"I am the Ascendant of the Suns."
An eye fired.
Ylaris looked at it.
That was all.
No defensive stance.
No raised weapon.
No preparation.
He simply—
looked.
Blue-white annihilation tore through the sky.
Straight toward him.
Ylaris lifted one hand.
And closed his fingers.
The beam caught fire.
Qaritas had seen impossible things.
Far too many, actually.
He had watched reality fold.
Watched time break.
Watched gods die.
Watched Xheavend turn a creature's insides into a theological disagreement.
He had spent ten years training beneath a two-hundred-foot serpent who considered poisoning students an educational technique.
He had developed—
in his opinion—
a fairly generous definition of possible.
This was not included.
Fire raced backward along the beam.
Not around it.
Not beside it.
Through it.
Blue became crimson.
Crimson became gold.
Gold became white.
The eye in the clouds widened.
For the first time—
Yzer's creation looked afraid.
Then the fire reached it.
WHOOOOOOOOOM.
The eye disappeared.
Ylaris lowered his hand.
Another opened behind him.
He didn't turn.
Two fingers lifted.
A thread of blue flame crossed the sky.
The eye split.
Fire erupted from the wound.
Gone.
Another.
Gone.
Three more.
Ylaris finally moved.
The air beneath him detonated.
BOOOOOOM.
His body launched upward.
Not flight.
Flight implied grace.
Control.
Wings.
Something remotely civilized.
Ylaris appeared to have declared war on gravity and won through excessive violence.
Fire exploded beneath his feet.
He vanished into the clouds.
A second detonation shook the atmosphere.
Then a third.
Every change in direction left a solar flare behind him.
An eye fired.
Ylaris caught the beam.
Burned through it.
Destroyed the eye.
Another turned toward a fleeing Veyrathi vessel.
Blue fire crossed the distance first.
The eye vanished.
Another.
Another.
Another.
Below him, Hstrarkit burned.
Silver mist rolled between Kaereth trunks hundreds of metres tall, catching the blue fire overhead until entire valleys glowed.
Shaal fields flashed violet-black beneath the chaos, pale veins racing outward wherever frightened herds fled through them.
High in the canopy, Veyrathi settlements were coming alive.
Platforms retracted.
Bridges folded.
Ships tore themselves free from docking roots.
Water streamed through transparent channels woven between black structures.
Farther away, thousands of silver sensory plants bent simultaneously from the pressure of another explosion.
Hstrarkit wasn't merely being attacked.
The entire planet was reacting.
Ylaris moved through them without wasted motion.
No screaming.
No declarations.
No elaborate displays.
He studied.
Moved.
Killed.
Continued.
Qaritas slowly smiled.
"...I like him."
Beside him, Xheavend stared upward.
"You like everyone terrifying."
"That's not true."
She looked at him.
Qaritas considered several people.
"...It's mostly true."
Yandaro made a sound from the controls.
Not laughter.
Qaritas turned.
The boy had gone still.
All four hands rested against the console.
His sensory fins had flattened against his skull.
"Yandaro?"
Nothing.
A Veyrathi transmission crackled through the cockpit.
Fast.
Broken.
Distorted by interference.
Qaritas understood perhaps half of it.
Coordinates.
Hull damage.
Vaelith failure.
Evacuation.
Something about the western canopy.
Then—
a designation.
Yandaro's face changed.
"No."
His upper right hand moved.
The ship banked violently.
Qaritas slammed into the wall.
"Why do I continue standing in this thing?"
Yandaro pulled another control.
The ship turned harder.
"Yandaro."
No answer.
"Where are you going?"
The boy's four hands flew across the controls.
Another transmission.
Same voice.
More static.
Yandaro whispered:
"No."
Qaritas stopped joking.
"Yandaro."
The boy looked toward the burning horizon.
His voice became very small.
"That's my family's ship."
Qaritas felt something inside him drop.
Xheavend turned.
"What?"
Yandaro pointed.
Far beyond the burning Kaereth—
a Veyrathi vessel struggled through the smoke.
Larger than theirs.
Much larger.
Not a fighter.
A home vessel.
One of the enormous living ships Qaritas had seen suspended between the Kaereth.
Black Zhyr ribs curved around a living hull.
Silver-blue water moved through transparent channels beneath the skin of the vessel.
