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“Are you alright?” Osonia asked, reaching into the water to stroke the girl’s arm.

She shook her head, struggling in a breath. Her lips still misshapen, somewhere between humanoid and fishlike, formed into words, but they were almost indistinguishable.

“Communicate with your mind.” Osonia gave her hand a squeeze. “We’re listening.”

Everything hurts, she thought.I don’t understand. I can’t… I’m stuck. I can’t shift.

“Has this ever happened before?”

Another shake of her head.

The rest of us glanced between one another. Osonia’s and Venark’s faces were screwed up in confusion, Asher’s face showed concern, Neia had the same worried look that I wore, and Hana cupped a hand over her mouth.

I took Hana’s elbow and pulled her a few strides away, lowering my voice so no one else could hear. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You have an idea. What is it?” I stepped closer, keeping my voice low. “Do you know why this could happen?”

“This specifically”—she gestured to the merrow— “no. But I think…”

She thought this was even worse than we imagined, and she didn’t know how to put it into words.

“I can handle it,” I said, voice still low. “But I need to know, Hana.”

A hard swallow. She looked down, biting her lower lip. “When the maalaichte cnihme first landed on Matriaza eons ago, Pa did something similar to what Lux did. It wasn’t the same scale, of course. It was on the south pole, actually. There were no civilians, and they tried to set up a base there. Pa’s idea was to wipe out the entire land.”

So exactly what Lux had done, just on one small continent instead of an entire world.

“And it worked. The death toll was incredibly high, and Taeral left. It was that bad.”

“What was that bad? The lightning?”

Her eyes filled with tears. She took a moment to regain her composure, exhaling deeply. “The aftereffects of the lightning. It… The energy poisoned everything in the vicinity. I… I saw signs of some life as we were walking, so I thought that Lux hadn’t used the same concentration. I thought that it wouldn’t have done that. I thought…”

I studied her for a moment, letting it sink in. “It poisoned everything.”

“Everything organic, yes.” Her voice shook, but she still stood strong. “We… Véa, that was almost half a million years ago, and still, nothing survives on the pole.”

“Did anybody make it out?” I spoke quickly. “It doesn’t kill from immediate exposure, does it?”

“Taeral’s still alive, isn’t he?” she said. “We’re eternal, so I think that we’ll survive being exposed. Over the centuries, Pa would put animals there for a bit, and bring them home. He kept them secluded, of course, but they would improve if they got away from the pole. Whoever handled them, they’d become sick, but again, they’d improve if they got away from it.”

“So any survivor we find, that’s what we have to do. Immediately get them home.” I turned to go spread the news, but Hana caught my arm.

“Some of the animals didn’t live for long, Véa.”

“But some did.”

“Some did, yes.”

“Then let’s hope some live now.”

CHAPTERSEVEN

NIX

As we shot through the portal, I expected to be greeted with the same things I always was when I came to Matriaza. Bitter, biting wind. The kind that was so cold it felt like a fire pressed against any skin you didn’t cover with a fur or cloth.