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F IVE DAYS AFTER flying free of the ruins, Nyx climbed up into the wheelhouse of the Fyredragon. She wiped sweat from her brow. Her clothing clung to every crevice of her body. Her mouth remained as dry as the desert beyond the window. Each breath scorched her lungs.

Jace noticed her arrival from where he was bent with Fenn at the navigation station. He straightened and turned to her. His injured arm hung in a sling, but otherwise he looked recovered. Whatever lurked inside him, some dark mirror to her bridle-song, continued to remain locked away.

“How are the raash’ke and Bashaliia faring in the heat?” he asked, his gaze sweeping over the drench of her body.

“Even in the shadows, it’s like an oven down there. We need more water for their troughs. They’re going through barrels by the bell.”

“Take what you need. I checked our cisterns. We’ll easily make it to the caverns that Esme marked on our map—the watering hole for her nomadic people. Sounds like those caves break into a deep aquifer.”

Fenn stretched a kink from his back. “Hopefully our hoses will reach down that far, so we can use our hand pumps. Otherwise, we’ll be hauling up bucket after bucket.”

Nyx noted that the navigator’s eyes had regained their usual sparkle. Fenn also moved with greater ease, a lightness of being that reflected his lifted burden. Nyx was glad he had decided to continue with them. He had tried to get his sister to come, too, but she had a husband, two children, and traitorous slanders to challenge in Bhestya. With the support of the Spur ’s battle commander, the latter should not be hard. So Fenn had departed, leaving his sister to await rescue by the other Bhestyan vessel.

When their two groups had parted, it had not been without some bitterness and rancor. Too many had died on both sides. Even with the blame cast at the high minister’s feet, those losses, still fresh and raw, were hard to forgive. The Fyredragon had lost five Pantheans and eight of Darant’s men. Not counting the injured and wounded, some who might not live. One of the raash’ke—a buck named Faryn—still nursed a damaged wing. It remained unknown if he would ever fly again, which crushed his rider, Arik.

Still, Faryn had become a flag around which the Pantheans had rallied. The raash’ke represented everything they had endured or lost. Daal had noted this change, too—a union forged by blood and suffering. He did not know if it would last, but for now it was enough.

Contrary to this closeness, Nyx and Daal had returned to keeping a cautious distance from one another. His wellspring had replenished—along with the danger it represented.

Not that the two had much time to discuss it.

Before they departed Seekh, their dead had to be buried. The Pantheans had inked final messages onto the skin of their fallen, as was their custom. But here, there was no watery grave for the bodies.

Just sand and rock.

Still, their tomb was honorable enough. With great solemnity, they had interred their dead into the vastness of the Necropolises of Seekh, to add their spirits to a pantheon tracing back to the lost mists of time.

Yet Nyx knew this was not enough. No words or burial shrouds could truly cover the amount of innocent blood spilled into that ancient dust.

Before a heavier melancholy could weigh her down, Jace offered some better tidings. “I heard Esme and Krysh were successful in collecting water from the air. A method of tarping used by the Chanaryn people. With so much unknown ahead, every drop will be important.”

Nyx pushed back her shoulders, grateful for even this small measure of success. “That’s wonderful.”

Jace nodded, thoughtfully tapping a thumb against his forehead. “Of course, there’s still the matter of the growing heat.”

Nyx heard Graylin and Darant murmuring the same concern. It had been on all their minds. Still, she shared a glance with Fenn, who was staring at Jace’s tapping thumb. The navigator had raised a private concern with her. She had already been told about the strange apparition of the kezmek, returning in some phantom form after their encounter back in Spindryft.

And now this…

Nyx had known Jace for ages, knew his every mannerism, but she had never noted this tic of a tapping thumb. But Fenn had. Orren did that all the time, he had explained. They both wondered if some bit of what had been drawn into the void persisted, some echo that remained. There was no way of knowing. It could be meaningless, some quirk to all of this.

With her bridle-song replenished, Nyx had considered probing Jace with some tentative strands and exploring deeper. But she feared disturbing what slept inside him.

In the end, without any obvious harm or danger to all of this, she and Fenn had decided to keep this worry to themselves. At the moment, far more troublesome and immediate concerns needed to be addressed.

Darant raised another. “Even if we could withstand the heat, this blasted scorch is starting to challenge our forge-engines. Hyck says they can’t take much more. At best, he believes we can travel another four days, maybe five, before we’ll be forced to turn back or risk getting stranded when they fail.”

Nyx drew closer. This was the first time she had heard of this danger. “We can’t head back,” she warned as she joined them. “In that direction lies certain doom. Moonfall will become inevitable. We must reach the turubya. ”

Graylin nodded. “She’s not wrong. We have no choice but to forge ahead, even if it means abandoning the Fyredragon and crossing the Barrens on foot.”

“I’d rather not see that happen.” Darant ran a palm over the maesterwheel. “Much blood has been spilled to raise this dragon from its grave and bring it this far.”

“You’re also not wrong,” Graylin admitted, staring out at the sunburned desert.

Nyx kept vigil with them. Dunes rolled into the distance, vanishing into a harsh glare. Dotted throughout, wind-sculpted black rock scarred the red sands, looking like stranded ships, a reminder of the danger they faced. Across it all, faint dust trails rose across the dunes, marking Chanaryn caravans. Elsewhere, whirling wisps spun into the air—the breaths of the goddess Ishuka, according to Esme.

Nyx prayed for that desert goddess to continue her slumber.

Unable to face the challenge any longer, Nyx turned away. As she did, hushed whispers rose around the wheelhouse, as if the ghosts of the Elders had swept into the ship, rising from the ruins, bringing with them the cold touch of the tomb.

Nyx lifted a hand to her cheek, feeling the brush of cool air. She turned to the source of the whispering. It flowed out the ends of the small copper tubes, which snaked down to the giant bronze spheres below.

“The coolers…” Graylin murmured, lifting a palm to the chill.

Darant struck his fist atop the wheel. “The bastards are working!”

Jace rushed over. “Shiya must’ve been right. About them igniting on their own when the air grew too hot.”

They were not the only ones to note the change. Muffled cheers rose throughout the ship.

With her palm still on her cheek, Nyx faced the desert again and the challenge it represented. For the past year, they had been chased and hunted, pursued from behind, harried at every turn.

But no one can follow us past this point.

Still, Nyx found little relief. She knew what lay ahead, beyond the sun’s glare.

An army led by a ta’wyn —an Axis—one as powerful as Shiya.

And a Dragon.

Whom they dared not wake.