Qaritas waited for the world to end.
It seemed reasonable.
A mountain had just revealed itself to be a tooth.
Then another.
Then another.
Something large enough to possess mountain ranges as dental anatomy had inhaled beneath his feet.
There were very few acceptable developments after that.
Qaritas prepared himself for all of them.
The ground splitting open.
Continents folding inward.
An eye the size of an inland sea opening somewhere beneath the forest.
Perhaps Galathan simply biting something.
He wasn't entirely certain what a planet-sized mouth ate.
Other planets, presumably.
Maybe moons.
Whatever was available.
Qaritas waited.
Xheavend waited.
Yandaro remained close to Kysena.
Ylaris stared toward the Ivory Ranges.
Gawi—
smiled.
Technically.
Although Qaritas had recently learned that using Gawi's permanent expression as an indication of emotional state was approximately as useful as asking a corpse whether it felt rested.
Ten seconds passed.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Nothing happened.
Qaritas slowly exhaled.
Then—
THOOM.
The earth trembled.
White ash jumped around his boots.
Far beyond the Silver Ash Forest—
another ivory point pushed through rust-red earth.
Millions of tonnes of soil slid from it.
Qaritas watched the tooth rise.
Slowly.
Terribly.
Then stop.
"...Is that it?"
Nobody answered.
Qaritas looked around.
"That was a genuine question."
Gawi's four arms shifted.
"We should go."
Qaritas stared at her.
"Go."
"Yes."
He pointed toward the mountain-sized teeth.
"That is your response?"
"Would screaming improve the situation?"
Qaritas considered.
"Emotionally?"
A pause.
"Possibly."
"No."
"Then I remain dissatisfied."
Beside Yandaro—
Kysena laughed softly.
Qaritas turned toward her.
The Ascendant of the Moon had already risen.
Her long blue hair moved around her in that strange invisible tide.
The silver-blue light beneath her star-filled skin had brightened slightly.
She wasn't looking at the teeth.
She was looking at the Ivory Shepherd.
The colossal creature still hovered far beyond the forest.
Six enormous wings surrounded its polished body.
Then—
it descended.
One enormous foot touched the plain.
Then another.
The Shepherd turned away from the rising teeth.
And began walking.
Kysena's expression changed.
"Yes."
Qaritas looked at her.
"Yes what?"
"We should leave."
"Because?"
"The Teeth Beneath is shifting."
Qaritas glanced toward the horizon.
"Shifting."
"Yes."
"Not waking."
"No."
Relief moved through him.
Briefly.
"Good."
Kysena continued.
"The thing the planet is growing across is moving in its sleep."
Qaritas looked at her.
"You had an opportunity to stop talking."
Her lips twitched.
Ylaris sighed.
"She rarely takes those."
Kysena turned toward him.
"Big brother."
"No."
"I said nothing."
"You were about to."
"I was going to tell him not to worry."
Ylaris stared at the row of emerging teeth.
"That would have been dishonest."
"Only slightly."
Another tremor rolled beneath them.
This one weaker.
Deeper.
The Ivory Shepherd kept walking.
Then—
Galathan moved with it.
Not the planet.
The people.
Qaritas noticed the road beyond the forest.
He hadn't before.
It was enormous.
Hundreds of metres wide.
A pale corridor cut across the silver plains.
No buildings stood on it.
No trees.
No walls.
Only enormous marker stones positioned at intervals along either side.
Each carried the same symbol.
Six wings.
An open road.
And suddenly—
people began entering it.
Thousands.
No.
More.
Far in the distance, entire settlements emptied.
Qaritas watched roofs collapse inward.
At first he thought something had struck them.
Then he realized they were designed to do that.
Walls folded.
Roofs flattened.
Entire structures contracted into transportable shapes.
Animals were harnessed.
Carts loaded.
Enormous blue Oshalai moved onto the road in tightly controlled herds, their translucent pink horns catching the afternoon light.
Colorful Tavari followed.
Turquoise.
Crimson.
Violet.
Gold.
A herd of living color flowing across pale earth.
Medical stations disappeared piece by piece.
