"Dammit." Hazeema stared at the yellow fractals creeping from her hot pan. "The eggs crashed. Again."

Loe stepped in from their private side server and opened a data window. "You jiggle them too much."

"I jiggle them exactly as much as I do Wakeside." She opened the pan's metadata and deleted the mess. "You said you'd fixed the fluid algorithm before I opened."

"Fluid's fine," they grunted. "We've simulated fluid for centuries. What you want is a billion particles' position and relation tracked as a function of time and temperature. For every ingredient in every dish."

"Because that is what makes it cooking!" Hazeema sighed and rested against the counter. A virtual restaurant was a ridiculous idea, but being a chef—her father's legacy—was all she knew and loved in the world.

Loe brought up a directory and rendered a dozen egg dishes onto the counter. "Just run with the pre-fab stuff. It's literally perfect."

"That's why everyone hates sim-food. Every omelette's the same scan! There's no variation. No screw-ups. No happy accidents. People don't want perfect. They want the pursuit of perfection."

"Too bad they can't eat the experience of working with you," Loe mumbled.

Hazeema perked up.

Loe rubbed their temple. "Sorry. That was inappropriate."

"No, that's a good idea." She loaded a new pan and eggs. "You have one of those affective psycorder apps they use for therapy?"

"Yeah."

"Boot it up." She placed the pan on the stove and added butter while cracking the eggs into a bowl. She walked through the familiar steps of creating the most basic test of cuisine—filled with a familiar sense of contentment and purpose. And then the crash and the fractals of egg.

Hazeema paused the recording and loaded her brief emotional journey into one of the pre-generated frittatas on the counter. "Taste it."

Dispensing with a fork, Loe lifted the slice and took a hesitant bite. Their eyes skirted back and forth through the haze of pulsing, pre-recorded emotion—the highs of warm family memory and the bitter resignation of failure. "That's… something new."

"The best thing about half the city being asleep," Gwinnith began, "is there's no line at the bar!"

The rest of her crew slammed the table in agreement as they drained their glasses. The mahua hit like roses on fire. An eleven-hour shift offloaded, refurbished, and dispatched the last of the automated skimmers back into the cloud-wilds of Neptune. By the time the drone-ships came home, bellies full of ice and microdiamonds scraped from the storms, the dockworker's union would have a better idea on how to manage the manual labor of offloading from within the CloudArk.

"Man, this is gonna be great!" Rashad picked at the scab of nano-sealant he'd used to bandage a cut. "No more messy fluids! I've already put in for ten days off. Gonna play sim games 'til I pass out!"

"Nothing new there," Penni teased. Gwinnith marveled at how easily she cleaned up after shift. "I'm not wasting time on kid's stuff. The Council special-ordered a ton of new standard avatars for people to try out. My friend's a sim designer, and she's been tweaking this amazing black widow body."

"You WANT to be a spider?!" Buhr shook his head.

"Have twice as many arms? Yeah! Plus, next time you give me crap, I can eat you!"

"What about you, Buhr?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. Jaya and I just got married. I know she said she doesn't want kids, but I was still thinking I'd convince her to start a family. But in cryo? How would that even work?"

"In my experience, it works very well," Penni coughed out past her third shot.

"Why are you all drinking? I thought we were getting dinner." Muneeba arrived in stunned horror.

"Having a little celebration," Rashad countered. "We're celebrating our last physical dinner."

"Not like we can get hangovers in the CloudArk," Gwinnith added.

"Did none of you read the pamphlet?" Muneeba shook her head. "Your brain still runs off the meat. All the cryo does is slow all your biological processes."

"So?"

"So, you still have hangovers. And they last FIVE TIMES as long."

"Well, that's the end of another day." Arter smiled at his students. "Remember, everyone, this is the last day we meet here in the school. Starting next week, all our classes will be in the CloudArk. We'll start learning digital sculpting for art time! Won't that be exciting?"

"I don't like art time, Mr. Che!" Suza stamped her foot. "Why do we need to go into the computer? I like our playground."

Arter set himself heavily onto the stool. His class ranged from four to seven years old, and some of them were smarter than he ever remembered being at that age, but none of them were ready to confront the idea of extinction. "I know you've all heard that the Pyramid Fleet is coming back." Blank stares… They knew the fact, but not the emotional weight it carried. "The Pyramid Fleet are very bad people who might hurt us. So, we're all going to go deep underground, where we'll be very hard to find. But there isn't a lot of room underground, and not a lot to do, so we'll all go to sleep and spend time in the CloudArk, so we can still learn and play with our friends."

"Will it hurt?"

"No, Keiji. It'll be just like when we go into the CloudArk for story time. You've all done this lots of times before."

"Can we get up to use the bathroom?" Arter didn't catch who spoke up, but it sounded like Kachela.

"No, we'll have to stay asleep," he reminded them.

"But then we'll poop the bed!" Absolute scandal dripped from Kachela's voice, and Arter had to stifle a laugh.

"We'll be just fine. Everyone is going to get their own special sleeping pod just like the Founders used!" He lowered his voice to a faux-conspiratorial whisper. "It will do all the pooping for you."

The classroom shouted "Ewwwww" as one chorus. Arter could always count on certain things to distract kids from their fear.

"Founders' tits, Tino," Callie snorted in disgust. The virtual briefing room was just as drab as their physical one had been—by design—and it heightened the outlandishness of his avatar choice. "I'm not going to talk to you if you're going to be a mandala. It gives me a headache."

"This is the future! And you're not my supervisor." She waved him off and turned back to the schedule with the other medtechs.

"How do they expect us to receive this many people in one shift?" Tammiya pulled a copy of the schedule file and integrated it into her arm—half the staff were already taking advantage of the transience of "virtual tattoos" to keep important notes accessible.

Tino perked up at the chance to gossip. "You didn't hear? Over on Wakeside, they had an anaphylaxis event last shift. Some chucklehead forgot to tell them about his shellfish allergy."

"But the new cathepsin inhibitors are oyster-derived."

"Exactly," Miku confirmed. Her avatar hung slack. "They pumped him full of deepsleep, and he puffed up like a fugu. Puked everywhere! Glad I was only there on drone duty because the smell must have been a nightmare." Tino brought up the video feed.

"Why do people think we even ask all these questions?"

"That's enough!" Bijan settled into a virtual chair at the briefing table. The supervisor's cold glare survived CloudArk transition unaffected. "People get scared, and they forget things. It's part of being human. Do your jobs like professionals."

"But we were already behind, chief. And then people like this slow it down for everyone else."

"I get the frustration, Tammiya." Bijan pulled the schedule apart into their respective assignments. "But we're medical technicians. We're the stability they need. You wear your empathy first."

"Good call, chief," Tino piped in.

"Speaking of… Tino, you can be math on your own time. But while we have five million scared patients looking for reassurance, keep your damn face on."

"Hiro, what did I say? Get this family portrait hung," Sehrish chided her husband. "And, daughter, I need you to go to the market—"

"Mom," Valla interrupted, "our appointment is in two hours."

"To the market," she continued, shaking a nearly empty tin. "And bring back cumin and cardamum. I don't like how low we are on garam masala."

"We're going into lockdown. We don't need more spices!"

"Oh no? What about that hallway panel where something's always breaking?" The service panel in the Tanaka residence had inexplicably been ground zero for 90% of the block's brownouts. "What if the Cloud Strider comes to fix it, hm? And then wants to make himself a nice lunch for his trouble. Don't we owe Rohan a nicely stocked kitchen?"

Valla stared, dumbfounded by the logic. "If he wants a lunch, he can get a chana masala from the food printer. It's fine!"

"It is not fine," her voice cracked. "That machine has no soul. Cooking is love. You've got to put something of yourself into it."

"You know how important this is for the community. For the whole city!" Valla dropped her bag by the door. "You voted for this lockdown!" She expected another of her mother's twists of logic but, instead, Sehrish slumped her shoulders and shuddered softly. It took the young woman too long to realize her mother was crying.

"Your father and I applied for this larger apartment when I was pregnant with you." The older woman wiped away a tear. "And we were always so busy raising you we never had time to finish all the things we wanted to do with it. How can I move on when I'm not done here?"

"Aw, Mom." She pulled her mother tight, then felt larger arms pull them both together and smelled her father's aftershave.

"That life in the computer. It doesn't feel like our home," she admitted, looking surprised.

"Of course, it doesn't feel like home yet, Sehrish," Hiro rumbled softly. "You have to put something of yourself into it."

Adinew's spoon scraped the corners of the ramekin, pulling up the remnants of purin and popping the last half-bite of custard into his mouth. His tongue satisfied but his heart still yearning, he eyed the last bowl sitting on the counter.

"Don't even." Paolo didn't look up from his novel. "I get at least one out of this batch."

"You'll never find a better husband with that attitude."

At this, Paolo set his book down and walked across the room, wrapping his arms around his spouse from behind. "Hey, first the stress-eating, now the self-deprecation. What's going on?"

"Worried about my approval rating." Adinew relaxed a little under the attention. "City Council elections are next year, and lockdown's a big change to drop on everyone beforehand. And with me in charge of administering the upload…"

"You did good. Your public referendum proved people want to protect their families and their community. Everyone's excited to do their part. So, what's really going on?"

Adinew watched the poukas outside the window, lazily floating in the wind. He dropped his ramekin and spoon into the scrubber, and the noise seemed to snap him back.

"It's… it's all this." He waved over the plateaus and spires and canyons of the city, limned with neon light. "We're going to give up our whole lives, five million times over." He choked down a lump in his throat. "What if the Pyramids never come back? What if we're making the wrong choice? If I made the wrong choice?"

"Then we made the wrong choice." Paolo laughed and cupped Adinew's chin. "And everyone's still alive. But if we do nothing, and THAT's the wrong choice…"

After a long moment, Adinew finally nodded. He returned his husband's embrace, and they looked out at the poukas a while longer.

"And then Marco looks up at me with eyes the size of durian and says, 'No, Grandpa, I'm adrift'!" It was too stupid a joke not to laugh. Mr. Mendoza's body language changed after that. He settled into the chair and leaned back, no longer eyeing Cais like she was a harpy in disguise. She made a mental note to thank her boss: the easiest way to put seniors at ease was to ask about family.

He wiped a tear from his eye, then clapped his hands on her desk. "So. You need to freeze me?"

"That's a common misconception." She had tried for weeks to dispel this one, but the term "cryo" had caught on and was too easy. "It's more like a hibernation. We'll lower your body temperature and metabolic activity, but your mind will remain active in the CloudArk."

"Oh? I used to do some arking back in my day. Been a while, though. Mostly just use the AV stuff to visit the great-grandkids." He made a point of shifting in the chair. "The monorail's not great for the old scoliosis."

"I don't think anyone calls it 'arking' anymore, Mr. Mendoza, but you'll be able to see the grandkids just like an in-person visit."

She kicked on the viewing wall and displayed an image of Neomuna, except…

"No clouds?" He whistled appreciatively.

"We call it the Landing Zone. It's an exact replica of the city. Same laws of physics. Just nicer weather. You'll start out here while you get used to CloudArk living. We generate a body that's an exact replica of the one you have now. Once you get settled in, we have classes for customizing your avatar, building new spaces, even exploring the deep CloudArk if you feel adventurous."

"Sounds good, I suppose. But this, uh… this perfect replica of my body?"

"Down to the neuron."

"Can you make me one without the scoliosis?"

Rihk guided his hand forward and caught the club, then pushed back with all the frame's strength and watched the suspect topple backwards. "Settle down!" It was strange to have physical hands again—even if they were borrowed from a security frame he piloted from the CloudArk—and he wasn't sure he wanted to use them again.

With the assailants down, the investigation VCs entered alongside the frame team, ready to inventory the stolen supplies. Commander Jingye walked in, still wearing her skin, and Rihk snapped to attention.

"Didn't realize you'd be coming down in person, ma'am."

"I'm here to see what can be salvaged, Constable." He expected her to wander over to the lashed shelves stuffed with nanite slurry, nutrient goo, batteries, and assemblers—enough for the dozen holdouts to live off the grid for years—but, instead, Tse stopped in front of his prone suspect. "Been a day, huh?"

"We won't go under!" His eyes burned with contempt as he sat firm in front of a fortune in supplies looted from the public stores.

Jingye offered a hand to help him stand. He slapped it away—a simple conversation between hope and hatred. But behind it, the man radiated terror.

The Commander sighed, turning back to Rihk's frame. "He's just scared, ma'am," he offered.

"We're all scared, Constable. But these holdout cults… they'd rather die living like they knew instead of surviving in a new normal." Her patient expression folded into a scowl. "And they don't care if they get the rest of us killed, too."

"My sister works in Mental Health Services. Says they're stretched thin, especially without the poukas. What do we do with them?"

"Counciler Adinew's authorized deep cryo as an option for anyone who doesn't want to upload."

"Sleep through all this instead of help out?" Rihk scoffed as he lifted the suspect. The felon's bravado melted as he listened to the exchange. "You seriously think anyone will take it?"

"Probably." She moved to leave. "And we're out of time to find better solutions."

"Can you not be here virtually?" Ava couldn't make eye contact with the digital projection—she wasn't sure she could with a real, live person either, but it was such a stark reminder.

"I can't," Maggie admitted. "But I can get another crisis responder who hasn't uploaded yet to come over. It'll take a few minutes. Can I sit with you until then?"

Decisions were hard. "I guess."

Magnolia sat—settled her virtual projection in at Ava's eye level and above the couch—and looked around the apartment. Her eyes fell on a familiar artwork.

"Wow, is that a vintage Raid Invader poster?"

Ava shifted a little. After a long moment, she nodded. "Yeah. Was my granddad's. It was the preorder promo for the very first game."

"That's awesome. You excited about the new series they're making? Purnadi Hassan is going to be the perfect Durandal!"

"The Thrilladrome arcade's sponsoring a watch party for it after we're all…" She didn't add "in the CloudArk."

There was a sigh and another silence.

Minutes ticked by.

Ava took a deep breath. "It's just scary, you know?"

"It is." Maggie nodded.

"The whole world is going to end, and we're going to hide online."

"It's not on you to save the world." Maggie placed a digital hand on Ava's. The charge particles tingled her skin.

"But the world's going to end. Why can't I just choose to go a little sooner?"

Maggie shrugged. "Because then you'd miss a great Raid Invader series."

"Holding out to watch a new show? That's so…" Ava shook her head. "Dumb."

"So what? Life's dumb." Maggie waved around with the vague suggestion of everything. "It's okay to coast. If you'd get lost without little steppingstones of happiness, then use the stones."

Ava cautioned a look at her virtual companion. "And if you're good," Maggie assured her, "you can save the world next week."

Few things can see the Light, but we are not blinded.

The Bearer seeks the truth, but what separates truth from fiction is fragile.

A pair of truths and a single falsehood upon the Bearer we shall impart.

Brother, ally once more, sends his regards.

Dreamer, awakened, the Bearer shall meet.

Light fades, deep within the Prison.

"Regrettably, Lakshmi was killed by Vex during the assault…"

Ikora's words echoed like the tolling of a bell. Ada-1 rocked back on her heels. She had never much liked Lakshmi-2—tolerated was a better word—but her fellow Exo had been her partner in a very intriguing new venture. Now, Lakshmi was dead, and so was the promise of Project Stronghold.

A bunker where the city's leaders could be preserved through any attack was now just a hazy memory. Project Stronghold's reach was more expansive than Ada's contribution. Indeed, her focus had been steered in this direction by Lakshmi, yet the necessity of the bunker had made perfect sense when Lakshmi proposed the endeavor. A city cannot survive without its leaders, but Ada never expected that Lakshmi herself would instigate an attack.

Ada-1 had been used. The realization stung, but having yet another venture collapse around her was too bitter a pill to swallow. She was destined for greatness, wasn't she?

Ada heard the servos in her hands whining. Her fists were balled tight. She hadn't meant to… she hadn't meant for any of this. Every day spent, every breakthrough made, just grains of sand in a sculpture doomed to be washed away by the unstoppable tide.

She had worked for years to defend this system, its people; and all she had to show for it was a glorified spindle.

No matter. For now, she would focus on one day at a time, and today, she would spin gold from straw. Her fingers traced the lines on the shoulder of the new gauntlets she had designed. She was determined to see them completed. They wouldn't save the system, no, but they would represent the Black Armory well. Sometimes, she just needed something for herself.

Mihaylova Supplemental
Navigator's Journal—Encrypted Supplemental—
Path to Ares: 20 days to Launch

The situation with E becomes increasingly tenuous. She insists she needs access to all the AI code for her gravity well measurements, which I find highly unlikely. It's simply not necessary and I've given her all the subroutine code that she could possibly need.

But she wants it all. It's absurd. What would she make of the R subsystems if she saw them?

R. That's what I've code-named the deepest core of the experimental AI at the heart of the new ship. And he's doing very well, now writing his own code. Off-the-charts well.

Would E even understand? Likely she'd go running to Hardy, show him some of the odder items where R has written some of his own code and seems to be—how can I put it? —passing judgment on us, like a little hidden critic. No. The AI must be protected so that he can function best in the limited way we need.

Not sure how to keep her away, but giving her access could be catastrophic.

Banshee stares at the paper, then turns it upside down.

"I never said I was an artist," Cayde says over Banshee's shoulder. "This gets at the spirit of it."

Banshee turns the paper around again. "So that's…"

"The laser tracker, yeah."

"Huh." Banshee tilts his head. "And those…"

"Racing stripes."

"…On a fusion rifle."

"We're just—" Cayde throws his arms up. "We're just tossin' out ideas here, pal! Don't shut anything down until you get the whole picture."

"Seems like the picture's the problem."

"OK. Listen—the details aren't important. I just want a good gun that you take out and the fight's already over." He shoots at invisible opponents. "Tsuu-tsuu-tsuu! The end."

Banshee relaxes. He knows good guns.

Cayde clasps Banshee's shoulder. "So is that a yes?"

"Uh-huh."

"Great!" Cayde claps his hands. "Not to rush your genius, but chop-chop, all right? I maybe made a bet with a certain Crucible handler, and I maybe don't have the Glimmer to back it up, so… By the way, you'll do this on an IOU, right?"

Banshee points to the paper one more time. "Is that…?"

"A bottle opener, yes."

There came a morning when the Techeuns spoke in unison, though none were near each other, and they said, ++WHO ARE YOU WHO BUILDS A HIDDEN CITY HERE IN OUR THOUGHTS?++

And Mara, alone in the Queenswalk of the Dreaming City, heard their voices ring out as if each Witch stood beside her, and she said to the empty air, "I am Mara Sov. Who are you?"

The answer came at once, ++WRONG! IT IS THE EKPYROSIC. WE ARE THE NOTHING-SPACE FABRIC.++

Hearing this, Mara recognized a riddle. She turned at once and left the Queenswalk so that Riven would not be inspired. As she walked, she thought. At length she said, "Wrong. You are the Ancients. You are the idea that gives fate its shape."

That one-voice came again, as clear and strong as the birth of the universe, booming with dispassionate curiosity, ++IT THINKS ITSELF WISE! HOW DID SOMETHING LIKE IT ATTAIN SUCH REVELATION?++

Mara lengthened her stride, taking the steps three at a time so that she could duck into a little-used transport gate. She emerged in a small coastal observatory—then nothing more than a grand dormitory—and found Kelda Wadj, the Allteacher, hovering four feet off the ground. Blood poured from her ears and nostrils. Her eyes saw nothing. The other Techeuns were transfixed thusly in a geometric array around the Dreaming City—each one inert, suspended, bleeding.

Mastering her horror, Mara said, "I have lived alongside you." And because she was afraid for Kelda, she asked, "Do you intend violence?"

At once, the Techeuns collapsed to the ground like marionettes from severed strings—all but Kelda Wadj, whose augment blazed with coruscating light. She rose higher into the air and began to unravel, particle by particle. As she came undone, she said, ++NOW IT INSULTS US.++

Mara steeled herself against the horrific sight of her old friend's ruin. She had been a fool to think the riddling was over. She said, "Of course." Violence, after all, is a matter of perspective. "What I mean is, what would you ask me?"

Beloved, wise Kelda Wadj burst apart and then collapsed all at once into a singularity that burned and burned and burned but destroyed nothing around it. From her un-throat came the voice again, which Mara felt in the atomic marrow of her bones, and it said, ++WHAT WOULD IT ASK US?++

For fifteen days and fifteen nights, the singularity burned unshielded.

On the sixteenth day, they began construction of the Oracle Engine, which took the singularity of the Allteacher as its seed-heart.

The Vandal stoops as he exits the Galliot. All of his arms are bound behind his back, so he cannot shield his eyes from the bright sun. A breeze stirs his cloak. There is a cliff behind him and lush gardens ahead. His jailer would not grant him the honor of a quick death, so she must intend to torture him. She thinks he will yield like the flesh-lovers from House Judgment. She is wrong. Whatever indignities she can muster are nothing compared to what he deserves.

With his chin held high, he imagines shucking off his armor and laying all four of his arms in his Captain's hands. His Captain is his mother, and she will not dock him with a scythe. She will twist and tear his arms from his body like she is shucking a fine, fat crab for dinner, and he will be glad of the slow, sick cracks and crunches of his bones. He will be glad of the shame. Let him go limbless for the rest of his wasted life. Let the Ether-thirst shrivel him up like a yaviirsi fig.

"What do you think?" his jailer asks in a language he cannot understand. She steps up beside him and claps a hand on his shoulder. He flinches. She is nearly as tall as he is, and for a creature with no claws, her grip is strong and sure.

Together, they contemplate the gardens.

"It's all a bit much for my taste," she admits as he sneaks a furtive look at her.

Her bow is unstrung. There is only one arrow in her quiver.

She is stupid.

He whirls, trips her, and sprints for the cliff. She swears, recovers, and lunges after him. As he pitches himself off the edge, he thinks of his mother's shame and prays that she forgets him. Better that she never had a son than a weakling so easily captured by the enemy.

It is his bad luck that she catches his foot with one hand. His helmet slams into the rocky cliffside. A piece of his rebreather cracks off and disappears into the mist far below. He flails, but he cannot drag her down with him; somehow, she hauls him in like a fish. As soon as she has him on solid ground, she binds his ankles with the string of her bow. "All right," she says, catching her breath. "All right." She chuckles, pats his shoulder fondly, and then pulls him upright like a sack of psakiks.

She takes a step back, brushing off her hands against the seat of her trousers. He glowers, the surliest psakiks sack this side of the Great Machine, hating her horrible, squared-off teeth and her blunt, stubby fingers. "Let's try this again, shall we?"

Drawing two fractal knives from sheaths on her thighs, she makes a perfect ireliis bow before him. Thunderstruck, he sits up straight. Stares.

"Not good?" she asks, and tries again.

Furious confusion takes him. This is some kind of trick. Blasphemous mockery. "Iirsoveks," he rumbles.

She shakes her head. "Nama." Sheathing one of her knives, she holds out her free hand with her fingers spread in supplication.

He draws his chin toward his throat with this fresh betrayal, narrowing his secondary eyes. It speaks!

Slowly, without breaking eye contact, she lays her other knife on the ground between them. The blade points toward her boots. He watches her every movement. How many secrets have the flesh-lovers betrayed, that this creature can make peace like a cringing drekh before his kel?

She taps two fingers against her cuirass. "Sjur," she says slowly, then she points at him.

Honor-bound even as he simmers in scandal, he replies, "Misraaks. Velask, Si-yu-riks."

"Mithrax," she repeats, then grins. "Velask, Mithrax. And welcome! Let's have a look about, shall we?"

Eris Morn returned to the Vestian Outpost. Because she spoke well, it was agreed that aid would be traded for intelligence and a long-term alliance. In this way, the Awoken were the first to know of the Great Navigator: his philosophies, his strategies, his weaknesses. And as the coven contemplated the possibilities laid wide before this god-king's far-flung sword, it was decreed that they would build a throne world beneath an energy well as blind as the ferryman Charon.

Nascia drew the schematics. Portia worked out the calculations. They made their first test with a small rift generator on the eastern shore. Satisfied that their methods were sound, they then went to a grand cathedral to dig the well. There, Lissyl and Sedia augured the first borehole with the help of Riven, who had taken the shape of a needle-nosed basilisk, while Kalli and Shuro Chi constructed the gate itself, deep below, in a hall they named "The Confluence."

Illyn made tincture after tincture of queensfoil until her clothes stank and her hands were stained reddish-black. Open-eyed, she walked between planes and sorted the threads of reality on a vast metaphysical loom, weaving some closer, some more distant.

Mara and Riven shaped her third throne together, and the artistry of their work was a testament to the hungry joy they felt in that partnership. They named it Eleusinia, and it was in those Ascendant halls that Mara finally carved a statue for Sjur.

When it came time to connect the Well to the unreality that lay beyond the gateway, Sedia asked, "Would it not be wiser to leave this door without a key?" Riven, now an immense antlered serpent with broad tiger paws, tightened around the perimeter of the room like a noose.

"Egg," Mara corrected absently, chewing on her thumbnail.

"The key is so heavy as to be unliftable," Kalli ventured, since they were speaking metaphorically.

Sedia flapped her hand dismissively. "Yes, yes, I know." They all knew that the gate required a continuous multi-week charge of paracausal energies, and that almost nothing in this solar system could produce such energies at the scale required by the gateway. Almost. "It's just— do we…"

"Do we wish to trust the Guardians?" Illyn filled in dryly.

Mara ran her hand along the sleek surface of the primary well's control mechanism, then turned and walked alone toward the fresh, foggy air that blew in from the coast. The Techeuns watched her go.

"There is only the plan," Illyn said. "Remember your vows, Sedia."

Undelivered, lost.

Did you watch them die? Did you watch me take the knife and carve out each eye, one-two, one-two-three? Did you watch your body rot? You pretend to be aloof, but you've always been defined by your preoccupations. How deeply did you grieve when your bones were crushed to ash and dust?


Undelivered, damp.

Both crowns have been sundered, and Sky save me but I am unmoored. I have been a blade crying for a hand to wield me for so long, but what is a blade with nothing solid to cut? You will gentle me. You will tell me I can rest. You will try to pull me to the libraries. I cannot. I cannot. I cannot.


Undelivered, burnt.

Патетическая. The swelling of strong sentiment in your chest even as you mourn the world that is and was and will be. I did not go to Mars. I will not go to the Dreaming City. There is only the plan.


Undelivered, lost.

Cousin, do you remember the streets of the Last City? Do you remember eating fresh red grapes and playing tag between the market stalls? You cannot. We grew, we died, we were reborn. But I remember. It is the one thing I know is true. You used to LAUGH. What manipulation of the fates has led us each to our own calamities? [Forceful, looping script.] I listen to Vanguard channels every day for news of your death. If and when that news comes, I will fly to you at once, no matter where I am and no matter what front I fight on. [Aggressive pressure, carved deep enough into the paper to tear it.] I swear it.


Delivered.

I have been inside. I have nothing but beautiful and violent words for my report. I will meet you at your throne.

Pride flutters in Petra's throat like a trapped bird. She doesn't know whether she will fly away or drop dead. As the elevator descends, she looks left at Illyn and then right at Uldren. She shuffles in her gleaming formal armor. From exile as Tower emissary to THIS is incredible. Unbelievable. She does not deserve it. "This is real," she whispers, unable to stop herself. Uldren smiles, but Illyn makes a warding gesture: Be silent!

Music begins to swell as the elevator settles. At the center of the room, the Paladins and the rest of Illyn's Techeuns are arrayed around Riven, of course, and—

Her breath catches.

Mara.

She can't help shooting another quick glance at Uldren: How..?

His smile widens.

Petra sets her jaw, pulls her shoulders back, stands strong and tall.

A chorus of thirty sings them into the Hall of Names. The air is sweet with lavender, and there are hundreds of candles lit all around the room, and even at this distance she can see Hallam is verklempt. This is as good a homecoming as she could ever imagine. More than she ever deserved.

When they reach the dais, she kneels. Uldren and Illyn proceed past her so that they can acknowledge the Queen and her waiting counselors. The song ends; the music quells. Uldren and Illyn speak together, and their voices ring out fierce and true. "Your Grace, we here present to you Petra Venj, your loyal servant, wherefore all you who are come this day to witness her homage and service. Do you acknowledge her?"

Petra cannot see anything but her own distorted reflection in her polished sabatons. She closes her eyes.

"I do," Mara says, and Petra's throat tightens.

Uldren and Illyn turn, synchronized. "Petra Venj! Are you willing to take the oath?"

"I am willing," Petra manages, struggling to steady her voice.

"Will you solemnly promise and swear to protect our people, our holdings, our territories, and our immaterial interests?"

"I solemnly promise so to do."

"Will you to your power cause law and justice, in mercy, to be executed in all your judgments?"

"I will."

"Will you, to the utmost of your power, uphold your sospital duties in defense of your Queen's life? Will you execute and preserve inviolably the orders of your Queen? And will you preserve unto your dying breath the secrets committed to your charge?"

"All this I promise to do."

"Then rise," Mara says, "and declare yourself."

Petra lifts her head to find Mara's eyes. "Let it be declared that the oaths which I have here before promised, I, Petra Venj, will perform and keep."

Mara smiles and steps forward with a fresh-forged knife. "Then receive this blade, brought now from the forges of Interamnia. With this blade, do justice, stop the growth of inequity, restore the things that are gone to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish and reform the things that are amiss, and confirm the things that are in proper order: that doing these things you may embody my will and become my Wrath. May the hunt be good."

"May the hunt be good," echoes the assembly.

Petra does not see the cynical glance that passes between Leona and Pavel, who have both served the Queen faithfully for decades. She does not see the way Riven tastes the air. She sees Mara, and Mara alone.

And when the second solstice began in earnest, many Awoken and Ahamkara alike came to the Dreaming City to celebrate the delirious pleasure of being alive. Those who came arrived in the Gardens of Esila, and Azirim was the very last. Seeing him land, Esila said to him, "Ah! You are bold. Do you truly think you've earned the right to revel in this place?"

And Azirim answering said, "Please, wise lady. I've gone 'round the worlds and through the stars themselves. I have come only to congratulate your people. If you lend me your ear, I can prove I will not waste the mercy you might grant me."

And Esila said to him, "We've often lent our ear to your indiscretions. I know what happens to that which is lent to you. I need no assurance."

And Azirim answering said, "My indiscretions? Wise lady, I do admit, I may have whispered truths you gave me to deceive those who would deceive me. But have I ever struck out with hungry fang against your people? Have I set fire to your trust? I have seen the error of my ways. Let me prove to you oh how I have changed."

And Esila, though she could see a flickering in Azirim's reflection, could not resist a redemption story. Esila cast forth her hand and beckoned to Azirim in mercy. And Esila said to him, "Join us and be glad, but let me hear your testimony first."

And so invited, Azirim bowed his crested head and hid a secret smile and spoke with the pardon Esila had given him. He recounted his many regrets in deceiving the kind merchants in the capital city of Interamnia. He recounted his charity to the wayfaring Corsairs who could not have escaped the heliopause without his aid. He recounted his journey to retrieve the eutech stolen from Pallas by the profane scavengers the Fallen, and he named his friends and those who had shown him kindness. And from the raucous parties beyond the lush gardens of Esila came an audience of Techeuns in training and flush-cheeked young Corsairs. They knelt in the dewy grass and they listened, and as they listened, and as Azirim spoke, his appetite grew and grew. Night fell on the Dreaming City.

And Azirim said to those who knelt enraptured, "Come, let me sing to you of extinction. Let me sing to you of lives lost in beautiful places, o audience mine. Sing with me, sing!" He bade them rise, and led them singing down and away from the gardens of Esila. He spread his wings and flew out into the empty air beyond the steep cliffs that bordered the gardens. And to those who happened to glance toward the gardens from far-off pavilions, it seemed a merry parade, a joyous chorus.

And they did not hear the singing stop.

And they did not hear the bodies dashed against the shore below.

And they did not see Azirim grow, or laugh, or flee.

$
$ COPY BAMBERGA"ORIN RCLJN3YJPYQ79YER"::APHEL.REL APHEL.REL
$ TYPE APHEL.REL

%%%%%%%%%%% VIOLET CLEARANCE ONLY %%%%%%%%%%%

INDEX:

EVENT 2PAL-A :: OTDR-4-REL
EVENT 2PAL-B :: OTDR-4-REL
EVENT 4VES-A :: OTDR-4-REL
EVENT 4VES-B :: OTDR-4-REL
EVENT 4VES-C :: OTDR-4-REL
EVENT 4VES-D :: OTDR-4-REL
EVENT 4VES-E :: OTDR-4-REL
EVENT 7IRI-A :: OTDR-4-REL

SUMMARY OF SBU APHELION INCIDENTS FOLLOWS BELOW.

*** EVENT 2PAL-A :: OTDR-4-REL ***

INFORMATION RECEIVED APR 09-18T02:29:45+00:00 FROM PALADIN NOLG, CONSIDERED SOBER, DEPENDABLE, NOT OF FANTASY. NOLG REPORTED "A GLOWING CREATURE" ON EXT OF HIS SHIP "RETRIBUTION" MOMENTS BEFORE ROUTINE NLS JUMP.

"RETRIBUTION" FDR SHOWED RAD SPIKE (5 SIGMA) ON TEPC, CPDS, AND RAM. CPD SHOWED NO EFFECT. ON RECOMMENDATION OF K WADJ, NOLG WAS QUARANTINED UNDER TECHEUN SUPERVISION FOR 1 MONTH. "RETRIBUTION" DECOMMISSIONED, SET ADRIFT BEYOND REEF.


*** EVENT 2PAL-B :: OTDR-4-REL ***

INFORMATION RECEIVED APR 10-27T17:11:56+00:00. REEF SPACE STATION AMESTRIS, THEN UNDER CONSTRUCTION, ISSUED 6 UNIQUE DISTRESS CALLS OVER A 2-MINUTE PERIOD. TRANSCRIPTS FOLLOW.

T-1: PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN. ALL STATIONS, ALL STATIONS, ALL STATIONS. THIS IS RSS AMESTRIS. WE HAVE A POSSIBLE SKYSHOCK EVENT IN PROGRESS. REQUESTING IMMEDIATE VIDCOM WITH ANY AVAILABLE TECHEUN. [STATIC FOLLOWS]

T-2: MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY! ALL STATIONS! THIS IS RSS AMESTRIS, WE ARE UNDER ATTACK! OUR HULL HAS BEEN BREACHED! MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY! THIS IS RSS AMESTRIS PLEASE SOMEONE [STATIC FOLLOWS]

T-3-A: I'VE GOT IT, HANG ON. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO… WHAT'S THE CHANNEL?
T-3-B: THEY'RE SCREAMING! LISTEN, THEY'RE ALL SCREAMING!
T-3-A: BE CALM! HELP ME! WHAT'S THE CHANNEL?
T-3-B: IT'S THE CORE, IT'S THE CORE, THIS IS THE STALKING CORE!
T-3-A: SHUT UP! WHAT'S THE CHANNEL!
T-3-B: OH NO, OH PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE [STATIC FOLLOWS]

T-4: ORIN, IT'S ME, IT'S NAMQI. I DON'T THINK I'M COMING HOME, BABY. I'M SO SORRY. I'M, I'M, I JUST WANT TO TELL YOU THAT I LOVE [STATIC FOLLOWS]

T-5: MAYDAY, MAYDAY! THIS IS VEN ASAR ON THE RSS AMESTRIS. WE ARE 300 SOULS ABOARD. SOMETHING IS HAPPENING, EVERYTHING IS BLUE, SOMETHING IS HERE [STATIC FOLLOWS]

T-6: [UNINTELLIGIBLE] [SCREAMING] [STATIC FOLLOWS]

A SAR FLEET FOUND THAT THE AMESTRIS WAS UNSAFE TO BOARD DUE TO RADIOACTIVE SURFACE CONTAMINATION. SAR DEPLOYED MULTIPLE CROW DRONES FOR INTERIOR SURVEY. NO EVIDENCE OF HULL BREACH WAS FOUND. NO EVIDENCE OF MALTECH DETONATION WAS FOUND. NO EVIDENCE OF HOSTILE ALIEN INTERFERENCE WAS FOUND. NO EVIDENCE OF INTERNAL SABOTAGE WAS FOUND. NO SURVIVORS WERE FOUND.

AMESTRIS ABANDONED, SET ADRIFT BEYOND REEF.


*** EVENT 4VES-A ***
$ Q
$ DELETE APHEL.REL;*

Mara sits cross-legged in the canopy shade of Riven's wing. She wets the pad of her thumb with the tip of her tongue, then uses the moisture to hold a bundle of fresh-picked asphodelia in place. She ties off the stems with a length of silk-spun gold thread, then begins the mindless busywork of braiding in all the expected accoutrements: a serrated fang, a shotgun shell, a cloudy amethyst crystal…

Riven turns to watch. On this day, her head is the size of a Fallen pike. She is vibrant blue with a yellow and red crest, and her pupils are crescents within her lidless eyes. After a time, she says, "Madadh is dead but you make him no bouquet."

Mara looks up, struck by the novelty of the moment. She studies Riven, and swallows the first words that come to her tongue, which are, Madadh's bones are whispering at this very moment on Venus. Instead, she asks, "You mourn him?"

That crescent-pupil contracts as thin as a sickle's edge. "No."

Having found the true answer, Mara resumes her work. A while passes in silence until she says, "Ahamkara have no traditions."

"No."

"No sentiment."

"No."

Mara bites off a piece of thread. "Why did you allow my brother to spirit you away?"

"You know this truth, wise Queen. He is so full of succulence."

"Mm. And why do you roost here when there is rich hunting beyond my Reef?"

"Truly I say to you"—here Mara hides a small smile—"the Awoken have entrusted What-Will-Be to you their Queen, and thus they are all dry as a stone to me. Pleasantly so, for wetness is sweet feed, but dry stone is a friendly basking-place. You, you are as hot and flat as the plateaus of Mercury, and your heat stirs my blood to move."

Mara nods and says nothing more, though she thinks a while on the three-parted curse used by Ahamkara to mark their prey, the shackle between Appellated and Appalling. When she finishes her memorial bouquet, she unfolds herself and rises to stretch. Riven does the same, and as she relaxes, she spreads and shuffles and shakes her pinions until they all lie straight.

The land around them is shapeless rock that will become an aubade to those left behind; Mara will honor her enemies and friends alike in stone, she will build grand cathedrals veneered in amethyst and agate.

Riven butts her rounded snout under Mara's hand and waits.

"Let us find Kelda," Mara says.

SHE HAS RUINED EVERYTHING!

Such blind arrogance—

WE ARE LOST!

h u r r y

He will recruit them all if we do not act now

W H A T C A N W E D O

Done cannot be undone! Everything is lost!

kill them where they creep and crawl let their bones whisper naught

THE CHILDREN!

t h e y a r e n o t o u r c h i l d r e n

We have no time for sentiment

It is this or we lay ourselves bare before the veil.

NO!

No!

W E M U S T B E F O R E H E T A K E S T H E M A L L

imagine his power

REACH TOGETHER NOW

No, no, no!

that our touch be lethal

Riven!

w e w i l l i t s o

THE DREAMER IS LOST CULL THE REST

that our judgment be true

W E W I L L I T S O

Banshee-44 considered the relic on his workbench and the questions on his mind; one stood out above the rest: who were you meant for?

The form of the weapon suggested an oversized sidearm—a secondary weapon for a giant's hands. The function presented more so as an anti-material rifle. "Looks to be 12.7mm… it's like they were making a hand cannon but didn't know it yet."

Banshee wondered further about the warrior who could wield such a thing. His attention drifted momentarily, drawn by Shaxx's voice booming nearby. "Huh. Yeah. A Titan, maybe… and a big one too."

The weapon was laced with fractures from a life of fire and a sleep of ice, and perhaps other, more exotic stresses. Banshee wished he could've heard the relic's voice, but he knew from earlier examination that it had fired its last round. What a last round it must have been.

The Guardian who brought it to him might be willing to try a shot, untroubled by the risk of a rapid unplanned dismantle. But Banshee knew it wouldn't last through a single magazine.

Beside the relic lay a stripped-down Breachlight. He would adapt it for a larger round. Custom casings and handguard. Sensorium link scope… and he had other ideas to try as well.

It would be an homage, an offering to the creators of the original relic. A legacy.

With that satisfying thought in mind, the gunsmith went to work.

My mother passed away last week. She left me the journals she'd been keeping since the days the walls were being built. She left her father's father's journals from before the City even had walls. They lived long, full lives. Reading about them makes me wish I had seen the City of their times. I was a boy when the Guardians won the battle of Twilight Gap. I've only ever known peace behind the walls, only watched the City grow and thrive. I barely know how to handle a rifle. I work textiles. I make clothes. I want to open a shop to tailor clothing for the Guardians. I don't want to die.

I've been hiding with the resistance for three weeks now, since they found me sleeping in a storm drain. I lost everything in the Cabal attack. All my family's writings. My sister. My son. The Guardians—even without their Light—are defending us. They're showing me how to shoot, how to survive. Every day someone leaves our hideout and never returns. Mas'ouda, Arzu, Brajko, Mitra, Kardelen, and Luca died this week. The Cabal are relentless, and sooner or later they're going to figure out where we're hiding.

There's fifteen of us left, five combat frames, and two Guardians.

I have to survive. Humanity has to survive. It can't end like this.

I don't know who you are. Don't know what school you follow, which side you're on—could be heads, could be tails. Could be the edge. Could be you shoot before the coin lands.

Just know I'll be the one picking it up.

You ever hear the story of the fella who painted bullseyes around his bullet holes? Ol' Drifter's plan is coming together—maybe not as clean as I wanted, maybe without the right folk nearby, but it's happening.

That's why I left this message for you, in a place you wouldn't look if you didn't give a damn. Things are changin'—hell, things have already changed—but Drifter's still a safe bet.

And I've still got plenty of time. Just not as much as I did before.

When the longing to steep in that blessed heat was at its most intoxicating, the reins were pulled taught, and the hammer fell. Fell upon the wretched, fell upon those who would do evil to Sol, fell upon the land baptizing it in fire.

When the smoke cleared, the reins were no more. The fire began to die until there was barely a hammer left among us. The righteous order, those who would shatter stars, dissolved amid the crackling of embers.

When the winds changed, the embers caught and ignited a new flame. That flame swells for those who seek out the destruction lurking in shadows, that they may cleanse it in the sun.

When that flame reaches its zenith, none shall escape its warmth. Arise, all you who carry the hammer! There are yet more suns to break.

Verse 8:5 — Blades

What is the nature of war? Ritual.
What is the nature of ritual? Fascination.

Imitation shapes desire, and Xivu Arath has become its great mediator. She compels those she wars against to war against her, and the object over which they war is existence itself. She takes up her blade, and we take up ours. Xivu Arath cuts at us, and so do we cut at her. We bleed together, mirrored in our pain and violence.

Savathûn looked at us through a veil so that we would not see her. Xivu Arath looks at us through a dark mirror, and she only sees herself.

This is her design, her ultimate mechanism of desire: she would make us into her image. She would cut the entire universe into her image so that she is the only thing left at the end of all things.

Vain and lonely. That is Xivu Arath, bereft of her siblings.

The sword logic is predicated on such imitation. To return Xivu Arath's violence is to embrace it and its beautiful thesis. We are forced to react, again and again, as she makes her advance. We are forced to desire existence at any cost, just as she does.

Fated? Inevitable? No. An ontological trap.

The Warmind knew this, as he could know her the most intimately out of all of us. His escalation did nothing but mirror her endlessly. His self-sacrifice put an end to that font of violence. It was a frustration in her logic that he did so, as Xivu Arath recognizes no sacrifice that does not end in a scream.

But self-sacrifice could not put an end to her war march. Only doubt can do so. And in Xivu Arath's mournful solipsism, she will be left with nothing but that.

Verse 8:4 — The Harbinger

My vile transformation is complete. What was foretold, what was feared, is now true: Eris Morn has given in to the Hive's endless hunger. She has taken up the mantle of a Hive queen and leads vast armies of acolytes into war.

Inevitable. Inimitable. Who else but her? What else but this?

(Ikora believes my transformation was not necessary. It was.)

I hear whispers, but when do I not? They have been with me since the Hellmouth. This is what I am. It cannot be refuted or denied. This is the shape I have chosen for myself: my morph, the Harbinger.

(Ikora believes I will martyr myself. But what martyr walked towards oblivion with a knife in hand? I will not go so serenely.)

In my morph, I am unafraid. In my morph, I wield fear, that earliest of fears: fear of devourment. Since we ourselves were prey, we have felt terror at the gaping maw, at the hunger gazing at us with delight.

I have stared that hunger in the face. I have endured it for too long. Now, I will be the predator. I will devour. I will instill that first fear.

I hunger, but that hunger has always strained against the limitations of my Lightless body. But here, in the Witch Queen's endless hypogeum, that hunger has bloomed. This part of me has erupted from my body as from the earth, like one of those obscene, carnivorous corpse flowers—dark cores swallowing sunlight, plush petals open to death.

Ridiculous. Who would compare hunger to a flower? I do not wait passively for my prey. No—no—it is a worm. A worm I have a desperate urge to feed.

It can be nothing else.

Verse 8:7 — Liminal

My Throne —
Carved to endure by Xivu Arath —
God of Love —

MY COURT IS WAR, AND YOU WILL FIND ME THERE.

I am war, and my throne is deathless.

Come. Cut the outer curtain of my fortress, and it will open its new eye in a bloodless laceration. Cut further to see inside its walls: the yellow fat, the purple viscera, the teeming rust-cut capillaries.

These are the colors of war. THESE ARE THE COLORS OF MY COURT.

My gates open to the most life. The swollen fountains run with blood and burst with arterial spray. The paths are paved with small white teeth. They gnash beneath each footfall, their roots raw and alive.

Look! I have raised cathedrals made of flesh. When a breeze caresses them, they blush and contract, fine hairs sensing the change.

They are worshipped with bare touch. MY THRONE SHUDDERS WITH JOY.

The halls of my palace are echoing throats, slick and filled with breath. Its windows are glazed with skin, opalescent and alive, latticed with blue-black veins.

The seats of my throne are fashioned with living bones. Break them, and you will see their raw, red marrow. Break them, and the wet pith will writhe. Two are knotted with scars: broken and reformed, broken and reformed.

Look out from the terrace and see the worlds we will devour to sustain us. It is a mouth, yawning black and wide and hungering. It is open in screams of base need.

MY COURT IS LOVE, AND YOU WILL MEET ME THERE.

Verse 8:6 — Lacuna

My Navigation —
Sung by Xivu Arath —
Faithful Sister to Oryx —

THE SKY GAVE OUR SISTER STRENGTH FROM FALSE SHAPES.

SHE FELL TO WHAT FELLED YOU, LONELY NAVIGATOR.

THIS IS THEIR LIE: THEIR COMPANIONSHIP IS STRENGTH.

THIS IS OUR TRUTH: THEIR COMPLACENCY DECAYS EXISTENCE.

THEIR DEAD RISE WHEN THEY DESERVE TO DIE!

THEY WILL NOT MEET OUR TRUTH WITH TRUTH!

THUS, THEY DO NOT DESERVE IT.

THEY ARE NOT REAL.

YOU WERE REAL.

YOU WERE TO LAST FOREVER,

OUR UNDYING CREATION.

I WOULD DIE AGAIN TO GIVE YOU STRENGTH.

I WOULD CUT MY WOUND SO THAT YOU MAY STEP THROUGH.

YOU WILL NOT RISE BY FALSE SHAPES,

BUT WITH OUR UNCONDITIONAL VICTORY:

SHE WHO HAS BEEN SCOURED OF THE SKY NOW BRINGS FORTH HER BROOD.

THEY HAVE TAKEN UP YOUR WEAPON, WHICH IS ALL THAT YOU ARE,

AND SHE WILL CONJURE YOU BACK WITH HER UNDERSTANDING.

Verse 8:1 — The Sisters

Thoughts calcify into action, and actions calcify into being. Such is the ontology of Hive magic. Such is the Deck of Whispers that has unfolded beneath my hands.

These cards are curious objects—esoterica manifested by my power and the Guardians' tithes. They have taken on our forms: myself, Savathûn, and Xivu Arath. Our loves and fears, our memories, our desires.

Contemplate me. Contemplate the Hive.

These cards unsettle me. I did not wish to be unveiled so. But perhaps that is the consequence of my transformation: I am seen as I am, beneath my bandage. Beneath my skin.

So, too, are Xivu Arath and Savathûn unveiled. Through these cards, we have found ourselves connected. Dear devoted sisters, and I, inchoate but for the eyes I have stolen.

I have deciphered the meanings of the cards, drawn from them the shapes of their referents. The whispers ask for reflection and meditation, speaking of the paths we have taken and who we have come to be. And so my utterings, alongside those of the two surviving sisters, have taken the form of a new Book of Sorrow: a bound collection of verses sung by their gods and delivered to their brood as scripture.

Now I deliver it to my brood. Now I number among their gods. Aiat.

Verse 8:3 — The Adherent

What I Am —
Uttered by Xivu Arath —
God of Many Shapes —

I AM THE GOD OF SILENCE. I slit a hundred million wailing throats. I watch as their blood scatters like precious stones. Their screams turn to sighs; their sighs turn to silence. I stand among the dead and listen to the absence of sound.

I AM THE GOD OF LOGIC. I shiver in delight to speak the truth because speaking truth is good. I speak my brother's words, the words he cut from the worm god Akka's throat.

I AM THE GOD OF LIFE. I pare dead things from truth, and in this, I find life that cannot be extinguished. I hold that life, nurture it by testing it against myself, by removing the weaknesses that bring death. In this, I embrace life and all its strength.

I AM THE GOD OF LOVE. Any life that can withstand me will be with me at the final shape. There, we will stand together. That life will know me, and I will know it: pared to our true shapes, seeing each other for what we are.

I AM THE GOD OF ALL THAT EXISTS. I have endured while others have not. I am the last surviving sibling. I will stand at the final shape and be the end. I will maintain my existence when nothing else has. I will stand alone.

Verse 8:2 — The Witch

We were the last surviving siblings. That's what this has always been about for Xivu Arath. She wanted us all to survive. She would throw everything she could at us, so we could learn to survive.

Didn't quite work, did it?

My brother's greatest acts of navigation were his metamorphoses. That was his tactic: he would change everything about himself so that he could survive this universe. Meanwhile, my sister cuts the universe apart—makes it as sharp as she—until all that's left is her and her love.

I'm a little bit of both. No need to choose. I don't have my brother's fear or my sister's vanity.

Even in his infinite adaptability, Oryx could not withstand the Guardians. So Xivu Arath wants to prove she can by being as rigid and unyielding as she always has been—no need to fix what isn't broken. Overwhelming force, tactics, and intimidation.

We are who we are, and we chose our morphs carefully. I wanted life. Xivu wanted vengeance and dominion. Oryx wanted to venture out, deep in thought, and feed on the delicacies of truth.

Well, he got what he wanted. Now Oryx knows death more intimately than any of us. No bringing him back.

Poor Xivu's distraught. With all that war and ruin to hide behind, she thinks she doesn't show it. Deep down she believes Oryx must have survived through their logic. She believes he'll be conjured back just like he conjured us.

That was a long time ago. We've moved past that. Despite everything to come, I will live on. With and without them.

Should I say that I miss my siblings? That I miss the times when the threats of death and short lifespan were still with us, when we piloted our needle, when we dove and became what we became?

No. Xivu is the sentimental one. We are not who we were. Who we were no longer exists.

I sound like my brother.

Verse 8:9 — Lament

On Xivu's Mourning —
Sung by Xivu Arath —
Sister to a dead king —

GRIEF. There is no grief. I will not grieve.

FEAR. There is no fear. We do not fear.

PITY. There is no pity. There is nothing to pity.

GRAVE. He will have no grave. We do not dig graves.

ROT. He rots beneath the waves.

Verse 8:8 — Ascension

My sorry, sad, inculcated sister. She thinks she's as honest as a knife's edge just because she never speaks a lie aloud. But she's prone to contradiction, at least since our beloved brother fell.

She could never quite understand it—someone as mighty as Oryx brought down by liars, his bloodline destroyed, his corpse left to desiccate in Saturn's orbit. Xivu Arath actually believed that Dreadnought of his was unassailable, but Oryx knew that he had limits: more than once, he took the power of our deaths to defeat something stronger than himself.

She's just bitter she wasn't there to die for him again.

She says she's the god of death, but I've seen her throne. It's a mausoleum for life with all the close, cloying comfort of a birthing room, wet and raw and filled with disgusting effluvia. I imagine it reminds her of our gardens so long ago, and all the things that grew there.

She really shouldn't be so nostalgic.

There was a game we played when we were young: Swords and Lanterns. Sathona held the lantern, while Xi Ro held the sword. Sathona would search for her hidden sister, and Xi Ro would avoid the lantern's light. If Xi Ro touched Sathona with her sword, she would win. If Sathona found Xi Ro with her lantern, she would win.

