The ascent from the Trench of Tears was not an escape; it was a slow, agonizing
crawl through the graveyard of my own lineage. Inside the diving bell, the air
was a thick, wet soup of copper and salt-dust. The Living Silver hull, which had
shimmered with the brilliance of a thousand stars upon our descent, was now a
dull, bruised charcoal, pitted by the acidic touch of the Third King's despair.
I sat on the floor of the bell, my back braced against the vibrating wall.
Kaelen's head rested in my lap. He was frighteningly still, his skin the color
of parched bone. The salt-rot had not just burned him; it had begun to
crystallize his very life-force. Every breath he drew was a dry, scraping rattle
that sounded like sand shifting in an hourglass. I pressed my palm against his
chest, right over the spot where his heart was stuttering, trying to find the
rhythm of the man beneath the Alpha's ruin.
"Stay with me, Kaelen," I whispered, my voice sounding hollow in the pressurized