White canopies collapsed.
Equipment went into wagons.
Water tanks rolled onto enormous wheeled platforms.
Children moved beside adults.
No screaming.
No stampede.
No confusion.
Some of the children looked frightened.
Others didn't.
One little girl carried a bag nearly as large as she was while an adult held her hand.
A boy helped guide a group of animals toward the road.
Everyone knew where to go.
Qaritas stared.
"They've done this before."
"Many times," Kysena said.
A tower in the distance released a column of white ash.
Another answered.
Then another.
Signals.
Across the plains—
more roads filled.
Qaritas looked toward the Ivory Shepherd.
It never turned around.
Never checked whether anyone followed.
It simply walked.
Gawi passed him.
"When the Shepherds walk—"
Kysena finished quietly.
"You walk."
Qaritas looked again at the people.
Nobody raised weapons toward the Teeth.
Nobody gathered armies.
Nobody attempted to stop the enormous thing moving beneath their world.
They packed their homes.
Gathered their children.
Moved their animals.
And left.
Qaritas had spent enough time around gods to become accustomed to a particular form of stupidity.
Power created confidence.
Confidence became arrogance.
Arrogance eventually convinced something immortal that every problem could be punched until it became someone else's problem.
Galathan apparently disagreed.
The people here had looked at a creature large enough to wear continents—
and developed evacuation procedures.
Qaritas respected that.
Deeply.
"How long until it's safe?"
Kysena watched the Shepherd.
"We won't know until they stop."
"The Shepherds?"
"Yes."
"And if they don't?"
"We keep moving."
Simple.
No prophecy.
No heroic declaration.
No attempt to defeat the impossible.
Just—
move.
Survival didn't always mean winning.
Sometimes it meant recognizing when the world had produced something you had absolutely no business fighting.
Gawi reached the ship.
"Come."
Qaritas followed immediately.
He had learned enough about Galathan to understand that arguing with the local six-winged seismic evacuation creature would be unwise.
Xheavend walked beside him.
Yandaro followed Kysena.
Before entering the vessel, the boy looked back.
Toward the distant row of teeth.
Then toward the empty village.
His eyes lingered there.
Qaritas wondered what he saw.
Galathan?
Hstrarkit?
Another place people had been forced to leave?
Yandaro said nothing.
He entered the ship.
Qaritas followed.
Behind them—
the Ivory Shepherd kept walking.
And Galathan listened.
The Vaerash sang.
Qaritas hadn't understood what Gawi meant when she called the region the Great Ash Plains.
He did now.
Their vessel flew low.
Not because it needed to.
Because apparently Gawi had decided Qaritas had not experienced enough strange things that day.
Beneath them stretched an ocean of pale vegetation.
White.
Silver.
Peach.
Millions upon millions of hollow stalks covered the landscape.
Each ended in a thin membrane shaped almost like a fan.
Wind passed through them.
The world—
sang.
Low tones rolled across the plain.
One region produced something deep enough that Qaritas felt it through the ship.
Another answered higher.
Wind changed.
The sound changed with it.
Millions of plants became an instrument large enough for weather to play.
Qaritas stood at the viewing membrane.
Xheavend beside him.
Yandaro had moved closer too.
Not quite beside them.
But closer.
The plains continued.
Then something enormous appeared ahead.
Qaritas narrowed his eyes.
A hill.
Moving.
He had become suspicious of hills.
Reasonably.
"Gawi."
"Yes?"
"Is that hill alive?"
"Yes."
"Thank you."
He appreciated direct answers.
Then the hill lifted its head.
An enormous tortoise moved across the Vaerash.
Its shell rose like a mountain.
Actual trees grew across it.
Shrubs.
A small pond.
Qaritas leaned closer.
"...Are those houses?"
"Yes."
People lived on the creature.
Lightweight structures covered portions of its shell.
Bridges crossed shallow ridges.
Gardens grew in accumulated soil.
Someone stood near the edge hanging fabric to dry.
The Ashback continued walking as though carrying a village was a perfectly ordinary burden.
Another moved farther away.
