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N YX RUSHED FORWARD as Daal collapsed into Shiya’s arms. His body went slack, his head lolling back. Still, his form blazed with a golden fire that blinded. She lifted a hand against it, but its shine burned through her flesh.

She stopped before reaching him, fearful of their connection, of what touching that fire might do to her—and to him. Especially as she already raged with energies she could barely contain.

“We must get Daal out of here,” she gasped. “Back to the grotto and open air.”

Shiya picked him up, carrying him in her arms as if bearing aloft a golden sun.

“Hurry,” Nyx urged everyone. “He cannot hold that power for long.”

They all got moving swiftly.

Still, Nyx glanced back to the dark mountain of Khagar.

Before Daal had fallen into Shiya’s arms, Nyx had watched the rhythmic throbbing of the glowing tanks slow, marking time of another’s failing heart. Then that all faded, whispering away with a final wheezing breath. In that moment, with the golden ember handed to another, her bridled eyes picked out a tracery of light that remained behind. It flared momentarily brighter, as if joined by another, then with a final twinkling, it all dissipated into darkness.

“Be at peace,” she whispered to that eternal darkness. “Both of you.”

As she reached the exit, a glow drew her back. From the shadows, the dhelpr? circled from behind Khagar’s dark bulk and flowed to nestle against his quiet wings.

The dhelpr? shone there like a candle in the dark.

Nyx stared a moment, sensing this creature was the last of its kind, one too beautiful for this harsh world. As if acknowledging this, it bounded up and away. Its shine flowed into the shadowy mountain behind it—leaving its dark body behind on the stone. For a breath, the glow maintained the shape of the dhelpr?—then like a candle snuffed, it vanished, maybe chasing after those last scintillating sparks.

She recognized this last act.

Of a duty finished.

Nyx shoved away, knowing hers was not. She remembered Arryn’s description of the legend of the dhelpr?, how sighting one was a promise of great fortune.

May that still hold true now.

She hurried after the others. They rushed back along their path until bright sunlight beckoned. Ahead, Bashaliia and Pyllar stood guard, limned against the brilliance. She crossed to her winged brother, while he danced slightly on his hindlegs in greeting, an antic from when he had been no bigger than a winter goose.

She pushed into his warmth, his musk, his nuzzling nose.

Nyx needed this moment, praying to never lose him. She understood how painful it must have been for the Dr?shra to let Khagar go, especially after so many millennia together.

No wonder you did not want to take on this burden.

To the side, Vikas rushed up to Graylin and Kalder. The quartermaster gestured with urgency, her wide brow knit with concern. Nyx caught the symbol for horn —then she heard it, too.

Echoing across the broken cliffs of the Heep, a loud blaring reached the grotto, likely rising from the kalk?a sleds that had followed them here.

Nyx patted Bashaliia and hurried to Graylin. “What’s wrong?”

The answer came from Arryn, who had been in an earnest conversation with Irquan. The man’s words were breathless, his eyes pained. “Tosgon is under attack. Your ship, too. From the Dragon. We must get back.”

“That’ll do no good,” Nyx said. “We’re too few. We need a greater weapon.”

She turned to Shiya, who had carried Daal to the mouth of the cavern. She had laid him at the edge, keeping him in the shadows. His body still burned within that blazing pyre, barely discernible through the fire.

Nyx hurried toward him. “I must free the ember Daal carries. Use it to force the mankrae to remember their past, to remind them of who they once were.” She turned to the others. “But to do that, you must all leave.”

Graylin stepped after her. “We can’t do that.”

Nyx was not about to pitch a battle with him. They had no time. “Trust me in this. The mankrae are already spooked by the sailraft. It can’t be here. Neither can Shiya for the same reason. It must be only Daal and me. I’ll keep Bashaliia and Pyllar with us as protection, as wings if we need to escape. If those two giants can’t keep us safe, a handful of swords and a vargr aren’t going to make any difference.”

Graylin opened his mouth as if to object, but instead he proved he had heard her. “I understand. You must appear defenseless to the mankrae. But what about Bashaliia and Pyllar? Won’t their presence scare off the other bats?”

“I’m hoping, if the pair are far enough back in the cave, that they’ll not be deemed threatening, especially being bats themselves.”

“That didn’t stop the wraiths from attacking before,” Graylin reminded her.

She nodded. “Exactly. The pair did not intimidate the mankrae enough to chase them away. With the sailraft gone, the horde will likely grow emboldened again.”

Vikas nodded, tapping a fist to her shoulder, then pointing at Nyx. “ She’s right. ”

Graylin took a deep, shuddering breath, clearly fearful of abandoning Nyx, as he had in the past. But she was not that child in the swamps any longer.

Nyx waved to the sailraft. “Go! It’s our only hope to make this work.”

Graylin finally relented and motioned everyone back to the raft’s hold. “Load up!” He turned back and demanded a concession. “We’ll head out, but we’ll stick close.”

She refused even this. “No. If you’re near, the wraiths will be too wary. Head to the Chanr? sleds, find out what is happening across the glass sea. If I forge something here, I must act fast. None of us know how long such a miracle will last.”

Least of all me.

N YX KNELT BESIDE Daal and raised her palms, as if warming her hands over the golden pyre of his body. She watched the sailraft vanish over the lip of the grotto. Its flames glowed for a spell, then became lost in the glare. Still, she waited until even the roar of its forges had faded to silence.

She glanced behind her, noting the heavy shift of shadows that marked the presence of Bashaliia and Pyllar in the cave. She took comfort from their bodies, from the glow of bridle-song emanating out of the gloom.

