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N YX STOOD BESIDE Jace at the fringe of the forest. She had already explained what to expect—not that any words could truly capture what lay beyond the nest of bronze. While Jace’s face looked determined, his skin glistened with tension.

“If we get through, we must be quick,” she reminded him. “The ruse may not last longer than a few breaths.”

He nodded. “I have no control over what’s in me. So do what you must.”

Nyx held out her hand, and he slipped his gloved fingers into her grip. It had been decided to minimize skin-to-skin contact. They did not want to prematurely stir the void inside Jace.

“Should we practice one more time?” Jace asked.

“Don’t worry. I can hold my shield over both of us.”

She knew he was only trying to delay them. Once they crossed the gate’s threshold, there would be no retreating. She pictured the blackened cube in Shiya’s palm. If they were similarly rejected, Jace would likely suffer the crystal’s same fate, with the dysmeld burned out of him, leaving him a charred husk.

But it wasn’t only Jace who didn’t want them to leave.

Graylin hovered at her shoulder. “We should give this further consideration. Think about it more calmly.”

“Calmly?” Nyx glanced back. “We have no time to be calm.”

As if to prove her words, the copper floor started another trembling. It rattled up her body. Into her teeth. Deep down, she knew these tremors were building toward something worse.

“We must go,” Nyx insisted.

Graylin finally relented, stepping back to join the others.

She turned to Jace. “It’s just us now.”

He nodded, still worried.

She looked deeper into his eyes. “Do you trust me?”

“Always. From the very beginning. But we’ve come a long way from studying into late bells, crammed in my dormitory cell.”

Nyx nodded, but she avoided looking back along the path that got them here. It was a road too pained, too full of grief.

Jace, though, did look back—but only over his shoulder. “Daal… he’s good for you.” He squeezed her hand. “I see that. You should try to work out whatever stands between you. None of us knows how many days we have left. You should find home and heart wherever you can.”

“You’ve always been my home, Jace. And my heart.”

He sighed. “But I’ll never be the flashburn to your forge.”

She knew what he meant by that, heard the pain behind those words. She had spoken them too often, failing to realize the hurt they had caused him. She turned to face him, so he could read her sincerity.

“Jace, in the moments ahead, you’ll need to be the steel to my flint. Creating the spark that could save the world.”

“Maybe,” he muttered, and tried to turn away.

She drew him back with a palm on his cheek, atop a beard that made him look too old—or maybe it was something in his eyes.

“But, Jace, you must know this. You’ve always been the steel to my flint. In school when I was terrorized. During those late-bell nights of studying when I was lost. It was you who taught me my blurred sight was as much a blessing as a trial. And along the hard road to this spot, it was you who remained my home and my heart. I would not have gotten this far without you. You’ve always been my steel.”

His eyes grew glassy at her words, then he pulled her closer. They hugged as the tremoring underfoot warned them to be off.

Still, they both knew why they had shared this moment before setting off, even with the ground trembling under them. They both needed to get out words that had to be spoken—but the intent behind them was the same.

They were saying good-bye.

A S THE SHAKING grew worse, Nyx crossed with Jace into the dark bower. The forest shuddered around them, its branches ringing with chimes. Behind them, Krysh wafted the leather vest to keep the dust clear.

Nyx shared a look and a nod with Jace. She then hummed her song brighter, the pitch too sunny for this black glade. She pushed her golden glow over her skin, caressing every curve like before, drawing her armor on again.

But this time, she hadn’t come alone.

When her glow reached her hand clutching Jace’s fingers, her armor flowed up his arm and across his body, joining two into one. She took great care to keep her song hovering over his skin, careful not to brush against it.

The goal was to appear as a single supplicant coming to this dark gate. They needed her ka’wyn status to open it, while she carried Jace hidden behind her armor. If his dysmeld nature was detected, the hope was that it would be dismissed as emanations from a cube like Shiya’s.

Still, they had to be quick.

In and out.

That was the plan.

If they managed to get through, Nyx would lure that daemon out of Jace with lines of gold, like fishing dark waters. Once it was far enough free of Jace, she would strike hard with bridle-song, annihilating synmeld and dysmeld together. With any luck, it would ignite the necessary spark to trigger the turubya.

With that goal, Nyx climbed through the nest’s tangle of bronze with Jace. Once close enough, she raised her right arm. Jace mirrored with his left. Moving as one, they reached to their respective bronze handles—then grabbed them at the same time.

Again, nothing happened for the first breath or the second.