Then another.
Yandaro finally spoke.
"How old are they?"
Gawi looked toward him.
"Some?"
A pause.
"Older than several nations."
Yandaro watched one disappear behind a ridge.
His face changed.
Just slightly.
Interest.
Then pain.
It came immediately afterward.
Qaritas saw it.
Something had reminded him.
Perhaps his father would have liked the creature.
Perhaps Yandaro had simply realized he wanted to tell him about it.
His mouth tightened.
He looked away.
Qaritas didn't say anything.
Neither did Gawi.
They passed herds of Tavari next.
Thousands.
The animals ran across the plains in turquoise, coral, violet and crimson waves.
Their coats broke sunlight into color.
Calves flashed yellow and blue between larger bodies.
Several enormous Oshalai herds moved along distant Shepherd Roads.
Eight graceful legs beneath each animal.
Long necks.
Deep blue skin.
Turquoise shoulders.
Pink horns.
People traveled beside them.
Evacuating.
Farther south—
something walked alone.
Qaritas initially mistook it for a statue.
Then it took another step.
An Ashborn Pilgrim.
Massive.
Pale.
Its body crumbled continuously.
Ash fell from one shoulder.
Then slowly climbed back into place.
Silver growth covered its back.
Its enormous foot pressed into the Vaerash.
When it lifted—
flowers appeared.
Hundreds.
Silver.
Glowing.
A temporary road of light bloomed behind the creature.
Yandaro watched that too.
This time he didn't look away.
Above them—
Vaelori remained close to the ground.
Their stained-glass wings skimmed the thermal currents.
None climbed high.
Not while the distant Cathedral Beast remained somewhere behind them.
Grief Finches moved in black rivers across the sky.
All traveling away from the shifting Teeth.
Everything on Galathan seemed to understand the same lesson.
When the world warned you—
listen.
Then Qaritas saw the horizon.
And forgot everything else.
At first—
he thought it was a city.
Black structures stretched across the Vaerash.
Towers.
Hangars.
Platforms.
Lights.
Ships.
Hundreds of them.
Perhaps thousands.
The settlement covered so much land Qaritas couldn't immediately determine where it ended.
Then he noticed the walls.
There weren't any.
He noticed the buildings.
Most weren't permanent.
Then the ships.
Some were landing.
Others launching.
And people—
everywhere.
Qaritas straightened.
"That's not a city."
"No," Gawi said.
They approached.
More details emerged.
Temporary hangars built from black interlocking metal.
White medical structures.
Long rows of shelters.
Training fields.
Landing platforms.
Fuel stations.
Storage depots.
Communication towers.
Entire sections of the camp appeared constructed from completely different technologies.
One hangar was metal.
Another looked grown.
A third had walls made from something resembling bone.
A fourth shifted slightly whenever Qaritas stopped looking directly at it.
He decided not to investigate.
Ships rested across enormous fields.
Mechanical vessels.
Living vessels.
Things with sails despite there being no obvious reason for sails in space.
Long silver ships covered in geometric writing.
Black vessels with transparent engines.
One enormous craft appeared to possess a spinal column.
Another was breathing.
Qaritas stared.
"Gawi."
"Yes?"
"Why is that ship breathing?"
"Because it's alive."
"Naturally."
Another vessel had been split open.
Dozens of engineers surrounded it.
Black architecture crawled across its hull.
Qaritas recognized it.
Yzer.
Captured.
Being dismantled.
Its internal structures had been pulled onto enormous tables.
People cut apart black mechanisms.
Studied them.
Catalogued them.
Farther away—
soldiers trained.
Different species.
Different bodies.
Different weapons.
Humanoids fought beside creatures with six limbs.
A towering armored being demonstrated something to a group barely reaching its knees.
Energy weapons fired across controlled ranges.
Blades struck.
Shields formed.
Someone shouted orders in a language Qaritas didn't know.
Another voice translated instantly through a device hovering overhead.
Medical tents stretched across another section.
Qaritas saw wounded civilians.
Soldiers.
Children.
And—
Ascendants.
He knew immediately.