Agricultural chambers glowed behind fractured crystal.
Seyeth gardens.
Workshops.
Sleeping chambers.
Kitchens.
Generations of the same family packed inside metal, root and memory.
This wasn't merely the ship Deyaro worked aboard.
This was Yandaro's home.
One entire side burned.
Its rear Vaelith ring flickered.
Gold.
Black.
Gold.
Black.
The ship tilted.
Corrected.
Tilted again.
And above it—
six eyes opened.
Yandaro pushed the engine harder.
"Father."
Qaritas looked at him.
Deyaro.
Of course.
Deyaro had told his son to bring himself back.
And Yandaro had.
But Deyaro—
was still there.
"Yandaro."
"I can reach them."
The engine screamed.
"Yandaro."
"I can reach them."
Xheavend stepped closer.
"Then reach them."
Qaritas looked at her.
She didn't look back.
Her eyes remained on the damaged vessel.
Qaritas understood.
This wasn't the moment to tell a thirteen-year-old he couldn't save his father.
Not while there was still something he could do.
Yandaro slammed all four hands against different controls.
The ship accelerated.
WHOOOOOOOM.
An eye turned.
Yandaro saw it.
Left hand—
Azhren vent.
Lower right—
gravity ring.
Upper right—
thrust.
Lower left—
something Qaritas still didn't understand.
The little ship twisted.
The eye fired.
Light missed them by metres.
Yandaro didn't even flinch.
Another eye opened.
He vented Azhren.
Dark-violet vapor burst behind them.
Orange sparks scattered through it.
Their propulsion signature broke apart.
The eye followed—
hesitated—
turned the wrong direction.
Yandaro smiled.
Not happily.
Precisely.
"There."
Qaritas stared at him.
The boy moved again.
Another beam.
Roll.
Drop.
Turn.
Vent.
Accelerate.
The little ship screamed around them.
Panels rattled.
Something behind Qaritas sparked.
He decided not to ask.
Yandaro was no longer the child crawling through an engine.
No longer the boy arguing that explosions were useful results.
No longer the thirteen-year-old who had painted a crooked constellation beneath his cockpit because someday he wanted to see it.
He was flying.
Actually flying.
Through weapons capable of erasing mountains.
And he was good.
Eleven failures.
Eleven burning aircraft.
Eleven reasons to stop.
Every single one had taught him how not to die on the twelfth.
"Incoming!"
"I see it!"
An eye fired.
Yandaro turned directly toward it.
Qaritas's eyes widened.
"That is the opposite of avoiding it!"
"I know!"
"WHY?"
Yandaro vented Azhren.
Their signature fractured.
The eye's pupil twitched.
Targeting shifted.
At the final second—
Yandaro dropped.
The beam passed over them.
And struck another eye.
BOOOOOOM.
The second eye ruptured.
Qaritas stared.
Yandaro didn't.
Already moving.
"...That was deliberate."
"Yes."
"You made it shoot itself."
"Yes."
Qaritas looked at Xheavend.
She was smiling despite everything.
Qaritas pointed toward the boy.
"We're keeping him."
Yandaro shouted:
"I'm not a pet!"
"I didn't say pet!"
"You said keeping!"
"Different!"
"How?!"
Xheavend grabbed a support as the ship rolled.
"Maybe discuss ownership terminology after we survive!"
"Fine!"
Another beam passed beneath them.
Yandaro drove straight through the burning remains of an eye.
Then—
the family vessel filled the viewport.
Closer now.
Much closer.
And worse.
Far worse.
Half the outer hull was gone.
Water streamed from the ruptured channels in glittering ribbons.
Qaritas had learned enough about Veyrathi ships to understand what that meant.
Their vessels carried water through their walls.
Cooling.
Shielding.
Life support.
Agriculture.
A Veyrathi ship didn't bleed oil when it was dying.
It bled water.
And Yandaro's home was bleeding into the sky.
Living cables writhed from exposed sections.
One gravity ring had stopped entirely.
The other rotated unevenly.
Hundreds of tiny lights flickered across the vessel.
Escape craft.
Some launched.
Some didn't.
Yandaro's face went pale.
"No."
He hit the communication system.
"Family vessel, respond."
Static.
"Respond."
Nothing.
"Father."
Static.
"Father!"
