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N YX GASPED WITH the shock of this revelation. Graylin tried to shove her behind him, but she shrugged out of his way.

She refused to shy from this and stared at the figure seated on the throne.

An Axis, the same one who had led the Revn-kree army here.

Though jolted, she should have suspected as much, even before entering these tunnels. The Roots of the ta’wyn, while changeable of form, had little gift of bridle-song. That talent—known as synmeld among their kind—was limited to the Axis and even more powerfully to the Kryst castes.

Graylin kept his sword raised and called to the throne, “If what you claim is true, you turned on your own kind. Why?”

“Why?”

Spoken by the Dr?shra, this one word sounded as if it contained a multitude of questions. Her answer hinted at those queries.

“I… I do not know why our creators gifted us with synmeld, ” she said, clearly struggling to speak, as if rusted by age. “It is as much a curse as a blessing. It is a path to tormenting empathy as much as a font of power.”

Nyx understood this all too well.

The Dr?shra stared down with a small shake of her head. “I came to this desert to fulfill my duty, to secure and guard the turubya. But these scorched sands were not empty, not devoid of life. It sang and flew and burrowed, calling in a hundred songs, a chorus stronger than any shield I could build against it.”

As she continued, her voice slowly lost its rasp, growing harder. “Then the pain began. The torture of subjugation. The atrocities of land and beast. The blood and bone of war by the Kraena who sought to root us out. I endured it for two centuries, but it grew too much.”

Nyx could not fathom what that must have been like. She had endured battles, brief and savage, and it had nearly broken her— did break her for a time.

But to endure the same over centuries…

“Still, I did not betray my duty,” the Axis said forlornly. “Instead, I found myself growing distant from it, unable to function. The Roots noted this. They began a project in secret, to cast me aside. It’s what they have been laboring on over these passing millennia. But what they attempt risks damaging the turubya —and may have done so already.”

Nyx felt a sinking despair.

Have we come all this way for nothing?

Graylin stirred with the same worry. “What were they doing?”

He was ignored, as if considered inconsequential. “To stop this project, to assuage the centuries of agony, I sought out the only weapon I hoped would be strong enough to stop them.”

“The Kraena, ” Nyx said.

“They were a powerful force, united in mind and purpose, beautifully dark and savage. But the Roots are as malleable of mind as they are in form. They crafted infernal weapons of immense strength. The war that followed burned across these lands. It was waged for a quarter century. Neither giving way. But eventually bronze and resourcefulness proved too much for heart and spirit.”

“The horde-mind broke,” Nyx whispered.

The Dr?shra ’s eyes closed, her face tight with grief. “They were so beautiful… especially Khagar, who was the true guardian of these lands, who led his winged legions with such ferocity.”

Nyx glanced to Arryn. They had heard a name like that before. “Khagarsan. Is that not what the Chanr? call the black mountain?”

“It means Home of Khagar, ” he whispered, stiff with reverence. “It is the name of a Chanr? god. His name simply means Guardian. ”

Still lost in the past, the Dr?shra continued, “After the fall, I had hoped to find a way to forge the Kraena anew, to bring that dark golden beauty back to life.” She waved to the web of copper and alchymy and scavenged parts. “But in the end, all I could do was endure, preserving what I could until someone stronger could take over those reins.”

Those azure eyes opened and blazed toward Nyx.

“And now you have arrived. I’ve watched you atop wings, even greater and darker than Khagar’s. You are a ka’wyn reborn at last.”

Graylin stepped before that fiery gaze. “What is a ka’wyn ?”

She answered, whether hearing the question or simply continuing, “One rises once every several millennia, the perfect alignment of flesh and talent, of heart and power, a being capable of retaining a strength beyond our kind. I’ve heard them rise out there, like distant stars, only to fade again.”

As the Dr?shra continued, Nyx noted the voice drifting, unmoored, yet there remained an urgency, maybe even more so now. “The first of you, though, was not born of chance, but crafted as a weapon. By Kryst Eligor. Fashioned out of brutality and enslavement. With such a weapon, the Revn-kree became unstoppable. Yet, even brutality and enslavement could be defeated by will and sacrifice. The first ka’wyn wrested herself free, dying to do so. It broke Eligor’s dominance, weakened him, allowed him to be defeated and broken. But before she expired, she read her blood and power and knew others would arise like her. What Eligor crafted, chance and circumstance could re-create. She told this to Eligor before she expired. This terror, perhaps more than the loss of his weapon, may have led to his downfall. Eligor feared this portent.”

