“Mother once sang me to sleep. Now the cold hums instead. It has a voice, you know—sharp, bright, hungry. Last night, it asked for my brother’s name.”

  - Recovered diary of Iliana Crythos, Frostfire prodigy (pronounced dead at 14).

  Joan leaped without the pull of gravity, sailing from one end of the four-sectioned starship to the other. She wore the only spacesuit that wasn’t hidden in the ship’s armory or someone’s room when the slash landed. The doctor thanked her preparedness as she saw Dante in the corner of her eyes while he ignored the lack of air and braced for the bitter cold.

  With a mere glance, however, she calculated how long he would last.

  The chill of space shouldn’t bother him with Surewinter and his dense clothes. With the rate at which he’s moving and expending the oxygen in his blood, he’s got five minutes. Less than Lucius but far more than Astraeus.

  The surgeon lacked the empathy one would imagine she should possess as she landed beside the culmination of her thoughts. Joan kneeled on the drifting slab of metal while voices roared in her comms, the first being her captain, “Arch? Are you okay! Everyone, say something!”

  “I’m good!” Archimedes shouted first, then the others followed.

  “I’ll live.”

  “Ow... I’m okay. I landed next to the armory.”

  Joan noticed Eidolon’s lack of reply, but she focused on her work and said, with a hurried tone, “I’m fine. I’m working on Astraeus. He might not live.”

  Her four hands reached for the bag omnipresent at her hips, only to find open space. The cold encroached onto her gloved fingers as she stared down at her patient. Snowflakes flooded out of the half-decapitated neck while countless lacerations followed the rest of his body.

  She bit her lip and furrowed her brows in consternation.

  The mangled jump got my bag. Or Oswen did. It’s too chaotic to tell. Astraeus is bleeding out. Fast. That’ll get him before the suffocation or cold. But I haven’t done enough study on Anathema. Knew I should have forced him into my lab. Dante will be pissed if he dies, even if it seemed like he would earlier.

  Joan hesitated for a moment, as her spare tools were in a whole other section of the spaceship. Peering upward, she saw it floating away hundreds of feet from where she kneeled.

  A shake of her antenna sealed her decision.

  “I am sorry, Astraeus. There is nothing I can do without my tools or medicine,” Joan said, her voice almost genuine as she laid a palm on the Anathema’s chest.

  Panicked and dying, Astraeus gazed up at her. His tear-struck face reminded Joan of the countless who had died, laid out on her table. Before she had left her career, she had witnessed it so many times that it had driven her numb.

  A sigh emerged from her lungs before she saw snow build up at the man’s throat, desperately trying to plug a hole. Only with his lapsing consciousness, Astraeus’ Frigo failed to conjure any real strength.

  Joan’s eyes widened. Sparks of inspiration flew throughout the scientist’s mind before all four of her arms weaved backward, hanging in the air. Her focus collapsed into a pin-point as her breath slowed and blood froze.

  The hands of a surgeon emerged while her Tide trembled.

  I have been naive. Uncreative. Inelegant. How unlike me. The others... they use their Tides like weapons. How... elementary. These are not weapons. These are tools. Just like any other.

  Needles of bone forged upon each of Joan’s twenty fingertips, with thin strips of spine-like alabaster following the thin tools. This came far more naturally to Joan than any other use of her Tide. It was as if this was her purpose, her calling.

  Blades, shields, and even the exoskeleton she created in the Inferose were difficult, requiring her complete concentration and many minutes to conjure. Compared to Dante’s tsunami of water or Astraeus’ building-sized wall of snow, she was pitiful.

  But she was not meant to do such grandiose creations.

  Her expertise lay in the tiny, precise tools of life and death.

  Four arms fell to Astraeus’ throat while five times that number of tools went to work. The needles pulled the man’s neck together, nearly two dozen sutures all working in tandem like a team of ten doctors at once.

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  First, as the highest priority, she reconnected his veins, delivering the snowy blood into his brain and whatever else that resided in a Dirge’s skull. Then, she worked on the nerves, ensuring that the ice-blue dendrites connected to the others properly. Doing so, the bones she wielded narrowed even further, becoming nigh invisible in thickness.

  Next, the doctor brought together the bone and cartilage, fixing any inconsistencies or broken pieces with her own Tide. The marrow liquified and solidified all at once, becoming one with her patient’s system. The last part of the neck she rebuilt was the skin and muscles, restructuring both simultaneously.

  Joan’s focus widened in the next moment as she turned to his other injuries. The cuts from being hurtled through the Lightsea, tagging along with the starship through his Stigmata, were sealed in but a handful of seconds.

  From start to finish, Joan rebuilt the man beneath her in one minute and twenty-five seconds. The snowflakes of white blood covered both her and the surrounding starship ruins, but she smiled at what she had done. It was genuine. Heartfelt.

  It was her.

  Astraeus peered up at the woman who had saved him, utterly amazed by what she had done. His lungs burned with the pain and desire for air, but he could hold on a bit longer. He had never seen anyone other than a Miro manage to heal such fatal wounds. The only Arido he had known that could use Brightmist at the same level would never, for Geist cared little about his subordinates.

  Sure, he had seen her skills on display with Archimedes, but that was over the course of many days and weeks.

  Here?

  The Anathema had no words.

  A hand, however, fell from the doctor as she stood, offering to the man her help. All the light and joy from her eyes faded by saying into their comms, “Get up. We need to reach the other parts before they fade away.”

  Astraeus nodded and took that hand, rising to his feet with a visible wobble. He felt weak as his chest burned, but he cycled Surewinter, letting the frigid crystals help circulate the air in his body. It partially relieved his suffocation, but the weakness remained.

  Of course, he had no complaints.