Not all looked powerful.
One lay beneath a translucent medical covering.
Another sat upright while three healers worked around something embedded in their chest.
Chains lay on the ground nearby.
Broken.
Qaritas's expression changed.
Gawi noticed.
"Recovered three days ago."
"From Yzer?"
"Yes."
Qaritas looked again.
The Ascendant's wrists were scarred.
Deeply.
Something cold moved through him.
They flew lower.
Another section contained enormous black shapes covered beneath translucent containment sheets.
Qaritas stared.
One sheet shifted.
Something beneath it twitched.
An eye opened.
Then died.
Qaritas's stomach tightened.
"Those are—"
"Eyes."
Yzer's Eyes.
Broken.
Collected.
Studied.
Killed.
There were dozens.
Perhaps hundreds.
Qaritas looked across the camp again.
Maps floated above tables.
Refugees moved between shelters.
Soldiers ate beside civilians.
Engineers shouted at one another.
Healers ran between patients.
Captured equipment was stripped apart.
Ships launched.
Others returned damaged.
One landed with half its side missing.
Emergency crews were already running toward it before it touched the ground.
This wasn't a base.
Not exactly.
It was—
Qaritas looked at Gawi.
"A war camp."
"Yes."
That single word changed everything.
Gawi hadn't been wandering the Third Universe.
She hadn't simply been appearing wherever Yzer became inconvenient.
She had been building something.
Qaritas looked again.
Dozens of cultures.
Dozens of technologies.
Dozens of armies.
All occupying the same plain.
Preparing.
Training.
Recovering.
Learning.
A war.
Not against a kingdom.
Not against a species.
Against a Warden.
Their ship descended toward the camp.
People looked up.
Some waved.
Others continued working.
Nobody knelt.
Qaritas noticed that immediately.
No bells announced Gawi.
No soldiers formed ceremonial lines.
No giant banners unfurled.
No statues.
No monuments.
No throne waiting at the center.
There wasn't even one symbol repeated throughout the camp.
Instead—
hundreds.
A red spiral hung over one medical tent.
Three white lines marked a group of soldiers nearby.
A golden animal Qaritas didn't recognize covered one ship.
Another force carried black triangular banners.
A group of engineers wore silver circles around their shoulders.
Different worlds.
Different people.
Different identities.
Qaritas looked toward Gawi.
"Where's yours?"
She stopped.
"My what?"
"Flag."
"I don't have one."
"You're commanding this."
"Temporarily."
Qaritas looked around.
"This is an army."
"Several."
"Yours."
Gawi's eyeless face turned toward him.
"No."
One of her four hands gestured toward the camp.
"Theirs."
Qaritas looked again.
Something she'd said earlier returned to him.
If I free every world myself—
then they are not free.
He had understood the sentence.
He hadn't understood the scale.
Until now.
The ship landed.
Its body settled against a reinforced platform.
The opening formed.
Noise entered immediately.
Metal.
Voices.
Engines.
Training weapons.
Orders.
Arguments.
Life.
Gawi stepped out.
Nobody bowed.
Three people immediately approached her carrying reports.
She took all three simultaneously.
One in each of three hands.
Her fourth pointed toward a damaged ship.
"Move that away from the medical quarter."
Someone nodded.
"Why?"
"Fuel instability."
The person looked alarmed.
"How unstable?"
"It will explode."
They ran.
Qaritas watched them go.
"How soon?"
Gawi continued reading.
"Unclear."
Qaritas walked faster.
Several seconds later—
Yandaro stopped.
Qaritas nearly walked into him.
"What?"
The boy wasn't listening.
He was staring toward the eastern section of the camp.
Ships.
Not the ones landing.
The ones being built.
His face changed.
The grief didn't leave.
Qaritas saw that clearly.
It remained.
Heavy.
Red-eyed.
Exhausted.
But something moved beside it.
Interest.
Yandaro stepped away.
Then another step.
Gawi lowered one report.
She watched him.
Said nothing.
Yandaro began walking toward the shipyard.
Qaritas followed.
Obviously.
