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W ITH THE WORLD reduced again to murky shades, Nyx sank to her knees on the rocking floor, disoriented by her limited sight. The forest chimed madly, not with the dissonant hiss of corrupted life, but from the rattle of branches. Behind her, the sphere bumped with loud rings against its copper riggings. Each one made her cringe, fearful of hearing the splintering of crystal as it broke.

Finally, the violent jolting and rocking quieted. She touched a palm to the floor, still feeling a slight tremoring in the copper. But it might just be the power thrumming from the giant buried cables feeding the turubya. Still, to her it felt like the world was holding its breath.

“Is it over?” Jace asked.

“For now,” Krysh answered.

Graylin stirred past her, just a shadow sweeping by. Kalder followed, heavily panting. She could smell the blood on his breath, heard it in his ragged wheezes. She rose to follow, to where the group was regathering. She stretched an arm out into the gloom.

Then Daal was there and took her elbow. With both so weak, there was not even a spark between them. “I’ve got you.”

He helped guide her to the others.

Graylin spoke sternly. “Another quake could strike anytime. We must decide on a plan. Do we try to destroy the turubya, as Jace suggested? Cripple it so it’s useless to Eligor?”

Nyx struggled to accept this as their only option.

Not after the cost in blood, misery, and death.

Nyx searched until she spotted a brighter shine amidst the gathering—not bridle-song, simply a glint of bronze. “Shiya, what happened when you engaged the Root’s new activation bed? Did you sense anything while connected to it? Something to guide us?”

Shiya remained silent for a long breath, then spoke softly, still sounding weak. “I felt my essence drawn from my body, pulled to the sphere, hovering above it. Energy wafted over me in great waves, rising from the sphere, an immensity beyond scope. It was nothing like what I had experienced at the Frozen Wastes inside the chrysalis. At the same time, I sensed a focus upon me that carried that same sense of enormity. As if a great eye was staring at me.”

“Then what?” Jace asked.

“I was rejected.” Despair tinged her words. “Cast away, back into my bronze, only to find myself trapped there. Whatever the Roots crafted it was designed to shun an Axis. It was meant only for someone as potent as a Kryst.”

“Eligor…” Rhaif moaned.

Nyx rubbed her brow. Unable to see, unable to focus on the name Rab’almat inscribed into bronze, she suddenly heard what Shiya had just said, what the woman had truly just told them.

Nyx stirred to face the ta’wyn. “Shiya, you mentioned the Roots retooled the turubya ’s trigger so it could only work for someone as potent as a Kryst. ”

“That is what I sensed,” the ta’wyn answered. “What I experienced.”

“Does that mean any Kryst—not necessarily just Eligor?”

“Yes, I would surmise so.”

Graylin interjected, “But there are no other Krysts alive, so why does this matter?”

“That’s not true,” Nyx whispered, suddenly relieved not to be able to view their expressions. “There is another Kryst still alive.”

“Where?” Jace asked.

“Here.” Nyx pointed to her chest. “Right here.”

A moment of stunned silence erupted into gasps and mutters of incredulity, shock, and some anger. It was hard to say who took which stand. Then a hand slipped into hers. Though there was no heat of connection, no merging of senses, she knew it was Daal from the pattern of calluses, the size of his knuckles, the length of his fingers, even the slightly thicker webbing at the base of his thumb.

He just fit her.

He squeezed his reassurance, giving her the strength to continue.

“According to the Dr?shra, I’m the first ka’wyn to appear in ages. A Kryst born of flesh.”

Graylin scoffed. “She was surely speaking metaphorically, not literally, certainly not physically.”

“There is one way to find out.” Nyx pushed up, balancing on Daal, her anchor even now. She turned to Shiya’s shine, trying to peer through the bronze. “First, I’ll need to regain my strength, if you’ll allow me.”

The woman stepped forward. “Take what you need.”

Graylin tried to intervene, shadowing Shiya’s bronze with his body. “This is too dangerous.”

Rhaif threw Graylin’s earlier words back at his feet. “We must try something,” the thief reminded him. “It failed with Shiya, but it may heed Nyx.”

Krysh agreed. “With moonfall approaching, all risks must be taken.”

Before Graylin could argue further, Nyx stepped to Shiya. Her bronze arms lifted toward her. Nyx reached, fumbled, and found the woman’s hands. The metal felt as warm and pliant as any flesh.

Nyx squeezed Shiya’s palms, both in thanks and to draw their connection closer.

Are we two truly that different?

All their hopes depended on the answer to that question being no.

Shiya sang to her, allowing her bridle-song to flow into Nyx, to feed that ravenous pit inside her. This time Nyx did not deny its hunger. As energy surged back into her, her vision grew clearer. The fog lifted from her eyes.

She saw Shiya staring down at her.

The woman’s warm hands firmed their hold on Nyx, marking their sisterhood. Nyx prayed what judged her next would see the same.

A sisterhood, a commonality, that went beyond the bronze of one’s skin.

S HINING WITH RENEWED strength, Nyx faced the dark clamshell looming past the fringes of the forest. Dust hung and swirled in ominous eddies around the tangle of bronze.