  The man extended his right arm and called upon his Tide. It came as naturally as the breath of the runner, forming into a rope of snow that compacted as it reached outward. His brows furrowed as Joan watched silently.

  When she had leaped over, the pieces of the ship were far closer. Now, he had to touch the portion with the others drifting almost five hundred feet away. His exhaustion, both from his shattered Domain Collapse and his near-death, battled against such a feat.

  But the new life given to the Dirge carried a new level of determination. More than that, he knew something he hadn’t known just yesterday.

  Thanaris was alive.

  That one fact brought forth a strength to his Tide he had never felt before. It ballooned and reached the ruins of the Heron’s Wing before latching on like a claw.

  The innate aspect of Frigo’s durability strained against the weight of the broken ship, but the two didn’t waste much time. Joan and Astraeus climbed onto the bridge of snow and raced across the tightrope with all the speed they could manage. The latter used his connection with the Tide to run on his feet without effort, while the former burst tiny bone pricks from her boots to give her solid ground in the weightless space.

  Shortly after the two arrived at the others’ gathering, Sonna handed Astraeus a space suit and helped him put it on because he wasn’t used to such things. Lucius sat with a hand against his chest, coughing out blood into the mask of his own suit while Archimedes’ hands flew over the remains of the Skull that included his console.

  Dante nodded to his returned crew and stepped to his pilot, asking through his mic, “Where are we? That planet is huge. So many starships. Are we at a mercantile planet?”

  Archimedes shook his head and checked his charts just as Astraeus hobbled over with his suit on. His gloved hand tapped the inlaid map of the galaxy upon the heart of the Roman Empire, “Here. I sense the greatest gathering of Tides than ever before. This can only be one place.”

  The boy followed up with an unsteady voice, “Dante... he’s right. The jump was meant to put us at Orkath, but somehow, we went eighty times the distance. Most ships can only leap a fraction of the Heron’s Wing due to its high-quality engine, but...” Archimedes shivered, embarrassed by his lack of knowledge. “I’m not sure how, but we’ve arrived at Romul.”

  All eyes fell on Dante.

  “Shit!” The captain didn’t hide his surprise as he looked up at the planet, which now rotated above them. No one had yet investigated their appearance in the orbit of the capital, but that was only a matter of time.

  They had no ship, little money, and were fugitives, blamed for both Crislend’s fall and associated with the Inferose’s killing of Elize Sunwin. Worst of all, they were stranded in orbit, with no way to get down except to be rescued.

  And that would come with an investigation.

  Dante groaned as he searched his surroundings. He had a whole different problem. Eidolon was missing. The last he saw of the ghost was when he used his body to help keep the ship together when it entered the Lightsea.

  They had spent almost a whole minute falling through the Lightsea’s atmosphere, growing dangerously close to the fathomless waters before breaking through the dimension and reappearing in proper space. All the damage to the ship had ruined its ability to make a jump whatsoever, and it was only brute forced, thanks to Archimedes and Euclid.

  Once more, the genius proved all the effort Dante had made to recruit him. The captain patted the air behind the boy before he said, “Okay, we’re going to go incognito. Our emergency oxygen will last about an hour for all of us. Joan, I need you to put Temps on each of us before the search and rescue party arrives. Arch, create fake identities for us. Merchants selling medicine. Get us the credentials for that, too.”

  Lucius groaned as he stood, already knowing what was coming next as he was starting to understand his captain’s thinking. Still, he asked for confirmation with a sore voice, “Want me to fetch her back-up supply?”

  Dante shook his head and refused the offer, “No. I’ll do that. You sit and rest. We’ll be outed as Seafarers most likely. I bet the capital is swarming with them unlike anywhere else. I need you to act as our merchant, Lucius, and we’ll be the hired hands since you can’t be sensed as a Seafarer.”

  A string of nods followed through the crew before Sonna struggled to speak through her piercing headache. Still, she eeked out, “What about me?” Blood still dribbled from her nostrils, but she stood nonetheless.

  Joan laughed as water emerged from Dante’s fingertips toward the retreating image of the piece of the ship that contained the doctor’s tools and spare medicine. She patted Sonna on the back and pulled her toward Lucius, “Help me fix him. It’ll be suspicious for our employer to be the only one injured.”

  Sonna smiled with something to do before Astraeus collapsed beside her. The Dirge fell with his back against one of the few remaining walls.

  “I’ll work on him instead. You can handle a Martian, right?” The Arido changed her target, but Joan didn’t argue.

  Bony needles emerged from the doctor’s fingertips while mist bloomed from Sonna’s palms. As a well-oiled machine, they worked all in concert. No arguments, no complaints.

  The touch of death brought even enemies together. These five had been through far too much to let their disagreements matter when push came to shove.

  As Dante launched himself over to the other section of the starship, he looked back. A thin smile arose as he fought to dampen his joy.

  This is what he had wanted. For so many years. So many years.

  The face of his brother flickered by, and of their shared dreams. A great group of friends, sailing the stars, unearthing artifacts, discovering dimensions, and shattering unknown secrets.

  However, the ideals of children were quickly shattered by the adult face of his brother. Of his own scarless facade.

  There was a man out there who knew something about his brother that even Dante didn’t. The man wished for nothing more than to force Ego to tell him all that he knew, but Dante was too weak. The run-in with Oswen showed him such. And... next time, Oswen would go for the kill immediately instead of capture.

  Ego would have done the same to him without the Lightsea Pact holding him back. Furthermore, Dante didn’t think the Ego he saw was healthy, either, based on his interactions with him.

  Starvation and lack of resources weakened that ‘thing’ to a degree that he had to jump into Dante’s body. The path forward shone clear.

  He had to build connections, allies, and his own strength.

  Then, he’d find him. And shatter that facade to find the secrets hidden beneath.