Shiya interrupted. “This portent. You’re speaking of the prophetic rise of the Vyk dyre Rha, are you not?”

A slow nod answered her. “She who would be reborn. A queen birthed out of the shadows of time. But her coming is not prophecy, but certainty, the certainty of time’s passing, of the rolling of millennia that eventually stirs the right elements back into place, to bring flesh and talent into the correct alignment, to return order out of chaos.”

Nyx touched her chest. These words both relieved and terrified her. She was not a creature prophesied into being, but simply a girl abandoned in the swamp, a seed cast off into the mire of the Myr, a babe already gifted with nascent talent in her blood. There, she was chanced upon by a she-bat and raised under a constant chorus of potent keening, which altered her young mind when it was still soft clay, nurturing that seed into something new, something capable of wielding a gift with far greater talent and strength.

“Chance and circumstance,” Nyx whispered, describing her path, her creation.

But what does this all mean?

Graylin asked the same question in a different manner, repeating his earlier query. “But what is a ka’wyn ?”

The Dr?shra finally acknowledged him. “It is a Kryst born of flesh.”

Nyx flinched at these words.

“Such rare beings are far stronger than those forged of bronze. As high as a Kryst sits above a Root, so does a ka’wyn rise above a Kryst. It is this that terrifies Eligor. If he can’t bend you to his will, he must destroy you.”

These last words were spoken not with warning but sorrow. The copper alchymy surrounding her throne grew brighter as the glow from her body faded, as if she were giving herself over to the web.

“I will do what I can,” the Dr?shra whispered. “To give you the gift I have held close to my heart for all these millennia. I’ve sustained it with the alchymy around me, along with my undying gratitude, for a brave spirit who showed me the beauty of life over the desolation of an undying existence.”

Her voice lowered to a whisper as her glow faded. “But first you must be made ready.”

The Dr?shra lifted her hands as if in supplication, but it was clearly in invitation.

Nyx stepped forward. Graylin reached to stop her, then let his arm drop. Through her bridle-song, Nyx felt no enmity from this queen, a sentinel who had waited across lonely millennia. Nyx sensed only weariness, maybe some fear, though not for herself.

The Dr?shra swung her tired gaze from Nyx to another, someone else invited to approach.

Nyx turned. “Daal, she wants you, too.”

He hesitated.

She recognized he did not have as keen an eye when it came to bridle-song. She tried to reassure him. “She means us no harm.”

Daal nodded and followed her.

Nyx faced the broken majesty of this queen.

At least, I hope not.

Once they were closer, the Dr?shra beckoned with her hands, wanting each of them to take one. With a deep breath, Nyx took the left. The bronze felt warm against her skin, which calmed some of her misgivings.

A moment later, Daal reached to the other.

As he made contact, those azure eyes closed. A soft humming rose around the throne. Nyx felt a gentle pull, which drew her song into the Dr?shra ’s fading glow. Fear trickled up—then Daal gasped next to her.

She glanced over as Daal’s back arched. Power flowed in a golden torrent, blindingly bright, pouring out of the wellspring inside him—and into the Dr?shra.

The queen’s bronze form flared with that stolen strength.

Daal fought to free himself, but bronze fingers clutched hard, trapping him.

Shiya rushed over, recognizing his distress, surely seeing what was being ravished out of Daal. But Shiya’s speed proved not enough. In a single breath, all of Daal’s strength was torn from his wellspring, draining it dark.

When Shiya reached him, the Dr?shra let go of her grip. Daal tumbled backward into Shiya’s arms. His body trembled. His breath frosted the air, reflecting the heat drawn from him, too.

Nyx yanked at her own hand, finding herself equally entrapped. Before her, the Dr?shra blazed with the fire stolen from Daal. Those azure eyes stared down at her, pitying now. Words boomed from her lips.

“Be the wyldstrom !”

Graylin rushed up and grabbed Nyx’s shoulders.

Before he could break her free, before she could rouse a defense, all that power rampaged down the Dr?shra ’s arm and struck Nyx with a force that crushed her lungs and burned a nimbus of fire across her skin.

