Black rust covered the mountain construct, but whatever disease had killed the machine was satisfied for the moment. The mountain was dead, and the rust ate no more. Poire was leaning down to touch something wet and bloody and black on the ground. Before he could touch it, the blackness crystallized over the pink tissue, and turned it into ash.

Eolh saw Poire’s disappointment, but the fledgling human was focused on the wrong thing.

“Help her!” Eolh descended to Poire, and laid Agraneia’s broken form in the shadow of the broken mountain. Blood ran rivers through Eolh’s talons, staining his feet dark with her blood.

She would not survive. It was not possible. But he needed Poire to try.

Eolh’s heart thundered in his ears, louder than his thoughts. Louder than the shallow sound of Agraneia’s breath. I can’t lose her. I won’t. Not her, nor Poire. Nor Yarsi. Nor-

The human was saying something. He had his hands out and he was touching Agraneia, and Eolh was losing his mind because Poire was moving so slow. Couldn’t he see? Agra was dying. And Poire was just standing there. If they didn’t do something- If Poire didn’t do something-

All the liquid metal streamed up Poire’s arms, and flooded over the cyran. Cold as ice, it slid and pooled under her scales, and into the shredded remains of her left half. Wet chrome covered the bones sticking out of her shoulder, and capped the stump of her leg. It did not stop, until she was completely encapsulated in the armor.

Eolh’s eyes were wide, and he made short, sharp breaths. He couldn’t take his hands of Agraneia, though now all he could feel was the cold touch of metal. With the smooth metal covering her eyes, she looked nothing like herself. Only a broken statue, made of metal. Eolh’s chest was tight, and made it hard to keep breathing, and it felt like none of this was real. How could this be real? The fledgling human put his hand on Eolh’s arm, and something about the warmth of Poire’s fingers brought Eolh back down to this world. To this moment.

“This armor. Will it…?” Eolh started to ask, but he did not want to finish.

“You need to bring her to the Cauldron,” Poire said. “She will last. The armor will keep her safe, until the Doctor can give her nanite. It’s the best we can do.”

The half statue of Agraneia was hard and unyielding to his touch, just like real metal. Only this metal was in the process of saving her life. It should not be possible.

A miracle, Eolh thought. I am holding a miracle.

Poire said, “Eolh. Listen to me. The armor can’t keep her safe forever. There are four gates at the top of the pyramid. One at each corner. I can make them work from down here.”

“From down here?”

“You need to bring her to the Cauldron. The Doctor should have nanite. It’s the best we can do.”

“Wait,” Eolh said, unconsciously tightening his grip on Agraneia. “Are you saying you want to stay here? Fledge, I’m not leaving you. You’re coming with us.”

“No.”

Who knew a single word could so easily make Eolh’s heart stop?

“Why?” Eolh asked. “What could possibly make you think you should stay here?”

The human’s lips trembled, but he said nothing. But there was that look in the human’s eyes. Eolh had seen it twice before. Had been wrong about it, twice before.

This time, he learned.

“You know something,” Eolh said. “You think you figured it out.”

Poire nodded, even as his mouth twisted with grief. How expressive, those human faces were. How much emotion they could show, with so little effort.

“Fledge-”

“I am the only one who must stay, Eolh. And I am the only one who can stop this.”

“Fledge-”

“I know how to save them. I have to stay. I can save everyone.”

“Fledge,” Eolh said. “Will you shut up and let me say goodbye?”

Poire recoiled, as if Eolh had just slammed a fist into his gut. And when he did manage to speak, his voice was weak, “Goodbye?”

“How long have I been watching you, fledge? Sometimes, you think you know better than the rest of us. That’s why Laykis told me to guard you, at all times. But now… I can tell that you know something the rest of us couldn’t possibly understand,” Eolh breathed in deep through his nares, and looked down at Agraneia’s body frozen on the ground, “I don’t know what the future holds. I barely understand what's going on here. But if you say I must go—and if you say you must stay—then I will go. And you will stay. I trust you.”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to do. What if I’m making a really bad decision?”

Eolh smirked, only a little. “The fact that you’re asking that now proves that you know what you’re doing. This,” he looked up the slopes of the pyramid, to the hollow world above, “This is your world. And we are only visitors. If I thought you were lost, Fledge… But no. You are the only one who isn’t. So…”

“So?”