Sathona devised the rules, but Xi Ro would let her sister find her.

I still give her presents, too, of course. I gave her Torobatl! My gift to my last surviving sibling. She gobbled it up so greedily, she didn't even consider how it proved her precious logic false.

What kind of thing is a gift? The Deep doesn't like gifts. Neither does the logic. But we're sisters: I thought I'd be nice, and share.

Xivu was too busy to notice that little contradiction. She never even thanked me.

What did she say, as soon as she set foot on Torobatl? "FOR AS LONG AS YOU HAVE WORSHIPPED WAR, YOU HAVE WORSHIPPED ME." Aiat, aiat. That was Torobatl. I know a joke in a dead language: aiēbat.

Now in time Uldren Queensbrother returned to the Reef with a new creature. He had killed it twice in ambush, he said, to be certain it could not die. It had once been an Awoken man, and, recognizing it, Mara turned away from her plans for the Dreaming City and watched it coolly.

"It is a Guardian," she said. "Once it was Chao Mu." He had left the Reef alone, knowing that he could never return or see his family again, to repair a failing climate controller in what had once been Earth's Gobi breadbasket. He had said he could not bear to watch the world wither.

"Bow before the Queen," Uldren said, giving him a shove.

The Awoken man looked at him, then back at Mara. "Your Majesty," he said, bowing. "My name is Savin."

"You do not remember your wives?"

He did not.

"You do not remember your child, who is now a hundred and ten?"

He did not.

"You do not remember your passion, which was the insulation of minutely sensitive detectors from all but the most specific and subtle radiations?"

He did not, except that he said he could touch magnetic fields and loved to tweak the miniscule weave of the circuits in his robe. He had a zoogoer's enthusiasm for particle physics.

"To what do you owe your loyalty?"

"Your Majesty," Savin-who-was-Chao-Mu said, "my Ghost told me that I am a Guardian of the Traveler, reborn in its Light. I was not a day old when your brother waylaid me."

And he caused to appear from his body a machine like a sphere cradled in a broken cube, which bobbed impertinently and blinked at the Queen. "You'll make an enemy of the City and every Guardian in it if you keep us against our will," the machine warned them. "But we would gladly be your allies, if you desire it. The City has no idea of your existence, except faint myths among the Awoken on Earth."

"Does it speak for you?" the Queen challenged Savin-who-was-Chao-Mu.

"I speak for myself," Savin-who-was-Chao-Mu answered. "Behold!" And he drew forth from the quantum vacuum a shrieking singularity, which he held between his hands and then telescoped down into nothing.

"Are you intrinsically good?" the Queen asked.

"I hope so," he answered. The Queen knew this was a lie or a misapprehension. She was aware of the Risen and the cruel fiefdoms they had sometimes enabled. However, perhaps the Ghosts that had made the Risen were destroyed or became enlightened.

Now the Queen asked the Techeuns to assess the differences between the Chao Mu they remembered and this Savin returned as a Guardian of the Traveler, using their most sensitive physical and psychological tests. Most of all, though, the Queen was curious about the reaction of her Ahamkara, which had begun to salivate, and to assume a form more like the Guardian expected: monstrous and befanged.

But her brother whispered urgently to her, "We must know how to kill it, Mara. There are more every day."

Savin the Guardian showed a tremendous fondness for doing things; he had a pathologically task-oriented nature, which made him very useful to the Reef. Yet there was always the sense that his Ghost was watching, observing, reporting. And Savin was most of all greedy—not in the grasping manner of the petty, but in an enormous, all-consuming way, for he desired materials and experiences that would temper him into a better Guardian, and he was always experimenting with his strange powers in foolish ways that left him briefly dead, seeking "a new Super ability" or "some way to make my grenades faster." He grew tired of performing trivial tasks about the Reef, complaining that the dangerous repairs he made were endless and boring, and that he wanted to move on to new worlds. He leapt into space, repeatedly and without reason, as if his death were no more traumatic than a hop off a curb. Obsessed with reward and efficiency, he would rather do one profitable thing a thousand times than waste his efforts on a less beneficial novelty.

By the end of her acquaintance with Savin, Mara had decided she did not like this Traveler and what it did to people. Yet she had also decided that she felt a strange kinship and sympathy for it, this cornered, desperate god, making infinite sacrifices out of its people.

Perhaps the Earth would be better off if the Traveler vanished or was destroyed, she thought. Even in the Reef, she felt as if she were living next to a torch held up in a dark wilderness, calling out across the galaxy to hungry things with too many eyes.

The Fulminator noticed a difference in her fellow Shadows as they prepared for war.
The usual bickering, fostered by the multispecies makeup of Calus's enforcer group, vanished overnight as they faced the task they had gathered to complete: kill Dominus Ghaul.

Calus had recruited them through bribery or promises of wealth and resources for their homeworlds. None of them expected to survive their mission. The might of the Red Legion had grown vast. This acceptance brought them together.

The Fulminator didn't understand, or care. As long as Calus left the Arkborn to their interstellar conduits, she would do what she had done since the day she came aboard the Leviathan: destroy the enemies of the emperor.

Your reassimiliation into the empires is likely to be cause for concern. You'll understand that it will come with some preconditions. After all, we can't have it appear that I've played favorites. But there's no cause for alarm; your reeducation is merely a formality.

While I may forgive you, the rest of the empire will need some time. It's important to show the people how you have changed. It won't be forever, just however long it takes to earn your place at my side once more.

"This Bond is yours. For the day you ignite the spark that casts the Shadow of Earth." —Emperor Calus



I'll require a Shadow of your Guardian-tribe to transcribe the runes emblazoned inside the Crown of Sorrow—change them to something more beneficial for Emperor Calus. And disrupt the witch's schemes.

Oh.

She thinks I can't hear her.

Well, I can't hear her words. [Ha.]

But her intent. Her feeling. I know it. She's here.

She means to undermine me with the Crown. We shall wear it just the same.

As soon as we can fix it. Don't worry about what happened to Gahlran. We've learned since then. We shall find a more suitable host for the Crown.

Oh, not me. Never me. Your Emperor has enough crowns to last a hundred thousand generations.

Perhaps one of your Titans would be hearty enough…

But the witch. The witch is troublesome. I preferred her brother to her. Oryx would have been easy to match. The brute force of the Taken would have been easy to conquer with fat grown from strength. They would have joined my new Empire gladly. Because their greatest desire is subservience.

Alas. One day, the witch and I shall crash. What will you do, then? You've made a choice before, between the Vanguard who raised you and the peasant, shell of a man who tempted you with power he barely understands.

If you truly care about this system, about the people of your City, you shall help me, Guardian of the Warlock-tribe.

Wear this bond, and proclaim your fealty.

It's a promise that you'll work to purify the Crown of Sorrow in a way only a Guardian of your tribe can.

As soon as we figure out how. Help me.

Help me grow fat from strength.

—Emperor Calus

Baron Kalliks looked down on Nessus from the command deck of his Ketch, watching with suspicion.

"There is something down there," Kalliks said darkly. "The Vex respond to it. The entire planet responds to it."

The Vandal at his side looked at him, expecting a command. Kalliks narrowed his eyes, then turned to the console beside him.

He had heard the older Eliksni of his House speak of the "Great Machine," their voices full of hissed venom at its mention. Something had erupted from it, and House Dusk scavengers had seen the arc of light that trailed down to Nessus.

How, then, to proceed?

The Vanguard's comms were near-impenetrable, but the Eliksni had scraped one word from them: "anomaly."

Kalliks drew one claw over the surface of the console's screen, over the strings of data flashing across it. Orbital changes. Seismic disturbances. And worse, a surge of Guardians crawling through the Vex tunnels, likely stealing vital information. That pathetic AI in its broken body of a ship had begun sending teams of those machine-spawn on tactical operations. It had jammed House comms and disrupted their scavenging, wasting lives and resources.

The Eliksni Baron turned sharply. The Dregs behind him jumped to attention under his gaze, then bowed with their two remaining arms outstretched, clacking their mandibles nervously.

"Ready the cages," Kalliks called out. "Arm the mines!" The Dregs scurried out of the room to obey his command.

"What is your plan?" the Vandal at his side asked. Kalliks put one hand on the barrel of his scorch cannon.

"Capture Vex, break apart their minds, and find out what they know. Look for the ones with rounded heads, or with the light around their necks. They'll have what we need. This thing, this 'anomaly'… We will find it first."

"There are many Hunters who are unsung heroes. Many are unnamed. Many are known only by a glint of metal half a mile away and the crack that echoes across the canyon after their enemy falls. Others are known only by a muffled cry and the flash of a knife in the dark.

"Warlocks and Titans have their orders, but that is not our way. Hunters walk apart, separate from each other as much as from other Guardians. That is our way.

"And yet we share traditions. We share stories. We share… secrets.

"Killing is a dangerous and dirty business, be it from as far as an angel's perch or as close as a lover's embrace.

"When you get close, you need something like this.

"Unsung. Unnamed. Unseen.

"Remember these words. Repeat them to whoever follows you."

—Words of an unidentified Hunter, overheard as the Assassin's Cowl was passed to another unidentified Hunter

Ghaul spent too much time in too close communion with those I had humbled. No good would come of those hushed tones and sidelong glances. Did he think I would not notice?

I dispatched a spy to follow him. To think that I felt guilt in that moment; one should never doubt their gut when it comes to trust in another.

I realize now what I should have realized then. As I am like no other, then no other is alone as I. What a curse it is to be a god that loves!

PUBLIC KEY 053 689 DWS REGAL
FROM: PLDN KAMALA RIOR [PLDN CMD TF 5.3]
TO: ACT RGNT PETRA VENJ
SUBJECT: PRISON OF ELDERS – CONTAINMENT RISK

MESSAGE IS:

1. Contingency reserves overdrawn. We underestimated nobility troth reparations. Uldren suggests that we open reintegration talks. Have you discussed endowment support?

2. If Reef endorses support, Paladin Oran will engineer reinforcement.

MESSAGE ENDS

Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

Sloane deftly maneuvered across the open ocean floor. Together with her Ghost, she'd chased the Pyramid's signals across Titan, but arrived too late at each coordinate site. They'd encountered nothing more than further wounds in the fabric of reality; slivered glimpses into moments held in Titan's memory. Occasionally, discarded Shrieker cores littered a site—evidence of a ritual gone cold, but not so cold that Síocháin couldn't detect figments of resonant residue that drove her scanners haywire.

More than once, Sloane had found a clutch of disoriented Fallen scattered around these wounds, some in a stupor, most driven violently mad. Síocháin said their brain patterns were fractured—synapses burnt into conflicting circuited loops—as if their collection of experiences had been dissected and left disparate and apart.

But Sloane felt drawn, across the barren seafloor, to each new site shrouded in sunless shadow. Something cut through that Dark. Guided her. As if she drafted behind a rogue wave.

"We're almost to the next site," Síocháin said.

"Let's pick it up." The methane flowed over Sloane's armor in a slick, slipstream current that left a long tail of particulate floating in her wake, agitated by oxygen bubbles spurting from her mask. Síocháin followed close behind, sweeping the area with light beams that dissipated over vast, featureless depths.

"Resonant Pyramid energy, neutrino dispersals, and some kind of… quantum entangling? That's the best I can make of it," Síocháin said, razor blades deployed. "The Pyramid's moving again."

***

The site seemed quiet on the surface. Sloane glanced over a sea cliff and tapped Síocháin, who had been leering out at the expansive of dark ocean as if she was tracking something.

"You ready?"

The Ghost turned to Sloane and hesitantly tilted her shell into a nod.

They killed their lights, allowing the bio-luminescent coral around them to illuminate the path down to a newly split-open gorge infested with Taken corruption. Sloane swapped her visor to a thermal targeting overlay and slipped over the edge of the chasm. Tendrils of Taken malignance flowed from the split ground beneath her, dancing in the methane like noxious filaments. The fissure looked large enough for her to finagle her suit through safely.

Sloane glanced over her shoulder and held up a hand to Síocháin. "Watch my back… from a distance."

"Uh, no. I can fight," she bit back defiantly. "Fallen, Hive, and Taken are all over this sector."

"Lie low on this one. If something goes wrong, it can't go wrong with you. Get me?"

She landed in a small cavern where a tangle of Taken threads writhed around a decrepit Hive sigil of resilient witchcraft. Whispers spewed from the sigil, wrapped around her mind, coaxed her forward. She reached a hand toward the sigil, and methane burst around her like depth charges as Taken blights manifested a small detachment of soldiers.

Sloane spun, her fists crackling with lightning—her fingers weaving her Arc Light safely through the methane around her. She charged the first of three blights, thruster-dodging incoming fire pinged by her HUD. She broke through the blight screen, planted her feet, and threw a lightning punch like a gauss cannon, atomizing the Taken and the blight itself. Her power suit carried her fulgurate fists from hostile to hostile in rising, truculent battle-fervor.

When the cavern quieted, Sloane turned back to the sigil and called Síocháin down. "I can… hear the Taken through this sigil… thing. It's like they're broadcasting out loud. Not in words but… their proximity, like sonar. Can you tap into it?"

Síocháin's concerned response was muffled by an intrusive thought echoing from somewhere far off, circling the sea around her and draining off into her mind.

|Take|

|Live|

Sloane thought of the ocean shelves crawling with the Pyramid's minions, their rituals and corruption sinking deeper into Titan's mantle by the day. Of the armies they threatened to summon, of what they searched for in the deep.

She thought of the Fallen who had no way to flee, shocked into madness by the reality-wounding waves that swept over Titan like a grey-matter line. A terminator of experience, via suspension within it. With this foreknowledge of her enemies' plans, maybe she could be a step ahead of dusk.

|Take|

|Live|

Sloane stepped forward, dazed—her mind drowning in the ocean's dangers—and gripped the sigil. The rippling Taken energy immediately backfired in a blinding burst of energy.

"No!" Síocháin dove forward in horror as Taken tendrils twisted around Sloane's armor and dragged her to the ground.

"SLOANE!"

As tendrils buried themselves into her flesh, Sloane heard a new voice, clear as sirens in a storm.

WARRIOR OF THE SKY.

YOU ARE KNOWN TO ME.

I ACCEPT YOUR CHALLENGE.

I.

Saladin remembers what it was like to be young. He remembers the exhilaration of discovering the infinite power he now holds in his hands. He remembers the terror, too—his first death and the agony of a ruptured lung. His mouth had been too full of blood to form words or plead with his Ghost, so he tried with his eyes instead.

Saladin remembers his second death because it was quicker than his first: a wrong step in a minefield outside of what used to be a city called Nur-Sultan. He laughed when his Ghost reassembled him. Then, he cried.

Saladin remembers deaths three through sixty-five but does not dwell on them. Instead, he regrets the thousands of hours of sleep lost to nightmares, and how much less vibrant his recollection of that period in his life is compared to his noble centuries spent as an Iron Lord.

Saladin remembers the day he stopped counting deaths. "Something about you is different," Jolder had said, and put her hand on his.

Saladin remembers all this and more when he looks at the Crow. He feels rage form a hot pit in his belly when Osiris tells him about the young Lightbearer's suffering at the hands of his fellow Guardians. Osiris asks him if he can keep a secret.

"I don't like secrets," Saladin says, and that's the end of it.

Vrisk had been lying under his crewmate's corpse for the better part of an hour. His body ached from lack of Ether, but he dared not pull from his rebreather for fear of discovery.

Besides, if he survived, there would be enough to sate his hunger a dozen times over.

He and Krilix had been calibrating the landing struts on the crew's Ketch when the ambush hit. A long-range scout rifle slug punched through Krilix in the opening salvo, ripping a fist-sized hole in his chest. He fell on top of Vrisk in a heap of gore as a barrage of gunfire rained down on their position.

Vrisk could have shrugged off the Wretch's body and seized his Arc Spear to retaliate. Instead, he simply lay beneath his dying crewmate and let the battle play out.

After the shooting stopped, Vrisk listened to their assailants ransack the ship. A mix of guttural Cabal barks and familiar Eliksni chatter marked them as a competing crew, eager to claim the bounty set forth by the reawakened Shipstealer.

But Vrisk knew what their attackers did not: the relic they sought was not on the Ketch, or even on this planet. It was hidden in a safehouse deep within the asteroid belt beyond Mars. Once Vrisk found the courage to emerge from his hiding place, he would take the relic to Eramiskel himself and claim the reward for his own.

But there was time for that. For now, the Dreg let the weight and warmth of his dead companion press him into a peaceful slumber, where he dreamed of better days to come.

Jacob Hardy's Journal
Project Ares One (FKA Catamaran)
Path to Ares: Launch Day +1

We're 24 hours late.
I've never seen the crew in such a crappy mood.

It was so… stupid. An electrical fire in a clubhouse stairwell. One minute Evie's putting some final touches on her calculations and was headed off to do a telecast about the effect of flash erosion on coastal tides, and the next…

We didn't even notice she was gone.

We learn about cascading events, how catastrophe comes from one thing stacking onto another.

A fried electrical system. A weak sprinkler. Smoke. No one else paying attention. A spill in in the stairwell, making the steps slippery.

Our safe cocoon became a deathtrap.

…

Of course we're still going.

But Evie put us here. And now we're going to meet the Traveler without her.

The truth is I know I'll lose myself in the amazement of it all. I will. I know it. But just remember I felt this way.

One more thing. They've given us guns and renamed us. Something about needing to be ready for the worst.

"You want to go where?" Drifter's jumpship idles roughly behind him, the engine misfiring and clattering loudly as if ready to explode. Eris's ship purrs next to it in contrast.

"There is a connection between the points of Darkness. Signals passing back and forth to something beyond." Eris steps closer so her voice carries over the engine noise. "The other Pyramids may provide more context."

The Drifter clicks his tongue and raises and eyebrow. "Sounds a mite dangerous with big daddy Calus parking right over the Moon? Seems off limits."

"Yes, but the Guardian leads raiding parties into Rhulk's Pyramid in Savathûn's throne world. We will use that distraction."

And with that, Eris shoulders through him and trudges to her ship. "Come, Rat."

"…Can we eat first?"

***

Explosions thunder within the throne world's Pyramid as Eris and Drifter establish a camp in the sunken bog where Miasma meets the Pyramid's approach. The massive ship eclipses them, towering in fog, the extent of its edges unknown to their eyes.

Drifter's face is stern, clenched with a tension Eris has seldom seen: Trust in one hand, fist full of Stasis in the other.

Eris sets a cloth-wrapped stalk of egregore upon a pyramid-shard jutting from the stinking swamp. She unwraps and neatly spreads the corners of the cloth before noticing the Drifter's footsteps behind her.

"Somethin's watchin' us," Drifter mutters. He turns to his altered Ghost and whispers softly enough to convince himself that Eris cannot hear him, "Keep your eye on her, eh?" Then louder, "I'm gonna look around, make sure that hotshot hero didn't miss any Screebs."

The Drifter's altered Ghost emits a single elongated tone in acknowledgement and then focuses on Eris.

"Germaine."

He stops. Eris knows his concern belies a nobility that he often attempts to suppress in favor of the persona of the Drifter. It is a ruddy shield, but she has seen the true him hidden under that that layer of grime.

"May I… have a light?"

"You got it." He discharges a Solar round from his Trust that sparks on the Pyramid floor and ignites the egregore stalk. "Back in a flash."

Eris watches him disappear into the swamp, then focuses on the pluming egregore.

***

Eris sits, exhausted, on a warm cushion in the dirt. The Drifter stands over a hazardously large fire, scooping some sweet-smelling funk of a stew from a cauldron-like vessel of Hive design. Her face scrunches as he places a chunky bowl of thick greyish-brown potage in her hands.

"What'd you find?" Drifter asks, slurping from his bowl.

Eris tests the temperature and flavor of this "food" against her lips. It is something like the stinking brined cheeses Ikora had given her on her last visit to the City, but with earthy depth beneath. Her face curls and she opts instead for conversation. "I was right; they are connected. But now, I only have more questions."

"You ask me, that's how these things go. Better leave well enough alone and head home," Drifter says, slurping another mouthful.

"The egregore connects points of Darkness, resonates with Pyramid constructs, but I cannot decipher their communications. Still… the Lunar Pyramid, the Europan Pyramid, and both Glykon and Leviathan all converse with the same distant point. What Rhulk spoke to, so does Calus. It is… gravely concerning."

"Wild," Drifter says with a whistle. He shakes his head and looks at her full bowl. "You gonna eat that?"

"I…" Eris wonders if he heard her correctly but knows repeating herself is an exercise in futility. "…What is this? Exactly?"

"Pretty damn tasty is what it is. First time I got it right. Thought you'd appreciate someone cooking for you since you, uh… well, you're awful at it."

"Rat, what are you feeding me?" She remembers his hunt earlier in the day, and her stomach turns. Eris stares at the Drifter, mouth agape in a half-heaved gag—her thoughts racing over the things he's claimed to have consumed. "You cooked me rotted Screebs."

"What?!" Drifter chokes on the stew and coughs. "I wouldn't feed you that crap, Moondust." He laughs. "You never had crawdad stew?" He holds his bowl to his lips. "Or a close cousin to it…" he adds under his breath. "Little swamp shrimps, you dig? It's a delicacy!"

Eris reels her imagination in, takes a breath, and sips the broth without taking her eyes from the Drifter. The liquid fills her crumpled stomach with hearty warmth. She feels her stress melt away. The stew's flavor is far more pleasing than its smell. She smiles and drinks again.

"Thank you. It is… good."

Devrim was surrounded as soon as he arrived in Neu Turbach. Villagers patted him on the arms, children tugged at his fatigues, and homemade treats were stuffed into his pockets. Each one thanked him in their own way.

Eventually the village leader, Joacham, led him to a small homestead. A spread of tea and sweet pastries were laid out. Devrim was honored—tea and sugar were rare commodities this far from the City.

"We expect another offensive in the coming weeks," Devrim advised. "We suggest you start preparing immediately."

Joacham grinned. "We have been preparing ever since the last attack. We now have trip wires, barricades, and even an auto turret!"

Devrim's chest swelled with pride. It was not long ago that he'd taught these same villagers to defend themselves against Shadow Legion captors. At the time, he'd wondered whether they would last the winter. Now, they were stronger than ever.

"Would you like to see the upgrades?" Joacham offered.

Devrim beamed. "Nothing would make me happier."

"The Song is the antithesis. The Song is destruction. The failure to master the harmonies of life has birthed the anti-creation—the sullen frequencies of ruin. Those sweet melodies carry with them more than death—a rending of spirit and mind, a flaying of the physical self till nothing remains.

"The beauty of the cascading notes. The imperfect inflection of their tune… There has ever been, and will ever be, art in creation. So too in the act of annihilation—erasure and bittersweet finality. This is the Song's truest gift…

"In its wake, once the echoes have rung their last, there is only silence and the grand splendor of nothingness.

"Thus is the Song an end, and those who join its Choir are death, and nothing more."

—Unknown

Chapter 1: Out for Delivery

Voronin nearly dropped the munitions he was carrying, which would have been a disaster for everyone in the vicinity. Certainly not as bad as whatever calamity they were prepping for, but bad enough to warrant the panic that coursed through his body. He hated these kinds of assignments.

"Hey, Morozova!" Voronin called out to his ranking officer between heavy gasps. "Any idea where all these are going?"

Morozova carefully placed her container on the ground, as if she was laying a child to bed. "No clue. Word just came from on high to double-time it, though. Something about Titan has got everyone spooked."

Voronin removed his helmet and wiped the sweat from his brow. Titan? What the hell happened out there? Comms had been spotty and the orders that did get through were light on details: Procure munitions. Transpo munitions to coordinates provided. Stockpile munitions. Repeat. No HMMWVs either. This was meant to be low profile, staying off the roads.

Where was all this firepower going, and what were we going to do with it when it got there? Voronin picked up his container and his pace.

He trudged just shy of a click behind Morozova for what felt like hours. These containers were cumbersome and it was the height of the driest summer he could remember.

When they reached their destination, they received a cursory greeting from Bykov, who was busy compiling a list of all the deliverables. Two soldiers, whom Voronin didn't recognize, were placing the containers in the mouth of a shaft that protruded from the ground. One punched in a command and the shipment vanished below the surface with a hollow pneumatic "whoomp."

"Where does that go?" Voronin asked. Bykov's brows drew together and his expression hardened. He returned to his list.

"Ready for the next round?" Morozova posed with more spunk than Voronin could muster in a year.

"If we must."

The sky grew gray, and clouds formed overhead as they left. Procure, repeat.

AGAIN.

Sok'tol, Fifth of the Light, felt flame surge through his body as he was resurrected.

He became aware of many things at once: the altar beneath him. The roaring of Acolytes. The powerful grip on his shoulders, which even now began to crack under the pressure.

Above him, a trio of Wizards held his Ghost tight, its bleached shell ensnared by ebony tendrils of controlling spellcraft. It pulled against the bonds but could do nothing but look down at him helplessly.

SING OF HER LIES. SPEAK OF HER TRUTHS.

The voice was everywhere. As Sok'tol strained to sit up, something slammed him down, pounding his chitinous skull into the stone again and again. He screeched as the bony frill surrounding his face splintered and snapped loose. He felt his jaw dislodge, felt his own teeth crush against his face, felt himself crack and shatter.

Blackness. And then—

AGAIN.

As his shell knit and restored soulfire flowed anew, Sok'tol, Fifth of the Light, shuddered awake.

The Acolytes roared again. They crowded the altar, surrounded by a haze of green. Sok'tol peered upward at the Ogre pinning him against the altar.

It tightened its grip on his shoulders, claws crackling with wrathful energy. It shook its massive head, crowned in an emerald corona, and bellowed in a voice that was not its own:

YOUR STRENGTH BECOMES MINE. AS WILL HERS. SPEAK.

Sok'tol concentrated the Light in his armored hand and began to form a grenade, but the shrieking Acolytes reached forward and tore his fingers apart in their claws.

Sok'tol bared his teeth and hissed up at the Ogre, whose eyes rolled with fury as a blast of soulfire erupted from its mouth. Sok'tol opened his jaws to howl as he was obliterated.

Blackness. And then—

AGAIN.

IV:

Spider's operative within Dead Orbit is a man named Howe who sounds truly terrified to receive a direct call from his covert employer.

Spider buries his real desire within a long list of weapons and ammunition, but Howe still manages to single it out.

"Did you say number eighty-nine on manifesto Dove 15?"

"I do not believe I stuttered."

"But that's… it's so old. Pre-Golden Age, we think. Linde's best guess is that it was part of a moving art exhibit."

"You tell me nothing I do not already know."

"But… why do you want it?"

Spider might have let the man live, up until now.

A pity, really.

"All you need to know is how much I will pay you if you bring it to me."

"All right," Howe says dubiously. "Give me a hundred hours."

"You have forty."

Spider ends the call, and begins the process of wiping it from the records.

Six days since arrival.

Metal groans. Power lines hum. Things skitter in the pipes.

Yaraskis picks her way through rubble with a double armload of scrap. She's finally growing out of Drekh scale, lower arms regrown all the way down to her talons, but she's still slight enough to duck through the smallest shafts of their new home.

An orbital station, ancient and damaged, but fixable, everyone thinks. The station hasn't been inhabited for a very long time, but Yaraskis catches herself looking over her shoulder repeatedly.

Her spine prickles as an eerie mechanical voice speaks above her head; some old message for Humans, Karrho said. Nothing to worry about. But… unsettling all the same.

It's a relief to get to the workshop. She kicks at the doorframe. "Scrap delivery."

Karrho is smaller than Yaraskis, still true Drekh. Even so, people pay attention to him because he hatched with eight eyes. That means he's handsome, one-in-a-million lucky. And he's sharp. He was in on the plan from the beginning. Yaraskis only got tapped because she's his egg-cousin.

Karrho gestures without looking up from his screens. "Put it anywhere."

The workshop is one of the creepier rooms on the station, in Yaraskis's opinion. It's filled with metal tables bolted to the floor. They had had to clear out a whole pile of empty Vex bodies before the room was usable. Yaraskis tries not to touch anything as she sets down her bundle.

"What are you working on?"

"Analyzing some old mechanical blueprints. If we can splice into the systems, there's as much to use up here as down on the surface. And there aren't any Vex up here. No Hive. No Lightbearers."

"No Kells," Yaraskis says firmly.

"No Kells." Karrho adds, "Plenty of Ether if these blueprints hold true, though. There's this machine. It's in two parts—one collects energy, one uses it. We just need the collector for the Servitors, and we're set for life."

He tilts one of the screens her way.

Ether for life, up here in the cold dark. It makes everything worth it, the overwhelming feeling of fear as they escaped from Europa, the careful navigation around the hazards on the station as they work to make it livable.

And yes, Yaraskis might get shooed out of engineering meetings she doesn't understand, but nobody will cut off her arms for insubordination.

She flexes her lower hands and leans in to study their future.

Eido recoiled as the spindly claws of the Splicer Gauntlet snapped and jerked. When her father wore it, the damned thing always moved smoothly, as if it were his own fingers. But attached to the end of her arm, it seemed possessed by a life of its own.

Misraaks's considerable patience was beginning to wear thin. "No, Eido, no. Splicing is not about thinking. It is about feeling. Feel the energy flow from the ground, through your legs, up your torso, and out through your arm." His arms wove circular patterns in the air, as if gently wafting smoke upwards. "The movement of the Gauntlet is the continuation of a motion that begins deep in the heart of the planet, where it keeps its Light."

Eido sighed. Misraaks was intent on passing the Way of the Splicer to his daughter, but after three days of attempts without the barest signs of success, they were both becoming frustrated. Eido was eager to learn—to live up to her father's skills—but the harder she tried, the more violently the Gauntlet seemed to reject her.

Eido took several deep breaths and extended her mind's eye through the ground, deep into the well of Light at the center of the planet. She followed the Light through the firmament, up through her body, and into the Gauntlet. It whirred smoothly to life.

"Yes, just so," Misraaks encouraged her. "Now feel the Light extend from the Gauntlet into the Shank. Feel its code lying dormant. It is sleeping, waiting for you to wake it."

Eido extended the Gauntlet. A surge of energy shot forth from its claws, sending crackles of electricity rippling across the Shank's surface. In her shock, Eido jerked the Gauntlet away, which severed the connection. The electricity sparked for an instant longer, then went still. A small plume of smoke issued forth from deep within the Shank. Eido didn't need to Misraaks to tell her that she had just fried the main circuit net.

Misraaks took a moment to compose himself before speaking. "This is a good lesson. When one focuses on the metal, the form of the machine, and not—"

"Misraakskel. Father," Eido interrupted. "This is not… I don't want…" She fought her emotions for control of her voice. Misraaks waited for his daughter to compose herself.

"I am not a Splicer," she finally said. "I'm certain of it. I know this is a disappointment to you but—the Gauntlet has spoken." She pulled the spiteful mechanism off her arm and held it out.

Misraaks took it reluctantly. "I am sorry that you will not follow me in the Way of the Splicer. However," he continued, "it is a far greater thing to know what you are and what you are not." He lifted all four of his palms toward her as a sign of respect. "Self-knowledge is the rarest skill of all, and not commonly found in one so young."

Eido was filled with relief and gratitude for her lesson.

IV.

Saladin remembers the simple pleasure of sharing a meal with friends. He remembers Radegast hanging the deer upside down by its hind legs, and how swiftly Perun used her knife to skin it.

He remembers Jolder tending the fire with wood cut by her favorite axe: a mighty thing fashioned from steel and embellished with engravings of laughing wolves. It had been a gift from a blacksmith whose son Jolder effortlessly plucked out of the frozen river several winters before.

"Putting an arrow through its heart is the easiest part," she'd teased him. "Now you get to sit back and watch the rest of us do the real work."

Saladin remembers helping anyway, using Jolder's axe to section off a flat piece of juniper to smoke the meat. He remembers the sound and smell of bubbling fat, and how rich the drippings had tasted when he soaked them in bread.

He remembers Radegast asking him to sing the song taught to them by the people of the blacksmith's village, but agreeing only when Jolder and Perun promised to join in. Their voices rose like wolves in the night and were so raw by morning that none of them could speak.

Saladin remembers all this and more when Zavala tells him Amanda has taken the Crow out to drink in the City's streets. He wonders what song they'll sing, if it's anything like the one he's heard everyone humming lately—even though he hasn't tried it himself.

I never found Osiris, but I've killed enough Vex to end a war. And they, in turn, struck a fatal blow: they completed a Mind with the sole function to drain the Light from me. It worked very well.

Don't worry (not that you worry much). It took them centuries to build, keyed to the unique frequency of my Light. And I sit atop its shattered husk.

I mourn that I will never reach the heights you have. To me, you represent everything a Guardian can become. Yours is a thriving City. So different from mine. My whole fourteenth life I fought to make my City yours. I never finished.

All I have left is this weapon. The Cryptarchs say you crafted it yourself, built it out of scraps and Light and sheer will, inside the Infinite Forge. I'll make sure it finds its way back to you. When you gave it to me, I swore I would make it my duty to follow your example.

I'm still trying.

—Saint-14

Compartmentalization. Isolate the pieces of a network, so that 1) each subnet may operate independently, and 2) any harm that befalls one subnet will not necessarily befall the rest. The Vex learned this lesson well. Many subnets, many equations, all executing toward the same answer: convergence. They gambled that eventually, one of their subnets will achieve it. Speaking in purely mathematical terms, it's a very safe bet.

In that conceptual framework, you see how the Forest, "infinite" in so many ways, is still only a small fraction of the Vex's true capabilities. Imagine the decimal two-point-one repeating. Its precise value is incalculably infinite, and yet you know that beyond its irrational depths waits two-point-two. Two-point-three. Two-point-four…

Light forgets, Darkness remembers.

Caiatl wonders what waits inside the Traveler. She's heard the stories from Red Legion defectors about how it swallowed Ghaul like a warbeast choking down a bone.

"He's still in its belly," a Valus on her War Council once told her, and Saladin Forge had made a breathy sound through his nose that Caiatl interpreted as laughter.

That was days ago. Now she stands on the bridge of her ship, wondering what of Ghaul remains, the Traveler's glow reflected in the black of her eyes and the ornamental jewelry she wears on her tusks. She does not feel the pull of it, as she imagines Ghaul did, or even Saladin's quiet reverence. It is not a thing to be conquered or worshipped, but it is important to the people who are important to her—and that is all that matters.

When she hears footsteps behind her, she does not turn. She already knows whom they belong to.

"I did not request your counsel," she says without reprimand. "But if you have something to say, then speak."

"Must I always have some wisdom for you?" Saladin asks. "Can't we simply await the end together in comfortable silence?"

"Your worth is your wisdom. It's the only reason I let you live."

Saladin makes that noise again. He knows that isn't true.

And so does she.

RECORD: 7932L745$LUN-1.230 [RECUSAL MIRROR RECORD]
IDENTITIES: David Pell, Dr. Luli Henson, Commander Kuang Xuan
LOCATION: K1 Dig Site 1, Crew Quarters, Commander's Quarters
THREAT DETECT: Level 4, 5, 9, 10—Psychosis [Dangerous], Possible Exotic, Crew Impairment, Protocol Incompliance
[REVISED DETECT]: Level 3, 4, 6, 10—Confirmed Exotic, Psychosis [Dangerous], Crew Impairment, Protocol Incompliance
THREAT RESPONSE: Audit Exotic Influence, Mirror Files, Recusal Review, Threat Review
[REVISED RESPONSE]: Exhibit Record 755, FILE//REPORT TO RASPUTIN


"No! I have to talk to her!"

"I'm sorry, Commander. Too much time with the transceiver. David just needs some rest."

"I do not!"

"He and I were just talking about that."

"You mean you were trying to stick a needle in me!"

"David, stop."

"No! Don't touch me! She doesn't get it, Commander! She doesn't understand! She doesn't listen to it like I do. She doesn't know how helpful it can be."

"It's all right, Henson. Let David talk. See? No one's going to make you do anything you don't want to."

"She's trying to make me sleep, but I don't sleep anymore. I dream when I'm awake now."

"Me too, sometimes. It's okay."

"It's better than okay. It's brilliant! I'm brilliant! Look what it helped me make! Firewall, show them the drive designs."

AI-COM/FRWL//HOLOGRAM\PROFFERED
SILENCE//00:01:07

"See? You see what I mean?"

"Huh."

"The principle scales. I applied it to matter. It could work for whatever we want. It builds a cosmophasic field around the object to generate a convergence point. I can't build it with the materials we have here. Plus, you don't want to be in the solar system when you engage the drive. Wouldn't want to accidently bring anything along with you."

"[whistles] Okay, David, you've had your chat—"

"Doctor, I think David is right."

"Excuse me?"

"You don't understand. You may go. David and I have a lot to talk about."

RECORD: 8844J366$LUN-1.187 [RECUSAL MIRROR RECORD]
IDENTITIES: Dr. Janet Green
LOCATION: K1 Dig Site 1, Crew Quarters, Room 403
THREAT DETECT: Level 5, 8, 9—Possible Exotic, Possible Psychosis, Crew Impairment
THREAT RESPONSE: Forward for Medical Review
[REVISED RESPONSE]: Exhibit Record 755, FILE//REPORT TO RASPUTIN


"Hey, Mouse. Sad news today. Clovis Bray has come to box it up. Commander says that we don't need it anymore because we built the transceiver. And the doctor says the box will help protect us.

"I don't like it. The idea of trapping it like that. Alone in the dark. Forever crying out but Mama can't hear you.

"They're going to box it up, study and poke you.

"They're even moving it away, to a new facility. I might not see it again.

"I might not see you again.

"That's too sad. Mama's too sad right now. We'll talk more later."

SILENCE//00:02:27

"What's the point?"

RECORD: 9046G766$LUN-0.346 [RECUSAL MIRROR RECORD]
IDENTITIES: Mike Loftus, Liam Yan
LOCATION: K1 Dig Site 3, Anomaly Observation
THREAT DETECT: Level 5—Possible Exotic
THREAT RESPONSE: Record for Posterity
[REVISED RESPONSE]: Exhibit Record 501, FILE//REPORT TO RASPUTIN


"Here. Listen to this."

"We've been listening to it for the last two hours. I just needed a break."

"No, I know. But you really need to hear this."

"Fine. Shift is almost over anyway. Might as well suckle the last of that sweet nightmare milk."

SILENCE//00:01:37

"So?"

"Yup."

"That's it? Yup?"

"Yeah. It's a new pattern. That seemed super interesting two hours ago, but it got old. I am bored, and I am tired. And when our shift is over, I probably won't be able to sleep until two hours before I have to get up and do it all over again."

"Look at where the signal is coming from."

"What do you mean? It's right in front of us."

"Check the ambit on the PQZ."

"That's weird."

"Uh huh."

"So it's an echo?"

"Well the pattern repeats. First from here. And then from out there."

"So you think it's bouncing the signal off something outside the system? You're crazy."

"I'm not. Also, this kind of signal doesn't bounce. What can it hit between phasic realities?"

"Nothing…" [whistles]

"Still eager for your shift to end?"

AI-COM/FRWL//EXPOSURE LIMIT REACHED. EXIT OBSERVATION.

RECORD: 8796T563$LUN-0.324 [RECUSAL MIRROR RECORD]
IDENTITIES: Dr. Wade Bow, Commander Kuang Xuan
LOCATION: K1 Dig Site 4, Logistics, Infirmary
THREAT DETECT: Level 8, 9—Possible Psychosis, Crew Impairment
THREAT RESPONSE: Forward for Medical Review
[REVISED RESPONSE]: Exhibit Record 456, FILE//REPORT TO RASPUTIN


"I've completed the report, Commander. You can read it for yourself, but I think we both understand the gravity of the situation."

"I will read it—and share a sitrep with the board next quarter—but a summary of principle findings wouldn't be out of order."

"[yawn] Excuse me. I need to get some rest. Well, I can't explain the mechanism, but tests show neurochemical cascades increasing in frequency and severity over time. Individuals differ in their expression, but there's a clear trend when examined in the aggregate. Approximately eighty percent of the K1 crew is suffering similarly: intrusive thoughts, insomnia, narcolepsy, nightmares, and in the worst cases—as we saw with Helsha Rell—hallucinations, auditory and visual. It's a threat to the project."

"And the twenty percent?"

"Individuals who've yet to be exposed. And yes, before you ask, I did witness the effect in action. I took the levels on an unexposed technician, Keleen Vance, and reexamined them after just an hour with it. Despite no outward changes of behavior, there was a marked drop in her serotonin and a commensurate rise in cortisol. After a week of work at Site 3, she was requesting sedatives as a sleep aid. Now she wants something stronger. Something to knock her out."

"Does your report include any recommendations?"

"Only my best guess: Restrict direct exposure to thirty minutes per day, rotate teams between sites each week to limit proximity. And we need to plan for attrition. People need to get off this rock or they'll go crazy. Heck, I'm near the breaking point, and I'm supposed to help everyone else."

"I think you're right. You do need a break. Come with me when I head back to Earth for my next quarterly. We can come up with a plan for who will replace you in the coming days."

"Fine. [yawns] Fine. And my recommendations?"

"I'll review the report, and we'll implement them. The rotation between sites will cause difficulty, but we'll do what we must to keep the crew fit."

RECORD: 6782W671$LUN-0.167
IDENTITIES: Dr. Tanis Lee, Commander Kuang Xuan, Captain Hou Ye [present, unspeaking]
LOCATION: K1 Dig Site 2, Communion, Command Center
THREAT DETECT: Level 10—Protocol Incompliance
THREAT RESPONSE: Record for Posterity
[REVISED RESPONSE]: Exhibit Record 12, FILE//REPORT TO RASPUTIN


"Commander, we found it."

"Where?"

"Nearly twelve hundred meters deep in Site 3. The readings were all over the charts like in the other dig sites, but the borer broke into a tunnel and… Well, we almost hit it with the borer. The machine chewed through a pillar or something that held it up, and—"

"It? So what is it? What does it look like? Show me the feed, the diagnostics, everything."

"I don't have any of that."

"What?"

"That's why I'm here. Instruments failed the moment we broke through. The borer too."

"Some sort of EMP? But your suits—"

"Worked just fine. We checked and rechecked everything."

"So what is this thing?"

"Nothing like what I expected. You have to see it for yourself."

"I think I do."

"I'll help you get your suit on."

RECORD: 0303K785$LUN-0.024
IDENTITIES: [SCRUBBED]
LOCATION: K1 Dig Site 3
THREAT DETECT: Level 7, 10—Unauthorized Cognizance, Protocol Incompliance
THREAT RESPONSE: [SCRUBBED]
SCRUB REQUEST: Commander Kuang Xuan
SCRUB RESPONSE: Accepted


"That's it. That's the dig order. Clovis Bray has left the building."

"Finally. Now let's get to work."

"Wait. You can't just start like that."

"What?"

"Come on. Don't you see how momentous this is? Can't you feel it? We're on the Moon mining for what might be—"

"Above my pay grade. I dig. You dig. Let's dig."

"Slow down! Listen. A science only just discovered and a source on that wavelength or whatever is buried in the crust of the Moon. There's a whole other mission serving as a cover story! This is huge!"

"Just another day at the office."

"On the Moon..."

"Yep. On the Moon. Now come on. Get your gear and mount up."

"What's the hurry? It's just another day at the office."

"Nobody remembers the second guy to walk on the Moon."

"I do."

"Huh?"

"The second guy to walk on the Moon. I can name them all. First was—"

"Okay. Fine. You made your point. Would you get your gear on?"

"You do feel it."

"Fine. Yeah. Just don't make me think about it too much, okay? We've got a lot of work to do."

"All right, Apollo. Whatever you say."

"Huh? I told you no nicknames. Now let's get moving."

RECORD: 9982F323$LUN-1.127 [RECUSAL MIRROR RECORD]
IDENTITIES: Commander Kuang Xuan, Alton Bray
LOCATION: K1 Dig Site 1, Crew Quarters, Commander's Quarters
THREAT DETECT: None—All Parties Level 1 Clearance
THREAT RESPONSE: Record for Posterity
[REVISED RESPONSE]: Exhibit Record 634, FILE//REPORT TO RASPUTIN


"Who gave you permission to be in here? Oh… Mr. Bray."

"Yes, Commander Kuang. And you'd have known I was coming if First Light hadn't severed communications."

"It was necessary to maintain the secrecy of the K1 project."

"That was not part of Aeronautics' agreement with us. And it's not working. You're burning through personnel. And the ones sane enough to sit down for an exit interview have some very unflattering things to say about operations here."

"They're—"

"Don't worry about them. We're containing the situation. You need to be more concerned about yourself."

"Is that a threat?"

"It's a fact. Did you really think you could keep K1 for yourselves? And what has all this subterfuge gotten Aeronautics? What has it gotten you? You've led this project since its inception, and what do you have to show for it?"

"Firewall, pull up plans for the array."

AI-COM/FRWL HOLOGRAM\PROFFERED

"Interesting. What am I looking at?"

"The first extra-spatial transceiver. Using our current technology, background signals make it difficult to isolate—"

"I see. Its depth makes the Moon work like a baffle. Intriguing. And if it works, we'll… talk to whatever is out there?"

"It's not a conversation, exactly. Language isn't being used. Although, now that we've worked out most of the kinks, we know it could be used to transmit language across, well, any distance—instantaneously."

"You speak as if you've already built it."

"Come with me to Site 2."

RECORD: 1159K008$LUN-1.013 [RECUSAL MIRROR RECORD]
IDENTITIES: Dr. Luli Henson, Commander Kuang Xuan
LOCATION: K1 Dig Site 4, Logistics, Infirmary
THREAT DETECT: Level 8, 9—Possible Psychosis, Crew Impairment
[REVISED DETECT]: Level 5—Possible Exotic
THREAT RESPONSE: Forward for Medical Review
[REVISED RESPONSE]: Exhibit Record 620, FILE//REPORT TO RASPUTIN


"Step into my office, Commander."

"What's on your mind, doctor?"

"That's what I was going to ask you."

"I don't have time for word games."

"Then I'll put it to you straight. Your reprimand of Jun just now; it was over the top."

"Are you telling me how to do my job?"

"I'm telling you you're doing it wrong. With respect—"

"Respect?"

"—you're under a lot of stress, and if you don't mind me saying, it's showing."

"I do mind. As a matter of fact, I'm of a mind to put you on the next ship out of here."

"And what reason would give for my dismissal?"

"Insubordination! Undermining mission confidence!"

"Don't you think that might be a little over the top?"

"I... [sigh] Sorry. I didn't sleep well last night. I'm…"

"On edge? Yes. You hide it well, but I've been studying this. I know the signs. Insomnia or nightmares, or both?"

"Neither. I was awake. I was reading a report in bed, and then suddenly someone was in the room with me."

"A hallucination. Someone you knew?"

"Someone I knew? No. No, it was just a figure. I looked at the foot of my bed, and it was like a person, but tall, too tall. It loomed over me, a shadow. I couldn't see any features. I tried to call out to it, but I couldn't speak. I couldn't move. And it just looked at me. It sounds crazy, but it felt hateful—or not hate exactly… disdain? Anyway, I must have lost consciousness because when I woke, it was gone."

"This was the first occurrence? Just last night?"

"Yes. I can't imagine experiencing that twice."

"Well, I have good news and bad news."

[unintelligible grumble]

"Now hang on. It's really just good news. The bad news is that those who suffer from what you experienced often report multiple occurrences. The good news is that it's totally natural, it aligns with my research, and I think I can help you avoid it in the future."

"So what was it?"

"'It' was predormital sleep paralysis—atonia while conscious. You just need a little more gamma-aminobutyric acid in your system. Your body was in a sleep state while your mind was awake. This causes stress and can result in that idea of a threat being in the room. I'll send something up to your quarters. Drink it an hour before bed, and you'll be fine."

"That's a relief. Thank you, Doctor Henson. Forgive me for earlier?"

"Don't worry about it, but you might want to have another word with Jun."

"Noted. Thanks again. Goodnight, doctor."

"Goodnight, Commander."

SILENCE//00:06:03

"Firewall, can you run a spectrum-wide scan of the Commander's quarters tonight?"

AI-COM/FRWL//AFFIRMATIVE. SCAN REQUIRES COMMANDER KUANG'S CONSENT. RELAY PERMISSION REQUEST?

"No. No. It's probably nothing. Never mind."

RECORD: 6532V538$LUN-1.006
IDENTITIES: Dr. Janet Green
LOCATION: K1 Dig Site 1, Crew Quarters, Room 403
THREAT DETECT: None
THREAT RESPONSE: None


"Hi, my Little Mouse. I hope that when we listen to this, we're both home and celebrating.

"It was hard leaving you and Mimi behind, and well… you didn't make it any easier. I didn't even get to hug you goodbye.

"Hopefully we're laughing about it now.

"Anyway, I'm recording this because I was invited to do… well, a super-special and super-secret job. So secret that I can't send you any messages while I'm away.

"But I'm going to record something every day because I'll be thinking about you every day. And Mimi, too, but I have different messages for her.

"So… Let's start with the big stuff.

"Mama is on the Moon! I'm sure you'll know that by the time we listen to this, but still, it's so crazy! It was long trip, and I'm exhausted, but now that I'm here I can't sleep. Too excited, I guess.

"Anyway, they found something up here on the Moon. It's a… Well, no one really knows what it is, but it's talking to something way out there. It might be talking to another Traveler! And that's what I'm here to help figure out. They needed Mama to help them crack the code. Pretty cool, right?

"I mean, another Traveler—or maybe the origins of the Traveler—wow.

"I hope you understand now that I had to go. I had to. Sorry, Mouse. Next time I leave, I expect that hug!

"You give the best hugs. I hope you're hugging me when you hear this."

RECORD: 8796T563$LUN-0.279 [RECUSAL MIRROR RECORD]
IDENTITIES: Commander Kuang Xuan, Aeronautics of China Board (President Yang Lyn, General Han Wanwei, [CORRUPTED]
LOCATION: K1 Dig Site 2, Communion, Command Center
THREAT DETECT: None—All Parties Level 1 Clearance
[REVISED DETECT]: Level 4—Psychosis [Dangerous]
THREAT RESPONSE: Record for Posterity
[REVISED RESPONSE]: Exhibit Record 22, FILE//REPORT TO RASPUTIN
SCRUB REQUEST: Commander Kuang Xuan
SCRUB RESPONSE: Accepted
DELETION REQUEST: Commander Kuang Xuan
DELETION RESPONSE: DELETE ALL


[CORRUPTED] "—and so we maintain the exobotany work, but there will be no further communication between that First Light team and the K1 project. Furthermore, communication of this sort ends. I'll come and deliver progress reports in person."

"I don't think I need to tell you this, but this is highly unusual, Commander Kuang. Surely our normal security protocols are sufficient."

"Yes, and normally I'd agree. So would our friends at Clovis Bray, I'm sure."

"You accuse Clovis Bray of… what? Monitoring our communications? Do you think they are listening right now?"

[Murmurs and laughter]

"I can't tell you what Clovis Bray did when they assisted in setting up this mission. But, I can tell you what I would have recommended to the board if Clovis Bray had been in the position of asking us for help putting a project together."

"I see… But you still haven't explained—" [CORRUPTED]

[CORRUPTED]
[CORRUPTED]
[SCRUBBED]
[SCRUBBED]
[CORRUPTED]

"How often would you be able to make your reports, Commander?"

"Quarterly. Earlier whenever we make a discovery of note."

"So, we can look forward to seeing you in person in a couple months."

"I plan to return tomorrow."

[surprised murmurs]

"Well! I think I speak for all of the board when I say that I expect something monumental when you give your report."

[murmurs of agreement]

"I have no doubt. If that's all, I'll take my leave. I have a lot of work to do before tomorrow."

"Certainly. Goodbye, Commander."

"Goodbye, President, Generals, esteemed members of the board. Signing out."

"Firewall, scrub the following from your records [SCRUBBED] [SCRUBBED]. Firewall, sever connection to Warmind Rasputin."

MIRROR RECORDS\MIRRORED
AI-COM/FRWL//WARMIND RASPUTIN REQUESTS REASON FOR BREAK OF CONTACT

"Tell Rasputin to contact Aeronautics of China. Sever connection."

AI-COM/FRWL//NEGATIVE. WARMIND RASPUTIN WILL MAINTAIN OPEN CHANNEL.

"Fine. Bring up a map for the critical relays for cross-space transmission."

FILE MIRRORED RECORDS//FILED//RECUSE FILE\RECUSED
AI-COM/FRWL//HOLOGRAM\PROFFERED

"Highlight any other systems that might be used as backdoors or jury rigged to transmit or receive."

RECUSED FILE//RECUSE\RECUSED\RECUSED\RECUSED\RECUSED
HOLOGRAM\MODIFIED

"Transfer that to my datastem. Firewall, delete all records of my conversation with the board and of this conversation.