A voice broke through.
"—daro?"
Yandaro stopped breathing.
"Father!"
The projection flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then formed.
Deyaro.
Smoke filled the chamber around him.
One side of his face was blackened.
Blood ran from his temple.
One upper arm hung uselessly.
His other three moved.
One worked the controls.
Another held a damaged cable against a crystal interface.
The third—
held someone.
A smaller Veyrathi.
Qaritas couldn't tell whether they were conscious.
Deyaro looked at the projection.
At his son.
All four eyes widened.
"Yandaro?"
"I'm here."
Deyaro's expression became furious.
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm getting you out."
"No."
Yandaro's hands were already moving.
"I can pull you behind us."
"Yandaro."
"Your forward Vaelith ring is gone but the rear ring still has—"
He checked.
"Twenty-three percent."
"Yandaro."
"If you vent Nhal through the damaged stabilizer and reverse the secondary flow, I can attach our gravity field to yours."
"Yandaro."
"Then I can pull you."
"Listen to me."
"I am."
"You aren't."
Yandaro's hands moved faster.
"I can fix it."
Qaritas closed his eyes.
There it was.
Deyaro heard it too.
Something changed in his face.
Not fear.
Understanding.
His son was doing what brilliant people sometimes did when reality became unbearable.
Turning grief into a problem.
Problems had solutions.
Machines could be repaired.
Equations could be corrected.
Engines could be rebuilt.
If Yandaro could make this technical enough—
perhaps it wouldn't become what it already was.
Deyaro's voice softened.
"Yandaro."
"I know how."
"Look at me."
"I need another minute."
"Look at me."
"I can reroute—"
"Yandaro."
The boy stopped.
Slowly—
he looked up.
Deyaro smiled.
Barely.
"You built it."
Yandaro stared at him.
"What?"
Deyaro looked around the little cockpit through the transmission.
Mismatched plating.
Three different crystal systems.
Exposed biological tubing.
A gravity ring that probably was stolen.
Burn marks.
Repairs.
Eleven failures built into every surviving piece.
His son's impossible little ship.
"You built it."
Yandaro shook his head.
"Father, don't."
"I told you it wouldn't work."
"Stop."
"I told you it would kill you."
"Stop."
"I told you—"
"STOP."
Yandaro's voice cracked.
Deyaro fell silent.
The damaged family vessel shook.
Somewhere behind him—
something exploded.
The projection flickered.
Yandaro reached toward it.
"Let me come back."
"No."
"I can help."
"No."
"I can—"
"No."
Deyaro's voice wasn't angry.
That made it worse.
Yandaro's lower hands clenched.
"You let me go."
"I did."
"You gave me the tool."
"I did."
"You told me to bring myself back."
Deyaro's throat markings trembled.
"I know."
"Then let me bring you back too."
Silence.
Deyaro looked at his son.
Really looked.
Qaritas turned away.
Not completely.
Just enough to give them something resembling privacy inside a cockpit that had none.
Deyaro spoke quietly.
"I spent so long being afraid of where you would go..."
Yandaro's mouth trembled.
"...that I forgot to tell you how proud I was that you could get there."
Yandaro broke.
Not completely.
Not yet.
Tears filled all four eyes.
He wiped them furiously with one hand.
"Don't."
Deyaro smiled.
"You always were terrible at following instructions."
"I'm coming back."
"No."
"I don't care."
"I know."
"I can fix it."
"I know."
"I can fix anything."
Deyaro's smile broke.
Just slightly.
"I know."
Yandaro's chest hitched.
"Then let me."
Deyaro looked down.
At the injured person in his arm.
At the failing controls.
At the warning lights.
Then back at his son.
"You already brought everything I needed back."
Yandaro stared.
"What?"
"You."
The transmission fractured.
"Father?"
Static crawled across Deyaro's face.
"Father!"
One of the eyes above the family vessel turned.
Qaritas saw it.
So did Xheavend.
So did Yandaro.
"No."
The pupil opened.
"NO."
Yandaro slammed the controls.
Their ship surged forward.
Qaritas grabbed him.
"Yandaro—"
"LET GO!"
"We won't reach them!"
"LET GO!"
Deyaro's voice came through the static.
"Yandaro."
The boy froze.
The eye brightened.
Deyaro smiled at his son.
