Prologue

Man'nah's Shadow stared into the wall of swirling dust.

Dust. What we have built. What we have let ourselves become. 

He had only to look at his hands to know it. Even stone worn by time and wind would disappear. The Shadow had seen cities rise and fall, civilizations fade to memories, then legends, then carvings on cave walls. He’d become less than a story himself.

Except to a few.

He smiled, thinking of his games and his plans. In the end, amusement was all that mattered. Once, he had loved and been loved in return. But like the wind across this desolation, feelings were far too fickle for a life’s foundation. 

He built his future on the tides of fear and power. To these, mortals moved ever predictably. By these, he would achieve his aims.

The Shadow looked now beyond the dust, to the city that lay uncounted leagues afar. Like fireflies in a field, humans flitted about the cliffs, living in houses that once belonged to an ancient people of which they knew little and less.

His lips curled. Amusing as mortals could sometimes be, they were too often short-sighted and dull-witted. They had no concept of the trajectory of an age. They lived at the feet of mountains, but never thought to look at who truly cast them in shade. 

But in his hands, time was the sharpest blade, and perspective the eye that guided it.

The Shadow looked back to the ruined city behind him, back to the one who had cast his name into oblivion. Even eternity would end. No empire had yet risen that did not fall.

And perhaps, he thought, a thousand years spent in the shadows means less than a moment in the light.

Shaking his head, the Shadow drifted to his place at the foot of the stairs. The time had not yet come. His plans still unfurled. But soon, at last, he would have his due.

Man'nah's Shadow reached the stairs, glanced up at his master, then faced the dust bank again. Stiffening his flesh, he set to waiting once more.

But only a little while longer.

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1: Prey

As the evening light died behind the snow-capped Silvertusks, the beast finally caught up.

Leiyn raised her head to look at the incline by which it approached. She’d felt the creature at the edges of her lifesense for a league now and hoped it wouldn’t come nearer. That hope soon frayed. A gentler being might have stayed away, but this one only drew nearer. 

She didn’t recognize the shape of its esse. Few beings burned as brightly as it did, only titans and dryvans. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t easily fall.

Leiyn turned in Feral’s saddle to the rider and the draconion next to her. "We’re being stalked."

Acalan followed her gaze. "From there?"

She nodded.

The Gast chieftain's dark eyes took in the lay of the land. His experience was carved into his skin, scars interwoven into the moss-green tattoos of the Tekuan tribe. 

Leiyn looked up with him. They were in a shallow pass, inclines rising to either side. Snow scattered among the stones and shrubs and mounded at the roots of the few scraggly trees capable of survival this high into the mountains. The first snowfall had already come, a sign that autumn was already on the decline. It wasn’t a landscape in which prey could easily hide, nor could a predator approach unnoticed.

After observing for several moments, Acalan turned and nodded back the way they’d come. “The mating doves ought to be told.”

Leiyn grimaced. “I’ll do it. Keep an eye out.”

It was an unnecessary request; rare was the moment she’d caught Acalan unaware. Almost, he seemed to possess a lifesense of his own, if to a lesser degree. Still, he nodded as she turned away.

Feral bore her back toward the final members of their company. Batu and Isla had been laughing, but they quieted as Leiyn wheeled Feral around to trot beside them. Like I’m a thorn in their cocoon, she thought with a wry smile. She wasn’t proud that it brought her a perverse pleasure.

“Leiyn,” Isla greeted her. “Something wrong?”

Leiyn pretended affront. “Does something need to be wrong? Maybe I just fancied a chat with my friends.”

Batu raised an eyebrow. Isla’s expression echoed his skepticism, though she tried to hide it.

“What would you like to chat about, then? The weather? Seems bitter headed toward miserable, by the ache in my leg.”

Leiyn only sighed. “Fine—I did have another matter to discuss. A beast has been stalking us through the Silvertusks.”

Their reactions were slow, wariness muddled by infatuation. To their credit, however, both reached for their bows within moments.

“How far?” Isla queried.

Leiyn concentrated her mahia on the bright spot among the mountain slopes. “Half a league, maybe. Distance is always difficult to tell.”

Isla nodded and followed Leiyn’s line of sight. “We could try to outpace it.”

“I doubt that’d work. It’s kept up with us this long, and it’s big, telling by its esse. Guessing it’s a snow ape.”

“A snow ape?” Batu frowned as he also stared back. “I haven’t heard of that before.”

“It’s a myth.” Isla gave Leiyn a long-suffering look. “Even Tadeo had never seen one, only the lodgemaster before him. It could be anything, Leiyn—a thorned lion, maybe.”

“I’ve met one of those before. This is different.”

Isla sighed, but she nodded. Leiyn summoned a small smile, which her friend returned.

Leiyn gazed in the direction of their pursuer once more and gnawed on her lip. "Nothing for it but to wait."

"And then?" Batu asked.

She only raised her eyebrows and dug her heels into Feral's flanks, eliciting whinnies of protest from the mare. By his expression, Batu knew the answer as well as she.

Whatever the hunter, they would meet it with arrows and steel—and, if necessary, magic.

***

The beast had nearly crested the ridge to their left when Leiyn called for them to form up.

As her companions galloped toward her and Feral, Leiyn dismounted and gave the mare a quick pat. 

"Be brave," she said. The horse stared at her as if planning mutiny, yet she stayed put as Leiyn extracted her bow.

The others followed suit, then looked to her. Even Acalan seemed content with allowing Leiyn to direct the defense, though with a watchful gaze, as if waiting for her to fail. She ignored him. She'd had enough men doubt her abilities to remain steady now.

"Batu, keep hold of our horses. Isla, Acalan, keep your bows at the ready. We'll take it down at a distance, if we can. If not, have other weapons close at hand."

All nodded. Likely, the same plan had occurred to each of them. Yet someone had to lead, and Leiyn had never been one to follow.

Batu took the horses and led them back several paces. Though she'd chosen him for the task because of his unfailing obedience, his strength would be a boon if any tried to bolt. 

From this creature's esse, bolting seemed a distinct possibility. It burned across the landscape so that she felt she should be able to see its life's glow with her eyes. But their first glimpse would come soon enough.

Leiyn and the other two lined up, Isla on her left, the chieftain taking her right. Each had a bow in hand and their close-range weapons readied. Her fellow ranger had a spear, obtained in Folly, slung with a strap over her back, while Acalan had his knife and macua on his belt. Her own long knives hung in their scabbards on her left hip. 

No sooner had Leiyn set an arrow to her longbow than something appeared on the ridge.

Even across the distance, it took but a glance to know her guess had been correct: a snow ape lumbered toward them. It was large, perhaps half and again as tall as she was, though with it being hunched over, it was difficult to tell. Its coat was white and shaggy, and it shimmered with rime. Its snout was a startling red, and a patch of blue curled around its black eyes. 

As the snow ape came closer, she detected yellowed fangs jutting from its mouth. It moved in a curious fashion, propelling itself forward on long, powerful arms, though its speed was no less for the odd stride. 

Leiyn felt the muscles along her shoulders tighten and consciously loosened them. The beast wouldn’t die easily. They’d be lucky if their arrows penetrated its coat deep enough to be effective, and only one to an eye or the heart would put it down for good.

Her hidden sense gave graver warnings. Its lifeforce churned like a blizzard in full blush. There wasn’t only a predator’s determination to make the kill. Hunger. Fear. It had been a lean hunting season, and it wouldn’t survive the winter without another feast. Without killing Leiyn and her companions.

She pushed aside her guilt and lifted her bow, her friends mirroring her to either side. It was their survival or the ape's.

It was a truth she'd long known: there was no room for mercy in the Titan Wilds.

"Loose!" she called, and three bows thrummed.

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2: Mercy

Their arrows whispered through the air.

Leiyn watched hers arc, judging where the arrow fell even as she reached down for a second. Leiyn’s and Isla’s missed the mark, but Acalan's found the beast's shoulder. Even at a hundred paces away, its pained roar thundered through the vale.

But the arrow didn’t slow it; if anything, its stride lengthened.

Each archer began to loose on their own rhythm. Drawing, Leiyn adjusted her aim to compensate for the closing distance, then released. This one flew true, knocking against the creature's brow above its eye before ricocheting away. Isla still missed, while Acalan hit again, this time in the same arm as its injured shoulder.

Once more, they loosed, but all the while, the snow ape came closer. Leiyn's stomach knotted as she drew what would be her last arrow. They’d marked it half a dozen times, yet the Wilds beast refused to fall. Even a thorned lion wasn’t so resilient. Its lifeforce showed only the slightest signs of faltering.

Unless she hit its eye, it would reach them. And she doubted they could survive that.

The battle thrill coursed through her veins, making her limbs tremble, yet Leiyn knew she must be steady; a shot could be thrown off even by the beat of her heart. The others shouted and cursed around her, but she blocked them out. As she drew and took aim, the world narrowed to her and her target, coming quickly nearer with every lumbering stride. The ape's malice seemed to radiate toward her as their eyes met.

She loosed.

The arrow flew, but a gust whipped up out of nowhere. Even before it hit, Leiyn was cursing and throwing down her bow to draw her knives. 

Then the ape's head rocked back with a shriek, and she paused, baffled.

The errant arrow hadn’t hit its mark—it had hit the other eye instead. The snow ape thrashed, shaking its head back and forth. Leiyn retreated, vaguely aware of Acalan and Isla doing the same. She gripped her knives tightly, waiting for the beast to fall.

