The flurry reached the tunnel’s mouth, and the figure within spread her arms and wings. The acid snow blew back and away from her as she stepped into the shelter of the tunnel, her brilliant scales untouched by so much as a single flake.

I backed against the wall for support, dazzled in every way possible. Her scales resembled the enormous Gem peeking up over the collar of her white tunic. Brilliant, light-shattering, colorless and every color at once. Her fur was silver, and so soft-looking it almost hurt not to reach out and touch it. My hand rose of its own accord, and I forced it back down.

The Diamond’s nostrils flared as she looked at me, her gaze intense but detached. Her tail was still.

She said something, but I was too busy trying to reign in my instincts to process it.

“Wha…huh?”

Step on me. Please.

“Soltras-an. The Topaz. Are they in here?”

“Oh! Yes. Totally.” I gestured loosely down the tunnel. “Right down that, um…that way.”

The Diamond blinked, peering at me a moment longer before brushing past and down the tunnel. Without even really thinking about it, I followed.

The others all looked up with varying expressions of surprise as the new skyborn and I came into view.

Reve, who’d sat themselves down on one of the moss beds, stood up—flexing their wings as the Diamond approached.

“The others sent me. Your friends are worried about what happened to you,” said the newcomer, peering around at the cavern as she spoke. “And some of the Sapphires have become concerned with how our treatment of these ones will reflect on our nature.” She indicated Keshry, Destrien and I with a jerk of her thumb.

Reve scoffed, made to retort, but the Diamond just spoke over them. “They were insisting you let them back under the rooftop, assuming you were all still alive. However,” she turned her head to glance back at me. “It seems you’re better off up here, aren’t you?”

I just swallowed, transfixed by the icy gray of her eyes.

“For now, perhaps,” said Destrien. “But thanks to the acid, we don’t have any proper water up here.”

The Diamond’s tail lashed once and then stopped.

“I have enough mana to get whoever would like to go safely back down with me. But I won’t have enough to come back with water for anyone who stays. Not until tomorrow.”

“Th-the snow should stop before then, right? Because there’s no way I can go back down there now.” I looked desperately around from one to the next of them, my gaze coming to a stop on the Diamond and fixing there.

“It would be unwise,” she agreed dryly. “In fact, there’s another deepborn coming into his Moon whom I should think would appreciate the refuge, though whether he’ll appreciate sharing it with you, I can’t be so sure,” she looked to me again and my knees went weak.

“He’s welcome, if he can, um…if he can get here,” I sputtered.

“If need be, I’ll help him up when I bring the water tomorrow. Now come,” she said, turning her attention back to Reve. “I haven’t eaten yet thanks to your friends’ pestering, and I’d very much like to.”

Without waiting for a response, she turned and made to head back up the tunnel.

“Wait!” I called after her. “Do you…do you want some of our food? We still have a lot.”

“Hey,” protested Destrien, getting to his feet. “My familiar caught that, it’s not yours to just offer around.”

But the Diamond ignored both of us, continuing around the curve and out of sight. Reve looked like they’d just tasted something extremely sour, but followed after her anyway. Keshry didn’t budge, she was studying a part of the wall again, seemingly transfixed.

“You’re not going down with them, Keshry?” I asked. She blinked a few times as if coming out of some kind of trance, but didn’t take her eyes off the patch of uneven stone on which she’d been transfixed.

“Oh no,” she said. “I like it here.”

“Aren’t you worried about getting thirsty?”

I was. In fact, I was already reconsidering my decision to stay. Though in honesty, the desire to maintain proximity to the Diamond was as much a motivating factor as were any concerns over hydration.

“A bit,” Keshry admitted, looking to me finally and smiling. “But I told you that I would help you through this, and that is what I am going to do.”

I extended my hand to her, and she took it. I helped her up.

“Please go, it’s alright. With no skyborn in here and the snow to keep me in, I don’t really have anything to worry about, do I?”

She furrowed her brow.

“I don’t think—“

“Please. At least go with them for now. Get some water, spend some time by the fires. Then, if you want, you can come back up tomorrow.”