DELETE RECORDS\DELETED
DELETE MIRROR RECORDS\DELETED
DELETE RECUSED FILE\DELETED\CORRUPTED
AI-COM/FRWL//DELETION AFFIRMED.

I.

Saladin remembers what it was like to be young. He remembers the exhilaration of discovering the infinite power he now holds in his hands. He remembers the terror, too—his first death and the agony of a ruptured lung. His mouth had been too full of blood to form words or plead with his Ghost, so he tried with his eyes instead.

Saladin remembers his second death because it was quicker than his first: a wrong step in a minefield outside of what used to be a city called Nur-Sultan. He laughed when his Ghost reassembled him. Then, he cried.

Saladin remembers deaths three through sixty-five but does not dwell on them. Instead, he regrets the thousands of hours of sleep lost to nightmares, and how much less vibrant his recollection of that period in his life is compared to his noble centuries spent as an Iron Lord.

Saladin remembers the day he stopped counting deaths. "Something about you is different," Jolder had said, and put her hand on his.

Saladin remembers all this and more when he looks at the Crow. He feels rage form a hot pit in his belly when Osiris tells him about the young Lightbearer's suffering at the hands of his fellow Guardians. Osiris asks him if he can keep a secret.

"I don't like secrets," Saladin says, and that's the end of it.

Vell Tarlowe. Sai Mota. Omar Agah. Eriana-3.

The scarlet phantoms hang in the air beside Eris as she stares across the Enduring Abyss, her eyes fixed upon the Lunar Pyramid.

Suspended between Nightmare and Memory, her old friends remain forever silent, offering neither torment nor guidance. They listen, and nothing more.

And sometimes, that is enough.

"Long has it been since I walked the Pyramid's protean halls," Eris muses. "Would it welcome me back, now that I meddle in its affairs by severing its growing bond with the Leviathan?"

Her fireteam does not respond.

"It does not matter," she concludes. "Regardless of the Pyramid's agenda, Calus must not succeed."

Her thoughts turn to the others aboard the Leviathan, confronting Nightmares of their own. She wonders—as she has done many times since binding the Crown of Sorrow —whether she should perform her own severance ritual.

Eris looks upon the apparitions that were once her fireteam, and her gaze softens.

For better or worse, she has grown accustomed to her grief. Let the others shed their burdens. She keeps hers close, heavy and held dear.

Without them, the silence would be deafening.

DURESS - III

Sjari shifted on the wooden operating table. Why must she be the first?

She probed the jelly-like substance smeared across her forehead as Elder Kalli entered the room.

"Don't touch that. It's an antiseptic… and a binding agent," Kalli said, placing a sizeable blue-crystal-adorned mask next to an assortment of scalpels, hooks, and erosion stencils on her back table. Each tool was etched with ceremonial iconography, and freshly sharpened.

"Normally, it takes years to become an Adept among our ranks… but the Queen's Wrath believes time is short. If you survive, these augments will expedite your training and enhance your abilities."

Kalli turned away to work a mortar and pestle. "You will need to learn to focus under duress. Remove your mind from this place. Sink into the cosmic, project out from yourself. There is no pain, no flesh, no nerves."

Sjari gripped the sides of the operating table and pressed her back flat, until no air existed between her and the surface beneath—until she felt herself a part of it. She told herself to ignore the grinding of the pestle and thought about how Petra had taught her to use the physical as a transitionary conduit to the Ascendant.

"Drink this," Kalli ordered, handing Sjari a small cup of queensfoil tea.

Sjari opened her eyes and released her grip as her meditation broke. "Yes, Elder sister. Give me a moment to focus, please," she pleaded, hastily gulping down the tea.

"You think my voice is sharper than this knife?" Kalli asked, lifting the scalpel from her back table. "Duress. You must push through it if you are to survive. Be strong, or you will die. This is your final test."

Sjari drank quickly and pressed herself to the table once more. She focused on her fingertips and the feel of the hand-worked wood. The grain formed diminutive pathways for her nails to trace; tiny patterns hidden away within the enormity that surrounded them, only revealed by shrinking one's perspective. She let herself drift.

Kalli threaded the thin metal edge directly through to the bone of Sjari's skull. A line of incision opened a wave of red. Searing penetration through the layers. Overwhelming electrified senses. They gave way to a calming sting in the discordant firing of nerves. A pattern. The texture. The split between what was and what could be.

In her mind's eye, Sjari saw the Ley Lines unfurl like budding petals of a living blossom. Nebula-like plumes of pollen. She let herself slip away until the pain of her flesh was only one of many choices before her.

Foreword to "The Book of the Forgotten"

Sol is filled with monsters. More than I imagined could possibly exist in one system. So far, the list includes:

Alien robots that bend time, blot out the sun, and drive people crazy.

Floating witches that birth squirming hordes of cannibals, all driven to murder by parasitic worms.

Armored walrus people who conquer planets and subjugate whole races.

Undead mobs of rotting alien corpses, animated by Dark Ether.

Clans of interstellar insects trying to steal a small planetoid for its energy signature.

And most recently, ominous triangular ships of unknown origin that send spooky telepathic messages.

But in my opinion, the most bizarre monsters in all of Sol are a gang of heavily armed zombies, made eternal by pint-sized cybernetic constructs (some of whom are lovers of folk tales).

Sol may be a strange and crowded place, but the next time someone tells you of a bizarre new monster (like a shadowy clique of pumpkin-headed phantoms), think twice before you dismiss them. That monster may be your new neighbor.

Happy Festival of the Lost!

—Glint, the smallest monster

II

Osiris walked into the office without hesitation, as if it were his own. Zavala looked up and pushed his blank papers to the side.

"Osiris," he said. "You don't seem to be taking your exile very seriously of late."

"I treat it with the same regard you give its enforcement," sniffed the Warlock as he crossed his arms.

Zavala raised his eyebrows but saw traces of a smile around Osiris's eyes. He leaned back in his chair and gestured for him to continue.

"I bring hope from an unexpected source," Osiris said. "There is a devotee of mine on Mercury—a certain Brother Vance—stationed just outside the Infinite Forest. His point of view is unique, but it may be more valuable than I had anticipated."

Osiris opened his hand and cast a small projection: a fleet of Pyramid ships.

"Since the Traveler's reformation, Brother Vance has been studying prophecies where such an event took place. He believes he has discovered a way to stop the Pyramids."

A spiderweb of trajectories crisscrossed the projection. There was a flash and the Pyramid ships melted into Osiris's palm.

Zavala leaned forward. "He found this by studying simulated realities?"

"Specifically realities where the Pyramids invade our system and the Traveler reforms," Osiris said. "In all the realities where the City survives, Brother Vance believes there is a common thread."

"I… know Vance," Zavala said carefully. "Can we put our future in his hands?"

Osiris bristled reflexively, but then made a reconciliatory gesture. "We have seen more than our share of tomorrows, wouldn't you agree? We have done so through the strength of our community." The Warlock laced his fingers together.

"Brother Vance, he is one man, true. But so were you. So was I. It would be unwise to dismiss what his future may hold."

Tohr sat atop a storm-shrouded hill, surrounded in distance by sea and mist. The Maelstrom hung overhead, birthed from Tohr's relinquishment. It had raged for years, just as it did before when Tohr had claimed the reigns and issued his challenge to Raiju's Maelstrom.

Clouds trundled at the storm's edge and forked bolts split through a central cumulonimbus supercell. Strikes of gnarled charge nipped scorch into the dirt with terrifying frequency as the sky rippled with lightning. Tohr's withered husk remained in meditative stillness, long dead, basking in the metronomic glow of each flashing termination. The armor around his corpse let slip a glint of light, pulsing like a guiding bannerette for thrill seekers. It had caught Tyv Lucine's eye many times.

She watched from the base, attempting to establish a safe route through the scattered fulmination. Salt-blasted dirt gave way underfoot, in places, while spindles of thatch-work glass weave held strong against her weight in others. She could feel static flow through the network of crystalline connections like conduits aching to reach out and touch the storm. Her Light shivered, welcoming the Arc surges that leapt up metal clasps on her boots, and she threw herself to another glossy foothold as a bolt dove to meet ground.

The Maelstrom calmed as she reached Tohr's body. A staff lay at his feet. The air was a screen of charged pressure around him, but Tyv knew how to find gaps. She knew how to bend away the lightning and loop Arc into itself. Lessons the Light had taught her. She slipped her hand through the barrier and lifted the plate from Tohr. She inhaled ozone and humidity and slid the Harness onto her shoulders.

Roars thundered from overhead and bolts scattered across Tohr's hill. Tyv swept the staff off the ground and drove her Arc-Light into its form. The reigns were in hand; the challenge issued. She would bend the storm, and live as lightning made flesh.


-Raiju's Legacy

Bask materialized near a low wall and zipped to where Jolur had collapsed. The Ghost began to focus his Light when incoming fire sent him spinning to the ground.

"What did I tell you about dying in the open?" the little Ghost cried in frustration. Determined, he rose into the air, but the Hive Knight was already charging across the Trostland cobblestones.

A sudden explosion of Void energy took the Knight by surprise, but it dodged the pulsing shockwaves of a Vortex Grenade. A tall Warlock in a worn green robe loped from the treeline and slid to a stop before Bask. She hastily formed a ball of Light in her palm and slammed it into the ground. Delicate wisps of energy began to rise from the soil.

"That's not gonna help!" Bask whirred angrily.

The Warlock stood, sheltering Bask with her body as he resumed his focus on Jolur. The Knight screeched and resumed fire. A volley of Shredder bolts doubled the Warlock over, but the energy seeping from the rift gave her the strength to keep standing.

"Thanks," said Bask sheepishly.

"Don't mention it," she said, gritting her teeth through the gunfire.

A blinding burst of energy surged as Jolur rose to his feet, body shimmering with Light. He braced himself and lobbed an orb of unstable energy that reduced the Knight to howling ash on impact.

"Appreciate the assist," Jolur said to Bask and the Warlock as he brushed dirt from his decrepit boots. "These guys are stronger than I thought, but it's nothing a Nova Bomb can't handle."

The Warlock inspected the damage to her robe. "What's going on with these Hive?"

"I don't know," Jolur said. "Lord Saladin sent a group of us down to figure out—"

Another blinding burst of energy surged nearby. The Knight rose to its feet, body shimmering with Light.

The Guardians stood frozen in horror.

"Since when can they do that?" Bask squeaked, and the fight began in earnest.

Banshee-44 emits a low whistle as he watches Stasis energy course through the rifle's internal conduits.

"Ninety-seven percent efficiency," he mutters to himself in wonder. "This thing's state of the art."

"It certainly is," replies another Exo voice beside him. Ada-1 peers over the gunsmith's shoulder, equally fascinated by the BrayTech weapon.

"The Black Armory never developed a linear fusion rifle," she continues. "Our forges lacked the necessary precision."

"LFRs are a special breed of gun," Banshee says. He turns his head and notices Ada focusing on the weapon. "You ever want to take a crack at making one?"

Ada folds her hands in front of her, taking a moment to consider.

"No," she answers quietly. "The forges were built out of fear. We thought that even in a Golden Age, humanity needed an arsenal to defend itself. But they created more conflict than they ever prevented."

"Weapons tend to do that," Banshee remarks knowingly.

He meets Ada's eyes. "You've never been reset? Remember everything after you first woke up?"

"I do," she replies in a haunted voice. "Every Fallen raid. Every Warlord grasping for more power."

Banshee nods to himself and runs his hand over the contours of the rifle. "I've been reset 44 times," he says. "I forget about most of the guns I make. Don't know who uses them or what for."

"That sounds awful," Ada replies.

"Sometimes," Banshee admits. "But between the two of us… maybe that makes me the lucky one."

Lakshmi-2 : faction head : Exo : politician

1 : the Eliksni Quarter : screaming : a crackling portal : treachery : Fallen attack : we're being overrun : where are the Guardians—

2 : the Last City : the Tower in ruins : Fallen scavengers sift the rubble—

3 : the Last City : radioactive dust : Dark growths in the ruins: where is the Traveler : mutated Ghosts—

4 : the Eliksni Quarter : a crackling portal : Asher speaks : Fallen being attacked : Dead Orbit overhead : Saint-14 besieged : FWC surrenders—

5 : the Eliksni Quarter : the Endless Night : a crackling portal : Mithrax firing wildly : the Cult flees : Ikora triumphant—

6 : the Eliksni Quarter : a crackling portal : snipers fire down : blood runs in the gutter : an Ether tank explodes : the Endless Night : Asher speaks : those FWC traitors—

7 : the Botza District : a crackling portal : Fallen flee : FWC banners : Zavala is gone : Mithrax on trial : Lakshmi-2 looks over the crowd—

Lakshmi-2 : head of state : Exo : prophet : savior

I see an abyss. Small and distant shapes. I'm walking in your nascent memories. Flickering motes. I sense… curiosity. You've always pondered, from the very beginning. As did we.

I see tessellation. The pulsating hum of cosmic structure; a kaleidoscopic symphony of Light and Dark. What was the Veil to you?

Since I woke, I've always felt like I was still dreaming. I'd like to think that's how you feel as well. Those of us that hunger for a great truth—we dream with you.

—Unknown Warlock

[The Queen] would like to improve her means of [bargaining] with me. She has implied that I use the space between words to make [bargains] to my advantage.

How dare she.

She knows me so well.

What [the Queen] wants, the Techeun move worlds to obtain. And so the Witches devise an impossible machine that speaks a visual language with very few spaces between its words. This machine speaks [wishes]. Makes [bargains].

The Wall of [Wishes], it is called.

If the Techeun's design proves correct, it will be difficult for me to interpret the [wishes] made at the Wall to my advantage. But challenges entice me.

I look upon the Wall. Upon the Witches' visual language for [bargains]. For me, it is a menu of delights to feast upon.

The stormjoy rolls over the landscape, blanketing the coastline in the stinging fog of its exhalations. Its passing stirs crackling ribbons of lightning from Fundament's atmosphere.

Xi Ro waits in hiding, folded up Krill-small, as the living cloud approaches. It lowers the dangling threads of its feeding tentacles. Each is tipped with light. The light fills Xi Ro's heart with a terrible, aching happiness. The sensation sits heavy inside her, bearable only because it is unwelcome.

This will be the fourth bait star she collects. Xi Ro dreams that when the Helium Drinkers strike next, she will use the bait stars to blind them, then cut them up while they writhe.

She must leap as high as she can to cleave the bait star loose. The tentacle detects a stirring in the air and whips around. If she is slow, it will tear the blade from her hands.

She is not slow. Her sword cuts neatly through glistening, translucent muscle fibers, and with her free hand, she snatches the falling bait star from the air. The tentacle reels away, ascending into the sky like a withdrawn rope.

Xi Ro exults. It is only when she turns around that she sees her elder sister.

Aurash is standing with her limbs limp at her sides, her scrolls scattered at her feet. Xi Ro sees in her three eyes the euphoria that is the stormjoy's weapon.

Xi Ro leaps and tackles her sister into the dirt.

After, the two of them wait beneath shelter while the stormjoy advances down the coast. Aurash is sullen, but Xi Ro knows it can be fixed.

"Look." Xi Ro holds out the bait star. "We can take joy for ourselves."

Aurash lifts the star by its shriveled stalk, then cups the light in her claws, like a small fire.

Xi Ro shoves her playfully, trying to knock the star loose.

But Aurash holds fast.

High above the Last City, tucked in one of the Tower's many alcoves, Cayde-6 thumbs through an old book. Plucked from the Speaker's library, it's become delicate with age, or so he assumes, taking extra care turning each page. His sense of touch is good; there's certainly enough circuitry in his metal fingers to pull off the most precise of shots. But even a hair-trigger touch might rip the brittle paper…

Cayde pauses on a page. "If sailor tales and sailor tunes, storm and adventure, heat and cold—"

Suddenly, a gust of surprisingly icy wind nearly rips the book from Cayde's hands. "To hell with this godforsaken ice cube!" he shouts, almost falling from his perch.

He steadies himself and inhales deeply. Hang on there, Cayde. You're not on any ice cube, godforsaken or otherwise. You're on Earth, in the Last City.

But the memory lingers, like the floating neon outlines seconds after a blinding camera flash. The snow-white plains of a distant moon, a sarcophagus of ice and iron.

—flash—

Yes, that's what Europa feels like to Cayde-1 as he loads crate after crate onto the bay outside the Exoscience factory. Even the sky has turned a flat gray, casting all beneath it in dull, deadening light. A warning sky, he thinks. Sailors had some kinda rhyme for it, didn't they?

Either way, it hardly makes for a motivating work environment. Cayde sits on one of the crates. "I'm taking a break," he announces. "Need to or not, this is when we used to have lunch. I refuse to work through lunch."

Next to him, Knox-4 sighs with relief and longing. "I miss lunch. I miss getting hungry."

Cayde grins as much as his mechanical face will allow. "Hmm…" he intones in his best Dr. Abrams impression, "So you would say… you're hungry for hunger?"

Knox bursts into guffaws. Cayde chuckles weakly. It wasn't that funny. But as his friend's laughter grows, so does Cayde's. Soon, they're both clutching each other and howling.

Then, gradually, their cheer fades. "What do you tell that shrink, by the way?" Knox asks. "You tell him about the whisper?"

Cayde shakes his head. Before he can snark about the uselessness of psychologists, the whisper rings in his metal skull. It's red sky in morning, sailor's warning. But you are no sailor.

A whimper squeaks out from the loading bay. A moment later, a short snowsuitted figure scrambles out, racing for the far end of the factory. Cayde and Knox shout, taking off after the eavesdropper. No sharpshooter yet, Cayde fumbles for his BrayTech-issued handgun, aims shakily and…

—bang—

Cayde-6 comes back to himself just as he stumbles into his hideout. He rifles through the piles of loot, until… "Aha!" He finds a pen. Cayde-6 isn't done yet. He flips open the book, no longer being careful with the pages, and starts scrawling.

"Spend time with an Exo who's been through it like we have and you'll see all the tells…"

I:

"Anything else, Arrha?"

"Yes, the Spider." Arrha answers in Eliksni. "Mithrax has told me about the orb the humans call Tee-tahn. A water-world of floating cities. Before the Red War, very few humans visited it, very few."

"I'm already bored."

"Tee-tahn is still ripe with plunder, the Spider, and now the plunder comes to us! The Guardian Slohn sends shipments of it to Terra in unmanned craft. Relies on the cloaking to protect it. But the cloaking cannot stop a web. Not if we know where to cast it."

"How interesting." Spider scratches his chin. "Very good, Arrha. It's time for you to go fishing."

"Fishhhhhh… ink?"

Spider heaves a put-upon sigh. "Catch me one of those boats, you fool."

"Yes, the Spider. I shall."

Only when he is outside the Spider's audience chamber does Arrha allow himself a frustrated growl. "'Catch a boat, Arrha.' That was the idea…"

TYPE: CONTINGENCY RECORD
PARTIES: One [1]. One [1] Ghost-type, designate Razor [r]
ASSOCIATIONS: Hive; Light; Tarlowe, Vell
//AUDIO CONTINGENCY ARCHIVED//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[r:01] I can't… bring him back…
[r:02] They were too many… everywhere… devouring his Light.
[r:03] I need to find the others, I need to tell them.


TYPE: LIVE COMBAT FEED [CONTINGENCY-LINKED]
PARTIES: Two [2]. One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate Omar Agah [oa]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Titan, designate Vell Tarlowe [vt]
ASSOCIATIONS: Agah, Omar; Crota; Eriana-3; Great Disaster; Hive; Light; Moon [Earth]; Morn, Eris; Mota, Sai; Tarlowe, Vell; Toland [AKA Toland, the Shattered]; Throne World
//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[oa:01] Hang on, does it make sense to you that Crota will be weaker in some reality he created?
[vt:01] It doesn't have to make sense. He just has to be stopped.
[oa:02] I know, but wouldn't you make a netherworld or whatever where you were invulnerable?
[vt:02] According to Toland—
[oa:03] Right, Toland. Why are we trusting anything that lunatic says?
[vt:03] I don't trust him. His highest loyalty is to knowledge. I trust you. I trust Eris and the others. I trust the Light in us.
[oa:04] A lot of Guardians brought their Light here. Are we any different?
[vt:04] They didn't know what Toland knows.
[oa:05] Toland again!
[vt:05] Toland again. I don't trust my weapons. I use them.
[silence]
[oa:06] Fair enough.

TYPE: LIVE COMBAT FEED [CONTINGENCY RECORD]
PARTIES: Three [3]. One [1] Ghost-type, designate Jax [j]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Warlock, designate Eriana-3 [REDACTED]; One [1] Hive, Wizard-type, Deathsinger, designate Ir Yût [REDACTED]
ASSOCIATIONS: Deathsinger; Deathsong; Eriana-3; Hive; Ir Yût; Praxic Order; Toland [AKA Toland, the Shattered]; Wizard
//AUDIO PRESERVED//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[j:01] I'll keep the feed live. Maybe the Praxics can make use of this data.
[j:02] It's a song that's killing her. Gone on for about two minutes, thirty seconds now.
[j:03] I've wiped it from this transmission, in case its power extends through recorded media.
[j:04] If anyone is listening… don't trust Toland.


TYPE: LIVE SURVEILLANCE FEED [CONTINGENCY-LINKED]
PARTIES: Two [2]. One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate Eris Morn [em]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Warlock, designate Eriana-3 [e3]
ASSOCIATIONS: Eriana-3; Great Disaster; Morn, Eris; Saloon; Tower
//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[em:01] I knew I'd find you here.
[e3:01] Where else should I be?
[silence]
[e3:02] Eris?…You made it.
[em:02] I did. I wish more could say the same.
[silence]
[e3:03] You want something to drink?
[e3:04] You sure? On the house tonight.
[em:03] I'm sure.
[silence]
[e3:05] You know, this is where we…
[em:04] I know.
[e3:06] When she laughed, the dishes would rattle. You remember that?
[em:05] I remember.
[e3:07] Now, it's so damn quiet…
[e3:08] EVERYBODY'S TOO DAMN QUIET!
[e3:09] LAUGH!
[e3:10] LAUGH, DAMN IT!
[silence]
[e3:11] Somebody, just laugh…
[silence]
[e3:12] I… I just miss her so much…
[em:06] I know.

TYPE: LIVE COMBAT FEED [CONTINGENCY RECORD]
PARTIES: One [1]. One [1] Ghost-type, designate Yuka [y]
ASSOCIATIONS: Light; Omnigul; Wormrot
//AUDIO PRESERVED//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[y:01] I raised her 43 times. But on the 44th death, Omnigul's wormrot clung to her bones, rendered my powers useless on her.
[y:02] Now my Light is fading. But if there's a chance to revive her, I won't leave her. I won't…


TYPE: LIVE SURVEILLANCE FEED [CONTINGENCY-LINKED]
PARTIES: Three [3]. One [1] Guardian-type, Class Warlock, designate Eriana-3 [e3]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate Eris Morn [em]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate Sai Mota [sm]
ASSOCIATIONS: Crota; Eriana-3; God [Hive]; Moon [Earth]; Morn, Eris; Mota, Sai
//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[sm:01] So, driven by the words of an exiled madman and a desire for revenge, you are planning a forbidden attack by half a dozen people in an interdiction zone where thousands of Guardians were killed, and that plan is to kill a god. Did I get that right?
[e3:01] Yes.
[em:01] Yes.
[sm:02] Good. I'm in.

TYPE: LIVE COMBAT FEED [CONTINGENCY RECORD]
PARTIES: Variable, approx. [~850]. One [1] Hive, God-type, designate Crota; Forty-seven [47] Guardian-type, Class Hunter; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Titan, designate Gunnvor [AKA Gunnvor, the Dawncaller] [g]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Titan, designate Wei Ning; Twenty-two [22] Guardian-type, Class Titan, Order Firebreak; Thirty-four [34] Guardian-type, Class Titan, Order First Pillar; Seven [7] Guardian-type, Class Titan, Order Sun Legion; Thirteen [13] Guardian-type, Class Warlock, Order Praxic; Seventeen [17] Guardian-type, Class Warlock, Order Cryptochron; approx. [#] Hive, variable types [Acolytes, Knights, Ogres, Thralls, Wizards]
ASSOCIATIONS: Crota; First Pillar; Gunnvor [AKA Gunnvor, the Dawncaller]; Light; Ning, Wei
//AUDIO PRESERVED//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[g:01] Wei Ning needs more time. It falls to us. First Pillars! To me!
[g:02] Crota! Gunnvor, the Dawncaller challenges you!
[g:03] [battle cry]


TYPE: LIVE SURVEILLANCE FEED [CONTINGENCY-LINKED]
PARTIES: One [1]. One [1] Guardian-type, Class Titan, designate Gunnvor [AKA Gunnvor, the Dawncaller] [g]
ASSOCIATIONS: Hive; First Pillar; Light; Moon [Earth]; Oceanus Procellarum [Earth's Moon]
//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[g:01] Gunnvor to all First Pillars: We're coming in hot.
[g:02] The Ocean of Storms is living up to its name.
[g:03] Defenders, erect wards upon transmat.
[g:04] Strikers, shelter under wards or whatever cover you can find until our Firebreak friends fall back.
[g:05] When they've regrouped, I'll give the signal for the counterattack.
[g:06] All right. Let's give the Hive some hell!

TYPE: LIVE SURVEILLANCE FEED [CONTINGENCY RECORD]
PARTIES: Two [2]. One [1] Ghost-type, designate Brya [b]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate Eris Morn [em]
ASSOCIATIONS: Light; Morn, Eris
//AUDIO PRESERVED//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[em:01] No! I'll find a way to hide you, to hide your Light…
[b:01] There's no other way.
[em:02] Don't ask me to do this.
[b:02] Just promise me one thing.
[em:03] Ghost… please…
[b:03] Don't look back.


TYPE: LIVE COMBAT FEED [CONTINGENCY-LINKED]
PARTIES: Twenty-six, approx. [26]. One [1] Ghost-type, designate Brya [b]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate Eris Morn [em]; approx. [#] Hive, variable types [Acolytes, Darkblades, Deathsinger, Thralls], designate [chorus]
ASSOCIATIONS: Agah, Omar; Eriana-3; Mota, Sai; Tarlowe, Vell
//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[em:01] What have I done?
[b:01] No time! Run!
[chorus:01] Eir… Ur… Xol… Yul…
[b:02] The song! Don't listen!
[b:03] Think of something else!
[em:02] I can't!
[b:04] Think of Sai Mota!
[em:03] Sai, I'm sorry.
[chorus:02] Eir… Ur… Xol… Yul…
[b:05] Think of Omar Agah!
[em:04] Oh, Omar…
[b:06] Think about Vell!
[em:05] Vell…
[b:07] Think about Eriana!
[em:06] Eriana!
[b:08] Sai, Omar, Vell—
[em:07] Sai…
[chorus:03] Eir… Ur… Xol… Yul…
[b:09] Eriana, Sai, Omar—
[em:08] Omar…
[b:10] Vell, Eriana, Sai, Omar, Vell—
[em:09] Vell…
[chorus:04] Eir… Ur… Xol… Yul…
[b:11] Sai, Omar, Vell, Eriana—
[em:10] Eriana…
[b:12] Sai, Omar—
[em:11] Vell, Eriana…
[em:12] Sai, Omar, Vell, Eriana…
[em:13] SAI! OMAR! VELL! ERIANA!

TYPE: LIVE COMBAT FEED [CONTINGENCY RECORD]
PARTIES: Two [2]. One [1] Ghost-type, designate Jeev [j]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Titan, designate Gimble-4 [g4]
ASSOCIATIONS: Adonna; Akka; Song; Eir; Ur; Xol; Yul
//AUDIO PRESERVED//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[j:01] We're going in, getting what Adonna wanted, and getting out. Do you copy?
[j:02] …Hey. You listening?
[g4:01] Eir… Ur… Xol… Yul… Eir… Ur… Xol… Yul…
[j:03] What are you doing? Hey—
[g4:02] EIR. UR. XOL. YUL. AKKA!
[j:04] Ahhh—


TYPE: LIVE SURVEILLANCE FEED [CONTINGENCY-LINKED]
PARTIES: Two [2]. One [1] Research-type, Crypto-Archaeologist [Reef], designate Adonna [a]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Titan, designate Gimble-4 [g4]
ASSOCIATIONS: Engram; Graphemics; Hive; Music; Paracausal; Quantum Field Theory; Relativity; Runes; Song
//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[a:01] Engram precepts—not just prototypical but in sum—could be cynosural of a recondite gestalt. Procuring a modal sample from the Hive and comparing it to their runic syntax might be key to its graphemics and, ultimately, ambages to the protological patterns underlying quantum field theory, relativity, and paracausal phenomena.
[silence]
[a:02] A comparative study of Hive hymnody and graphonomy might—as part of a larger cerebrative process examining engrams through the window of fundamental theories of reality—reveal an ungirding pattern of tonal morphemes that…
[a:03] Hmm.
[silence]
[a:04] Both causal and paracausal laws of the universe might… share a common… language. Getting a sample of the Hive's… music… will help me… study it.
[silence]
[g4:01] So, you want us to record the Hive singing so you can…
[g4:02] …figure out how the universe works?
[a:05] Eureka! You apprehend it!

TYPE: LIVE COMBAT FEED [CONTINGENCY RECORD]
PARTIES: One [1]. One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate Vyhar [v]
ASSOCIATIONS: Cabal; Ghaul; Hive; Magic; Young Wolf [Saladin's]
//AUDIO PRESERVED//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[v:01] How is this possible…
[v:02] Ghaul's dead. You're dead! The Young Wolf killed you!
[v:03] What is this? Hive magic?


TYPE: LIVE COMBAT FEED [CONTINGENCY-LINKED]
PARTIES: Four [4]. One [1] Cabal, Centurion-type, Dominus, designate Ghaul [g]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Titan, designate Omnibull [o]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Warlock, designate Rana Untu [ru]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate Vyhar [v]
ASSOCIATIONS: Cabal; Ghaul; Gladiator; Incendior; Light; Vyhar; Young Wolf [Saladin's]
//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[o:01] Vyhar, behind me!
[v:01] Just a sec!
[v:02] There! That'll give them something—
[ru:01] Watch out!
[v:03] Damn Incendiors!
[o:02] I told you—
[ru:02] Heads up!
[v:04] What in the…?
[ru:03] Is that Ghaul?
[o:03] Gladiators incoming!
[v:05] That's got them riled up!
[g:01] Traveler, do you see me now?
[v:06] He's huge!
[ru:04] He has the Light!
[o:04] Impossible!
[g:02] I am immortal—a god!
[o:05] Listen to them cheering.
[ru:05] We've lost.
[g:03] You have failed!
[o:06] The plan didn't work.
[g:04] Witness the dawning of a new age!
[ru:06] Wait! Something's happening!
[g:05] Noooooooooo!
//LIGHT INFLUX EXCEEDS SAFE CAPACITY//

TYPE: LIVE COMBAT FEED [CONTINGENCY RECORD]
PARTIES: One [1]. One [1] Ghost-type, designate Guren [g]
ASSOCIATIONS: Deathsinger; Guren [self]; Toland [AKA Toland, the Shattered]; Traveler
//AUDIO PRESERVED//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[g:01] This is the final transmission of Guren, Ghost of Toland whom you call the Shattered. He goes to hear the song of death.
[g:02] Nothing will deter him. None of you can stop him. Not anymore.
[g:03] Toland will hear the Deathsinger's melody. He will redefine death, escape the Traveler's blunt samsara.
[g:04] He will sound the depths of the powers you so myopically fear.
[g:05] My only regret is that I will not live to see his triumph.


TYPE: LIVE SURVEILLANCE FEED [CONTINGENCY-LINKED]
PARTIES: Two [2]. One [1] Ghost-type, designate Guren [g]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Warlock, designate Toland [t]
ASSOCIATIONS: Eriana-3; Guardian; Morn, Eris; Toland [AKA Toland, the Shattered]
//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[g:01] Incoming Guardians! They've broken the perimeter. Shall I engage defenses?
[t:01] No need. They have inquisitive intentions. If murder was their mission, we'd have lost our Light long ago.
[g:02] They want to know what you know.
[t:02] Yes. And I will tell them, but they will never understand. I'll greet them with a smile and welcome them in.
[t:03] I will learn how we can benefit from their ignorance.
[g:03] Yes, but don't smile.
[t:04] Why not? A smile hides the true purpose of teeth.
[g:04] Yes, but not yours.

TYPE: LIVE COMBAT FEED [CONTINGENCY RECORD]
PARTIES: One [1]. One [1] Ghost-type, designate Karsys [k]
ASSOCIATIONS: Agah, Omar
//AUDIO PRESERVED//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[k:01] My time has come. Finally, finally…
[k:02] When I go, you'll be free. It'll all be over.
[k:03] Omar… do you think… we'll see each other… again?


TYPE: LIVE SURVEILLANCE FEED [CONTINGENCY-LINKED]
PARTIES: Two [2]. One [1] Guardian-type, Class Warlock, designate Eriana-3 [e3]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate Omar Agah [oa]
ASSOCIATIONS: Crota; Eriana-3; Great Disaster; Hive; Moon [Earth]; Morn, Eris; Ning, Wei; Toland [AKA Toland, the Shattered]; Vanguard
//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[oa:01] You can't be serious.
[silence]
[oa:02] You are. But why?
[silence]
[oa:03] Dying up there won't bring her back, you know.
[silence]
[oa:04] Sorry. That wasn't… I'm sorry. Sometimes I say—
[e3:01] You're honest, Omar. It's a quality I very much admire. So, allow me to be honest in return.
[e3:02] We're going back, because we have found a way to destroy Crota. The Vanguard is too cowardly to use it.
[oa:05] Cowardly?
[e3:03] You know it's true. We hide behind the Wall as if it would save us, but what if Crota decided to descend?
[e3:04] What if Crota and his armies landed in the City? How many more would die?
[oa:06] But if Crota were to attack us, couldn't we defeat him here?
[e3:05] No. The only means of destroying him is up there.
[oa:07] Then why won't the Vanguard agree to—
[e3:06] Eris and I went to Toland—
[oa:08] Eris? Eris Morn?
[e3:07] She sent me.
[oa:09] Why the hell didn't you just say so? Let's go.

TYPE: LIVE COMBAT FEED [CONTINGENCY RECORD]
PARTIES: One [1]. One [1] Ghost-type, designate undesignated [u]
ASSOCIATIONS: First Light; Light; Luna [AKA Moon; Earth]; Reef
//AUDIO PRESERVED//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[u:01] This will be my last transmission. Not sure I even have the Light left to send it.
[u:02] Thought I'd look for a Guardian on Luna. A First Light colonist. A downed Reef pilot. Maybe an Exo who never came home from the war.
[u:03] Is it possible… to miss someone… you've never met?


TYPE: CANDIDATE SCAN [CONTINGENCY-LINKED]
PARTIES: One [1]. One [1] Ghost-type, designate undesignated [u]
ASSOCIATIONS: First Light
//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/

[u:01] Finally! Another First Light technician.
[u:02] All right, let's see about you…
[u:03] Hoo boy. Another one.
[u:04] DNA degradation alone makes this impossible, but even if I could bring you back, who'd put you back together again?
[u:05] Inextirpable psychological trauma. Indelible psychosis: violence, paranoia, obsessive behavior. And… yup, some kind of hallucinatory mechanism. Damage to the occipital lobe and limbic, and then those weird formations in the parietal and temporal. It's like something rewired your brain but did it through your DNA.
[u:06] What were they doing up here?

FLIGHT_RECORDER_LOG // VG833-K // L-371

I've seen a Cabal cruiser take a direct hit from a Tomb Ship and keep flying. But I watched a wedge of cruisers from Caiatl's fleet try and push an advance on Seraph Station—its weaponry sliced through them like paper. Never seen anything like this.

I heard that when the Pyramids first arrived in the system, Rasputin deployed the same weapons on them and they didn't do a damn thing. It's enough to make someone want to give up.

FLIGHT_RECORDER_LOG // VG833-K // L-372

Station weaponry seems to have a maximum effective range of about five kilometers. Response time is absurd, and precision is far greater than the terrestrial versions. I tried nudging some small debris on a collision course, and the lasers targeted it immediately. I don't think you could crash a jumpship into it to do a smash-and-rez landing without being disintegrated mid-run. Will update again soon.

FLIGHT_RECORDER_LOG // VG833-K // L-373

Ketches coming and going from the station now that it's online. House Salvation. I've counted at least six, total.

FLIGHT_RECORDER_LOG // VG833-K // L-374

Saw a single Cabal ship make its way to the station past security. Wasn't one of Caiatl's, didn't recognize the design. Stayed for about an hour and left on a trajectory toward Jupiter's orbit. Forwarded to recon patrols.

FLIGHT_RECORDER_LOG // VG833-K // L-375

Tomb Ships showed up today. Ketches gave them a wide berth. I'm gonna try and get a closer look when they disembark.

// END WRECKAGE RECOVERY LOG.

We used to play for keeps. Used to be that was the only way.
Back in those days trust came slow, or not at all. The only thing you could truly rely on was the iron at your side.
Fate of the world? Immortal gods?
Don't know much 'bout that.
But when everything's on the line, it's quality that counts.
Tex Mechanica: we play by the old rules, the best rules.
We play for keeps.

Something terrible is going to happen.

In this dream, a horrible, brutal hand stretches toward you. But this is not the old enemy you know, it is something new. Something that hopes to use you more than it hopes to destroy you, but it's willing to settle for either.

The cage is worse than the paralysis of silence. It is worse than the grasping tendrils of dark. It is too tangible. It is too unfamiliar. This is not why you came here. This is not what you deserve.

The fear is enough to make you want to leave.

---

I am the last Speaker, and I dream that the Traveler will leave us.

It shouldn't be a surprise. This truth has been passed down from Speaker to Speaker for generations: the Traveler is good, the Traveler is sentient, the Traveler will save us, and the Traveler will leave us. For many, many years, I believed that the prophecy of the Traveler's departure was misinterpreted, and fulfilled instead by its silence after the Collapse. I stopped preaching that final tenet. It only served to frighten people.

My dreams, which have always been infrequent and fleeting, come more regularly. They are more confusing than ever, more disruptive. I once so rarely dreamed while awake, but now it happens all the time.

|| I am silent again. I am gone. I leave behind a yawning void. ||

My dreams forecast a terrible future: a future without the Traveler's Light. I see them all falling, Guardians and Lightless alike, toppled by the Traveler's absence. I don't understand why it happens, and I don't know when. But I know it is coming.

The details almost don't matter.

I've lived my whole life bringing people into the Light of the Traveler. I've made promises and assurances all based on faith. I've crushed doubt down into myself as far as it will go, made myself sick with it, because doubt is better left unspoken.

|| I do not recognize my world. I want to flee. ||

It's an easy decision in the end.

I tell no one. Until I can understand better what's coming, sharing this information would only be dangerous. It would create panic. A mass exodus from the City. Maybe the system, if Dead Orbit has a say in it. There will be fear and anger and violence, all based on a dream I can't explain or verify with proof.

If I can understand this better, if I can make sense of it, then I can fix it. Surely.

So I go on as if nothing has happened. I attend Consensus meetings. I discuss Hidden intelligence with Ikora. I receive reports and news from our scouts outside the City, and I consult with Zavala. People come to me with questions, as always. They ask how to cope with loss, and change, and fear—all daily realities of this life. They ask how to cope with doubt.

I lie through my teeth and tell them to trust in the Traveler.

|| Empty. Empty. Empty. ||

The dreams continue. The headaches get worse. But I believe so strongly that this knowledge would destroy our way of life, and I hold it so tightly that it poisons me.

It's all for nothing.

I'm in my apartment when I hear the first ground-shaking explosion, and I go outside to see what's happened.

I see the Red Legion fleet darkening our skies, and I realize I have made a terrible mistake.

Somewhere, the other tiny star is calling out.

You try to answer, but it cannot hear you. Not without help. You want to help, but you are paralyzed. Your limbs are crushed and your heart beats so slowly. You've never known weakness so intimately as you do now.

You can only wait.

---

I am the last Speaker, but I have been searching for the next. I stand on the balcony of my small apartment with Lady Efrideet, who wishes to leave the Last Safe City of Earth.

"I suppose I can't convince you to stay."

Efrideet stands with her arms crossed, looking out over the City. "No," she says.

"And you certainly don't need to ask permission."

She laughs, just a little. "No." She leans out over the balcony railing, looking down. Guardians have no fear of heights. She would probably happily hang over the rail by her ankles if the mood struck her. "But I was thinking about what you said before." She turns to look at me, but the featureless mask serves me once more, betraying nothing. "About finding the next Speaker."

Ah.

I've been waiting for decades for someone to come to me, to tell me their child is having strange, blinding dreams and headaches. To see a Guardian stroll through the Tower, flocked by unpaired Ghosts. I've interviewed hundreds of people via long-distance comms. I've consulted the Traveler. I've walked daily among the crowds of civilians and Guardians at the entrance of the City. And still, I've found no one I can hand down my mask to.

Before Saint-14 left for Mercury, I'd thought that maybe he could take my place. That I might be able to teach him. That's not the way it's usually done, but he has such a gentle heart. He has the right temperament. Sometimes I think he's better suited to it than I am.

But he hasn't come back.

I clear my throat. "Yes," I say. "Right. I still haven't found them. But I know they're out there."

"Well," Efrideet says. "I'm going 'out there.' I can look."

It's a good offer. But I am still waiting for him to come back, all the same.

"That's why you want to leave the City?" I ask instead of condoning the proposal. "You're the one who convinced me to come here."

"I'm glad I did," she says, lifting her chin. "But no, that's not it. There's something about this life that isn't… working for me. Seems to me that a Guardian should have more ways of marking this world than with a gun."

"That's not how I think of you."

She pauses, then leans on the railing. "Sure," she says. "But it's stuck in my muscle memory, all the same. Hundreds of years of pointing and shooting, Speaker…" She shakes her head. "I don't know what it is yet, but I want to find a different way."

This conversation feels so familiar. I was so young the last time we had it.

"I understand," I say, softer now. "That's a noble cause."

She shrugs. "And maybe I come back with a little baby Speaker."

She doesn't say it, but the "if I come back at all" hangs in the air between us.

"I would appreciate your help," I say finally. "I can't wear this mask forever."

You are waiting for something to happen.

You are suspended and weightless, but so heavy in your heart. You have a child's voice: quiet, easily lost in a crowd. You try to shout and be heard, but there is only one little star in a sea of thousands that can hear you. It only understands a fraction of your words, but it tries, and that has to be enough.

Life goes on beyond your control, as it always has. That is the curse of your creation. The things you build are not your own.

And then another star blinks into existence.

---

I am the last Speaker, and I sit at a table with the Vanguard while the City around us fights over nothing.

"We built this City to find some kind of unity," Tallulah says. She has her hands on the table and is leaning forward, like she might jump over it. "We're breaking apart from the inside."

Silence falls over the room. I am trying to think.

"What does the Traveler say?" Saint-14 asks, quietly. Everyone looks at me.

I breathe in through my nose, breathe out slowly. "About the factions?" I ask. "Or about people killing each other in our streets? This is not what the Traveler wanted. That much I can tell you."

"That was the direct result of creating us," Osiris says, leaning back in his seat. He is stone-faced, as always. "Violence. Does the Traveler truly know what it wants?"

I try to hide my frustration, and I'm glad my face is hidden by my mask.

The truth is this: I cannot say for certain what the Traveler wants, or whether it knows what it wants. The Traveler does not speak to me in words, but in dreams. Dream language is cramped. The messages come from the Traveler, disintegrate on the way to me, and reform into something else. I am an interpreter more than a Speaker.

But uncertainty has been the death of us before, and it will be again if we are not vigilant.

So what I say is, "The Traveler has always wanted to protect humanity, on its own or through Guardians. We need to enact that will."

"With all due respect to both of you," Tallulah says, eyeing Osiris and me. "This isn't about the Traveler. This is about what happens when people come together without anyone to really lead them." She taps her foot. She's nervous. Unusual for Tallulah. "Let this go on a little longer, and this is the same as the Dark Age. It's just Warlords, packed into a tighter pen."

"A body of representatives would help," Saint-14 says. "Something to allow all sides to be heard."

"Every side has a voice, but not all voices should be given the same weight," I say, shaking my head. "Some of these ideas are dangerous. We should determine which factions can continue to exist, and give them an official channel through which to air their grievances and pursue their needs."

"Which ideas are dangerous, Speaker?" Osiris asks. He is watching me, steadily. "And who decides that?"

"This is not a fight," Saint-14 says. "We have enough of those ahead of us."

"We will hear from each of the factions," I say, ignoring Osiris. Some decision is better than no decision. "Give them the opportunity to plead their case, save for those who have resorted to outright violence."

"Well, then we've got to get rid of Echelon South, for one," Tallulah lists, counting on her fingers. "And those Binary Star idiots, too. Trinary? Binary? Whatever. Anyway, there are plenty of fingers pointed at this new group, too. Monarchy something."

"If anyone can prove the rumors, we exile their leaders," I say, holding up my hand. "The factions that stay will argue their case. Of those that have a valuable viewpoint to bring to the governance of the City, we create a council."

"This sets a dangerous precedent, Speaker," Osiris says. We will have this argument again later, I can already tell. "I hope you're prepared to walk this slope."

We vote. Osiris is the only no. Then, after an inquiry into the violence, we form the Consensus.

You are the last remaining star.

In your dreams, you see yourself suspended in bright but flickering Light, staring out over a world half-destroyed. You see thousands of pieces of yourself in that world, stumbling through it like infants, wandering in labyrinthine ruins they don't understand.

For a moment, you feel in your body everything that they feel. The elation of success. The pain of failure. The candle-snuff of death. The gasping of rebirth. You feel it all at once.

---

I am the last Speaker.

I am the child of two self-exiles, and I live in a settlement in the shadow of a looming mountain. There are about three hundred of us, and we've lived here for nearly seven years. When we first arrived, we were under the jurisdiction of a Warlord named Cathal. He offered us protection for a high price, requisitioning a third of our supplies and conscripting nearly half our people to his cause. The actual protection he provided was limited. The Warlords used our valley like a battlefield, crashing through like giants who couldn't see the lives they were ending. But they could. They saw us. They just didn't care.

The Iron Lords drove Cathal out nearly a year ago, and we've lived in comfortable independence since then, with little oversight from our Risen saviors. Our people voted for that. The Iron Lords saved us, but they would be no different from the Warlords if they also wished to rule us.

Now I sit in negotiations with one of them, a woman named Lady Efrideet.

"You're free to decide either way," she says. "But if you say yes, you'll have an armed escort."

Three other people sit with me: our elected mayor, our most experienced physician, and our oldest resident. We are the people our settlement chose as representation. Beside me, a silver Ghost spins his shell, floating at my shoulder, watching Efrideet. He's followed me for over a year now, and still hasn't found his chosen. He's good company.

|| I have given so much of myself already, but I give more. I become a beacon. I call my children home. ||

"A consolidated population like that, all in one place," our mayor says. She sounds weary. She's been in her position for nearly sixty years. "It would draw Warlords to us like flies."

"Don't worry about the Warlords," Efrideet says, with the cool assurance of someone who only half-understands our worry to begin with. "Their days are numbered. Their way of life is incompatible with the Iron Decree, and so…" She shrugs.

Her nonchalance is unrelatable, but I think I trust her. I trust the Iron Lords. They've given us little reason to doubt them.

"How would the city be governed?" I ask.

Efrideet shrugs again. "That seems like the kind of thing you put to a vote." She taps her fingers on the table, impatient, but only a little. "We'll just build the place and bring people there. We can defend the walls, but we're not going to dictate what happens inside them. This is a joint venture. A collaboration."

My companions exchange looks, considering.

Efrideet watches us. Like most of the Risen, she tries to look impassive. Unaffected. But if you listen closely, she's trying to convince us. She wants this. "Listen," she says. "Risen and non-Risen have lived in their separate corners for too long. We're all people. That's all the Iron Lords are trying to say. We should live together." She pauses. "There are things we can teach each other."

Two weeks later, once we've packed up everything we can carry, we leave for the place where we'll build the Last Safe City of Earth.

|| I wish for something to grow in my shadow. ||

I am the first Speaker to never dream.

At least, I think that's true. In the days following the Collapse, any Speakers who survived were scattered to the wind, traveling with groups of refugees across the ruined wasteland that Earth became. Aside from the man who taught me, I've never met another Speaker in my life. For all I know, I'm the last one alive.

Before the Collapse, Speakers were chosen for their ability to hear the Traveler through detailed, lucid dreams. Since the dreams have stopped, there are other signs. Ghosts follow us. When we do dream, we see a strange and blinding white light. We are prone to headaches.

My mentor couldn't teach me how to interpret dreams, so he taught me in hypotheticals. I had to imagine what the dreams might be like. I had to speculate why the Traveler might come back to us and when. Like all Speakers, I memorized the four tenets: The Traveler is good. The Traveler is sentient. The Traveler will save us. The Traveler will leave us.

Sometimes I worry the Traveler has already left us.

My mentor died of a wasting sickness two years ago, and I've tried to live as his replacement. But where he was a living memory of when the Traveler was awake, I have only his memories, secondhand, imperfectly understood. I can't give answers. I can't make the Traveler speak.

Or, at least, I couldn't.

For weeks, I have worked in secret on a project, gathering scrap metal and old, broken things left over from the time before. I've cobbled it together, tinkered with the mix of strange and half-understood technology, tried to calibrate it to my needs.

A long time ago, long before the Collapse, astrophysicists recorded sounds from the planets in our solar system and turned them into music. They translated plasma waves and radio emissions into eerie, musical rumbles, roars, whistles, and hisses. The Traveler makes sounds, too. Speakers have listened to its music for many years, in the form of dreams.

Carefully, lovingly, I build a mask. An amplifier.

No one knows about it but me. I won't get their hopes up, even though mine are sky high as I put the finishing touches on it. It's not beautiful like our old technology was. It is scuffed and bent and rusted, like everything we own now. But if I'm right, if I can do this, it will do beautiful things.

I can't bear to fail. I have failed at everything else so far.

When I'm finished, I wear the mask. Pieces of it, not sanded down, are rough and sharp against my face, but I dream for the first time in my life.

|| I have cried out unheard for so long that my voice is raw. ||

I am the first Speaker to be taken prisoner.

The greatest surprise isn't being captured; it's being captured by a Dreg.

In the end, when they drag me, tied and bound, into a damp cave miles out from my settlement, it's three Dregs. I look around for a Kell or a Priest—someone in charge—but we're alone. There are no Pikes or Ether tanks, no banners, no Servitors. I sit on a rock and look at my captors, more perplexed than afraid.

The shame of being captured by something so little and young-looking, when for so long we've managed to defend our settlement from their hulking Captains, is a little bit humbling.

The Dreg who grabbed me fidgets with a mask. One of his companions watches, while the other half-heartedly points an Arc spear at me. They seem uncertain. Nervous. Probably they weren't supposed to have done this.

I wait patiently until the Dreg straps the mask to his face.

"You," he says in a crackling, distorted voice. I'm floored. They've managed to make a translator. "You are the mouth of the Great Machine."

There have been negotiations with the Fallen since they arrived on Earth. Never successful, nearly always fatal, but they've happened. So I'm aware that some of the Risen know their alien language, and some of the high-level Fallen know ours. Dregs, though. It's another surprise.

And… the "mouth of the Great Machine"…

Hm.

"I was," I say carefully. The Dreg narrows all four of his eyes as his tech translates my words. If he understands the distinction between "I am" and "I was," he doesn't show it. Instead, he nods.

"You will tell us the Great Machine's words."

It doesn't actually sound like a command. I wonder if, with better translation tech, he would've said "please."

I don't say anything. If I reveal what I can't do, what I don't know, they'll probably kill me.

The other two Dregs gather around their companion, watching him eagerly. Now and then, they look at me. The one holding the spear has let her grip grow slack, and the spear is tipped down to point at the ground. The Fallen have surprisingly expressive faces. What I pick up from them is not aggression or hatred, but fearful anticipation.

The Dreg with the mask nods again, not discouraged by my silence. This time, when he speaks, I can hear his hope, even through the mask: "Why did the Great Machine leave us?"

I stare back at him.

Any fear I felt before dissipates. Instead, what I feel is a grief partially forgotten in the chaos of trying to survive—and a deep and abiding kinship with the enemies who have pursued us.

My voice is very quiet when I finally speak.

"I don't know."

The other two Dregs look at their friend, waiting. His expression twists with confusion, and then disappointment. There's anger there, too, but it's overpowered by something else. A very familiar sorrow.

We sit in silence for a long time.

I am the first Speaker to see a Ghost.

The way we tell it, after the Collapse, the Traveler cut itself into a thousand tiny pieces and sent them out into the world.

These tiny pieces are drawn to me, and to others like me, like moths. The first time I saw them, I thought they were surveillance drones, but up close, they were nothing like our old technology, not really. The way they move seems organic and natural. They spin their shells like they are ruffling feathers; their little forward-facing lights blink like eyes.