But it didn’t. Impossibly, she felt its esse burn stubbornly on. The snow ape seemed to master its agony, for its movements slowed and its gaze leveled.

It roared as it charged.

"Isla!" Leiyn heard Batu yell from behind. She didn’t turn to see why. From the beast’s trajectory, it was headed toward Leiyn, like it meant to repay her for the grievous wound she'd dealt it. Her knives suddenly felt little better than nails, her body frail as sticks.

She stood her ground, even as the ape barreled toward her, and reached into her mahia. Pulling at her reserves of strength, she invigorated her muscles with a surplus of energy, then screamed in defiance.

The beast struck faster than she could hope to dodge.

Leiyn dove to one side, slashing wildly as she did, but its hand caught her ribs. Fire exploded through her as she crashed to the ground, all the air knocked from her lungs. Leiyn gasped even as she found her feet again. Without her mahia, such a blow might have killed her. As it was, she'd be lucky if she only suffered a few broken ribs.

The ape had turned from its assault, however, distracted by her companions' attacks. On one side, Isla stabbed at its joints with her spear, its length allowing her to remain out of reach. Acalan came in closer, the Gast chieftain a blur of motion as he chopped with macua and knife at the beast's flank. 

The ape was faster. It caught Acalan in the shoulder with its elbow, then spun to lunge at Isla. She managed to anchor her spear against the ground, and the ape impaled itself upon it.

But even then, it raged on. The ape reached out and seized hold of Isla, its hands still possessing the power to tear her apart.

Leiyn charged. Fear and fury crowded out her pain as she threw herself onto the snow ape's back. Her knives flashed forward, burying into the sides of its neck. But even as the beast’s movements faltered, Leiyn didn’t relent. She struck at it with weapons unseen.

Its esse leaked with encroaching death, and she seized the opening to pull its lifeforce into herself. Fire blossomed within, knitting her bones together and revitalizing her strength. The ape began to sag beneath her, but she didn’t stop. Isla wasn’t safe; none of her companions were. She drew out her knives to stab them in, again and again, searching for arteries and the spine. Hot liquid sprayed over her arms and hands, and she drank at the life spilling with them.

Abruptly, she halted. The body beneath had grown dark, its esse dissipated.

The snow ape was finally dead.

"Leiyn."

Leiyn withdrew her knives from the blood-soaked fur and leaped off. After a fight, she usually felt dizzy and tired, but with the ape's esse filling her, she felt she could run the night through. She practically twitched with all the energy coursing through her veins and found it hard to meet Isla's eyes.

What she saw in them finally snapped her back to reality.

Leiyn looked down at herself. Blood soaked her coat, her pants, her boots. Her gloves were entirely saturated, her face sticky with it. Its stench hung thick in her nostrils.

As she looked up and saw Isla's worry again, she knew how it must appear. And though her fellow ranger had never condemned her magic, Leiyn always feared a day might come that it would push past even her tolerance.

She pried herself free of her roiling thoughts. "You alright?" she asked Isla, looking her up and down. Her clothes were smeared with mud, but she showed no sign of injury.

"I'm fine. Acalan, too." Her friend's expression didn’t soften as her eyes flickered to the fallen ape. "You?"

Leiyn touched a hand to her side. The pain had faded to an ache. In the rush of magic, she’d once more healed herself. But her mind flitted to a different thought.

"It was starving, Isla. It wouldn't have lasted the winter." She didn’t look at the slain creature, its blood-soaked fur, its mangled neck. The damage she’d done to it. "It didn't have a choice."

Her friend drew near, but she didn’t reach out. Isla knew from their years together Leiyn didn’t like being touched after violence. 

"Neither did we," Isla murmured. "It wasn't anyone's fault, Leiyn. Just the circumstances."

Leiyn nodded, averting her gaze. It had been a majestic animal in its peculiar, harsh way. She wondered how many remained. Or had she killed the last of their kind?

“Your spirit touches mine,” she muttered. But just then, the Ranger’s Lament rang hollow in her ears.

Leiyn shook her head, rallying herself. "I hope there's a stream nearby. I could use a wash."

Isla gave her a small smile, while Acalan answered. "A creek lies not far ahead. We can reach it before nightfall."

"That’ll have to do." Leiyn glanced at the chieftain before looking away. Even Acalan's gaze was hard to meet just then, though the Gast had no qualms with mahia that she knew of.

Batu still stood at a distance, his hands full keeping hold of the horses. Feral in particular fought to win free of him, her head whipping back and forth, her eyes wide as she stared at the ape. Leiyn had to smile at that. As likely as not, the mare had been itching to get into the fight herself. The former plainsrider met her eyes for a moment. She looked away first.

Leiyn wondered if her friends could see beneath the blood, or if she seemed a monster to them as well.

Acalan kneeled next to the snow ape's corpse. "The pelt is salvageable. Rinse the blood, and we can leave the rest to my people. They will be through within a day or two. The meat may be preserved by the cold. For us, we cannot afford further delay."

Leiyn swallowed down her revulsion at the task, then chided herself for her weakness. How many times had she skinned a deer or hare in her years in the Titan Wilds? Yet the reawakening of her mahia seemed to have softened her in ways she hadn’t anticipated.

She couldn’t afford to be soft. Not for her sake, nor for any of them.

Leiyn touched the pouch that held Tadeo’s fox figurine, then went to Feral to retrieve her waterskins. She would honor the lodgemaster's philosophy. She would do what she must.

She only wondered how deeply duty would cut this time.

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3: Fireside

They’d traveled for weeks to reach the Silvertusks. The journey had taken up the rest of the summer, and the aspens’ leaves had long turned gold. Acalan had chosen to venture ahead with Leiyn, Isla, and Batu, while the rest of his tribe trailed behind. Irritating as Isla and Batu’s romance was at times, Leiyn had begun to enjoy the easy companionship among their foursome. Their pace was quick, but not the forbidding march it had been during their journey south. Yet with war ahead and war rising around them, she could never be completely at ease.

Little trouble found them before the snow ape, yet signs of the Suncoats and their supporters abounded along the Frontier Road. Farmhouses burned out. Bodies swinging from trees and crucified at crossroads. Baltesian patrols—sometimes from the Southport militia, but mostly locals protecting their own—often passed, and many told tales of their encounters with their Ilberian counterparts.

Conflicts had even come to Folly’s stoop. When they stopped for a couple of days in the bordertown, Mayor Itzel had told them of all the local woes. A small company of Suncoats had briefly sieged the town, but had been driven away when a Baltesian company came to the fight. 

“The cowards ran,” Itzel grated, “but they’re still out there, somewhere. My soldiers will find them; they’ve sworn to it.”

Leiyn nodded, understanding her fervor. Tadeo, the man they’d each loved in their own way, had died at Suncoat hands. Until every last one of them was rooted out of the Tricolonies, there could be no peace in their hearts.

In Folly, she also realized her firstdawn had come and gone, leaving her twenty-six years old. It recalled to mind past celebrations at the Wilds Lodge: sugarcakes and honeywine brought up from the local villages and passed among the rangers, apprentices, and staff; Yolant’s music, more raucous than ever; Isla and her clumsy dancing, Old Nathan’s scowling, Gan’s outrageous flirting… Even as the memories made Leiyn smile, they cut deep. At night, cloistered in her room, she ran them through her mind and let the tears flow until they dried.

But once they left Folly, Leiyn hardened her heart again. Beyond the town lay the heart of the Titan Wilds. Always dangerous in their own right, they’d only grown more so with Suncoats on the loose. And there was also the Gasts’ mysterious war awaiting them, and whatever enemy lay behind it.

She was ready even before the snow ape found them in the mountains. Ready to hunt, to kill. But the rage that had always fueled her had dulled. When it found her, she remembered now all the blood she’d spilled and how it had only left her emptier. 

She would touch her auburn tress, the legacy of her mother. Touch Tadeo’s fox figurine, his final gift. Feel for Zuma’s spark deep within.

She knew the cost of war. Yet the wars had only just begun.

***

They made camp that night at the base of a cliff. Sheltered from the wind and with a campfire blazing merrily ahead, Leiyn was almost comfortable. Yet the encounter with the snow ape had stained her, body and soul. Its excess of lifeforce burned within; the stink of blood lingered on her clothes, despite a thorough washing in an icy river.

She forced the thoughts away, focusing instead on their surroundings. The tundra below had been bare to the eyes before darkness fell, but her mahia felt it to be otherwise. Shrubs defied winds so cold they froze Leiyn’s breath, rooting in the stony ground with stubborn glows. Marmots and pikas hid among boulder fields, invisible to all but her. When they had first arrived, their squeaking cries had sounded warning and provoked Leiyn and her party to smile. Now, the creatures had quieted and burrowed deep within their tunnels to wait out the night.

Leiyn shifted her gaze upward. She had only just begun drawing constellations when Acalan broke the silence. 

“Do you know the story of Leaping Stars?”

Lowering her gaze, she saw the chieftain was looking at Batu. When the former plainsrider shook his head, Acalan frowned.

“All should know of the Night Cloud. He is not of the stars, but the gentle light between them.” He pointed at the pale mist that backed a portion of the night sky. “His tale is of finding his own story, as we all must do.”

Wondering what had provoked this bout of loquacity, Leiyn held her tongue. Once, she had rejected Gast stories when Tadeo tried passing them on to her and Isla. Now, she was as eager as the others to hear it, if not more so. She had come north on a promise to aid Zuma’s people after a lifetime of hatred. Learning their myths seemed one small step toward absolution.

And Saints know I have much to atone for.