Someone had to make sure the grieving thirteen-year-old did not accidentally enlist in an interdimensional war.
Although—
judging by the camp—
that possibility had become concerningly realistic.
The shipyard was worse.
Not dangerous.
For Qaritas.
Dangerous for Yandaro's future.
Because the boy looked around—
and came alive.
Not completely.
Not happily.
But enough.
Engines lay disassembled across platforms.
Some were larger than houses.
Propulsion chambers floated beneath suspension fields.
Fuel conduits ran through transparent diagnostic frames.
Captured Yzer technology had been separated into labeled components.
Experimental hull materials hung from cranes.
Three engineers were shouting about dimensional shear.
Someone else was shouting back that dimensional shear wasn't the problem.
Apparently engineers remained engineers regardless of universe.
Yandaro moved between them.
Slowly.
His eyes followed everything.
A drive core.
A fuel system.
A hull lattice.
A half-assembled navigation array.
Then—
a ship.
It rested inside an enormous open hangar.
Long.
Dark.
Unfinished.
Approximately sixty metres from nose to stern.
Its hull existed only in sections.
The exposed interior revealed layers of machinery.
Weapons mounts had been installed beneath the unfinished wings.
Several engineers surrounded the rear propulsion system.
One slammed a tool onto a table.
"It destabilized again."
Another answered.
"The chamber is holding."
"The chamber isn't the problem."
"The chamber cracked."
"Because the fuel surged."
"The fuel surged because the chamber—"
"That's wrong."
Silence.
Qaritas looked down.
Yandaro had spoken.
So did everyone else.
The engineers turned.
One blinked.
"What?"
Yandaro pointed.
"That."
Nobody moved.
The engineer looked toward the engine.
Then back at Yandaro.
"What's wrong with it?"
"Your fuel is fighting the engine."
That produced a different silence.
Qaritas folded his arms.
The engineer looked toward Gawi.
Gawi gave absolutely no assistance.
Wonderful.
The engineer crouched slightly.
"What do you mean?"
Yandaro hesitated.
For half a second—
he looked thirteen again.
Small.
Tired.
His father's blood still dark against portions of his clothing.
Then his eyes returned to the engine.
And something familiar settled into him.
Knowledge.
"The compression cycle."
He stepped closer.
"You're forcing the fuel through there."
He pointed.
"Yes."
"Too fast."
"We need the pressure."
"No."
Yandaro frowned.
"You need the reaction."
The engineer's expression shifted.
Yandaro continued.
"If you force it through that narrow, it heats before it reaches the chamber."
"It needs to heat."
"Not there."
He pointed toward another section.
"There."
The engineer stood.
Another approached.
Yandaro stepped closer to the exposed propulsion assembly.
"The fuel wants to expand before you're letting it."
One engineer frowned.
"Fuel doesn't want anything."
Yandaro looked at him.
"You know what I mean."
Qaritas's mouth twitched.
The engineer looked almost offended.
Then Yandaro pointed again.
"You're compressing it here, heating it here, compressing it again, and then asking the chamber to contain all of it."
He looked at them.
"Why?"
Nobody answered immediately.
One engineer moved toward a diagnostic display.
Yandaro followed.
"My fuel wouldn't do that."
The engineer looked at him.
"Your fuel?"
Yandaro froze.
There.
The grief returned.
His father's face existed somewhere behind that sentence.
Qaritas could see it happen.
Yandaro swallowed.
"I was making one."
"Making what?"
"Fuel."
"For?"
"Ships."
The engineer stared.
Yandaro's voice became quieter.
"It's almost ready."
Almost.
Qaritas wondered who Yandaro had planned to show when it became finished.
He suspected he knew.
Yandaro looked toward the engine again.
His eyes shone.
But he didn't leave.
He stepped closer.
"If you let the reaction start later, you won't need as much pressure."
The engineer stared at him.
Then the engine.
Then another engineer.
Someone pulled up a projection.
Calculations appeared.
Voices started.
Not dismissing him.
Testing it.
Arguing.
Building on it.
Yandaro stood among them.
Listening.
Correcting one thing.
Asking about another.
