#emberdark

Starling held open the drapes to her quarters and hopped from one foot to the other, staring at the dark horizon.

She didn’t dare blink. She didn’t dare miss it.

First light. When would first light appear?

She’d barely slept, despite trying. At least, she’d tried for a good . . . fifteen minutes or so. The rest of the night she’d been too excited. She’d declared slumber a lost cause, and had spent the time reading, waiting, distracted.

In the distance, across the rolling forests of Yolen, the darkness weakened. Was that first light? Did it count? It wasn’t light. It was just . . . less dark.

She went running anyway, unable to contain herself. Wearing her nightgown still, she pushed into the hallway of her rooms in her uncle’s mansion, then scrambled past attendants who smiled as she passed. Starling genuinely liked most of them. She pretended to like the rest. That was what her uncle taught her: always look for the best in both people and situations.

Today, that wasn’t difficult. Today was the day.

First light.

The day she transformed.

She burst onto the balcony above the grand entryway in a tizzy of white hair and fluttering nightgown, startling her uncle’s priests in their formal robes and wide hats. They were up early, of course, because her uncle got up early to take the prayers of those who worshipped him.

Starling flitted around the corner, heading for the next hallway over, which led to his reflectory. Priests belatedly bowed to her from the sides. She might look like she was an eight-year-old girl, but dragons grew slowly, and she was older than some of the priests.

She didn’t feel it. She still felt like a child, which her uncle explained was the way of things. Her mental age was like that of a human child her size. She just got to experience that age far longer than they did, which she figured would have been wonderful, except for one thing. It had forced her to wait long decades for her transformation.

She burst into the reflectory, where her uncle sat upon his fain-wood throne. He wore his human form, which had pale skin and a sharp silver beard just on his chin. He took the appearance of an older man, maybe in his sixties, though that could be deceptive with her kind.

Starling scurried up but didn’t touch him. With his eyes closed, wearing his brilliant white and silver robes, he was taking a prayer from some distant follower. She couldn’t interrupt that. Not even for first light. So she waited, balancing on one foot, then the other, back and forth, trying to keep from erupting from excitement.

Finally, he opened his eyes. “Oh?” he said. “Starling. It’s early for a young dragonet like you. Why are you up?”

“It’s today, Uncle!” she exclaimed. “It’s today!”

“Is today special?”

“Uncle!”

“Oh, your birthday,” he said. “Thirty years old, you are. Unless . . . Could I have mistaken the day? A lot was happening during your birth, child. Maybe we will need to wait until tomorrow.”

“UNCLE!” she shouted.

Frost smiled, then held out his hands for her to embrace him. “I was just speaking with Vambrakastram—and she will take my prayers for the day. I am free, all day, for you.”

“Just for me?” she whispered.

“Just for you. Are you ready?”

“I’ve been so, so ready,” she said. “For so, so long.” She pulled back. “Will my scales really be white when I am a dragon?”

“You are always a dragon,” he said, raising his finger. “Whether or not you have the shape of one. As for the coloring of your scales, there’s no way to know until the transformation.” He smiled, then tapped her arm—which was a powder white. Accompanied by her pink eyes and pure white hair. “Dragons come in all colors, and each is beautiful and unique. But I will say, every dragon I’ve known who was albino as a human—granted, there’s only ever been two others—had white scales to match. A metallic, shimmering white, with a sheen of mother-of-pearl. It’s breathtaking, and they are the only times I’ve seen that shade in one of our kind.”

“Only ever two,” she whispered.

“Only ever two,” he said, then placed his hand on her shoulder. “Plus one, Starling.”

“Letsgoletsgoletsgo!” she shouted, running back out into the hallway. He followed, and—with her urging him on—they continued down the corridor passed more smiling priests. All human, of mixed genders. Starling had been to other dragon palaces, and the priests there were stiff and stuffy. Not so here. Frost saw the best in people, and people became their best because of it. That’s what he’d always said.

“Now,” he said from behind, walking too slowly for her taste, “I’m supposed to speak to you of the ritual importance of the first transformation.”

“I know the importance!” She spun to walk backward. “I will be able to fly.”

“We live dual lives,” he said. “There is a reason we live thirty years as a human before reaching the age of transformation. This is Adonalsium’s wisdom.”

“Yes, yes.” She faced forward again as they reached the end of the hallway—and the grand balcony doors. “We live half our lives as humans so we know what it is like to be small. We live the lives of mortals before we gain the life of a dragon. That way, we’ll understand.”

“Do you?” he asked. He rested his hand on her shoulder as she stood before the closed grand balcony doors, which were made of yellow stained glass. She thought . . . she could see light on the other side, from the horizon.

She was so eager, but he’d taught her to be honest, always.

“No,” she admitted. “I try, but I don’t understand the mortals completely. They live such hurried lives, and they are so fragile, but they don’t seem to care. I try, but I don’t understand.”

“Ah, you are wise to see this,” he said. “With our powers, even as dragonets, empathy is difficult.”

“Will that ruin me?” she asked softly. “Because I don’t understand? Will it stop me from flying?”