It hurt a bit to say it. I didn’t really want her to go, didn’t want to be alone. But I didn’t want to do wrong by one of the nicest people I’d ever met, in this world or the old, either.

“No skyborn?” interjected Destrien, frowning over at us. “I’m a kobold of my word as well, you know. I’m not leaving unless Keshry does…and if she returns, so do I.”

“Oh stop it,” I snapped. “She’s in no danger from me and you know it.”

“As if there aren’t other dangers than you up here,” he sniffed.

“Whatever they are, they’re not getting past the acid,” I argued, turning from him to focus on Keshry again.

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“Really. It’s ok,” I insisted, squeezing her hands

She looked at me the same way I’d seen her look at open air and stone walls. As if she were seeing past my face and into something much more interesting beyond. Her expression shifted into one of understanding.

“Very well. I will go for the night,” she said, turning her vacantly penetrating gaze on Destrien. “As long as you promise to leave Scruffy here. It is dangerous to be alone.”

“Yes, yes,” he said, now bent over what remained of the beast-half. There was a series of popping and tearing sounds as he worked hastily at the thing before succeeding in ripping off one of its legs. Leaving that on the stone in a spreading pool of blood—whether for me or the condorgrag, I wasn’t sure—he hefted up the rest and looked to Keshry.

“Now let’s get on with it, if that Diamond hasn’t already left us behind.”

Throwing one reluctant look back at the bit of wall she’d been eyeing, Keshry followed after him. And then so did I, intent on getting one more look at the magnificent skyborn before she left and took her magnificence with her.

My fur raised on-end as we rounded the curve. I could tell something was wrong, somehow, could swear I heard a sound like the beating of wings. The others were silent as they came into view, peering out at the still-falling snow. The wing-beats continued, grew louder. There was movement in the sky. Not one figure, but many. Approaching swiftly.

Destrien dropped the meat.

“What…” I said in a hush as I came up behind them, drawing in as close to the Diamond as I could without being creepy. “What are those? Is the snow safe now?”

“Shut up,” hissed Reve.

I shut up. I listened.

There was the faintest sizzling sound. And with it, carried forward on the next gust of wind, came a smell so wretched I almost threw up on the spot. Acrid, burning, rotting flesh. My ears pressed back. The things drew closer, and I began to pick out details. Winged beasts, or what was left of them. The details became clearer and more horrible by the instant. Smoldering ribs growing ever more visible beneath bubbling flesh. Milky, running eyes. Empty sockets. Jaw bones dangling from heads on bare strips of sinew. Yet still I couldn’t make out exactly what they were.

My breath stopped. My blood turned to icy sludge.

This…this can’t be real. This has to be a nightmare.

But there was an undeniable reality to the burn of their stench in my nostrils, the churning of my stomach, the wild beating of my heart against my chest that was so hard it hurt. There was the sound of padded footsteps and clacking claws behind me, and then Scruffy brushed past, coming up beside Destrien.

The Diamond kobold sighed.

“All of you stand back,”she said, bringing her hands up and forward.

“Do not use up your mana,” said Keshry to the skyborn, turning even as she spoke and bolting down the tunnel. “Only wait a moment!” she called back over her shoulder.

I was still frozen to the spot. Half of me wanted to chase Keshry down into the illusory safety of the cave. The other balked at the idea of running away like a coward in the sight of not one, but three skyborn. That strange swell of energy I’d experienced earlier began to resurface, a heat bubbling up beneath my frozen exterior.

Power flared through my veins. I was no longer out of mana.

My Moon had officially come.

I felt rather than saw the tensing of the others around me as they scented the shift. At almost the exact same moment, there was a crunching, meaty impact and a spray of viscera as the first living corpse dropped from the sky at the mouth of the tunnel.

It moved unnaturally as it struggled to right itself, legs and arms bending in ways they shouldn’t, its body so tattered and degraded that I didn’t recognize what it was until it stood upright, revealed what was left of its face and chest.

A kobold.

I recoiled, again only just stopping myself from turning tail and running off. But it was no credit to willpower. My instinct to remain near the three skyborn was simply stronger than any other.