Below her, Daal groaned, his brow beaded with sweat. His lips grimaced as he inwardly fought to hold the heart of a vast colony behind his ribs. It threatened to pound and shatter free of that small cage.

I can wait no longer.

She lowered her hands and placed them atop his chest. With her touch, he jolted under her, his back arching so high that only the back of his head and his heels touched the stone. As he collapsed back down, she fell into him, into the golden fire.

She gasped out of her lips and his.

There was little communion, no sharing of selves, only flames. She struggled to find any flesh, anything to anchor herself to him. She feared such power may have burned Daal away.

Still, she girded herself, refusing to succumb to despair. She knew the only way to help him, to even attempt this impossible act, was to draw energy from him, from his wellspring, to relieve the tension, like removing a brick from the dam before it burst.

But how?

She already brimmed with power. It raged through every corner of her body. Still, she sensed that insatiable hunger inside her. Even with Daal’s wellspring emptied into her, that craving remained. In the past, she had always fought it, refusing what it demanded, lest she lose control, lest she be consumed by it.

Last winter, she had reached that edge, even surging past. It terrified her, a path to unending madness. She had only been pulled back from that ravening edge by Daal, his lips on hers and the promise it held. In that stormy madness, he had been a lighthouse, shining with gold across a raging sea of emerald.

I must do the same here.

For him, for her, for any hope of a future.

She closed her eyes and reached to the sigil branded deep inside her. It still scared her, but it had to be withstood. As she held her palms tight to Daal, she sent a strand of bridle-song and touched the sigil branded into her by the raash’ke. Again, it exploded with arcane energies, so fierce it cast back the fires in both of them.

She gritted her teeth, feeling Daal do the same, a tensing of his whole body. Then their two pyres—hers and his—crashed back together. The ground shook under them. She heard glass break in the distance. Such was the raw power given substance by this act, fueled by all the energies between them.

She fixed an image in her head. When battling the Hálendiian corsair over the Tablelands, she had forged song into a fiery sword and ripped through the ship’s gasbag.

Here, she chose another form.

Of a lighthouse in a stormy sea.

Daal moaned, perhaps recognizing it, too.

She arched her back and sang with all her breath and fiery strength. She cast out waves of bridling gold into the grotto, carrying herself there, too. She swept in a circle, as if she had wings, faster and faster, building a fiery whirlwind trapped in black glass.

She then let ancient words burst from her throat, born out of that exploded sigil. She sang song into purpose. Lowering her chin, she coalesced all that energy into form—not a shining sword, but a glowing fiery column.

She held it there—then and only then did she open herself to the golden pyre inside Daal. She let her dark well’s tidal pull draw energy from his spring. Still, as that power flooded into her, she denied herself that strength.

It is not mine.

Instead, she diverted that golden flow toward her creation in the grotto. She let it surge up the inside of her column and burst out the top, flaming with the golden purity of Khagar’s heart, of a past long forgotten.

She held it there.

A beacon shining out into these cliffs.

A lighthouse for those lost to madness.

As she waited, she sang her welcome to all that could hear.

But would they remember?

Time grew suspended, impossible to judge before the splendor shining in the grotto, reflected in the glass. Still, her throat ached as she held this torch high. She watched both from her knees next to Daal and through her spirit atop the beacon.

Then a single shadow sped into view. It swept a wary circle across the space. Then another. And another. Still, they hung back, attracted but scared, likely struggling with memories buried deep.

As they spun, she noted the trails of emerald fury tracing the air.

Then more pushed through the pinched rift or sailed down from on high. The air soon fluttered with wings. Their savage cries echoed off the walls, rising into a crescendo. But what burned out in the grotto withstood it all, as surely as Daal’s lighthouse in a raging emerald sea.

Finally, maybe due to a bravery born of numbers, one drew closer to the golden pyre. A small wraith, barely bigger than a winter goose, like when Bashaliia swept back into her life. It drew to a tentative hover, keening a softer note.

Nyx watched it from below and on high.

Trust yourself, little one.

Her spirit reached out from that beacon, encouraging the bat to come closer. Down low, her arm raised, too, lifting from Daal’s chest, while keeping the other rooted to him, to maintain this conduit of shared power.

Then something struck her outstretched hand.

Pain lanced up her arm.

She gasped and yanked it back, realizing a passing wraith had ripped into it.

Blood poured down her wrist. She cradled it closer, then saw her last finger had been torn off.

No…

In a panic, she shoved away, as if she could escape her hand, but she could not escape what it meant. She flashed to an unending nightmare, one with a portent of doom and failure.

… breathless, she skids to a stop at the summit. She takes in everything, recognizing she is older, scarred, missing a finger on her left hand…

She stared down as blood flowed.

The same hand, the same finger.

She fell back. Only then did she realize what her panic had wrought. Out in the grotto, the mass of wraiths screamed with fury. The lighthouse fell apart under that onslaught, no longer supported by song or energy.

The golden pyre—the last ember of the Kraena —burned away. What had been preserved for millennia died before her, assaulted by the mad fury of its feral descendants. Torn apart, consumed, corrupted. As she watched, pure gold slowly turned to raging emerald.

“What have I done?” she moaned.

Daal stirred. He shone with a residual golden glow, enough to allow him to crawl to her, escaping the savagery behind him.

“You’re hurt,” he gasped out.

She stared down, horror-struck by her hand, knowing what it foretold, what was proven here now.

“I’ve failed… failed us all.”