He didn't understand everything.
That mattered.
He asked questions.
Someone explained a dimensional stabilizer.
Yandaro admitted he'd never seen one.
Another engineer showed him.
He immediately asked why they positioned it so close to the drive.
The engineer opened his mouth.
Stopped.
Looked at the engine.
Then swore.
Qaritas glanced toward Gawi.
"Is he always like this?"
"I've known him approximately as long as you have."
"Unhelpful."
"Accurate."
Yandaro placed one hand against the unfinished hull.
His fingers stayed there.
The engineers moved around him.
He stared up at the vessel.
Long enough that Qaritas recognized the moment something changed.
Not healed.
Changed.
Yandaro looked toward Gawi.
"Can I build one?"
Gawi turned.
"One what?"
He pointed toward the unfinished warship.
"That."
Qaritas stared at him.
"You have been here approximately twenty minutes."
"I know."
"And have already decided to construct military spacecraft."
"Yes."
Qaritas considered.
"I respect the efficiency."
Yandaro didn't smile.
His hand remained against the hull.
"I couldn't stop them."
Everything around them seemed quieter.
Not actually.
Engines still roared.
Metal still struck metal.
People still shouted.
But Qaritas heard only him.
"On Hstrarkit."
Yandaro's fingers tightened against the ship.
"I couldn't stop anything."
His voice cracked.
He looked down.
"My dad—"
Nothing came after that.
He tried again.
Failed.
Nobody finished it for him.
Gawi remained where she was.
Yandaro wiped his face hard with one sleeve.
"I couldn't fight them."
Silence.
"I couldn't make them leave."
Another breath.
"I couldn't..."
His shoulders shook.
He pressed his lips together until they stopped.
Then he looked at the unfinished ship.
"But I can build."
Gawi's head tilted.
Yandaro turned toward her.
"Teach me."
Not—
Make me powerful.
Not—
Give me a weapon.
Teach me.
Gawi walked toward him.
She stopped several feet away.
"What do you want to build?"
Yandaro looked at the warship.
His eyes moved toward its weapons.
For a moment Qaritas expected the obvious answer.
Something that could kill them.
Something that could kill Yzer.
Something that could make someone else hurt as badly as he did.
Instead—
"I want ships that can get people out."
Gawi didn't move.
"When another world gets attacked."
Yandaro swallowed.
"I want them to have somewhere to go."
His eyes lowered.
"So they don't have to..."
He stopped.
Qaritas knew.
Leave someone behind.
Watch someone die.
Stand there helplessly.
Yandaro breathed.
Then looked toward the weapons beneath the unfinished vessel.
"And I want ships that can go back."
Gawi's head tilted.
"Back?"
Yandaro nodded.
"For everyone who couldn't leave."
Nobody spoke.
The unfinished warship towered above him.
A thirteen-year-old boy standing beneath something designed for war.
Blood still on his clothing.
Grief still raw enough that his hands occasionally shook.
Qaritas looked at him and understood something.
Yandaro wasn't trying to stop missing his father.
He wasn't trying to replace him.
He wasn't suddenly all right.
He was looking at the hole his father's death had torn through him—
and deciding what he wanted to build around it.
Gawi studied him.
Then looked toward the engineers.
Then back.
"I can teach you how ships survive."
Yandaro's eyes lifted.
"And fight?"
"Eventually."
"How long?"
"Years."
His face fell.
Gawi continued.
"Unless you're unusually talented."
Xheavend spoke from behind Qaritas.
"He is."
Everyone turned.
She stood several metres away.
Arms folded.
Her mismatched eyes rested on Yandaro.
"Annoyingly."
Yandaro looked at her.
Something almost happened to his mouth.
Almost.
Gawi noticed.
Her permanent smile revealed nothing.
"Then perhaps fewer years."
Yandaro looked toward the ship again.
His fingers remained against its unfinished hull.
And Qaritas—
standing beneath an alien sun on a planet growing across something with teeth—
watched a grieving boy decide that if he couldn't save the person he'd lost—
he would learn how to build something capable of carrying the next person home.