“No, you can never be ruined, child.” There was a smile in his voice. “Never, ever. You can learn better, and you will, as you grow. Knowing that is how it happens! And this will not hold back the transformation.” He leaned back. “Sometimes, contrast is important to help us to learn.”

He shoved the doors open, and they swung outward, revealing a horizon that had begun to blaze with predawn. The grand balcony was large enough to hold them in their larger, draconic forms. It was one of the launchpads to the upper palace, which was built on a different scale—not for people the size of humans, but for ones the size of buildings.

She stepped out onto it, suddenly worried. What if it didn’t happen? What if she were broken? She knew some, unlike her uncle, saw her albinism as a flaw. A sign of misfortune, proven by what happened to her parents . . .

“You are,” Frost said, “so wonderful, Starling. I am honored to be here, with you, on this most important of days.”

He left unsaid that he wished her parents had been the ones. That was not to be. She took a deep breath, and held out her hands to the sides.

First dawn struck her, and she absorbed the light. It became part of her. And as it did, the self that had been hidden within Starling these thirty years emerged, glorious and radiant. With wings, and Dragonsteel of pure silver, and scales a glittering white—faintly iridescent.

With that, Starling at last—finally—felt that she belonged.

Chapter Three

Dusk arrived late to the meeting with the Ones Above. He climbed out of the car in front of the government offices, and was met by Second of the Soil, one of Vathi’s more trusted advisors, and a fairly high member in the government himself. He was an important man, even if he did let his Aviar ride on his head.

“You again,” he said. “We’re having important talks with the Ones Above . . . and she sends me out to fetch you?”

Dusk approached him, glanced at his bird, then continued on.

Soil caught up on lanky legs. “Tell me really. Why does she invite you to meetings like this? I thought after that last incident, it was through. Yet here you are again?”

“She hopes,” he said, “I will offer a different perspective.”

“What kind of perspective would you possibly have?”

“The kind,” Dusk said, “of one who looks in from yesterday. Where are they?”

“The talks are mostly finished,” Soil said, pointing Dusk the right direction. “The observation room, which looks out on their ship, is over here. We should be able to catch them leaving.” He paused. “They’ve said they’ll remove their helmets and greet Vathi face-to-face for the first time before they go.”

Well. That should be interesting. Dusk imagined them as strange and terrible creatures with faces full of fangs. Artist renditions from the broadsheets tended to err on the side of mystery, showing beings with dark pits where faces should be—as if representing the darkness of space itself confined to their helmets.

Dusk hastened his step, and Soil reluctantly gave him something Vathi had sent. Some transcriptions of the talks that day, as typed by the stenographer. He really was forgiven.

Her handwritten note at the bottom said, I’m sorry.

He read quickly as they reached the observation room. Inside, a waiting group of generals, kingmakers, and senators uniformly cast him nasty glares.

He didn’t care. He read the notes and realized what was happening. Vathi and the others were close to giving in. The Ones Above were finally winning.

He read that with a sinking sense of loss. However, he didn’t have time to consider further as the doors to another portion of the government offices opened and people walked out, including Vathi and two alien figures in strange clothing and helmets that covered their entire faces. They crossed the courtyard toward a small silvery ship, which was in the shape of a triangle with its point toward the clouds.

Not the main ship, which was high in the sky, but one that ferried people between that and the ground. Like . . . a very fancy canoe.

Dusk pressed against the glass, and heard grumbles as he obscured the view. This chamber was supposed to be secret, with reflective glass on the outside, but he didn’t trust that. The Ones Above had machines that could sense life. He suspected they could see him—or at least his Aviar—regardless the barrier.

He considered demanding that he be allowed to stand on the landing platform with Vathi and the diplomats, but he supposed he should avoid making trouble so soon after being invited back. So he waited, watching as the aliens pushed buttons and their helmets retracted, revealing their faces.

The gathered officials in the room with him gasped. The Ones Above were human.

One male, one female, with pale skin that looked like it had never seen the sun. Perhaps it hadn’t, considering that they lived in the emptiness between planets. From the look of the delicate metal—ribbed, like rippling waves—the remaining portions of the helmets were less like armor, more like ornament.

Sak squawked softly. Dusk glanced at the jet-black bird, then around the room, seeking signs of his corpse. She squawked again, and it took him a moment to spot the death—out on the launchpad. One of the Ones Above now stood with her foot on Dusk’s skull, the face smoldering as if burned by some terrible alien weapon.

What did it mean?

Sak chirped, and he felt something. This . . . was a different kind of vision, was it? Not an immediate danger—but something more abstract. The Ones Above were unlikely to kill him today, no matter what he did. That did not mean they were safe or trustworthy.

He nodded, in thanks, to her warning.

“Toward a new era of prosperity,” one of the Ones Above said on the launchpad, extending a hand to Vathi, who stood at the head of the diplomats. “We show you ourselves now, because it is time for the masks to be down. We look forward to many fruitful exchanges between our peoples and yours, President.”

She took the hand, though personally Dusk would rather have handled a deadly asp. It seemed worse to him, somehow, to know that the Ones Above were human. An alien monster, with features like something that had emerged from the deepest part of the ocean, was more understandable than these smiling humans.

