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I N THE WHEELHOUSE , Nyx leaned closer to Jace, but she kept a safe distance. “Show us again.”

A small group gathered around. Past them, the desert sun blazed out the windows. They were due to depart, but Nyx had wanted to show them what she and Jace had learned.

Jace lifted an arm and squinted a bit, then from his forearm smoky wings unfurled and pulled free a snaking body. The kezmek slowly undulated through the air and circled Jace. As its wings waved, they would pass through his body and reappear on the far side.

Fenn studied it with a cocked head. “It seems smaller than the kezmek dispatched by the assassin my uncle sent.”

“About a quarter smaller,” Nyx agreed.

Its current length looked a little longer than Jace’s arm, with a wingspan twice that. The kezmek circled once more, then settled over Jace’s shoulders, wrapping languidly as it tucked its wings. It rested both on and in Jace’s flesh.

Rhaif grimaced as he stood with Shiya. “What does it feel like? Going in and out of your flesh like that.”

“Like warm smoke from a hearth. Sometimes it gains enough solidity that I can touch and feel it.” Jace lifted a finger and rubbed the little horns that stubbed its viperous head. It leaned into his touch, as if it felt him, too. “I’m still trying to comprehend it better myself.”

Krysh rubbed his chin. “I wonder if its smaller size is due to the limited amount of dysmeld fueling this miracle.” He turned to Nyx. “And you sense no greater void in Jace any longer. That’s gone?”

She nodded. “Entirely. I’ve probed him with bridle-song. When he lets the kezmek loose, I sense nothing else inside him.”

Fenn frowned. “But how did this sliver of dysmeld get inside him? Why is it still with him?”

Nyx shared a look with Jace. They had discussed this in his cabin as he recovered, talking into the late bells. Just like old times. He nodded for her to offer an explanation.

“Back at the Dragon, when I struck the daemon with my lance, the annihilation must have destroyed the majority of the dysmeld. But with Jace’s will still bound to a part of it, a piece shaped like a kezmek, that sliver survived and got cast out with Jace back into his body. Where it remains tied to his will, allowing him to control it.”

Graylin frowned, looking none too happy at this new addition to the crew. “Are you sure you have full reins on it, Jace?”

“Yes. Though, if I become too distracted, it seems to have some freedom of movement. I don’t know if that reflects some buried will of its own, or if those moments of independence mirror the deeper layers of my own thoughts.”

Graylin’s frown deepened. “Is it dangerous?”

It was Jace’s turn to look at Nyx. He clearly did not want to admit what the two of them had been experimenting with in private.

Nyx took on this burden. “We learned this by accident. When I was probing for any sign of the void, a strand of bridle-song brushed the kezmek.”

Jace winced.

Graylin noted this, his words going stern. “What happened?”

Nyx turned to Jace. “Maybe we’d better show them.”

“Are you sure?”

“Best they know.”

Nyx extended an arm toward the kezmek, then just a finger. The kezmek shivered from its perch. Its crowned head floated toward her, as if sniffing for her scent. Once it was close enough, a tongue shot out, flickering its tip, and touched Nyx’s finger.

A sharp burst of light and sharper pop blew between them.

Taking the tongue with it.

Nyx stepped back, shaking the sting from her finger. She waved her other hand to Daal. “It’s like you described in the Dragon’s forest. Cold. A frigid burn. But rather than stealing bridle-song, the contact just now annihilated a smidgen of it out of me—and in turn, consumed some of the dysmeld. ”

She pictured the viper’s tongue vanishing, burned away in the flash. But as she watched, it re-formed, flickering anew from the kezmek’s smoky lips.

Jace explained. “I feel the sting as a fiery burn. To renew what is lost, I sense it sapping my own strength.”

“Not unlike with bridle-song,” Nyx added. “It takes time for my body to restore what I use up.”

Shiya shifted forward. “It could make for a powerful weapon. A sword against bridle-song.”

“As long as it’s not used against us,” Rhaif reminded her. “You just got some of your power back. We don’t want to lose it again. Or worse.”

Shiya touched her chest and nodded. While scavenging the remains of the ta’wyn across the blasted sands, she had recovered not only an infernal cannon of the enemy and those thrumming shields, but also another cube to replace what was lost. She had found an intact crystal in one of the bodies. While it was smaller, meant to power only a Root, it served her well enough.

Graylin’s face had grown dourer as he pointed at Jace. “Keep a tight rein on that beast.”

Rhaif grumbled under his breath, “Says the man who brought a full-grown vargr aboard the ship.”

Nyx glanced over to Kalder. The vargr panted in a corner of the wheelhouse, a spot that he had long claimed as his own. One eye remained clouded from exposure to the fiery dust, which granted him an even fiercer countenance.

Darant called from the wheel. “Just got word! Mooring lines are stowed. We’re good to go.”

Nyx turned to the blaze of the windows, which pointed west.

Toward home.

S ADDLED ATOP B ASHALIIA , Nyx skimmed around the Fyredragon as the ship slowly lifted from the sandy valley. What was left of the balloon waffled near the bow. A trio of smaller gasbags—scavenged from the sailrafts—fought to hold up the back half of the ship.

Beneath the Fyredragon, forges blazed hotly, driving the bulk upward. Flames washed across the gully, scarring the sand but not deeply wounding it. Cheers echoed up at their departure, with much blowing of horns.

Esme waved from among those wishing them off. She stood next to her brother, who held a babe in his arms. Nyx had had some talks over the past fortnight with Esme, who explained the word kash’met, a single utterance encompassing life’s continual journey from one generation to the next.