Acalan puffed on his pipe for a long moment. “Leaping Stars is a curious spirit. He is often drawn as a boy to show his mischievous nature. Long ago, when he was young and newly formed, he traveled to each constellation, wondering at what stories they held. Touching upon them, Leaping Stars witnessed the great deeds contained within. He learned of my people’s legends: of Chimalli of the Hill, the first to leash a kainox, a titan; of Ehetia of the Birch, who first brought the Many Tribes together; of Iuit of the Dam, the foremost ancestor of my tribe, whose friendship with the Copper Beaver saved us Tekuan from a great flood.”

Leiyn stared at the chieftain, thoughts churning. A copper beaver… As Acalan raised an eyebrow at her, she looked aside. It prodded at a part of her past that seemed too private to share.

“Leaping Stars,” the chieftain continued, “also entered the fables of his fellow spirits. He witnessed Tlalli’s birthing of herself and her creation of titans and humankind. He swam through the oceans with the first fish and rode draconions before any man or woman tamed one. The beginnings of all things were his fireside stories, and he rested full of their threads.”

“To see all that.” Isla wore a small smile, her eyes bright with reflected firelight like coals catching flame.

Acalan nodded. “Every wonder upon this world, Leaping Stars visited. Every story worth knowing, and some that were not, he took as his own. Perhaps mortals such as us would have long before tired of bearing witness and never acting, but not he. His appetite is insatiable, even now. So though he knows all that has been, Leaping Stars looks eagerly upon Tlalli, waiting for new tales to weave into constellations. So must we all strive to be worthy of his gaze.”

“A beautiful story,” Isla said, and Batu echoed the sentiment. As their eyes turned to Leiyn, she shifted uncomfortably.

“It was nice,” Leiyn managed. “But it seems unlikely, doesn’t it? A god just sitting around, watching humans stumble through life?”

Isla shook her head in disbelief, while Acalan drew on his pipe and almost smiled. “Leaping Stars is not a god,” he said, smoke leaking from between his lips. “He is not like your Omn, all-knowing and all-powerful. Beings such as he are beyond our complete understanding, the same as the kainox and other spirits. Perhaps it is the shortness of our lives that draws his interest, and how much we still accomplish. What else should draw his interest?”

Leiyn shrugged. Having seen things she couldn’t understand, how could she question his beliefs? Yet the tale seemed too large to accept.

The high pitch of Isla’s voice betrayed her discomfort as she intervened. “Batu, tell us a Kalgan story.” The young man’s brow creased, and Isla laughed. “Oh, don’t get tongue-tied! It’s just us.”

Batu sighed and huddled closer to the fire. “I can think of one, though the details…” He shook his head, but with all their gazes upon him, he soldiered on. “It’s about how Kalga first came to the Veiled Lands. Do you know it?”

Leiyn shook her head with the others. It was common knowledge that Kalga had been the first of the Ancestral Lands to visit this half of the world, but she had never heard the particulars.

Clearing his throat, Batu began in a low voice. “For many years, ships had sailed from Dominion across the western sea, wishing to see what lay on the other side. Each time, the Veil repelled them. A wall of fog reaching as high as the eye can see, it is said to be a thing alive. Ships that sailed into its depths never returned, and those that came near it spoke of horrors reaching out to claim their souls. Most believed it would never be crossed, and some thought it shouldn’t be—that demons lived on the other side, and this was the gods’ protection against them.”

Leiyn hid a smile. The more he spoke, the more confident Batu’s words became. He wasn’t as ineloquent as his timidity made him seem.

“Then came Gerel Chiru. A wisewoman of great renown, she requested of the reigning Hesh Jin to give her a boat so she could open a way through the Veil. The Hesh Jin was hesitant at first, but his respect for Gerel was great, so he relented to her wishes.”

“Was it respect, or greed for possible riches?” Leiyn muttered, only to be shushed by Isla.

Batu smiled and continued, all hesitancy gone. “Soon, the wisewoman sailed with the finest crew upon the Hesh Jin’s personal ship. Reaching the Veil, Gerel commanded them to anchor before it, refusing to believe the tales warning against it. With the Hesh Jin’s authority behind her, the crew obeyed, and Gerel sat at the bow, legs crossed and eyes closed, for twelve days and nights, communing with the spirits in the mists.”

Having gone half that time without sustenance, Leiyn again found protests rising within. Seeing Isla’s warning look, however, she swallowed them back down.

“On the thirteenth day, the wisewoman finally rose. The captain had believed her already dead, and with the crew suffering terrible dreams each night spent near the Veil, he had been about to turn back for shore. But upon seeing Gerel not only awake, but fully alive and standing, he bowed down before her, and all the men and women followed suit.

“Gerel paid them no heed. Facing the Veil, she raised her hands and said, ‘Demons, begone! I banish you from this world! Return to the hells from which you have risen!’ At once, the spirits obeyed, and the fog parted. For the first time, a passage through the Veil had formed. So it was that Kalga became the first to land upon the Veiled Lands’ shores, and so was Altan Gaz established.”

Batu blinked and raised his gaze from the fire, having stared at it all the while he spoke. Isla squeezed his shoulder, while Acalan frowned.

“And so was the Titan War begun,” the chieftain said in a low rumble.

Leiyn had her own doubts about the story’s truth, but she hid them behind a smile. “Still, a tale well told.”

“Yes, it was,” Isla added.

Batu gave Leiyn a small smile, then glanced askance at Isla. “And now it’s your turn.”

“Oh, I see—you must have your revenge.” Despite her words, Isla appeared far from dismayed as she looked each of them in the eye. “I have one suited to this dark, chill night. Leiyn, you’ll know it, but perhaps you two won’t: how Legion came to be.”

“Ah, Isla,” Leiyn said with a grin, “but you’ll scare them so they’ll never sleep!”

At Acalan’s quizzical look, Isla explained. “Legion was used as a story to keep children indoors and in their beds. Now, then… It begins with Blinding Omn’s creation of Unera. If you can accept the Catedrál version of events,” she added with a glance the chieftain’s way.

Acalan nodded and puffed on his pipe.

“Once, there was only Omn Almighty, and light filled every corner of existence. But in Its unknowable wisdom, the First sought to create something not entirely of Itself, and so Omn retracted Itself to the orb we know as the sun. But while this act allowed room for creation, it also gave birth to darkness.

“Omn formed our world and cast Its glow upon it, gifting us with the warmth and light we need to live. Though we cannot know Its intentions, it is believed Omn sought to make Unera a place of good and bounty. But beneath the surface, darkness had established deep roots. And when Omn gifted us with life, so, too, did demons take form.

“In tunnels and caves, in shade and shadows, these devils came together, seeking to become strong enough to challenge the light above. But despite their intentions, they could never truly merge, their natures being too chaotic. Thus, they became a many-minded creature, one that hated all that could tread the light it could not, and it was called Legion.

“To this day, it lives on. In the places Omn does not shine, there Legion walks. Beware dark paths, for these are Legion’s ways. All those who remain in the light, however, will be beyond his reach.”

Leiyn had kept the cold away through a gentle burning of her esse, but now it crept back in. She wrapped her arms around herself and repressed a shiver. It was all she could do not to stare fearfully into the surrounding darkness. Even held at bay by her lifesense, she couldn’t kill the instinctive fear of it. Yet it wasn’t enemies conjured from the night that disturbed her. Something lingered beneath the surface of her thoughts, an uneasiness she couldn’t place. 

“So this is why the darkness frightens you,” Acalan rumbled.

Looking up, Leiyn found him giving her a small smile. She barked a false laugh and rose. “That’s right. Which is why I’m eager to hide in my bedroll.”

“And just when it’s her turn,” Batu murmured. “Perhaps she is scared of something.”

“Oh, terrified.”

“Don’t you want a go, Leiyn?” Among their party, Isla alone frowned.

“Another night.” Leiyn gave a chagrined shrug. “Not feeling up to it just now.”

“If that’s how you feel…”

She looked aside, disliking to disappoint Isla, but unable to scrounge up any enthusiasm for the task. A heaviness had settled in her chest, and she wanted nothing more than to sit alone and think.

Soon, the others had dispersed and settled down for the night. Leiyn volunteered for the first watch, partly by way of apology, partly because she doubted she could yet sleep. Sitting back before the banked fire, she stared into the red embers with her mind muddled, keeping watch all the while through her lifesense.

But solitude wasn’t to be hers yet. Isla sat down next to her, facing out from the fire instead of in. Willowy as she was, she still shivered beneath her bundled furs.

“You’d be warmer huddled next to Batu,” Leiyn observed with a slight smile.

“I’m more worried about you.” Isla’s teeth chattered with every word. “Everything alright?”

Leiyn scooted closer to lend her body’s warmth. “Nothing time won’t mend.”

“Is this about the snow ape?”

She looked over to find Isla’s eye on her. “What do you mean?”

Isla stared out across the dark tundra. “After the attack, you seemed… sad, I suppose. I know you don’t like killing, even creatures that would kill you. Just know you couldn’t have done anything else. We fought to survive.”

“I know.” Her pulse quickened as she remembered the melee, remembered sucking the beast’s life into herself. “I don’t doubt it. Though… It hurts worse than it did before, killing. Because of my mahia.”

Isla extracted an arm from her wrappings to pull Leiyn into a side hug. “You’ll adapt. We rangers always do.”

Leiyn leaned into her for a moment before pulling away. She was about to insist that Isla return to her bedroll when the thought at the back of her mind crystallized.

“Do you still believe in the Saints? The stories of the Catedrál, of Omn and Legion—is any of it real?”

