64 East

Dumai, Kanifa, Nikeya, and Master Kiprun ride Furtia and Nayimathun north along the Whinshan Ridge, flying at dusk to avoid wyrms. They witness burned lands, a destroyed outpost, a plague-marked Lacustrine soldier, and a slain dragon, Taugran—signs that earth-fire sickness and wyrms devastate the East.

Reaching Golümtan beneath the Lords of Fallen Night, they meet Princess Irebül, who views the cataclysm as the end of an age and grants Dumai permission to seek the astronomer on Brhazat in exchange for knowledge. Irebül names the woman Tonra and promises to inform Consort Jekhen if Dumai survives.

Furtia and Nayimathun carry them up Brhazat into air too thin for humans. At a tiny balcony-door high on the peak, Dumai and Kanifa rope together and leap from Furtia to the ice while Nikeya, already failing from altitude, turns back. Nayimathun departs to protect her homeland, warning of a coming star.

Inside Tonra’s icy cave-home, Dumai and Kanifa find Tonra dead but preserved. Her writings, partly in Seiikinese, speak of a pact, a “quickened stone,” and a comet due next spring (the twelfth year of the fifth century) that will cool the risen fire and restore balance. They recover a blue, pearl-smooth stone from a silver box.

A storm and wyrms close over the city below. With no sign of Furtia, Dumai and Kanifa begin a perilous descent. In darkness and sleet, an ice shelf collapses; Dumai arrests her fall with sickles, but Kanifa dangles from their rope. Realizing Dumai cannot save them both, Kanifa cuts the rope, sacrificing himself so Dumai can live.

Alone and failing, Dumai crawls to a ledge and begins to freeze. Voices—sisterly and draconic—urge her to find inner light. She reaches for it, and a brilliant white radiance flares from her hand before she loses consciousness.