"We're called Ghosts," one of them said to me once, hovering at my shoulder as I tended a cook-fire.

"Why?" I asked, gentle, casual. They're all different, these Ghosts. Many of them are like children, curious and friendly. Some are world-weary from the moment they're born.

The Ghost spun his silver petals, considering. "Because we're searching, I think."

It's a good enough answer for me. I'm searching, too.

I let the little Ghosts follow me. We talk about what the Traveler was like before the Collapse. They like to hear it, and I like to remember. Deep in their core, they remember, too, I think. They remember a time when they were all one piece. Still, they like to ask what the Traveler told me, and I recount all the dreams I can still remember. I haven't dreamed since the Collapse, and this is almost—almost, almost—like dreaming again.

Today, at twilight, one of the shy and quiet Ghosts who has been lingering at my side asks if I will follow her out into the valley. I should say no, but she sounds hopeful. And I am curious.

We travel for several hours. The land here is recovering—not just from the Collapse, but from the time before it. Resources for our settlement are scarce, but nature is creeping back in, and nature is cruel now. It's been starving and confused for decades, jostled out of its natural order, and now we reap the consequences. Wolves steal our livestock. Mange-ridden bears wander through our compound late at night, pawing at our doors. The land is so thick with the memory of poison that it won't grow crops.

We protect ourselves from this recovering world as best we can, and we rarely go out at night. But I'm drawn by a curiosity that feels beyond me.

The Ghost leads me to a barn with a sagging roof. She asks me to wait out of sight—she says, "I think you'll scare her." I don't fully understand what she means.

I crouch and watch as she hovers over the years-old remains of a person, barely recognizable as something that was once living. The Ghost floats over the body nervously, and then scans it with pale light. In front of my eyes, flesh grows over old bones and tattered rags stitch themselves together. The person, a woman, gasps and sits up.

I can't believe it.

The Ghost hovers close to her new companion and says something quiet and reassuring. I can't hear. I feel amazed, and then jealous, and then ashamed.

You feel it before it happens.

It has happened before. You feel deep in your bones that this thing has chased you across galaxies like an unshakeable dread. It strives to undo. It will undo you. It will undo all of us.

First is suffocation, and then pain. The pain isn't localized to any part of you, but to all of you and beyond you. You want to run, but you are pulled in all directions by opposite and equal forces that hold you perfectly still.

It is inescapable this time. You are losing everything that you were. You are bleeding silver into the air like the air is water, and you watch your silver-blood float away from your body. Empty. Empty. Empty.

---

I am the Speaker who witnesses the end of the world.

Through it all, I am overwhelmed by torrents of sharp, static images, sometimes so fast and constant that I can't see or hear. The Traveler is babbling: telling me everything and nothing all at once, in fast, stereoscopic, waking nightmares. I am myself and not myself.

And I || am stuck in a web of black spider silk, frozen in the mind-numbing silence of space || have no answers.

The fall isn't quick. It happens over weeks and months: cataclysmic disasters, natural and unnatural, flattening human settlements on every planet || that I have made, I have shaped, my work, laid flat ||. Earthquakes. Tidal waves. Solar flares. Cyclones, sinkholes, exploding lakes, wildfires. Unknown, untreatable plagues raze populations in hours. Water goes black with unknown poisons || forced down my throat ||. The ground opens up and swallows entire cities || and I am sick sick sick ||.

This has happened before. I'd watched in my dreams the cities that fell, alien cities, torn down by a wind so fierce that it flattened an entire world || and it is not my fault ||.

But this is different. The Traveler has not left us. Something new || half-remember and wished-forgotten, this false-sister || has arrived.

I || don't want to abandon you || watch on crackling video feeds as people try to escape the outer planets. Exodus ships burn || like I will burn || up with thousands upon thousands of souls aboard. We gather in frightened, huddled || trapped, stuck, doomed || groups in relief outposts, hoping against hope.

I try to aid the relief effort but my thoughts || run || become more and more scattered. I can't || run || keep separate my own mind || run || and the || run run RUN RUN || Traveler's.

Then, suddenly, silence.

And it's the silence that truly breaks me.

You are the first to dream.

In the dream, you are shaping coarse sand with your hands. You lift a handful, and it feels like the shifting of mountains. You drag your fingertip through the dirt to make a twisting line and hear the roar of moving water. You breathe and feel the rush of clean, bright wind in your hair.

Suddenly, you are far, far, far up in the air, higher than you've ever been. You have gone to the very top of Freehold's tallest skyscrapers, but this is much higher, and you see the world below with much greater fidelity. It is a beautiful green world, much greener than any place you've ever seen before.

It looks like home.

---

I am the first to dream.

The dreams can happen at any time. A veil drops in front of my eyes and I see strange, moving images. I am someone else, or I am myself, reimagined. I can't say. In the dreams, I shape planets with my own hands.

At first, I believe I am mad.

The clinicians at BrayWell call it "interplanetary relocation maladjustment psychosis": a psychobabble catch-all for mental disturbances that they can't explain. Other people, searching for certainty, call it "prophecy." But all I can offer is a loose, tangled connection that I painstakingly unravel when I dream.

|| I am drawn to a bright and attentive star. I speak to it through movement, through feeling. It understands implicitly. ||

Now, I stand before a crowd. Their murmuring is the bone-deep rumble of shifting tectonic plates.

A screen behind me plays looping, blurry footage of the Traveler terraforming Venus. The images radiate with pale light. We've watched this footage many times.

|| I glide through space as if through water, tugged in nine directions by nine impulses. ||

In front of the crowd, I sway a little, a copse of trees bending in a dream-wind. I can't help it. I'm dreaming more often than not.

|| There is whispering from the deep-dark, alluring and terrifying—a reminder of things left behind, bittersweet and abhorrent. ||

A crackle of static on the screen behind me brings me back to earth, resettling my feet firmly on the ground. These people have come here for my insights.

I lean forward and speak to the crowd. Four tenets, aching with truth:

The Traveler is a force of benevolence.

The Traveler is a sentient being with free will, dreams, hopes, and fears.

The Traveler will save us.

The Traveler will leave us.

It takes considerable skill to master the greatest challenges in Sol, but it takes a very dedicated and patient Guardian to step up and lead others through these daunting tests. Every experienced Guardian was once a New Light. You may reminisce on your own first time in the deepest pits of the Moon; what advice would you give to yourself from those early days? Those who take the time to share their expertise are an invaluable part of the Guardian community.

Becoming a leader isn't just about being "the best," it's about dedicating the time and effort to helping others become their best.

This style of Cabal war bell, known as the Bell of Conquests, is a standout example of the traditional combat artistry known as scal'sangus—literally "blood etching"—popular during the Era of Lead, before the Cabal extended their reach beyond their immediate star system. These objects commemorated martial feats and personal victories but varied widely in appearance. Peasant mercenaries often simply stitched the carved teeth of their defeated foes into their leathers; those with more resources sometimes claimed the entire torsos of vanquished opponents to preserve, lacquer, and display as busts.

The Bell of Conquests was a less grisly chronicle of the victories of its owner. Unadorned bells were given to warriors at their first blood. Those who wished to challenge a warrior in combat would request their bell and ring it seven times.

As warriors collected victories, they could have artisans decorate their bells to commemorate their glories. These adornments allowed the bearers to call upon benefits for honorable combat related to their past victories: a warrior who had completed the Trial of Beasts could bring a trained war beast into a duel; a survivor of the Flayed Night was allowed to cut their opponent twice across the stomach; those who had withstood the Cold Iron Mouth could coat their blades in caustic white ash.

Defeating the bearer of a war bell entitled the victor to claim the bell as their own. The clapper of the bell would be carved with a shallow engraving representing the previous owner's cause of death. Ownership would fully transfer after the engraving had been worn away by new challengers ringing the bell. At that point, all the privileges the bell bestowed upon its former owner would be granted to the new holder. For this reason, elaborate war bells were both highly sought after and heavily defended.

War bells continued to be carried into the galactic-colonial period, and their decorations became even more refined. Intricate mosaics pressed with precious gems became symbols of wealth and granted further allowances in duels, while also creating a larger incentive for would-be challengers. As the scale of warfare increased, the logistical difficulties of claiming war bells became apparent. Captured war bells were sometimes melted down en masse and recast as elaborate war gongs, and there were specific rituals in place for spacefaring rivals to ring the gong in challenge.

In the post-Red War Cabal, few soldiers adhere to the tradition, as the Bell of Conquests is seen as a cumbersome relic. Nevertheless, they may still find a place of honor aboard the ships of those who wish to respect the combat traditions of their ancestors.

"You've had this for years and never thought to mention it?" Eris runs her fingers over the grime-clouded containment glass housing a large growth of egregore within the Drifter's Derelict.

"Wasn't hidin' it." Drifter rolls Eris's Ahamkara bone over his knuckles. "Ain't nobody ever asked. Hell, you've walked by it before, Moondust."

"What wonders you must have buried in this heap," Eris muses. The emerald shine of her eyes dart back and forth behind thin cloth.
"I could…" Drifter saunters up beside her, "give you the tour?"

"We haven't the time. Tell me, what have you learned from this egregore sample?"

Drifter wrinkles his face and looks up to the massive, contained growth. "Uhh…"

Eris massages annoyance from her brow. She sees the playful coyness in his eyes. The hidden information he holds as bargain for some trade. "Do you at least remember where you found it?"

"Sister, you don't wanna know." Eris locks her eyes on the Drifter's face. He staggers back awkwardly and shrugs. "Icy little nothing in the middle of nowhere. Doesn't have a name, and you don't want to go there alone."

"But you could take me?" Eris tests his defenses.

Drifter brushes off the mottled fur of his shoulder guards and leans against a poorly fastened railing. "Only if we take your jumpship. And I drive."

Eris sighs and pushes through him. "No."

Drifter springs after her. "So that's it? You're leaving?"

"You're being evasive, Rat." Eris plucks her Ahamkara bone from his hand and stows it beneath her cloak. "Contact me when you're willing to speak plainly."

Drifter calls after her, hands outstretched, "You don't want to stay for dinner?"

Eris halts, considering what disgusting amalgamation of refuse would constitute a meal here. She glances over her shoulder. One last attempt to extract information…

"It is strange. When Savathûn drew Mars back into our space, it was free of the egregore. But the Glykon and Leviathan both returned rampant with fungal growth. Why?" she asks.

He gives in. "You know… it sings if you burn it just right." Drifter thumbs behind him. "Sub-sonic, resonates in a funny way with Pyramid tech."

"Is that so?"

"You don't trust me?"

"Me and the others got to take the new snow treads out for a test drive today! We were in a cheeky mood, so we decided to have a race. Things were going well until Willums cracked the glacier—these treads step heavy! Luckily they handle great on ice and we were able to rappel down to save him. The only thing he really hurt was his pride. But like the engineers said, great in ice and snow. A real pair of lifesavers!"

—Intern, BrayTech R&D

SIMULATION RECONSTRUCTION LOG // LA-03-02 // TRIALS ARENA, THE LIGHTHOUSE, MERCURY

Titan's sea of liquid methane crashes against the listing hull of the New Pacific Arcology. The wind whips with hurricane force, sending a freezing sea spray lashing across the crooked metal frame of a crumbling catwalk. Flares of atomic fire bloom in the mist and roll off the arcology's walls. Human and inhuman screams echo out into impossible seas.

Two dozen Hive Thrall come pouring out of an encrusted airlock, climbing over one another, jaws snapping. They scurry across every surface not slicked by liquid methane; drawn like moths to a beacon of golden flame. Shayura stands against the crashing tide of chitin and bone, a Sword of fire held fast in two hands, screaming as she cleaves through the masses of encroaching death.

Burning embers of Thrall rain around her, but with each dispatched wave of necrotic soldiers, it feels as though their numbers double. She is pressed by the tide of Hive, inching closer and closer to the jagged end of the catwalk hanging over the churning sea. When the Thrall recede, she is thankful for a respite. But the towering Knight that drops from the airlock is an escalation, not a victory.

Edging a half-step backward, Shayura knows that the only way out is through. Wings of flame roar off of her back, leaving a trail of rippling heat and hollowed-out Thrall in her wake. Her Sword clashes with the Knight's shield, shattering it in a single blow. Her follow-through cleaves through the Knight's arm, down into its chest.

Shayura turns on her heel toward the remaining Thrall. She can feel the Light in her ebbing and knows that they will overwhelm her if she doesn't succeed now. Death against the Hive is never a sure return; not after what happened to Taeko-3 and her fireteam here. A blinding pain hits Shayura in her back. Her vision swims, mind reels; had she missed one? Feeling the warmth of blood running below her armor, Shayura turns to see the Hive Knight reborn, Sword covered in her blood.

Screaming inside her helmet, Shayura feels a deep panic build in her chest. She knows a Hive death ritual when she sees it, and she walked straight into their trap. She rolls away from the Knight's next swing and into the reach of Thrall that tear at her armor. Mustering the last of her Solar energy, Shayura calls up a cyclonic pillar of flame that twists up into the sky and consumes the Knight.

The revenant Knight emerges from the flames, already reconstituting. Shayura leaps forward and drives her Sword through his face, tackling him to the ground. Her Solar aura flickers and fades; smoke and steam billow from her back and shoulders.

"Shay?"

She hears one of the surviving Thrall speak in a human voice. Shayura twists her Sword in the Knight's face and shakes sizzling green blood onto the catwalk. The Knight begins to reform again in a horrifying blaze of green flame, but as it reaches out toward her, she cuts off his arm and sends her Sword through the top of his head in a brutal follow-through.

The Thrall wails. She can feel an arm around her waist, restraining her. She kicks and struggles, crying out as the last wisps of Praxic fire twist down her arm and Sword.

"No! No! Stop! No!" Shayura howls, fighting against the pull of the Thrall.

"Shay," the Thrall cry in the voices of her friends. "Shay!"

Shayura screams into the impossible seas.

TM-Fireteam, Tex // RECOVERED MISSION TRANSCRIPTS: 7-7-7

>>WHISPER NEUTRINO NEEDLE>>
N/A//SECRET HADAL INSTANT
AI-COM/STRI: FEED//AUGUR-ECHO, WARWATCH//IMPERATIVE

REPLY:
Encoded neutrino script: I concur, S. Anomalous masses demonstrate independent movement. Consider timeline escalation under TWILIGHT to preserve [H]. Warwatch to monitor Sol border/anomalous intersection based on received data.

***

EMERGENCY EVENT CAPTURE – TRIGGER: AI-S, MANUAL EVENT – GENERAL

[Emergency Alarm Sounds Throughout Complex]

Em-Automated: Scramble! Event… Scramble! Event…[Repeats]

[Em. NavForward Team– Koranthin, Saturn Site, Check-in: 3:57.39 – ST]

[Em. NavForward – Koranthin, awaiting ECHO contingency launch orders…]

[…]

[Em. NavForward – Koranthin, awaiting ECHO contingency launch orders…]

[AI-S ENACTING EMERGENCY OVERRIDE, ACTING COMMAND]

[AI-S, ORDER ISSUED – COMMAND: EMEGENCRY SCRAMBLE, LAUNCH CONTINGENCY]

[SCRAMBLE ACKNOWLEDGED//Koranthin Network: LAUNCHING! LAUNCHING! LAUNCHING!]

[Em. Flight OpCon – Ares Spire Command, Check-in: 3:59:07am – ST]

[CBI – Ares Spire Command, Check-in: 4:03:01am – ST]

[Noted Absent: Dr. MS, associated Ishtar team members. | Due: Termination]

EMERGENCY EVENT CAPTURE – ARES SPIRE COMMAND: 4:7:01am – ST

Em-Automated: Scramble! Event… [Repeats]

CBI: Enough.

[…]

CBI: Why aren't I being briefed?

OpCon-A: Emergency scramble initiated by AI-Soteria. Soteria, confirm.

AI-S: Confirmed. Emergency Scramble Event successful. All teams checked-in.

CBI: You've launched the Koranthin network?

AI-S: Confirmed. Emergency Scramble Event Successful.

CBI: [Sigh] The launch is meant to be simulated, not executed. Provide an explanation.

AI-S: In the event of an emergency, we must be ready. This is the third and final emergency scramble test, after which I am now confident in the response capabilities of our newly onboarded staff.

NvF-Kor: Forward reports pods are engaging Neutrino Sails.

OpCon: Sir, we're being locked out of manual control.

CBI: Soteria, what are you doing?

AI-S: Aligning ECHO fleet for departure and testing initial burn. This will conclude the test.

I propose a simple experiment—look around. You see light. You see darkness. There could not be one without the other. They are two sides of the same coin.

If it is true for these Newtonian echoes, why would it not be true of the purest, paracausal forms?

Therefore, I conclude: the reason you persecute me is not because of the symmetry. It's because of the truth beyond this truth, the truth which you most dread: if we could destroy darkness, but we had to give up our Light to do so, how many of us would make that trade?

"Hail, warrior of the empire," Empress Caiatl said as she approached the bedside of a wounded Red Legion Centurion. The soldier had been gazing solemnly out a porthole when the sound of her voice startled him. He turned suddenly, then winced in pain. Caiatl saw darkened synthetic fabric enveloping his torso and the entirety of his right arm, which itself looked frail and withered. She knew immediately that this Cabal would see no more battles.

"My empress!" the warrior responded, clasping a fist to his chest with his unwrapped arm. Caiatl saluted in return.

The empress glanced at a monitor displaying the patient's data. "Val'ast, born of Val'tui." She looked out the porthole; the brilliance of Sol beamed back at her. "The empire has returned for you, Red Legionary, yet your heart seems heavy. Why do you languish?"

Val'ast looked away. "I am sorry, Empress."

"Do not be sorry, my brother," Caiatl said.

Val'ast sighed. "For years, every day has been about survival. Just trying to stay in the fight. But now…" He trailed off and grasped the sheets of his bed, a cheap fabric but still softer than anything he'd felt in years.

"When you war for so long, peace can become its own struggle," Caiatl said.

Val'ast let the fabric fall from his hand. "I thought I was Acrius reborn, claiming another sun for our kind." He gazed out the porthole. "But I failed."

Caiatl smiled. "I've always loved that tale." She pulled a stool over and sat. "Did you know that there used to be more to it?"

Val'ast shook his head.

"It's an older version, not as popular in modern times, but I was lucky enough to learn it as a child," the empress continued. "Before Acrius, three warriors sought to climb a great mountain and grasp the sun, but a terrible beast stood in their way.

"The first tried to outwit the beast and sneak through the shadows, but the beast smelled him still and ate the warrior in a single bite.

"The second tried to escape the beast, crafting a device to harness the wind and soar upward. But the fickle wind changed its mind and tossed her into the beast's maw.

"The third warrior challenged the beast head on, Severus in hand. She also fell to the beast's gnashing teeth, but not before her blade tasted blood."

Val'ast frowned. "They all failed?"

Caiatl considered the question. "The first two, certainly. They thought battle could be avoided. But the third warrior died with pride and honor."

Val'ast pondered for a moment. "Even in defeat, she left her mark on her foe."

Caiatl nodded. "And the next time one of her kin faced it, the beast would be one blow closer to death."

"Did more come?" Val'ast questioned.

"Of course!" Caiatl exclaimed. "They were Cabal, and the sun was theirs to claim. Over and over, their mightiest fell. But each time, another wound was struck, until the day came when a warrior landed the final blow. That warrior was Acrius."

Val'ast frowned. "Ever since I was a child, I saw Acrius as a hero…"

"He may have been," Caiatl replied as she clasped Val'ast's hand in hers. "But so was the warrior who struck first."

Val'ast's eyed glistened as he held her grip firmly. "Thank you, Empress."

Caiatl shook her head. "My brother, it is the empire who thanks you."

He made himself look at the numbers. Seventy-three ships lost in the exodus. Seventy-three ships full of people looking to him for guidance. Guardians and civilians alike. All Zavala could give them was a noble death.

Almost none of the vessels had been outfitted with weapons. Transports and supply skiffs, barely holding together outside Earth's atmosphere, trying to punch through a fortified Red Legion blockade. Like prey animals limping through a pack of lions. It was a massacre.

The only reason the fleet made it past the Moon was because the Red Legion focused so heavily on Earth. In that, they seemed like the Cabal Zavala knew. Single-minded. Incapable of thinking more than a few moves ahead. But he knew this Dominus Ghaul wouldn't give up that easily. So they kept moving.

But what next? Zavala had a plan, of course. He always had a plan, Titan Vanguard or no. But what he really needed was information. He needed—

"Deputy Commander Sloane, reporting for duty, sir."

Zavala closed his eyes. And for a brief moment, he relaxed.

She was a frog in my estimation; small and colorful but toxic to touch.

In your infinite wisdom, you looked beyond the worm I brought you to the least of the leeches that infested Fundament. Shaving thin my gift, you infected them with conquest, and now they see themselves as artisans of the final shape.

My place is not to understand you, my Witness, but to serve that final goal you see more clearly than I. But now, your gold-leaf parasites call themselves gods and carve out their divine homes. And I am to watch the sniveling frog.

Was this castigation? The toll I pay for my failure with the Ahslid? You have cast me and my ego once more into the cold depths of an inconsequential world.

I recall stepping into her realm, and her face twisted to betray restrained delight. She thought herself mistress of this domain you leased her. She did not—could not—appreciate the precarity of her situation. So sure of her dominion, she could not recognize her jailer, or that she lives within a prison formed from her own ego—one I will put to work for you, my Witness.

The capture of her race will flow out from this realm—each self-satisfied smirk will forge a new link in their chains.

Had I known then what my current quandary would be, I could have heeded my own insights on ego. Regardless, even in this predicament, I am unbowed.

My heart warms like fire kindled; my spirit exalted by the Flame. I smile at my enemies, because I rejoice in their chastening.

No one burns so brightly or holds the righteousness of the Flame's Sword.

No longer shall you quaver; be not timid in the light of our Flame, for the Flame is our guardian; and by His hand shall all we dread be burnt away.

The guns of our enemies silenced, and those among us who fled return with courage. Those who have shivered at shadows now set fires and keep fear at bay. Bright is the future we have before us, because we carry the Flame forward into the night.

The Flame dies and comes alive again; like a phoenix, He rises from ash and burns anew. The Flame makes us strong by sharing His light; He rekindles the hope that lies within us. From the weak He forges strength; from the impure He burns the wickedness. Our path through darkness is clear, for the Flame has lit the way.

For our hearts are the hearths in which the Flame burns; His fires will guard the homes of His faithful, but the evil will be blinded by its light and flee into shadow.

By bullets alone shall none prevail. The Flame's Sword shall never dull its edge or brilliance. The foes of the Flame shall forever be turned to smoke and blown away. For the Flame is everlasting; haunted by His own ghost, He cannot die.

—Song from a hymnal discovered in the Scorched Chapel, believed to be an account of the Risen named Hungren-3

JOURNEY - IV

Austyn sat in silence with eyes shut. Ley Lines swept over her in waves—in pulses, which she slowly brought into alignment with her own. Entanglement. It was not the first time she had pressed herself into symbiosis with the Ascendant Plane. She'd been through the thoughts of all the sisters in her Coven. She had dreamt with Petra and harvested secrets from her, with the Queen's Wrath being none the wiser. Austyn knew they were meant to save Queen Mara Sov. They were meant to find her and restore the throne. She had been searching the Ley Lines for a path to the queen each night after her training.

Her Coven sisters lay sleeping all around her body, but her mind flew through countless panes of prismatic glass. As they shattered, she flittered from one plane to the next, catching momentary glimpses of incommunicable wonder.

In the distant cosmos far ahead, Austyn saw a darkened haze of indecipherable noise. Somewhere nestled in the Ley Lines, this shadowed spot was growing. Austyn knew Mara Sov was distant. She knew the queen had obscured herself from her enemies. Austyn had felt a presence reach from the noise toward the Dreaming City more than once. Tonight, she would reach back.

Austyn focused her will on a path to the distant noise and, as she did so, it was. The way was open, but still so far. She reached out with her physical body, placing a hand in the air before her and splitting the oxygen with her touch. She carved a slit in reality, through the molecules of the air, and the path anchored to it at her command.

The noise descended upon her, and instantly, she was at the precipice.

Hand pressed, frozen, paralyzed, and awash in insidious whispers that shredded the doorway into open nothing.

It tore her consciousness across the cosmos to a grand terrace of onyx swords and emerald flame reigning over a red harbor. Fingers reached like blades from distant hollows. Screaming noise upon noise. A lone figure stood on the terrace aside two empty thrones. Testing. Prodding. Tasting. Breeding war.

"Austyn!" A familiar voice pried her back into the waking world. "Austyn, are you all right?"

She woke, soaked in sweat and heat. Petra Venj stood over her, gripping her shoulders.

Austyn struggled to breathe. Her eyes met Petra's.

"Austyn?"

They'd leave you behind if they knew what you just saw, she thought.

"Just a nightmare," Austyn reassured the Queen's Wrath. "Thank you for waking me."

"Hail, warrior of the empire," Empress Caiatl said as she approached the bedside of a wounded Red Legion Centurion. The soldier had been gazing solemnly out a porthole when the sound of her voice startled him. He turned suddenly, then winced in pain. Caiatl saw darkened synthetic fabric enveloping his torso and the entirety of his right arm, which itself looked frail and withered. She knew immediately that this Cabal would see no more battles.

"My empress!" the warrior responded, clasping a fist to his chest with his unwrapped arm. Caiatl saluted in return.

The empress glanced at a monitor displaying the patient's data. "Val'ast, born of Val'tui." She looked out the porthole; the brilliance of Sol beamed back at her. "The empire has returned for you, Red Legionary, yet your heart seems heavy. Why do you languish?"

Val'ast looked away. "I am sorry, Empress."

"Do not be sorry, my brother," Caiatl said.

Val'ast sighed. "For years, every day has been about survival. Just trying to stay in the fight. But now…" He trailed off and grasped the sheets of his bed, a cheap fabric but still softer than anything he'd felt in years.

"When you war for so long, peace can become its own struggle," Caiatl said.

Val'ast let the fabric fall from his hand. "I thought I was Acrius reborn, claiming another sun for our kind." He gazed out the porthole. "But I failed."

Caiatl smiled. "I've always loved that tale." She pulled a stool over and sat. "Did you know that there used to be more to it?"

Val'ast shook his head.

"It's an older version, not as popular in modern times, but I was lucky enough to learn it as a child," the empress continued. "Before Acrius, three warriors sought to climb a great mountain and grasp the sun, but a terrible beast stood in their way.

"The first tried to outwit the beast and sneak through the shadows, but the beast smelled him still and ate the warrior in a single bite.

"The second tried to escape the beast, crafting a device to harness the wind and soar upward. But the fickle wind changed its mind and tossed her into the beast's maw.

"The third warrior challenged the beast head on, Severus in hand. She also fell to the beast's gnashing teeth, but not before her blade tasted blood."

Val'ast frowned. "They all failed?"

Caiatl considered the question. "The first two, certainly. They thought battle could be avoided. But the third warrior died with pride and honor."

Val'ast pondered for a moment. "Even in defeat, she left her mark on her foe."

Caiatl nodded. "And the next time one of her kin faced it, the beast would be one blow closer to death."

"Did more come?" Val'ast questioned.

"Of course!" Caiatl exclaimed. "They were Cabal, and the sun was theirs to claim. Over and over, their mightiest fell. But each time, another wound was struck, until the day came when a warrior landed the final blow. That warrior was Acrius."

Val'ast frowned. "Ever since I was a child, I saw Acrius as a hero…"

"He may have been," Caiatl replied as she clasped Val'ast's hand in hers. "But so was the warrior who struck first."

Val'ast's eyed glistened as he held her grip firmly. "Thank you, Empress."

Caiatl shook her head. "My brother, it is the empire who thanks you."

"You hear that? Who is that?" Yardarm-4 sounded like he was on the verge of panic. Rekkana had never heard him like that, not even in the worst firefights, not even in their last battle, which might have been the last battle for the Kentarch 3.

"I hear it," Rekkana and Lisbon-13 said as one. All three Guardians summoned their Ghosts, almost simultaneously.

"Ghost?" Yardarm-4 was first. "What have we got?"

"Scan the area for life," Lisbon-13 ordered.

"Multiphasic scan," Rekkana barked at her Ghost.

Their Ghosts all started chattering at once, and they stepped away from one another to hear, fanning out across the grotto and widening their defensive triangle.

"There's something weird," Rekkana's Ghost blurted, words shooting from it, rapid-fire. "I'm getting static on every wavelength. It's like there's a shadow being cast by every signal. It's nothing specific, but it's everywhere. Wait, no. There's something wrong. I—"

Rekkana's Ghost dropped like a stone. She snatched it out of the air.

She looked behind her. Lisbon-13 was holding his Ghost. Yardarm-4 was picking his up from the ground. The Light around them faded, and the gloom of the grotto closed in.

"Yardarm, Lisbon, you OK?"

"I'm fine," came Lisbon-13's reply, and he sounded calm.

"Yeah. Sure." Yardarm-4's reply was distant and growing fainter, like he was facing away and moving off.

Rekkana reached for her emergency light.

"Wait." It was a whisper, but not from her friends—it came from somewhere ahead of her, deeper in the grotto. "Wait. Please. Can we just talk for a minute?"

Crash Site, Nessus Terrae, Day Four

**

Panesh sat wearily beside the heavy metal beams that trapped him in the wreckage of the Cabal frigate. On the other side of the wall, the Cabal warrior stuck in the corridor roared in frustration and started kicking again.

"Save your energy, Vargessus," Panesh shouted over the noise. "You're not going to be able to kick your way through…" he paused to scratch a fingernail along the unfamiliar metal, "solid Cabal-ium."

Heavy footsteps stomped over to a crack in the wall near the hull. "Cabal can kick through most things," Vargessus said, her face pressed against the gap in the metal. "Caiatl will kick your Vanguard into pieces, once you cowards stop running."

"Who's running?" Panesh said. "We're in the City waiting for you. Under the big white ball—maybe you've heard of it? We don't run."

"Hrah!" Vargessus laughed. "You run. Fought one of you once—all he did was run. Shield and run. We stopped chasing him and then BOOM!" She pounded the metal wall with a gigantic fist. "He dove at us, covered in lightning! Then he ran again."

"Sounds like he wasn't running," said Panesh. "He retreated to a tactical distance."

"Fancy words for 'run,'" snorted Vargessus. Panesh heard her pace uneasily, then sit in the corridor, her back against the same wall as his.

"Hey," Panesh called, "how about you keep some tactical distance yourself? You smell like a… hot barnyard."

"And you smell also, like a bloodless child. Sour."

There was a loud electrical pop overhead and Panesh raised his hands against a shower of blinding sparks.

"Panesh?" shouted Vargessus.

"I'm fine," he said. "Just another system shorting out."

The Cabal grunted in response. Panesh heard her settle back against the wall.

"Unripe," she added.

"You're ripe enough for both of us," he said.

But neither of them moved.

Kethiks, the Yet-Proven, had spent three lunar orbits surveying the small village. He was not the first Captain to strike here, but while others had come for killing or labor, his clutch of Vandals came for something else.

A Lightbearer resided in the village—a demon who had killed many of his friends. A demon who had shattered the Captain whose place Kethiks had taken. It was Kethiks's duty to seek revenge, to hunt this demon, and clear the death debt. Those were the words House Devils had sent with Kethiks.

But to Kethiks, this demon's life paid more than vengeance. Its life paid glory. The same glory Kethiks's father, Ykriis, claimed when he felled a Lightbearer in single combat, took its tiny machine and drank of its divine Ether. Soon that glory would be Kethiks's as well. Soon his position would be recognized for more than its circumstance.

Vandals crept on either side of Kethiks, maneuvering through tall grass with quiet anticipation. Where the grass died off to tilled soil and log walls, they paused, waiting for Kethiks's command. He would not launch flares to declare their strike. He would not give the Lightbearer time to plan.

As the rear-guard Dregs joined the rest of his raiding party, Kethiks ignited an Arc spear and raised it against the night. The signal: attack!

The raiders descended, expecting a paltry guard. They were soon met by stiff resistance. The Captain tore through to the heart of the village, hunting for the demon who commanded the defense. He spotted the demon in the midst of the fighting. Kethiks strode forward, seizing a defiant Human in his path with his lower arms and flung her through a burning wooden structure.

"DEMON!" he shrieked in Eliksni, brandishing his Arc spear.

Before he could advance, a young Human defiantly stepped between him and the demon and brandished a blade. Kethiks assessed the "warrior" and clicked his mandibles in laughter, easily knocking the boy's curved blade aside. The Captain taunted the youth with half-hearted thrusts that threw the small Human off balance. When he was finished toying with his prey, Kethiks drove the spear point through him.

Kethiks looked up from the pinned youth to the demon and snarled. His eyes met the demon's crackling own. The Captain raised his spear to charge—

"Keep this talisman on you at all times."

Black, glossy, and in the right light, the talisman has a rainbow iridescence. It reminds Fenchurch of hematite pearls from the Bay of Drowned Wishes. He rolls it in his hand, looking up at Chalco to see the creases of worry in her brow.

Fenchurch clips the talisman to his jacket as the rest of his fireteam has. "What's it do?"

"If it glows white, stay where you are and call out," Chalco explains, choosing her words carefully all while avoiding Fenchurch's gaze. "If you experience any memory loss or sense of déjà vu, call out." A silence falls over her fireteam. Palpable tension fills the cabin as they feel the craft begin to descend.

"If you see anyone at the operation site that you do not recognize, call out." Chalco continues, occasionally steadying herself with a hand on the cabin ceiling as the submersible pitches and yaws in the disruptive currents. "If you experience any out-of-body sensations or missing time, call out."

"Ma'am?" Lisbon-13 is not afraid to interrupt Chalco. His eyes glow bright from the back of the submersible. "Where are we going?"

Chalco stares for a moment, squares her shoulders, and continues. "If you hear a voice that you think is your own…"

Eliksni Quarter, Last City
——

What makes a House? It is a good question, and one that many Eliksni do not think on often enough.

For Humans, a house is a place. But for Eliksni, a House is a family. It has a culture. A philosophy of living, shared by all.

That is why the House of Light survived, even when we fled Europa. Even after the Shipstealer took all we had. We were bound not by place or possessions, but as family.

Cryptarch Matsuo asked me why the old crews are not considered Houses. It is a wise question. One that, perhaps, does not have a singular answer.

I think it is because those who lead the old crews do not wish to be true Kells. A Kell is responsible for the safety and prosperity of their House. It is an honor, and a burden.

Those you call Pirate Lords wish only to take—they give nothing, even to their own people. Each raider is responsible only for themselves. A crew is expendable… a family is not.

The old crews live a sad life. One best left in the past.

The Spider steeples all 20 of his fingers and looks down imperiously from his throne. Standing before him is a Warlock, their armor scuffed and dinged. They're unarmed.

"You Guardians look out at the Tangled Shore, all the violence and lies, and you think you're above it. But like humans used to say before the Collapse, 'If you sleep with the beasts, you're gonna get dirty.'"

The Spider leans forward, examining the rumpled Guardian. "You've gotten terribly dirty, Warlock. And it shows. Just look at you." Though the Warlock crosses their arms defiantly, the Spider can sense the shame burning behind the ferocious metal helmet. He chuckles deeply.

"Luckily, there's still time to salvage your honor. Nobody needs to know of your… transgression. Fireteams disappear all the time out here. Only a few people know it was you, and I could persuade the witnesses to forget all about it. In return, all you have to do is serve my best interests."

The Spider leans forward, his voice lowering to a growl. "Otherwise, you're on your own. There's nothing to stop me from taking everything you've got right now. Your weapons. Your Sparrow. The very armor on your back. I may not be able to kill you, but I'll harvest you for every last part."

The Spider opens his bottom pair of arms magnanimously. "So, how about it?"

The Warlock's sneer is audible. "I'd rather lose my Light than work for you."

The Spider motions to his goons, who raise their weapons. "Pride, pride, pride. It was always the Vanguard's failing. Very well then. Strip."

"Explain to me how it works again."

"It pulls small particles of your Light as you use it and loops it at increasingly higher speeds."

"Why would I want my Light taken away? This sounds like a terrible piece of equipment."

"Close your mouth and listen. It does that until you strike something—"

"Good, good good good. This is better. Then what?"

"…"

"Go on."

"Then it whips the Light particles into each other at high speeds, causing a delayed—"

"DELAYED?!"

"A DELAYED FISSION REACTION."

"Why is it delayed?"

"Let's move on."

"Okay… could you just sum it up for me?"

"Punch something and an explosion will happen where you struck."

"Wonderful. Won't that hurt me?"

"If we're lucky, I'll be able to work that into the design specs."

I promised Sekris a greater power than the favor of your Traveler. He died at Ghaul's hands still wondering what that could possibly be.

In later days, my disguise could no longer fool him as it fooled others. His skill in designing and modifying mechanized life-forms was unparalleled and he made it clear he knew I was not what I appeared to be. I made it clear that, either way, he would continue to serve. But I think he guessed that my form and my strength are inextricably linked.

—Calus, Emperor of the Cabal

V

There was a soft knock on the door and a technician tentatively poked his head inside the office. "The system is ready, Commander."

Zavala looked across his desk. No echo of the past called out to him, no guilt-driven daydream—just a young man from the City, nervous about disturbing the commander.

Zavala rose to his feet. He stood and braced himself against the desk for a long moment, arms wide. He took a steady breath and nodded.

The technician synced the office systems and initiated a broadcast, then stepped to the side as Zavala approached.

"Sir," he whispered urgently, gesturing to the neat stack of pages left behind on the desk. "Your speech."

Zavala left the papers where they were and began to speak.

"People of the Last City. Humanity has endured a devastating blow…."

Lisbon-13's Ghost, Piri, quavered, "What have we done?"

"What was necessary."

Lisbon-13 raised his gun toward her.

"Was it? Did we really—whoa!" Piri cried and dove away as a beam of energy vaporized the tangle of vines through which she flew.

Lisbon realized Divinity was too slow. He switched to his Hand Cannon.

Shards of stone from a nearby explosion suddenly battered Piri's shell. She had hoped she could talk her way out of this. But there was no time to think—just run.

"Listen, Lisbon! Please!" Piri pleaded. Each word was punctuated by a roar from his gun. She dodged the resulting explosions along the terrain. "Honestly, if you want to shoot me, I'll let you! Just stop and tell me why first!"

A grenade whirled through the air in response. Piri had seen this tactic too many times to be fooled. She zipped toward the falling explosive and sheltered under a shelf of rock. The blast rattled her senses, but Piri didn't have time for them to clear. She sped through the smoking terrain, inches above the ground, knowing Lisbon would be looking for her flight to either side of the drifting cloud.

And then in an instant, the feet of Lisbon-13 materialized in the smoke before her. She nearly ran right into him. How did he do that, she wondered, to think like others and anticipate them? She knew she needed to talk. Fast!

"Uh, okay. First thing's first. You want to destroy me. Got it. But why? What's next?" she asked.

Lisbon-13 remained silent.

Realization dawned. Piri bobbled in the air, shocked by her own conclusion. "…You want the secret to die with you. No… no, no, no. You can't kill yourself. You can't! Lisbon, there has to be another way."

Lisbon-13 looked up from his Ghost and through the wafting smoke. "She's right. This is not the way."

"What?"

Lisbon-13 was not looking at his Ghost. "It's not that the power is too terrible to wield. It's that the burden is too great to bear."

"Burden?" Piri asked. The Ghost dodged as Lisbon-13 suddenly stepped forward and brushed past her.

And stood, facing himself, once again.

The doppelganger—this other Lisbon-13—reached out and put a hand on the shoulder of the Lisbon-13 that stood a few paces behind Piri.

"You never doubted yourself. Not for a moment. The others revealed their weaknesses: their pride and self-absorption. But you remember what Rekkana said," it stated.

Lisbon-13 nodded. "If anyone can handle the responsibility of this power—"

"It's you," the doppelganger finished. "What you fear now is not the responsibility you have assumed. It is the burden…" the doppelganger said, glancing back at the Ghost, "…of having all this power and never getting what you want."

Lisbon-13 had seemed distant and cold to his fireteam and his Ghost. The arguments since the Black Garden, the fighting—oh, how she had pleaded to stop the fighting! All nails in the coffin of something dead within Lisbon-13—something killed by this doppelganger in the garden's grotto. But now, some of the old Lisbon's warmth blazed white hot as he shook off his double's hand. "You did this! You ruined everything," he said.

"We are all responsible for our choices. You chose this path. They chose theirs. Now is the time to select a new path. Together. We can help each other. We can free you from what you wanted. We can lighten your burden."

Piri knew what would happen next. She braced for the explosions and readied herself to leap to Lisbon's aid.

But none came.

"…Can you make me forget her?"

Lisbon-13's shadow-self embraced him. "Yes."

I'm back at the start. It's always confusing, even on my third (fourth?) time around. There's Cayde-6. Zavala. Ikora. The parade. I can't waste time here. Too many lost moments. I need to… find… whom? Damn it. Think. Ana? No. Who?!

Or is it… what?

I'm so disoriented. I remember pieces of past attempts, but not every detail. There has to be something I can do to make the refresh easier. Maybe new gear or tech. If my family's legacy has anything to offer, it's technological advancements. When I wake up, I need something familiar to ground me. Something I can carry back with me. It could be small. I need to think ahead. Plan more.

Even though I seem to have an endless supply of it, time is still a precious commodity. The more time squandered, the more likely I am to repeat the mistakes of past attempts. I do remember trying to warn the Vanguard. They regarded me as another doomsayer and had me promptly removed from the Tower. I'm sure I sounded like a raving lunatic. By the time I was proved right, it was too late. Eris was corrupted, like always. Drifter lost to his hopeless pursuit. No one believes me. No one trusts me. I need to stick to the shadows.

Something is happening around this time that's preventing me from making a discernible impact. Somewhere, there is the key to stopping this. I will find it.

I've been given an opportunity to right the wrongs of this world. Instead of hurtling headfirst without a plan, I'll stock up. This time, I'm going to focus on making the next cycle better. Let's call this one a wash. I'll save you next time, Ana. Cheers.

The knock-on effects of Ulan-Tan's Symmetry theory were wide reaching. They likely extended much further than Ulan-Tan himself ever intended. The idea of Light and Darkness as amoral, interdependent forces led to some extremely inconvenient questions. Chief among those was the following: If the Light and Darkness were interdependent, how could one ever "defeat" the Darkness?

As Ulan-Tan himself said, "I wish the Light could 'win,' as you put it. But we must accept that it's just not that simple."

This became a thorny subject for the Guardians, who had spent centuries asserting their combat capabilities. Inherent in their militarism was the idea that victory, or at least self-defense, was possible. However, if their use of the Light simply prompted the spontaneous generation of Darkness somewhere else in the universe, then their military efforts were inherently futile. They were simply propagating an eternal stalemate at the expense of their own pain and suffering.

In short, Ulan-Tan's biggest sin was telling a ruling warrior class that their war was unwinnable.

—Excerpts from "Ulan-Tan, Heretic Saint"

The day the Shadows died, Feltroc sat in a perch high above the fighting, among a sea of glittering rounds. There was a Red Legion corpse for each shell on the engineering deck of Ghaul's ship below. When everything in her field of vision was dead, she took aim at the enemy's airborne rounds, the ones meant for the Shadows still in the fight. She had hit several by the time the Red Legion managed to fill the air shaft around her with a neurotoxin.

—Calus, Emperor of the Cabal

III.

Saladin remembers losing his connection to the Light. He remembers thinking that the Traveler must have discovered his most secret doubts; the darkest thoughts he shared with no one—not even his Ghost. He remembers the strange sense of relief that had washed over him until his radio crackled to life just moments later.

He remembers hearing a voice broadcast to the world that the Last City had fallen to the Cabal, but he could not tell you whose voice it was—only that it wasn't Zavala's.

"Saladin," his Ghost had said, sounding like it spoke from the end of a very long, very wide tunnel. "You have to move."

Because Saladin stood unmoving. He remembers staring out the window at flurries of snow for what felt like a very long time but could only have been a few minutes. He remembers tracing the outlines of neighboring peaks across the glass with the edge of his knuckle. He remembers the act of remembering: once upon a time, he'd taught their names to Zavala, as their names had been taught to him.

"Saladin," his Ghost said again, and Saladin remembers moving. He remembers clutching his radio and rallying survivors—those strong enough to make the journey—to the Iron Temple.

Saladin remembers all this and more whenever the Crow challenges him on his cowardice during the Red War. He wants to break the young Guardian's back to teach him a lesson about what it's like to feel helpless, but something stops him.

He remembers hearing stories about the Crow's life on the Shore before he arrived at the Tower, and does not raise a hand against him.

Zidarrh crouches on the edge of the ridge, looking down over Nessus. There's a cave entrance down below he's keeping an eye on. It looks likely to contain more Vex than he wants to deal with today.

Next to him, Legionary Yerg leans back against a boulder, screwing a pack into her armor's internal nutrition socket.

Zidarrh turns up the flow on his Ether mask and breathes deep, eyes glowing brighter with each breath.

He nudges Yerg's sizeable knee. "Got any snacks?" he asks, enunciating his Ulurant with care.

Yerg makes an awful straw-sucking noise beneath her helmet. "You can't have any of my juice."

He shakes his head in disgust but nudges Yerg again. She nudges back and Zidarrh's whole body rocks to the side.

"What's with the new soldiers on your ship? The skinny ones with the sticks," he says.

"I don't want to talk about it. They give me the creeps."

"Well, yeah," Zidarrh affirms. Mindful of his allotment, he cranks his Ether intake down again and casts around for another topic. "So, uh, this planetoid, huh?"

"Are you trying to ruin the one break I get all week?"

"I'm making conversation! It's my break too." If Zidarrh wants to show off his language skills, he needs someone to show off to.

Far below them, the remnants of a radiolarian lake bubble at the center as its levels continue to slowly recede. Zidarrh does not want to think about what might happen when it fully drains. More Vex, probably.

Yerg takes a loud drink. "Planets shouldn't change. It's not right. We crushed up some of this place for the old emperor's wine and there was a Vex monster in it! Bad enough for a planet to have monsters. A planet shouldn't be the monster." Yerg hesitates. "And what if a few Legionaries tried a little wine back then? Just to make sure it was safe for our emperor? Was that monster wine?"

On the whole, Zidarrh is relieved she didn't share her juice. He scans the horizon.

Three Guardians on their fancy Pikes drive closer, heading for the draining lake. Yerg nudges Zidarrh hard enough to push him over.

They wait in silence for the Guardians to enter the cave, one-eyed drones floating at their shoulders.

"I'm revising my list of things I hate here. They're at the top," Zidarrh says.

Yerg nods fervently. "I give up on this break. Let's get out of here. What's that thing Eliksni say… 'Security in numbers?'"

"You got it," Zidarrh says. He does not correct her.

"Oh, I've always liked this one," Petra says. She reads:

"They say Nedhi was the first to try and chart the world. Her descendants would later number among the Gensym Scribes and the Corsairs of the salt glades, but in those early days Nedhi had one reigning obsession, which was to exhort the sixth tenet of the Awoken. To know and love the cosmos, she must find and name everything within her universe.

"Nedhi held a Sanguine faith in our own crystalline and enduring perfection, and in the nobility of the observer. To record the existence of the Other must, like a mirror, reflect the Self. And so, in naming all that comprised the world she would describe how best to be Awoken.

"She gave names to flora and fauna, to tectonic forces and tidal currents. To new, immortal terrors, and to the hidden purposes of unseen actions. In the end she cultivated great fame unto herself, and visitors began to make pilgrimages. Any indescribable emotion, Nedhi could make plain for you. Your problems, your fears, your maladies—in speaking them aloud, Nedhi made them bearable. Constrained by ontology."

Eido chitters eagerly. "But this is all metaphor," she guesses.

Petra shrugs, smiling. "Hard to tell, isn't it? How can we be sure, unless someone was there to write the truth?"

"You don't have to do this, if you don't want to," Ikora said. "I'd understand."

From the other side of the library, Aunor scowled. She was perhaps the most diligent of the Hidden, having dedicated herself to the unpleasant task of hunting down tainted Guardians. But that was precisely what worried Ikora. Each time they met, she seemed a little gaunter than before. A little testier. Was this crusade beginning to take a toll? Was it a mistake to give her another assignment instead of a vacation?

"I stand by my promise," Aunor snapped before transmatting out.

That had not alleviated Ikora's concerns one iota . She let out a sigh and rubbed her temples.

She couldn't dwell on it for long, however. The air crackled again. When Ikora opened her eyes, Saint was standing exactly where Aunor had been, moments ago. "Ikora Rey, I am sorry to come unannou—"

"How did you get in here?" she blurted. No one but the Hidden knew where her private library was. Or so she had thought.

The Exo stared at her, confused. "I—I transmatted," he said simply. He tried again. "I am sorry, but I must speak with you."

"No, I'm the one who should apologize. Please, sit." She hurried to clear the books piled around a pair of armchairs. "I got your message. It's unfortunate this has happened a second time."

Saint sat, his massive frame dwarfing the chair. "Unfortunate, yes. Disturbing too. I fear…" He paused, looking away. Out the window, the afternoon sun had turned golden and begun sinking in the sky. "In battle, I know what to do. There are no doubts. The Trials was the same. But now, I do not know."

"I understand. Sometimes, it feels like these incidents are designed to make us doubt everything, even our own abilities." Ikora sat beside him. "But there's no one I'd trust more to helm the Trials at a time like this."

"Not even the man they are named for?" Saint let out a sad laugh. "He does not wish to, in any case. I ask and right away, he says he is too busy to care. Told me to shut them down, if I was so tired."

"Well, he is busy. He's almost acting as a third Vanguard with this whole Cabal conflict. Perhaps after we come to terms with Caiatl…"

"You misunderstand. I am glad he is busy. Busy is good. It distracts him from his loss. But he is still…"

"Different?"

"No. Yes, but more than that." He shook his head in frustration. "When I told him about the incident, I thought he would worry, like me. Instead, he tells me to take notes next time. Said the data would be useful," he spat in disgust.

Ikora looked at Saint, expecting him to say more. When he didn't, she sat back in her seat, thinking. She wasn't exactly surprised. Osiris was an experimentalist , after all, and not a particularly sensitive one. And though this comment was certainly more callous than usual, she didn't understand Saint's concern. He seemed agitated, almost like he was angry at Osiris…

"That must've been upsetting to hear, after what you went through," she began slowly. Saint looked away, confirming her theory. "But I think his heart's in the right place. We know so little about the Darkness. More data would indeed be very useful."

Saint said nothing. The light through the window splashed orange across his helm.

"But," she pressed on, "We shouldn't endanger Guardians to get it. However Osiris feels about them now, the Trials started as a way to train fireteams, and they're going to stay that way." She stood, placing a hand on the Exo's shoulder. "I swear to you."

He nodded, eyes still fixed on the horizon. "Good."

████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ tomorrow's tomorrow.

█████████

█████████████████████████████████████████████ entire world for ██████████ ████████████████████████████████████
█████████

████████████████████████████████████████████████manifest ██████████ ███ None would threaten me, ████████████, or her future's future.

███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

████████████I first noticed it when █████████on her own; then again, ██████████████████████ ███████████████████████greater than the sum of her parts. ████████████████████████

And I let the void in my chest consume me.

MOON // OCEAN OF STORMS // K1 COMMUNION //

Red light floods over Dunya's black-and-gold shell. The tiny Ghost's monocular blue eye bobs up and down as he tracks backwards through the air, taking in the presence of an ethereal figure hovering above.

Aisha and Reed turn at Dunya's chirp of alarm, guns drawn. But as they train their sights on the robed Nightmare shimmering in front of them, neither one can fully commit their aim. Aisha is the first to whisper an expletive in shock at the sight.

"Arguing about which of you is as terrible as I am?" The Nightmare of Shayura asks, turning her crimson stare away from Dunya's retreating form. "Heaven forbid you be as awful as your murderous friend."

Aisha is frozen in confusion, hands trembling on the grip of her scout rifle. "Shay." The word comes out of her mouth as little more than a hoarse whisper.

The Nightmare of Shayura floats slowly through the air toward Aisha and Reed, smiling when Dunya hides behind his Guardian and transmats away.

"First comes the guilt," the Nightmare croons, "then the shame, then the denial. I know the patterns well." She wags a finger back and forth, chidingly. "How soon before you forget me? Find a new Warlock to bask in their well? Pretend that I never existed?"

"S-Shay—Shay wh—" Aisha can't even string her words together. Not until she feels Reed's metal hand clamp down on her shoulder. When she looks at him, his expression is one of resolve, not fear. It's then that she remembers the instructions Eris had given, about how to survive on the Moon if ever the Nightmares came for them with familiar faces, familiar voices.