Isla was quiet for a long moment. “I don’t know, really. I haven’t known what to believe for most of my life.” She gave her a lopsided smile. “Though having heretic parents makes you used to doubting.”

Leiyn nodded. Over the years, they had spoken often of Isla’s upbringing. Her parents’ denunciation of the Eyin religion—and, consequently, the authority of the Empire and its Sky Queen—had been a foundational part of it. Yet their personal beliefs had entered into the conversation less often. For Leiyn’s part, she’d always had doubts, but never known enough to feel convicted in them.

“In a lot of ways, though,” her friend continued, “it doesn’t matter if gods or spirits or demons exist. What counts is what we do with our lives, don’t you think? That we’re doing what we know to be good.”

“Sounds about right.”

She’d thought solitude was what she sought, but Isla’s words lifted the malaise. Perhaps she couldn’t parse the truth from falsities in myth and religion, but it didn’t change all she knew. She had friends by her side and a war to win. For now, questions of faith could wait.

“Thanks,” Leiyn murmured, squeezing Isla’s hand through the furs. “Now, you should really try to get some sleep.”

“I’m going, I’m going.”

Her friend rose and went to lie beside Batu. By Leiyn’s lifesense, she felt the former plainsrider turn over and wrap his arms around her. She only smiled at it. Their relationship, and how it naturally excluded her, no longer bothered her.

The mountains were cold and dark, but Leiyn didn’t feel alone anymore.

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4: Warm Welcome

Leiyn hadn’t known what to expect upon emerging from the other side of the Silvertusks, but it wasn’t the sight that greeted her.

They were at the top of the last descent when they gained their first proper view of the Barren. They’d made good time through the rest of the Silvertusks over the next several days, though the mountains’ majesty tempted them to slow. Tipped with ice and snow, the peaks towered around them, shimmering when sunlight caught upon them. At dawn and dusk, they glowed pink in the dying light, and the sight awakened Leiyn’s smile. Unpleasant and difficult as diplomacy would likely prove to be, she was glad she could roam the range she still called her own. A ranger of the Titan Wilds didn’t belong in cities and civilization—the wilderness was her home.

The Silvertusks evoked fresh awe in her with her lifesense open. Now, she felt the fire of life, down to the smallest sparks. The ice worms in the snow, impossibly alive. The blue-tailed hawks circling overhead, and the pikas and marmots evading them among the boulders. Every resilient plant that still grew or waited across the cold tundra for spring to come again.

And underneath it all, the thrumming pulses of the titans.

Her mahia had grown more acute with use and practice. Now, she didn’t have to strain to detect where a titan lay dormant. She felt them all around, slumbering in the land, water, and sky, be they lake crabs, river serpents, hill tortoises, or one of the many others. As they passed under Nesilfo, the Clouded Fang, she expected to sense the ash dragon dwelling within it, resting for another decade or so. That titan, at least, had departed, perhaps straying to the next mountain that would erupt. Still, she couldn’t take a step without traveling over a stone claimed by one of the spirit beasts.

Now, she truly understood in a way she never had before: this wilderness belonged to the titans. Humans were the ants allowed to walk its surface.

There were other sensations that she understood less. As they neared the end of the mountain range, Leiyn sensed pulsations coming from either side that belonged to neither titan nor animal. Frowning, she sought it out with her mahia, but it was a long while before she set eyes upon it. 

What she saw made little sense: the source was a pillar of stone. Wondering if it was simply a different kind of titan, she compelled her companions to tarry so she could stare at it a little while longer. The stone was striated with black, orange, yellow, and red, scarcely matching the surrounding terrain. The pulses of mahia came at regular intervals. Stranger still, beyond the pillar on the far side of the mountains, Leiyn sensed no titans.

“It is a wardstone,” was all Acalan said of it. When Leiyn pressed for more, the chieftain only shook his head and led them onward.

Knowing they shouldn’t delay, Leiyn moved on with the others. As they approached the last stretch of their journey, her perplexity was smothered by the sight that appeared below. 

Beyond the Silvertusks lay a wasteland as desolate as she’d ever seen.

Acalan grimaced at their expressions. "It is as I said. Only death reigns here."

It could hardly be called an exaggeration. Though the land was golden and brown, wilted grasses and stubborn shrubs its primary inhabitants, there were some signs of life there. Mesas rose from the foothills of the Silvertusks, canyons yawning between, and though lakes and rivers were absent from view, Leiyn knew there must be some nearby. The Gasts had made their home here, after all.

Yet her lifesense confirmed the truth of the chieftain's words. Titans didn’t slumber in the lands below; titans didn’t exist there at all. Unease trembled through her as she wondered if even they feared the Gasts’ enemies.

She still didn’t know who or what they faced. Upon their arrival, she and Isla, as envoys of Baltesia, were obligated to send word as to what forces were necessary to secure the Gasts as allies. She’d asked Acalan on countless occasions, and each time, his answer had been the same as the first.

Yet she’d faced death before, nestled in its embrace. This was something else entirely.

"Like the Gazian plains," Batu murmured. "But even more lifeless."

"Hard to imagine anyone lives down there." Isla glanced at Acalan with a wince. Leiyn wondered if she also thought of how the Gasts and other natives had been driven to such desperation by their ancestors. She wondered if Isla also bore the guilt heavy in her heart.

If the chieftain noticed their reactions, he gave no sign of it. Leiyn shrugged at her fellow ranger, then followed Acalan down the trail.

***

They were nearly upon the first of the mesas when the dust cloud appeared.

Leiyn saw the danger before her lifesense could feel it. Their view extended for dozens of leagues around, as high up on the mountains as they were. Those approaching were positioned at the bottom of the slope and seemed to be emerging from the largest of the canyons.

"A Gast patrol?" she asked Acalan.

"Most likely." 

Though it seemed welcome news, the chieftain wore a frown. Still, there was no other choice but to continue down the path. Leiyn made sure her warbow, already strung, was ready to take in hand.

The slope they descended soon leveled off, though it continued steadily downward. Leiyn trusted her mare to step true, but only so long as she kept a tight grip on the reins; a spill from Feral's back could mean a broken neck. The temperature grew milder the further they went. Though winter was nearly upon them, the far side of the Silvertusks seemed untouched by it. She wondered if it would be as warm as a summer’s day when they reached the bottom.

Before long, her mahia could distinguish between the riders. There were four of them, all atop draconions. Natives, then. She knew little of the relations between the Gasts and other indigenous tribes, only that the Gasts were the most numerous and powerful among them. Oftentimes, colonists referred to them one and all as Gasts, though Leiyn had learned enough from Tadeo to know that to be a conflation. “The Many Tribes,” the native peoples called themselves as a whole. Once, they’d united against the colonists from the Ancestral Lands, but it had been many long decades since then, and nothing promoted fractures between groups like privation. She could only hope they would be able to unify once more.

Across a span of hours, they closed the gap between them and the party below, until at last Leiyn could make out individual silhouettes. A little while longer, and they approached each other along a stretch of stony path. Leiyn, second in their caravan, reached to take her up her warbow, then hesitated. Acalan still went unarmed, and a glance back showed that though Isla and Batu frowned with worry, they’d taken a similar approach. Gritting her teeth, Leiyn withdrew her hand and instead delved inward, readying her mahia, though she scarcely knew how to use it as a weapon. The best she could do was suck the life from them, but only if she held them in her grasp.

Seek peace before war, Tadeo whispered in her mind. She hoped that, for once, she could follow his advice.

A hail came in the Gast tongue, and Acalan bellowed back a greeting. Their approach continued, slow and measured; not the approach of two friendly parties, to Leiyn's mind. Her hands tightened on Feral’s reins, but she kept her expression impassive. Aggression had betrayed her too often in the past for her to lead with it now.

She peered at the opposing party as they stopped twenty paces short. Like themselves, they traveled single file, so she could only observe the one leading. It was a woman, not much older than Leiyn, judging by the smoothness of her face. Her hair was shaved to stubble on either side of her head, while from the top hung many dark braids falling in line with her chin. Over a sleeveless tunic and fringed vest hung a turquoise stone on a leather cord, the color rich and deep as the sunlit ocean. Subtle red tattoos adorned her skin, differing from the leaf-green hue of Acalan's. A pair of spirals graced her cheeks, and three vertical lines were inked across her forehead.

The woman’s esse felt even more potent than her appearance. Each person's lifeforce manifested in subtle ways entirely unique to them. Acalan's ran deep and hot and hinted of red all the way through. Batu's was banked and tinged green. Isla's expanded from her in gold, like spread arms inviting the world in. 

This woman burned as hot as Acalan and expanded like Isla. It was the pure blue of water of freshly melted glaciers. She was like a rare bloom found in an unexpected place.

Leiyn had rarely beheld anything so beautiful.

The woman's dark eyes flickered over to alight on hers. Leiyn quickly looked away, cursing silently as she tried mastering her spreading flush. Perhaps she’d been too long without intimacy, or her jealousy of Isla and Batu had seeped in deeper than she knew. She didn’t even know if this Gast was an ally or enemy.

The woman didn’t seem to share her feelings. Her face seemed carved of granite as she turned her gaze back to Acalan. After a brief silence, she spoke in the Gast tongue to him.

"Well, you returned after all, Toa Acalan Tikau. Many will be poorer for it."

"And many richer," Acalan countered. "Were you one of those to bet for or against me, Spear Teya?"

Teya. Leiyn repeated the name in her mind. She guessed “spear” to be a title for a warrior of some kind, and not just from her choice of weapon.