Familiar features should not cover such alien motives and ideas. It was as wrong as an Aviar that could not fly.

“To Prosperity,” Vathi said. Her voice was as audible to him as if she were standing beside them. It emerged from the speakers on the walls--devices developed using alien technology.

“It is good,” the second alien said, speaking the language of the Eelakin as easily as if she had been born to it, “you are finally listening to reason. Our masters do not have infinite patience.”

“We are accustomed to impatient masters.” Vathi’s voice was smooth and confident. “We have survived their tests for millennia.”

The male laughed. “Your masters, the gods who are islands?”

“Just be ready to accept our installation when we return, yes?” the female said. “No masks. No deception.” She tapped the side of her head, and her helmet extended again, obscuring her features. The male did the same, and together they left, climbing aboard their sleek flying machine.

It soon took off, streaking through the air without a sound. Its ability to fly baffled explanation; the only thing Dusk’s people knew about the process was that the Ones Above had requested the launchpad be made entirely out of steel.

That smaller ship would ferry them to the larger one—bigger than even the greatest of the steam-powered behemoths that Dusk’s people used. Dusk had only just been getting used to those creations, but now he had to accustom himself to something new. The even, calm light of electric lights. The hum of a fan powered by alien energy. The Ones Above had technology so advanced, so incredible, that the Eelakin might as well have been traveling by canoe like their ancestors. They were far closer to those days than they were to sailing the stars like these aliens.

As soon as the alien ship disappeared into the sky, the generals, senators, and First Company officials began chatting in animated ways. It was their favorite thing, talking. Like Aviar come home to roost by light of the evening sun, eager to tell others about the worms they had eaten.

Sak pulled in close to his head and pecked at the band that kept his now-graying hair in a tail. She wanted to hide—though she was no chick, capable of snuggling in his hair as she once had. Sak was as big as his head, though he was accustomed to her weight, and he wore a shoulder pad her claws could grip without hurting him.

He lifted his hand and crooked his index finger, inviting her to stretch out her neck for a scratching. She did so, but he made a wrong move and she squawked at him, then nipped his finger in annoyance.

She got like this when she saw Vathi. Not because Sak disliked the woman, but because Kokerlii had liked her so much, and seeing her reminded them of him.

“I can’t bring him back,” Dusk whispered. “I’m sorry.”

It had been two years the disease that had claimed so many Aviar. He worried that without that colorful buffoon around to chatter and stick his beak into trouble, the two of them had grown old and surly.

Sak had nearly died to the same disease. And then alien medicine from the Ones Above had arrived. The terrible Aviar plague—same as those that had occasionally ravaged the population in the past—had been smothered in weeks. Gone, wiped out. Easy as tying a double hitch.

Dusk ignored the human prattle, eventually coaxing Sak into a head scratch as they waited. He very carefully did not punch anyone, though he did watch them. Father . . . Everything about his new life—in the modern city, full of machines and people with clothing as vibrant as any plumage—was so . . . sanitized.

Not clean. Steam machines weren’t clean. Even the new gas machines felt dirty. So no, not clean, but fabricated, deliberate, confined. This room, with its smooth woods and steel beams, was an example. Here, nature was restricted to an armrest, where even the grain of the wood was oriented to be aesthetically pleasing.

She agreed. It’s over. No more negotiating.

That was it, then. With the full arrival of Ones Above and their ways, he doubted there would be any wilderness left on the planet. Parks, perhaps. Preserves like the one he’d suggested. But in helping with it, he’d learned a sorry truth. You couldn’t put wilderness in a box, no more than you could capture the wind. You could enclose the air, but it just wasn’t the same thing.

The door opened, and Vathi herself entered, her Aviar on her shoulder. President of the First Company—the most powerful politician in the city. She wore a striped skirt of an old Eelakin pattern, and a businesslike blouse and jacket. As always, she tried to embrace a meeting of old ways and new. He wasn’t sure you could capture tradition by putting its trappings on a skirt, no more than you could box the wind, but he . . . appreciated the effort. She was one of the few in the First Company who did try.

“Well?” Vathi said to the group of officials. “We’ve got three months.”

Three months? Dusk quickly reread what she’d given him, and there found a nugget. She’d agreed provisionally to trade them Aviar. Nothing was signed yet. The Ones Above would return in three months to collect the chicks.

There was time yet to do something. Maybe that was why she’d invited him.

“They’re not going to stand any further delays,” she said. “Thoughts?”

“We should prepare,” said one general, “for the inevitable. We’ve insisted they give us weapons as part of the deal. It is the best we can do.”

Others nodded, though they shied from Dusk as they did so. He had punched the senator who’d insisted it was time to give in to the Ones Above. In his absence, others had begun to agree.

“Let’s say we wanted to stall further,” Vathi said. “Any ideas?”

There were a few. One suggested they feign ignorance of the deadline, or plausibly pretend that something had gone wrong with the Aviar delivery. Silly little plans. The Ones Above would not be delayed this time, and they would not simply trade for birds. The aliens intended to put a production plant on one of the outer isles, and begin raising and shipping their own Aviar. It was right here in the negotiations—and agreeing to the first step began the others.