On the third, a force tore her from her body. Agony ripped a scream from her throat, trailing out with her spirit. She heard an echo of the same, only deeper-toned and panicked.

Jace…

Darkness overwhelmed her, then shattered with the birth of a sun under her. Energy struck, tidal and strong, washing in waves. She recovered quicker this time, having known what to expect. She stared down at a body sculpted of living light, then over to the figure she clutched.

She cried out in shock. Her dismay was so great that the next wave of energy shivered her spirit’s glowing form, nearly dissolving it. Still, the brief dissolution allowed her to break free of the daemon’s grip. She had expected to be holding Jace’s hand, his warm spirit suspended in her protective armor.

Instead, she faced a figure carved of a cold blackness, mockingly in the outline of Jace. But she knew nothing of her friend’s essence had been drawn out of his body—only the dysmeld inside him.

She faced the void and stoked her song to a brilliance, ready to challenge the darkness. She needed to strike it while she had a chance, with all the strength inside her.

I will never be given a second chance.

Working quickly, she coalesced her gold into a fiery sun, then stripped away a single strand of gold. She extended it toward the arcane sigil branded into her by the raash’ke.

Before she could flare it to life, she spotted movement in the man-shaped void before her. A darker shadow within the daemon’s chest formed a snaking shape. It was only visible due to a sheen of black diamond frosting its outline. She watched thin wings spread wide as it swam seductively through the void.

She recognized the kezmek—a Bhestyan assassin-wing.

She struggled to understand its rise out of this dark well.

Its meaning now.

She dismissed it, knowing time ran short.

Already, the weighty sense of expectation had grown. It now carried a note of demand: act now or lose this chance forever. Past the dysmeld daemon, the heart of the sun below churned with gold. The black pupil at its center had grown wider, expressing a demand.

To act.

Nyx heeded that command. She ignored the strangeness of the kezmek and bore down upon the gold inside her. She forged it into a blaze, then reached to the raash’ke sigil. With a glancing touch, she ignited it. It shattered forth with arcane encodings. Ancient words spilled from her lips—both in spirit and in flesh. As power turned into purpose, she opened herself fully, embracing her golden sun, melting it out, forging a lance of pure brilliance.

She focused on her target—only the daemon had grown smaller against the golden sea below. She failed to understand, hesitating, then saw it wasn’t shrinking.

Falling…

It plummeted away from her, toward the widening black pupil.

She realized its intent.

This void, this daemon, had been ripped from a reservoir of dysmeld in the Wastes’ turubya. It now sought to rejoin the same here.

It’s heading home.

Nyx dove after it, leading with her spear.

If it escapes, I lose everything.

She had to get as close as possible. She dared not miss this shot. As she pursued the daemon, waves of pulsing power pushed against her. It was like swimming against a tide. Worse, the farther down she went, the stronger those waves grew.

She recognized a hard truth.

I’m not going to reach it.

Then something strange stirred below.

From the chest of the daemon, the kezmek squirmed free, spreading its wings. As it fought out, a steaming black tether still connected the assassin-wing to the void behind it. The kezmek beat its wings, as if trying to fly toward her. Its body writhed with this effort. It even seemed to take advantage of the outgoing waves, riding that energy closer to her.

With the daemon tethered behind it, anchored to the kezmek, its descent slowed. The assassin-wing fought harder, briefly drawing their plummet to a stop.

Nyx sped faster with her golden lance. She recognized this impasse would not last. Still, she had to get as close as possible. As she fought the waves, she stared down at the struggling creature, still outlined in a sheen of black diamond.

She understood.

She knew who fought below.

Jace…

His essence had somehow been carried here, only it had been swamped by the darkness.

Nyx flashed to the corridor in the Fyredragon. She saw Jace grab the kezmek before it could strike her, protecting her. He had similarly safeguarded others aboard the Bhestyan warship. It was not the void inside him that saved them, but the will of Jace, a love so strong it influenced that cold power.

And now that will had taken form out of the darkness.

She dove toward him, fighting the ever-stronger tide. He strained below, but the daemon started to fall away again. They would not reach each other.

She could get no closer.

Jace…

She lifted her lance, struggling against what she must do. Then a whisper sailed to her, carried on those waves, formed of will and love.

Let me be your steel one last time.

She could not deny him.

She screamed her grief and threw her fiery lance.

T HE ANNIHILATING BLAST crashed Nyx back into her body—then to her knees. Jace’s body slumped at the same time from his perch. She twisted to catch him in her arms, his head falling dead to her shoulder. She pulled him to her, wanted to shake him, but she just cradled him harder to her chest.