“So,” Eolh swallowed, hard. Blinked away the pain in his eyes. “This is goodbye.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not?”

Poire’s chin quivered, as he fought back the tears that threatened to spill over.

The sight of Poire, standing there, overwhelmed with the same awful joy and bright sadness that Eolh felt clawing in his throat made something crack in the corvani.

He blew out a low caw, and said, “All right. Not goodbye, then. How about, until we meet again?”

Poire broke into a smile. Then, he rushed forward and threw his arms around Eolh. When did he get so strong? Eolh wondered, as he laughed and struggled to breathe and embraced Poire back.

“I could have wished,” Poire said, “For no better friend.”

Gods, Eolh thought, sniffed back the tears that were threatening to fall.

Then, they were apart. Poire was saying how little time there was. And Eolh asked, “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to try to talk to Sen. I need to ask her one last thing. If she’s still alive.”

“And if not?”

“Khadam is coming.”

“You trust her?”

Poire shook his head. “I don’t know. I think we’re on the same side. I think Laykis helped her see what she was too stuck to see.”

There was a sound, as Yarsi crept over to them. Her claws scraped on the metal of the pyramid, as she knelt beside Agraneia’s cold body. The lassertane put her hands on Agraneia, and Eolh was about to tell her to “leave the cyran alone,” when he realized the child was only praying. Giving her thanks. The lassertane’s face was grim, but she shed not a tear.

“Time is short,” Poire said, pulling Eolh’s attention back. “For her.”

“Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to help?”

“This is beyond you, Eolh,” Poire said.

“And what about you? Are you sure you’ll be fine on your own?”

Poire was silent. Eolh could see him wavering. All that resolve, that confidence in his purpose already starting to crumble.

“Tell me something, Poire.”

“Tell you what?”

“Are you really a god?”

“Eolh…”

“No, it’s your turn to listen. Remember the first time we spoke?” Eolh said, “I didn’t know what the hells you were. But since we’ve been together… I’ve made up my mind. Now, I’m asking for you. My people think that the gods were all powerful. The cyrans don’t know whether to worship the gods or fear them. But me? I think a god is someone who gets to choose. That’s it. And if you get to choose, Poire — if you are a god — then I know everything is going to be OK. I was lost for so damn long, until I found you. You are the reason I’m alive. You’re the reason I am me again. All because of your choice. So, if you are a god… if you get to choose… Everything will be all right.”

Poire’s mouth worked at the empty air, unable to respond. For a moment—perhaps a moment too long—they stared at each other. Then, Poire’s dropped his head. And gave no answer.

Instead, Poire nodded at Agraneia. “When she wakes-”

”You’re certain she will?”

“The nanite will work on her. She’s strong.”

“Damn right she is,” Eolh said, though he felt knots in his chest as he spoke it.

“Tell her she was always worthy. It was the world that needed to be worthy of her.”

“I’ll tell her. And the hatchling?” Eolh nodded at Yarsi, who was still kneeling over Agraneia, her eyes squeezed shut, her tiny lassertane claws clasped in prayer as she whispered to herself.

Poire kneeled next to her, and whispered something to her. Eolh strained to hear them both.

“Is this all?” Yarsi asked. “I wait for so long, only for this?”

“I had a caretaker once,” Poire said. “Who loved me. When I was your age, I used to ask the same thing. Do you know what she told me?”

“What?” Yarsi whispered, breathlessly awaiting Poire’s answer.

“She said that there will always be more for those who want. Always.”

And Eolh watched Poire pull something off his neck—that little, ancient relic from his past. He had called it a, what again? A switch? With some strange lettering written on it.

“There is a prayer written on this,” Poire said to Yarsi, as he looped the twine around her neck. She bowed her head, and took it so solemnly. “A word of power. Override. It’s for those times when you know that destiny is wrong. And you need to make a change.”

Her claws wrapped around the token. Her fingers, trembling. She grabbed it with both hands, and bowed before Poire.

Eolh bent down to scoop up Agraneia, and parts of the metallic liquid stuck to him, making it easier to carry the cyran’s body. Before they left, Poire handed Eolh something else.

And they began the long trek up the side of the pyramid, toward the gate that would take Eolh home.

***

The Grid was working only a few weeks ago. No, it must’ve been months since they’d come to Sen’s planet.

But the Grid wouldn’t connect.