“Maybe we could resist somehow,” said Tuli, Company Strategist who had an Aviar of Kokerlii’s same breed. “We could fake a coup and overthrow the government. Force the Ones Above to deal with a new organization. Reset the talks?”

A bold idea. Far more radical than others.

“And if they decide simply to take us over?” General Second of Saplings rapped his knuckles on a stack of papers he held in his other hand. “You should see these projections. We can’t fight them. If the mathematicians are right, the orbital ships could reduce our grandest cities to rubble with a casual shot or two. Or shoot into the ocean so the waves would wash away our infrastructure. If the Ones Above are feeling bored, they could wipe us out in a dozen interesting ways.”

“They won’t attack,” Vathi said. “Eight years, and they’ve suffered our delays with nothing more than threats. There are rules out there, in space, that prevent them from conquering us.”

“They’ve already conquered us,” Dusk said softly.

Strange, how quickly the others quieted when he spoke. They complained about his presence in these meetings. They thought him a wildman, lacking social graces. They claimed to hate how he’d watch them, refusing to engage in conversation.

But when he spoke, they listened. Words had their own economics, as sure as gold did. The ones in short supply were the ones that everyone secretly wanted.

“Dusk?” Vathi said. “What did you say?”

“We are conquered,” he said, turning from the window to regard her. He cared not for the others, but she didn’t just grow quiet when he spoke. She listened. “The plague that took Kokerlii. How long did they sit in their ship up there, watching as our Aviar died?”

“They didn’t have the medicine on hand,” said Third of Waves, the Company Medical Vice President—a squat man with a bright red Aviar that let him see colors invisible to everyone else. “They had to wait to fetch it.”

Dusk remained quiet.

“You imply,” Vathi said, “that they deliberately delayed giving us the medicine until Aviar had died. What proof do you have?”

“The dark-out last month,” Dusk said.

The Ones Above were quick to share their more common technologies. Lights that burned cold and true, fans to circulate air in the muggy homeisle summers, ships that could move at several times the speed of steam-powered ones. But all of these ran on power sources supplied from above—and those power sources deactivated if opened.

“Their fish farms are a boon to our oceans,” said the Company Vice President of Supply. “But without the nutrients sold by those above, we can’t keep the farms running.”

“The medicine is invaluable,” said Third of Waves. “Infant mortality has plummeted. Literally thousands of our people live because of what the Ones Above have traded us.”

“When they were late with the power shipment last month,” Dusk said, “the city slowed to a crawl. And we know that was intentional from the accidentally leaked comments. They wanted to reinforce to us their control. They will do it again.”

Everyone fell silent, thinking, as he wished they’d do more often. Sak squawked again, and Dusk glanced at the launchpad. His corpse was still out there, lying where the Ones Above had left. Burned and withered.

“Show in the other alien,” Vathi said to the guards.

Other alien.

What?

The two men at the door, with security Aviar on their shoulders and wearing feathers on their military caps, stepped out of the room. They returned shortly with an incredibly strange figure. The Ones Above had worn uniforms and helmets—unfamiliar clothing, but still recognizable.

This creature stood seven feet tall, and was encased entirely in steel. Armor of a futuristic cast, smooth and bright, with soft violet-blue light at the joints. The helmet glowed at the front from a slit-like visor and from an arcane symbol—reminding Dusk vaguely of a bird in flight—etched the front of the breastplate.

The ground shook beneath this being’s steps as it entered the room. That armor . . . was surreal, like interlocking plates that somehow produced no visible seam. Just layered pieces of metal, covering everything from fingers to neck. Obviously airtight, with a rounded cast, the outfit had stiff iron hoses connecting helmet and armor.

The other aliens might have looked human, but Dusk was certain this alien was something frightful. It was too tall, too imposing, to be human. Perhaps he was not facing a man at all—but instead a machine that spoke as one.

“You did not tell those you call Ones Above that you have met me?” the alien said, projecting a male voice from speakers at the front of the helmet. The deep voice had an unnatural timbre to it. Not an accent, like someone from a backwater isle, but still an . . . uncanny air.

“No,” Vathi said. “But you were right. They ignored each of my proposals, and acted as if the deal were already done. They intend to set up their own facility here.”

“They intend far more than you know,” the stranger said. “Tell me. Is there a place on your planet where people vanish unexpectedly? A place, perhaps, where an odd pool collects something that is not quite water?”

Dusk felt a chill. He did his best not to show how much those words disturbed him.

“You have only one gem with which to bargain, people of the isles,” the alien said, “and that is your loyalty. You cannot withhold it; you can merely determine to whom you offer it. If you do not accept my protection, you will become a vassal of these Ones Above. Your planet will become a farming station, like many others, intended to feed their expansion efforts. Your birds will be stripped from you the moment it becomes possible to do so.”

“And you offer something better?” Vathi asked.

“My people will give you back one out of a hundred birds born,” the armored alien said, “and will allow you to fight alongside us, if you wish, to gain status and elevation.”

“One in a hundred?” Second of Saplings said, the outburst unsettling his grey and brown Aviar. “Robbery!”

“Choose,” the alien said. “Cooperation, slavery, or death.”

