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N YX CROSSED THROUGH the slaughter that spanned the Fyredragon ’s deck. She rode bareback atop Bashaliia. Daal paced alongside her, mounted on Pyllar, but she needed no escort, no protection, even with her vision dimmed to plays of shadow and light.

No one dared approach the massive Myr bat.

Or the hulking vargr who stalked her other flank.

Spots of brightness marked pools of flames from shattered lanterns. Firepots burned everywhere. The winds stung with scouring sand, heavy with the coppery scent of blood. Her ears pricked to the dying screams of the last of the Bhestyan marauders.

One cry rose sharper on the portside, then faded quickly, falling away into the distance. She pictured an attacker plummeting into the depths below the moored ship—though she could not tell if the man had been tossed overboard or if he had flung himself off in terror after seeing what had risen to the deck from the bowels of the ship.

If she cared, she could have discovered which was the truth.

Daal carried with him a font of bridle-song, not from his cold wellspring but under him, beating strongly along with Pyllar’s heart.

Over the past bell, she had leaned upon that source, shared through Daal, as she and the others led the raash’ke horde through the ship. The beasts had tucked wings and scrambled down passageways seemingly too small, but they managed. Even Bashaliia forced his larger bulk with them.

All the while, Nyx had sung a chorus, shared among four hearts: hers, Daal’s, Bashaliia’s, and Pyllar’s. With focus, she caught peeks of the fray viewed through other eyes, both bat and man.

—a corner of a battle that broke into the lower decks

—an enemy’s look of horror at the sight of the slathering beasts clambering out of the shadows

—the snap of fangs, the rip of limbs

Still, Nyx had limited such sights to brief glimpses. It was not due to a soft heart or weak stomach. Instead, she reserved most of their shared harmony to hold Bashaliia steady, to stoke the golden shine in his heart, to keep at bay any trickle of emerald fire.

A shout rose ahead of her. “Nyx! Daal! Rein in your beasts.”

She recognized Darant’s voice. She allowed herself to catch a brief snatch of the pirate through Pyllar’s eyes. The sight strangled any attempt to respond. The captain strode through the carnage, soaked in blood, with a cut exposing the bone of his cheek. Across the deck, bodies shifted amidst crimson pools, some stirred by the ship’s rocking, others crawling, broken and maimed.

While most of the dead wore blue-tinted steel, too many did not.

The pounding of victory in Nyx’s heart, the satisfaction of ridding the Fyredragon of its trespassers, quickly died away, tempered by the misery, the loss of so many. One raash’ke dragged a wing that scribed a crimson path across the planks.

She choked down a sob and let the song die in her chest.

Her weave of golden strands had no place here.

Daal shifted next to her and shouted in Panthean, calling to the raash’ke, gathering them out of the way, to allow the wounded to be tended, the dead to be mourned.

As Darant approached, the tread of his boots sounded firm but weary, a single drumbeat marking the finality of this battle.

“My men are sweeping the decks,” he announced. “Making sure there are no others. We have two captured Bhestyans on their knees, too maimed to offer any threat. But the point of my blade freed their tongues. If they spoke truthfully, these marauders are but a fraction of those aboard their warship.”

Daal stirred. “How many?”

“Fivefold the number that attacked us.”

Nyx pictured such a legion—along with the heavy armaments the warship carried.

Darant rattled out a sigh that matched Nyx’s fear.

Not for the threat expressed.

But for those who had been headed toward it.

Though blind, she turned to the east. “Someone must help them.”

She turned to Darant.

But who?