Poire knew his home code. He had seen it so many times before. Maybe I could try a direct connection…

He plugged in the code, expecting it to throw a thousand errors. Kaya is far, it should be out of reach of these gates. Instead, it locked in. One of the pyramids gates began to power up.

How?

Perhaps Sen had altered these gates in particular. Poire shrugged. Perhaps he would never know.

His worries were drawn more to Agraneia, anyway. The liquid armor was military-grade, meaning it would do everything it could to preserve her. Just like it was supposed to preserve Marsim. Poire wasn’t sure if she would survive, but he lacked the heart to tell Eolh. In the moment, it felt more important to give Eolh some kind of hope to cling to, even if only for a moment.

No, that wasn’t true either. He was worried about Agraneia, but that worry was pointless, and he clung to it only to avoid the truth of what must be done.

What he must do.

Alone.

More than anything, Poire wanted to go with them. He didn’t care about his Conclave, or going back to his old home. He wanted to go with them, with his friends.

But his place was here. Salvation was here. And true salvation always requires sacrifice.

That’s what he told himself, while the tears streamed down his face. The gate made its keening sound, and Poire thought he saw Eolh waving down at him, and he had to wipe his eyes before he waved back. And then, there was a flash of Light, as the gate carried them away.

Why me? He asked himself, for the ten thousandth time. Why did it have to be me?

***

When the cyrans first came to Gaiam, they decimated Eolh’s city. For the next nineteen years, they shipped more cyrans through the gate, and Eolh could only watch as his people were forced from their homes, to live in the streets.

Then came Poire.

And the cyrans burned it all down again.

This time, the gate opened and Eolh found himself surrounded by a soaring city-scape that he did not recognize. A moment of panic. Did Poire send us to the wrong planet?

But no. There was the old tea shop he used to perch on, looking for likely targets. And there was the distinguished stoop that used to sell pipeleaf and papers. That rowhouse, he had run a job there once and hid in someone’s window. And these were the vines and heavy ferns and huge kapok trees that he knew so well. Only, now, the kapok trees were dwarfed by new, gleaming towers of—not wood and thatch and clay bricks—but enormous seastone blocks, sturdy and made to last for centuries, laced with metal filigrees and pocketed by hundreds of balconies and roosts that soared into the air high above. Dozens of towers now steepled the Midcity, and new roofs on the rowhouses, and even the old temples shined brighter than ever. Once-small residences, squeezed in between alleys or crumbling apartment blocks, now gleamed white and gold, dappled with so much greenery.

Statues of avian royalty and of the gods lined the central vium. Where the figure of the human soldier once stood, there was now a metal-cast representation of a new human. Of Poire. Laurels decorated his arms, his neck, and a whole garden of flowers lay at his feet, with bowls of incense casting fresh fragrances down the street.

And Lowtown…

“What the hells happened to Lowtown?” Eolh said.

Yarsi tugged at his vest, her eyes wide with wonderment. “You live like this?”

“No,” Eolh croaked, “I’ve never seen this. Last time I was here, Lowtown was half ash. And the other half was falling to pieces.”

“They do good job,” Yarsi said.

“Yeah,” Eolh said, drawing out the word, as if he could not believe his eyes.

Even before the fires, Lowtown hadn’t been pretty. A ramshackle maze of stackhouses and narrow apartments that had no business supporting themselves. It wasn’t uncommon to hear a collapse in the middle of the night, as a dozen makeshift roofs capsized under their own weight.

Now? Lowtown was a green paradise. Even his oldest haunts were overhauled with stone and gold and metal, and glorious scalloped towers dotted the cityscape. A set of seastone arches marched down from the cliffs toward the Cleft, each one covered with a unique style of greenery or vines and winding flowers. One enormous tower was encircled by a ramp that wound up to a hanging garden and—are those waterfalls dripping off the roof? Aerial bridges and railed walkways crisscrossed through the city, connecting everything and anything above ground level.

Eolh spun in a slow circle, until he caught something he did recognize. The seven towers still stood taller than all the rest, though now they were wrapped in swirling braces of gold, filigreed to look like vines climbing up their stony parapets.

A clutch of falkyr guards stomped down the vium, toward the gate, their armor gleaming in the afternoon light. They stopped short of the gate, and stared past Eolh.

“Uh,” he said. Instinctively, he thought about slinking away. Falkyr did not mix with lowborn, and historically, they very much did not mix with Eolh.