“And if I choose not to be bullied?” Saplings snapped, reaching to his side for the repeating pistol he carried in a holster.

The alien thrust out his armored hand, and smoke—or mist—coalesced there out of nowhere. It formed into a gun, longer than a pistol, shorter than a rifle. Wicked in shape, with flowing metal along the sides like wings, it was to Saplings’s pistol what a shadowy beast of the deep might be to a minnow. The alien raised his other hand, snapping a small box—perhaps a power supply—to the side of the rifle, causing it to glow ominously.

“Tell me, President,” the alien said to Vathi. “What are your local laws regarding challenges to my life? Do I have legal justification to shoot this man?”

“No,” Vathi said, firm—though her voice was audibly shaken. “You do not.”

“I do not play games,” the alien said. “I will not dance with words, like those Scadrians. You will accept my offer or you will not. If you do not, you join them, and I will have legal right to consider you enemies.”

The room remained still, Saplings carefully edging his hand away from his sidearm.

“I do not envy your decision,” the armored alien said. “You have been thrust into a conflict you do not understand. But like a child who has found himself in the middle of a war zone, you will have to decide which direction to run. I will return in one month, local time.”

The colored portions of the creature’s armor glowed more brightly, a blue far too inviting to come from this strange being. He lifted into the air a few inches, then pulled the power pack from his gun. The weapon vanished in a puff of mist.

He left without further word, gliding past the guards—who stepped away and didn’t impede him.

“What was that?” Dusk demanded.

“He arrived early this morning,” Vathi said, “with a simple offer. No negotiating.” She hesitated. “He arrived without ship, and doesn’t appear to need one to travel the stars. He . . . flew down out of the sky under his own power.”

“Or that of his armor,” one of the kingmakers said—he didn’t know her name. “Perhaps that armor . . .”

The guards took up their positions at the door again, sheepishly holding their rifles. They knew, as everyone in the room knew, that no guard would stop a creature like that one if he decided to kill.

Vathi pulled a chair over to the room’s small table, then sat down in a slumping posture, her Aviar, Mirris, crawling anxiously across her back from one shoulder to the other. “This is it,” she whispered. “This is our fate. Caught between the ocean wave and the breaking stone.”

This job had weathered her. Dusk missed the woman who had been so full of life and optimism for the advances of the future. Unfortunately she was right, so there was no sense in offering meaningless aphorisms.

Besides, she had not asked a question. So he did not respond.

Sak chirped, and a body appeared on the table in front of Vathi. Dusk frowned. Then that frown deepened.

Because the corpse was not his.

Never in all his time bonded to Sak had she shown him anything other than his own corpse. Even during that dangerous time, years ago, when her abilities had grown erratic—even then, she’d shown Dusk only his own body.

He stepped across the room, and Vathi looked up at him, relieved—as if she expected him to comfort her. She furrowed her brows when he ignored her to study the body on the table. It was female, very old, with long hair having gone white. The corpse wore an unfamiliar uniform after the cut of the Ones Above. Commendations on the breast pocket, but in another language.

It’s her, he thought, recognizing the aged face. Vathi, some forty years in the future. Dead, dressed for a funeral.

“Dusk?” the living Vathi said. “What do you see?”

“Corpse,” Dusk said, causing some others in the room to murmur. They were uncomfortable with Sak’s power, which was unique among Aviar. He knew some disbelieved it existed.

“That’s wonderfully descriptive, Dusk,” Vathi said. “One might think that after five years you might learn to answer with more than one word when someone talks to you.”

He grunted, walking around the vision of the corpse. The dead woman held something in her hands. What was it?

“Corpse,” he said, then met the living Vathi’s eyes. “Yours.”

Chapter Eleven

Starling crawled down the ladder in a metal tube, far from her homeworld—and even farther, at least emotionally, from that glorious day when she’d first transformed.

Over fifty years had passed. She was basically an adult. But she had replaced grand palaces with dimly lit corridors on a half-functional starship. She reached the bottom and turned toward engineering, wearing her human shape.

A shape she’d not been allowed to leave for twelve years now.

She forced a spring to her step and told herself to keep positive. There was at least one blessing about being exiled: it turned out there were a whole lot of places that weren’t home—and many of them were vibrant, magnificent, amazing. She’d never have visited them if she hadn’t been forced out into the cosmere against her will.

For that, she had decided to be grateful for what had been done to her. Her master said she worked too hard to find sunlight in dark places, but what else was she to do? Darkness was too easy to find, and she preferred a challenge. Besides, the cosmere really was a wondrous place.

Not that her current location was anything spectacular. A metallic corridor with flickering florescent lights. Pipes for decor and barely enough space to walk upright. It took a lot of energy to keep a ship like the Dynamic flying, and designers learned to be economical.

She paused by one of the portholes, gazing out at the bleak darkness of Shadesmar—an endless black plane with no curvature or true horizon. Darkness. Really, wasn’t it the darkness that reminded one how wonderful the light was? Traveling through Shadesmar was dreary at times, but at least she could to it in a ship, rather than walking in a caravan like people had done in the olden days.