No anger now.
No fear.
Only pride.
"Keep going."
The eye fired.
Yandaro screamed.
"FATHER!"
The family ship became light.
For one impossible instant—
Qaritas could see every black rib.
Every chamber.
Every water channel.
Every home.
Every life inside outlined against blue-white brilliance.
Then—
nothing.
No wreckage.
No explosion.
No bodies.
Nothing.
Yandaro's ship continued forward.
His hands remained locked around the controls.
One still held the little tool Deyaro had given him.
"Yandaro."
Nothing.
Another Veyrathi vessel disappeared in the distance.
Then another.
Yandaro stared at the empty place where his home had been.
"Yandaro."
His upper hand moved.
Adjusted thrust.
Lower hand corrected the gravity ring.
Another checked the engine.
He kept flying.
Because flying was a problem.
Problems had solutions.
Xheavend moved toward him.
Qaritas reached first.
Then stopped.
Xheavend crouched beside Yandaro.
She didn't touch him.
Didn't tell him everything would be all right.
Didn't tell him his father loved him.
Didn't tell him Deyaro died proud.
Yandaro already knew.
Knowing didn't help.
She simply waited until he looked at her.
"Can I hold you?"
Yandaro's face collapsed.
He nodded.
Xheavend opened her arms.
Yandaro fell into them.
All four arms wrapped around her.
One around her shoulders.
One around her waist.
One gripping the back of her clothing.
The fourth still held his father's tool.
For several seconds—
nothing happened.
Then Yandaro screamed.
Not words.
Not Veyrathi.
Not anything language could make useful.
Just grief.
Raw.
Animal.
Thirteen.
Xheavend held him.
Her eyes closed.
Yandaro screamed into her shoulder until the sound cracked.
Then became sobbing.
Then screaming again.
Qaritas stood beside them.
Useless.
And remembered something he'd thought only hours earlier.
Mortals weren't weak because they could die.
He understood the other half now.
Mortality was why they became so good at living.
And mortality—
was why living could hurt this badly.
Outside—
an eye exploded.
Fire consumed it.
Ylaris continued fighting.
Another died.
Then another.
But the sky was still full.
Because Ylaris could burn Yzer's eyes.
He could burn their attacks.
He could turn clouds into flame.
He could make the heavens look afraid.
He could not be everywhere.
He could not save everyone.
No one could.
Then—
the eyes stopped.
All of them.
Ylaris stopped too.
He floated high above the burning forest.
Flames rolled from his shoulders.
His head tilted.
Qaritas looked around.
"What are they doing?"
Xheavend knew.
He saw it in her face.
"No."
Every surviving eye rotated.
Not toward her.
Outward.
Toward Hstrarkit.
Toward the cities.
The ships.
The forests.
The oceans.
The world.
Below them—
something moved through the forests.
Not an animal.
Not wind.
Light.
Cobalt pulses raced through Kaereth roots beneath the soil.
One tree.
Then another.
Then thousands.
Across valleys.
Beneath cities.
Through forests older than nations.
Qaritas had learned enough in five days to understand.
The Kaereth were communicating.
Warning one another.
Whatever intelligence existed inside that impossible root network had recognized the same thing every Veyrathi had.
Something was trying to kill their world.
Then—
the damaged communication panel in front of Yandaro activated by itself.
A voice emerged.
Calm.
Gentle.
Almost disappointed.
"I warned her."
Xheavend went rigid.
Yandaro's sobbing slowed.
Qaritas looked toward the panel.
"Don't."
Yzer continued.
"I asked politely."
The voice wasn't only inside their ship.
Qaritas could hear it from outside.
From Veyrathi vessels.
Emergency systems.
Communication towers.
Across every frequency.
Every speaker.
Every surviving network.
Yzer wasn't talking to Xheavend anymore.
He was talking to everyone.
"My pet was given a choice."
Xheavend's arms tightened around Yandaro.
"Don't listen to him."
She already was.
Yzer sighed.
"She chose strangers."
Qaritas's jaw clenched.
"No."
The eyes moved.
Images appeared between them.
Not one world.
Many.
Different skies.
Different oceans.
Different cities.
Different species.
Some humanoid.
Some absolutely not.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
Xheavend stared.
Yzer's voice softened.
"Perhaps I explained poorly."