Graylin got thrown back.

All of Daal’s stolen power slammed into Nyx. It filled every fiber of her body. It flamed through the marrow of her bones, clenched every muscle, burned away all vision. She became a torch before this dire queen.

In her blindness, words reached her, carried to her in bridle-song, not breath.

“Be the wyldstrom…” the Dr?shra intoned. But it was not a command this time, only a sorrowful plea. “To do what I did not have the heart to do…”

Nyx’s vision swirled back into focus. Those bronze fingers relaxed. But before she could pull herself free, they tightened again.

“Tell him… share with him… how much I love…”

Then those fingers went slack.

Nyx fell away from the throne—from where a cold, dark queen now sat.

All the fire, all the bridling glow, had snuffed from the figure, leaving only cold bronze and a slumped shape. A few traces of brilliance danced across the copper webbing, forming a scintillating halo around the throne.

It held that way for a long breath, the last testament to this warrior-queen. Then this, too, faded, traveling deeper into the copper maze, where it vanished into the darkness.

Daal gasped out, drawing Nyx’s attention. She staggered toward where he trembled on his knees. Her body trembled, too, struggling to hold in so much power. The edges of her vision burned with a crimson fire.

“Daal…”

She reached toward him, her hands already aglow with pent-up energies. She was ready to give some back— needing to do so, to shed some of this power. But before she could, a flash of gold, all wrapped around snowy fur, burst between them.

The sudden appearance of the dhelpr? made them both fall back.

Kalder barked in warning.

The creature ignored the vargr, spun a circle, trailed by its long, striped tail. Then it took off and dashed behind the throne. As it did, the dhelpr? gave off another forlorn cry of heartbreak, as if mourning its fallen queen.

Arryn offered his own interpretation. “It wants us to follow.”

Nyx twisted around, unsure what to do. None of this made any sense. She listened as the dhelpr?’s call faded.

Is something back there?

Arryn set off after the dhelpr?. The Chanr?’s thin form twisted through the tangle, scouting a path, then vanished out of view.

A moment later, a terrified shout arose. “Come here! All of you!”

Nyx gained her feet. Graylin kept to her side, but without touching her. Maybe even he sensed the fiery font she struggled to contain. He simply gripped his sword harder, lifting its tip.

Shiya drew Daal up. He hung in her arms, but he could keep his feet. Even his breath no longer frosted as his body’s trembling warmed him.

They stumbled along Arryn’s path and wormed through the labyrinth of tubing and tanks, all dark, no longer bubbling with alchymies.

Finally, they reached a cavern hidden behind the throne. Here, too, the strange, scavenged web extended, spanning roofs and walls, running in a pattern across the floor, where four tanks still burbled gently, stirring a glow that slowly waned and waxed, as if mimicking a heartbeat.

And maybe it was.

The heartbeat of the ancient creature before them.

It lay curled on the stone, wrapped in wings, which in turn were all encircled by a long tail that ended in a fan of membrane. It was a mankra… only tenfold larger than any seen during the attack. It rose like a shadowy mountain at the cavern’s center. Its massive chest lifted and fell, barely discernible, exhaling with the slightest wheeze.

Though it lived, the passing centuries had weathered it—evident from the tattered gray fur, the bones pressing against thin skin, the wrinkled and shriveled state of the wings. The ears lay flat, with one torn away long ago. Other scars crisscrossed the body, mapping a history of strife and pain.

Still, Nyx gave all of this little heed.

Instead, her fiery eyes peered past age and frailty to the heart—not the one thumping quietly after millennia of slumber, but to the true shining core of this great warrior. It blazed with a golden purity that ached through her. She basked in its beauty, at the eternity it represented, at the sheer magnificence of the power.

If she listened, she could hear a whisper of ancient battles, the dreams of this great beast, its hopes, its promises, even a grief that had no bottom. Yet it remained strong, a font of bridle-song that would challenge even Daal’s wellspring.

Unable to stand before such majesty, she fell to her knees in front of this king. She recognized the bronze queen had gone to great effort to keep him alive, to preserve this golden ember, to hold it safe in the hope of one last fight.

Nyx named this ancient king, knowing it to be true.

“Khagar.”