She tried to imagine them out there on the obsidian ground below, walking across the lonely expanse. Or, worse, straying out into regions where the ground went incorporeal and turned into the misty nothing they called the unsea. Or . . . the emberdark, they sometimes called that vast emptiness: the unexplored parts of Shadesmar.

Here, on the more frequented pathways, the ground solidified—and had been that way for millennia. You often encountered other travelers on these patrolled lanes between planets. For Shadesmar, such places were conventional, understood, and safe.

But her ship had strayed close to the edges of one such corridor. And out there . . . Well, anything could be out there in the emberdark. Starling found that both exciting and terrifying, all at once.

A figure stepped out of the wall behind her. Transparent, with a faint glow to him, Nazh had pale skin and wore a black formal suit—the kind with a fancy cravat that normal people wore to only the most exclusive of gatherings. He didn’t have much choice as to do so all the time, though, seeing as that was what he’d died in.

“Star?” he asked her. “Is everything all right?”

“It’s strikingly beautiful,” she said, studying along the hallway, running her fingers along the metal. “This corridor.”

Moving let the sleeve of her jacket slip back, exposing one of her manacles. Silver against her powder-white skin, the thick pieces of metal—more like bracers, really—were the symbols of her exile, binding her into human form, locking away her abilities. Until she “learned.”

She still didn’t know, years later, how much the exile was to punish her and how much to teach her. Her people’s leaders could be . . . obscure about such matters.

“Strikingly beautiful?” Nazh asked. “The . . . corridor? Star, are you having one of your moments?”

“No,” she said. “Maybe. Look, I was thinking that this ship is almost starting to feel like home to me.”

“The dragon,” he said with a smile, “who flies a starship.”

“I don’t do much of the flying. That’s Leonore’s job. I just get flown around.”

Twelve years now, trapped in her human form by these manacles. Twelve years since she’d stretched her wings and taken to the sky under her own power.

Shards. She would not let that break her.

She would not let them win.

She continued on her way, Nazh joining her. He didn’t walk, and he didn’t really float. He glided, feet on the ground, as if standing still—but moving when she walked. Hands clasped behind his back.

“I shouldn’t complain,” she said. “I mean, there are advantages to letting someone else do the flying. Easier on the muscles this way. Plus, I can sleep while we travel! Try doing that when flying with your own wings.”

“Star, dear, if I still had a stomach, I believe I’d find your optimism nauseating.”

“Oh, come on,” she said. “You have to admit. Things could be worse. I could be dead—”

“One gets over such trivialities.”

“—wearing a formal suit for eternity—”

“I’ll never be underdressed.”

“—and have a face that is . . . well, you know.”

Nazh stopped in place. “I know what?”

“Never mind,” she said, reaching the ladder to the bottom deck. She climbed down it, while he floated alongside her.

“Never mind what?” he said.

“It wouldn’t be polite to say.”

“You were trained by one of the most obtuse, crass men in all of the cosmere, Star. You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘polite.’”

“Sure I do,” she said, hopping off the ladder. “It’s just that I’m a kindly young woman—”

“You’re eighty-seven. And you’re not a woman.”

“I’m a kindly young—for the relative age of her species—person with a humanoid female appearance. And being kindly means that you don’t tell your friend about the unfortunate nature of his sideburns. You merely imply they are ugly so you can maintain plausible deniability.”

He followed, eyes forward as she reached the door to engineering. “They were quite fashionable when I died.”

“Among whom? Warthogs?”

He almost broke composure—that stern look of near-disapproval cracked, and a smile itched the corners of his mouth. It always felt like a gift when she managed to make Nazh smile. Also, the sideburns weren’t actually that bad—they had a stately, classic air. It was just that he was overly fond of them.

“Hey,” a commanding female voice said in Star’s earpiece. “Are you wasting time again?”

“No, Captain.”

“Then why isn’t my engine working yet?”

“Had to stop at my rooms to fetch something, Captain,” Starling said. “I’m almost to engineering.”

“Did Nazrilof find you?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“I explicitly told him not to.”

“Tell her,” Nazh said, “she can order me a hundred lashings. I’m fond of them. They tickle.”

“Sorry, Captain,” Starling said instead. “I’m entering engineering now.”

“Warn that engineer,” the captain said, “that if there is another problem, I will come down and deal with her personally. I am not known for my patience with crew who slack off.” She cut the line.

“Do you suppose,” Nazh said, “we could pitch her overboard and claim she jumped? I’d swear under oath she was driven mad.”

“By what?”

“My ravishingly attractive sideburns.” He hesitated. “I mean, there has to be some warthog in the captain’s heritage. Have you seen the woman?”

Starling grinned, then pushed in through the door. The engine room of the Dynamic was even more cramped than the hallway—though it had a higher ceiling, the round chamber was clogged with machinery. Starling had to squeeze between engine protrusions and the wall at several points, making her way to the back where a hammock hung from a rivet on the wall and a stack of large barrels, marked with symbols of various aethers.

A young woman sat up from within the hammock and hurriedly hid some items in the pocket of her blue jumpsuit. Aditil had brown skin and wore her dark hair in a braid. As she moved, Starling caught the distinctive pale blue, glass-like portion of her left hand. The center of the palm replaced—bones and all—with a transparent aether the color of the sky.