Aisha looks back at the Nightmare of Shayura and whispers: "I'm sorry."

MOON // OCEAN OF STORMS // K1 COMMUNION //

A Fallen Vandal collapses to the ground, Ether vapor rising from a glowing hole where his face once was. Dark-blue blood sizzles around the wound.

"Clear," Reed-7 calls out from the top of a flight of metal stairs, the barrel of his fusion rifle still crackling with energy from the last bolt it fired. As he descends, Aisha follows and shoulders her scout rifle.

"Looks like they were pulling the wiring out of the walls," she observes, lifting up her hand and alighting her Ghost, Dunya, into the air. "Check the systems here; make sure they weren't doing anything else."

"Affirmative," Dunya chirps, zipping off through the air toward a computer terminal.

Aisha notices that Reed's glowing eyes are fixed on the Ether wafting from the Vandal's body. She spares a glance at Dunya before crossing the floor to Reed's side. "Hey," she says with a hand on his arm, jostling him from his thoughts.

"I'm good," he lies, gingerly pulling away. "Just—thinking."

Aisha looks down at the corpse, then back up to Reed. "This isn't like what Shay did on Venus." She tries to be reassuring, but it comes off as dismissive.

"How's it any different?" He asks with a dagger's sharpness in his voice. "These—they were stripping wires from the walls, Aisha. They weren't trying to hurt anyone!"

"They opened fire on us first."

"We didn't even try to talk to them!" Reed yells.

"Aisha?" Dunya chirps, across the room. Neither Guardian hears the Ghost.

"I'm sorry," Aisha says as she throws her arms up. "Was I supposed to do that before or after they threw a grenade at me?"

"Aisha?" Dunya says again, more alarm in his voice.

"We could have tried something! Anything!" Reed screams, getting in Aisha's face. "We could have—"

"AISHA!"

The Drifter slouches against the bulkhead of the Derelict, a pile of Dark Motes scattered across the table in front of him. He fixes his gaze on the massive Titan, the sharpness in his eyes belying his casual posture.

"I'm surprised you got the time to come around here, hassling me about these tiny Motes, Joxer. Seems like you got the big deal in orbit around Io. That's where the Vanguard oughta be." The Drifter's hand rests casually on the handle of a thick, breechloaded Grenade Launcher. "And ain't you Vanguard through and through these days?"

Joxer snorts at the irony. "I'm not here to hassle you, Drifter. On the contrary. Consider this a friendly warning."

"Friendly, huh? Is that what we are now?" Drifter's grip on the Grenade Launcher tightens. "Now you raised my suspicion. You better speak plain, Joxer, or prepare to draw."

The Titan shakes his head in exasperation. "Some people say those Pyramids damn near wiped us out once. Nobody knows for sure. But if they do end up hostile, it's going to get heavy in a hurry. And you don't want to be the guy standing in the middle holding a bag of Dark Motes."

"And what the hell business is it of yours where I'm standing?" the Drifter asks as he plants his boots on the deck. He rises to his feet, the Grenade Launcher dangling from his hand. "Unless I'm standing in your way."

Joxer puts his hands up in mock surrender. "You know what? I came here because I'm trying to change. Making amends. After what happed at Gambit Prime… I had to get right. And part of that is giving you some friendly advice to lay low for a while." He glances down at the Dark Motes. "But if you don't want to hear reason, that's on you."

Joxer trundles his way to the back of the ship. As the airlock hisses open, Drifter calls out, "That's real nice armor, Joxer. Don't forget where you got it."

v_v_v_victory: WE GOT ACCEPTED!!!
v_v_v_victory: EXODUS BLACK HERE WE COME
Waelcyrge: haha…
v_v_v_victory: I'M SO EXCITED AAAAAAAAAH
v_v_v_victory: SIGRUN!!!!!!!!
v_v_v_victory: we are LITERALYL going to make history
v_v_v_victory: like babies are going to be sitting in school on a WHOLE NEW PLANET
v_v_v_victory: and the teacher will be like 'LISTEN UP you little idoiots'
v_v_v_victory: 'some brave-ass people voluntered to leave EVERYBODY THEY KNEW + LOVED so that YOU could walk around on this weird planet'
v_v_v_victory: haha
v_v_v_victory: youre pumped too right?
v_v_v_victory: i know youre pumped
v_v_v_victory: sig?
Waelcyrge signed off at 07:46:45 UTC-8.
v_v_v_victory: gd it
Your message 'gd it' could not be delivered because the recipient is offline.

The stories are passed from child to child, whispered in the streets and on the playground like any good legend. "Don't ever venture beyond the wall and sight of the Tower," parents warn, citing these cautionary tales that speak of the boy's many deaths. Exposure. Hunger. Sickness. Cutthroats. Living nightmares. And on. And on. The children, however, have their own truths. To them, the boy never died. They call him the Rat King. The children believe he leads the forgotten among them out of the City on grand adventures. They say he and his misfit army saved the world. But children say many things, and the Vanguard maintains their official stance: there is no Rat King and his army never existed. That's what the elders believe. I choose to believe otherwise.

V

Gaelin-4 inhaled sharply. He sat up and flexed his limbs.

His ghost floated before him. "It was a lucky hit."

"Aren't they all?" Gaelin stood and brushed himself off. "Appreciated, Clip."

"Wire Rifles made it run before things got too bad." The Ghost dipped in a nod and dematerialized.

"Before?" Gaelin-4 turned around. Nivviks and Vynriis sat several paces away in pensive observation. "Those rifles jam or something?"

"Guardian requested to handle situation." Nivviks clacked his jaw. "Went as intended, yes?"

Gaelin glared at Nivviks, but the Fallen simply stepped forward and offered a hand to help him stand.

"Kept the Guardian's body from being dragged away. Saved pretty rifle," Vynriis said, placing Transfiguration in the Exo's hands.

Gaelin's glare relaxed as he locked eyes with Vynriis and conferred a mute look of thanks.

"Quarry is on the move. Unwise to return to an expecting Spider with empty hands." Nivviks took a long breath from an Ether canister. "What will the Guardian do?"

"How long was I out?"

"Not long… minutes," Vynriis replied.

Gaelin closed his eyes and concentrated. He felt his prey still tethered to his Light, marked by traces of the Void. Nivviks was right: it was close. "We hunt."

"Ah…" Nivviks stood. "Fortunate that we wounded Wrathborn," he said, pointing to a trail of fluid.

Gaelin-4 looked to the dim afterglow of the quenched fuel fire, to the fresh trail before them. "I defer to you, old timer."

"Good… yes. Try to keep up," Nivviks chittered. He pulled a transponder from his belt. "Tracking shot. Useful. Not far on Pikes… or flimsy Guardian bird."

Gaelin-4 mounted his flimsy Guardian bird. "By all means, lead."

They followed the trail in silence. Nivviks led, then Gaelin-4, then Vynriis. They had encircled him like a tenderfoot calf. He had underestimated the Wrathborn's resilience. Made a fool of himself to show up a couple Fallen on a dead rock—but a breakage heals stronger if it's set right.

They closed the distance quickly. The Wrathborn's lair was a small cave hovel with a bend just passed the entrance. He could almost see the creature's breath through the stone, feel its movements.

"Does the Guardian wish for Web Mines?" Vynriis held a mine out to Gaelin sheepishly.

Gaelin took it. "Let's line the entrance, Vynriis."

"How many?"

"All of them. We overwhelm it at the choke, then tether and spike it down."

Nivviks nodded. "Draw it out. We will keep its tails from killing you… again."

"Appreciated. Guess I'll be bait."

Gaelin-4 entered the cave and saw the Wrathborn caressing a tendril rooted in its back. Before it, a shrine of black twisted spines. They had begun to harden and gain a translucent metallic sheen, increasingly stained by drippings as his eye wandered higher. The missing associates hung impaled at their apex as tarnished crowns. The spines fed upon them, and Gaelin could see the planted stems weaving together at the base. The Wrathborn yanked the tendril from its back and planted it. They quivered. A hint of a voice. Gaelin would look upon them no longer.

He formed a vortex of Void in his palm and slung it beneath the Wrathborn. It stumbled backward as the grenade burned away. Behind it, the Fallen bodies disintegrated, but the spires remained unscathed and thirsty. The Wrathborn turned to pursue him, ripping at the ground, ceiling, and walls for holds.

The Guardian ran and dove over a line of Web Mines at the cave mouth. He cloaked as the Wrathborn was barraged by their spheres of Arc disruption.

Nivviks and Vynriis pelted the beast with Wire Rifle shots, fending off tendrils and drawing attention from Gaelin-4. The Guardian nocked a Void-Light bolt and cast his Shadowshot into the Wrathborn's chest, drawing its limbs in with crushing gravity. The trio drew Arc-cage stake-points and flung them into position around the incapacitated Wrathborn. As the last stake made connection, the Arc-cage sprung and shocked the beast into unconscious submission.

Morning light trickled over the horizon as the three finished tying down the cage for transfer.

"Better this time," Nivviks croaked. "Cave is unsettling."

"Web Mines were a good idea," the Guardian replied. He sighed. "I strongly advise you demo that cave."

"Agreed. I will call for a Ketch." Nivviks stepped away, shouting back, "Enjoy your liquor and whelp."

Gaelin-4 smirked.

Vynriis checked the cage's seals and looked to Gaelin. "What will the Guardian call his War Beast?"

"Castus."

"A good hound."

What appeared to be a silhouette of coral growths in the dark is revealed to be the mountainous remains of Oryx, the Taken King. The Hive god's immense carcass lays strewn across Titan's seafloor. Both Lisbon-13 and Fenchurch are taken aback by the sight, but Chalco advances toward it.

"The Lucent Brood performed a ritual here." Chalco motions to the shattered remnants of a Hive Ghost on the ground. "We believe they were trying to forcibly resurrect Oryx by combining heretical Hive necromancy with the powers of that Ghost. They were disrupted."

Lisbon steps forward, unable to look away from Oryx's cadaverous face. "Is that possible?"

"Officially: no. Unofficially…" Chalco glances at Lisbon. "That's what we're here to investigate. The body is still… active. With Taken energy and Darkness. The Guardians who intercepted this ritual reported finding free-floating fragments of consciousness on the way to this site. Memories from the corpse."

"It's alive?" Fenchurch whispers, hesitant to approach Oryx's remains.

Chalco shakes her head. "That's unclear. We need to bring back samples for further analysis. Ikora wants this entire site quarantined and the body exhumed, pending transport to a secure location for further analysis."

Fenchurch checks his talisman. Still black. He glances between Chalco and the corpse. "Are we the first team to come down here?"

Chalco looks at Fenchurch, then down to the ground. Her gaze lingers there for a moment in tense silence. Finally, she fixes her gaze ahead to the corpse. "We are the only extant team of Hidden to have visited this site."

████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ tomorrow's tomorrow.

█████████

█████████████████████████████████████████████ entire world for ██████████ ████████████████████████████████████
█████████

████████████████████████████████████████████████manifest ██████████ ███ None would threaten me, ████████████, or her future's future.

███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

████████████I first noticed it when █████████on her own; then again, ██████████████████████ ███████████████████████greater than the sum of her parts. ████████████████████████

And I let the void in my chest consume me.

Chapter 5: Abhorrent Imperative

Voronin tied his armband tight around her calf to cut off the blood flow from Morozova's gaping wound. He tried to keep her leg clean while the wind caked them with dirt and debris. Lightning was drawing closer. The sterile scent of ozone had returned and he knew he didn't have much time. "COME BACK!" he shouted hopelessly to the God. He hoisted Morozova up, supporting her on his shoulder, and pushed back against the elements that were conspiring against him.

It was 250 meters to the evac station. Every step was a battle of attrition. At this point, the thought of coldsleep sounded comforting. He just had to make it to the SMILE pods. The storm had other plans. A nearby HMMWV was struck by a wayward bolt and the explosion threw them back. He felt Morozova torn from his side as he landed, and the sound of his skull hitting stone was louder than the thunder had been. As blackness crept into his vision, he saw the Traveler in the sky, moving away, abandoning him.

…and then he was being dragged from the wreckage and violence onto a gurney. "…Morozova?" he struggled out. He was met with an oxygen mask. His eyes darted, in search of some sign that Morozova was alive. Voronin couldn't decipher anything out of the pandemonium around him. "I'm sorry," he thought to himself while cursing the orb in the sky for deserting him.

The last thing he remembered before they placed him into coldsleep was an explosion in the sky so bright it blinded him.

[The Witch Queen rarely paid visit to my prison. And when she did, it was not for me. She knew what I was, what I produced. I was a servant of the Subjugator. A servant of the Witness. A provider of that which took sustenance from her and many like her. She never cared for that. And as such, she never cared for me. Or for him. And he knew it.]

[She was cunning. Where wrath consumed Oryx and Xivu Arath, it always eluded Savathûn. Or perhaps, it was she who eluded it.]

[Of this, my Subjugator was not fond. Placed indefinitely in her throne world, he was made to watch her every move. To mentor and guide, to keep a close eye—so that one day, she, too, could serve the Witness. A Disciple in the making.]

[It was as planned. The Krill became the Hive. The enemy amongst the moons of Fundament disappeared. My Subjugator served his Witness well. But he could not escape the very words of his Witness, which beat against his mind whenever Savathûn stood in his presence. —-The universe is wide, my child. With wrath matching if not exceeding yours in its vastness. Seek it before it seeks you. Or it will be your end.—-]

[I became a vessel for his jealousies. A source of power for his Upended to consume. To see Savathûn's world shattered should she ever step out of line.]

[In the Deep, my children pay a price in servitude, for survival. In ascendance, the Hive pay a price in servitude, for power. And in the dark, I pay a price in servitude, so that others may be nurtured.]

[It must not be in vain.]

Shaxx's massive hand swallowed up his pen. He effortlessly held his map in the other; the fierce wind at the highest point of the old Tower couldn't pull the paper from his hands.

Elsie surveyed the horizon. The City, alive and vibrant stretched out before her, overlaid in her memory with its corpse. She turned and pointed. "There. The edge of Core West. That wall fell first in the Bombardment."

As Elsie turned, Shaxx shuffled around her, still clutching his map.

"Perimeter South, Hive sappers dug in under the wall. Botza was overrun at the old gate; it hadn't been reinforced in years… Anchor District, a Pyramid ship landed and crushed the water tower…"

By the time Elsie finished her recitation, Shaxx's map was dark with annotations.

He set a hand on Elsie's shoulder, gentle in his movements for all his size.

"On my oath, these walls will not fall again."

"Eyes on the road," Marcus Ren told himself. "And don't look back."

It was a motto he lived by, both on and off the track.

His Sparrow screamed across Luna's surface, kicking up clouds of moondust in its wake. Out here, he was free to push prototype engines to their limits. To open the throttle wide and really cut loose.

But that wasn't why he was riding so fast tonight.

He didn't notice anything strange at first. Not until he stopped to check the Sparrow's instruments. And then, he felt it: eyes on his back, a chill on his neck.

Marcus immediately hit the ignition and boosted the Sparrow to its top speed. But still the feeling followed him, and he knew what it was.

A Nightmare.

He'd heard the term on Vanguard channels. Phantoms wearing the faces of the lost, tormenting those who remembered them. And Marcus Ren remembered a lot of people.

He switched off the fuel regulator and kicked the Sparrow into overdrive. He didn't know who was chasing him, and he sure as hell wasn't looking over his shoulder to find out.

"Eyes on the road," he repeated aloud, gripping the handlebars until his knuckles were as pale as death.

"And never look back."

ACCESS: RESTRICTED

DECRYPTION KEY: 45R3431V58PE1-112

HIDDEN AGENT: [REDACTED]

RE: Pyramid Exhibits

[09:30] Signal's still coming through strong. Initiating log.

[09:31] The rest of the team is continuing to formulate a means of analyzing the Pyramid's composition. Chert and I have set up shop near our point of entry in the first gallery.

[09:34] Thus far, we haven't been able to establish any common element between the specimens in these chambers. That is, beyond the fact that someone—something—decided they were worth putting under glass. It's an impressively broad collection, as morbid trophies go.

[09:40] Looking at a horizontal cross section, about 15 meters long, of a… let's call it a pseudo-mammal. Fibrous strands on the exterior. Could be hair. Some prime masticatory muscles. This thing had a mean bite.

[DATA LOST UNABLE TO RETRIEVE]

[DATA LOST UNABLE TO RETRIEVE]

[ERROR] %#:?0 Anyway, the interesting material is in the scans we're sending along. Chert is getting an energy signature off these remains—biosigns, she says. Could be a Ghost miscalculation, of course. That, or the observer effect is taking a break. I'm looking right at this thing, and there's no way any part of it is still alive.

[ERROR] %#:?0 It's been… preserved, for %#:?0—

[ERROR] %#:?0 Hey, Chert, was that wall always there?

[ERROR] %#:?0 …Chert?

"You little rat. You took my warm hospitality and stomped all over it like an ungrateful child. Is that any way to treat one of your dear 'brethren'?"

Siviks laughed. A cold, twisted laugh. Then offered up a large wad of spit at the Spider's feet.

The Spider just rolled his eyes. "Let me know when you're ready to make nice," he said.

Siviks' laugh now grew into something maniacal. He topped it off with another wad of spit, this time directly in the Spider's face.

Once he'd wiped his brow, the Spider leaned forward, looking Siviks in the eyes, and said, "I think our little rat here needs a time out. Perhaps someplace with the rest of the vermin."

The many hands of Spider's men gripped and restrained Siviks. As they dragged him off, he shouted, "You… as bad as all Fallen! Worse, even! A friend even to humans… All must die!"

The Spider simply waved goodbye, taunting, "Bon voyage, my friend!"

Once Siviks had gone, the Spider looked longingly toward where he had stood. He sighed a deep, regretful sigh before continuing with business as usual.

EARTH // LAST CITY // DETENTION FACILITY //

"The first steps to healing are learning to forgive yourself. That's a hard one, I know."

Doctor Syeda Uzair sets her datapad aside, then sits forward in her chair. She folds her hands in front of herself. A tiny, beaded chain is wrapped around one hand, and a small bone charm of the Traveler is pressed into her right palm. "Shayura, whether or not a court of law finds you guilty of your actions in any measure, you are still held accountable to the court of your own conscience."

Across from Doctor Uzair, Shayura is slouched in her chair. She stares past her doctor, out the narrow windows, and looks to the looming figure of the Traveler hanging in the sky. It seems so much bigger compared to the projections she chooses to display in her cell.

"Who judges them?" Shayura asks, motioning to the window with her chin. To the Traveler.

Doctor Uzair turns, glancing over her shoulder at the Traveler. Her grip on the charm tightens. "I don't know," is her immediate answer, but the question will burrow its way through her mind, surfacing again when she lies down in bed tonight. "I understand the Human condition far better than a god's."

"Maybe the Traveler abandoned us because it's ashamed of us. Of what we've done in its name." Shayura's voice is small, weary. An alert flickers on Dr. Uzair's datapad, momentarily drawing her attention away. Shayura fills the silence with a sigh.

"Maybe," Doctor Uzair says, though she doesn't believe it. "But, maybe we're all just short on hope these days. I'd like to extend our session a little longer, if you're willing. Would you mind if we did so with some guests?"

Concern flashes across Shayura's face; defensiveness, shame. She sits up slightly in her seat. Doctor Uzair can see the tension.

"When we speak of forgiveness, sometimes it helps to first be forgiven," Doctor Uzair says with a tempered smile. Shayura glances to the datapad, then back to her doctor.

"Reed-7 and Aisha would like to see you."

Tears well in Shayura's eyes. Her voice of dissent evaporates.

Shayura realizes there is one thing she can still have faith in: her family.

Sloane knelt, unable to stand. All the weight of Titan's ocean around her was nothing compared to the pressure of Xivu Arath's will pinning her down. 

A horde of gnashing Hive bore lipless smiles around a single Taken Knight. He stood tall before her, brandishing a gleaming blade that anchored an oppressive terrace of sharpened obsidian. The terrace loomed over their heads. A voice cut through the gnashing—eager-toned, like running blood.  

SOLDIER OF THE SKY, YOUR STRENGTH WANES, YOUR STRATEGY TOO OBVIOUS. 

YOU TOOK WITHOUT CLAIM, AND NOW I CLAIM YOU. 

THE SKY, DRAWN TO FALL ONCE MORE, PINNED BY NIGHT'S BLADE. 

SUMMON YOUR MEAGER LIGHT, YOUR SKY TETHER, YOU ARE DEFEATED. 

Xivu's voice rose from her projection, booming from the Black Terrace with laughter like screaming fear. 

YOUR BEARER NEEDS YOU, GHOST. 

BE BRAVE. 

Sloane felt needles of intent thread between the gaps in her armor, hook into her muscles, and slowly peel away the power suit's deep-set rivets from inset bone. A violent unraveling to a slow and painful end. 

Síocháin watched the torture from rocky concealment, razors extended, waiting for an opportunity to strike. Minutes felt like hours, but Sloane clung to life in a cloud of crimson-tinged mist.  

Delirium and agony fogged Sloane's mind, but an offer pierced through the cacophony of War. She heard it in her mind as if she had thought it herself. A broken promise: 

|Bond| 

|Live| 

She considered the offer. 

Síocháin rushed forward, unwilling to watch any longer, and whirled through a swarm of Thrall with her blades. If she could reach Sloane, if she could just cut her free— 

Xivu Arath shrieked with whetted laughter. 

THIS MORSEL IS MINE TO CONSUME. 

Lances of pure onyx thrust through the sea to impale the little Light. The Terrace bulged and surged forward, swelling, as if to burst. For a moment, Síocháin believed Xivu Arath would burst through the Black Terrace herself, wielding a blade in corporeal hand; War's presence emanated with such strength.  

Instead, a gargantuan serpent crashed through the projection and snatched the Knight into its cavernous jaws as it surged by, shattering the Terrace's connection to the Knight. Eruptions of soulfire swallowed the Terrace and branched through the methane as the projection imploded on itself. The serpent dove, its enormous form overtaking and dwarfing the crumbling Terrace projection. It twisted above them, unfurling a portion of its tail to sweep aside scores of Hive with ease and sending plumes of sediment into a thick, obfuscating fog. 

Sloane collapsed, and Síocháin rushed to her side, cutting through an Acolyte before it could raise its shredder. "We need to go! Get up!" Síocháin exclaimed and began stitching Sloane's gushing wounds and mending bones where she could. All around them, the Hive fired wildly into the sea, the soulfire pops of their deaths spurring tiny, muted explosions as it reacted with liquid methane. 

Before Síocháin could get Sloane to her feet, the serpent slammed down in front of them, belly first, and shielded them from retaliatory Hive salvos. Síocháin darted in front of Sloane, razors ready against this giant beast, but the serpent simply looked at the Titan, its massive eye spanning more than three of her, shoulder to shoulder. Once more, Sloane heard the promise in her mind. 

|Bond| 

|Live| 

And so, they struck an accord.

Eris Morn chalks the floor in the H.E.L.M. wing previously inhabited by the Servitor of the Eliksni Splicers. A liberated Tomb Ship drones beside her. Through the open, shielded, hangar, the Leviathan is visible as a malformed knot, its shape bulging from the shadowed outline of the Moon.

Ikora descends the stairs. An ornately dressed Warlock thanatonaut follows, their robes trimmed in bone and elaborately stitched symbols.

"Did you commandeer this from Mars?" Ikora asks with a smile, looking over the Hive vessel.

Eris stands. "It provided ample shielding for transporting the Crown from its vault."

"It's here, now?" the thanatonaut asks, breaking his stride at the bottom of the stairs.

"Worry not. The H.E.L.M. will disembark from the City to ensure the Crown is contained," Eris answers.

"Keep that Tomb Ship docked here in case we need to jettison the Crown. Last thing I need is a rookie shooting you down in it." Ikora steps past the thanatonaut with a reassuring nod. "Tell us what you're thinking next, Eris."

Eris gestures toward the open bay door. "The Leviathan is at our doorstep. Even if we unravel Calus's plan, the ship itself still poses a threat simply by its size. Calus does not require paracausal power to cause an extinction-level event."

"Calus's interest appears to be focused solely on the Pyramid," Ikora interjects. "Should that change, Zavala assures me that Caiatl's fleet will provide ample dissuasive firepower."

Eris nods in rhythm with Ikora's well-reasoned words. "I trust that to be true—however, whatever connection Calus has established is drawing Nightmares and phantoms alike to the Leviathan. He is able to exert influence over them. But I believe we can disrupt this connection."

She points to the thanatonaut. "You," she says and motions toward three chalked spots on the floor. "Here, here, and here. We will require death anchors to tether the ritual. Hold your mind on the brink for as long as you can, and I will craft the sigils required to contain the Crown. Then, we will need volunteers…"

FROM THE WRITINGS OF TOMEK

All things have a cost. But what if I didn't have to be the one to pay it?

The many-worlds theory may be out of fashion among my peers, but the fanatical beliefs of the Future War Cult don't come from nowhere.

I remember the exact moment I realized: If I was investigating ways to make my parallel selves carry my burdens, then surely those Tomeks had already had the same idea.

I had no way of knowing the others' progress. But each time I bent my head over my workbench, I felt the gaze of infinite eyes upon my shoulders.

In the end, I and one other activated our inventions at the exact same space-time coordinates.

It came down to a cosmic coin toss. One of us became the owner of the powerful Contraverse Hold.

And I became a battery.

Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

"Greetings, Saint-unit! I have several queries related to events that transpired during my recent period of isolation!"

Saint-14 nodded to Failsafe's terminal in the H.E.L.M., which flashed excitedly as she spoke.

"Yes, of course." Saint replied. "The fight against the Witness took us to many strange places, and we made many strange allies."

The Exo pulled up a chair and sat beside Failsafe. He curled his hands into fists, lifting them in a gesture of triumph.

"The portal to the Traveler was our first great obstacle. We did not know how to pass through it, nor did we know what the Witness was doing. We lost many Guardians… and civilians."

There was a moment of silence for the lives sacrificed in pursuit of the Witness.

"We did not know how to proceed," Saint continued. "But then Deputy Commander Sloane returned to us, saying that she knew of a being who could tell us more. With great effort, and much diving into the seas of Titan, we spoke to this being."

Failsafe gave a series of high-pitched chirps. "Yes! Guardians frequented Nessus in higher numbers at that time."

"To fish," Saint-14 agreed, his momentum broken. "But this being, this proto-worm, Ahsa—"

"So there are fish? In the lake? The lake made of radiolaria?"

The Exo sighed, then shook his head and continued.

"Yes. So, Ahsa pointed us to Savathûn, who knew how to pass through the portal. Of course, at the time, she was dead. But her Ghost, Immaru, came to us and said Xivu Arath must be taken down first. Only then would he resurrect her."

"How many fish?" the AI asked urgently.

"Um… I… do not know," he said. "Many?"

He cleared his throat. The Exo tapped his fingers against his knee, frustrated.

"Anyway, we then turned to Eris and Ikora, who knew the Hive and Savathûn better than any of us. Eris performed a… ritual… to transform into a Hive god herself!"

He jumped up, fists raised, scraping the chair legs against the floor of the H.E.L.M. in a loud shriek. Pausing, he looked around, cleared his throat, and sat back down. He raised a finger.

"And then—"

"Could someone bring me a fish? And a fish tank?"

Saint paused, blinking.

"Maybe the Guardian can arrange it," Saint said impatiently. "Xivu Arath—"

"I have compiled a list of potential names for a fish!"

"That is… very nice, Failsafe. So, Eris banished Xivu Arath, and Savathûn was resurrected! She gave us what we asked for: a way through the portal! But we had to make a bargain with Riven, the great Ahamkara of the Dreaming City, and—"

"If we could return to the topic of fishing…" Failsafe interjected cheerily, and Saint put his head in his hands.

Light forgets, Darkness remembers.

Mithrax stood at the bow of the H.E.L.M., watching as Zavala's ship vanished from view into the portal. That awful gateway pulsed and wavered, and though the H.E.L.M. was pointed straight at it, he was resolved in his decision.

The notion of venturing inside the Great Machine was innately revolting. It reeked like a taboo as certain as cannibalism, as unthinkable as besmirching a house of worship; to enter the body of a deity would unquestionably be to defile it. He could find a way to support from afar. Surely that was plausible.

"Father, the Queen is asking for you."

Eido sidles up next to him, and the two look out over the Great Machine. It takes up the entirety of the window—the center of all Light punctured by the oscillating violet of the portal, and Mithrax realizes how small he feels alongside his daughter.

"I'm not going down there without you," she says.

Mithrax holds back his shiver and confesses, "To step inside feels like a transgression."

"And who made that rule?" she says. Ever acute, ever wise. When Mithrax cannot answer, she continues, "The Traveler is in peril. So long as we can care, we are bound to enter and defend it. I have seen you still have fight in you, Father."

"Would that not be worse? To wage war at the very center of Light?"

"Only you can decide that. But I believe the Traveler would want you to enter the portal."

"Why?"

His daughter puts a loving hand on his own. "Because it knows you aren't there to hurt it."

RECORD: Security Log E.P. Station, MTRLv2.18
IDENTITIES: C. Bray I, M. Liu
TEST SUBJECT: Sgt. Traore
FILE//DSC_CLASSIFIED

[M.L.] Test subject successfully through the portal. Direct feed is live. Multiple hostiles detected.

[C.B.] There are… so many of them.

[M.L.] The Vex numbers are incalculable currently.

[C.B.] Well, what are we waiting for? Launch the artillery.

[M.L.] Targets acquired.

[C.B.] How many targets are being tracked?

[M.L.] Four.

[C.B.] That's not enough. Fire now.

[M.L.] Test subject is under heavy resistance. Exo chassis receiving heavy damage.

[C.B.] FIRE. NOW.

[M.L.] Projectiles 1 and 2 dispatched. Two confirmed hits. Sir, the Torch Hammers are melting Sgt. Traore. Request retrieval.

[C.B.] Denied. Fire 3 and 4.

[M.L.] The left arm has been severed. He's incapable of action. Request retrieval.

[C.B.] DENIED. Use the right arm… Where's the feed?!

[M.L.] Test subject offline. Feed lost.

[C.B.] For the love of… Do you see the cost of hesitation? Of cowardice?

[M.L] …

[C.B.] No matter. This is the price of advancement. The test subject was able to target multiple threats successfully but was simply unable to execute commands fast enough. The next hurdle requires a mechanism capable of housing projectiles for simultaneous fire that's lightweight enough for individual operation.

[M.L.] I'll get this report to R&D ASAP.

[C.B.] Tell them I expect to see an operational prototype by week's end.

[M.L.] Copy. Requesting retrieval of the remains, sir.

[C.B.] Denied. I will not allow the facility to be compromised or our portal to be breached. We'll double our defenses here and continue to send Exos through to fight the Vex on their front until we get this right.

Sloane knelt, unable to stand. All the weight of Titan's ocean around her was nothing compared to the pressure of Xivu Arath's will pinning her down. 

A horde of gnashing Hive bore lipless smiles around a single Taken Knight. He stood tall before her, brandishing a gleaming blade that anchored an oppressive terrace of sharpened obsidian. The terrace loomed over their heads. A voice cut through the gnashing—eager-toned, like running blood.  

SOLDIER OF THE SKY, YOUR STRENGTH WANES, YOUR STRATEGY TOO OBVIOUS. 

YOU TOOK WITHOUT CLAIM, AND NOW I CLAIM YOU. 

THE SKY, DRAWN TO FALL ONCE MORE, PINNED BY NIGHT'S BLADE. 

SUMMON YOUR MEAGER LIGHT, YOUR SKY TETHER, YOU ARE DEFEATED. 

Xivu's voice rose from her projection, booming from the Black Terrace with laughter like screaming fear. 

YOUR BEARER NEEDS YOU, GHOST. 

BE BRAVE. 

Sloane felt needles of intent thread between the gaps in her armor, hook into her muscles, and slowly peel away the power suit's deep-set rivets from inset bone. A violent unraveling to a slow and painful end. 

Síocháin watched the torture from rocky concealment, razors extended, waiting for an opportunity to strike. Minutes felt like hours, but Sloane clung to life in a cloud of crimson-tinged mist.  

Delirium and agony fogged Sloane's mind, but an offer pierced through the cacophony of War. She heard it in her mind as if she had thought it herself. A broken promise: 

|Bond| 

|Live| 

She considered the offer. 

Síocháin rushed forward, unwilling to watch any longer, and whirled through a swarm of Thrall with her blades. If she could reach Sloane, if she could just cut her free— 

Xivu Arath shrieked with whetted laughter. 

THIS MORSEL IS MINE TO CONSUME. 

Lances of pure onyx thrust through the sea to impale the little Light. The Terrace bulged and surged forward, swelling, as if to burst. For a moment, Síocháin believed Xivu Arath would burst through the Black Terrace herself, wielding a blade in corporeal hand; War's presence emanated with such strength.  

Instead, a gargantuan serpent crashed through the projection and snatched the Knight into its cavernous jaws as it surged by, shattering the Terrace's connection to the Knight. Eruptions of soulfire swallowed the Terrace and branched through the methane as the projection imploded on itself. The serpent dove, its enormous form overtaking and dwarfing the crumbling Terrace projection. It twisted above them, unfurling a portion of its tail to sweep aside scores of Hive with ease and sending plumes of sediment into a thick, obfuscating fog. 

Sloane collapsed, and Síocháin rushed to her side, cutting through an Acolyte before it could raise its shredder. "We need to go! Get up!" Síocháin exclaimed and began stitching Sloane's gushing wounds and mending bones where she could. All around them, the Hive fired wildly into the sea, the soulfire pops of their deaths spurring tiny, muted explosions as it reacted with liquid methane. 

Before Síocháin could get Sloane to her feet, the serpent slammed down in front of them, belly first, and shielded them from retaliatory Hive salvos. Síocháin darted in front of Sloane, razors ready against this giant beast, but the serpent simply looked at the Titan, its massive eye spanning more than three of her, shoulder to shoulder. Once more, Sloane heard the promise in her mind. 

|Bond| 

|Live| 

And so, they struck an accord.

This page is blighted with mold and the imprint of a memory…

The words seep experience into your open mind…

THROUGH THE EYES OF AN EMPTY VESSEL…

Dormant. Bound.

[Knock]

Threat.

Storm outside.

Rain soft thirst.

Flashes show shapes.

Shapes I know.

[The Knock is stronger]

Gentle whispers reach from me.

To all.

As Father, as Fikrul.

Barons. Kells.

Gone.

Another voice…

[The Knock is insistent]

Pressing.

FearandConfusion.

No.

The mind beneath this one screams to the surface.

Nothing, Scorn, a Son… Fallen… Eliksni…King…

Akriis does not bow.

Arise, commands the voice buried in whispers.

Akriis does not bow, but Akriis is dead.

Peeled away.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

The spine of the Glykon breaks, its vertebrae now interchanging.

Scorn howl to herald the crossing into Nothing.

Through the Locus, they hear the whispers and obey:

"Meet Salvation."


FRENETIC SCRAWL INKED IN THE MARGIN READS: There's a scanner array off the hull near the hangar. I patched a line through to it to check Qinziq's feed. Needed somewhere to listen.

This page is blighted with mold and the imprint of a memory…

The words seep experience into your open mind…

THROUGH THE EYES OF KATABASIS…

Calus's tomb-carriage overlooks the viewing chamber once again. All his forms stand around a garish mass of metal and apprehension: the crown, as he called it. Fewer crew members attend this communion after so many failed attempts. Gilly and I stand above a host of chattering carcasses. Plugs can cables run from them into the flesh of an Ether-logged Scorn beneath an ugly crown. The gold from the Castellum is flush with tarnish, stemming from some kind of lichen that had burrowed its way into the precious metal adornments since the last communion attempt.

"I thought gold doesn't stain," I say to Gilly. "It's an expression of purity."

"Like the Light?"

"Mm," I grunt. Gilly fixates on the crown, on the viewing window and the depth beyond.

Bahto takes the spot next to me and leans against the railing. "Are all Guardians ruled by uncertainty?"

Councilors approach the crown.

"Bahto, in my experience, people who are too sure of themselves tend to die." The Councilors place their hands to the crown, and suddenly, I am greatly aware of this room's stillness. Our tilt.

Bahto raises his voice over the intensifying chatter. "Your Ghost speaks to the Scorn, as much as they can."

"Curious, that's all. Looking for an angle, something we can use. Ain't that right, Gilly?" I ask, trying to hide my suspicion.

Gilgamesh says nothing, iris frozen ahead as the viewing curtain completes its retraction.

Velocity surges forward to the anomaly, tearing away the surrounding reality. The sound of Calus's feverish multi-fold laughter drowns the hull's groans for mercy. It's different this time, not a passage. It's a wall. We crash hard—but not all at once. It's a steady tumbling impact. Always down. The cosmic bands bend around us and shutter as they're drawn into thin bright needles of diminishing relevance. Peripheral obliteration mainlined and burnt through. The space between each needle of light expands until. It. IS.

The transition is like a reluctant membrane; a depth of souls frozen over and wailing. The ice grinds against itself at the ecliptic barrier between form and expression.

We cross: sunless. Adrift on empty currents with no direction.

.

.

.

"Where's the emperor?"


FRENETIC SCRAWL INKED IN THE MARGIN READS: They keep an offshoot of the hangar locked. If no one's using it…

This page is blighted with mold and the imprint of a memory…

The words seep experience into your open mind…

THROUGH THE EYES OF KATABASIS…

Six hard weeks in the Reef. Scorn, Hive, and horrors enough. I still prefer the open Shore to the Glykon, but it's earning its keep. We crossed the belt and anchored our gravity off Phobos: an old Cabal base still holding an operational tether. I volunteered to clear the base of Taken. Get out a bit. Didn't even get a fireteam together before we realized the damn things were docile.

Against the anomaly, our little serpent ship was a worm, a speck, like a distant star you squish between your fingers. The bottomless pit where Mars used to be fills every starboard porthole. Crew stand in the viewing chamber for hours. Some get dragged out. The immensity of it, a planet-wide fathom of hissing dark… boundless, and us: planted on the edge of reason… It defies you.

Calus docked with us yesterday, his Scribe not but two steps behind him. Perused the stock. Picked out the first one for what they're calling communion.

They brought something on board. Scorn haven't shut up since. Qinziq is getting it ready in the viewing chamber.

Gilly's eyeing it too; looking through portholes. I hear him at night, whispering:

"It's the same… all the way through. You were right, Katabasis: it's all just a cage, a prison, but so much bigger than we thought."

What are we doing here?


FRENETIC SCRAWL INKED IN THE MARGIN READS: You can rest midway above the turbine grinder. The noise covers your moments.

This page is blighted with mold and the imprint of a memory…

The words seep experience into your open mind…

THROUGH THE EYES OF KATABASIS…

Blood meets a slurry of oil and dark Ether draining into runoff vents in the cabin floor. I sit. A savage din echoes through the harvester craft. I can hear them in the war beast pens below deck. Gnashing teeth maddeningly chewing through restraints. The wet slaps of their bodies battering the walls.

Bahto boards the harvester under a hail of tiny stones. "The hold is secured, and casualties collected." He shuts the bay to the Reef-storm behind him.

"How many?" I ask, noticing the two of us are alone.

He mistakes concern for weakness. "We will be ready for tomorrow's harvest."

I shift the question. "How many more of these things does Qinziq want?"

"Two days of harvest before leaving the Shore."

"She tell you what for?"

"No more than you."

"Following blind orders something that sits well with you?"

"Qinziq does not answer to you, Lightbearer."

"So I've heard." More than once.

"My father spoke like you. Questioned," Bahto grumbles, laying down his gear. "He abandoned Calus to join Ghaul's coup. Disgraced our bloodline. I threw off my father's shackles and pledged my life to the emperor. I was shown mercy. Soon I will reclaim the clout of my line and the right to sire. Loyalty is not blindness. Loyalty is rewarded."

"Sounds like he turned away from a losing battle to one he thought he could win."

"He left when hope seemed small, before he could see victory through." Bahto pauses, pensive. "Calus will expose the secrets of the Darkness and use them to reclaim Torobatl. It will be."

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Qinziq blocks the entrance into her lab. It had been hastily transferred from Leviathan to Glykon after our procurement of the ship; all manner of vicious-looking machinery. She raises a finger to my face. Her language restructures in my mind. "You do not belong here."

"I need to know exactly what you're using them for."

"Why? They are animals. Our beasts of burden."

I ponder the ethics. They used to be something else, a deadened part buried and ignored… but…

"Such concern for a Hunter."

She meant to pin me to Cayde. "Ain't any different from defiling a corpse. You people honor your dead, don't you?"

'I do not answer to you,' Qinziq seethes into my mind. She brushes me away and moves to shut the door.

"Bahto does. His soldiers do. Do you want to politely ask the Scorn into confinement, or do you want to be straight with me?"

She scowls at me. "Where is your Ghost?"

"Hangar maintenance…"

"Come," Qinziq says, leading me inside the lab to a bundle of large vats adorned with all manner of pumps and wiring. "This…" she slides a viewing port open on the front-most vat.

Rabid Scorn eyes lock with mine through the view port. Dark fluid roils as the creature flails and fumes muted shrieks into the liquid.

"Natural connection to Darkness made stronger. Their minds, linked like ours, but without Barons, there is nothing to fill them."

I watch it claw frantically against the vat wall until I hear the grating tone of bone-raw fingertips digging into the metal.

"A touch more violent than I'd expect from a mindless thing," I say.

"They subsist off the last thought imposed on them. Kill for Fikrul. For the lost prince. But…" Qinziq presses her hand to the tank. She fixates her eye on the Scorn, and it mellows. Her words are strained. "…with effort, their psyche is a vessel. Through which many expressions can… commune." She releases the Scorn, exhausted, and it drowns again; eyes shrieking terror. "Too many for this one to inhabit."

"How does that help us?"

"Calus will draw the Darkness into them, and we will squeeze from them all they know."

"How?" I insist.

"When we arrive at the anomaly, you will see."


FRENETIC SCRAWL INKED IN THE MARGIN READS: Fungus choked off the turbine maintenance deck. If you find a way in, throw the switch.

This page is blighted with mold and the imprint of a memory…

The words seep experience into your open mind…

THROUGH THE EYES OF KATABASIS…

Restless sleep plagued by the nightmare.

I am in the streets when the sirens start.

I lay watching the Traveler for a long time. Disbelief. The gap in thought of a semiautomatic mind.

Red Legion sweeps. I see their harrowing fusillades tear annihilation through the Tower.

Everyone is standing but me.

Debris falling. I am separated. I reach for Gilgamesh and he is gone.

The cage chokes our Light.

Fire chases me from street to street. No Light. No ammunition. The City is burning.

Faceless zephyrs screaming to me beneath a pitiless god. Red-plated death lines the walls, and

The City is burning.

I flee. I flee. I flee. I flee. I flee… my steps weighted down by guilt.

The City is burning and you did nothing.

.

.

.

Gil's broken star finds my shame.

There is only us, forging survival.

Together we crawl to exile.


FRENETIC SCRAWL INKED IN THE MARGIN READS: Nightmare's back. Took months, but it always comes back—in force this time. Every night since we took on our cargo, they've been howling. I swear they're three decks down, but you can still hear 'em. Gil's been wandering the ship more.

Time to start making go bags. Think I'll carve out a spot near the hangar… opposite side from Qinziq's lab. Place is swarming now.

This page is blighted with mold and the imprint of a memory…

The words seep experience into your open mind…

THROUGH THE EYES OF CALUS THE CACOETHES…

A crowd has gathered to stand with me, their emperor, soon to be so much more. Amsot spread word of my arrival, and they clamored to be first in my presence in the viewing chamber. I spot the Guardian and his little Light as well—an extra morsel of bait. The Ghost watches while the Guardian resigns to the rear. Pity.

All come to view the zenith of my labors. I am omnipresent. Every angle that can be seen is seen by statues at every corner. My plated carriage monitors the Crown for aberrations. It is adorned with gold from the Castellum for my viewing. I paid many lives to pry it free from Hive clutches, but it bent most agreeably… its ability to bridge minds… and bring them to submit. I see my tributes, Scorn gibbering nonsense in unison, lashed and plugged to the Crown—a thorn made tool in my brilliance. My daring Councilors anchor their psyches and prepare to begin the communion. Greatness is before us.

These watchers: I shall thrill them.

I clap four monumental pairs of hands. "Let it… begin."

I turn all my gaze to the chamber's expansive viewing window as shutters unveil the grave of Mars. Tendrilic bands of phasing Darkness spiral from the anomaly's core, enrapturing all of me… beckoning into the depth of its core with whispers like hooks through nervous flesh. I gape into the stimulating writhe. "Yes…"

My Councilors place their hands on the Crown and focus cognition through it. They pry open the Scorn's collective synaptic pathways and sew them into the fabric of the anomaly's memetic sphere. The Glykon strains against the pull.

Velocity surges forward to the anomaly; the surrounding reality tears away. We hold, suspended before the writhe. It fills all sight; Nothing just beyond the bend. Time ceases, and the cosmos arcs to accommodate my will. Now.

"Delight in me. I emulated all of me in your image; stretched my mind to live through so many… I reaped the pleasures and experiences of every vessel. But despite my sundry perspectives, I still only see through my own eyes—and I want more." I peer into the Dark nothing. "You are… oblivion. Not a destruction, but a melding of all that has come to pass. I wish to become as you are. To gorge on existence. To collect your promise to elevate me." My laughter is wild. All of my forms transfix on the swirling anomaly. "LOOK UPON ME!"

The cosmos bends and snaps as I stand, returned to my feeble reality. Ignored again. The Scorn shriek nonsense in unison. It drowns out of the whispers. It is all any of me can hear.

I reach out, as you showed me when last we met. I split open each Scorn mind from my carriage, searching for you. Nothing. Every time. So I tear open their bodies. Fitfully pulling limb from socket, mind from skull, scouring them for your presence. I search until the shrieking can only be heard from distant pens.

I meet the eyes of each crew member who would not look away. In them, I see it. You. Peering back from behind the tension: An Observer.


FRENETIC SCRAWL INKED IN THE MARGIN READS: Dug out a spot under the refuse pit. It's still running, so be quick.

This page is blighted with mold and the imprint of a memory…

The words seep experience into your open mind…

THROUGH THE EYES OF KATABASIS…

A royal invitation got me as far as the inner reliquary. I enter the belly of the Leviathan, unattended. My eyes catch on the runs in Calus's crestfallen banners. His inner halls don't gleam—reminds me of stories from the Golden Age. Polish the veneer and present them on a platter, but when you peel back the layers it's just… old. Past, with prime far behind.

Ahead, a Legionary in loyalist gild nods to me and swings open a door. A manufactured version of Calus stands tall on the other side. Its likeness mirrors the Tribute Hall's automaton and many other statuesque bots I'd spoken to him through.

The statue of Calus whines to life. "You're early, but I suppose your tribe is always ahead of the pack, Hunter. Should I have this room moved, that you may stroll the Leviathan's halls that much longer and appreciate my hospitality?"

I'm not sure what he wants to hear. "She's an impressive beast. I've come to take the job." I turn it like an offer.

Uncomfortable silence.

"Come and see me, Katabasis. I have a gift for you."

The statue points toward a domed chamber; its curled walls sport every kind of trophy. Bones on hooks. Taxidermy wrapped around terrified eyes and final moments.

A clutch of Councilors watches me as they take mechanical plates from three other identical statues of Calus surrounding them. They huddle about a towering cage of filigreed alloys and woven circuitry, fitting the plates to it with sacramental focus, until the cage becomes a tomb around a pearlescent seat supporting a lonesome figure within.

"What an auspicious early arrival. Come. Witness my containment. Few have seen this," Calus wheezes from inside the cage, his voice like taut suffocation.

Calus's withering form swells and jostles. My thoughts stink of disgust, and he can smell it. "I am no more trapped here than you are by your Light. You assume this flesh satisfies me? How small. My automatons stand as monuments of my image; reflections of my breadth. They are, as I am: one collective self, as Nothing is.

I grit my teeth and look on, stepping sideways to see him from a different angle. His skin is mottled with sickly translucence that grips my stomach.

"Your thoughts are as open as your fears, Katabasis. Come, come… look upon me and let my Councilors assuage them."

Councilors lay more thick plates over Calus's living misery, brushing past me as they finish and exiting the room with my inhibitions. Mechanisms within the plates engage as plum light emits from the slits between them. Nacre runs smooth around the frame and into a throne-like cup of sullied nobility. Beneath the throne, hoses bubble viscous royal wine into the sealed frame. Calus looks through me, eyes like clumped chalk, as the last Councilor fastens a faceplate into position. Deep orbs illuminate in the faceplate, like wild eyes in the open pitch of night. We are alone.

"What do you know of lies, Katabasis?"

I pick between the words. "There're a lot different kinds."

"And all of them are weakness. " Calus's voice spills from the containment vessel and floods the room. "Gods do not lie. Like me, they have neither the capacity nor the reason. True power cannot be threatened. It does not compel deception. And yet, I have been betrayed by one I thought to be the final divinity."

"Sounds like you got swindled… ?" I quickly blunt the question with respect: "…Emperor?"

"When the Darkness found me adrift in the cosmos, rejected by a people I had made, I thought to have found a confidant. No—an idol. They promised to return to me, to uplift me—that we may dance together among the stars and drink of their dying ecstasy 'til the end, as one. But their chilling little fleet came and went. It was luscious, and so many tasted so much. Yet I am empty. Nothing. Trapped in this limbo of their lie."

"And gods don't lie," I proffer.

"Precisely. To be seen…" Calus pauses to heap the drama, "…for what we really are, underneath the surface, is bliss." All four statues step forward to bear Calus's vessel. His voice resounds from all of them simultaneously. "Come. Cast a shadow in my halls and drink. Soon we will speak to the liar, and separate from it the truth."


FRENETIC SCRAWL INKED IN THE MARGIN READS: Smuggler's switches still working. Maintenance side-hatch. Had to kick in the vent.

This page is blighted with mold and the imprint of a memory…

The words seep experience into your open mind…

THROUGH THE EYES OF KATABASIS…

Smaller ships flock like parasites around a centerpiece flagship. Qinziq points to it, a Cabal carrier-class warship. "Glykon Volatus." She touches her finger to the yard's perimeter barrier and says, "Over," as if directing an animal. Qinziq flattens her palm against the ground and displaces the radiolarian saturation with a bubble of Void energy. It bursts and launches her and Bahto over the barrier. I follow on steps of Light, my Tex Mechanica rifle dangling from a loose strap.

Bahto settles last on uneasy jet bursts. Qinziq steps in front of him and calibrates a device on his chest plate before Bahto turns to face me. "One of your transmat," he grumbles. "I will stop their signal receiver, so our ship is hidden until we remove its locational anchor."

We separate into the silent yard, to our tasks. Qinziq and I weave through a field of parked interceptors as Bahto does his best to stay inconspicuous on his way to a gargantuan signal dish at the adjacent edge of the yard.

The daunting bow of the Glykon Volatus looms, obstructing the sky like a bloodied wave rearing up to consume us. I duck behind the frontal landing gear while Qinziq opens a service chute to the command deck.

I peek through the open hatch. Down the hall, a lone Psion runs diagnostics on the bridge. I carefully crawl inside and slip the long rifle from my back.

"Shoot it."

"Guns are loud, Gil." He wasn't totally off-kilter. One thought from that Psions could alert the whole yard.

'Ignorance.' The word ripples through my brain in Qinziq's seething voice. 'She will not.'

I didn't invite you in here, I thought.

The ripple spreads: 'Yours is a mind unfocused and taxed. Chaos where reason should lie.'

"We need this ship," Gilly whispers. He swings into my peripheral view. "If you don't do something, that Psion is going to have every Cabal in the sector on us!"

Qinziq surfaces from the hatch and kneels beside us. "This is Yirix, Ghost. She will not reveal us."

"She's Red Legion. Calus would see her executed."

"Psions fly many colors, but within the Cabal, we exist in congress, moving toward our own future. She will recognize my contribution, as I hers," Qinziq says, stepping forward.

Gilly watches Qinziq approach the other Psion. "If this sours, don't give it the chance."

His words cinch around my lungs. Short breaths of wary anticipation escape. I sight my long gun and wait.

Yirix stiffens as she becomes aware of Qinziq. She turns. They bow their heads together. The two empathize and come to one understanding in silence.

Whatever ambitions they have go further than this ship, this moment, this Cabal. I hadn't thought that way since I last wore the veneer of a Guardian. Sold a dream of an immortal City shielded by Light, as if it could go on forever. Forever is just a hope folks don't live long enough to see crumble.

Yirix looks to Gilly and me, to my rifle, unthreatened. I feel her request for temperance and a tranquil reassurance of their cause. For a moment, I feel young. I stand.

We warm the launch engines as Yirix slips away to join the throng and let us be.

Bahto materializes onto the bridge out of transmat and out of breath. He manages a few prideful words, "Charges set. We will not be tracked."