Nyx prayed this held true for the Chanr? people. While the arrival of the Fyredragon had caused much misery, hope shone here, too. She swept her gaze to the shattered glass sea and over to the new oasis. It glowed an opalescent blue under the fiery eye of the Father Above. Nyx stared into that shine, trying to draw the hope it represented into her heart and hold it there.

I will need it in the months ahead.

But past the oasis, hanging low in the sky, the moon shone as brightly. It continued to be rimmed by a blush of crimson. It reminded her of the fiery red moon from her dream. She stared again at her hand, at her missing finger.

Another feature from that dream…

She fought the hopeless despair that ended that nightmare, punctuated by a dagger through her heart and a silence that crushed the world. She also struggled with where they were headed next.

Back to the Crown, back to the swamps of Myr.

A homecoming that both terrified and filled her with a melancholy longing. It might take the whole journey back to settle those extremes.

If it ever would.

A brace of wind struck Nyx as Daal dove down with Pyllar. He motioned to the ship, as if reminding her of their purpose, which was to monitor the Fyredragon for any mishap.

“Look!” he called to her, and pointed. “They’re working.”

Nyx swung toward the ship. Darant had strangled the forges to a few feeble flames, but the ship kept rising—not pulled by its balloons, but pushed from below. Along the lower hull, bronze shields shimmered, casting mirage-like vibrations in the air, driving the Fyredragon higher.

Daal swung to study them closer, drawing Nyx in his wake. They were the only two wings in the sky. The other raash’ke would be rotating this duty, sparing the riders from spending too long under the fiery sun, while still keeping a close eye on the Urth-defying alchymy of the ta’wyn. Everything depended on those shields. Without them, the trek home would be near to impossible.

To make sure that didn’t happen, Nyx and Daal circled the Fyredragon, flying in tandem with each other. Eventually the heat and their panting mounts drove them to the stern, where the door to the lower hold had been dropped open, awaiting their return and the dispatch of the next pair of raash’ke.

Unfortunately, one rider and his mount would not be venturing out.

After the thunderous quake, a long search had failed to recover the bodies of Barrat and Frysh, the pair who had been lost during the battle. It was a tragedy marked by the loss of life, and a hard blow to their strength after the sacrifice of so many raash’ke.

Nyx dove Bashaliia to the stern door. Her brother cupped his wings at the last moment and landed with barely a bump, then crawled into the shadowy hold. He aimed for the water trough. Nyx slipped out of the saddle and followed him, making room for Daal and Pyllar to land behind them.

Once their mounts were drinking strongly, Daal crossed to Nyx and held out his hand. She took it, feeling them merging, but she resisted it, trying to find the right balance between them.

Weeks ago, she had taken Jace’s advice regarding Daal: to work out whatever stood between them, to find home and heart wherever she could. To that end, it had not only been Jace and Nyx who had been experimenting in cabins into the late bells.

Daal pulled her closer and kissed her cheek, both in greeting and a promise of more. With that brief brush of heat, she read his exhaustion, exhilaration, and growing excitement—and not only about their departure.

She drew it all in, using it to stave off her fears and worries.

But trouble ran toward them.

The Panthean rider Arik rushed to them and grabbed Daal’s arm. “Tamryn needs you. Something’s wrong with Heffik.”

Daal cringed and set off with the man. Nyx followed. Tamryn and Arik had been the second pair of riders due to head out. They all rushed to the hay-lined pens of the raash’ke. One had been swept clean and abandoned.

Nyx kept her eyes away from that one, worried if they would be sweeping out another before long.

They found Tamryn on her knees, her back bowed low beside her mount.

Heffik had sustained several battle wounds, along with a burned swath of hair and a broken claw, but everyone thought the raash’ke had been on the mend. Tamryn had been the one to judge her fit to fly.

Daal hurried to the team’s second rider. “What’s wrong?”

Tamryn turned to Daal, her face stricken, her eyes welling with concern. “She won’t move, not even when I offered her water. She just groans.”

Nyx joined them.

Heffik lay huddled low, wings wrapped tight, trembling. Her head was tucked to her belly. A small piping of distress rose from her.

Daal placed a hand on her flank. “She’s burning up.”

He glanced to her, to the other raash’ke, even to Bashaliia. Terror paled his face, his concern easy to read.

If this illness is contagious…

She and Daal had been mingling with the mankrae.

Did we carry something back here? Something our bats can’t fight?

Daal’s eyes ached. “Nyx, can you help?”

“I’ll try.”

She leaned back, lifted her palms, and took deep breaths to stoke her song. She hummed a weave of golden strands and cast them over and through Heffik. Nyx sang deep notes of reassurance and solace to calm a heart that pounded hard. Feverish heat and pain flowed back to her.

She reached and placed her palm next to Daal’s, to draw closer to that frightened heart. Throughout her golden webbing, she attuned herself to each strand. She searched for vibrations of poison, for tumorous affliction, for spreading corruption.

Then the truth came thrumming back to her.

She bowed her back. Her forehead came to rest against a shivering fold of wing. Her body trembled, too. Her shoulders shook. She pictured the neighboring pen, swept and empty.

Daal leaned closer. “What’s wrong with her? How is she?”

“She’s not sick,” Nyx mumbled, holding back a sob of joy.

She let her golden net drift down and settle like a warm blanket around the small heart fluttering with all the hope of kash’met.

“She’s about to give birth.”