One world enlarged.
A city beneath three moons.
Another.
A species living inside enormous floating spheres.
Another.
Something aquatic beneath an orange ocean.
Another.
Another.
Another.
"Any civilization that hides you."
Xheavend looked down.
Through the smoke, Hstrarkit was still visible.
The silver mist.
The black Kaereth.
Violet Shaal burning in long glowing scars.
A suspended farm collapsing through the canopy.
Veyrathi ships carrying children away from settlements that had existed before some human civilizations learned to write.
Five days.
She had been here five days.
Long enough to learn names.
Long enough to learn favorite foods.
Long enough to be given a place to sleep.
Long enough for someone to hand her extra lavender fruit because they had noticed she liked it.
And apparently—
long enough for Yzer to decide all of them deserved to die.
An eye opened over the first image.
"Any species that protects you."
Another.
"Any world that feeds you."
Another.
"Houses you."
Another.
"Fights for you."
Another.
"Loves you."
Xheavend stopped breathing.
Qaritas understood.
Yzer wasn't simply trying to capture her.
He was doing something worse.
He was teaching her that attachment had a body count.
Every friend—
a target.
Every home—
a hostage.
Every person who cared—
something Yzer could punish.
If Xheavend began believing that loving people killed them—
eventually she would stop letting herself love anyone.
Eventually—
she would isolate herself.
And when she had nobody left—
Yzer would be waiting.
Qaritas stepped forward.
"You don't get to do that."
Yzer ignored him.
Again.
His voice belonged entirely to Xheavend.
"I will continue."
The images multiplied.
"One species."
Another.
"Then another."
Another.
"Then another."
Xheavend shook her head.
"Stop."
"Until you understand."
"STOP."
"Until you come home."
Something changed.
Not in the sky.
Around Xheavend.
Qaritas felt it first.
A pressure.
Pages fluttered.
He frowned.
There were no pages in the cockpit.
Then one appeared.
White.
Covered in writing.
It floated past his face.
Another appeared.
Then ten.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
Books materialized around Xheavend.
Some enormous.
Some tiny.
Leather.
Metal.
Bone.
Crystal.
Wood.
Materials Qaritas couldn't identify.
Languages he couldn't read.
Languages he could.
Books filled the ship.
Passed through the walls.
Appeared outside.
Above.
Below.
Everywhere.
Their covers bore names.
Not titles.
Names.
Species.
Civilizations.
Worlds.
Families.
People.
Pages ripped free.
The sky filled with them.
Qaritas stared.
"X?"
She wasn't looking at him.
Her eyes had gone distant.
Her lips moved.
Names.
She was whispering names.
Fast.
Too fast.
Yandaro pulled away slightly.
"What is she doing?"
Qaritas looked at the pages.
And understood.
Chapter after chapter.
Name after name.
Life after life.
Not populations.
People.
Warakai.
The hunter who had shown Xheavend the climbing knot.
The cook who gave her extra lavender fruit.
The child who asked whether Ascendants had four stomachs.
The mechanic who sang silently with his hands.
The couple married sixty-three years.
The girl who wanted to become a hunter.
Deyaro.
Yandaro.
Everyone.
Qaritas remembered her sitting beneath the Kaereth.
Writing.
Because gods remember civilizations.
And then—
Someone should remember people.
His throat tightened.
"She's recording them."
Yandaro looked at him.
"What?"
"Everyone."
Xheavend's hands trembled.
Pages multiplied.
"If he erases them—"
Another Book opened.
"—someone remembers."
Yzer fell silent.
For several seconds—
nothing.
Then he laughed.
Quietly.
Xheavend froze.
"Oh, my pet."
Every eye ignited.
Qaritas looked upward.
"No."
Fire appeared.
Not Ylaris's.
Black.
Thin.
Silent.
It touched a page.
The writing disappeared.
Not burned.
Disappeared.
Xheavend screamed.
"NO!"
She lunged.
Caught the page.
Too late.
Blank.
Another ignited.
Then another.
Hundreds.
"NO!"
Pages burned across the sky.
Xheavend grabbed them.
One.
Three.
Ten.
Too many.
Qaritas moved.
His hands plunged into the storm.
He grabbed whatever he could.
"YANDARO!"
The boy wiped his face.
Moved.
Four hands.
Four pages at once.