A sudden grin spread across Teya’s face. “Don’t you already know? Yet though you came, it was not with the army you promised. Without the outlanders, how will you claim your cherished title, Toa’Yao?”

There were hidden depths between these two, dynamics of which Leiyn hadn’t been apprised. She stared at the back of Acalan's bald head, wondering just how much the chieftain had held back from them.

He jerked his head back. "They are rangers, Teya, and emissaries for their people. They will bring my army when they see the enemy we face."

The scout laughed, scornful. "If they have any sense, they will flee back to their stolen lands."

Leiyn found animosity replacing attraction with every word the woman spoke. Clearly, she was at odds with Acalan. And despite the rocky beginning to their relationship, Leiyn and the chieftain were friends now.

Pressing her heels lightly into Feral's flanks, she edged forward and brought the scout's attention to her. "Baltesians are true allies," Leiyn said, speaking in the Gast tongue. "We do not run from shadows."

Teya's hard gaze turned on her, and she found it again difficult to bear. Leiyn tapped on her growing resentment and coaxed it to burn higher, searing away any fledgling feelings.

"You wish to be brave," the scout said flatly, "but only fools do not fear what we face. Leave us; return across the mountains. We do not need outlander aid in our war."

"But we do, Teya," Acalan broke in. Rare had been the moment she witnessed his implacable control breaking, but he seemed hard-pressed to keep hold of it now. "We do. The outlanders have shaman-killers. Enough of them, and perhaps we stand a chance."

Shaman-killers. Leiyn’s shoulders tightened. She suspected he referenced odiosas. But surely, after his time in Baltesia, he knew them to be the bloodhounds of the World King, not the governor.

"They will not give them to you, Acalan," Teya sneered. "And even if they came, who is to say they would not kill off the last of our shamans? No, Chieftain of the Tekuan, your hope is as fruitless as ever." She seemed to think of something, for she peered around him to look at the rest of their party. “Taht Zuma—where is he? And the rest of your people?"

"They follow behind." Acalan didn’t elaborate. Leiyn's misgivings multiplied as she felt for the shaman's spark resting in her and found it. Not for the first time, she wished Zuma could offer the counsel he had in life. But whatever was left of him remained silent.

The scout's gaze burned on the chieftain for a moment longer, then she jerked her head and turned her draconion, a dusky orange brute, back around.

"Come. If you've lost him, you can explain it to the Tetrad yourself."

Teya cast one last darting glance at Leiyn. The scout's smile only made her own scowl deepen. Then Teya whistled, and her fellow scouts turned back down the path, swaying with their giant lizards' steps. After a moment, Acalan whistled low to his own mount, urging it after them.

Leiyn stared hard at her companion's back, channeling her embarrassment into fresh fury. Hidden currents moved here, far deeper than Acalan had let on. She’d known he withheld information about the enemies they faced; she hadn't realized he also held back on their allies. If even a common scout spoke to him in such a way, how much respect did he truly command? He was chieftain of the Jaguar tribe, but did his influence extend beyond it? Did he have the authority to make the alliance he had forged with the governor? From what she’d heard, he was beholden to this “Tetrad”—a council of chieftains, perhaps. She suspected these were the people she had to sway to their cause, not Acalan alone.

"Got our work cut out for us, old girl,” Leiyn muttered into Feral's mane.

She would have confronted Acalan about it all and conferred with Isla and Batu, but the narrowness of the path confined them to single file. As soon as they reached the bottom of the slope where the path widened, Leiyn coaxed Feral into riding beside the chieftain. She pitched her voice low, her words just audible above the movements of their mounts.

"Fesht, Acalan—what in Legion’s hells was that?"

The muscles in his face tightened, wrinkling the tattoos spiraling over his skull. After a moment, his dark eyes darted toward her.

"I will explain," he said. "But not now. First, we must reach Qasaar."

Qasaar. The Gast city beyond the mountains had been mentioned many times on their journey north, yet she still knew little of it. Her temper made her want to lash out at the mention of it again. Instead, she drew in a steadying breath. 

"So you'll have us ride in blind?"

His impatience wasn’t only for Teya now. “I have trusted you, Huntress. You must trust me now."

Trust a Gast. Once, she would have laughed at the suggestion. But though it annoyed her, she couldn’t deny that trust him she did.

"You better have a good reason for this," she warned, then fell back behind him and his black draconion. A bit of tension eased out of Feral as the giant lizard drew away. No matter how much time they spent together, the horses would never grow used to the oversized reptiles.

Leiyn fell in step beside Isla. Batu flanked her fellow ranger's other side.

"What's happening?" Isla muttered. "I can barely hear back here."

"Nothing good. Acalan wouldn't explain. Says he will when we reach Qasaar."

"Hope it's not too late by then."

"We come as allies," Batu spoke up. Unlike the rangers, he seemed to already accept their situation. "They won’t harm us."

Leiyn looked at Isla, expecting her to share her reservations. Faith, she’d long ago learned, was a frail raft to buoy hope. But Isla only looked over at Batu and smiled.

Leiyn set her face in stone and rode forward without another word. If she was the only one who entered the city warily, so be it. She would keep watch for them all.

Her eyes strayed to the backs of the Gast scouts, while her lifesense reached forward. Before she realized it, her mahia brushed against Teya, drawn to her lifeforce like a moth to a flame. As if she sensed it, the warrior turned and stared back with a flinty gaze.

Leiyn looked aside, wishing her cheeks didn’t warm. She would watch the scout closest of all.

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5: City of Cliffs

Feral approached the edge of the cliff. The mare seemed to share her rider's hesitancy. The stone crumbled into a slope and a long fall to the canyon below. Yet as the Gasts stared back at her and her companions, disdain plain on their faces, Leiyn refused to submit to fear. Setting her jaw, she led them forward.

"Qasaar," Teya announced flatly. "What do you make of it, Ranger?"

Leiyn hadn’t expected much. The lands beyond the Silvertusks were dry and foreboding, and she’d been skeptical they would hold much cause for interest. 

Yet wonder touched her as she stared down at the Gast city.

Qasaar was like nothing she’d seen before. The canyon, a deep gash among the mesas, didn’t hold the city; it was the city. Buildings were carved from the ocher stone up and down the sheer faces. Once, it had been meticulously and lovingly built, and signs of that grandeur remained in the elegant arches and faded colors.

The clearest sign of its ancient origins was invisible to the eyes. The buildings weren’t dark to her mahia as rock should have been, but felt alive like the wardstone they’d passed coming in, or the bridge at Saints’ Crossing. Wordless whispers edged into her thoughts, unsettlingly human in their feel. Leiyn was tempted to throw up her walls against them, but resisted the urge. She couldn’t afford to blind her lifesense now, nor did she truly wish to repress her magic anymore.

The paths down to the canyon’s bottom were mostly intact, but where they’d eroded, they were shored up by wooden walkways and plank bridges. Those who trod upon them seemed not to fear their haphazard roads. Up and down the canyon, Leiyn saw hundreds of people at a glance and sensed many more within the buildings. Qasaar wasn’t near as large as Southport, but it was far more expansive than either Folly or Saints’ Crossing. Calling it a city proved no exaggeration.

Teya's gaze lingered on Leiyn, perhaps evaluating her reaction. Leiyn ignored the scout and turned to Acalan. 

"You must have found this place. Your people have only been here, what, six decades? This took centuries to build."

The chieftain's eyes flickered toward his fellow Gasts. "No. We did not carve Qasaar.”

She’d hoped for answers, but once more, Acalan held back, turning toward the winding narrow path down the canyon wall to the city below. Leiyn pretended not to see the scouts' shared amusement as they followed. She looked back at Isla and Batu, who stayed farther from the edge.

"Gasts," she muttered, to their fleeting smiles. Then she turned Feral down after the chieftain and scouts.

Her vexation was soon replaced by apprehension. The path clearly wasn’t made for horses, and Feral knew it. Though wide enough for a cart, the edges had eroded enough that a misstep would cause both rider and mount to tumble to their deaths. Draconions had their claws to maintain a steady grip. Horses had No such advantage.

The whites of Feral's eyes showed as she tossed her head, frequently backing up instead of moving forward. In the end, Leiyn had to dismount and haul at her reins. Her jaw clenched tighter at the amused look from the scouts, Teya's smarting worst of all. She cursed at Feral as she dragged the mare forward.

Despite the plodding pace, they made progress down the path, and soon it widened. Feral settled down, but Leiyn kept walking before her, uneasy still at the great height. This high up on the cliffs, only a few people were milling about, but all of them watched as they approached. 

The path widened further, becoming large enough that traffic could proceed in both directions. Holes appeared in the side of the cliff. These seemed as roughly hewn as caves at first glance. Yet the entrances were rounded into archways, and images had been carved around the openings in intricate detail. Paint in aqua, scarlet, and gold freshened up the old art. To her surprise, Leiyn found the decorations cheery and attractive. They were so unlike anything she’d seen in Southport or Orille, and not in a bad way. From the doorways issued forth scents stranger still, some less pleasant. The aroma of food both sour and spicy made her nose itch and her eyes water.

The populace was less welcoming. While most stared blankly, the children seemed amazed by the strangers. Others wore their hostility openly. More than once, Leiyn heard muttered curses and identified gestures as offensive.

Her ire flared, but she kept it locked behind a stony mask. She was an envoy of Baltesia. She could not go around challenging Gasts to honor bouts at the slightest offense, much as she might feel tempted. She wondered how it must feel to be in their place, to have three of their old enemies enter their refuge. 

