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A ALIA HELD FAST to her mount as the ground shook. Her horse’s hooves clattered atop the stone rampart. Tazar angled his stallion closer, accompanied by the ringing of his armor.

“We should go below,” he warned.

“It’s only a tremor,” she scolded, which proved true as the shaking quieted again.

Still, distressed shouts, amidst wails of concern, rose from both sides of the wall. The bulwark circled the nine massive tiers of the Bad’i Chaa. The House of Wisdom was a city unto itself, closed off and darkly cloistered, limited to those who suffered the tutelage here.

But not this morning.

Rather than waiting for the doom to come, Aalia had heeded Chaaen Hrash’s warning concerning the pending threat of another Cataclysm of Gaius. She had spent most of the night studying the charts brought by Hrash’s colleagues. She had wanted to get a better understanding of the fragile nature of Kysalimri’s foundations. Together with the others, she had mapped the skittering clefts beneath the city, the fissures that branched off from a great rift running alongside the mountain range of the Hyrg Scarp.

Working with all the resources of Sail, Wing, and Shield, along with the knowledge of the Bad’i Chaa scholars, she had put together a hasty plan of resettlement and relocation. She wanted to pull the populace of Kysalimri away from those clefts, where the quakes during Gaius’s rule had struck the hardest.

She had warned those gathered up in the Blood’d Tower: We must learn from that tragedy.

So, before the first dawn bell rang out, she had begun a massive movement of the people of Kysalimri, a tidal effort that was still ongoing. It required the coordination of all her imperial forces—except those returning from the battle along the southern coast of Hálendii.

Over the past bells, legions of her Shield had marched through the city, rousting people, getting them moving. The Wing had helped from above, offering support and dropping supplies at hundreds of rallying points. Meanwhile, the Sail had set about drawing boats to deeper water, while assisting the Shield to empty the lower quarters of the city.

Still, while progress had been made, much still needed to be done. Due to the massive breadth of the Eternal City, it would take weeks to move everyone to firmer footing.

Hrash had insisted they did not have that long.

Aalia had accepted this hard truth and its only solution.

We must do all we can in the time we have.

From atop the school’s massive bulwark, Aalia stared down at the tented encampments spread across the open plazas. The same filled the yards behind the wall. The Bad’i Chaa sat on one of the firmest foundations of the city, second only to the footings under the imperial citadel. Aalia wondered if the ancient designers of Kysalimri had knowledge of what underlay this region and chose these locations for this very reason.

Regardless, she took advantage of such wisdom now. She had forced open the doors to the school, filling its yards, even setting up camps across its tiers. The same held true for the imperial citadel, along with hundreds of other stable regions across the city.

Overhead, a pair of swyftships circled, offering support. Below, hundreds of the Shield settled disputes, calmed the frightened, and beat down any hot spots of dissent that tried to flare up—which unfortunately were growing in number.

Tazar voiced this very concern. “I’ve fielded crows from the Shayn’ra. Voices continue to rise across the city, fueled by panic and confusion. What you attempt to do—to spare as many lives as possible—is already driving sentiment against you. If you push any harder, the city will break. And if the cataclysm never strikes, anger will inflame a hundredfold.”

“As you’ve warned many times.”

She reached over and touched his knee. She knew his fear focused on her. It fueled much of his skepticism.

Tazar huffed. “You place too much confidence on the fears of those three scholars.”

“Perhaps. But better that I be torn from my throne, than have millions die to keep me on it.”

“Then let us at least head back to the citadel. Best we return to the Blood’d Tower, where you can oversee matters just as well.”

She turned her gaze to the hundred spires that rose from the grounds of the citadel. She could not stomach returning there. Besides riding out to let herself be seen during this time of tumult, it had also been an escape. She had fled the last missive delivered by a skrycrow. It had arrived shortly after word reached her of the imperial fleet retreating home from the battle along the Hálendiian coast.

But another group would not be making that journey.

The last missive had come from the Razen Rose, the contents of which were further confirmed by dispatches from Klashean spies in Azantiia.

The attempted assault on Highmount had failed.

Her brother, along with Kanthe and the others, had been captured and imprisoned deep under the castle. Not only were they lost, but so was any hope of discovering the key to the turubya. With such a defeat, the world’s fate had been sealed.

Unable to face this grimness, or the loss of her brother and friends, Aalia had fled away, to do what she could.

I can do no more.

Tazar groaned, drawing her attention. “Trouble approaches.”

Aalia walked her horse around to face the ramp that led up from the yard. Chaaen Hrash flogged a mule upward, driving it toward them. Six bells ago, he had vanished into the massive school, where he had gathered all the scholars of the House of Wisdom, all its alchymists and hieromonks, all to work on this one threat.

To see him now, rushing toward her, Tazar had to be right.

Trouble approaches.

Hrash reached them, hopped off his mule, and started to drop to a knee.

Aalia waved him up. “Chaaen Hrash, what’s wrong?”

He answered, breathless and gasping, “Your Illustriousness, we… we were mistaken?”

Aalia stiffened. “About the Cataclysm of Gaius.”

He nodded, gulping to catch his breath. “That’s correct.”

Tazar clenched a fist. They both knew the risk Aalia had taken.

If I’ve riled tensions across the city for no reason…

But Hrash was not done. “The cataclysm will be far worse than we predicted.”

“What? Why?” Aalia focused harder on the Chaaen. “Explain what you mean.”

“I apologize for failing you, Your Illustriousness. Earlier, I was too limited in my studies, too focused on the city, too narrow-sighted at the full extent of history.”

“Tell us,” Tazar snapped angrily.

“By bringing the full breadth of the Bad’i Chaa to bear on this problem, we widened the scope of study, both across many lands and deeper into history—all the way back to ancient records that lie within the shadow of the Forsaken Ages. There were scholars already working on this over their lifetime. I should’ve thought to consult them sooner, but in the rush to—”

Aalia cut him off. “What did these studies reveal to you?”

He looked up, his expression aghast. “The cataclysm will certainly strike harder upon the city—but not just here. From those ancient records, drawn from around the Crown, an event of this magnitude will reverberate around the world, shaking the entire Urth.”

Aalia’s limbs grew cold.

Hrash turned to the sky. “And with the moon pulling ever harder…”

His words trailed off, leaving unspoken the disaster that would follow.

She followed his gaze to the horizon, to the face of the moon. Even without the school’s powerful lenses, she could make out the faint angry blush now rimming its silver.

She knew what this foretold.

The beginning of the end.