Again.
Again.
Warakai's ships descended.
Veyrathi saw what was happening.
They didn't understand.
Didn't matter.
They began catching pages.
Hands.
Nets.
Gravity fields.
Anything.
Ylaris dropped from the sky.
BOOM.
Molten glass exploded beneath his feet.
He caught one burning Book.
The black flame crawled across his hand.
His expression changed.
Blue fire erupted.
The black flame fought it.
Ylaris's eyes narrowed.
For the first time—
he looked genuinely interested.
Then annoyed.
Yzer laughed.
"How touching."
Xheavend screamed another name.
The letters vanished beneath her fingers.
"No!"
Another page.
Blank.
Another.
Blank.
She stared at one.
Her face changed.
Qaritas saw terror.
Not because the page was gone.
Because—
she couldn't remember what had been written there.
"Q."
He looked at her.
"Q, I—"
Her breathing broke.
"I knew that name."
Qaritas went cold.
"What?"
"I knew it."
She stared at the blank page.
"I knew it."
Yzer's voice came softly from everywhere.
"You can't mourn what you can't remember."
Xheavend screamed.
The Books exploded open.
Millions of pages filled the burning sky.
And something—
hit the ground.
BOOOOOOM.
Qaritas turned.
Not fire.
Not Void.
Something wet.
Heavy.
Ancient.
The earth folded.
A massive limb erupted through the smoke.
Qaritas stared.
Thick.
Muscular.
Dark.
Its surface glistened like living flesh beneath starlight.
It wrapped around a burning page.
Pulled.
The black flame vanished.
Another limb appeared.
Then another.
Then ten.
Twenty.
Fifty.
Qaritas backed away.
"...No."
Hundreds.
Cephalopod-like appendages spilled across the ruined terrain.
Some thicker than Kaereth trunks.
Others narrow enough to curl around individual pages.
Each moved independently.
Aware.
One caught a Book.
Another caught six pages.
Another stretched hundreds of metres and ripped a burning volume from beneath an eye.
Another slammed into the earth.
The ground collapsed beneath it.
Another curled around Yandaro.
He screamed.
"WAIT!"
The limb didn't squeeze.
It lifted him.
Moved him three metres.
A section of burning wreckage crashed exactly where he'd been standing.
Then the limb put him down.
Yandaro stared at it.
The appendage—
patted his head.
Once.
Then disappeared into the page storm.
Qaritas stared.
"...What the fuck?"
Ylaris landed beside him.
Completely unsurprised.
"Finally."
Qaritas turned.
"You know that?"
Ylaris watched the hundreds of limbs tear through the storm.
"Unfortunately."
"Unfortunately?"
One enormous appendage slammed past Qaritas.
He jumped aside.
It caught twelve Books.
"That thing has enough limbs to hug a city!"
Ylaris looked at him.
"She would."
Qaritas froze.
"She?"
Xheavend shouted.
"MY BOOKS!"
The limbs were taking them.
Not destroying them.
Gathering them.
Every surviving page.
Every surviving Book.
Pulling them together.
Protecting them from the black fire.
Then—
they began retracting.
Fast.
Books vanished into the mass.
Pages followed.
The limbs rose.
Higher.
Through the burning canopy.
Toward the atmosphere.
Xheavend's eyes widened.
"No."
She launched herself after them.
"X!"
Too late.
Of course.
Qaritas looked at Ylaris.
"Apparently we're doing this."
Then followed.
Behind him—
an engine screamed.
Qaritas looked back.
Yandaro's ship rose.
Ylaris moved.
One second he stood on the ground.
The next—
his hand was against the ship's nose.
The entire vessel stopped.
Yandaro slammed against his restraints.
"What are you doing?!"
"Not you."
"Move!"
"No."
"Those are hers!"
"I know."
"Then MOVE!"
Fire rolled quietly across Ylaris's shoulders.
He looked through the cockpit.
At the thirteen-year-old.
At the swollen eyes.
At the father's tool still clutched in one hand.
Ylaris's expression changed.
Barely.
"Your father told you to come back."
Yandaro stopped.
Everything in him seemed to collapse at once.
Ylaris lowered his voice.
"You did."
Yandaro stared at him.
"But they—"
"I know."
"She needs—"
"I know."
Yandaro's jaw trembled.