The zombie-thing advanced, hobbling forward on disintegrating limbs. Another animated corpse landed just behind it, a third crashing in a spray of acid snow a bit further back.

A sudden frigid wind howled up from behind our faltering line, rushed past us—a serpentine apparition of luminous wind and ephemeral scales, blue and green and brilliant, accompanied by pulsing glyphs.

(Innate Channel)

The dead kobolds shrieked and gargled as the thing swept them up in its course, dragged them away over the swell of stone and out of sight.

The glyphs flickered and began to fade, and a soft thump sounded from the cavern below.

Four more of the things landed in quick succession immediately after, shedding toes and fingers and in one case, a wing in their shambling advance.

I edged back and Destrien followed suit as even Reve gave way—though not as much. But Scruffy and the Diamond held their ground. A low growl rumbled up from one of their throats as the first rotting mess scraped its way past the threshold, swiping at the air with skeletal claws.

Unleashing a jaguar-like, hissing roar, the condorgrag familiar bounded forward and lashed out with its talons, knocking the thing sideways to crumple against the stone of the tunnel’s mouth. But still it forced its way back up, even as the others advanced alongside it.

Something told me the serpent spirit wouldn’t be back to save us again.

Unless…

At the next thought that came to me, new glyphs appeared and began to pulse. My glyphs.

(Innate Reflect)

A cold energy erupted in my chest, clenched around my heart, took hold in my bones. Keshry’s flickering glyphs went out, but it didn’t matter. I’d captured the essence of the Ability just in time.

My awareness shifted inward and downward, and down still further. Into the very mountain itself. The power searching for something it couldn’t reach.

Shit! Why isn’t it working?

And then I remembered a snippet of what Keshry had said earlier, about the vein of blue jade. She’d had to be in close proximity to it to summon that spirit, and apparently, so did I.

Fuck.

Turning away from all those skyborn was like trying to spin through a vat of peanut butter. Taking my next few steps away from them was even harder. But with each millisecond that passed, I feared the loss of the Ability I’d only just managed to snatch. How long could I hold onto it? I had no idea.

I forced myself into the beginnings of a run. Someone shrieked. My legs stopped moving. My mind screamed at me to turn back. But the cold power I’d captured was waning already. I wrenched myself forward, stumbling as I went, practically tripping my way down the tunnel as I let momentum carry me. Straight past Keshry’s prone and crumpled form and into the wall she lay against.

I didn’t have time to check on her, so I just begged my stupid imaginary gods to make her be ok as I pressed my hand to the stone and reached out with the Ability I’d borrowed from her.

And this time, it struck home. Snaking through the mountain rock, bursting into unseen brilliance as it hit the vein of jade. And then, like a wave, it fell back—surging through my body and into my Gem before exploding outward in a sudden manifestation that took the breath out of me. Like a punch to the gut without the actual pain.

I had only the briefest glimpse of ghostly scales and sinuous form, shining in all the colors of not just any opal, but my own. And then it was gone, flying up the tunnel and out of sight. Leaving me lightheaded, my vision swimming with black blots, my legs swaying beneath me. I took a step back toward the tunnel, intent on rejoining the others even if I could barely keep upright.

No wonder Keshry passed out.

Oh shit, Keshry!

I dropped to my knees by her side, knelt close to her mouth and felt her breath brush my fur, warm and steady.

Thank the gods. Or whatever the hell they have here.

Shoving myself to my feet, I stumbled back the way I’d come. But I could only half-see, and everything felt like it was happening in slow motion on a rocking boat. I’d barely rounded the curve of the tunnel, a hand pressed to the wall for support, when I came upon the others. Admist all the rot and acrid burning, I scented fresh blood. Reve was limping backward, Destrien crouched behind Scruffy, who snarled as he lashed out at a hulking kobold zombie. From the fresh remains heaped around it and the second trail of carnage leading away through the snow, it seemed my summon had done its work.

But it was gone now, its power spent. And there were just too many of the things, coming in too fast.

The Diamond wove her hands through the air, streams of the stuff spinning together in a whirling sphere between her palms. And beyond the huge living corpse, beyond the twin trails of blood and body-bits, the sky darkened as a horde of winged dead closed in.