The glass was cracked, an indication that the symbiote she’d bonded was dead. Starling had never asked for the story behind that.

“LT!” the girl exclaimed. “Oh hells. Captain sent you? Did I let the pressure lapse again?” She scrambled, grabbing her earpiece from the pouch in her hammock, fumbling to put it in. “Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry!”

Aditil fumbled further as she slid out of the hammock, almost falling over. She hopped over a large pipe and began to monitor the engines—as she was supposed to have been doing. The old machinery needed constant attention; the Dynamic—as fond as Starling was of it—wasn’t exactly the most cutting edge of ships. Indeed, it was something of a mongrel. Rosharan antigrav technology, Dhatrian aethers for providing thrust and engine power, a Scadrian composite metal hull. Never mind that all three technological strains had produced their own viable starships without the others.

The Dynamic, like her crew, had picked up a little here and a little there. Really, all it was missing was an Awakened metalmind, but those were expensive—and Starling had never trusted them anyway.

Aditil fiddled with machinery, checking gauges and aether levels until she got the engine up to full power. Starling leaned against the wall, noting that Nazh had chosen to remain outside. Aditil was new, and he had learned—from painful experience—to ration his time with new crewmembers. Not everyone was comfortable with shades. Indeed, there were some who’d say that bringing one on board your ship was tantamount to suicide.

“So,” Starling said, “this is the . . . third time this week that Captain hasn’t been able to get ahold of you?”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Aditil kept her head low as she worked.

“Want to talk about it?”

“I’ll do better! I need this job, LT. Please. I . . . need to be able to save up enough . . .”

Starling folded her arms, leaning against the metal wall, the cuffs of her manacles peeking out from beneath her jacket.

Aditil worked for a moment longer, but then slumped as she knelt on the floor beside her equipment. She leaned forward, forehead against the engine. A low humming sound came from within the machinery as it used zephyr aether to generate gas, which created pressure and was the basis for powering the ship. The fact that they could also use the zephyr as propellant and for breathable air meant that the Dynamic was spaceworthy. They rarely needed that, as Xisis—the ship’s owner—usually had them do merchant runs through Shadesmar.

“They’re pictures of your family, aren’t they?” Starling said. “The things you hide whenever I walk past?”

Aditil glanced at her, surprised.

“Can I see them?” Starling asked.

Sheepishly, the young woman fished them out of her pocket and handed them over. Only four photos, depicting a crowded family with . . . seven children? Aditil appeared to be the oldest. Her parents were smiling in every one, wearing the colorful clothing common to people of her planet.

“They didn’t want me to go,” Aditil said. “Said I was too young, even if I’d done the apprenticing. But after . . .” She looked at her hand, pressed flat on the ground, and the cracked aether bud in the left palm. “I couldn’t stay. I took the deal to work for passage offworld, but do you have any idea how much it costs to get back to Dhatri? I didn’t. Stupidly, I left my family. And with them, the one place where anyone has ever wanted me . . .”

“Hey,” Starling said, kneeling. “You’re wanted here.”

“I shouldn’t be,” Aditil said. “I’ve screwed up every duty I’ve ever been given. You deserve a real engineer, with real experience, and a functional aether.”

“Aditil, you think we can afford a full aetherbound? On this old piece of junk?”

“She’s not a piece of junk.” Aditil put a hand on the engine. “She’s a good ship, LT.”

Now, that was good to see. You always wanted an engineer who cared about the ship.

“Either way,” Starling said, “you’re a blessing to us here. A fully trained aetherbound?”

“Without a functioning aether.”

“Either way. We get your knowledge, your skill. You always get the aether working again, when you try.”

“I talk to it,” she said softly. “You can only afford older spores, the kind that tend to be drowsy. I wake it up, that’s all.” She turned away. “I’m broken, LT. Ruined.”

“You can never be ruined,” Starling said, taking her by the hand. “Hey, look at me. Never, ever, Aditil. It’s impossible.” Then she shrugged. “But here, we’re all a little off, eh? We’re family regardless.” Starling had let her jacket sleeves retreat, and Aditil saw the manacles, thought a moment, then nodded.

“Thanks for the pep talk, LT,” Aditil said, pulling away to work at her post. “I’ll stay on it. Won’t let you own.”

“Well, good,” Starling said. “That’s what Captain wants.” She handed back the pictures, then slipped something out of her own inner jacket pocket: an envelope fetched from her room earlier.

Aditil took it with a frown, looked to Starling, then opened it. It took a moment for her to register what was inside. When she did, her eyes widened, and her hand went to her lips, covering a quiet gasp.

One ticket to Dhatri, Aditil’s homeworld.

“But how?” Aditil asked. “Why would you . . .”

“Nobody,” Starling said softly, “on my ship is trapped here. Everybody on my ship has the right to go home. You’re a great engineer, Aditil, and I love having you on this crew. But if there’s another place you feel you need to be, well . . .” She nodded toward the ticket.

“But what does Captain think?”

“Captain doesn’t need to know,” Starling said. “You’re not our slave, Aditil. You’re our friend and colleague.”

She stared at the ticket, tearing up. “How . . . How long have you known how homesick I was?”