Sympathizing with Gasts now, are we? she mocked herself. Tadeo would be proud. 

By reflex, Leiyn touched the pouch with the fox figurine he'd carved. A small smile flitted across her lips.

Acalan and the scouts led them past one section of the cliff city, which gently sloped downward, and followed a switchback to the next. At the curves, fences had been erected, likely to stop any runaway carts or clumsy children. Down the next slope, they arrived at an opening more generous than the others. Leiyn guessed it to be a stable by the reptilian stink wafting from it.

Acalan slid off his mount, so Leiyn and the others followed suit. Feral danced, eyeing the cave with wide-eyed distrust. A glance inside showed the axolto were placed four to a gated section, all surprisingly complacent in the shared space.

Leiyn ran a quick hand down the mare's snout, just avoiding the snap of her teeth. "Don't take it out on me," she muttered. "Wouldn't be my first choice of accommodations, either."

After stripping Feral of her saddlebags and sagging under their weight, Leiyn was almost relieved to hand the reins over to the nearest groom, a girl no older than fourteen who wore her hair in twin braids like Zuma had. The girl seemed as leery of the horse as Leiyn was around the giant lizards. She hid a smile as the girl jumped at Feral's sudden stamp. 

"Good luck," Leiyn said in the Gast tongue before turning away.

Acalan, unburdened by his packs, waited for her and their companions. Next to him stood a man shorter and slighter than the chieftain, and with an eye that wandered with a will of its own. His tattoos were green, marking him as one of Acalan’s tribesmen.

"This is Tozi,” Acalan said. "He will show you to your rooms."

"And you won't?" Leiyn, already on edge, found her temper flaring. 

As usual, the chieftain appeared unaffected. "I have other business. The Tetrad summons me, and I must go."

That he went running at the first call from this “Tetrad” was further proof of his lack of authority. Still, he remained their best link to an alliance. She had to trust he knew what he was doing—for the moment, at least.

"Fine,” she relented.

Isla was already stepping forward, even as she trembled under the weight of her own saddlebags. “May the sky lift your spirit,” she said to Tozi.

The man seemed delighted by the ritualistic greeting. “And the hills bury your fears.” He switched to Ilberian. "You do not come to Qasaar unprepared. I am impressed!"

"You are too easily impressed." Acalan crossed his arms and glanced back at Leiyn. "Wait in your rooms. I will come for you soon."

Sending us to our rooms like children. But she only gave a stiff nod. Isla was more gracious in her reply.

"Thank you, Acalan. We will be eager to meet the Tetrad ourselves."

The chieftain only gave a grunted farewell, then strode down the path.

"You will want to set those down, I am sure," Tozi said brightly. "Please, follow me. The grooms can carry down your bags. We will not go far."

Leiyn glanced at Acalan’s receding figure, then shook her head. “If it’s not far, we’ll carry our packs.”

Tozi’s smile faltered, but he only bobbed his head and turned down the path.

She watched Acalan descend into the valley, while they continued along the ledge. Leiyn’s back soon screamed with the weight of the saddlebags, but she stubbornly kept it from showing. Isla had more trouble with that. The limp in her half-mended leg grew more pronounced, but she refused Batu each time he offered to carry them. Leiyn faced forward, smiling. No matter how much her friend had changed, Isla still had a ranger’s pride.

After passing several more cavernous shops, Tozi led them out from the overhanging and into the sunshine. “You may stay here. I hope you find the rooms to your liking…”

Leiyn craned back her neck to look at their accommodations. Holes were the best she could say for them; they rose three stories high and spread a dozen in each direction. Spacious, perhaps, but seeming to lack comfort. 

Like sleeping in a bear’s den.

Still, she’d stayed in worse. She spared their host a smile, not wishing his good humor to slip away. “They’ll be fine. Good, even,” she added as Tozi’s brow crinkled.

Isla chuckled as she hobbled up next to her. “I believe my fellow envoy is trying to thank you, Tozi.”

The Gast’s grin widened again. He dipped a bow before gesturing to the open doorway. “Please, allow me to show you to your chambers.”

With bracing enthusiasm, Leiyn led her small company inside. She found her initial judgments too harsh, though not by much. The building seemed to have been just as carefully carved out as the rest of Qasaar, though time had worn away some of the efforts. Still, ornate murals decorated the walls, telling stories at which Leiyn could only guess. Even worn, they were beautiful to behold, and though painted in a foreign style, she found them oddly comforting.

Tozi showed them to rooms on the second floor. Isla and Batu took the first two, so Leiyn approached the third doorway. A curtain hung open before it, and there was no evidence a door had ever existed. Grimacing, Leiyn stepped inside and slumped off her bags. She hoped any activities her companions got up to wouldn’t be too loud. Saints knew she’d endured enough of their antics already.

She looked around the room. More murals decorated the walls, but they were otherwise bare. A single, arched window was set into the wall facing out toward Qasaar, devoid of glass, its curtains billowing from the constant winds. Other than a chair, there was no more furniture but the bed, if it could even be called that. The cot boasted a single blanket, and when she peered under it, she was surprised to find no mattress, but only what appeared to be a solid wooden block, gray and smooth with age.

Some envoy I am, she thought with a twisted smile. Even a ranger would struggle to sleep with such scant comforts. Still, all she wanted was to lie down, close her eyes, and try to rest. But that was a dream that would have to wait until nightfall.

Repressing a sigh, Leiyn stepped back into the corridor to find Tozi standing there. He looked as if he wanted to leave, but wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. She smiled at him, and he looked at her as if she were a lioness and he a doe, his lazy eye wandering away.

She spoke her question. “Do you know where Acalan went?”

Tozi hesitated, then nodded. “The Tetrad meets in the Whisperspire.”

“Good. I want you to bring me to it.”

“Please, Envoy Leiyn, I do not think—”

“Just call me Leiyn,” she interrupted. “Or ‘ranger,’ if you must.”

Isla stepped out into the hallway then, Batu emerging behind her. “Might as well relent now,” her fellow ranger advised the caretaker. “She’ll get her way in the end.”

The poor man looked between them, then flashed another of his long-suffering smiles. “Very well. Follow me, Envoy Isla, Envoy Batu and, ah, Ranger Leiyn—that is, if you are not too weary.”

Leiyn only sighed and trailed Tozi as he led her and her companions from the old barracks.

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6: Whispers

As they descended deeper into Qasaar, Leiyn’s hands twitched by her sides. It wasn’t only because of the staring passersby, or that Gasts surrounded her without another colonist in sight. No—it was the very stone itself that made her uneasy, teasing her lifesense, muddling her mind. The mass of humanity had already made her want to retreat into her own body; the phantoms almost forced it.

She’d never been fond of cities. This one was quickly becoming her most hated of all. 

She exhaled what felt like a long-held breath when Tozi finally gestured up. “There it is: the Tepe’laka, or the Whisperspire, in your tongue.”

Little seemed to whisper about the sight. Rising high from the surrounding plaza, it was the most prominent feature around. Its stone was striated in the same way as the wardstone Leiyn had glimpsed at a distance, though it didn’t pulse esse as the monolith had. Still, her lifesense felt something stirring within the stone. Not quite alive, yet neither dead. 

Leiyn frowned. The idea of entering was even less appealing than traveling through the city. Still, she only said, “Lead, and we’ll follow."

Their guide smiled and did as she bade. Leiyn's eyes lingered on the archway as she passed beneath it, observing the carvings worn down by the years. The whispers grew louder as she stepped foot inside, and not in her ears. Like a multitude of tiny breezes against her lifefire, they seemed, tossing it this way and that. Her temper, thus far tightly reined in, began to fray.

She saw only one solution. Though she'd resolved not to close herself off any longer and to embrace the magic she'd once seen as a curse, Leiyn put up her mahia’s walls. The murmurs dulled at once, and her lifeforce stood tall. She sucked in a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

Tozi glanced back, then away. Wondering if I’m mad, no doubt. She fought down a smile.

The Whisperspire only went one direction: up. There were no offshooting chambers, no landings to rest on, no windows to provide relief from the stifling heat, which amassed in the stairwell despite the chill outside. The stairs curled around and around, too narrow and high for comfortable strides.

Other voices sounded from above, and these not in her head. They were reaching the top. Leiyn braced herself, then mounted the last step, wiped the sweat from her brow, and stepped through the low archway.

The chamber resembled a rotunda, circular with a high, domed roof, all made of seamless stone. A brilliant fresco was painted upon it. By the depictions, Leiyn guessed the Gasts couldn’t take credit for it. The style was wrong for them, far more delicate and finicky than the indigenous art she’d seen; it was more like something she’d expect in a Catedrál temple. There was an additional spark to the drawings, almost like the characters upon it might come alive at any moment. She didn’t lower her mahia’s walls to test the theory.

Lowering her gaze, she saw similar paintings down the walls between the many windows, open from floor to ceiling to the air outside. Though a breeze crept in, it lacked the chill Leiyn would have expected at their height. 

The people in the center of the chamber drew her attention. They sat around a table, almost circular but with many straight edges like a cut gem. Its face seemed to hold a map, though the land it portrayed was very different from the one surrounding them, green and blue instead of orange and yellow.

Three women and one man sat, most grayed and weathered with age. The other chieftains of the Tetrad, she presumed them to be. The women seemed to be Gast, while the man was from a different tribe. Many tribes had gone north after the Titan War, and though Gasts made up the largest portion of them, other peoples had also forged a home here on the peripheries of Unera. 