After Nyx’s assault upon it, the shell’s surface no longer rose as a smooth, sculpted curve. It had hardened into a treacherous briar’s nest of twisted fibrils, knotted cords, and snaking tendrils. It looked malignant and tortured, the very face of the forest behind it.

Graylin stood behind her. “We can try another way. You must not risk this.”

She shook her head, too afraid to speak lest she lose her nerve.

She turned and nodded to Krysh and Jace. The two men held Vikas’s leather vest stretched between them and started waving it up and down before the dreaded nest. The wind of the leather’s passage reminded Nyx of the beating of Bashaliia’s wings. Their efforts wafted the dust clear, opening the way for Nyx.

Before stepping back, Graylin reached to Nyx. She thought it was to drag her off, but his fingers gripped her firmly. “If anyone can do this, you can.”

She read his earnestness, his fear, but also his acceptance. She reached up and took his hand in hers, feeling calluses that reminded her of her dah back in Myr. “I’ll do my best,” she promised him.

He gave her fingers a final squeeze, then retreated to the others. He pointed to Jace and Krysh. “Don’t stop flagging that vest. If you tire, tell us.”

Both men nodded.

Past Graylin, Shiya stood with Rhaif and Vikas. Kalder kept close to the quartermaster’s side, as if recognizing who had saved him.

Nyx turned to Daal. He stared at the darkly transformed clamshell, and then, as if feeling her attention, he glanced to her. His eyes were pinched. His face had gone far paler. She easily read his expression.

If he could take this burden from her, he would.

She gave him a small nod, acknowledging this.

But this is a path I must walk alone.

Nyx took a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly as she passed into the bower’s fringe. She reached the briar’s nest and carefully stepped through its tangles, wormed through its thorns and clinging tendrils. Once at the center, she turned to face the others. They stood limned against the rise of the sphere, shadowed before the surging golden sea pulsing inside.

At the height of Nyx’s shoulders, two bronze arms still hung there, extending out from the edges of the shell, ending in rough grips. She took a moment to hum and gather her song tighter, to shine it brighter. She pushed that glow to her skin, wearing her song like armor again. She hoped the golden shine would blind this infernal device to the flesh she wore, making it look bronze enough.

She searched with her eyes and her spirit to make sure every curve and fold of her body was perfectly rendered and covered—only then did she reach up and grab the bronze handles.

She cringed, expecting the worst.

Nothing happened with her first breath.

Or her second.

On her third, she was wrenched out of her body. Unlike when she rode on a chorus of song, this was no flow of her spirit along golden strands. This was demand. This was mandate. And agonizing. She cried out in both flesh and spirit.

She swept up into an eternal darkness.

Then a sun exploded beneath her.

She winced at its brilliance, at the wash of gold at the star’s core. Waves pulsed up from there, washing in tidal surges, marking the very heartbeat of creation.

Beyond the sun, the world had reduced to mere outlines, barely discernible, just a vague iridescent sketch of the forest, of those gathered in the clearing. Nothing moved. Everything was frozen in place, stuck in amber. Farther out, reality vanished into swirling clouds of lustrous brilliance, as if churning with probabilities, where form was forever held in suspension, balanced between existence and annihilation.

She forced her gaze away, knowing only madness lay in that direction.

Instead, she looked down at herself, at her being carved of pure bridle-song. The shine of her form waxed and waned with every passing wave of tidal energy. She pictured the small dhelpr? glowing in the shadowy mountain of the mankrae king—and what the small creature had left behind.

Does my body still live at the edge of the forest?

This worry drew her more fully into herself, into her spirit.

Survival proved a good anchor.

As she settled, with waves pulsing past her, she felt what Shiya had described: a sense of immense scrutiny, of a great eye upon her, as if the sphere below were the monocle of a god. She braced herself to be rejected as abruptly as Shiya had been, but that intensity only grew, waxed into expectation, as if waiting for her to act.

But to do what?

She stared around again: at the world in amber, at the clouds of madness. She returned her gaze below, to challenge the all-consuming stare of the god’s eye. She squinted at its radiance, at the surging gold of its iris—then she looked deeper, discovering a dark pupil at the center of the gold.

It gazed back at her.

She shuddered, knowing what stared at her.

She had touched it before.

She had been told it might be here.

The weight of expectation grew crushing. It came out of that darkness. She knew what it wanted now. The realization came with a spark of inspiration.

The very spark she needed.

The strike of flint on steel to start a fire.

The how of it still escaped her, but she had her suspicions.

She stared into the god’s eye with a simple command.

Send me back.

N YX CRASHED INTO her body. Again, there was no gentleness. Rather than a smooth dive into warm water, this was the pound of a hammer. The impact threw her to her knees. Sharp bronze tore cloth and skin. She shoved up and stumbled back out into the clearing.

She staggered, trying to settle her spirit into flesh.

Daal caught her, even as weak as he was. Graylin hurried to help. The others closed in around, making it suddenly hard to breathe. Or she had forgotten how, even her heartbeat struggled with this.

