The man kneels in the dark and waits.
The plant before him, suspended in water by a delicate metal lattice, is a cluster of dark purple leaves drawn up and in, like a teardrop. It isn’t moving, but the exarch told him to be patient, so he is. He waits until his knees ache.
Then: a creak. The sound of a bent stem.
And a shiver, right through the middle of the teardrop.
The man suppresses a gasp as the plant splits open and peels apart, the leaves unfurling all at once. Then in the center of each one, a vein of light. Of color.
It’s only a plant, but the gentle pulse of its light is almost like a heartbeat.
“Are you ready for the hardest part of our journey?” he says to it, his voice gentle.
He reaches into the water to run a fingertip along one of the leaves. He checks that the lattice is secured to the tank. Then he replaces the lid, locks it down, and steps out of the room and into the main deck of the ship.
There, looming huge in the front windows, is a gate. The sight fills him with dread. He’s passed through so many gates, spent more time in the Manifold than most people ever will, but still: that dread. It’s primal.
A gate is a strange-looking thing. A spherical warping, almost like a soap bubble. At the edges of it he can see pieces of other universes—a streak of starlight, the sliver of a planet, or a moon, or a planetary ring. As his ship draws closer, all those pieces swirl together, as if he’s going down a drain.
He wishes he’d taken a sedative.
He sits and straps himself in.
The ship passes through the threshold, and the gate in front of it splits in two. Two identical soap bubbles. Then three. Then four. The sight makes him dizzy, so he closes his eyes. The ship chimes at him when the array is complete: twelve universes, each with an identical yet distinct gate.
He’s already programmed the ship for the correct one, the second from the left. Passing through that gate is punishable by execution without a trial. It leads to the Cloistered Planet, the one that once refused the offer to join the greater order.
The Cloistered Planet is also the only safe place left. The only place where they won’t look for him.
So he watches as that gate draws closer—or rather, as he draws closer to it, his ship creeping across the vast space that separates them.
When the gate is so large it seems to engulf him, he sees it: the edge of a massive planet with a bright red eye swirling along its belly. It’s not his destination, just a waypoint, but still, his body trembles at its size.
The gate swallows him, and in the instant before the wormhole rips him to shreds, he screams.
“Wait.” The Sword stops her before she can descend the steps.
Elegy stares at the hand on her shoulder. The Sword removes it.
“This place has been neutral ground for hundreds of years,” the Sword says. “I need your assurance that you will tread lightly.”
“Tread lightly”? Elegy repeats. “I’m unarmed. What do you think I’m going to do, throw a boot at them?”
They’re about to meet their enemies, the Talusar, under a temporary ceasefire. But even if the ceasefire didn’t compel Elegy to restrain herself, she’s seen enough battlegrounds to know how foolish it is to engage with Talusar soldiers on foot. Especially when outnumbered—and the Talusar always outnumber them.
The Sword presses her already thin mouth into an even thinner line. “Six years in the army have made you rough around the edges, at best. But this is a delicate situation. So I want your word.”
The door at the bottom of the steps opens, and warmth rushes into the Sparrow. Elegy tastes dust and salt on the air. Wind kisses her cheeks, soft and prickling with particles of earth.
“You have it,” she says to the Sword.
The Sword nods, and walks on.
Elegy stretches her hand behind her, and her husband’s calloused fingers catch it. For a moment he stands at her back, and she can feel the heat of him.
“Wow, you can really feel the love between you and your mom,” Shir says into her ear. “I don’t understand why you waited so long to introduce us.”
Elegy’s laugh surprises her.
Shir’s eyes crinkle at the corners. When she first met him, she noted—with disdain—that he looked like he’d walked straight out of an old-fashioned romance designed to appeal to as many people as possible. Thick, wavy hair. Easy smile. Long eyelashes.
But she fell for him anyway. Annoying.
“Are you ready?” he asks, his thumb tracing a circle on the back of her hand.
She isn’t—how can a person be “ready” to hear a prophecy?—but she nods, and together they descend to the salt flat, where the Sword waits for them.
She doesn’t think of the Sword as her mother, though that’s who she is. Elegy is the result of a transaction. The Sword was required to have two children, one to inherit her title and the other as a spare. Elegy is that spare. Her father applied for the privilege of contributing his genes to her, and once he was approved, he was given the lifelong job of protecting and instructing her. Growing up, she visited her mother and half sister once a year to learn what her father couldn’t teach her, but otherwise, she only had one parent ... and it wasn’t the woman in front of her.
Her hand trails behind her to keep hold of Shir’s. The salt flat is wide and white and surrounded by mountains. It’s patterned with hexagons the size of dinner plates, like the scaly skin of a mythical creature. She understands why the Cenobium is here—it feels like a holy place.
She lets go of Shir’s hand and crouches to press her palms to the earth. The salt is hard but fragile, cracking under pressure. It flakes onto her palms and stings the little cuts on her cuticles.
Behind the Sword is a lonely building of flat, circular stone with a vaulted wooden roof: the Cenobium, which houses the augurs. The ones who summoned her here.
Elegy’s first reaction to the summons was a snort. I’m not a dog, she said to Shir. They can’t just call my name and expect me to come running.
But the augurs’ foretellings are something even she can’t ignore. That they perceive the future isn’t a matter of faith; it’s a biological reality produced by the Fever in their blood. And they don’t issue a summons for anything less than world-shaking prophecy.
Movement catches Elegy’s attention in the land behind the Cenobium. Approaching the structure from the north is a line of people on horseback, shimmering in the desert heat. Even from here, she can tell their clothes are too heavy for the hot sun. They’re not used to the desert.
Fear and rage war inside her at the sight of them. They’re Talusar. The augurs summoned them, too.
“Did the augurs say anything else about what to expect?” she asks the Sword.
“No.” The Sword sighs. “As usual, they were irritatingly vague.”
“And we’re sure they’re trustworthy? This isn’t an ambush?”
“They’ve never given us a reason not to trust them, in over a hundred years.”