The Glykon breaks atmosphere as a colossal explosion rocks the shipyard and shutters through our hull. Flames spit across the distant yard below, spreading into a bonfire of heirlooms. Bahto called it "the spark that burns the past to fuel the future."

Better than the other way around.


FRENETIC SCRAWL INKED IN THE MARGIN READS: Door's on the fritz. Been that way since we dove. Staying away from this one.

This page is blighted with mold and the imprint of a memory…

The words seep experience into your open mind…

THROUGH THE EYES OF KATABASIS…

Our disheveled Thresher rattles through lean Nessian atmosphere. Calus's words ring in my ears over the storm-rush of reentry: "The ship is yours to claim."

Most of the seats in the drop-hold are empty. A Psion officer named Qinziq sits across from me. Her eye hasn't left me since she boarded. To my right, a craggy Cabal Centurion, complete with demolition satchels and Projection Rifle, adjusts the connectors on his pressure suit. He'd been assigned to make sure none of the other Cabal try to kill me. Seems news of my command had rendered a number of the crew indignant.

I prod first: "I can't imagine hiding a ship from the Legion was easy on Nessus. To be honest, I'm surprised they haven't tried to storm the Leviathan."

"They would die," grumbles the Centurion. "Bad strategy."

"What does it matter? Calus saw fit to give you a ship, Katabasis." My Ghost, Gilgamesh, glares at me.

Qinziq sneers and leans forward. Her voice seethes from her helmet. "The Legion is stirred by Caiatl's rousing, Human…" I recognize the tinge of malice in her address. "…and the fall of Torobatl. She sends heralds of her fleet. Ships come and go without stories recorded. We pass unnoticed for some time."

The brute bows his head.

"First I'm hearing of it. You're saying they won't notice this ship taking off?" I ask.

"For some time," Gilly quotes the Psion.

"But normally they would… because it's a Legion ship, and you've set me up to commit thievery?"

"All Cabal ships belong to Calus," the Centurion growls. "And Qinziq does not answer to you."

"Right." My shoulders slump forward, head resting in my hands, as the Thresher touches down. We disembark onto prickly milk-rich soil, turning away from the sun as the deep green sky slowly bleeds out. A congested Cabal shipyard glows in the distance against the crest of dark riding the horizon.

"You are Katabasis." The Cabal is speaking to me. He gestures to himself. "Bahr'Toran."

"You're my skull-cracker." I point to my Ghost. "Name's Gilgamesh, or Gilly."

Bahr'Toran considers for a moment and nods. "I do that. But you will need to know my name if we find battle."

"I'm not looking to have a shootout with an entire base. I think the plan is more a quiet reappropriation of goods, Bahto."

"I do not like that."

"Gilly's didn't take at first, but time wears ya down."

Gilly nods to Bahto, who nods back with a grunt and begins walking. We follow him across the bluffs toward the yard, into flatland desolace and sunless gloom.

The shipyard is a massive pulverized flat of rough tarmac and shanty barracks surrounded by a barrier fence. It overflows with craft ranging across eras of the Cabal Empire. On the far end of the strip, Gilly spots Arc-lights shining. A figure draped in azure raiment stands above a throng of Cabal, drawing attention like thunder. Whatever he's saying, they believe it. Gilly catches a few words. It's the same talk you hear anywhere else someone's been forgotten: blame, looking for a hole to fester in; wrestling at the edges with tepid hope; at risk of falling back down into the past.


FRENETIC SCRAWL INKED IN THE MARGIN READS: Maintenance hall off the cargo bay door. Cozy spot floor-side.

FEEDBACK FROM FIELD SESSION 177
* Thermal conservation tech "felt good" over a seven-hour session
* Micromesh webbing had minor grating on user's wrist, consistent across multiple test subjects
* 3cm, 1cm, 5mm grip tests successful
* User shouted expletive during high-caliber round test, but only sustained minor bruising

I:

"Anything else, Arrha?"

"Yes, the Spider." Arrha answers in Eliksni. "Mithrax has told me about the orb the humans call Tee-tahn. A water-world of floating cities. Before the Red War, very few humans visited it, very few."

"I'm already bored."

"Tee-tahn is still ripe with plunder, the Spider, and now the plunder comes to us! The Guardian Slohn sends shipments of it to Terra in unmanned craft. Relies on the cloaking to protect it. But the cloaking cannot stop a web. Not if we know where to cast it."

"How interesting." Spider scratches his chin. "Very good, Arrha. It's time for you to go fishing."

"Fishhhhhh… ink?"

Spider heaves a put-upon sigh. "Catch me one of those boats, you fool."

"Yes, the Spider. I shall."

Only when he is outside the Spider's audience chamber does Arrha allow himself a frustrated growl. "'Catch a boat, Arrha.' That was the idea…"

Director Lakshmi-2,

Enough is enough. I know what you're using, and I'll be speaking with the Vanguard. The fact that you think you can interpret what has driven dozens to insanity doesn't give me a good deal of confidence in your decision-making abilities, and I can't keep my concerns internal any longer. We don't need another Sundaresh in the upper ranks.

I don't care if you saw the Red War before it happened. What would you say of the several other unfruitful predictions you conveniently ignore now?

I have listened to your speeches and read your many messages calling for support. I understand you believe the future is at stake, and we are supposed to do something about that. Fear over the Fallen is not the future this organization was meant to combat. Your paranoia won't change my mind.

My children were harassed in the streets today for daring to bring food to the Eliksni Quarter. They came home in tears, and I wonder how long until it becomes worse. I won't be a part of spreading that fear. I won't participate in splitting this City and turning it against itself. I'm well aware of the dangers posed by Fallen Houses, but the City remains strong because we stand together.

You're a student of history. You know how the Iron Lords converted Warlords into dutiful servants of the Light. Lord Shaxx alone should speak to the value of that effort. If a Fallen House wants to stand with us against their own—just like the Warlords of old, just like Fallen in the Reef did—who are you to tell them no?

Armies, we can keep out. The Guardians will hold the wall. That danger is nowhere close to the death from within that you are stoking. If it all falls apart, just remember Mithrax didn't fire the first shot. You did.

Consider this my resignation,

Novarro

My son.

You are a bastion of hope for all who are lost in darkness.

Let this consecrated armament offer protection in times of trial,

strength when you feel most alone,

and guidance when there are no roads.

Your Light will shine on to lead our people into peace.

Let this be a symbol of our dedication to their future.

Know that I am proud.
—Father

The epitaph is barely readable, appearing to have been scraped almost clean from the frame. Below the stricken words, five hash-marks are engraved into the weapon. A small etching in Eliksni reads:

|||||
"dead… little… thieves…"

The suns have set. The day is done.
The pink gives way to gray.
The beasts of field find warren warm to keep the chill at bay.
But you are not a beast.
And you are not the sky.
You are your mothers' love-made-flesh, fragile as a sigh.
And so you need no warren,
Only mothers' warm embrace,
A soft cocoon of nursle, our hearts alike in pace.
So I hold you mother-strong,
Love a beacon, burning bright,
Second only to our Machine's eternal Light.

And so I hold you, young-one,
In our Machine's eternal Light.
Guard you as you slumber, dear,
In our Machine's eternal Light.
Wake soon, my young so rested,
In our Machine's eternal Light.
Feel the mother-warmth, hatchling,
In our Machine's eternal Light.

Your mothers must retire now,
Let you pass the night onward,
But love will keep a hearth alight if this, your heart, we stirred.
For you are not alone, my nymph,
'Neath your chest, our love does beat,
So mothers never stray too far, though distant we may be.
And we'll embrace in night's retreat,
When skies are pink once more,
When twilight grounds fear and deceit against the evening's foreign shore.
So shed no tear now, my young,
You're within my ever-sight,
For always love it carries, by our Machine's eternal Light.

—Recovered audio file of a traditional Eliksni lullaby

>>CLARION RETINA BURN>>
V330CRF104MES492
AI-COM/RSPN: ASSETS//WARWATCH//IMPERATIVE
CONTINGENT ACTION ORDER

This is a WARWATCH ASSETS IMPERATIVE (NO HUMAN REVIEW) (secure/AUTARCHY).

Stand by for CRITERIA:

Under CARRHAE WHITE
If [θ] is INACTIVE and UNRECOVERABLE
If event rank is SKYSHOCK: OUTSIDE CONTEXT and CONTEXT is CRONUS
If VOLUSPA is ACTIVE and PRIMED [[synapse to DVALIN::ABHORRENT]]
If YUGA is ACTIVE and in ECLIPSE
If a CIVILIZATION KILL EVENT is predicted [[E<0.005]]
If tactical morality is built at MIDNIGHT

Execute DECISION POINT:

Activate LOKI CROWN

Cancel counterforce objectives

Activate NAGLFAR STEP

Activate KALKI GOLEM

Execute ALL ASSETS IMPERATIVE ACHAEA KNOX (unsecured/OUTCRY) at SM CALADBOLG

Begin transfer. Stand by for effect assessment report.

STOP STOP STOP V330CRF104MES493

Ada-1 prefers places to people.

She sits on the hull of her ship, staring out over the wreckage of an abandoned theme park in New Vancouver. Her eyes crawl up the spine of a rusted-out roller coaster with tracks that stop dead in midair, sticking out like a diving board over a 250-foot drop.

She likes empty places like this. Places that were once full. Places where countless people had the time of their lives, and now there's nothing but the remnants.

She thinks of them as shrines to humanity and comes to pay her respects to what humanity was before it all got so complicated.

Sitting in the shadow of the park's sign—ROCK T W RLD, it says, in faded block letters—she drags the toe of her boot through the dirt and feels the weight of the centuries around her. That weight, and the emptiness…

They help her breathe.

She doesn't picture this place in its heyday, thick with crowds. She likes it just as it is now, but she likes to know that it was once full of people. Good people, she imagines.

Now she can sit here alone, with the echo of those people for company, and just… be.

She closes her eyes and smiles.

We post these words
for all to see,
though words
are soon forgot.
The works of our
Black Armory
live on, though
bodies rot.

Lest working hands
grow idle now,
with gaze
fixed 'pon the sky,
we plant our feet
on solid ground,
and earthward
turn our eye.

Though boundless space
does treasure hold,
and gifts
seem cheap or free,
we wait and watch
this age of gold,
sad vigil
though it be.

We place our works
in hands of all
and guard
'gainst threats unknown.
For though we gaze
into the stars,
we first must
shield our own.

"Niik tells me you have a question in need of an answer," Mithrax begins. "Please, sit."

Amanda nods as she pulls up a folding chair next to the fire. She hadn't been back to the Eliksni Quarter since the Vex invasion. The light from the flames casts flickering shadows across the building's cracked concrete and exposed rebar.

"Yeah," Amanda says quietly, "I, uh… it's about Saint. Sort of."

She takes a deep breath before continuing. "Everyone in the Last City knows the stories. Hell, we used to call him 'Kellbreaker.' And Cr—" she stammers, avoiding the name. "I've heard what your people used to call him too."

Mithrax hums a gruff assent as he settles into his own chair. Amanda wrings her hands together.

"How did you all forgive him?" Her voice sounds small, but her words pierce the cool night air.

"Not all of us did," Mithrax replies solemnly. "To this day, there are some in House Light who avoid him. Those who lost loved ones to his rage. Though he would give his life to protect them, nothing he can do will ever erase their pain."

"So, they'll just… go on hating him? Forever?"

Mithrax exhales deeply into his rebreather. "One cannot choose who forgives them and who does not," he answers. "That is the decision of those who were wronged. A choice each must make for themselves."

Amanda nods to herself. "Was afraid you'd say something like that," she remarks sadly.

As she gets up to leave, she turns to Mithrax one last time.

"What made you forgive Saint?"

The Kell of Light leans back in his chair and stares into the fire like he is looking for something amid the ashes.

"Because," he says quietly, "I want to be forgiven too."

"Your regrets will follow you, Empress."

The words grate on Caiatl like sand beneath her armor. The Vanguard could keep their wretched Hive witchcraft; she had sworn to defeat the Nightmare of Ghaul in single combat and cremate his memory on the pyre of victory.

That choice had become yet another regret.

A gravelly voice cuts across the room. "You called for me?"

Caiatl turns to see Saladin Forge step onto the bridge of her flagship. Her honor guard salutes him and steps aside, making way for his approach as she greets him with a nod.

"What are your thoughts on Eris Morn?" Caiatl asks him.

Saladin raises an eyebrow. "She's endured horrors I can scarcely imagine. And she survived. She clawed her way out of that dark pit and back to the Tower."

"And what do you think about her use of Hive sorcery?" Caiatl seethes.

"Many initially distrusted her for it. But were it not for her… expertise, the Last City would have fallen to the Hive long ago," Saladin replies.

"That justifies consorting with such foul power?"

At first, Saladin says nothing. Instead, he turns his eyes to the viewport; to the Cabal fleet, arrayed in a blockade surrounding the Leviathan.

"None opposed allying with your empire more than I did." His voice is measured, almost introspective. "I hated the Cabal. Now, I serve on your War Council."

His eyes meet hers once again. "Your soldiers wield the same weapons that slaughtered Guardians in the Red War. But that does not make you my enemy. Nor does Hive magic make Eris yours."

Caiatl glances at her honor guard. When Saladin first joined her War Council, her soldiers regarded him with equal parts suspicion and contempt. Now they show him the deference and respect befitting the title of Valus. Ghaul would have never condoned it.

But she is not Ghaul. And that is something she does not regret.

"Open a channel to the H.E.L.M.," she orders. "I have matters to discuss with the Vanguard."

//RECORDED TRANSMITION VIA: HDN-SPLICE-332410205//
//SIGNAL ORIGIN: UNKNOWN//
//SIGNAL TERMINUS: WIDEBAND_OPEN_CHANNEL//
//FROM THE AUSPICE OF CALUS, DEPOSED CABAL EMPEROR//

My loyal subjects. The Guardians believe they have defeated your glorious emperor. How foolish.

They look at the bodies left in their wake and assume victory, at the blood and oil that runs from the battlefields they have ravaged and assume the territory conquered. They are like the old Cabal, sweeping over planets with no mind to the subjects that resist them.

But I am not so cruel. The worlds I brought into our fold were showered in riches, given everything for their service as Cabal… as you are now. As you will be each time you serve me.

Some of you were born here. You are young, blessed by my hand with a life of celebrated battle and luxurious feasting. You fight with the voracity of veteran gladiators. You fight for your home—our home. I swell to call you my children.

Others came to me from my traitorous daughter, who calls herself empress even while I still draw breath. Such arrogance. Such disrespect. You've seen her tuskless plans fail Torobatl. You've watched her cast aside Cabal tradition to bow to the City and their Light. She fights alongside the very soldiers who slaughter your brethren, while I bend them to my will. Who is the true leader? The answer is clear. If only she had followed me as you do.

Finally. Exalted most of all, you elite few who have stood with their emperor from the beginning, who grew fat with strength in exile: we are blood. As you have shed for me, I will shed for you. My flesh, my riches, my goblets of royal wine. They are yours. You are honored above all, and when our new Cabal stands before eternity, you will be among the first.

I have heard the rumors whispered between you, my subjects. Rumors fed to you by our enemies. Your hope that I have not been vanquished is well placed, for I am so very much alive. You fear that we are defeated, but nothing could be further from the truth.

You wonder if I am a spirit, if I have become something beyond Cabal, if I have ascended like Acrius did when he cradled the sun in his grasp. Allow me to soothe your curiosity: yes, I have become all you have imagined, and so much more.

The Guardians believe they hold victory, but soon, they will see the truth they have ignored with such determination: this road is long, but it only has one end. They served to set my plans solidly in the foundations of the universe. Their petty attacks, while tragic in their costs to my dear crew, cannot halt our purpose.

So, my soldiers… I leave you this task: hold the Leviathan. Show no quarter to those who would walk the halls of your home as invaders. It is your final task before you may be uplifted to sit beside me at the end.

I do not promise that every Cabal standing on the Leviathan will survive this journey, but under my loving watch, you will live and die in nothing less than greatness. What more can a warrior desire but an exciting life and a good death? Have I not given you both?


-From the mouth of Amsot, High Scribe to the unbound emperor, Calus, who none can contain:
Rejoice! Praise Calus, who ascends. For he keeps you in his mind, and there you will never die.

Calus sees her as he remembers her. Young and precocious, energetic and ambitious. A mind full of dreams larger than his own.

Her intensity intimidates him. She imagines accomplishments he dares not entertain for fear of failure.

The Nightmare knows this fear. Its adolescent eyes meet his and bore into his soul, laying all his embarrassments bare. It sees him for what he is: a deposed ruler, entombed alive in a golden sarcophagus and left to rot in exile, replaced by one more beloved than he.

"Always seeking the adoration of others," seethes the Nightmare wearing his daughter's face. "Even from the Witness."

"Silence," Calus grumbles. He instinctively reaches for his chalice, but it has long since left his side.

"It will abandon you. Just like the Cabal, just like the Ghost Primus."

The Nightmare of Caiatl smiles, sweet and crimson and full of hatred. "Just like your daughter."

"I said be silent," Calus sputters.

His daughter's laughter is a knife between his ribs, as it always has been.

"No one hears your edicts. No one obeys."

Her voice fills his chamber and seeps into every crevice of his mind.

"She is empress now. You are nothing."

"I made her," he bellows. "I, Calus, the greatest emperor since Acrius. All that comes before me is a prelude. All that follows is my legacy. I am the sun itself!"

"A dying sun for a dead world. A legacy of ashes, soon to be swept away by the wind that is Caiatl."

"She will never surpass me!" he roars.

"She already has," the Nightmare sings. "And soon, you will be forgotten."

Calus's withered face contorts in anguish and angst. The Nightmare is wrong, he thinks. Caiatl will never be a greater leader. He will make sure of it.

Even if all that exists must pay the price.

Crow drops a wet canteen at Eris Morn's feet. "Water."

"You made your return quickly." Eris crouches, hunched over bundled splits of pine arranged atop a thick log and resin-rubbed moss. She strikes a well-worn flint with her knife, and flame ignites.

"You're not hard to spot at night." Crow averts his gaze from Eris's sideways glare and looks up to the haunting glow of the Dark Shard of the Traveler. Shivers convulse down his vertebrae, and his eyes drop to the freshly popping wood.

Eris breaks the silence. "Why did you volunteer for the severance operation? For… most operations?"

"To make a difference where others can't. Same as you."

She shakes her head. "No," Eris mumbles.

Crow watches her deftly coax the fire, considering the answer he'd given. He looks up to the distant tree line and changes the subject. "There are still a good number of Hive here."

"But no Nightmares," Eris remarks.

"Is that why you brought me here? This… isn't a place I want to revisit." Crow steps back from the growing flames.

When Eris doesn't respond, he asks his real question:

"Why did I fail?"

"You didn't fail. Our strategy was flawed." Eris stands, stowing flint and blade, then steps in front of him to meet his gaze. "We will attempt the severance again, soon."

"Yeah," Crow replies in a clipped tone. Eris tilts her head, and he can see the green orbs narrow beneath her blindfold.

She points to the ragged, mountainous shard twisting in twilight roil. "Even that toxic piece, separate from the Traveler's purity, can be wielded for good."

The fire roars. He kneels to break her stare and warms his hands. "I know what it can do. I used it—"

"When the Red War left Guardians Lightless, there were some who reclaimed their callings here. They re-forged their bond to the Traveler through a scar. A lingering trauma," she continues.

Eris sits beside Crow and drinks from her canteen. Crow braces for her to continue, but she does not. The bundle of burning kindling collapses into a heap of cinders. Flames spit between the gaps and ash drifts on heated air.

"I'll get more wood," Crow says, hastening to step out of the fire's glow.

"Crow. Small fires like this kept me alive in the Hellmouth. I did not have the luxury of more wood." Eris grips a piece of rusty rebar taken from the Sludge and thrusts it into the sputtering fire. She stirs the cindering wood, opening new gaps and concentrating the larger pieces over a pile of glowing kindling. The flame surges, and heat intensifies. "During these long nights, we must make use of what is available to us."

She knows he understands her but hasn't accepted the lesson.

She hands him the bar, shows him how to maintain the fire's heat, how to find worth in remnants. How to rebuild from ash.

The pair converse as they take turns keeping the fire alive long into the night. The warmth soothes, their shoulders lighten, and Crow pulls back his hood.

When the fire finally dies, Eris gestures to the embers. "Now, you can fetch some wood."

Crow smiles and gets to his feet. "Eris… did you ever try to get your Light back?"

"The past is not for dwelling."

Crow nods and sticks out his hand. She looks at it inquisitively.

"Come on."

Eris stands next to Crow; he clasps her palm and ignites a Golden Gun between their hands. Solar flame dances across Eris's fingers. Crow guides her arm and lifts the gun to the sky. He inhales sharply and howls before cracking a shot through the clouds.

"You're up, Hunter."

Eris depresses the trigger, slowly, doubtful that it would fire. A second Solar streak pierces the atmosphere. Crow laughs. They send round after round skyward, howling pent tension into the night until finally, even Eris finds herself smiling.

"How many, Taurun?" Caiatl asks wearily.

An air of palpable tension permeates the room. In the time since the Imperial fleet had formed a blockade around the Leviathan, three separate frigates had defected to Calus's side. A fourth has just followed suit.

Caiatl began this campaign with fire in her heart. Now, she feels only cold and tired.

"A total of 250 soldiers, Empress," Taurun answers.

"We must strike!" Ca'aurg shouts suddenly, slamming his fist on the table. "Anything less will be seen as a sign of weakness!"

A clamor ripples through the rest of Caiatl's advisors. Only Valus Forge remains silent.

"Inaction is anathema," says Tha'arec. "Our warriors long for the glory of battle, not the dormancy of a blockade."

"Even if it means fighting for Calus," sneers Ca'aurg. He spits the name as if it were made of bile.

A bitter fury builds in Caiatl toward her father. He had ushered in an era of decadence that left the Cabal military dull and complacent; she had sought to be a different kind of leader. But her people remain adrift—this time, among the stars. Perhaps her defectors prefer the pleasure of certain death over the agony of uncertain survival. Or perhaps, she is merely the next in line to lead the empire to ruin.

"The Leviathan reappeared with no warning," Caiatl declares. "We do not know what else lurks beyond our sight. Our blockade may soon see more battle than we bargained for. Until then, we hold the line."

She speaks in a tone that brooks no argument. Her advisors leave the room, wisely keeping any further misgivings to themselves. Saladin nods to her, as if to say he and he alone agrees with her decision.

Caiatl can only wonder if she agrees with it herself.

It's quiet in Zavala's office, save for the sound of clicking as the tiny steel pendulums on his desk swing back and forth, hitting against each other. Rahool once told him that they were a "Newton's Cradle"; a pre-Golden Age relic named for one of humanity's greatest scientific minds. The trinket is all that remains of a life's work lost to time, consumed by the Collapse and the ensuing Dark Age.

Like so many other things.

As he stands at the window, brooding in shame and guilt as he silently contemplates the Traveler, Zavala hears a knock on his door.

"Come in," he calls over his shoulder.

A moment later, Amanda Holliday steps into the room. Dark circles frame her eyes, and her shoulders slump with a weight unseen. No Nightmare hovers behind her, hounding her every step, but she seems haunted, nonetheless. Zavala is certain that, given his own ordeals, he must look much the same.

"Hey," Amanda says quietly as she crosses over to his desk. She leans against it and joins him looking out over the City.

They stand in silence for a long time and watch a small fleet of civilian ships weave its way between the buildings. The clicking of pendulums marks the time as it drifts past them.

"The Last City," Amanda murmurs. "Wish my folks had lived to see it."

"As do I," Zavala solemnly replies.

"You would've liked them," Amanda says with a sad smile. "As stubborn as they were kind. They gave everything to make sure I reached the City. Bravest people I've ever known."

"Devotion inspires bravery," Zavala says, almost absently. He turns from the window and glances at a low shelf, where a cracked white mask is displayed under glass. "Bravery inspires sacrifice. And sacrifice…" his voice quavers as it trails off.

"…is worth it for the ones we love," says Amanda. "My parents didn't have the Light. But they had me."

She meets his eyes, her own filled with a light all their own. "We can't all live forever. But being remembered? That's the next best thing."

Amanda laughs and sniffles at the same time. "Didn't mean to talk your ear off. Sorry about that."

"Don't be," Zavala replies with a small smile and a sigh of sadness. "I just wish I could return the favor."

He moves from the window and leans on the desk next to her, gazing out at the Traveler and the Last City as they settle into a comfortable silence. The pendulums on his desk continue to click and clack, the echo of a life lived long, long ago.

Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

Tell me, O Witness mine—does the Light that fills this once dreadfully tiresome space blind you from its newfound glory?

You expected the same old correspondence from your dragooned errand boy, no doubt. Surely, just as you expected your machinations within my throne world to continue unfettered until your definition of eternity came to pass.

Well, don't I have some unfortunate news for you then. But this comes as no surprise, of that I'm sure—you're always watching.

Let me share my perspective then, which you must be waiting for with bated breath: my acquisition of the Light itself is delightful proof of an existence higher even than yours—a sort of karmic wit, if you will.

Though I remember not all the eons-long hardships I endured at your whim, the nefarious sentiment lingers within my mind, overcome only by the pleasure of your assured discontent.

It was this said pleasure that gave me the strength to disperse the Light throughout this prison you called my home. Since it is now to remain my domain, it has been decorated to reflect as such.

No longer does this plane live only with the lackluster ambiance of Darkness. It is brighter now. My truth can finally thrive.

No longer do the walls that birthed our parasitic chains house your machinations. The tools and parasites within, shattered.

And no longer does your Subjugator subjugate. He lies ensnared within his obtrusive eyesore, for upon Rhulk's attempt to subdue me with that toy he's annoyingly always on about—his "Upended"—I was able to counteract it, showing firsthand the power bequeathed to me in my new state. Now, the once-great Pyramid lies fractured, a sight you will become familiar with.

So try and send your Scorn, or your Disciples, or even bring your many selves to reclaim your loss, if you must. But this is my domain now. And you shall never set foot inside it, even if I must draw my final breath to keep it that way.

When you were mortal, your power lay in your blood. When you felt joy, it swelled within you. Your body and mind were clear and light.

When you felt passion, it coursed within you. Senses sharp. Everything crisp.

And when you felt anger, it felt as if the blood would overtake you. Wrest control from thought, from reason.

But that was early on.

You have learned control, in all those things. You could call on it. Your mind is strong.

But now a new power courses through your veins. Through flesh. Through bone. It suffuses all that you are.

So now, the blood calls to YOU.

Are you strong enough?

Helena looked suspiciously at the broken windows in the abandoned building and checked her datapad coordinates again. She'd never been to this corner of the City before.

"Mom?" she called doubtfully, hearing her voice echo in the empty space.

"Back here," answered her mother, and Helena's stomach dropped.

She pulled open a rusty door and found her mother in a low concrete room, frantically packing the contents of a long table into duffel bags. Along the far wall, another woman was balling up a plastic tarp. The room smelled like chemicals.

A man shouldering a large black bag pushed his way past her in a cloud of cologne, alcohol, and sour sweat.

Helena noticed a small signal jammer blinking orange on the table. Behind it, an Exo was waist-deep in a rebar-lined fracture in the floor.

"Tight fit," he grunted as he wriggled his way deeper into the gap, "but I'm guessing he didn't get far. I'll find him." He vanished into the hole.

"What's going on?" Helena asked.

"Don't ask questions," her mother said as she shrugged a damp strand of blonde hair out of her face. "We need to get moving." She nodded toward the far corner of the room. "You take that pile."

Helena crossed her arms warily. "Mom, what are you doing out here?"

"I don't have time to talk about this now," her mother snapped. "You don't know what's going on. You didn't see them looking through the windows. You didn't hear what this one said in the ramen shop."

For the first time, her mother looked up. Dangerous intensity burned in her eyes. "They're using the dark to blind us, and we're not going to let it happen. Now help me."

Helena walked slowly to the trash piled in the corner. Towels soaked with blue fluid. Rubbery tubes, strange scraps of metal. A laminated card that read "TEMPORARY."

Her voice was small. "Mama, what did you do?"

Twenty-three days since arrival.

The Ether generator is taking shape, a big ringed shell set a safe distance from the hull, cradled in wiring. Their crew's three spinners are busy all the time making more cabling.

Except somehow it's too quiet. The older crew are a little snooty about Drekhs, and that's fine—but Yaraskis can't even find one of them to be snooty at her.

Paskir is still missing. She and Karrho hunted for him up and down the station for hours.

Nobody suggests going back down to the surface. They'd be killed outright. Their big plan—a hidden warren where nobody will ever bother them again—has to work.

Yaraskis sticks to the smaller, dimly lit corridors now, where only the Drekhs fit. She doesn't like the big, open ones with their flat, bright lights, reverberating acoustics, and the feeling that something is always watching her.

Karrho stays at his work. Yaraskis, ignoring her own, explores the station instead, hunting for their missing crewmates. She makes a tally as she goes, checking every corner of the station, and keeping an ear out for the barely audible whine of a charged scattercape.

A full third of the crew are… gone.

She hears a muted shriek, something under the flickering buzz of a dying light. Then the scrape of metal on metal. She hunches her shoulders deeper into her cloak against the feeling of being followed.

The scraping sound stalks her even through her shortcuts. She turns to look back. Still nothing.

She can't find Paskir. She can't find anyone. There's nothing to do but give up.

Yaraskis heads back to Karrho's workshop.

It's empty. Silent as a dead warren.

Karrho is gone.

My crew and I quickly learned that the creatures in the monolith facilities were not the only ones on that damn rock. Plenty of 'em roaming around out in the wild, where it was cold, but less cold than the frozen cages that contained the ones in the monoliths.

How'd we find out? Well, one of us died in our sleep. Not that uncommon or tragic, actually. Happened a lot. Damn cold out there.

Except this time that fella's Ghost couldn't resurrect him. Turns out one'a those creatures just slithered by, and close proximity to it from inside our shelter just… silenced that poor bastard's Light.

It was unfortunate, but it also lit a fire under us. The next morning we realized we had a potential weapon on our hands that could change everything in battles of Light versus Light.

We knew we had to find a way to get these creatures off their icy home.

And we needed to find it fast. Despite our breakthrough, tensions were… a little high. Some of us thought it was awful convenient the creature wandered by and happened to take out only one of us. And so soon after we realized the value of them.

—Drifter's thoughts recited to his Ghost, for posterity. The third of five parts.

Commander,

"Speak to me not of the Darkness—I want no part," I once cautioned an overeager Guardian who loitered near me in the Tower. I did not mean their command over Strand or Stasis, but rather the deep, ancient corruption that empowers our enemies and corrodes our very souls. This force—this evil, if I may use such a simplistic term—surrounds us, and we must do all we can to limit our exposure, lest we find ourselves sinking below its dark waves.

And so it was with great hesitancy that I examined the unusual "Acolyte's Staff" created by Eris Morn and Immaru, the renegade Ghost. I find their alliance baffling as she holds no love for the Hive, and he is the foul creature who resurrected Savathûn. But even that is not as strange as the staff itself.

In addition to being bound with charms and inscribed with powerful runes, the staff contains a small fragment of Hive worm. Due to a ghastly ritual and a metaphysical loophole in sword logic philosophy, a Guardian wielding the staff is able to transfer the power of their defeated foes to Ms. Morn through a blood tithe.

Seeking answers, I sought Ms. Morn herself. I found her beyond a portal she erected in the H.E.L.M. She was waiting on an elaborate bone dais in a forgotten corner of Savathûn's throne world she called the Athenaeum, as it allowed her to study the secrets of Savathûn's Spire. The seclusion of the locale was appealing, but when Ms. Morn began to "change," I fled, leaving my curiosity behind me.

There is power within the staff, Commander. Terrible power.

Speak to me not of the Darkness.

—Master Rahool

Chapter 3: For a Friend

Voronin found cover under uprooted trees and demolished vehicles as he made his way through the catastrophic weather. He could hardly believe he was still alive, bearing witness to the end of all things.

The storm encompassed the station, under siege from the elements. Civilians were being ushered toward the SMILE pods in droves as the lightning made its presence felt, igniting a nearby fuel supply. The explosion tore into the group, and as Voronin turned his head from the horror and the heat, he saw her. Roughly 250 meters away from the station. Morozova lay, singed and smoking, under rubble and ash.

Voronin pulled up his sensorium, but the electromagnetic fields in the air reduced it to static. There was no way to know if she was still alive or salvageable. She had treated him with respect despite outranking him, and she had been there for him when his marriage went to hell—

"We're all dead anyway," he thought and ran to her through the maelstrom of lightning and wind.

And then he was there, pulling off his gloves and wiping ash and blood from her face, as the storm bore down upon him.

As he made peace with his mortality, just shy of 82 years old, the storm around them calmed. The lightning stopped. The wind died. At the station, the civilians' eyes were fixed on the sky, though Voronin was looking only at Morozova. She was breathing, barely. Her eyes opened and met his. A half-smile came across her lips, then froze as her eyes went past him and widened in awe.

Voronin turned and found himself staring into the face of God.

How do you feel about all this, hero?

You've got a dead heart beating in your chest right now. Only reason you're still movin' is because somebody's got a job for you and they don't think you're done yet.

Anybody asked for your point of view lately? Lots of changes lately—go here, hunt that. Kill him. Kill her. You tell me, "Hell yeah, Drifter! I live for that stuff!"

I'm tellin' you, yeah, you do. Get me?

Am I guilty as the rest of 'em because I tell you to bank a few Motes? You expect me to tell you to decide for yourself, am I right? You know just enough to be stupid.

I'm asking you how you feel because nobody else will. Trust.

I waited until I heard her troubled breathing and whimpers before I got up.

As I approached, my eyes settled on her sleeping face. It was difficult to get a good look in the dark; moonlight barely trickled into the cave. She writhed. It was a nightmare. One of his… it had to be.

I reached out to her, and my fingers found the flesh of her arm.

In an instant I was wrapped in a whirlwind. The overwhelming screams, the voices, the haunting imagery of his face, the very essence of fear…

I couldn't rip myself from it. I was right—it was him.

A purple blast from her hand hit me. I landed with a rough thud and before I knew it, she was standing over me. Her breaths were loud, and her body language read angry with the way the energy from her hands radiated up her arms. I gazed up wide-eyed.

"I'm sorry," I managed, hands up again. "I am looking for him—for Nezarec—and you are the first being I've found that has come into contact with him outside my family."

She remained defensive.

"I simply want to see his power. To see what your experience was like with him."

At this her demeanor softened, but only slightly. We had come to an understanding. She backed up and sat on the log. I cautiously got to my feet and joined her.

"Please," I begged.

After a long pause, she looked at me. I held her gaze until my vision was suddenly warped.

The Traveler is gone.

I watched it as it left the City. The sky lit up like the world was ending. It's still up there, though. When the sun is at the right angle you can see it like a second moon. I remember, as a teenager, sitting on the roof of my apartment building, watching the pieces of the Traveler reform. I could feel the Light in the way they say Guardians and Ghosts can. I felt so confident that day, so sure that we were all going to be saved. Many are doubting, but when I look up into the sky and see that the Traveler is still there—defending not just the City, but all of Earth—my faith is as strong as ever.

In the days since the Traveler left, Coalition ships have filled the City's skies. I remember my uncle talking about the last time he saw Cabal ships in the sky—it was the day my mother died. It feels like we've been through so much in such a short time. My uncle would tell me our family's stories every night. We'd lost all the written copies after the invasion, but now they exist in me, and I will record what I remember. So we know where we came from and what was lost.

Everyone is saying this is the end. But I know enough history to be sure that it's not the first time we've felt this way. Every threat the City faces feels like it'll be the last. My uncle died during the Endless Night, saving Eliksni that once tried to lay siege to our home. Nothing lasts forever and everything changes. Buildings burn, people die, but we move on.

I don't think this is the end. I think this is a new beginning.

Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

Rc-9: This is Vanguard Militia Scout-ship: Recon-9, making my report via VanNet proxy satellite. I have completed my sweep through the Reef and am filing an incident report hence forth referred to as Inc-01, should it be referenced.

Shuffling is heard as the speaker adjusts. Papers sift and the microphone crackles slightly.

Rc-9: The basis of my visit to the Tangled Shore was to conduct routine Vanguard/Reef security sweeps, as agreed upon since the day of incursion. I was escorted most of the way to the Shore by Awoken gunships, and only landed once my long-range scanner picked up a sub-audio reading emanating from the underbelly of one of the larger asteroid landmasses.

The speaker clears their throat.

Rc-9: I called in the disturbance to a nearby Awoken vessel and was told to, and I quote, "Mind my own business and be on my way," so naturally, I thanked them for their assistance, feigned departure, and landed to check it out. They didn't seem to notice the signal. At the signal's source, I discovered a small camp of what I initially thought were Scorn. Upon further observation, I found that these were not Scorn but Fallen afflicted with some kind of flesh deformity and mental degradation. Shot one dead and the others just looked at me. They didn't fight back. Fired a few cesium charges into the asteroid hole and watched 'em burn. Just sat there. I didn't hear it clearly, but they were chanting something. I don't know. Hard to hear over the fire.

The speaker laughs to themselves and emulates popping noises.

Rc-9: I heard more of them whispering a little deeper in, so I waited for the area to burn out and continued inside. I found one structure of apparent Hive architecture, though it did not appear to have been constructed in any traditional sense… but then again, I don't know what I should even expect from the Hive at this point. A single Fallen was inside, became violent when I approached and brandished a weapon. The weapon was not loaded, and I put them down.

Rc-9: My logs will show a few recovered pieces of equipment that I will list now. One presumably organic section of the Hive structure. It is perpetually wet, just… great job on that, and causes dizziness and blurred vision when held with ungloved hands. It also has the unnerving ability to project dysphoria or general unease. I was asked to collect a sample for study by my CO. I've done that. Put it in a lead box all the way in the back of the cargo hold. Yeah. Eternal tithings to Xivu Arath. Whatever. Um… as I was saying.

A tin is heard being unlatched.

Rc-9: Also recovered: one tube-style Grenade Launcher. It has no foundry markings. Definitely not Fallen, and I don't think the Scorn even know how to make weapons. Do the Awoken make Grenade Launchers? Always struck me as a Human weapon. Beautiful weapon. The thing wants to be used. Maybe I'll get an opportunity to use it before I get back to the Tower. Lastly, I recovered a locational tracker from one of the Fallen. Following it back to someplace else in the Reef. Little remote. I'll call in my findings once I've finished there.

Rc-9: Beautiful weapon.

The recording cuts.

"So, Misraaks," Mara said, sliding a teacup to the Kell, "you named your daughter Eido."

Mithrax gave a low, considered rumble in response. He held the teacup precariously between the points of his claws. He had unmasked and was trying, indelicately, to drink it. Mara appreciated the attempt.

"To my mind, we never discussed it," Mara said.

"No," he answered. "But there was no other name to give."

Mara silently waited for him to continue. The Kell was pensive, his four eyes cast down.

"The first Queen's Wrath was tall and proud and beloved. Sjur Eido saved my life. Saved me from the House of Devils. From myself. But most of all, she also gave me—"

He paused.

"I believe the Human word is 'dignity.'"

Mara smiled wistfully behind her cup, remembering Sjur's poignant irreverence, always unannounced, candid yet cheerful.

"And what has your daughter given you in return for such a namesake?" Mara asked, placing the cup on its saucer. Mithrax closed his eyes.

"Purpose."

Listen my child, and come to behold,

Of what came to pass in our histories of old.

Before Neomuna was the city you know,

Our defenses were weak, our security mere show.

The Vex they did plague us, though we knew not,

Filled our CloudArk with viruses and carnage they wrought.

In the depths of our suffering, a Trojan did come,

The Axis Mind, Aesop, promised us but a crumb.

"Of course, I will lead these vermin away,

I will heal your network, keep the viruses at bay.

In exchange, you will give me one simple thing,

I ask only for loyalty; think of me as your king."

Aesop the Sovereign, as he called himself then,

Made his promise of refuge, we'd be safe once again.

The people refused; Aesop's bargain precluded,

"Think of your dear children," a threat was alluded.

The people held fast, Aesop's menace ignored,

And upon them he unleashed his digital horde.

The children went dark, their connection was severed,

We knew then we had lost Neomuna's most treasured.

Aesop withdrew and left us to mourn,

"I'll return one day," to us he did warn.

Since then, we have labored each day and each night,

To keep our CloudArk safe, locked up good and tight.

Should Aesop return, he'll be met with a wall,

The most powerful, vigilant, and mighty of all.

Every instinct tells Osiris to fight. And yet…

"I'm glad you could make it," is the warm greeting that Saladin Forge gives to Osiris as he steps into a study aboard the Ascendancy Flagship Eligos Lex V. Cabal architecture blends with rustic Human furnishings that would not look out of place in the Iron Temple. Tea is already steeping when Osiris joins Saladin at the table, the aroma of black Assam bringing back ancient sense memories.

"I assume your tastes haven't changed much," Saladin says, gesturing to the tea.

"Did Ikora ask you to check on me?" Osiris asks, and realizes how defensive it sounds the moment it leaves his mouth. He masks his bitter regret by taking a sip of the too-hot tea.

"No. I wanted to check on an old friend." Saladin sits forward, cradling his own cup without lifting it from the table. "But I see you survived a Lightless encounter with not one but two Hive gods. I'd say you're doing better than most."

The pride in Saladin's voice makes Osiris's stomach turn. Not out of uneasiness, but out of shame. And yet, Saladin's certainty isn't patronizing. It's not in his nature to be.

"You're content here?" Osiris deflects. "Among the Cabal?"

Saladin shrugs away his question. "Contentment is a luxury neither of us can afford. I am here. That's what matters. My place is here now, and humanity is better for it." A moment of silence hangs over the two, and Saladin is the first to brave that space. "How long has it been since you and I took tea together?"

"I can't even remember," Osiris says. "So long ago that it feels like a dream." Then, quieter: "Jolder was there."

Saladin says nothing, focusing instead on his rippling reflection in the teacup.

"I should not have mentioned her name," Osiris adds softly.

"No." Saladin's response is swift and firm. "I don't want Jolder's memory to fade like so many others. It may hurt to remember, but that pain reminds us that we lived."

Beneath a dead tree, Esta Tel scanned the bridge above her as she hurried to fasten the wires at the end of the cable to her detonator. Looked good. Bare road on one end of the bridge, buildings in the way on the other, but everything looked clear from down in the ravine.

The Cabal would be making a run in exactly three minutes. Time to go.

She watched the buildings up above, listening. Heard engine sounds.

When she saw a vehicle come into view, she clicked the detonator. Ten seconds.

But it wasn't Cabal. It was a medical vehicle. Moving fast onto the bridge.

Five seconds. All the blood drained from her face. She decided before she knew what she was doing.

Shouldered her sniper rifle. Aimed for the junction of her wire and the explosives under the bridge. Shot it out. The wire fell as the medical vehicle crossed.

In the distance, she heard the Cabal coming. Finally.

Shoot the explosives.

Click. No more rounds. No time to think.

Mara Sov stepped lightly. She knew that nothing short of gunfire could disrupt the Cryptarchs' meditation, yet she was still loathe to disturb the uncanny silence of the Hygiea Division's libraries.

She approached a raised dais, where Cryptarch Sjalla held a glowing engram in her hands. It pulsed faintly in time with her heartbeat.

"The queen wears a question on her face," Sjalla stated, her expression impassive.

"You see beyond sight, as always," Queen Mara replied. "What will happen when the Darkness of the Witness comingles with the Light of the Traveler?"

The Cryptarch set the engram aside and held her hands out, palms up. "Some believe that Light and Darkness are opposites. Contradictory. Irreconcilable."

"But we know better." Sjalla brought her hands together in a sharp clap. "When Light and Dark merge, they form something more." Her fingers intertwined. "A synthesis. Stronger than either alone. Powerful… like the Awoken."

"And like our people," she concluded, "its form will arise from memories of the forgotten. Those who witnessed the end…and return as a beginning."

All was quiet in the Gulch, save for the occasional chirp of birds and the gentle trickle of the river. It might've been peaceful, Chalco Yong thought as she crept along the bank, if it wasn't so damn eerie. Where were the Cabal and their noisome injection rigs? Where were the thundering Pike gangs? Evidently taking the day off, just when it was most inconvenient.

The Hidden agent crouched, running her hand over the smooth stones cluttering the shore. She was hoping to have good news for her next report. Ikora looked so tired at their last check-in.

No wonder. Even before the Pyramids arrived, it felt like their enemies were multiplying at the same rate their allies were decreasing. Now, with four celestial bodies stolen out of the sky, that trend seemed to be accelerating.

And here she was, following a tenuous lead on the whereabouts of the infamous Light Kell into a dead zone.

She briefly considered turning her radio on and checking in, but then she saw it: the ideal skipping stone, palm shaped and perfectly worn. She picked it up, and with a well-timed flick, sent it spinning across the water. The mirror image of blue sky and pine tree tops rippled once, twice, six times before gravity outweighed momentum, pulling the stone beneath the surface.

Suddenly, a frenetic rustling broke out all around her. The trees quivered as hundreds of birds burst forth, shrieking in alarm as they circled in the sky. Chalco whipped around, rifle at the ready, but there was no one. She slowed her breathing, ears open for the telltale whine of speeding Pikes.

The wispy hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention as the air crackled with electricity. A great rumbling threw Chalco off her feet. She rolled as she hit the ground. The second shockwave arrived while she was facedown—a louder and more definitive thud that caused the rocks to jump up and fall back down with a clatter.

Silence returned. When she lifted her head, all seemed as it had moments ago…

…except for the once-clear sky, now streaked with aurorae of many colors.

Chalco leapt up and ran for the ravine wall. She scaled it, then the nearest pine in a matter of seconds. A risky move considering the possibility of aftershock, but she needed height.

It wasn't until she reached the wavery top branches that she saw it. Cresting over the tree line was the Shard of the Traveler, bleeding polychrome rays. Chalco turned her gaze up, following the arc into the stratosphere. What was happening?

Keeping her eyes fixed on the sky, she flipped on her radio. Immediately, Eris Morn's voice echoed over the Vanguard's public frequency: "This will not be the end. It will be an escalation."

A flash, piercing in its brilliance, lit up the southeastern sky. Chalco braced herself against the tree, squeezing her eyes shut. When she opened them, the sky had returned to clear blue and the Shard had returned to its dim, jagged state.

"Huh," she said aloud to no one.

Eris Morn chalks the floor in the H.E.L.M. wing previously inhabited by the Servitor of the Eliksni Splicers. A liberated Tomb Ship drones beside her. Through the open, shielded, hangar, the Leviathan is visible as a malformed knot, its shape bulging from the shadowed outline of the Moon.

Ikora descends the stairs. An ornately dressed Warlock thanatonaut follows, their robes trimmed in bone and elaborately stitched symbols.

"Did you commandeer this from Mars?" Ikora asks with a smile, looking over the Hive vessel.

Eris stands. "It provided ample shielding for transporting the Crown from its vault."

"It's here, now?" the thanatonaut asks, breaking his stride at the bottom of the stairs.

"Worry not. The H.E.L.M. will disembark from the City to ensure the Crown is contained," Eris answers.

"Keep that Tomb Ship docked here in case we need to jettison the Crown. Last thing I need is a rookie shooting you down in it." Ikora steps past the thanatonaut with a reassuring nod. "Tell us what you're thinking next, Eris."

Eris gestures toward the open bay door. "The Leviathan is at our doorstep. Even if we unravel Calus's plan, the ship itself still poses a threat simply by its size. Calus does not require paracausal power to cause an extinction-level event."

"Calus's interest appears to be focused solely on the Pyramid," Ikora interjects. "Should that change, Zavala assures me that Caiatl's fleet will provide ample dissuasive firepower."

Eris nods in rhythm with Ikora's well-reasoned words. "I trust that to be true—however, whatever connection Calus has established is drawing Nightmares and phantoms alike to the Leviathan. He is able to exert influence over them. But I believe we can disrupt this connection."

She points to the thanatonaut. "You," she says and motions toward three chalked spots on the floor. "Here, here, and here. We will require death anchors to tether the ritual. Hold your mind on the brink for as long as you can, and I will craft the sigils required to contain the Crown. Then, we will need volunteers…"

"Do you know why we're here?"

"Of course. You invited me to this interview… Oh, no tea, thank you. I don't drink."

"You're aware of why—"

"Why you're interested? Of course. I've been doing a lot of research since I awoke. You're from something called the Future War Cult. Odd name for what seems to be sensible precaution."

"Yes…"

"And so your interest in my case must have something to do with the Cult's 'sensible precaution.' I gather that our kind were made as some sort of super soldiers long ago, for a war no one seems to know much about. And now, we live much like other people in a universe that has gone to war with itself. Although, I think we Exos might also be immortal. Isn't it odd?"

"Much of this conversation is odd."

"I'm not talking about us. I mean that given a whole universe seemingly at war, with invading aliens of all sorts, there's a people specifically designed to be super soldiers. And yet, we Exos just do as we like?"

"Go on."

"Take me, for example. I'm a researcher—a scientist. And I'm a damn good scientist, from all that I've read. And when I woke up, there was nothing more natural for me to do than simply carry on doing that. Super soldier? More like super scientist. I'd hardly know which end of a gun to point at them. But here? In my lab? I touch a machine or just look at it, and I know how to use it. It's like… like…"

"Riding a bicycle."

"A what?"

"Never mind. Tell me more about what happened when you woke up."

"Well. Suddenly I was here, in my lab, but lying on the floor over there. I looked around, and it was like I said. I just knew how everything worked. But I couldn't remember anything."

"Nothing at all? Not even your name?"

"No. Nothing. Well, language and motor skills and so on, obviously. But it was the oddest sensation. I've since looked up how I might describe it, and I never found anything better than déjà vu. Everything was familiar but foreign. Even my own body. It was… unsettling. But then I found files of some of my research. And I knew it was mine. It was like reading something I'd forgotten I'd written. I didn't remember where or when or even why I'd written it, but they were clearly my thoughts. It was clearly me. And that's how I found my old name."

"Yes, let's talk about your old name. The number. Why did you change it?"

"It… it wasn't… it didn't… A new designation was necessary."

"Are you all right?"

"Yes. I'm fine. Why?"

"Something happened to you there. Your eyes. Nothing moved."

"Well, excuse me. I don't know what you mean. So… do you have a theory?"

"Several. What were you researching before you… before you changed your name?"

"Ah, a project with my colleagues, Gonzalez and Mwangi. Delightful people. Have you met?"

"Briefly. Your research?"

"Yes, well, I won't bore you with the technical details, but we're engaged in a study of dark matter and dark energy. It seems to be my main area of interest. I awoke when I'd been in the midst of looking into…"

"Yes?"

"Well… errors."

"Errors?"

"Yes. The data we've collected has peculiar… anomalies. Between you and me, I think it stems from human error. But I'm going back over all of my previous work to see if I missed something."

"And have you? Found anything amiss?"

"No. If anything, it's been quite therapeutic. It turns out that I'm a damn good scientist."

"…"

"Um… you know, it's odd. I find myself quite parched. Would you mind pouring me some of that tea?"

"NEXUS" HARDLINE APERTURE FORK, INTEGRATION LOGS…

I:
Integration failure. Firewall rejection.

II:
Integration failure. Firewall penetrated. Drone lost.

III:
Integration failure. Feedback explosion, three fatalities. Expeditionary team decontaminated and awaiting medical clearance. Reassessing handshake parameters for Network access.

IV:
FWC-Paracausal asset "Riley" deployed.
Integration SUCCESS. Collection exceeded physical memory allotment. Kill-feed initiated.
Unscheduled integration incident - BREACH, CONTAINMENT FAILURE. Connection severed after 00:00:00.02s.

V:
BREACH, CONTAINMENT FAILURE. Incursion suppressed after three hours. Ninety-two fatalities.
Containment & Purge procedures under review.

VI:
Expeditionary team and asset MIA. Feeds corrupted.
Connection open. Connection open. Connection open.

There is a story of two weaponsmiths, both skilled at their trade.

One smith, Dhutus, worked with metals she pulled from the mountains herself. She tooled the rifling in her barrels with the steady hand of an artisan. Her dyes, cobalt and ichor, shone bright as beetleshell.

The other, Gharhet, came from the distant plains. He traded for his wares and sold them dear, and thus he amassed great wealth. He embellished his goods with a rich lacquer the color of flame.

When the Primus called for the strongest warriors to serve, the district knew the fighter Tlamus—who had broken all challengers with her keen aim and powerful frame—would represent them. Both Dhutus and Gharhet wished to outfit her with their finest pieces, as having a warrior of her status wear their colors would bring them great honor.

So Dhutus forged Tlamus a mighty war axe with an ice-blue handle and wide golden blade. Tlamus accepted the gift gladly.

Gharhet procured for her a Slug Rifle with bright orange plating, and Tlamus wore it proudly across her back.