“I made a good guess. I did buy a refundable ticket, in case I was wrong.” She gave Aditil a squeeze on the shoulder. “When we get to Silverlight, I’ll sign your release papers. You can return home, until you’re ready to leave again—if ever.”

“I . . .” Aditil closed her eyes, tears leaking down her cheeks.

Starling smiled. “For now, though, please just keep the ship moving. Captain keeps threatening to come down here herself, and I think she might actually do it next time.”

“Thank you, LT,” she whispered. “Starling . . . thank you.”

Starling left Aditil working with renewed vigor, then stepped out of engineering, to where Nazh was waiting, one eyebrow cocked.

“What?” she asked him.

“How did you afford that?”

It was expensive to travel to Dhatri. The law of commerce was this: if you could get to a location through Shadesmar, it was cheap. If not, then you had to pay. A lot.

Most cities were in the Physical Realm, not in Shadesmar, but you could transfer between the two dimensions with ease—if you had a special kind of portal. They were called perpendicularities, and most major planets had them. So traveling was simple. Pop into Shadesmar at one planet, travel easily through to your destination, pop back out.

Unfortunately Dhatri didn’t have a perpendicularity anymore. Which meant you couldn’t travel there using conventional ships like the Dynamic—or, well, you could travel through Shadesmar to the location of the planet, but you couldn’t hop out to visit it. To get to Dhatri you needed an expensive, faster-than-light-capable ship that could travel through space in the physical dimension.

Those were expensive. And mostly controlled by one military or another. Hence why Aditil could catch a ride on one leaving: a ship had needed a post filled, and had recruited her. But to get back, your only reliable way was to buy an overpriced ticket, as every ship traveling there knew how valuable their seats were.

“Well?” Nazh asked as they started walking. And floating. “How did you afford it?”

“I had a little bit of savings,” she said.

“You realize,” he said, “this is only going to convince them further you have a hoard of gold somewhere.”

Shards. She hadn’t thought of that. Their crew was small—only eight people—but the myth about Starling’s kind and their caverns of gold had persisted among them no matter how she tried to stamp it out. At least they’d believed her when she’d insisted that dragons didn’t eat people.

She climbed the ladder to the middle deck. Truth was, she felt good, having guessed accurately what Aditil needed. She was finally starting to feel like she understood this crew, and how to be a leader, like Master Hoid had been trying to teach her. Before he’d vanished, of course. It was his way.

He’d be back. Until then, she had to do her best to guide the crew and protect them from the interim captain. She reached middle deck, and walked through the hallway toward the stern, where she could climb up to the bridge. As she did, though, she spotted someone standing outside of the medical bay, peering in.

ZeetZi was a Lawnark, a kind of being that was basically a human—except instead of hair, he had feathers. A mostly bald head, with dark brown skin, and a crest of yellow and white feathers on the very top. Tiny feathers along his arms, almost invisible against his dark skin. Arcanists said the Lawnark hadn’t evolved from birds or anything like that—more, they were humans who had been isolated, and whose hair had evolved to something akin to feathers.

ZeetZi was supposed to be checking on the life support systems. While Aditil handled the aethers and the engine itself, ZeetZi was their technician for the rest of the ship. He was a genius at this sort of thing . . . when he wasn’t getting distracted by the ship’s doctor.

He spotted Starling and Nazh as they approached, and his crest perked up in alarm. Then he stepped forward to meet her.

“Yes,” he said before she could ask. “Yes, I was checking on the doctor again. Yes. I know you said I shouldn’t be so worried. I can’t help it, LT. We shouldn’t have one of those on our ship.”

“Zee,” she said, taking his arm. “Have you listened to yourself when you talk like that?”

“I know, I know,” he said, crest smoothing back down. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . LT, you know what they did. To my people. To my world.”

She nodded, and she did. She’d never been to his homeworld—amazing though it sounded—but she knew what the hordes had done to other planets. It was a familiar story.

“Master Hoid,” Starling said, “trusts Chrysalis. He invited her on board.”

ZeetZi shivered at the name, and even Nazh looked away. It said something that there was a dragon and a shade on board this ship, but the one the crew were frightened of was the ship’s doctor.

“I found one of her spies,” ZeetZi whispered, “in my room again.”

Well, that was a problem. Chrysalis did have difficulties with privacy. “I’ll speak to her,” Starling said. She’d made a breakthrough, finally, with Aditil earlier. Could she manage another?

“Star,” Nazh said softly, “you need to stop worrying about that one. The horde will be gone from this ship as soon as Xisis finds us a proper ship’s doctor.”

“Master Hoid told me to watch over the crew.”

“That’s not a member of the crew,” ZeetZi said. “It’s . . . LT, just trust me. It isn’t here to help us. It doesn’t care about us. Except how it can use us to further some mysterious goal.”

“We’ll see,” Starling said. “You two head up to the bridge. I’ll meet you in a bit.”

Both reluctantly withdrew. Starling stepped up to the medical bay, peering in at a figure who wore a tight, formal uniform from a military Starling hadn’t ever been able to identify. The individual worked at a cabinet, cataloging their medicines, as Captain had asked.