These others she distinguished by their accoutrements. When the man smiled, she quickly saw he was Uman, for only their people glued precious stones and metal to their teeth. She had heard it was done not only to signal personal power, but also because it was supposed to be beneficial for one’s health.

Acalan stood on the opposite end of the chamber. He'd been speaking passionately before Leiyn had entered, though she hadn’t caught much of his words. As he stared at her, she found not the anger she'd expected, but heavy resignation. That, more than anything else, unsettled Leiyn. 

But she hardened herself to him. She'd come north for a purpose, and she would accomplish it as soon as possible. 

If only to escape this damned city.

"Who are they?” the older of the chieftainesses spoke from her seat at the table. She had a score of thin braids, all of which were decorated with thick blue beads, and a wrinkled, round face. “The outlander rangers?"

Her tone pricked at Leiyn. Before she could shoot off a biting retort, Acalan intervened.

"Yes. These were my companions for the journey north: Isla Ogbi and Leiyn of Orille, formerly rangers of Baltesia, and now its envoys.”

“We’re still rangers,” Leiyn interrupted. “Though it’s true we’re presently acting as Lord Mauricio’s diplomats.”

Both Acalan and Isla gave her long-suffering looks, but neither contradicted her.

“So you are sent by that scrawny governor." The Uman chieftain spoke now, gold and turquoise flashing on his teeth.

Leiyn had always shot straight and true; she saw no reason to change that now. "Yes. We come to forge an alliance between our peoples, so we may face our enemies together."

Whispers and louder remarks sounded at once. Leiyn kept her face impassive, but her mind raced. If she hadn't known better, she would have thought them surprised by the announcement. Her gaze traveled back to Acalan, realizing just how little she knew of what she’d entered into.

Saints above, you've stepped in it now, Firebrand.

"Toa Acalan," the blue-beaded chieftainess spoke, "you have not told us everything. An alliance with the southern invaders? Are we so desperate as to rest our hopes on them?"

Invaders. Leiyn's smile slipped away. It didn’t matter that she'd been born to this land, or that she knew the Titan Wilds better than any of them after so long apart from it. She and her people would always be considered outsiders to them, and no number of years would change that. 

But that topic was a hornet's nest, so she held her tongue and looked to Acalan. Maybe it was too late, but she had no choice but to follow his lead now.

His dark eyes alighted on hers briefly, and his familiar scowl appeared. "What Ranger Leiyn said, blunt though it was, is true.” He swept his gaze over the gathered men and women. "They seek the alliance not for our war, but theirs. Their originland attacks its own people. The governor fears they cannot stand against them without our aid. Ilberia has their shamans, and Baltesia none."

A younger woman stood, her face a set of hard planes. A prominent red tattoo painted wings over her eyes, the white beak of a bird stretching down her nose.

“And why should we die for them? They, whose ancestors killed ours? Who killed my mother’s mother and father?"

Leiyn's temper was rising, but that revelation cooled it. She looked around at the gathered elders and wondered how many remembered the Titan War. Too many, I'll warrant. Conflict with the colonists was no event of history for them; it was a bloody memory never forgotten. Old enemies rarely were.

She wondered how they’d ever hoped to find allies in Gasts.

The others gathered were nodding and many affirmed her words. Acalan, however, remained unmoved.

"They are not the only ones at war, Toa Ilaoti,” he said, the words quiet but firm. "The Devils of the Barren pick us off, one by one by one. Can we afford to fight them any longer without aid?"

Devils of the Barren. Was this the enemy the chieftain had named "death" before? She wondered what manner of being they were, beast or human. 

Or something else. 

The whisper-winds nudging against her mahia's walls were evidence that the likelihood existed. Dryvans, after all, walked Unera’s surface; perhaps other such powerful beings, and with worse intent, also lingered in the far corners of the world.

Acalan paused, letting his words sink in before continuing.

"Leiyn is not only a ranger; she is a shaman, or could be. Zuma rested his hopes on her."

"Taht Zuma." The blue-beaded woman, Zyanya, went back on the offensive. "Where has your shaman gone, Acalan?"

The others looked to Acalan. His frown deepened further still.

"Zuma did not return," he said quietly. "He fell in a battle at Southport."

His eyes flickered to Leiyn, and she suffered the damning weight of his gaze. Her thoughts went back to the old shaman, how frail he'd looked on his death bed. A hand went to her chest, as if to feel the last spark of his life that lodged there. 

She stopped herself at the last moment. Now was not the time to remember. 

Harden your walls, Firebrand. Keep your head on straight.

"He died saving me," she said. All the chieftains stared at her again. Leiyn met Acalan's eyes, and when he didn’t speak against her, she continued. "I summoned a titan of the sea, a kraken, to strike at my enemy, but I gave more of myself than I should have. Zuma… he pulled me back, but the strain proved too great."

Her eyes burned, but she blinked rapidly and drew her thoughts away from his sacrifice. She wouldn’t cry. Now, she needed to be strong.

Zyanya watched her with pursed lips. It was the Uman chieftain who spoke now. 

"You tell a funny tale, Ranger Leiyn! You summoned a titan, did you? What, are we expected to believe you to be one of your people's shamans as well as a ranger?" He looked to his peers with a grin, putting his shiny teeth on display. When he found no reciprocation, his smile slowly slipped away.

"You cannot be," the younger chieftainess, Ilaoti, all but snapped. "Your people hunt shamans and kill them at birth." 

Leiyn met her gaze. She was barely older than Leiyn and robust in size, curvaceous without excess. Her dress was dyed a deep scarlet to match her facial tattoos, and red jewelry dangled from her neck and ears. Leiyn suspected the color to be of importance. It couldn’t be a coincidence that her tattoos matched the scout Teya’s. Likely, this was the leader of Teya’s tribe.

Before Leiyn could speak, Acalan intervened. "She is as she says. You would sense how strong the magic is in her if you had the touch, Toa Ilaoti. As Taht Xepi no doubt does."

His gaze went to the last woman in the room, and Leiyn looked at her for the first time. She had a wide face that was somewhat like a toad’s: splayed cheekbones, a heavy brow, and a plate-like jaw. In contrast, her lips and eyebrows were thin and spare. Pale blue tattoos spiderwebbed across her face and into her shortly cropped hair. Her girth was generous as well beneath undyed doeskin robes. A thick necklace of bones and beads rattled with her every movement. 

It was the feather-tipped staff leaning on the window behind her that alerted Leiyn to what she was as much as Acalan's address to her. Zuma had borne a similar staff. Leiyn tried not to feel uneasy before the shaman as she awaited her answer.

Mother Xepi twisted her lips to one side before she spoke. Her voice was more melodious than her appearance had led Leiyn to expect. "I do, though she tries to hide it."

Leiyn almost released her walls. That had sounded like an accusation. Excuses came up, but fear swallowed them down. Zuma had heard the whispers back in the ancient ruins they'd stayed in, but she wouldn’t risk being thought mad before these strangers.

"I don't mean to hide from you," Leiyn said carefully. "It’s an old habit that has been hard to kill."

The shaman only twisted her lips to the other side and said nothing.

"She swore an oath to Zuma," Acalan spoke into the silence. "That she would come and aid us. Teach her, Mother, so she might fight against our enemies. It is what he would have wanted."

Leiyn opened her mouth to speak against this, but hesitated. She had promised Zuma, true enough. But to be volunteered instead of choosing for herself… Still, though apprehension roiled inside her, she sealed her lips shut again. She was supposed to be an envoy now. 

Past time I started acting like it.

"That’s correct," she said aloud. "In exchange for your assistance in the coming war, I intend to provide my own." Though she had her doubts on how much that would be worth.

"Trained as a shaman?" Zyanya glared first at Acalan, then Xepi. "Surely, you cannot mean to—"

She never finished her sentence, for a being suddenly stepped into their midst. 

The chieftains stood, shouting in alarm. Leiyn drew the knife tucked into the small of her back and held it before her. Only Mother Xepi didn’t react, but remained seated and staring at the newcomer.

Only then did Leiyn really look at them. It was a dryvan, immediately apparent by their appearance, which was too strange to be human. She had a female body, with the semblance of breasts and hips, though they were so covered in silver fur as to almost be obscured. Yet other features seemed more familiar: the taloned feet and clawed hands, the acorn quality of her skin, the green vines that acted as both hair and clothes…

“Rowan?” Leiyn blurted out before she could think better of it. 

The dryvan grinned and tilted her head to one side. Leiyn knew then she’d guessed correctly.

"Hello, Awakener. How wonderful to see you again."

"Sach’aan," Zyanya said sharply. "You are from south of the mountains?"

Rowan slowly looked over at her, and Leiyn hastily sheathed her knife. Something in her stare made Leiyn's skin crawl. It seemed even sharper than her teeth, which had only seemed to elongate since the last time she'd seen her.

"If I were not, your shaman would have attacked me on sight." The dryvan's head fell lazily to the other side as she looked back to Leiyn. "And how else would she know me? Our enemies do not dare venture into my territory."

Our enemies. Leiyn narrowed her eyes as she pondered the implications in the words. Do the dryvans and the Gasts share foes? She couldn't see how that would be. The skin-walkers had never seemed much concerned with human affairs before Leiyn and her friends had stumbled upon them. 

"What's going on, Rowan? Why are you here?"

“Rowan…” The dryvan pursed her lips, inasmuch as she had any in that woody face of hers. "I don't quite think that name suits me any longer, do you? Not with my present companion." She gestured hands down her body and grinned. "How about… Foxfur? Call me Foxfur, Awakener."