Ylaris removed his hand from the ship.
"I'll bring them."
For once—
Yandaro didn't argue.
Ylaris looked upward.
Qaritas and Xheavend were already disappearing through the smoke.
He sighed.
Then fire consumed him.
BOOOOOOM.
He launched.
Yandaro remained behind.
Alone in the little ship his father had finally called his.
His hands rested against the controls.
For several seconds—
he didn't move.
Then his fingers tightened around the tool.
Keep going.
Yandaro closed his eyes.
And breathed.
Qaritas broke through the atmosphere.
Immediately regretted it.
"X!"
She was ahead.
Chasing the impossible mass of limbs.
They stretched through space.
Hundreds of them.
Books trapped safely between coils.
Pages pressed against flesh.
Those enormous crystallized shapes moved far faster than something that size had any right to move.
"XHEAVEND!"
She turned her head.
"They have my Books!"
"I NOTICED!"
"They're taking them!"
"I ALSO NOTICED!"
"Then move faster!"
"I'M TRYING!"
Something detonated behind him.
Ylaris appeared.
Completely on fire.
Qaritas looked at him.
"Useful!"
Ylaris looked ahead.
The limbs disappeared into darkness.
Not vanished.
Moved.
Toward something.
Far beyond Hstrarkit.
Qaritas narrowed his eyes.
"Where are they going?"
Ylaris didn't answer.
Qaritas looked at him.
"You know."
Silence.
"You absolutely know."
Ylaris's burning eyes shifted toward him.
"Yes."
Xheavend stopped.
Qaritas nearly flew past her.
She stared at Ylaris.
"Who took my Books?"
Ylaris looked toward the distant darkness.
Then back at them.
For the first time since appearing—
something almost resembling amusement touched his face.
Qaritas didn't like it.
"Who?"
Ylaris answered.
One word.
A name Qaritas hadn't heard spoken aloud in ten years.
A name older than those ten years.
Older than Yrtana.
Older than Xheavend.
Older than the thousand masters.
Older than the poison.
The blindness.
The deafness.
The training.
A name from before Qaritas had stepped into the Chronolock.
"Krsangawi."
Qaritas stopped breathing.
The universe disappeared.
For one heartbeat—
he wasn't above Hstrarkit.
He was somewhere else.
Vorakhyrn.
The Gilded Maw.
A woman with four arms wrapping all of them around him before he had any idea why.
A voice laughing beside his ear.
Welcome back.
A pause.
Both of you.
Eon speaking through him.
A name.
Krsangawi.
Her expression changing.
You remember my name.
Then softer:
But that's all, isn't it?
Qaritas remembered confusion.
Her confidence.
Her complete refusal to be wounded by something he couldn't control.
You'll get there.
Another memory.
The Book against his chest.
Black shackles around his wrists.
Six captains surrounding him.
History closing over his existence.
Gawi watching.
Knowing where he was going.
Knowing who he was going to find.
Try not to die before that.
That enormous grin.
I want to hear the songs.
Then—
Goro.
Xheavend.
The Third Universe.
And Gawi's voice one final time.
And that, little prince—
Qaritas's wrists hurt.
The shackles weren't visible.
Hadn't been for years.
Didn't matter.
He felt them.
—is only the beginning.
Qaritas stared into the darkness where the limbs had disappeared.
"Gawi."
Ylaris looked at him.
"So you do remember."
Qaritas slowly turned.
"Some."
"Enough."
"Apparently."
Xheavend looked between them.
"You know that thing?"
Qaritas looked offended.
"I didn't know she had tentacles."
Ylaris's expression remained perfectly flat.
"She has many things."
"That was an upsetting answer."
Xheavend pointed into space.
"She took my Books."
"Saved."
Xheavend looked at Ylaris.
"What?"
"She saved your Books."
"By stealing them."
"Yes."
"That's still stealing."
"Probably."
Qaritas stared at Ylaris.
"You don't seem particularly bothered."
"I've known her a long time."
"That explains nothing."
"It explains why I'm no longer surprised."
Qaritas narrowed his eyes.
Something clicked.
Not Chronolock.
Thought.
"You weren't here by accident."
Ylaris said nothing.
Qaritas pointed at him.
"You weren't."
"No."