“Did it reject you, too?” Rhaif asked.

Nyx shook her head. “No… I asked to come back.”

Krysh’s voice sharpened with amazement. “It accepted you as a Kryst?”

She nodded, but she had no time to ponder what this meant. That could come later, if at all.

“But it didn’t work,” Graylin noted. “Were you not able to trigger the turubya ?”

“Not without another key.”

“What do you—”

“I first must check something.” She rushed to Jace. She grabbed his chin and turned his face to the right and left—then nodded. She grabbed his arm and dragged him to the forest.

“Wh… What are you doing?” he stammered.

“When you freed Shiya with your ax, I saw you get struck by several branches.” She turned to him. “No burns anywhere. And earlier you crossed this forest without getting a single sting.”

“I was careful. I’m sure of it.”

She gave him a roll of her eyes as they reached the forest’s edge—then shoved him past the fringes and into a patch of dust. He tripped and landed hard on his backside. The fiery powder drifted all over him without any effect. Still, he gained his feet and quickly clambered out.

Nyx pointed to the forest. “I wager you could walk straight through there and suffer nothing worse than a dusty cough to clear the dead powder from your lungs.”

From Jace’s horrified expression, this was not something he was planning on doing. He glanced to the forest. “Why did you do that?”

“To test what I needed to know.” Nyx spoke fast. Her pounding heart demanded haste. “This forest saps synmeld. Craves it. But Jace, it avoids you. You’re anathema to its corruption. Because of the dysmeld in your blood. It must be the same reason that this clearing remains free of dust. Even the forest won’t grow here.”

“Why?”

She pointed to the crystal sphere. “Like you, the turubya is clearly anathema to this corruption. Which means at the center of the crystal, past the shining golden sea, lies a massive font of dysmeld. ”

She pictured the black pupil in the golden iris. She had recognized the emptiness shining back at her, at the endless void it represented.

“But why is this significant?” Krysh pressed her.

Nyx turned to Shiya, pointing at her. “ Dysmeld. You described it as twin in power to synmeld, but also its antithesis. When the two come together, they annihilate one another. Removing both from this world. Possibly explosively so.”

Shiya nodded.

Nyx turned back to Krysh. “Because of that, you had already posited that the turubya might be powered by dysmeld, and that it could require synmeld to trigger it.”

“Was I right?”

Nyx waggled her head. “Somewhat. I think pouring synmeld straight into that font would have no effect or possibly blow it up. Neither of which we want. The ancients wouldn’t create such an unstable device, not when it’s meant to survive across millennia.”

She searched their faces.

Krysh slowly nodded. “If triggering the turubya involves the explosive annihilation of synmeld and dysmeld, it would have to be a controlled process.”

She jabbed a finger at him. “A tiny spark. Like the strike of flint on steel to start a fire.” She turned to the briar’s nest at the forest’s edge. “I wager that’s the sole purpose of these activation beds. To ignite that spark, the first flash of a greater fire.”

“But how?” Jace asked.

Nyx pointed to the crystal sphere. “An Axis or a Kryst is like that. Rich in golden synmeld, but with a seed of black dysmeld at their core.”

Rhaif frowned. “Where does Shiya have dysmeld ?”

“In the crystal cube that sustains her,” Nyx answered. “The turubya ’s sphere is an enormous version of what she carries inside her. If dysmeld is inside this sphere, it must be inside her cube, too.”

Shiya rested her palm on her chest, her expression a mix of distress and surprise.

“I’ve seen what happens when a power cube shatters inside a ta’wyn. ” Nyx pictured bronze blasting apart in the desert. “It’s powerful. I wager what happens in the activation chamber is a controlled version of that blast. Strong enough to spark the turubya, yet controlled enough not to destroy the ta’wyn in the chamber.”

Graylin waved this all away. “But how does any of this offer guidance in activating the turubya ?”

Nyx turned to him. “I’m Kryst enough to get through that gate, but I don’t carry any dysmeld with me. When I was in there, I felt this immense sense of expectation, as if something was required of me, some action.”

“To ignite that spark,” Krysh said.

She nodded. “I have to go back in there, but with another key in hand.”

Krysh turned to Shiya. “You need her cube.”

“With its bit of dysmeld, ” Nyx added.

Shiya looked stricken at this.

Rhaif noted her distress. “What’s wrong?”

Shiya still had her palm over her belly. “I held off telling you this. With all that’s happened. All that needed to be done…”

She lifted her hand away, withdrawing the cube from inside her. She left it resting on her palm.

Nyx gasped and withdrew a step.

The crystal lay blackened and dark.

“I was not only rejected when cast out,” Shiya said. “But also punished. Maybe to keep me from trying again.”

Nyx stared at the cube. Only now did she recall how Shiya had seemed persistently weak since escaping the bronze trap.

Now I know why.

Graylin frowned. “Without the cube, what do we do now?”

Silence settled over the group.

Jace finally spoke up. “There is still another source of dysmeld. ”

Faces turned his way.

He pointed to his chest.