"Foxfur," Leiyn complied.

Rowan—or Foxfur now, it seemed—grinned wider. "Ah, yes! He likes it as well. Foxfur it is!"

Acalan looked over his fellow chieftains, his eyes full of warning. His hand had come away from his macua's hilt to hang limp at his side.

“Sach’aan,” he rumbled, "you do not often visit. Why do you come now?"

Leiyn wondered at the wariness in Acalan's tone. If they shared enemies, didn't that make them allies? Yet their interactions seemed far more like adversaries.

Foxfur raised a gnarled hand to point at Leiyn, though her eyes remained on Acalan. "Her. There is something she must see if she is to do what she must."

See? Do what I must? Her irritation was beginning to fan into anger. Each one of these people had their own agendas for her, and she was getting damned tired of it. 

“Why don’t we start with a few explanations?" she said bitingly.

Foxfur loosed a laugh, her whole body trembling with it. "Words. They are always so… insufficient, do you not think? No, Awakener—I have a much more effective way of helping you learn all you must."

Before Leiyn could react, the dryvan lunged across the room and seized her arm. Leiyn tried pulling away, but her grip was as strong and implacable as a tree's roots.

"What are you—?"

She never finished the sentence. Foxfur dragged her toward a window, then flashed a sharp-toothed grin.

The dryvan stepped through and pulled Leiyn down after her.

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7: Death's Own

The scream welling up in Leiyn’s throat died as soon as it rose.

She stumbled, barely keeping her feet. Somehow, she wasn’t falling, but stood on solid ground: dry dirt and stone, orange and red in hue.

"Legion's hells," she gasped. "What is this?"

Leiyn looked around her in a daze. A moment before, she'd been falling to her death from the top of the Whisperspire. Now, she stood on cracked earth, neither the tower nor the rest of Qasaar anywhere to be seen.

Foxfur stepped into view from behind her, still wearing an infuriating grin. "Humans are always so amusing. Must the grottos make you unsettled?"

Leiyn only shook her head. "Where are we, Foxfur? Where did you take me, and for the Saints' sakes, why?"

“Time tells all, Awakener. Come; let us leave behind that dead city for a time. And what are you closed off for? I thought I told you not to hide!"

Leiyn hastily lowered her mahia's walls before the dryvan took it upon herself to break them down, then tried to orient herself to the situation. It seemed the dryvan had taken her to that other place, the same existence occupied by the dryvans’ home, Glade. Though there was little esse populating the world around them, what there was had an undefinable quality nonexistent in her own world, a sense of being fully and entirely alive. Almost like life’s essence lay exposed here, where in Leiyn’s world, it remained hidden.

"Grotto.” Leiyn repeated the word, moving it about her mouth, then squinted at Foxfur, the sun being directly behind the skin-walker. "Is that what this place is called?"

"It is one name for them." Foxfur strolled ahead, adopting the same rolling gait as she'd had before. "But you wanted answers. Come, Awakener—you will not find them there!"

The dryvan swiftly drew away, yet Leiyn hesitated and glanced back behind. With her panic subsided, she saw that Qasaar wasn’t entirely gone, but lay nestled among in ocher cliffs in the distance. Still, her stomach churned. Once again, she was at the mercy of the forest witch, and she found she had little appetite for it. 

But what other choice do I have? 

Lips twisted in a smile, Leiyn followed.

With the mesas left behind, dun stone and dusty dirt stretched before them in all directions, interrupted by streaks of gray stone and short pillars of black rock, none much taller than herself. The distance was obscured, sand permeating the air like mist. More sand. As if she’d needed more of the blasted stuff.

Leiyn had almost caught up with Foxfur when something materialized from the haze. Its profile was tall and dark, a giant specter looming overhead. She eyed it distrustfully until it came more fully into view. It wasn’t a strange, new titan as she’d feared, but a wardstone, looking much the same as the other she’d encountered. Drawing closer, she saw it rose hundreds of feet in the air, as tall as the cliffs they'd left behind. The same striped pattern as before ran down its sides: orange and red, black and gold.

The dryvan headed straight for the pillar, stopping and turning around once she reached its base. Leiyn hurried to join her. The dryvan had her head cocked to the side, though it seemed less like a bird's mannerism now that she wore a fox's skin. Ignoring her, Leiyn scanned the spire. It had a smoother surface than she'd anticipated, almost glassy to the eye. She reached out to touch it, then hesitated as a pulse emanated from it, falling over her like a shimmer of water.

Leiyn repressed a shiver and took a step backward. “So this is a wardstone.”

The dryvan’s head twisted toward her with a grin. Sharp teeth glimmered from behind her wooden lips. “So your hosts call it."

"Why does it do… that?"

The pillar had pulsed again, and a thin wash of esse brushed over her. Leiyn shuddered. Something about it wasn’t warm as life should be, but cold and uninviting.

"Because it was made to.”

Leiyn flashed her a look. "I mean, what does it do it for?"

"Ah! Why not ask what you meant?" The dryvan stepped forward and reached a hand to the striped stone. Her claw touched lightly along its smooth edge. "It keeps away the Vast Ones."

Leiyn stared at it with fresh awe. Stone that turns back titans. It explained the curious lack of them surrounding Qasaar. How valuable would these stones be to the Tricolonies? To anywhere the titans roamed? Entire towns and villages had been destroyed by idle awakenings. Breakbay, once a mighty fortress, had been trampled into ruins. If titans could be kept away, Baltesians could fully inhabit the Titan Wilds. What was more, they would no longer need to fear the Gasts who had driven the spirits beasts against their cities. Perhaps their peoples could establish a permanent peace.

Or colonists could hunt Gasts down more ruthlessly than before.

She shook her head, not wanting to think on the matter. She was free of her own prejudices, or at least strove to be, but she wasn't so naive as to believe other frontierfolk would reverse their beliefs so quickly. Only with time and hard work could that happen. Until then, she doubted the power these stones conferred would be put to good use.

Leiyn turned back to Foxfur. "How did it come to be here? And what does this have to do with the Gasts' enemies? If they're protected from titans—"

"The Vast Ones are not the enemy," the dryvan interrupted. "True, they might bring ruin if allowed near the city, but they can also be allies if trouble comes. No—these wardstones have been here long before the Gasts, before death came to this land and claimed it for its own. They mark the borders of a long-dead civilization." 

Leiyn studied Foxfur. Dryvan expressions were difficult to read at the best of times, and whatever claimed her features now was far from a simple emotion. Regret? Sorrow? Irony? She wondered at all she didn’t know of her companion. Of her life. Of what she even was.

"Beyond the wardstones,” the skin-walker continued, “awaits the true enemy. My enemy. Those who could break apart mortal society if even one crack appears."

Leiyn’s impatience, already simmering, boiled over. "Enough! Everyone talks around these things like they're specters of death. Who are these enemies? What are they?"

Foxfur flashed her a smile, but her eyes burned with a different feeling. "Your haste has always been charming. Will a name suffice? We call them lyshans now. They are like my kind, and not."

She hadn’t known what she expected, but it wasn’t this. Cold dread robbed Leiyn of her rashness. Almost, she wished she hadn’t asked.

"Like dryvans?" she echoed, hoping she’d misunderstood.

"Yes, Awakener. Just as powerful, with similar capabilities. Yet they are... corrupted." Foxfur strolled around the edge of the wardstone. Leiyn followed at her side. 

"Corrupted?" She feared to know more, yet she'd never been one to balk at an unpleasant duty.

"Long ago, you could have called us the same, lyshans and dryvans. We were one people. But what we do changes who we are, young one. Those of us in Glade, we chose to rectify the wrongs of the past, to shed our hubris. Moths emerge from the darkness of their cocoons changed for the better, do they not? So we longed to be. But those who remained behind, these lyshans… they did not see our shortcomings as errors, but a sign we had grown complacent and weak. Though all legacy has faded and all we have built has fallen to dust, still, have slowly tried to reclaim the world as their own.”

For the first time, Foxfur sounded as old as Eld, the tree dryvan who had healed Isla, and less like the mischievous imp Leiyn had come to know. That as much as her words was unsettling.

"What is broken can be mended," Leiyn said quietly. "It has to be, Foxfur. Or else all of us, humans and dryvans alike, would’ve died out long ago." 

She thought of the Lodge as she'd last seen it, blackened and fallen to ash. Could that, too, be rebuilt? 

It’s not the same. It will never be the same. It couldn’t be, without Tadeo to lead them. 

Yet she had to believe it could return. She and Isla were the last of the rangers, but as long as even one of them remained, the Wilds Lodge would rise again.

The dryvan glanced at her, then snorted a laugh. "Mortals. The shorter your life, the greater your need for hope." She shrugged, the fur on her shoulders rippling with silver light. "We should return. They will wonder where I have taken you." A cruel smile curled her lips. "And if I have killed you."

"Would they believe that of you?" Leiyn's uneasiness returned. Gasts believed dryvans to be possibly malevolent; she wondered if she should consider it as well. Without knowing their reasons for aiding her and her companions, she couldn’t say they were truly allies.

"They would." Foxfur strode away from the wardstone, then halted and tensed. Suddenly wary, Leiyn stretched out her senses and reached for a dagger. Her eyes saw nothing, nor did her ears detect any sound amiss, but her mahia felt something glimmering from the other side of the monolith. A presence reaching for her, inviting…

Foxfur's hand clasped her arm painfully tight, and the sensation receded.

"We go," the dryvan said. As she tugged Leiyn forward, the world rippled away.