"Yzer attacks an alien planet at the exact moment we're here, and a giant burning Ascendant conveniently walks out of the forest?"
Ylaris looked down at himself.
"Walked."
"That is the least important part of that sentence."
Xheavend crossed her arms.
"Who sent you?"
Ylaris looked toward where the limbs had vanished.
Qaritas already knew.
Still—
he wanted to hear it.
Ylaris answered.
"Krsangawi."
Silence.
Qaritas laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
Because apparently the universe had decided subtlety was unnecessary.
"Of course she did."
Xheavend looked at him.
"You know her?"
Qaritas opened his mouth.
Stopped.
How did he explain Gawi?
Goro's wife.
Captain of the Third Division.
One of Eon's captains.
A woman who had hugged Qaritas before he'd known her.
A friend whose friendship had happened in the wrong order.
Someone who had said goodbye to him before he'd understood they'd ever said hello.
"Yes."
He paused.
"Sort of."
Xheavend stared.
"That's concerning."
"It usually is."
Ylaris turned.
"She told me to find you."
Qaritas pointed at himself.
"Me?"
"Yes."
"What exactly did she say?"
Ylaris looked at him.
"Find the man who complains too much."
Silence.
Xheavend covered her mouth.
Qaritas stared.
"That could be anyone."
Xheavend made a choking sound.
Qaritas turned.
"Don't."
She lost the fight.
Laughed.
Actually laughed.
Small.
Broken around the edges.
But real.
After Deyaro.
After Yandaro.
After Hstrarkit.
After Yzer.
Qaritas accepted the insult.
Temporarily.
He looked back at Ylaris.
"That is not enough information to identify a person."
"She said you'd say that."
Xheavend laughed harder.
Qaritas closed his eyes.
"I already hate this reunion."
"No, you don't."
Ylaris said it simply.
Qaritas opened his eyes.
Something about the giant's expression had changed.
He knew.
Not everything.
But enough.
Then Ylaris looked toward Xheavend.
"She said you'd have a girl with you."
The laughter disappeared.
Xheavend went still.
Qaritas did too.
Ylaris studied her.
Not her body.
Not End.
Something deeper.
For one strange second—
the fire inside his eyes dimmed.
"She said I'd know her."
Xheavend's voice became careful.
"How?"
Ylaris looked back toward Hstrarkit.
The sky remained full of smoke.
Burning clouds.
Broken eyes.
A world wounded because Yzer wanted one person.
Then he looked at Xheavend.
"She said I'd know you when the sky became afraid."
Xheavend said nothing.
Neither did Qaritas.
Ylaris turned toward the stars.
"She's waiting."
Qaritas looked into the dark.
Somewhere out there—
Krsangawi waited.
Goro's wife.
Captain of the Third Division.
One of Eon's oldest monsters.
The woman who had helped chain Qaritas out of history.
The woman who had watched him walk into the Chronolock.
The woman who had known Xheavend first as an image inside a Book.
A little girl.
A cage.
A mission.
Ten years had passed for Qaritas.
Ten years of Yrtana.
Ten years beside Xheavend.
Ten years becoming someone Gawi had somehow already believed he could become.
Qaritas swallowed.
"Where?"
Ylaris answered.
"Galathan."
The name settled between them.
Qaritas looked back toward Hstrarkit.
Toward the burning world below.
Somewhere down there—
Yandaro remained alive.
Warakai remained alive.
Thousands did not.
And Yzer had made his promise.
This would happen again.
World after world.
Species after species.
Until Xheavend surrendered.
Qaritas looked at her.
She was staring down at Hstrarkit too.
Guilt already trying to crawl into the spaces Yzer had made for it.
Qaritas bumped his shoulder against hers.
She looked at him.
He didn't tell her it wasn't her fault.
Didn't tell her not to think about it.
Didn't tell her everything would be fine.
It wouldn't.
Instead—
he looked toward the stars.
Toward Galathan.
Toward an old friend he'd met before she had become one.
And smiled.
"Come on."
Xheavend frowned.
"Where?"
Qaritas looked at the darkness where hundreds of impossible limbs had disappeared with her Books.
Then at Ylaris.
Then back at her.
For the first time in ten years—
the next name on Goro's list no longer felt impossibly far away.
Krsangawi.
First.
Qaritas's smile widened.
"Let's find Gawi."