The snow-glazed peaks of Caeli’s Spine poked up through the clouds below. Leera was glad they’d left the horrors of Mount Aurora behind, but the unanswered questions each felt like a pellet of lead in her mind. She had held them in for the last few hours, but they weighed her down, and they needed to come out.

”What does it mean?” Leera asked Quick when the two others were busy bickering on the other side of the ship. “I don’t understand… why… why murder all those innocent people?”

Quick sighed and touched his beard. “Emotions rule the hearts of men – fear, anger, guilt… but also love. Passion can make us blind to what’s right and just, and to what’s unseemly and wicked.”

“I don’t believe love could make you burn someone alive and then string up their corpse in a tree... I refuse to believe that.”

The old man nodded and smiled patiently. “You are still blessed with youth, Miss Eirey, and all the benefits and burdens that come with it.”

Leera crossed her arms and stared at the box-shaped rucksack. It felt like the old man made less and less sense every time she spoke to him. She tried a more concrete question.

"What's in that bag?"

“Ah, those are the Tablets of Minah,” Quick said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“And what do you… do with them?”

“There are nine sets, each with ten tablets – one set rests in each of Caeli’s major cities. Legend has it that our ancestors entered a pact with the mountain spirits. One pure soul was the price for the right to call the lands of Caeli their home. But who was pure enough?" Quick threw out his hands as he spoke. "Was it perhaps a son from the noble House of Nimbo, or maybe a daughter of House Vane? Of course, our ancestors couldn’t decide which one of the nine houses of air-benders was the purest.”

Leera sat down with her back against Andromeda’s mast. She ran her fingers over the rough leather of the rucksack.

“While they were squabbling, a young girl stepped forth and offered herself to the spirits. Her peers laughed at her and mocked her, for she was a mere mundane, and as such, the very definition of impurity in their eyes. But the laughter soon faded because the spirits accepted her,” Quick said. “The spirits made her heart and soul their home, and the air folk made Caeli theirs. The tablets are a symbol of that pact.”

“But… what happened to the girl?”

“Ah, I think that is a story for another time.”

Leera carefully opened the rucksack. The tablets all had different hues and textures. She pulled one out and held it in her hands. It was a perfect square, cut from some unknown material, and had runes etched into its surface. It felt like a block of ice.

“So, there are ninety of them in total?”

“Ninety-one, to be precise,” Quick said, “One for each metal in the periodic table. The 91st tablet was given to the girl, so that she, too, could make a home for herself.”

Andromeda lurched and threw Leera off her cot. The small lantern in the ceiling rocked violently back and forth.

“What’s going on?” Leera said and massaged her hip, which had taken the impact of the fall.

Bryne didn’t answer, but his eyes were on Maya’s empty cot. He grabbed his knife and ran up the stairs with Leera stumbling behind.

It was still dark outside, and rain was splattering off the deck. Two figures were struggling and grappling in the stern of the ship.

“Quick!” Leera called out.

Bryne started running, and for a moment, it looked like the speed of his strides left a silhouette in the rain, then the shape twitched and started moving towards Leera. If it weren't for the rain, the shape would’ve been invisible, but due to the water, it had a clear outline.

“Quick!” she screamed as utter terror washed over her.

She tripped over her own feet and landed on the wet deck. Searing pain surged through her wrist and up her arm. The shape took a step forward and ran a hand up its arm. As if a sleeve had been pulled back, a hand appeared in the air in front of Leera. Its nails were jagged and yellow, and the pale gray skin was peeling off of it.

“Bry–”

She tried to scream, but her voice cracked and broke. The shape crouched down in front of her. The hand reached for her face.

In a panic, she scooted and pushed her way backward. The shape was crawling after her across the wet planks. Her back finally hit the railing. There was nowhere left to go. The shape stopped a few inches away from her. A smell of dirt and rot reached her nostrils. She gagged and felt tears fill her eyes. The hand reached out. It touched her neck. Icy needles pierced her skin.

The vision of a man wrapped in black cloth came over her. He was standing in a stone chamber lit by hundreds of candles, and even though his face was hidden by a cloak, Leera felt like the man was staring right at her. He held out his hand as if he was about to choke someone unseen. Leera noticed the tattoo of a scorpion on his forearm before the man closed his hand and everything went blurry and then faded to black.