“No…” she moaned.

Then Graylin pushed to her side, his voice panicked. “We must go.”

She denied him.

“The quake,” he warned. “It’s shaking everything apart.”

Only now did the trembling and jolts draw her attention. The forest rang with alarm. It felt like her grief given form, shaking the world.

He drew her away. “I’m sorry.”

Vikas joined them and signaled with bandaged fingers: “ I’ve got him. ”

Too weak to resist, Nyx let herself be pulled from Jace’s slack body, his eyes glazed and staring up. Under one arm, Graylin carried her out into the clearing.

Krysh called over, “We must hurry!”

Daal came alongside Nyx and pointed ahead. “You did it. Both of you. Look.”

She stared leadenly at the sphere of the turubya.

The golden sea no longer churned. The pool now blurred through a dizzying array of shapes: pyramids, cubes, prisms. Some shapes defied the eye. They flashed faster and faster, merging into a sphere made of thousands of blended shapes, flickering into and out of coherence.

Nyx had seen this before back in the Frozen Wastes.

The glow grew into a blaze of shining energy.

“Everybody back!” Graylin bellowed.

The group fled as far away as the fiery forest would allow. As they drew into a cluster, the sphere’s blaze exploded behind them in a blinding flare, sending them all low. The blast blew apart the sphere’s riggings with coppery crashes.

Nyx turned to watch, knowing the sacrifice Jace had made to make this happen.

The sphere hung over the open mouth of the pit, suspended now by a nimbus of energy rather than copper. The shine stung, but Nyx refused to look away. Then the orb shot straight up, crashing through the crystal canopy above.

As debris rained down, the sphere reached its apex, hung suspended in the air—then in the next breath, it slammed down the hole and vanished.

“Let’s go!” Graylin shouted, ducking from the cascade of branches.

He sheltered over Nyx and got them all moving.

Behind them, a vault door slammed over the hole with a thunderous shake. Others could be heard closing in succession down the shaft’s length.

As they headed away, a few crystalline shards struck Nyx, but she felt no burn, only the ordinary sting of sharp glass. Even the dust had cleared. The sphere’s energy blast must have killed the malevolence, ending the torture of what had lived in the forest.

With the way open, they all rushed faster.

As they ran, Nyx stumbled as her sight clouded over, going murky again. Her eyes had likely only held out this long due to the nimbus of wild energies surrounding the turubya ’s activation. As she fled away, so went her vision.

Graylin must have noted her faltering and caught her. “I’ve got you.”

Kalder shoved against her other side, offering his shoulder.

She took it.

The floor had begun to shake again.

It had briefly stopped—as if the triggering of the turubya had momentarily suppressed it. But this new shaking was not a new quake. All around, the huge cables in the tunnels hummed menacingly, vibrating and tremoring. The same could be felt underfoot.

They finally reached the ramp and headed up it.

A shout called down from above. “Hurry!”

It was one of Darant’s men. The sentry posted at the tunnel. He must have been high enough above the fiery dust cloud to escape its reach. When they joined him, Nyx made out two more men stirring to their feet in the tunnel, burned and bloody but alive. They must have also reached this refuge, maybe responding to their earlier shouts of warning.

Everyone got moving down the tunnel.

Nyx glanced back with her clouded eyes.

She made out Vikas. The quartermaster still carried Jace over her shoulder, clearly unwilling to leave him behind. It made Nyx love her all the more.

Noting Nyx’s concerned look, Vikas lifted her free hand. Her bandaged fingers formed a circle, a familiar Gynish sign: “ All is fine. ”

Nyx knew it wasn’t.

It might never be.

Vikas nodded to Nyx, patted Jace, then shifted her hand and fluttered her palm atop her own broad chest. “ He’s still breathing. ”

Still breathing?

Nyx stumbled to a stop, weaving on her feet, allowing the quartermaster to close on her. “He… He’s alive?”

Vikas frowned and tapped her chest with a fist, throbbing her fingers. “ Heart is strong. ” She rapped that same fist against her head, then opened her fingers into a wave past her ear. “ Just knocked out. ”

Back at the briar’s nest, on her knees, knowing what she had done, she had been blinded by guilt. She had assumed the annihilating blast had killed him.

Nyx trembled into a sob and reached for him, struggling with disbelief. Before her fingertips could touch him, something rose from his chest, like a wisp of black smoke, then with a spin of wings dove back home.

Jace…

Offered this last bit of reassurance, she allowed her vision to cloud over, taking away the world but leaving her the best gift of all.

Hope.