But before he could do anything, a shriek of rage parted the falkyr. The Queen pushed through, all the feathers of her crest and shoulders stuck up and shook with rage. It was as if she was wearing spiked armor, made of purest white and deepest brown.

Eolh swallowed hard. He dropped to a knee, and muttered for Yarsi to do the same.

“Eolh of Lowtown,” Queen Ryke av’Ryka shouted, “You dare come back, after what you did?”

Yarsi huddled against him, trying to hide in his shadow. She whispered, “Is she going to eat us?”

“Of course she’s not going to eat us,” Eolh whispered. He didn’t say that she might do much worse.

“You left,” the Queen said, “Without my permission. You left with the Divine Savior himself. You left. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Eolh found that, suddenly, the air had grown too thick and hot to breathe. He shifted from one knee to the other, all his instincts screaming at him to run. But he had to help Agra. It didn’t matter what the Queen would do to him, he had to try.

“My Queen. This cyran has paid aviankind—and all xenos—a great service. She is in dire need of medical attention-”

Ryke sang a command, and the falkyr muscled into a circle around Eolh and Yarsi and the fallen Agraneia.

“A cyran?” Ryke hissed. “And is this the godling’s armor she wears?”

Eolh dared to gaze up at Ryke. “Please. She needs nanite.”

Then, he thought better of it, and lowered himself all the way to the ground, “Please. I beg you.”

Eolh’s beak scraped against the cold metal of the gate. It bit into his limbs, and it made his joints ache to lay like this. But the silence that dragged on ached far more. Still, he resisted the urge to look up.

Agraneia need him. Whatever punishment, whatever pain was coming his way, he would accept.

The Queen spoke to her guards, “Take this one to the Green Doctor. No expense to be spared. Carefully,” Ryke warned as they hefted Agraneia’s strange, metal-covered body. Four of them marched off, carrying Agraneia frozen in repose, missing two of her limbs and, for all Eolh knew, already dead.

Then, Ryke commanded the rest of her guards to “leave us.”

They were alone. There were shoppers and travelers and other people in the streets, but they were alone.

“Get up,” Ryke said.

Eolh obeyed.

“Since when,” Ryke asked, “Does the Listener of Lowtown beg for anything?”

“I beg for her.”

“Is she…” Ryke started to ask, and then stopped.

“Agraneia saved my life.”

“Then you two are not-”

“No,” Eolh met her eyes. They shone with the fury of the sun. And, maybe, with something else. “Agraneia and I are blood now. She saved my life, and I saved hers. But we never…”

Perhaps Eolh was imagining it, but he thought he saw lines of tension melt away from Ryke’s face. The Queen was so close to him, he could smell her. Not just her perfume, but the soft scent of her feathers. He could see the curve of her shoulders, the crook of her neck.

“I have only ever…” Eolh started, and stopped. He could not say what was in his heart, because it could never be.

“You could have died,” Ryke said.

“But I did not.”

She was standing so close, their beaks almost touched. Every muscle in his body wanted to reach out and… No.

“We heard nothing, after you went to Cyre” Ryke said. “I worried about you. Every day.”

“You?” Eolh asked. “About me?”

She whispered, “You left without a word.”

Here it came. She was the Queen, and he had disobeyed her by leaving without her blessing. With Poire, no less. What would she do to a traitor?

“Promise you won’t ever do that again.”

“I- what?”

“Promise.”

Eolh swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. He held her gaze, he breathed her in, and he made a promise. “I will always come back.”

Ryke slid her arms under Eolh’s, and sank into him. It felt like lightning was running through his veins, holding him in place. Too stunned to move, he just stood there, until her hand traveled up to the back of his neck, training an electric line up his spine. He put his arms around her, and pulled her in close.

Despite the humid heat of the Cauldron air, the warmth of her body felt right. Nothing more. Just right.

They stood for a long moment, holding each other. Ryke buried her beak in the feathers down his back, preening and squeezing and holding him as if she was afraid letting go would mean he would float away. But Eolh wasn’t going anywhere. Not if he could help it.

I’m home.

“Uhhh…” a small voice said, somewhere behind Eolh. “I guess she not eat us, then.”

They disentangled from each other, and turned to face Yarsi.

Ryke crouched down, her voice soft and friendly as she asked, “And who might you be? And… wait. Where is Poire?”