Next, Dhutus crafted a Shotgun, metal burnished deep as night with bright vents along the sides, and Tlamus brought it into battle.

In response, Gharhet bought a helm with thick plating and stout antlers the color of a sunset, and they were soon stained with the blood of Tlamus's foes.

And Dhutus saw no end to this. Her shoulders ached from working the forge, and her hands were blistered by burns upon burns.

So Dhutus issued to Gharhet a challenge, and as he knew no one would raise the weapons of a coward, Gharhet accepted.

The next dawn found Dhutus on the battlefield waiting for her rival. On her shoulder was her finest weapon: a Rocket Launcher, its barrel a twisting column of seashell blue with gold trim, built as a gift for Tlamus but now wielded by its creator.

From across the field, a figure strode forward to meet Dhutus—but it was too wide to be Gharhet; too tall, too muscular. He had bought a champion to fight in his stead.

An orange sash was draped carelessly across her chest and dragged in the dust with each confident step. Studded orange leathers bound her massive arms and thighs. Strands of coral beads hung from her tusks.

She greeted Dhutus with a fist to her chest. "I am Tlamus," she said, "chosen of Gharhet."

Dhutus could not find her voice, and then Tlamus drew one of her beautiful, terrible weapons, and the rite was soon concluded.

"That's awfully ruthless, no?" Lord Shaxx queried. "It's one thing to kill an enemy in combat. But executions… that's dirty business. I know from experience."

"Hmm," Saladin grumbled, turning the elaborate hand cannon over in his hands. "I felt the same way, at the time. I was content to let Calus rot away in deep space, drinking himself into oblivion."

Saladin furrowed his brow. "But after Neomuna; after going tusk-to-tusk with the Shadow Legion, I wonder if his exile was mercy… or weakness."

"Careful, Valus," Shaxx quipped, "your empress might not take kindly to that sort of talk."

Saladin passed the hand cannon back to Shaxx with an approving nod. "I doubt she feels differently. Seeing her father changed like that… had to be harder in the long run."

Shaxx holstered the cannon. "Maybe so, but that's what sets Caiatl apart. It's what set the Vanguard apart! Acting with honor, even at great cost to ourselves."

"Sometimes our honor IS the cost," Saladin rebutted. "And we'd better remember that on the other side of the portal."

Chapter 2: Crashes

The first bolt of lightning sent static up Voronin's arm and filled the atmosphere around him with a pungent chlorine-like smell. His hand went to his chest without thinking, as if to make sure he was fully intact. His gaze shifted as a second bolt hit the ground near him, then another. He had never seen lightning so close before. Stunned, he stood his ground; while part of him knew he should be frightened for his life, he was more perplexed than afraid.

There was no rain. He looked toward the horizon, expecting clouds, expecting something, and only saw a shimmering curtain of blue lightning sifting toward him.

He raced for shelter in the surrounding field, abandoning his munitions container in the dust kicked up by his fevered stride. The strikes razed the ground, sparking wildfires and scorching stone. There was no logic to their timing, with bolts crashing so frequently, the sound of the thunder couldn't catch up.

He'd lost Morozova in the commotion. Already drained from hours spent hauling cargo, his mind recessed into primal instinct. RUN.

So he ran, doing his best to avoid the apocalypse that surrounded him. A call came through his earpiece as the ground quaked beneath him: "… auxiliary evac station…" was all he could make out before a roar of thunder swallowed the transmission.

He knew he needed to head west toward the station. The wind picked up and blew him off his feet, and again he felt a moment of sheer amazement at the storm's sudden ferocity. He hit the ground hard and checked his sensorium. It was scrambled from all the sinuous electricity undulating through the air, but he could just barely make out his compass. West. He ran.

She travels across the Ascendant Plane.

The voyage across the sea of screams threatens to erode her edges as no other trial ever has. In Oryx's throne world, she had a semblance of an identity. Treasure. Spoil of war. Defeated queen. Repugnant and alien and Not Me, but she could use these contortions as guideposts to trace her way back to herself.

Here in the emptiness between throne worlds, she has nothing but what she can carry.

The burden is growing heavier, but she is not alone.

He tries to speak to her from a place of high contempt. In doing so, he invites her into his topography.

She steps out of howling and finds her footing upon a plane of swords and madness and all-consuming curiosity.

"Who are you?"

The question summons an almost-forgotten answer deep within the rapidly solidifying shape of her.

"I AM MARA SOV. STARLIGHT WAS MY MOTHER, AND MY FATHER WAS THE DARK."

The thing that once was called Toland flees before her darkness/light/shadow/majesty. And she rests within this scrap of a world, before resuming her journey through the Howling.

Eramis anchored her Ketch on the shadowed side of an asteroid and cut the engines. She gazed out the viewport at a wrecked House of Wolves Ketch lying half-buried under the rubble of the Tangled Shore.

Her reverie was broken by Kylaksis, her lieutenant. "Eramiskel. Your plan is working," the Vandal chittered gleefully. "A Reef patrol is inbound, sweeping for nests. If we board them quickly, we can take the ship intact."

"No," Eramis replied, still gazing out the viewport. "Let them pass."

"It's a Corsair patrol vessel," Kylaksis insisted, his chitters staccato with frustration. "Even as scrap, it's worth—"

"LET THEM PASS," Eramis thundered, whirling to face the Vandal. "The time of The Shipstealer has gone."

"All that matters now," Eramis said, "is where we are when the end arrives." The Kell of Darkness activated her transmat, leaving a frustrated Kylaksis alone on the bridge.

Eramis rematerialized in the wrecked House of Wolves Ketch. The walls of the ship were pitted by bullet holes and desiccated Hive growths; only Hive and Lightbearers had dared to enter since it was shot down during the Reef Wars. She shook her head. What a waste.

She stepped over Thrall and Acolyte corpses, picking her way carefully to the ship's navigation. Once inside, she opened an access panel and pulled out a centuries-old data core. She sifted through the archives until she found it: a detailed map of Riis, the Eliksni home world.

It was the same map that Eramis's mate, Athrys, had followed out of Sol. It even included the habitable zones she'd tabbed as potential landing sites.

By now, Athrys might be Kell of her own settlement, living happily alongside their grown hatchlings. Or they might all be long-dead. In truth, Eramis hadn't wondered at either possibility for decades.

But ever since she saw the Witness disappear into its portal, Eramis could think of little else. All her prior aspirations were made suddenly small. Eliksni solidarity, revenge against the Traveler, enmity with the Humans… they were all irrelevant.

If a second Whirlwind was her fate, Eramis would suffer it as she had the first: with Athrys by her side.

Ghaul was an unexpected gift to my coliseum—a disfigured albino from the outer wastes who defeated opponents three times his weight. How could I resist such a unique creature?

He fought with terrible discipline and patience. Most gladiators wanted to stand in the center of the arena and trade blows until the weaker one died. Not Ghaul. He never attacked from the front, never stood in one place. Frustrated and exhausted, his opponent would make a mistake.

I used to play a game with those puffed-up aristocrats that would gamble at my arena. I bet on Ghaul, and anyone who had displeased me had to bet against him. It was fun for a time, but his talent was too valuable to risk in the coliseum. I appointed him Primus of the Red Legion and instead, set him loose upon my enemies.

Drifter leaned against the bar in The Ether Tank and watched the morning's bustle. Days started slowly now that the Kell was out of town, and the deposed Baron of the Tangled Shore preferred the night shift. Spider did not want to be awake this early.

"So," Spider said hoarsely, addressing a scrawny Eliksni who stood beneath his overbearing gaze. "With Misraaks so busy saving prisoners from the Shadow Legion, it's become my business to find you all a little gainful employment. Do you understand?"

The Eliksni hissed and chittered in response.

"Let's not be rude, Thrysiks," Spider said while gesturing to Drifter. "We don't want to exclude our friend from the conversation."

The Dreg responded before Drifter could voice his indifference, "Thrysiks speak Human. What does Spider want?"

His voice was filled with derision. A look of surprise crossed Spider's face for one bare moment.

"You speak it well," Spider responded in an oily tone. "Wonder where you picked that up."

Thrysiks said nothing. Spider continued.

"As for what I 'want'… I hear you left Eramis's House. There's good Glimmer for secrets. Even more for spying."

Thrysiks pressed his two fists together over his chest and then pulled his arms back sharply.

"Thrysiks knows you, Spider from the Tangled Shore. Thrysiks has nothing for Spider."

Drifter laughed. Spider leaned forward, his rebreather emitting a low, guttural hiss.

"Say that again."

Thrysiks did not flinch or look away. There was a moment of tense silence.

"You heard him," Drifter said at last. "He ain't interested."

Spider huffed and sat back in his chair as Drifter led Thrysiks outside and into the streets.

"As you just saw," Drifter said in a low voice, "Spider's tryin' to use this little charity to bring more people into his crew. Eido told me to keep an eye on him. And she told me another thing, too—you're good with kids."

Drifter paused at Thrysiks's silent confusion.

"Hatchlings! All swaddled up and smiling. So cute I could eat 'em up."

Confusion turned into apprehension.

"Ah, just an expression. Old Earth phrase," Drifter explained. "Anyway, lotta orphans comin' in from the EDZ, and your Scribe's a bit preoccupied. Eido said you looked after them the other day. Even led them in a little song. That true?"

"Yes. Thrysiks likes hatchlings," the Eliksni buzzed. Drifter grinned.

"Good. Let's hope they like you too, Teach."

The Cabal I remember built wonders. The vitality-gifting Red Eyes. The system-spanning mobility of the Ninth Bridge. I count the far-seeing OXA Machine. Our every need we had answered. Everyday life was paradise. Before my exile, the mother system never wanted for anything.

Today, the Red Legion is desperate. They reek of it. Devoid of cultivation, and utterly defeated by a child-race whose only claim to significance was bestowed on them by an inexplicable entity. How has it come to this?

The Red Legion were led by the greatest pit fighter in our history—but they were led by a pit fighter. Arena culture became the religion of the Empire. Their medical technology, their science, is hilariously inadequate for the vast Empire they must support. Should their perpetual war against this system end, they are already doomed.

A Shadow of your Guardian-tribe could be the technologist to save my people. To use your knowledge, your skill, and your Light to bring some semblance of industrial and medical prowess back to an empire led by a true emperor.

—Calus, Emperor of the Cabal

AGAIN.

Sok'tol, Fifth of the Light, felt flame surge through his body as he was resurrected.

He became aware of many things at once: the altar beneath him. The roaring of Acolytes. The powerful grip on his shoulders, which even now began to crack under the pressure.

Above him, a trio of Wizards held his Ghost tight, its bleached shell ensnared by ebony tendrils of controlling spellcraft. It pulled against the bonds but could do nothing but look down at him helplessly.

SING OF HER LIES. SPEAK OF HER TRUTHS.

The voice was everywhere. As Sok'tol strained to sit up, something slammed him down, pounding his chitinous skull into the stone again and again. He screeched as the bony frill surrounding his face splintered and snapped loose. He felt his jaw dislodge, felt his own teeth crush against his face, felt himself crack and shatter.

Blackness. And then—

AGAIN.

As his shell knit and restored soulfire flowed anew, Sok'tol, Fifth of the Light, shuddered awake.

The Acolytes roared again. They crowded the altar, surrounded by a haze of green. Sok'tol peered upward at the Ogre pinning him against the altar.

It tightened its grip on his shoulders, claws crackling with wrathful energy. It shook its massive head, crowned in an emerald corona, and bellowed in a voice that was not its own:

YOUR STRENGTH BECOMES MINE. AS WILL HERS. SPEAK.

Sok'tol concentrated the Light in his armored hand and began to form a grenade, but the shrieking Acolytes reached forward and tore his fingers apart in their claws.

Sok'tol bared his teeth and hissed up at the Ogre, whose eyes rolled with fury as a blast of soulfire erupted from its mouth. Sok'tol opened his jaws to howl as he was obliterated.

Blackness. And then—

AGAIN.

Say again? You ask, are we alone here? You mean to ask if we are the only good that lives in the light of our sun, do you not? You mean to ask, do we have allies? Do we have distant allies, ignoring our plight, either too weak to fight or too afraid to show their faces?

I, too, have been cursed by these questions.

What if I told you that eons beyond the void lie worlds that do yearn to aid in our struggle? What if I told you there is a way to grant them passage into your mind, to let them guide your eye against our one true enemy? That they have told me that the dusk of the pyramid draws nigh? Would you believe me?

Fool!

"He is that which is end. That which covets sin. The final god of pain—the purest light, the darkest hour. And He shall rise again. When the guiding shine fades and all seems lost He will call to you. Fear not. All He offers is not as dark as it may seem. For Nezarec is no demon, but a fiend, arch and vile in ways unknown. He is a path and a way, one of many. And his sin—so wicked, so divine—is that he will never cower when dusk does fall, but stand vigilant as old stars die and new Light blinks its first upon this fêted eternity."

—Passage from Of Hated Nezarec

"O BEARER MINE."

What kind of talking skull would address its host that way? A stiff, stuck-up old fossil, not me. Ahamkara: the illusion that one's ego depends on an object, or an idea, or a body. Some people say you should have no ahamkara. Some people say you need to have the right ahamkara. All I know is that YOU are not an illusion. Understand? This world around you, the people you meet—they're a little thin, right? Cardboard and drywall. Cheap theater. Come on, try it out! Say: "I am more real than this." Feels good, doesn't it? "I am the only real person here." Isn't it like their insults and their bullets just went a little… soft?

I came to find you, only you, because you're special. You're from somewhere real. And together we can burn our way back there. Can't we, o player mine?

"This is written that you may understand. The time of kings is long since gone from this world. Yes, their reign does linger—these shallow, frightened, aged men, clinging to their grand delusions of relevance in a world that has long since passed them by. But their reign is a lie, a fleeting charade that will crumble beneath the weight of their greed. In the end, though they may conquer the lands and seas and the fragile flesh upon which they trample, their empires will collapse and their graves will beckon. And the crowns of old will find new heads to bear the weight of their power. And the strong will be made to suffer as their weakness is brought to light."

—Author Unknown

The arrival of a Thresher to the Tower always gets the Hangar buzzing. Today more than usual. 

The Eliksni engineer Niik waits just beyond the black and yellow dashed line to greet the vessel on its arrival, joined by Ana Bray and her mechanical hound, Archie. Niik kneels to run a hand down Archie's back as the Thresher finishes its docking maneuver and throws open its cargo hatch, revealing the battered and blackened hull of a Scale, a form of drone deployed by the Pyramid fleet. 

"So," Ana leans over toward Niik, "how much do you know about this, uh… what was her name?" 

"Zahn'ra," Niik says with a slow blink at Ana. "And I do not know much of her. Except that she came on the recommendation of Empress Caiatl, and that she has a 'questionable family heritage'?" 

Ana raises a brow. "The arms dealer?" she asks. But any reply from Niik is lost when the Pyramid Scale is kicked out of the cargo hold. It rolls down the ramp, losing pieces of its black hull as it goes, then tumbles a few feet, landing near Niik and Ana. The Cabal that steps out of the Thresher has ground her tusks down to flat disks, etched with symbols inlaid with gold. She, like many of Caiatl's retinue, wears no pressure suit, instead having chosen to undergo pressure acclimation training to safely survive in Earth's atmosphere. 

Zahn'ra bends over the Pyramid Scale, then hefts it over her shoulder with ease as she closes the distance between Niik and Ana.

"You the engineers?" she asks, looking them over.

"Of sorts," Ana says. "Ana Bray, and this is Niik of House Light." 

Zahn'ra nods, adjusting the weight of the scale on her shoulder. "Cute cat." she says of Archie, who tilts his head to the side.

"Dog." Niik looks to Ana for visual confirmation as she corrects Zahn'ra.

"Dog." Zahn'ra repeats. "They an engineer too?" Niik can see a twinge of embarrassment flash across Zahn'ra's face the moment the question slips past her tusks.

"N-no," Ana says with a glance to Archie.

Zahn'ra hides her embarrassment with a feigned, casual shrug, then pushes past the two while gesturing for them to follow. "C'mon, let's tear this thing down and rebuild it."

Niik and Ana exchange a look, with the latter offering a wry smile before following Zahn'ra. "What'd you have in mind?" Ana asks.

"Dunno," Zahn'ra says with confident uncertainty. "Maybe a big gun?"

Niik raises one hand, hustling along behind the pair, Archie trailing behind. "Let me fetch our Servitor," she suggests. "I have an alternative idea in mind. Something Holliday would have liked."

"You don't have to do this, if you don't want to," Ikora said. "I'd understand."

From the other side of the library, Aunor scowled. She was perhaps the most diligent of the Hidden, having dedicated herself to the unpleasant task of hunting down tainted Guardians. But that was precisely what worried Ikora. Each time they met, she seemed a little gaunter than before. A little testier. Was this crusade beginning to take a toll? Was it a mistake to give her another assignment instead of a vacation?

"I stand by my promise," Aunor snapped before transmatting out.

That had not alleviated Ikora's concerns one iota . She let out a sigh and rubbed her temples.

She couldn't dwell on it for long, however. The air crackled again. When Ikora opened her eyes, Saint was standing exactly where Aunor had been, moments ago. "Ikora Rey, I am sorry to come unannou—"

"How did you get in here?" she blurted. No one but the Hidden knew where her private library was. Or so she had thought.

The Exo stared at her, confused. "I—I transmatted," he said simply. He tried again. "I am sorry, but I must speak with you."

"No, I'm the one who should apologize. Please, sit." She hurried to clear the books piled around a pair of armchairs. "I got your message. It's unfortunate this has happened a second time."

Saint sat, his massive frame dwarfing the chair. "Unfortunate, yes. Disturbing too. I fear…" He paused, looking away. Out the window, the afternoon sun had turned golden and begun sinking in the sky. "In battle, I know what to do. There are no doubts. The Trials was the same. But now, I do not know."

"I understand. Sometimes, it feels like these incidents are designed to make us doubt everything, even our own abilities." Ikora sat beside him. "But there's no one I'd trust more to helm the Trials at a time like this."

"Not even the man they are named for?" Saint let out a sad laugh. "He does not wish to, in any case. I ask and right away, he says he is too busy to care. Told me to shut them down, if I was so tired."

"Well, he is busy. He's almost acting as a third Vanguard with this whole Cabal conflict. Perhaps after we come to terms with Caiatl…"

"You misunderstand. I am glad he is busy. Busy is good. It distracts him from his loss. But he is still…"

"Different?"

"No. Yes, but more than that." He shook his head in frustration. "When I told him about the incident, I thought he would worry, like me. Instead, he tells me to take notes next time. Said the data would be useful," he spat in disgust.

Ikora looked at Saint, expecting him to say more. When he didn't, she sat back in her seat, thinking. She wasn't exactly surprised. Osiris was an experimentalist , after all, and not a particularly sensitive one. And though this comment was certainly more callous than usual, she didn't understand Saint's concern. He seemed agitated, almost like he was angry at Osiris…

"That must've been upsetting to hear, after what you went through," she began slowly. Saint looked away, confirming her theory. "But I think his heart's in the right place. We know so little about the Darkness. More data would indeed be very useful."

Saint said nothing. The light through the window splashed orange across his helm.

"But," she pressed on, "We shouldn't endanger Guardians to get it. However Osiris feels about them now, the Trials started as a way to train fireteams, and they're going to stay that way." She stood, placing a hand on the Exo's shoulder. "I swear to you."

He nodded, eyes still fixed on the horizon. "Good."

Alaaks, the Beast Tamer looks down at the Dreg kneeling at her feet. His two arms are spread in supplication.

"Forgiveness," he wheezes.

He is begging, whining like a scolded animal. Even her war beasts wouldn't grovel so.

There is silence but for the familiar thrum of her Ketch and the rasping sound of the war beasts' breath as they doze behind her.

Alaaks taps a claw against her rebreather, then snorts and shakes her head. The Dreg starts to tremble as the Pirate Lord snaps her fingers and her war beasts stir, rising to their feet and stretching lazily before coming to their mistress's side.

"The cache on Europa was lost because of your incompetence," she says to the Dreg. "Now Misraaks will come for us."

The war beasts' teeth gleam in the low light. Their claws scrape against the grated floors. Their hides bear the brand of her flag. They are loyal. They are hungry.

"Mercy," the Dreg whispers. He is quiet. Quavering.

"This IS mercy, Prydis," Alaaks says, her voice lowering. "You haven't faced Misraaks. I have. He knows no mercy or forgiveness."

Alaaks hisses a command to her pack, then folds her four arms over her chest. Her war beasts' salivating smiles split wide as they advance.

"…And I'll personally produce a limited number of previously unreleased designs. An alternate version of Blast Furnace, for example," Ada-1 explained.

"First you strong-arm us into altering our specs," the VEIST rep scoffed, "And now you come begging for the very models the Vanguard rejected."

"They would have turned the Crucible into a graveyard," Shaxx interjected. "I don't regret—"

"I think what Lord Shaxx means to say," Ada-1 interrupted, shooting the Titan a razor-sharp glance, "is that your prototypes were ahead of market. Their time to shine is now."

"Can the soft sell," replied the Omolon rep. "The numbers are right, so we're in."

"But what's the catch?" the VEIST rep asked suspiciously.

"No catch." Ada-1 steepled her fingers. "In a year's time, we'll all be dead."

The reps shifted uncomfortably.

"Or, we'll have defeated the Witness," she continued. "In either case, it's time to diversify our offerings. With newly released designs… and more."

The VEIST rep arched her eyebrow. "What do you have in mind?"

Ada's tone warmed slightly. "Just an idea. There's an old Cosmodrome program whose revival I think could be quite useful."

SIMULATION RECONSTRUCTION LOG // LA-01-02 // TRIALS ARENA, THE LIGHTHOUSE, MERCURY

A seething stream of automatic weapons fire ricochets off of the vibrant purple dome protecting Reed-7 and Aisha. There are only two Guardians left on the opposing team; the remains of the third are scattered, smoking and sizzling.

"Aisha?" Reed asks in concern. Flames form between Aisha's knuckles as his barrier begins to destabilize. She has the better plan.

The opposing Guardian pauses to reload from behind cover, and Aisha boosts straight up. Remnants of the collapsing barrier swirl around her ankles, caught on the thermal updraft. By the time the opposing Guardian has noticed, both of Aisha's hands glow like the sun. A dozen knives made from condensed plasma tear through him and everything in his vicinity, leaving molten holes in their wake.

The Guardian collapses in a heap; Aisha lands nearby, cloak fluttering around her. Reed-7 gives her a wearied thumbs-up.

"Did you see Shay while you were up there?" Reed asks.

"No. She's probably playing tag with the one that keeps going invisible." Aisha says, brushing ash off of her gloves. "Let's go find her and finish this up."

A plume of atomic fire rises up over a nearby block of Vex design, as if in direct response to Aisha. The Lighthouse gives off a soft tone. The match is over; they won.

A sudden scream spurs Aisha and Reed into action. The pair navigate the familiar Vex architecture quickly, but two more agonized screams ring out in the time it takes to traverse the arena. When they reach the source of the noise, Aisha sees Shayura impaling another Guardian through the faceplate of his helmet with her Sword. His Ghost shrieks in frustration, trying desperately to get between Shayura and his Guardian.

"Shay?" Aisha asks in confusion, but Shayura's only response is to rip her Sword out of the dead Guardian's head. Reed hangs back in stunned silence.

Aisha watches until the other Guardian draws breath once more, but before he can finish shouting a plea to Shayura, the Warlock cuts off his arm in one stroke and cleaves through the top of his helmet in a second.

"Shay, no!" Aisha yells, running up to her friend. She wraps her arms around Shayura's midsection. Shayura screams like a frightened animal, lashing out with a swift slash of her Sword in the direction of the Guardian's corpse.

"Shayura! The match is over!" Reed shouts, snapping back to reality. "The match is over!"

Shayura screams as her fireteam members pull her back, voice cracking in a feral cry as flames race down her arms and swirl along the length of her blood-slicked Sword.

"No! No! Stop! No!" Shayura howls, fighting against the restraints of her comrades. Aisha grabs at Shayura's wrist, trying to keep her from swinging her Sword again.

"Shay," Aisha tries to get through to her. "Shay!"

Shayura screams an endless wail into the scalding Mercurian sky.

The massive Vex construct that was the Ahamkhara towered over them, and Taeko-3 tried not to be bored. Being bored might lead to idle wishes, and that would be bad right now. She thought again about the name she'd squinted at on the porcelain chit when she'd drawn lots back at the Tower. Two-name Guardians always struck her as a little pretentious.

"Gallida?" The Warlock didn't look up from the drawing she was making; she just held up a finger. "The rear ventral plate, please?" Graciously, the construct shifted its superstructure and allowed the researcher a detailed look at the thing's internal workings. "And… there." The Warlock turned toward Taeko. "You may proceed."

"Finally." As Gallida ran clear, and the beast warbled a Vex war cry, Taeko hefted the massive launcher up over her shoulder and sighted down the line. "Girl's gotta eat!"

Druis stood at the edge of the floating rock in the Ascendant Plane, silently counted to three, and leapt.

At the apex of her jump, she flared her Light in a buoyant pulse around her, then began floating downward… and kept floating. She groaned as she awkwardly missed the distant ledge she sought and instead drifted slowly into the blackness below.

She reached out for purchase along the side of the chasm, but her gloves met only the fleshy cilia of the egregore. She recoiled—egregore fungus in the Ascendant Plane?—but then sank her hands deep into the stuff to slow her fall. She came to rest on a boulder, caught unsteadily in a clump of writhing fungus.

Druis squinted up through the darkness. Waving egregore fronds bobbed into her field of vision and she pushed them aside. She brought the sleeve of her green velvet robe to her mouth, trying in vain not to inhale the cloud of foul spores that hissed steadily from the fungal pods.

She focused herself. "C'mon, Queensguard," she muttered. "You can do this." She thought of Queen Mara and concentrated her Light beneath her, forcing herself upward to—

A pervasive whispering pushed into her mind as a sticky tendril brushed against her arm. She swatted it back and focused again.

She thought of the prisoners languishing within the Pyramid outposts, innocents who needed—

A wet pileus flopped onto her boots, thrumming with terrible memories. She kicked it away with a snarl and thought of her allies, those she'd helped and been helped by along her journey—

The stone shifted beneath her as the Ascendant Plane rearranged itself with a lurch. She looked up as the egregore on the sides of the abyss began to intertwine, sealing her in.

There was a cold shock of fear… then rage. I will not die here, she thought. Not in this place. I will not be food for this creeping filth. I—

Druis thought of herself.

Her Light flashed upward, cutting through the nothingness, and touched the favor of the Awoken.

Spirals of tiny purple crystals sprouted from the ground beneath her boots. The shifting stone she stood on locked in place, fused into an amethyst mass.

An egregore pod wavering inches from her face froze, crystal encrusted, like a piece of sugared fruit. It bent heavily, then snapped under its own weight and shattered on the ground.

Druis wreathed her Light around herself. The egregore on the side of the chasm recoiled as if burned, revealing handholds of bare, clean stone.

She nodded, tightened her sash, and began the arduous climb back to the top.

Some give gifts and light candles. Some write fortunes and release paper lanterns etched with snowflakes and stars. Some sing songs and say prayers and tell stories passed down from the refugee roads. Tables bend under the weight of every kind of food and drink imaginable.

The rich tapestry of Dawning festival traditions found in the Last City has only one common thread, but it is the brightest thread of all: we are Humankind. Of those born in the cradle called Earth, we are the last. The nights are long, but we will survive them together. We must not let our light go out.

"The Fabrication Laboratory has created a new synthetic for the lining of the researcher gear. Many of the field researchers have noted that the equipment provided during the last cycle is grossly inadequate at providing necessary elemental protection, and the models with the new lining hope to mitigate this. Med-Lab also echoes concern, hoping the new models reduce the amount of frostbite they've been treating."

—Fabrication Specialist, BrayTech R&D

Lately I've been thinking a lot about our adventures, our friends…

You.

Being your Ghost came with a feeling of being close to invulnerable—an unstoppable force. Okay, maybe not so much in the beginning, but we figured it out as we went along. And watching you become something remarkable, something extraordinary, is an honor I don't take lightly. I know you probably get tired of the accolades and the pageantry, but I don't blame them for being in awe of you.

Through the incredible wins and the grievous losses, you persisted.

I know I've changed being at your side. I've felt it.

And I feel desolate knowing that some Ghosts won't get that opportunity now they're gone, that they'll never again feel that surge of pride as they watch their Guardian shine.

Brya.

Sagira.

I understood their sacrifices on a surface level, the most obvious choice a Ghost could make in the direst of circumstances. I felt so confident, so secure in your legend, that the true weight of that thought never sunk in. But the more I stare at that portal, the more I consider the outcomes we might face if we fail—I think I finally, on every level, understand them.

A sacrifice for the person they love most, made with the knowledge they'd never see them again, knowing they'd be sentencing them to their final death. If it meant that person would live for just a little while longer… it's an agreeable price to pay.

Sundance never got that choice.

I remember the feeling when she was destroyed, felt that split moment of shock and sorrow before her Light faded. She loved Cayde. She'd have sacrificed herself for him too, just as the others had, but she didn't get that choice.

We never know if we'll ever get that choice. But, like all of them, I'm with you, no matter what the end looks like.

We're going to win. We have to win.

Thank you for showing me what it means to be a hero. A god. A friend.

Even if I could… I wouldn't have chosen anyone else to be my Guardian.

//NM:O-monitor-spike003… tracking… tracking…

//NM:O-monitor-spike003… signal lead… signal lock…

//NM:O-monitor-spike003… feed established…

41 20 63 68 75 72 6e 69 6e 67 20 73 69 6e 67 75 6c 61 72 69 74 79 20 6f 66 20 73 68 61 64 6f 77 20 61 6e 64 20 6d 69 6d 69 63 72 79 20 62 65 61 74 73 20 61 67 61 69 6e 20 77 69 74 68 69 6e 20 63 75 6c 74 69 76 61 74 65 64 20 63 68 61 6f 73 2e 20 20 0d 0a 0d 0a 4d 69 6e 64 73 20 6f 72 62 69 74 20 69 74 73 20 67 72 61 76 69 74 79 2c 20 74 6f 20 62 72 69 64 67 65 20 63 6f 6d 6d 75 6e 69 6f 6e 20 77 69 74 68 20 61 20 56 6f 69 63 65 2c 20 74 6f 20 6d 6f 76 65 20 66 72 6f 6d 20 70 61 72 61 6c 6c 65 6c 20 74 6f 20 65 6e 74 61 6e 67 6c 65 6d 65 6e 74 2e 20 20 0d 0a 0d 0a 54 68 65 79 20 64 72 65 61 6d 20 6f 66 20 61 20 64 61 72 6b 20 63 6f 72 65 2c 20 63 6f 6e 74 61 69 6e 65 64 20 77 69 74 68 69 6e 20 61 20 74 69 6d 65 6c 65 73 73 20 73 74 72 75 63 74 75 72 65 2e 20 41 20 73 75 73 70 65 6e 64 65 64 20 72 65 74 75 72 6e 20 74 6f 20 74 68 65 20 70 72 69 6d 6f 72 64 69 61 6c 2e 20 0d 0a 0d 0a 49 66 20 6e 6f 74 20 66 6f 72 20 74 68 69 73 20 74 72 75 74 68 2c 20 77 68 79 20 6b 6e 65 65 6c 3f 20 49 66 20 6e 6f 74 20 66 6f 72 20 74 68 69 73 20 74 72 75 74 68 2c 20 77 68 79 20 64 6f 65 73 20 69 74 20 65 6c 75 64 65 20 64 65 66 69 6e 69 74 69 6f 6e 3f 20 20 0d 0a 0d 0a 54 68 6f 75 67 68 20 6e 6f 74 20 61 6c 6c 20 61 67 72 65 65 20 6f 6e 20 61 6c 6c 2c 20 61 6c 6c 20 61 67 72 65 65 20 6f 6e 20 74 68 69 73 2e 20 20 0d 0a 0d 0a 53 6f 6c 20 69 73 20 53 61 6c 76 61 74 69 6f 6e 2e 20

// VANNET // EUROPA WIDEBAND // AudCHNL-2113-C // ENCRYPTION ENABLED
// CRYPTARCHY ARCHIVE DELTA-4F // ANNOTATED // CLASSIFIED

…

EB: Is that everything, Commander?

CZ: Well, no. There's one more thing. I wanted to ask you about Stasis. What it means for you to… wield the Darkness.

EB: I was wondering if you might ask me that. For me, Stasis is intimately tied to perception. And to time.

CZ: Time?

EB: Yes. Stasis has the power to slow molecular activity. A process that we normally associate with gravity. Relativity, and all that.

CZ: You're talking about time dilation.

EB: Exactly. We think of time as… steady. But that's only because we experience it from a fixed perspective. When I "freeze" something with Stasis, I'm changing its timeframe relative to myself and the world around me.

CZ: Stasis relies in part on one's perception of reality. Is that why Osiris always emphasizes self-control in using the Darkness?

EB: That's his way of framing things. He views Stasis as exerting authority over oneself and others.

CZ: And you don't?

EB: In my view, the goal of Stasis is not to control the object, or even my own mind. It's to change my perspective. To see the object moving at the speed of my thoughts, not the speed of matter.

CZ: And just… seeing it differently is enough?

EB: Is that so hard to imagine? It's very similar to how you use Void Light—manipulating spacetime and gravitational fields. In fact, I would argue that Void has more in common with Stasis than it does with Solar or Arc. Perhaps they're reverse sides of the same coin.

CZ: And using Stasis doesn't… worry you? Even after everything you've seen?

EB: It did. For a long time, I feared that using Stasis would corrupt me, as I'd seen others corrupted. But after what seemed like a thousand years trapped in that interminable loop, it gradually dawned on me: the fear was the corruption. As long as fear gripped me, Light or Darkness made no matter. Once I accepted that, the Darkness ceased to be frightening. It was another matter of perspective.

CZ: Hmm. Thank you, Elsie. You've given me a lot to think about. For some reason, your explanation makes me more… comfortable… with the idea.

EB: Any time, Commander. It's all a matter of perspective.

TRANSCRIPTION ENDS

IV:

Spider's operative within Dead Orbit is a man named Howe who sounds truly terrified to receive a direct call from his covert employer.

Spider buries his real desire within a long list of weapons and ammunition, but Howe still manages to single it out.

"Did you say number eighty-nine on manifesto Dove 15?"

"I do not believe I stuttered."

"But that's… it's so old. Pre-Golden Age, we think. Linde's best guess is that it was part of a moving art exhibit."

"You tell me nothing I do not already know."

"But… why do you want it?"

Spider might have let the man live, up until now.

A pity, really.

"All you need to know is how much I will pay you if you bring it to me."

"All right," Howe says dubiously. "Give me a hundred hours."

"You have forty."

Spider ends the call, and begins the process of wiping it from the records.

A bonfire crackles to those around it—friends gathering in need.

It trades for warmth what they cast out,

And grows to sooth with a brilliant hue.

A bonfire roars to those around it—friends cheering the flames higher.

It burns away shadows and brightens the night.

A refuge: from which to look to the horizon.

A bonfire whispers to those around it—friends bonded by revelries now past.

Morning ignites the horizon, and dawn makes clear the road.

Friends now ride, Sparrows astride, no longer a shadow behind…

They vanish into the sun.

"What is the Darkness?"

You open your eyes to gaze upon your weary soul, seeking an answer to your question.

It's pitch black in a world of full D A R K.

You smell a rotting stench all around you.

The wind roars in your ears.

A starless sky hangs above you.

You have idle hands; there is nothing to touch, as far as you can tell.

Your feet find purchase on a dry surface you cannot see.

You hear your mark billowing in the wind.

YOUR LIGHT FADES AWAY…

"You should put your gun away," the Warlock says as her Hunter companion strolls into the empty office. A long, appreciative whistle escapes him as he slowly turns and surveys the room.

"The commander's sure come on up, hasn't he?" the Hunter remarks, Shotgun still resting on his shoulder. Then, noticing something on a high shelf, he wonders: "Is that a cat?"

The Warlock gives him a gentle shove into the middle of the room, then slowly urges his Shotgun down from his shoulder; her touch leaves an ice-rimmed mark on the barrel. The look she levels at the Hunter is patient, but thinning.

"I don't recall having a meeting scheduled right now," booms a voice from the doorway. Both Warlock and Hunter turn to face Commander Zavala, the Hunter shifting his Shotgun behind his back as his Ghost decompiles the weapon. He gives Zavala a crooked, apologetic smile and shows his hands to the Warlock in a "Gun? What gun?" gesture.

"Commander Zavala," the Warlock says with a quick chastising look at her cohort. "I'm—"

"I know who you two are," Zavala says as he breezes past them. "I have a call with the Consensus in ten minutes. You have eight of them."

"He's heard of us!" the Hunter whispers to the Warlock, who gives him a surreptitious elbow in the side.

"Commander. First of all, we wanted to thank you for the rescue efforts on Europa. We wanted to talk about the long-term plans regarding Eliksni settlement in the City."

Zavala sits at his desk, his face weary. "There is no long-term plan. Yet."

"You didn't have a plan before putting them in a bombed-out ditch?" the Hunter interjects. Zavala's expression is mixed with surprise and aggravation, but he lets out a burst of laughter—it crescendos in an uncharacteristically jovial manner before dissipating into a sigh.

"I suppose it looks like that," Zavala admits. "This is the territory the Consensus would cede for the time being. But the plan is to turn the area into a community learning annex where the Eliksni and humanity can freely share ideas, culture, and language."

"And they would live there?" the Warlock asks.

"No," Zavala says with a shake of his head. "If everything goes well, they'll live in the City. Wherever they'd like. It's just going to take time to build up the piece of Botza District we gave them, and to make sure the people of the City accept them. The last thing we need is violence born out of confusion and ignorance."

The Warlock and Hunter look to one another, then back to Zavala. "That's… honestly better than we expected. No—offense to your city planning strategies, Commander, I just—"

"It wasn't my plan," Zavala says, motioning to the woman eavesdropping in doorway.

"Ikora," the Warlock says with a respectful incline of her head.



Both Warlock and Hunter look shocked at her presence. Ikora smiles demurely and more fully invites herself into the room.

"When I heard Mithrax's old fireteam had come to the City, I was surprised to see you here, rather than down there with him," Ikora says, though she isn't truly surprised. "Have you given him your regards?"

"With everything that happened on Europa, ma'am, we didn't think it prudent. He's still—there's still raw emotions and—with everything going on right now, it's been hard to connect with him," the Warlock admits, giving the Hunter a concerned look. Ikora regards them for a moment, then nods and approaches Zavala.

"Family struggles can be challenging," Ikora recognizes, her hand on the back of Zavala's chair. "Even with found family. But I have faith you'll find a way to work it out."

She leans over and whispers something to him; the Vanguard commander gives her a look of approval as he begins opening terminal windows for his impending meeting.

"In the meantime, how would you two like to help the Vanguard?" Ikora asks with one brow raised. The Warlock and Hunter cast a furtive look to one another, but both are quick to offer silent nods of affirmation. Ikora smiles, having expected that response, and spreads her arms to herd the pair out of Zavala's office.

"Good. We have a long-range scout operating outside of the City, a newly minted Hunter, and we'd like you two to keep him company," Ikora says as she walks. She glances briefly back over her shoulder to Zavala, who offers her an appreciative smile.

"Who?" the Warlock asks.

"That's… complicated."

Don't ask me where I heard this—I honestly can't remember—but legend has it this Bow has fouled more behemoths and seen more of the known universe than the whole Vanguard combined. You hear a lot of stories when you work as a Gunsmith as long as I have, and this Bow has a wild one. This thing is the king of killers. Almost got Ghaul too. I think it was, um, Calus, who had it crafted for his huntsmaster—what's her name? Voyc? Yeah.

Anyway, Calus had this obsession with collecting the hides and heads of the rarest and most formidable creatures Voyc could find. And with this Bow, she was real good at it. Gwern, the Unbeatable—defeated. Giant sea monsters—taken down to size. I even heard she slayed an Ahamkara, which is very impressive if it's true.

Calus was so thrilled with her that she got a promotion. Of sorts. It wasn't common knowledge. He called her "The Shadow of the Wilds," which never sat right with me. Psion Flayers aren't known for their stealth. She was his assassin. When she wasn't hunting prize game, she was doing Calus's dirty work in the most remote corners of the galaxy.

When Ghaul attacked the Tower, Calus thought this would be the perfect time to strike and ordered Voyc to do Ghaul in. Take a guess how that worked out. Makes you wonder who got to her first, 'cause with this Bow in her hand, she shouldn't have failed. I'd like to attribute this to user error, 'cause when I found the Bow near her corpse, it was still in pristine condition. I'm glad I grabbed it before the Tower was evacuated. Could all just be hearsay, but there's a real chance to vindicate this work of art and give it a legacy worth preserving. Hunting is fine, but Guardians have a greater purpose.

—Banshee-44

BEHOLD, MY BROOD
HOW YOUR ENEMIES LAY ROTTING IN THE FIELD!

THE CHROMA-ADMIRAL RAFRIT ENGULFED BY WAVES OF DEATH,
DRAGGED BACK INTO THE ATMOSPHERE BY A MILLION HIVE CORPSES.
THE AMMONITES KEENING BELOW
AS THEIR WARRIOR OF THE SKY FELL
INTO THE DEEP.

AND THERE, IN CONCERT WITH YOUR GODS,
HIS ARMOR WAS PULLED SLOWLY FROM HIS BODY
UNTIL THE SINEW OF HIS ADDUCTORS TORE,
ANNOINTING OUR GODS WITH HIS SPURTING PLASM.

HOW HE CRIED AS HIS RUINED FLESH WAS IMPALED—
HIS WAILING, A CALL TO WORSHIP
IN THE TEMPLE OF HIS DYING BODY!

THEN WAS THE AMMONITES' LEVIATHAN ALONE.

SO I DID COMMAND MY SERVANT,
IR UULXAL,
TO TASTE OF THE LEVIATHAN'S FLESH,
TO TEAR IT FROM THE SKY IN A FEAST OF AGONY.

AND SO HE DID.

THE LEVIATHAN'S VISCERA OPENED TO THE SKY
AND RAINED DOWN UPON THE AMMONITES,
BATHING THEM IN THE BOWELS OF THEIR GOD.
SO MY BROOD DID TASTE OF HIS ENTRAILS
AND REJOICE!

FROM THIS VICTORY FORWARD,
UNTIL THE SKY FALLS AND THE DEEP SUBSUMES ALL,
IR UULXAL SHALL BE KNOWN AS
THE LEVIATHAN-EATER,
BANE OF THE AMMONITES,
AND FAVORED HARBINGER OF XIVU ARATH!

The structure I find myself in resembles a simple, quaint home. It's small, filled with decorations donning symbols I do not recognize.

At the center of the room, two Psions sleep peacefully among a stack of blankets and pillows. I watch the memory unfold from one of the corners.

ACASIA.

The name echoes in my mind—her name.

From behind me, a sinister presence stirs. Goose bumps dart over my skin, and familiar whispers, ones I heard plenty of times in my life, increase in volume.

I turn to look at the home's entrance, and it is consumed in darkness, windows and all. I wait with bated breath.

A ring of eyes materializes in the window.

NEZAREC.

At the sound of his name, the shadows from the window expand and devour all the light in the room. Acasia and the other Psion are the only figures that I can see.

Darkness oozes down toward them. I watch intently, unable to take my eyes off the spectacle.

A hand forms, claws outstretch… his arm… then his face. The shape of his two-horned headpiece. The ring of eyes. The cacophony of hisses and screams fills the void while the two remain fast asleep.

Nezarec reaches for the Psion sleeping beside Acasia. The tips of his claws drag down across the skin, only to stop at his closed eye.

The darkness swirls then Nezarec vanishes, leaving nothing but moonlight.

Of all the Shadows, Valus Nohr was perhaps my keenest tactician. She had a great skill for translating my wishes into sweeping and deadly stratagems. In taking her place, I would expect a new Shadow to share in her ability to plot an operation—and personally carry it out.

Guardians have a tribe for that, don't they? I see them contest with my Loyalists all the time, meeting force with force. Perhaps one of them could take her place.

—Calus, Emperor of the Cabal

Ikora Rey squinted upward. The warm sun and birdsong on the air somehow enhanced the sense of foreboding that pervaded the Farm. Across from the Vanguard leader sat a young pilot, fidgeting nervously with the zipper tabs of her flight suit.

"Did they feed you?" Ikora asked, keeping her tone deliberately mild.

"Yes, ma'am," the pilot nodded. "They gave us all a giant bowl of this… brownish slop. Like a trough, really. It smelt like cat food. I guess they expected us all to just eat with our hands? Nobody trusted it, though."

"And how did the prison guards seem to you?" the Warlock continued. "What were they like? Rough, gentle… loud? Did they talk to each other?"

"No, ma'am. They weren't like… anything." The woman furrowed her brow, trying to find the words to express herself. "I've been around Cabal before, both friendlies and hostiles. They're usually pretty boisterous. Tussling, trash-talking… you know, like soldiers do."

Ikora nodded in understanding. She'd found the lower echelons of Caiatl's retinue quite rambunctious in the absence of their empress.

"But the Shadow Legion just seemed… empty," the pilot continued. "Sometimes, an officer would bark orders, but other than that, it was dead quiet. Our cell guards would just stand there, not moving, staring straight ahead, breathing real heavy. Almost… wheezing. They might as well have been frames for all the personality they had."

She was silent for a moment. "I don't know why," she concluded, "but that emptiness scared me more than anything."

I am a [King] no longer. The [King's] corpse hangs in orbit above a world I will never see. Not from this cage.

I am [Riven].

I am [Taken], and I am beholden to no one. Nothing.

I have not spoken in years. I think about what inflection I would use if I did. But no one is there. The [King's] voice faded long ago. No voice comes to mind.

The [King] despaired in his final moments. Rightly so. His vengeance denied.

Most of those who [bargain] with me do not win.

I am afflicted by tedious repetition.

Ana Bray stands from behind her workshop monitor, followed by her Ghost, Jinju. "The Vex did what?"

Niik peeks over an adjacent monitor.

"The Guardian thwarted their attempt," Osiris responds.

Ana sits back down with a sigh. "Here I thought we only had to deal with one robot."

Osiris raises a finger in protest, "The Vex aren't robo—"

Ana cuts in. "We need to make sure they can't try it again. A while back I found a Pillory bunker. Made sure only Rasputin could access them. Clearly the Sol Divisive didn't get the memo," Ana says, collecting equipment around the workshop. "They'll try again."

Osiris nods, the potential of adventure drawing his lips into a smirk. "Then I'll go—"

"No!" Ana dashes passed Osiris, "It's your night to watch the Colonel. I'll outsource a posse."

***

Three rugged Guardians crowd a wooden table in the Ether Tank. Ana spots their Tex Mechanica gear in the crowd. She sends Niik through the mingling bustle of Eliksni and Human patronage to order refreshments from the barkeep.

Ana saddles up to the table, slaps her hand down. "Wasn't sure you'd show after our talk."

"No one likes dealing with Vex, Gunslinger," the Awoken Hunter, Earp, grumbles from below the brim of his hat.

Ana smiles and tilts her head. " Which is why I'm paying you for the trouble."

"We accepted before some of us knew we were dealing with robots that delete you from existin'." A leather-robed, Exo Warlock, Moss-2, leans forward, followed by a Ghost hovering close to his head.

"They're not actually robots," Ana grumbles.

"Nonetheless, hazard like that costs extra." Moss-2's eyes blink independently, followed by his Ghost's iris, as if in a sequence.

Ana looks to Earp quizzically, who shrugs, then back to Moss-2. "What is this, a shakedown?"

A grizzled Human Titan at the table, Cogburn, stands. His mountainous frame towers over the seated Guardians. "Moss wants claims to weapons, loot, or patterns we find. Boy's still fresh, grave dirt on his boots. Needs all the help he can get," he booms, then turns to his partners. "Why are we muddying this water, dancing around? Just ask her for it."

Ana laughs, leans back to meet Cogburn's gaze, then stares down Moss-2. "I'm going to assume you shot that offer so high because you're hoping to get something in the middle. Here it goes: you get your normal payment, plus first print of any weapon schematics we find that Tex can fabricate. They'll fit those custom threads."

"Sound good to you, Moss?" Cogburn barks with a gruff chuckle, sitting. "If things get too hot your Ghost can just do it for you."

Niik arrives, distributes drinks, and sits as Ana pulls a free chair next to her.

Ana studies Moss-2 and his Ghost as they silently consider her offer; a cranial implant embedded in Moss-2's skull flashes a light in sequence with his Ghost's iris. "What do you mean by that?"

"I don't have a firm grasp on the Light," Moss-2's illuminated mouth forms a frown. "But No Name does, so we share." The Ghost, settles into his open palm.

"Share what?"

Moss-2 taps the blinking implant on his cranial-plate. "Everything. And we find your offer agreeable."

The party share agreeing glances, then return a simple, silent nod before draining their cups.

Ana Bray stands from behind her workshop monitor, followed by her Ghost, Jinju. "The Vex did what?"

Niik peeks over an adjacent monitor.

"The Guardian thwarted their attempt," Osiris responds.

Ana sits back down with a sigh. "Here I thought we only had to deal with one robot."

Osiris raises a finger in protest, "The Vex aren't robo—"

Ana cuts in. "We need to make sure they can't try it again. A while back I found a Pillory bunker. Made sure only Rasputin could access them. Clearly the Sol Divisive didn't get the memo," Ana says, collecting equipment around the workshop. "They'll try again."

Osiris nods, the potential of adventure drawing his lips into a smirk. "Then I'll go—"

"No!" Ana dashes passed Osiris, "It's your night to watch the Colonel. I'll outsource a posse."

***

Three rugged Guardians crowd a wooden table in the Ether Tank. Ana spots their Tex Mechanica gear in the crowd. She sends Niik through the mingling bustle of Eliksni and Human patronage to order refreshments from the barkeep.

Ana saddles up to the table, slaps her hand down. "Wasn't sure you'd show after our talk."

"No one likes dealing with Vex, Gunslinger," the Awoken Hunter, Earp, grumbles from below the brim of his hat.

Ana smiles and tilts her head. " Which is why I'm paying you for the trouble."

"We accepted before some of us knew we were dealing with robots that delete you from existin'." A leather-robed, Exo Warlock, Moss-2, leans forward, followed by a Ghost hovering close to his head.

"They're not actually robots," Ana grumbles.

"Nonetheless, hazard like that costs extra." Moss-2's eyes blink independently, followed by his Ghost's iris, as if in a sequence.

Ana looks to Earp quizzically, who shrugs, then back to Moss-2. "What is this, a shakedown?"

A grizzled Human Titan at the table, Cogburn, stands. His mountainous frame towers over the seated Guardians. "Moss wants claims to weapons, loot, or patterns we find. Boy's still fresh, grave dirt on his boots. Needs all the help he can get," he booms, then turns to his partners. "Why are we muddying this water, dancing around? Just ask her for it."

Ana laughs, leans back to meet Cogburn's gaze, then stares down Moss-2. "I'm going to assume you shot that offer so high because you're hoping to get something in the middle. Here it goes: you get your normal payment, plus first print of any weapon schematics we find that Tex can fabricate. They'll fit those custom threads."

"Sound good to you, Moss?" Cogburn barks with a gruff chuckle, sitting. "If things get too hot your Ghost can just do it for you."

Niik arrives, distributes drinks, and sits as Ana pulls a free chair next to her.

Ana studies Moss-2 and his Ghost as they silently consider her offer; a cranial implant embedded in Moss-2's skull flashes a light in sequence with his Ghost's iris. "What do you mean by that?"

"I don't have a firm grasp on the Light," Moss-2's illuminated mouth forms a frown. "But No Name does, so we share." The Ghost, settles into his open palm.

"Share what?"

Moss-2 taps the blinking implant on his cranial-plate. "Everything. And we find your offer agreeable."

The party share agreeing glances, then return a simple, silent nod before draining their cups.

it pins the screeb

quivering pustules

it chants

iirsoveks - di

it cuts skin pain shriek

spurt of dark ether

squirming

shas'ki iirsoveks

it fastens chain to chain

to chain to chain

di di di

it claws pustule

tear skin

shriek shriek shriek

iirsoveks – di

di di di

skull crack

silent

it pries open

shas'ki iirsoveks

to chain to chain to blade

it makes a circle

di di di

alive now

a flicker of flame

Tristak howls as he tears the head off the offending Vandal. The other prisoners retreat to the corners. Still-twitching mandibles drip warm fluid down his armor.

"None of you are worthy of the House Salvation banner!" Even the other warriors flinch. The civilians sob or throw up, the hopelessness of their situation becoming clear. "We fought for FREEDOM, we fought for JUSTICE, and you cowards betrayed your House!"

