Nova didn’t dare take the bundle back out till the next night’s snores settled into rhythm. She crept out of bed and unwrapped the floral cloth with trembling hands.

The punishment is death.

It was a nothing less than a godsmetal diadem, as fine and perfect as the ring made by a raindrop fallen on still water. She couldn’t fathom how Kora had gotten ahold of such a treasure. Every gram of godsmetal mined in all of Mesaret was accounted for in multiple ledgers and guarded by imperial soldiers. Only Servants sanctioned by the crown were granted the use of it, under strictest oaths and oversight. People killed for it, fought wars for it, wasted fortunes mining for it.

And what was Nova even supposed to do with it?

If she touched it, her skin would turn blue and give her away, and what good was her gift to her, anyway? Pirate. Skathis had spat out the word like a bite of rotten meat, as though there were nothing more contemptible in the world. She hadn’t understood it then, but she’d had a lot of time to think, and now she thought she did. Her power was to steal power, but there was none on Rieva worth stealing. On her own, she was helpless, godsmetal or not, trapped on an island at the bottom of the world.

But Kora knew all that, and still she’d sent it, with the message:

Find me. I am not free.

Which could only mean that Kora was even more trapped than she was.

A seismic shift occurred in that moment. Nova had been waiting for her sister to save her. But what if she had to save her sister?

Purpose possessed her, and a strange calm descended. She wrapped up the diadem. She hid it well. And while Shergesh snored and the sea iced over for the long winter dark, Nova began to plan.

Chapter 38

The Sea Stared Back

The waiting was the worst part. The plan was madness, and there was no way to know if it would even work. Nova couldn’t very well test it. For all she knew, she would be caught and executed. Still, there was nothing to do but try to act normal, day in, day out, waiting. Always, she carried on her silent conversations.

With the star:

Tell Kora I’m coming.

With the sea:

Haven’t you frozen yet? Could you hurry, dear? I’d be obliged. You see, I’ve somewhere to be.

With her husband:

You don’t know what I am, old man, but you will. I promise you that.

And her father:

I’m going to use you, and ruin you, and then I’m going to laugh. I hope you enjoyed your five bronze coins.

And they couldn’t read her thoughts, but nor could they hold her gaze, and always looked away first. Well, except the sea. The sea stared back, and even as it slowly iced over, it was warmer, Nova thought, than her husband or her father.

At last, the time came. The sea froze. The only escape from Rieva was across the ice to Targay, a larger island with a harbor where icebreakers docked even in winter. Nova had considered striking out alone, but the ice was treacherous. It was never still. It buckled and cracked, broke apart, smashed together, with force enough to behead breaching uuls. To make it all that way, she needed more than luck. She needed someone who could freeze water and make a solid path.

Someone like her father.

His gift, of course, was dormant. It was also weak. But Nova kept coming back to that one line from Kora’s letter—how the Mesarthim had said she had made their gifts stronger. She wondered: Could it be true? That day in the wasp ship was such chaos in her recollection. But once the notion gripped her, she could not let it go. It really was her only chance. Of course, Zyak would hardly agree to help her escape.

That was where Shergesh came in.

Nova crept out of bed. Heart pounding, she took the diadem from its hiding place, peeled back the beautiful cloth, and gazed in awe at the godsmetal. If she was going to do this mad thing, she would have to touch it, let it work on her. The punishment is death, as Kora had reminded her, though she needed no reminding. If she touched the diadem, she would become blue, and there could be no going back.

Her hands shook as she let the cloth fall and grasped the circlet in both hands. The metal was cool and smooth. She watched her skin flush gray, then blue, as the hum moved over her and into her, awakening what was inside her. She recognized it now, and drew it forth. And then she went and knelt beside her sleeping husband.

Everyone knew what Shergesh’s gift had been. He bragged of it all the time, and liked to say what he would use it for if it were at his disposal. On their wedding night, when Nova had balked at taking off her clothes, he’d told her, “If I had my power, you’d do what I tell you.” He’d wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and leered. “But that would take the fun out of making you do it.”

Which he had then proceeded to do.

Mind control. That was his power—too weak for the empire’s use, but, Nova hoped, not for hers. If she could amplify it, then she could use it—to control not only him but her father, too. Careful not to wake the shriveled old tyrant, she touched the diadem to his wrist. He stirred while the hum moved through him, but he was a deep sleeper and did not wake. When it was all done, and he was as blue as she was, she gave him a hard shove and said, “Wake up, old man. It’s time you found out what you married.”

