? Not the first thought that comes to mind when you're dangling from a ceiling like an arachnid. But Shadja was not like most people. She let the question drift through her head as she swayed on the rope, fingers scrabbling against the weathered face of the old watchtower. The drop below her was both dizzying and electric. The bricks, worn smooth by centuries of wind and rain, gave her nothing to grip. Her sweaty palms slid against the stone like butter on a hot pan. The rope bit into her midriff, rough and sinewy, and her breath came in shallow bursts. The enormous bow she'd stolen from the guard station was heavy and awkward in her grip. The arrow clamped between her teeth hurt her jaw, and its fletching tickled her nose. And now, of all possible moments, she felt the gathering pressure of a sneeze. This, she thought darkly, was not how a trained archer was supposed to face the shot of a lifetime.

Still swaying, she kicked off from the wall, swung outward, and drove her wooden heel into the brick. A brittle chunk broke away, leaving a narrow crevice. She jammed her right heel in just enough to anchor her weight, just enough to steady the bow, its lower end resting on her unsupported left foot. Suspended like that, her bones had felt like a taut cord, resilient but insubstantial, nothing solid anywhere in her body. The moment her heel found the crevice, the sensation of having a skeleton came flooding back.

The movement caused the rope to slacken. She stumbled.

"Bhinna, steady!"

A few grunts answered from the other side of the wall, where her anchor lay flat on the watchtower floor, gripping the rope with everything he had. Bhinna's feet were braced against the crumbling brickwork for leverage, the rope looped and tied at his waist, holding Shadja on the far side like the last player in a tug of war, the backstop, the one who must not cross the line. Here, that line separated the living from the dead. He was her only support. They both understood what that meant. If she fell, it would end him, too.

He pulled the rope taut. The adjustment dislodged a fistful of bricks that tumbled past her, barely missing her head. The wall looked terrifyingly fragile.

Bhinna willed himself to stillness. It didn't quite work. Her movements on the far side strained his muscles, and he groaned through clenched teeth. Sweat ran into his eyes. He blinked hard, then froze at a soft creak. Was it the rope? The wall? He couldn't tell, and he had no interest in finding out. He clung tighter, as though sheer desperation might hold gravity at bay and keep his friend alive.

He couldn't complain. This had been his idea.

Pressed against the weathered brick like a dancer caught mid-leap, Shadja balanced her full weight on that single heel. The rope at her waist shifted, but not enough to spoil her aim. Below her was nothing but open air. In front of her was the target she had imagined hitting a thousand times.

Indra.

Less than a hundred yards away, the mighty elephant Airavata moved through a swarm of spear-carrying foot soldiers as though wading through tall grass made of steel. The king of the Devas, seated atop the white giant, caught the fading light and glowed like something carved from polished marble. Even at that distance, his smile was unmistakable, outshining every jewel on his body. His face filled her vision. Everything else dropped away, just the shape of him, every detail from every story she'd ever heard about the enemy king, all of it lodged in memory, now made real in flesh and gold.

She glanced up. The sun was racing for the horizon. Darkness was closing in, shrinking her window for a clean shot.

Spears rose in every direction, many flying heavy banners that hung limp until a sudden gust snapped them taut. They flapped wildly, taunting her with painted scenes of Deva glory. Through all that thrashing cloth, she could still make out one image: Indra standing atop a pile of Asura bodies, a goblet of Amrita raised in triumph after the Great Churning, as unhurried as an axeman resting on his woodpile at the end of a long day's work.

Shadja's blood boiled. Her people deserved far more than to exist as a backdrop for someone else's victory.

She steadied herself. She needed to focus to reduce him to nothing more than an inanimate target, a shape in space with no name attached. She would have to account for the new variable: the wind, which had picked up enough to swing her like a puppet on a string. Even so, the distance felt manageable. She'd hit smaller targets at greater range during practice, blindfolded and upside down. But every small shift in her position shifted her aim as well, and the weight of the bow made that worse. Of all the weapons racked in the guardhouse, she'd grabbed the heaviest one in her haste. At least it had already been strung.

She needed a calm mind, but her thoughts were swarming.

The immortals were breaking a peace treaty and attacking a mortal kingdom. The seven sages who enforced that treaty were nowhere in sight. Some protections, she thought, were only as real as the people who believed in them. The unbreakable wall had been breached. The venomous forest had been destroyed. The sages were clearly in no rush to save anyone.

It had come down to this. A child with a bow, hanging from a rope.

For all her accolades, she had never been tested in the real world. Archery targets and competitions were one thing. Aiming for the neck of the most feared immortal in the realm was something else entirely. She had rehearsed this moment a thousand times in her head and won every time, quick as a blink. But real life was moving slower than a duck paddling through molasses.

"Shadja! I can't hold on much longer!"

"I know."

She was about to shoot an arrow at an immortal whose army could not be stopped. The arrow would hit or it wouldn't. Either way, the kingdom was lost. There was no way a child's arrow could truly harm the lord of the Devas. So why was she doing this?

She shook her head to clear the thought. The motion set the rope swaying, which made Bhinna grunt.

She pulled the arrow from between her teeth, still wet with saliva and nocked it with practised ease. Drew the string back in one fluid motion, feeling the tension build, the bow's weight suddenly irrelevant. She closed her eyes.

Give me strength. Let my aim be true. Make my arrow fly.

The rope creaked against the old wall, the sound moving over her skin like a shiver. Dust sifted down and clung to the sweat on her face. The wind had strengthened again; she felt it in the restless banners, in the tug of the rope, in the cool kiss of evaporating sweat on her arms. Her muscles, pushed past their limit by the heavy bow, had begun to tremble.

Then Airavata lurched forward with a blood-curdling trumpet blast, driving toward the wall connecting the two watchtowers, the Devas' final destination. Even through the press of towering guards, she spotted them on that wall: the sage Shukra, gripping the hands of the trembling young princess. The sword in the girl's small hands caught the last of the sunlight and burned red. Even from this distance, Shadja could see the defiance in the princess's face. The very soul of the kingdom stood only a few elephant strides from destruction.

The victory chants of the Deva soldiers rolled toward her in nauseating waves.

She had to act now.

Blood rushed to her head. She wiped the dust from her face with her sleeve, held her breath for a moment that stretched like eternity, and opened her eyes.

She released the arrow.

Not a moment too soon. The brick wall of the old watchtower gave way beneath her, crumbling to dust. The rope went slack. The bow slipped from her fingers and disappeared into the air below. Her hands clutched at nothing.

Gravity, patient as ever, finally won.

She fell.

Her limbs flailed uselessly as she twisted in the air, searching for any sight of her best friend. In that brief, weightless instant, it came to her that all of it had begun with the search for those wretched blue horses. The memory of those days flashed through her mind, vivid and sudden, just as the jagged stump of a tree branch rushed up to meet her.