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The west wind sighs, all moons die.

Bakun, dreaming of his lost love,

rises to eat the world above.

The nursery rhyme that Talasyn had first heard children chanting in a hand-clapping game on the streets of Eskaya now beat an ominous chorus in her head. All those other dragons, she’d thought they were the largest creatures she would ever see, but they were nothing compared to this behemoth; while most of it remained submerged within the volcano of Aktamasok, the part that was visible could have crushed the whole of Iantas castle in a single constricting coil.

The pain in her right arm was still there, but she could barely feel it through the waves of adrenaline racing through her. Everything in her was focused on the World-Eater, on the myth come to life.

Bakun lunged for the yacht again. Alaric listed the vessel sharply to the right, and the colossal jaws snapped at empty air with a force that reverberated like a thunderclap. The Enchanters’ moth coracles had made it to a relatively safedistance, and Ishan was pleading with Talasyn over the aetherwave to follow them.

Talasyn deactivated the transceiver, cutting the daya off. “If we flee, it’ll take wing to chase us and we’ll never be able to stop it,” she said to Alaric. “We need to make sure it doesn’t leave the volcano.”

He arched a brow. “I’ll just fly around its head like a gnat, then, shall I?”

“Yes, just be your usual irritating self,” she retorted. As inappropriate as their bickering was for the situation, it had a grounding effect. It was something familiar to cling to—somethingreal.

Alaric grumbled under his breath, but did as he was told. The yacht wove around the volcano in haphazard circles and Bakun’s neck wove with it. The white dragon was fixated on the ship’s every movement; it snarled and snapped, predatory and alert. One massive forelimb emerged from the chasm, its claws hooking over the crater’s rim, tearing at earth and rock.

It was apparent thatthisdragon had no compunctions about harming anyone of Nenavarene blood.

But the others—the ones that had escorted the yacht to Vasiyas, the ones that had so far been hovering nearby or resting on the slopes—all rushed to Talasyn’s defense. The night air filled with wings, and fear struck her heart when they started closing in from above; they were all so small compared to the World-Eater. She couldn’t let any of them die.

She rattled off a hasty plan to Alaric. He looked markedly unimpressed, but he sailed them downward. Bakun’s violet gaze followed them briefly, but then flickered to the host of oncoming dragons. It reared back its head and inhaled at the same time that they did.

A wall of orange flame lit up the night, shooting towardBakun, bigger than worlds and brighter than suns. Yet it was utterly dwarfed by the tidal wave of amethyst magic that burst forth with another scream from the white dragon’s lips.

Fire and Voidfell hurtled at each other in what promised to be a disastrous collision. The air groaned with the rush of it, the veil between aetherspace and the material realm shattering. Half a second before the two energies could meet in the middle, however, a new shield of black-and-gold magic blossomed between them—from the yacht below.

The eclipse sphere washed over the volcanic peak, caging Bakun in.

The flames from the smaller dragons crashed harmlessly into the barrier and fizzled out. The void blast rebounded off the interior walls, and several splinters of it rained down on the yacht—pummeling the second sphere that Alaric and Talasyn had created within the larger one to protect themselves.

“And now we’re locked in herewiththe bloodthirsty dragon that breathes death magic,” her husband groused.

“Alaric,” Talasyn said very sweetly, affection and annoyance warring within her, “shut up.”

Bakun was thrashing against the barrier, crying out every time the combined magic scraped at its hide, but still determinedly searching for a way through, even as black gashes appeared across its snow-white scales, ichor dripping down like ink. Talasyn had no idea what the next step was. She and Alaric couldn’t keep up the shield forever—only until the end of the eclipses. When she looked up, she saw that the edge of one moon was already visible, glowing a muted silver through the sphere’s haze.

Talasyn made herself look away—only for her gaze to collide with Bakun’s.

The World-Eater had veered to face her dead-on. Its snoutwas now level with the yacht, at a distance that was much too close. The rest of its body went still as it tilted its horned head, as though trying to get a better look at her.

She felt it again, that same strange connection in the swirling depths of ancient, aether-touched eyes.

Something called out to her, some urge—whether instinct or compulsion, she couldn’t tell. It tugged at her senses like the beating of battle drums.

Did she dare trust it?

What other option was there?

Alaric spoke, terse and deep. “I think we can kill it. Look at the wounds on its scales, from where it touched the barrier. If we attack it with eclipse magic—”

What he was saying made sense. Killing Bakun would mean cutting off the only source of the Voidfell in all of Lir, but it would ensure that Dead Season never happened again. What was the death of one old thing to save the lives of millions?

And yet—that urge. It grew more and more irrepressible the longer she looked the ancient dragon in the eye. It beckoned to her the way the Light Sever did.

How could she call herself an aethermancer if she didn’t trust her magic? What if she and Alaric could save everyone—and this one thing, too?