Wake up he did, and he blinked at her in the firelight as though he must be dreaming. She didn’t give him time to realize he wasn’t. She snatched his gift. It was easy, bless Thakra. It was right there for the taking. And as soon as she had it, she turned it back on him. “Get up and get dressed for a journey.”

Still blinking, confused, Shergesh rose from the furs.

And did exactly as she bid.

And that was how Novali Nyoka-vasa came to cross the frozen sea with a sledge, a team of dogs, and the men who had bought and sold her.

It took a month. Targay was not near, and the way was anything but easy. When they ran out of food, they had to fish, and that took time. Over and over they came to broken ice, and each time Nova looked into the black water, she felt its soft persuasion all the way down to her bones.

It’s too far, it said. It’s too late.

Every day it got harder and harder to tune it out. She had to pour all her power—and Zyak’s—into mending the ice, to forge a way onward. The single diadem between them, they had to take it in turns to hold it against their skin, so their power could not ebb away, and all that they did—every single thing—was the work of Nova’s will, using the power she stole from them to keep them in line.

There was no room for mercy, and they deserved none. She felt no pity, and no triumph, either. She was too weary for triumph, and aware at every moment how quickly it could all go wrong. She could only sleep in snatched moments, when they were both sleeping, too, and in her fatigue she felt like she was floating, unable to settle in her skin. Shergesh was not strong, and had to ride in the sledge. Nova feared he’d die before they reached their destination, and she only cared because if he did, she would lose her control over her father. It took a great deal of her focus to keep her grip on his mind. Whenever she slackened her hold, she could feel him trying to resist her, even occasionally gaining a moment or two of freedom. Once, she nodded off, only to jerk awake and see him charging toward her, his silence at odds with the viciousness of his face. “Stop!” she commanded, and he jerked to a halt. She was afraid to sleep after that.

Every day, she’d find her star in the sky, and ask it to pass a message to Kora.

I’m coming, she always said, and always she hoped that the white bird would appear, as it had on Deepwinter’s Eve. But it never did. In fact, she made it to Targay, and from there all the way to Aqa, but she never saw the bird again. She reached the imperial city to find it fallen into chaos—the emperor dead, his godsmetal stolen, and all hell broken loose.

And Kora? She was already gone.

Chapter 39

Treacherous Whisper

The seraphim of long ago had made the portals because they could.

The endeavor was wrapped in words of glory, and there was greatness in it: The discovery of the Continuum that was the great All, an infinite number of universes lying pressed together like pages? The ability to pierce through them, and voyage from world to world? Who, with such a power, would not use it?

The Faerers were called the lightbearers, and glory was their mission. Six went in one direction, six the other, and they wrote the greatness of their race into each world they discovered. They were magnificent. It was only natural they should be worshipped. Religions sprang up in their wake. So did mass graves. Saviors to some, they were destroyers to others. In the world of Zeru they slaughtered one race to liberate another, and the name of their leader, Thakra, came to signify the dualism of beauty and terror.

Angels were not for the faint of heart.

The two Sixes put hundreds of worlds between them, flying ever outward from Meliz. And then one of them cut a door too far. It opened into darkness, and the darkness was alive.

This came to be known by survivors as the Cataclysm, though survivors were tragically few. The Faerers fled back whence they’d come, and the great beasts of darkness pursued, pouring after them through the cuts they’d made from sky to sky to sky. All the way back to Meliz they came, and every world the Faerers had opened, they devoured. Even Meliz was lost, Meliz eternal, the garden of the Continuum. Those seraphim who escaped into the neighbor world Eretz managed to hold the portal closed, and they held it to this day, pouring their strength into shoring up their sky to keep the darkness at bay.

A bold young queen in that distant world was even now training a legion of angels and chimaera to battle the darkness and hopefully destroy it. But that’s another story.

As for the other Six, led by Thakra—who knows? Perhaps they died long ago, or perhaps they’re still going, far, far out in the infinity of the great All. That’s another story, too.

This is the story of the portals between Zeru and Mesaret, and how they were used after the angels had moved on, and by whom, and at what cost.

Mesaret was the world with the extraordinary blue metal that made its people like gods. Through the cuts in the sky their empire spread. With their skyships and soldier-wizards, they were invincible. For a time.