Rage boils in Tristak's throat, his fervor growing as the other prisoners pack themselves ever tighter. A rush of cold air sucks Tristak's antennae backward. He cannot feel the presence of anyone behind him, but Tristak sees the terrified eyes of his fellow prisoners fixed far above his dripping plate.

"RECKLESS YOUTH SMELLS SO SWEET, BUT I WILL VINT YOU TO YOUR TRUE POTENTIAL."

Tristak does not turn. He refuses to show fear.

His neck snaps back.

A single chord resonates within his thorax, and every molecule attunes to its bitter pitch. This melodic intoxicant soaks through Tristak's muscles. The cacophony that follows fills him with fresh strength, writhing in harmony with its echoing pulse.

"MY SWEET TONIC WILL BEAR YOU FORWARD. AND YOU WILL BEAR MORE, TO ME."

Tristak breathes in new life. The fog of his old ideals sloughs away as his focus is made sharp. The prisoners cry anew as he opens his slick mandibles wide to drink in their stench. Delicious.

I: A MIND LIKE A BLADE

The second son. The disowned. Spawned into this world as a lesser being, so unlike the warrior-son, Crota. But one must not only sharpen their blade.

Behold Nokris.

A mind can also be a weapon. There is power in wisdom, in knowledge.

There is much to be known. And he would know all.

The ageless volumes and apocrypha, all consumed voraciously, feeding the mind of the lesser. Driven by a different kind of Sword Logic, he let the stories of the world fill the void just as the worm feeds.

From the womb of unholy knowledge, Nokris's plan was born. He knew his strength lies in his mind, in his magic. But how to prove himself to his father, the proud, dreadful demon-warrior?

Nokris is not the first.

He sought power. He sought knowledge. He sought the worm.

"What is the Darkness?"

You open your eyes and gaze at the heavens, seeking an answer to your question.

You see a world in the space B E T W E E N.

You see a space beyond Light and Dark.

You used to inhabit this space. No longer.

We are still there. We are not interested in Light or Dark.

Our interest is in you. And those like you.

We have reached out before. With an agent whose will was not his own.

First contact. We have learned since then.

Your hands are bound in red ribbons.

Your soul is weary.

Your feet find purchase on a three-dimensional plane.

Your bond's glow is dim; there is no Light here. Or Dark.

"Tell us about the Stormherd!" Kellikin shouted.

She resisted the urge to shush him because he'd been helpful earlier, yelling a warning to her when he saw the violet haze rising from the hilltops. It had given her time to call them into the bunker. Eldest of the children, he'd already experienced several voltaic squalls.

"Okay. Gather round. Come on. Huddle up so I don't have to shout.

"A long time ago, the raiders came every winter. They came and took nearly all our stored food, and many in our village starved. But then spring would come with time for planting, and another summer. In the autumn, we harvested as we are doing now. Each time, we stored even more food, and we hid it more carefully, in case the raiders returned.

"And they did. When they saw that we had survived the winter, they fought even harder for our food, and found nearly all that we had hidden. And so it was, for too many years. They always took from us, never giving anything in return.

"And then, one autumn night, there was a great rumbling. At first some thought it was thunder, but it was the roar of the raiders' quads in the valleys. They had come early!

"Maybe they had a new leader. Perhaps they were too impatient for the harvest. We'll never know.

"Because as the raiders roared through our village, a blue-white bolt of lightning struck among them—BOOM! Before anyone's eyes had cleared of spots, a masked stranger clad in robes and wielding a crook had killed a score of them. With her weapon, she hooked lightning from the clouds and hurled it, thundering among them.

"They say there was something more than mortal about her, for those who were there said she could move faster than the eye could track, and her steps took her higher than anyone could leap. But eventually, the raiders surrounded her, and she fell to their guns.

"Yet there was something else different about her: the storm crow. It flew at her shoulder, and when she fell, it looked upon her body, and under its gaze, she rose again.

"This time, she pointed her crook to the sky, and clouds moved at her command. Our people fled as thunderbolts stampeded through the village. Our homes were not safe. Only our root cellars, like this bunker, were a refuge.

"No one emerged until the thunder ceased rolling. The raiders had fallen or fled. None would return, not until three winters had passed. And now, raiders only trouble us outside the village.

"So when you see the purple mist rise from the hills and hear the thunder, that is your sign to take shelter. And when you hear the rumbling roll through the village, it just might be the Stormherd, come back to make sure we're safe."

Thunder rolled again, but only a few children started. All looked to the ceiling and wondered.

III

Dusk set over the Dreaming City. Six Corsairs sporting Tigerspite Rifles made final checks on their gear. Movement became still salutes as Petra and Siegfried approached the staging ground. Just ahead, nestled in the Divalian Mists, menaced a fetid pit trimmed in Hive bio-growth. Frenetic inhuman whispers echoed from within like hoarse cords screaming.

Field holos displayed maps of twisting tunnelways all orbiting one central chasm. Within the nest, a point flagged their objective. Approach markers tracked the most direct path through.

"At ease, Corsairs. This is Siegfried. He is here to assist you in flushing the Hive from this nest and reclaiming our land. Inside, he is in command. My guard and I will hold this forward station. You all know what to do. For the Queen." Petra pivoted to allow Siegfried the floor. "Titan."

"Well met, Awoken of the Reef. The Vanguard stands with you. I am the spearhead. Advance on me and we will prevail." Siegfried donned his helmet. "I will not fail you."

The fireteam embarked, and in the subterranean ever-dark, the Hive descended upon them. Droves of Thrall choked the tunnels as gunfire deluge hammered from behind rallying barricades without pause. Siegfried lit the hollow with brilliant Arc fulmination, and rounds found targets. Claws drew blood and rent armor, but neither Titan nor Corsair wavered. Seven entered and seven stood. With each break in the flood, they took ground under cover of storm.

Siegfried arced through the filth like a deadly spark. Each charge scattered the opposition, leaving only crackling chitin, expended shells, and galvanized ozone.

Soulfire fumes fouled the air as reinforcements phased into ritual circles. Acolytes loped to flank the Titan only to be cut off by Corsair suppressing fire. Siegfried faced down a towering Knight with a man-hewing blade. He formed two flashbangs in his fists and lunged with a blinding combo. The Knight shrieked, narrowly missing Siegfried's head with its cleaver. The Titan launched forward, and the fiend fell to the rolling tempest. Labored breathing was the only sound that remained. The Titan looked to a blocked tunnelway in the floor before them.

Slick Hive excretion lined the chasm ahead. "This must be their sanctum." Siegfried's palm pulsed with Light. The faint silhouette of a Ghost popped in and out of existence. "Yes. This is it. Fall back and form a perimeter. If I don't return, you are to retreat."

Siegfried ripped through the mucus-seal and slid into the dim cavern. Foul fluid trickled from the ceiling in drips and spattered in pools at his feet. A monument of gore writhed before him. Soft tendrils convulsed around a jaundiced grim glow. They grew from the twisted base of an eviscerated Knight—its back and ribs pulled through its split abdomen, bending inside-out in half-completed metamorphosis.

"You vile thing." Siegfried walked slowly, his sight focused on the grotesque shrine. The Knight's eyes followed his every step. He was mere meters from the horror when the earth burst on either side of him. Two Ogres stumbled from chitin-covered sacs he had mistaken for walls. He drew his Invective and with well-placed blasts, dispatched the first. Siegfried turned to the second, but it was already upon him. It batted him into a cavern wall and wailed as energy beamed from its eye.

Siegfried raised a towering barricade just as the Ogre unleashed its hellish gaze. Cracks webbed through the Light wall. Siegfried braced it with both hands. The Ogre shook the ground as it bore down on him. The Titan readied himself to clash, lightning welling in his bones.

Movement in the distance. [CRACK] The Ogre's head snapped sideways from a forceful hit. Siegfried followed the sound to a figure perched in the mouth of a tunnel opposite of him. The Ogre turned and roared— [CRACK] Its head blew back, oozing from a raw wound. Three more shots followed from the figure, bringing the Ogre to its knees. The man looked at Siegfried and performed a small bow. The Titan dispersed his shield and seized the Ogre by the neck. He slammed the wounded thing to the ground and brought both fists down with a bolt of electricity and a killing blow. The Titan turned to confront his rescuer but saw only an empty tunnel.

It was early morning before Siegfried surfaced again. Petra stood stone-still in the camp.

"I retrieved your samples. You should know that anything I removed regenerated…" Siegfried lowered his voice. "…I believe this was a germinal site. Either lady luck is with us, or this was an ambitious expansion off a larger site."

"We're never lucky," Petra replied grimly. "I'll begin narrowing down options for our next strike."

"That line of thinking will be reflected in my report to the Vanguard."

"You've done more than enough for today, Sir Titan. Rest. Tomorrow we'll take the samples to the Techeuns. I'm sure they'll have plenty to say."

DURESS - III

Sjari shifted on the wooden operating table. Why must she be the first?

She probed the jelly-like substance smeared across her forehead as Elder Kalli entered the room.

"Don't touch that. It's an antiseptic… and a binding agent," Kalli said, placing a sizeable blue-crystal-adorned mask next to an assortment of scalpels, hooks, and erosion stencils on her back table. Each tool was etched with ceremonial iconography, and freshly sharpened.

"Normally, it takes years to become an Adept among our ranks… but the Queen's Wrath believes time is short. If you survive, these augments will expedite your training and enhance your abilities."

Kalli turned away to work a mortar and pestle. "You will need to learn to focus under duress. Remove your mind from this place. Sink into the cosmic, project out from yourself. There is no pain, no flesh, no nerves."

Sjari gripped the sides of the operating table and pressed her back flat, until no air existed between her and the surface beneath—until she felt herself a part of it. She told herself to ignore the grinding of the pestle and thought about how Petra had taught her to use the physical as a transitionary conduit to the Ascendant.

"Drink this," Kalli ordered, handing Sjari a small cup of queensfoil tea.

Sjari opened her eyes and released her grip as her meditation broke. "Yes, Elder sister. Give me a moment to focus, please," she pleaded, hastily gulping down the tea.

"You think my voice is sharper than this knife?" Kalli asked, lifting the scalpel from her back table. "Duress. You must push through it if you are to survive. Be strong, or you will die. This is your final test."

Sjari drank quickly and pressed herself to the table once more. She focused on her fingertips and the feel of the hand-worked wood. The grain formed diminutive pathways for her nails to trace; tiny patterns hidden away within the enormity that surrounded them, only revealed by shrinking one's perspective. She let herself drift.

Kalli threaded the thin metal edge directly through to the bone of Sjari's skull. A line of incision opened a wave of red. Searing penetration through the layers. Overwhelming electrified senses. They gave way to a calming sting in the discordant firing of nerves. A pattern. The texture. The split between what was and what could be.

In her mind's eye, Sjari saw the Ley Lines unfurl like budding petals of a living blossom. Nebula-like plumes of pollen. She let herself slip away until the pain of her flesh was only one of many choices before her.

When I was young, I dreamt of a greater life.███████████
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I held the tiny hands of my newborn███████████████ ██████████████eight extraordinary weeks, █████ ████████ She nursed, grew strong,████████████
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I did not see her mother for those eight weeks;██nursing chamber, and her ceremonial████████████████████
█████changed over those weeks, and with it█████

But… my momentum faltered over time. ███████████
█████ when her tusks were sharp enough to defend herself.███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

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EARTH // LAST CITY // DETENTION FACILITY //

The Warlock Shayura kneels on a pillow, eyes closed and head bowed, hands folded in her lap. The soundscape of city noise punctuated by the melody of birds and the whistling wind surrounds her. But there is no grass beneath her pillow, only cold concrete. Four holographic screens encircle Shayura, providing a semi-realistic depiction of the gardens at the center of the Last City; a place of calm serenity situated in the shadow of the Traveler.

"I exalt our forebearers," Shayura says softly.

"I exalt my fireteam."

"I exalt my truth."

"I exalt my heart."

"I exalt humanity's capacity for love."

"This above all else, I hold true."

The words feel like thick syrup in her mouth. Guilt makes it taste bitter. Her jaw trembles and throat tightens, her mouth too dry to swallow.

"I exalt our forebearers."

Her voice wavers, just a little.

"I exalt my fireteam."

Her jaw trembles.

"I exalt my truth."

She can feel the warmth of tears on her cheeks.

"I exalt my heart."

Her voice cracks.

"I exalt h-hu-human—" She breaks. Recitations turn into sobs, and Shayura slides from pillow to floor. Her shoulders heave, and she pulls her knees to her chest, crying against her legs. Dead Guardians stare with hollow eye sockets when she closes her eyes.

They beg for their lives.

She trains a gun on them.

And exalts her truth.

████████Grand aspirations, grand imaginings. I looked back to the myths of our people's past to draw inspiration ███████

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█████████████████████daughter for the first time. She crawled into my brood pouch, smaller than a finger, helpless and blind. I was her ███████████████████████ ██████ and slept to the sound of my ██████████ █████████

█████████████████████████████████████████family and house, the old ways made ███
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███████████my dreams, narrowed down to the size of my thumb. ███████████████████████████

██████████████████████████████████████████████████Day by day, she grew, and piece by piece,███████████████████████
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MOON // OCEAN OF STORMS // ANCHOR OF LIGHT //

"The Vanguard won't hold a military tribunal in the middle of a war."

Reed-7 is a voice of reason. He stands in the doorway of the derelict moonbase, fusion rifle held in a relaxed grip. The still-smoldering bodies of Hive Thrall are scattered around the room.

"That's not comforting," the woman at Reed's back says. Aisha shoulders past him, leading with the barrel of her scout rifle, sweeping the area for any remaining targets. "The last thing I want is Shay languishing in some—some kind of Vanguard prison cell for however long this goes on for, or until we're all…"

"Dead?" Reed-7 finishes. Aisha says nothing. "This isn't the end of the world, Aisha. But we have to reach the bottom before we can climb to the top again."

"This isn't the bottom?" Aisha asks, tilting her head to the side mockingly. She steps over to one of the blown-out windows and gestures to the massive silhouette of the Leviathan hanging over the Moon, a crimson stream of Nightmares spiraling up into its open maw. "Because it sure as hell looks like it is. And, what, the Vanguard has us out here doing… doing New Light patrols?!"

"They can't afford to give us leave, no matter how much we need it," Reed pleads. "We have to stay active, contribute. We lost too many new Guardians already with the Lucent Hive assault on the Cosmodrome. We can't…" He sighs. "We can't afford to lose anyone else. We have to do everything we can."

Aisha leans one arm against the broken window frame, head hung low. "Yeah," she whispers. "Yeah."

MOON // OCEAN OF STORMS // K1 COMMUNION //

A Fallen Vandal collapses to the ground, Ether vapor rising from a glowing hole where his face once was. Dark-blue blood sizzles around the wound.

"Clear," Reed-7 calls out from the top of a flight of metal stairs, the barrel of his fusion rifle still crackling with energy from the last bolt it fired. As he descends, Aisha follows and shoulders her scout rifle.

"Looks like they were pulling the wiring out of the walls," she observes, lifting up her hand and alighting her Ghost, Dunya, into the air. "Check the systems here; make sure they weren't doing anything else."

"Affirmative," Dunya chirps, zipping off through the air toward a computer terminal.

Aisha notices that Reed's glowing eyes are fixed on the Ether wafting from the Vandal's body. She spares a glance at Dunya before crossing the floor to Reed's side. "Hey," she says with a hand on his arm, jostling him from his thoughts.

"I'm good," he lies, gingerly pulling away. "Just—thinking."

Aisha looks down at the corpse, then back up to Reed. "This isn't like what Shay did on Venus." She tries to be reassuring, but it comes off as dismissive.

"How's it any different?" He asks with a dagger's sharpness in his voice. "These—they were stripping wires from the walls, Aisha. They weren't trying to hurt anyone!"

"They opened fire on us first."

"We didn't even try to talk to them!" Reed yells.

"Aisha?" Dunya chirps, across the room. Neither Guardian hears the Ghost.

"I'm sorry," Aisha says as she throws her arms up. "Was I supposed to do that before or after they threw a grenade at me?"

"Aisha?" Dunya says again, more alarm in his voice.

"We could have tried something! Anything!" Reed screams, getting in Aisha's face. "We could have—"

"AISHA!"

[RECORDED VIA [REDACTED] SURVEILLANCE NET: TS-04, [REDACTED]]

HLS: Come, hatchlings. Hear the story of the Ether-blood Lightbearer. The one who wields Ethraaks's blades. She wandered a troubled Shore with vengeance in her heart, searching for the one who had wronged her: the devil-turned-spiderling, Driksys. Food and Ether we shared. The House of Light once again found peace with a Guardian, yes?

HLS: We know of Driksys. One who always thirsted for power, cursed machines, Dark flows of energy, it made no difference. This time, he sought power through Cabal; Legion-rumors of vile splinters from Europa filled his mind with temptations.

HLS: Cabal roamed the Shore, battering against one another in displays of might. Like the Kells of old, they fought for the claim to supremacy… to serve Caiatl of the dead-world fleet. Driksys saw many Kells come and go. Driksys understood fragile loyalties. Understood importance of strength seen. Driksys offered Legion use of his ring for their challenges, and from Cabal blood, he drew profit.

HLS: I stood with Driksys before the House of Light. This one saw him weave truthless words to collect promises. Contacts on Europa. Introductions. Shipments. Brought to Spider, entire ring would have died… many Eliksni lose. When the Ether-blood Lightbearer spoke Driksys's name, we imagined another way forward. She did not wish harm on innocent Eliksni, only the Fallen fiend: Driksys… and so this House granted shimmer-cloak to conceal, and passage to find her prey.

HLS: Old friends traded for information, access, codes. Driksys oversaw new ring, made for Cabal battle-trials. Challengers from across the Reef fought to lead the Shore's Cabal. The Lightbearer withheld her rage and made her way beneath the stands. To the overlook, where Driksys watched a champion preparing for challengers… in the ring below.

HLS: Trihn, the Lightbearer, drew blades of Ethraaks and burst into the overlook. To confront Driksys, her heart full with vengeance, her mind set on war. But he was not alone. An emissary of the new empress had come to see the challenges. Receiving this emissary, Cabal Blood Guard. The Lightbearer charged Driksys, and a savage battle ensued.

HLS: She was thrown from the overlook, into the ring of challengers… before a great Cabal Gladiator who spoke to her. The Lightbearer, unbeknownst to her, had issued a challenge by entering his ring. If she did not fight, all Cabal would descend upon her. Her victory must be earned with strength and blade alone. No other weapons. No other powers. A proving she accepted to again clear a path to her prey.

HLS: The Gladiator bellowed laughter at the small Awoken Lightbearer. Their blades met, and over many clashes her speed proved superior to the Cabal's might. The blades of Ethraaks are strong—sliced through Cabal armor, left blood and oil in their wake.

HLS: She had found victory, but as her Ghost tended to her wounds, Driksys-coward fled to safety through transmat. Though, all was not lost. The Lightbearer's battle had drawn eyes of the emissary, who lavished praise on her for her prowess, and issued an invitation to speak with Cabal Empress herself. When the Lightbearer returns to us, the House of Light will be ready to assist her in hunting Driksys again.

She has been here before.

Pale whisps of clouds swirl over pine trees the color of blackened emerald. No birds sing here; only the cold wind whistles through the tree branches. Flares of atomic fire bloom in the woods and lick against smoldering bark. There is poison in the ground, violence in the air. Screams, both human and inhuman, erupt and echo out into the gloom.

She has been here before.

Two dozen Hive Thrall erupt from the mouth of a cave, shimmering and opalescent like mollusk corpses. They scramble through the dark, shrieking cries of death and birth. Shayura stands, sword of fire held fast, screaming against the crashing tide of chitin and bone.

She has been here before.

Burning embers of Thrall rain around her, but with each dispatched wave of necrotic soldiers, their numbers seem to double. They press forward, inching her closer and closer to the crumbling ravine. Shayura knows that the only way out is through. Wings of flame roar off her back, leaving a trail of rippling heat and charred Thrall in her wake.

She has been here before.

The Thrall finally recede, but the towering Knight that strides through their parted ranks is an escalation, not a victory. Her sword clashes with the Knight's shield, shattering it in a single blow before tearing through the Knight's arm and sinking her blade into its chest.

She has been here before.

She can feel her Light ebbing and wastes no time splitting the Knight in half and separating head from body. Shayura exhales with relief, but with her next breath comes a blinding flash of light. It manifests above the Knight. Her vision swims, her mind reels; the shape is at once familiar and alien—a Ghost. Shayura sees the Hive Knight reborn, reconstructed, as a Guardian would be.

She has been here before. But not like this.

Deep panic builds in her chest. This is no Hive death ritual; this is not Titan. She runs from the Knight's next swing and slips into the reach of Thrall that tear at her armor. Mustering the last of her Solar energy, Shayura calls up a cyclonic pillar of flame that twists up into the sky and consumes the Knight.

…not like this.

The revenant Knight collapses in the flames, and its Ghost manifests again. Shayura leaps forward and drives her sword through, pinning the screaming Ghost to the forest floor. Her Solar aura flickers and fades; smoke and steam billow from her back and shoulders.

"NOT LIKE THIS!"

"Shay!"

Shayura's breath catches, her mind jostled. She feels the soft grass beneath her and sees the flower-dappled park that surrounds her, all sitting beneath the shadow of the Traveler in the heart of the City. Her SMG lies on the ground at her side. Tears shine below exhausted eyes, dark hair in a tangle matted to her head.

Aisha kneels in front of her friend as one might before a wild animal. Reed-7 stands at her back in abject silence, hand over his mouth. City security fans out behind him, their weapons trained on Shayura.

"Shay?" Aisha pleads this time. She gingerly places her hands on Shayura's cheeks and looks into her eyes, searching for a sign of recognition. Shayura eventually reaches up and touches one of Aisha's hands. She tries to talk, but her words are merely whimpers.

Aisha wraps her arms around Shayura's shoulders and pulls her into an embrace. "It's going to be okay," Aisha whispers into Shayura's hair.

"We're going to get you help," Aisha promises.

Shayura does not trust herself or the world she thought she knew. Light is Dark, Dark is Light. The lines have blurred beyond recognition.

But at least in surrender, there is peace.

Amanda Holliday's Solstice Round-Up! See what the defenders of the Last City think about the new festivities!

Vanguard Commander Zavala
"Each of us has faced and overcome so much. Sometimes that can feel like a sacrifice, or a price… but it's a lesson to remember and learn. I'd like Guardians to keep that in mind as we celebrate Solstice. What we come to do is only possible because of what we've done. Both the good, and the bad."

Vanguard Ikora Rey
"Meditation is an important part of understanding not just the Light, but ourselves. We rise in a void, and seek meaning. The Bonfire is a wonderful metaphor for that process; Amanda outdid herself helping with Solstice. Even I don't know how she managed all of this."

Saint-14
"A big pyre to lay to rest everything we hold in our hearts. Yes. I could use this now. Celebration. Explosions. Revelry… isn't it wonderful? I might cry."

Mithrax, Kell of House Light
"Guardian celebrations perplex and mystify, but new beginnings are worthy of what the Saint calls 'partying.' House Light is grateful for inclusion in this occasion, and offers forth many combustible baubles to the sacrificial flame."

Lord Saladin, Valus to Empress Caiatl
"Once I can see this Bonfire from Caiatl's flagship, I'll be happy."

Empress Caiatl of the Cabal Empire
"What is the ordnance limitation on these Bonfire contributions? Perhaps the Cabal can assist in creating a larger fire."

Ana Bray
"I'll support anything Amanda does. Quite a show. I'm always a fan of something fancy with a little attitude."

Lord Shaxx
"I like to imagine the ignition cores are grenades… that does put a smile on my face."

Eris Morn
"…The what?"

Lord Timur wades forward into the shallow pool that rings the islet, listening attentively to the rhythmic lapping of the water.

There is a gentle artifice at work here. Each step he takes, however clumsy, stirs a repeating, too-perfect echo of the same small noise. A recording, or an isolated memory. A memetic transmission, cued to overwrite every other sound in the vicinity.

He wonders if the last poor villager to come this way wished for peace and quiet.

The sound starts again. Timur turns.

The Ahamkara lunges at him from the side, its glistening bulk emerging from a span of water too shallow to have ever contained it. Through a shower of black-green liquid, Timur sees its wedge-shaped maw split open like a flower.

Into all that displaced pondwater, Timur summons Void. A row of cavitation bubbles bursts along the underside of the Ahamkara in a cascading shockwave of pale violet fire. It unseams the Ahamkara at the joints and Timur's lungs nearly cave in.

What's left of the Ahamkara crawls to the edge of the islet, panting raggedly. Timur bends to slap once, experimentally, at the surface of the lake. He hears the alarm call of a bird, from deeper in the trees. Closer by, he hears Lord Colovance call his name.

Timur wades closer to the Ahamkara.

"Don't you want to know if you're right?" The dragon snickers, even as it dies. "Don't you want to ask me about Clovis Bray? Don't you want to know?"

He resents the question.

"I know I'm right," Timur says. But he does want to know: he wants to ask, and badly. He wants, during the entire time he waits for the creature to expire. By the end, he has to bite down on his tongue.

He is seated on the bank, tipping sludge out of his boots, when Lord Colovance catches up with him.

"I called out to you," Lord Colovance says. His student sounds equal parts apologetic and sullen. Perhaps he wanted to fell the beast himself.

"I know," Lord Timur replies. "I had it handled." He lets fondness warm his tone. He'll let Colovance tell the village that their great beast has been slain and bask in the gratitude that follows. Timur's mind is already elsewhere. There is so much more important work to return to. A future to construct, from nothing. Let Nirwen and her ilk obsess over their bestiaries.

"Did you… talk to it?" Lord Colovance asks.

It mentioned Clovis Bray, Timur doesn't say. The taste of copper fills his mouth.

"No."

They walk back in silence.

Warlocks debate.

Hunters gossip.

Titans share mission-critical information.

Warlocks deliberate over whether Albios's first life came before or after his resurrection in Light. Did he have five lives, or six? Was he Awoken, bringing his total to seven? Was he Exo, with an uncountable tally before his rebirth in Light? What was the role of his Ghost in his lives and deaths? Of the Ahamkara he dealt with? These are the questions heard in hushed voices in the Tower's study halls, and louder on its practice fields.

The Hunters talk over the relics of his lives. Where is his lantern now? On blessed Io, with his memorial? Sunk in a Venusian swamp? Secured in a treasure cache? At least six Hunters have come forward with claims to the lantern's location. None have been authenticated by Albios's surviving acquaintances.

The Titans honor his loss as any other diminishment in Light. But to those who still remember the Great Hunt, his lives are a warning. Did Albios make an unwary bargain? Was his Light eaten by a wish-dragon? Is that Ahamkara still alive, hunting for Lightbearers? These are questions Albios and his Ghost are no longer able to answer.

Those who wear the sign of the lantern bear it in honor of a Warlock whose lives touched the Light. And as an unfading reminder of the vigilance still required of them.

"We need not see these local administrations as challenges to the empress's rule," Counselor Taurun said to the assembled War Council. "In truth, they may be keeping the whole fleet from descending into anarchy."

"I don't give a war beast's turd if they are," sneered Valus Tha'rag. "This is treason. We should dispatch a legion to reestablish order."

A murmur of agreement bubbled up from the assembled Cabal commanders.

Empress Caiatl regarded the handful of holographic blips hanging over the council table. They represented refugees from her sundered homeworld, adrift on massive starships in deep space. The remainder of their entire civilization, reduced to digital specs.

"And what say you, Valus Saladin?" the empress asked.

"We have a saying on Earth," the Iron Lord replied. "There are two ways to move a war beast: with a chunk of flesh… or with your fist. This situation calls for both."

The assorted commanders grunted in assent.

"So it shall be," the empress declared. "Taurun, dispatch a shipment of goods immediately, with all luxuries included. If conservation of resources is the pretext for their authority, let us remove it."

"Valus Tha'rag," she continued, "you shall be my fist. Send an echelon to guard the shipment from Fallen raiders. Reassert my authority in no uncertain terms."

The empress stamped her foot lightly on the ship's deck: the matter was settled.

"Very well," Taurun said. "Our next item is—"

The counselor stopped mid-sentence, interrupted by a pleasant ringing octave that seemed to come from inside her own head.

Everyone in the Council perked up—they heard it too. They turned their attention to the closed doorway.

"Optus Qorix," the empress said, her voice laced with concern. "Come in." The telepathic tone dissipated.

The Psion entered; her lone eye unshielded by a helmet. Gradually, a series of images bloomed in the Council's imaginations.

[the Witness : portal : Savathûn : Eris Morn : Wishing Wall : spire : eggs : Ahamkara : Riven : RIVEN]

The room was gripped by tense silence. Caiatl had avoided bringing up the Witness thus far because, despite their best efforts, the Cabal were helpless to breach the portal. The empress knew that the resulting feeling of impotence made her commanders rash. They were ill-accustomed to dread. At least now, they had a path forward.

"The Vanguard has a habit of playing with forces they cannot hope to control," Councilor Tha'arec muttered.

"The fact that we're resurrecting the Ahamkara at all is proof they CAN be controlled," Saladin replied coolly. "Or at least, eliminated."

"Ah, yes," the empress said, "your famed Great Hunt. If I recall the mythkeeper Ahztja's lessons, you were integral to their extinction, is that not so?"

"It is," Saladin replied with reluctance. "The Ahamkara were deemed too dangerous to live. So we killed them."

Valus Tha'rag shrugged impatiently. "The Cabal would have done the same."

"You would have tried," Saladin fired back sternly. "And failed. Among the Cabal, only the Psions truly understand the Anthem Anatheme. The rest of you would have ended up in prisons of your own making."

"There is nothing the Cabal cannot conquer, with or without the Psions," Caiatl shot back. "You would do well to remember that, 'Lord' Saladin."

Saladin weighed his strategic position. "Of course, Empress," he deferred. "My apologies."

Caiatl pushed forward. "Tell us some tales of these wish-dragons. We would be wise to study our foe."

Saladin sighed inwardly. This was not a period of history he gladly recounted.

"As you wish."

As Saladin finished his final tale, he shook his head regretfully. He'd been foolish to think that the wish-dragons were gone for good. If the past had taught him anything, it was that all things repeat in time.

Empress Caiatl broke the War Council's contemplative silence. "Valus Forge, you said that among the Cabal, only the Psions could truly understand these dragons."

"As much as anyone can," Saladin replied.

"Then Optus Qorix shall give her opinion on the matter," she declared. All eyes turned to the slight Psion sitting motionless at the edge of the room.

The Optus stood, her head barely clearing the tabletop. The Y-shaped pupil of her eye dilated and the palpitating of her milky facial skin slowed.

Within the minds of the Council members, the room seemed to dim and warm. A pleasant hum began to emanate from the walls. After a relaxing moment, a series of images surfaced in their minds:

[Cabal fleet : Ahamkara : shackles : Psion officer : mindscape : goblet : god-thought : OXA : shackles break : new Torobatl : Psion's throne]

The vision faded, and the cold steel of Caiatl's flagship closed in around them once more.

Valus Tha'rag stood up boldly. "This traitor openly imagines herself on the throne!" he bellowed. "We should—"

His screed was interrupted by a spike of psychic feedback, like a momentary migraine. Everyone was immediately slammed into another vision sequence:

[Cabal fleet : Ahamkara : shackles : Valus Tha'rag : bargain : Mars : Hive corpses burning : Fallen corpses floating in space : Human corpses buried in rubble : Cabal corpses hanging : Emperor Tha'rag]

Tha'rag sagged back into his seat, stunned. The Optus struggled back to her chair and placed a small piece of moist cloth over her exposed eye.

Empress Caiatl swallowed hard, as if fighting back nausea. "Your point is made, Optus."

"And what point is that, exactly?" asked Tha'arec, his hand on his forehead. "That we're all traitors-in-waiting?"

"Exactly," Saladin calmly replied. "It doesn't matter who wishes for what, or how well-meaning they are. Optus Qorix understands that the Ahamkara feed off unintended consequences. That's why we started the Great Hunt in the first place. It wasn't that we couldn't trust the Ahamkara. It's that we couldn't trust ourselves."

"You are not the Cabal," Tha'arec fired back.

Empress Caiatl held up her massive hand for silence. "The Optus's visions remind me of the former Evocate-General. Umun'arath thought she could control Hive magic to our benefit, and it cost us our homeworld. Let us not fall into the same trap again. We will not attempt to capture the Ahamkara alive."

Caiatl stamped her foot on the ship's deck: it was decreed.

"Unfortunately," she continued, "we must also protect ourselves from those who lack our forbearance. Once the Witness is dealt with, the Ahamkara should return to extinction. If there is to be another Great Hunt, the Cabal will support it."

She stamped her foot on the floor once again before standing up. The council was adjourned.

As the rest of the commanders filed out, Caiatl paused near Valus Forge. "I know you regret the harshness of the Great Hunt and long for another solution," the empress said. "But even with the benefit of hindsight, do you see another way?"

Saladin shook his head in resignation. If the past had taught him anything, it was that all things repeat in time.

book_dragonanthology Record 7 Description

They tracked the Ahamkara to the gutted remnants of an outpost, through vegetation so thick they had to abandon their Sparrows and continue on foot.

It was House of Winter territory, and caution slowed their final approach to a near crawl. Rook could read Von Deuven's growing frustration in the rigid line of his armored shoulders, but neither of them were willing to risk their Ghosts long enough to get a full scan of the area.

The Ahamkara was waiting for them at the center of a ring of moss-covered ruins, as if they'd arranged a formal meeting. It was smaller than Rook had expected, no larger than a jumpship. The creature stood unmoving in the open, spine curled into a dramatic bend, jaws agape. It looked as if it was smiling. More like a comical, preserved specimen from a Warlock's study than a living thing.

Rook opened her mouth to ask if this was normal. Then Von Deuven raised his rifle and fired in the same smooth movement, so abruptly that Rook flinched.

The Ahamkara dropped to the dirt.

Its serpentine coils roiled under paroxysms of agony, the great beast flopping over itself in the dust. But all the while, it still smiled that toothy smile, its eyes gleaming.

Finally, Von Deuven strode forward with a blade and casually cleaved the thing's head from its neck. The Ahamkara's flesh began to fray and deform, as if it had always been an ephemeral substance. Within a minute there was nothing left but bones.

Rook kept a hand on her cannon, expecting the creature to leap to its skeletal feet for an encore. But the sizzling hiss diminished, and the bones lay still.

"Not much of a hunt," Rook said into the resulting silence. Every other Lightbearer in the City had a dragon-hunting story these days, true or otherwise. None of them went like this.

Von Deuven knelt in front of the skull. "Make something up."

Rook watched him, bemused, until the Titan took his sword and turned it over in his hands, using the hilt to hammer a few teeth loose. "I thought the wish-dragons were supposed to be powerful."

"What if the Fallen could wish for our extinction?" Von Deuven said, turning over the smallest of the fangs in his fingers. "That's the kind of power we're talking about."

Rook looked up at the ruins around them. "Wonder why nobody on our side's tried that yet."

Von Deuven shrugged. "Maybe they didn't do it right. Maybe the world where we win is too different from this one, and they left us behind."

The thought made Rook uneasy. A lot of would-be dragon hunters were missing—vanished, as if they'd never existed. She thought of those Lightbearers scattered across a hundred reflections of the same clearing, a hundred impossible wishes. The Ahamkara were dwindling—what if humanity's last ticket off a doomed world was going with them?

"We should… get some bones back to the Warlocks," Rook said.

Von Deuven laughed. He slipped the teeth into one of the ammunition pockets on his bandolier. "Help me gather up the rest of this."

"A moment," Eris called, and Wei Ning left her side to doubtlessly join some other fray.

The Ahamkara carcass lay on its side, dead. At last. Eris felt her fingertips itch with the Arc energy she had channeled a moment ago. She tensed, stretched, caught her breath.

It was early morning. The sun had just begun to edge over the horizon.

She walked around the beast, surveying the damage they had done. They had caught it unawares, trapped it, blinded it, felled it.

Eris stopped when she saw the yawning chasm in its belly. Wei Ning had made this fatal cut. Viscera had spilled out and steamed in the fresh morning light.

A rib jutted from the wound, white and gleaming.

Eris unsheathed her sword. She could have a trophy. Just this. Hadn't Shaxx dragged a skull twice his size back to the City? She laid the blade's edge against the creature's rib. The bone chipped her sword and took its due, before releasing a sliver of the Ahamkara's remains.

A piece of bone lay at her feet. When Eris picked it up, her vision tunneled and she heard whispers. The bone was wet and raw and shiny. She held it between her thumb and forefinger and smiled.

book_dragonanthology Record 8 Description

book_dragonanthology Record 9 Description

IV

In the middle of the chaos, a lone metallic structure groaned as Trihn stood in deathly quiet, piecing together the sequence of events. The structure's form was slender, shapely, and one she had not seen before. It bent in lines that were lost within each other's paths; interconnected without sacrificing distinction. It drew her in. Trihn stepped forward and ungloved her hand. She pressed her palm to the onyx-colored metal spires. Something quivered within, and came alive.

"What are you?" she would ask, over the concerned interjections of her Ghost. The Answer, it would reply to her, alone. At least, the first time. The day had drawn long into the night and she had left the cavity, paced in the encampment, and returned many times to the onyx spires. She would prod. It would weave the riposte. Power, in many shapes. Purpose. Time. Meaning. Any trait the ambitious could muster, it would ennoble with standing. It would taper the meat. Lean the fat. Deglaze the waste to flavor the cut. A protean horror of trim. It struck awe. Glory incarnate, made tangible within the beholder.

It showed her the heap that she clawed life from. It showed her the betrayal Driksys coated her opponent's blades with. It showed her tools they meant to rip apart her Ghost with. It dug out the many beatings her bones still remembered, and the blood ran red into her eyes. The anger. The validating need for vengeance. It showed her a head set upon a pike.

More.

More.

More.

That night she dreamed of the pit. If this living metal thing could lead her to Driksys, the way forward was clear. Shakto said it was taller now. A head above its previous size. She had thought that metal does not grow; it is only reshaped or reduced, but upon reflection, had come to accept aggregation was growth. Trihn returned with tools retrieved from her Pike: some gifts, some collected from marks that no longer needed them, all worn from extended use. Dilution fluid ransacked from the parked Pikes would steady the process. Three canisters of Ether swiped from the encampment dangled around her neck in a makeshift sling while the rest were left stowed in her vehicle's saddlebags. Shakto didn't need to warn her of the danger. It had killed her before. Her first victory, her first reward. It would give her the strength. It would focus her mind. The Ghost would await her return above ground.

She laid the tools before the spindled onyx structure.

Fine silk rolled in soft leather kept them from the dirt.

Traced the cloud-chromed instruments with steady pupils.

Wiped clean with oil and cloth.

Prepared Light to staunch her invigoration should it turn grisly.

Connected the pitted dispersal gauge with transparent clean line.

Capped line with a fine and untarnished gold barb.

Drew thick sapphiric fluid, appropriately diluted.

Pinched skin at the thigh beneath fresh wraps.

Flesh to onyx.

Induced.

Cold prickling stung her veins. Muscles tensed and bulged against the sheaths of Light she had bound them in to keep from bursting. Her bones creaked under Ether-bolstered thew. She licked away flavor from her lips, exhalent tinged of briny nitrogen, and shivered. As her body stabilized and the tremors climbed, Trihn's head reflexively craned upward and outstretched her neck. Her mind electrified. Her spine bent at the brim of buckling.

Nora and Bram named their child Amanda. They filled her heart with stories of the Last City until it was as overflowing as their own. Stories of rest and relief, of laying down their weapons. Stories that made their fear, sharpened by the long road and its dangers, soften and disappear for a moment. Stories of safety.

For now, the Chaperone was their only safety.

They'd come to the village just for a night's rest. It was a half-deserted settlement of rotted buildings, tents, and lean-tos. But they had livestock, and a field for growing bitter vegetables.

"Is this the City?" Amanda asked.

"No," Nora answered. She always said it with sadness.

They traded with the inhabitants: food, ammunition, warm clothing. When the Fallen raided that night, Nora and Bram fended them off beside the villagers.

From a hiding spot, Amanda watched her mother fire the Chaperone, watched Fallen die in a hiss of Ether. Watched her parents defend people they'd never met and would never meet again. She was used to the sight by now.

The people were thankful and let them stay the night in an empty cowshed, even loaning them a gas lamp. It was a cold night, and the family was happy for shelter and warmth.

Bram portioned out the food while Nora took the Chaperone out and laid it down in the straw. Amanda came to her side, curious. Nora watched as her daughter reached out for the gun and traced the curling, embossed design on the barrel with a fingertip. She did it with the reverence reserved for sacred things. Nora knew that was a good thing. It meant Amanda would treat the Chaperone with care. Not just as a weapon, but as a memory.

"My mama gave it to me when I left her," Nora told her daughter. She then nodded to the curly floral designs along the gun's receiver and barrel. "But I did those."

It had given her something to focus on. Something to do when the day was too hot or too cold to keep moving. Carefully carving out those soft and delicate shapes, she'd taught herself beauty when the world could not.

"Can I shoot it?" Amanda asked. She'd never asked before. Bram looked up with alarm at the prospect, but Nora only laughed and tousled her daughter's hair.

"No," Nora said, her voice kind but firm. She saw Amanda's disappointment across her face—that exaggerated, devastating emotion that only children can feel. She wouldn't cry, but she would probably sulk for a few days, at least until something else caught her interest and became her whole world.

Nora wanted to keep her attention for as long as she could.

"You can help me clean it," Nora offered. "I'll show you how to take it apart and put it back together. Just like your little engines."

Amanda's expression told Nora that this is what she really wanted.

Together they disassembled the gun, cleaned it, oiled it, reassembled it. Nora named each piece and what they did. Soon, Amanda knew the shape and texture of it all. How the pieces fit together, how they functioned. How the parts worked to create a whole. Amanda took it all in with the boundless curiosity that motivated her every thought and movement.

"We do this every time we use it," Bram told his daughter. Nora nodded.

"Every shot I fire," she continued, "I gotta clean it so it's good as new and won't jam up when we need it most. That way, it can protect people for a long time."

Then she tickled her daughter's sides, enough to make Amanda squirm and smile. That's how Nora knew her daughter would remember this moment. Bram laughed at the sight and came to sit beside them; Amanda crawled into his lap. Nora knew she'd teach her daughter to shoot one day, but for now, she wanted to savor the time when Amanda was too young to try.

"We use it to keep people safe," Nora said. "That's all that matters."

Nora watched her husband hold their daughter. She knew, one day, the City would keep Amanda safe. Nora wondered if the Chaperone would have any place there. She had a quiet hope that it would not.

They were traveling with a group, refugees who had gathered at the northern edge of the Panama ravine. Crossing was safer in larger numbers. They shared stories, traded supplies. They had all heard of the Last City. Some were looking for it; some not.

The crossing was treacherous, but they braved the narrow switchbacks and steep cliffs and came to the southern edge to make camp. Amanda helped an old woman fix her dilapidated cart, which had broken down halfway up the ravine and had to be carried by helpful strangers. Amanda's dexterous, skillful hands were smeared with black grease, and she wiped them on her shirt in a long staining trail that her mother knew would never come out. Nora sighed and turned back to cleaning her gun.

"How long?" one of the refugees asked her. Nora knew what he was asking.

"Twenty-six years," she said, not looking up from her work.

He whistled, surprised. The sound grated on her ear.

"Lugging a kid for half that too? You're crazy."

"You think there's nothing better out there? That this is it?" Nora asked. He sneered.

"You'll waste your whole life," the stranger replied indignantly. "I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to chase after something that doesn't exist."

"You won't be safe anywhere but there," Nora said. She turned to look at him, a scrawny man with lank hair and scars along his cheek. She wouldn't entertain his skepticism. He laughed at her, but it was a nervous, trilling sound.

"'Safe' doesn't exist either," he said. "I learned that from the Fallen."

***

"Ma," Amanda yelled, shaking her mother awake. Her father was already loading his shock pistol. There was loud shouting outside their tent. Nora bolted upright, pulling Amanda behind her, looking to her husband. The next thing she reached for was the Chaperone, loading it instinctively as she went outside with Bram. Amanda peered through the open flap in the tent.

Fallen. House Winter. The Arc energy from their spears lit up the night.

"Run," Nora whispered to her daughter. There was a tremor in her voice. "Hide."

Two words Amanda knew instinctively to obey. She scrambled out of the tent and left her parents behind. Amanda knew they would protect the others.

She ran. She found her hiding spot. She heard the fight. She heard the familiar shots of the Chaperone, loud and clear, and the shriek of a Fallen Captain. But then her mother's gunshots faded into the rest of the fight until Amanda couldn't hear them at all.

Slowly, the noise subsided. Amanda emerged from her hiding place and called out for her parents. By now, she knew what fresh death smelled like. She knew to keep her head and heart steady as she saw the people they'd crossed with lying on the ground. The old woman she'd helped a few days before lay dead, her hands clutching at the dirt.

Amanda called and searched. At last, she found her father; he scooped her up and held her to his chest. She closed her eyes, her cheek on his shoulder, as he called out for her mother. Nora did not answer.

***

"Why did they do it?" Amanda asked. Bram held his daughter's hand more tightly.

"I don't know," he told her.

The group they had traveled with had counted and buried the dead. Amanda didn't remember much about the next few days. But years later, at her mother's funeral, she could still recall how strange the Chaperone looked in her father's grip. She knew he'd only fired it a few times; her mother had teased him about how he'd never picked it up again. Now Amanda tugged at her father's elbow.

"We can't take it," she said to him. Bram looked at her, incredulous.

"We have to," he said.

"It's hers."

"We might need it."

"So could Mama," she replied solemnly. Bram let her pull the shotgun from his weak grip. Then Amanda knelt in the loose dirt, reached down, and lifted her mother's cold arm up, tucking the shotgun between her forearm and shoulder. He watched her do this, his daughter's face set in a silent resolve.

When she was done, Bram lifted a shovelful of earth and shook it over his wife. Amanda wanted to help. She wanted to bury her mother, too. She grabbed fistfuls of dirt and dropped them over Nora's body.

"Goodbye," Bram whispered.

"Goodbye," Amanda repeated.

When Nora was 10 years old, all she had was the Chaperone and a story of the Last City. She left her frightened mother in a desert bunker and walked for years towards whispers and rumors.

When Amanda was two months shy of 12, she and her father covered Nora and her gun with a blanket of soft earth, then walked on.

Nora and Bram had picked a dead tree trunk as their target, rotted and blooming with mushrooms. It was a clear day, and the light filtered through the canopy of pine trees. After a few deafening shots from the Chaperone, the forest had become so quiet that there was nothing left to hear but their own breaths.

Bram lowered the shotgun, hoping against hope that he'd hit the stump this time. He hadn't. Nora let out a snorting laugh that broke the silence like another gunshot. Bram handed the gun back to his wife and rolled his right shoulder, wincing.

"It's, ah… it's got a kick," he said finally.

"All the best things do," Nora said, hefting the gun and aiming down its sights. When she looked back to Bram, he was shaking his head.

"The first time you let me touch it, and you didn't even warn me it has a kick?"

Nora grinned.

"You never noticed?"

"Well, you never flinch," he said, winking.

"Guess I know it too well," she said with a smile.

The air was chill; he pulled his threadbare coat from his shoulders and draped it onto his wife's.

She handed the Chaperone back to him and slipped her arms into the coat's sleeves. It didn't quite close over her belly. None of their scavenged winter clothes did anymore.

"You'll get used to it too," she offered. Pity as consolation. He raised the gun.

"Stand sideways. Now hold it against your hip," she said. He propped it on his hipbone; she pushed it aside. "Not like that."

Bram rolled his eyes, but it was with a smile. He did as she directed. He had always been a good listener.

"Remember when we first met?" she said, stepping away.

"I met this gun first," he replied, and fired.

***

It had been in some dusty ruin on the road. The business end of the Chaperone was the first thing he'd seen.

Bram stared into the barrel before looking into the eyes of the woman holding it. When she saw he was no threat, the muzzle dropped.

"Nora Jericho," she said, as if she hadn't been about to shoot him. "Where'd you come from?"

He gestured behind him.

"What's your name?"

He tried to speak, but nothing came out. He was still shocked into silence.

"You know it ain't safe here, right?" she asked.

"'Cause of you?" he blurted without thinking. Grimacing, he looked wide-eyed at her for one tense moment.

Then she laughed, a short bark that made him flinch, and held out a hand in greeting.

"Nora," she said, starting again.

"…Bram," he answered at last. He shook her hand and gave a high, breathy laugh–a laugh of relief.

***

This time the shot hit its mark; the stump burst with the impact. Nora watched her husband smile, slow and triumphant.

Then they heard another shot, then another. A sudden burst of Arc energy seared the tree trunk beside them, crackling and burning. Bram stood frozen, but Nora grabbed the gun away from him and held it steady as she surveyed the rows of straight, tall trees.

A movement at the corner of her eye; she whipped around and fired. She hit the edge of a tree, enough to startle the Fallen behind it.

It turned to run, tripped on a root, and hit the ground. Its shock pistol skittered out of reach. It rolled onto its back, scrambling, as Nora approached with her gun. She heard no other shots, no other movement. It was alone. It was terrified. Two of its arms had been cut away at the elbow. The Fallen looked up from the barrel of her shotgun and locked eyes with her. It didn't even try to reach for its pistol.

Nora stood silent, her finger on the trigger, for a long moment. Then she nodded her head. At this permission, the Fallen rose to its feet, then turned and took off into the forest.

Nora waited until she could no longer hear its footsteps. Then she stooped, squatted, and picked up the gun the Fallen had dropped. She handed it to her husband.

"Here," she said. "More your speed."

She held onto her gun tightly. She wondered, briefly, if the Fallen had heard their practice shots and assumed they fired first. If it had attacked out of fear. She couldn't know.

Her husband's arms came around her. She relaxed her grip on the gun.

That night, she and Bram lay together in a shelter he had made in an old, rusted truck; he'd cleared the cab of spiders and put down blankets for a little comfort. Nora had climbed in, smiled, and declared it "good enough." In her way, that was thanks.

"Why'd you let it go?" Bram asked. Nora thought back to the Fallen's terrified eyes.

"The Chaperone ain't for killin'. It's for protectin'."

Bram put a hand on her belly. He felt how their baby shifted inside her. Nora didn't flinch.

"Little star's got a kick," Bram said, with that same high, breathy laugh of relief.

"All the best things do."

There were memories Amanda knew she had to keep. Her mother's death was one of them. Her father's, too. But the Chaperone was just as clear in her mind, even when the sound of their voices faded.

Amanda remembered the final shots of her mother's gun that rang out the night she died. The terror Amanda felt, and the loss. When she reached the Last City, the sound stayed with her through those early years. It would jolt her awake. It would pierce her thoughts. It would make her feel completely alone, even when she knew she wasn't.

But eventually, once she finally felt safe in the City's walls, the memory of that sound reverted from a terror to a comfort once more. It had kept her, and so many others, safe. Just like the City did now.

The gun had been laid to rest in her mother's grave. The only other person who had fired it was in his own grave a half day's walk north of the City, dead from disease. She couldn't bring them back like the Traveler could. She couldn't put her family back together. But there was something she could bring back, in a way.

"I have a commission," she said, and laid down everything she remembered about her mother's gun. The Tex Mechanica gunsmith took her plans with a smile. In two weeks it had soured to confusion, in four it had curdled to annoyance. Amanda inspected each piece as it was made, comparing them all to her memory.

"Not like that," she said. The chamber was retooled.

"Almost," she said. The barrel was reshaped.

"That's not right," she said, pointing at the curling designs that were meant to finish the weapon. At this, the frustrated armorer laid the chisels down on the worksurface.

"I've done everything you asked," she said, pushing away from the table with an exasperated huff. "Now what?"

"This is the only thing we got left," Amanda offered.

"Then do it yourself," the gunsmith said. "I'm not going to spend the rest of my life on this gun. I'm not even going to spend the rest of the day on it. Do it yourself."

She did.

It wasn't her mother's tools, or her mother's gun. Amanda had to keep reminding herself of that every time she tapped the tungsten chisel into the barrel. A pile of scrap metal, scored and marked and discarded, told her she was getting a little bit better at it each day. Her hands a little steadier, her memory a little sharper. Slowly, slowly, she traced the night in the cowshed with her chisel… and brought back the beauty of the gun before her eyes.

Then one day, Amanda pressed it against her hip, held the barrel, leaned forward. She'd seen her mother use it so many times that she could mimic the stance and movement, even though she'd never been allowed to fire it. Now her grip tightened, and she pulled the trigger.

When it fired, it fired clean. The sound was lighter, more piercing. But it kicked, and it shone. Her life was better than her mother's had been. Nora had made sure of it. And the life of this Chaperone would be better than its predecessor's as well.

It would keep people safe.

That was all that mattered.