Jace pulled up on the yoke, trying to guide the dropship up out of the planet’s ring. The damaged thrusters barely responded. The nose inched upwards. They were nearly there. Just a little bit further, and they’d—

“Watch out!” Kinfild yelled. “Chunk of stone, just ahead!”

“I see it,” Jace replied. He pulled the control yoke to the right. The dropship responded, but not instantly—instead of avoiding the stone completely, they scraped beneath it. The thrusters churned, and a burst of sparks fell from the ceiling.

Blood rushed to Jace’s head. Lyvarion spun in the viewscreen. The dropship whirled out of control. Not good, not good!

“Look down!” instructed Kinfild. “There should be a foot pedal to activate the emergency stabilizers and clear the void intakes!”

Jace’s foot brushed against a small lever beneath the dashboard, and he kicked it. The thrusters surged, and the dropship stopped spinning—just in time for another stone to rip through its hull.

“Minor hull breach in the crew hold!” Kinfild called. A faint wind tugged at Jace’s face, and he could feel the artificial atmosphere migrating towards the center of the small starship. Jace looked over his shoulder. On the starboard side of the dropship, a hatch led to a seating area filled with benches. Kinfild abandoned the engine room and slammed the hatch shut, then pulled a red lever across it to keep it secure. The air stopped rushing.

Jace pulled back and forth on the dropship’s yoke, guiding the dropship between rocks and asteroids, barely avoiding the largest stones. The spacecraft shook again, and Kinfild grunted. Jace asked, “Are you alright?”

A new ear-splitting alarm blared over Kinfild’s voice. After three of the alarm’s high-pitched screeches, its volume lowered. Kinfild yelled, “We’re leaking steam! Either the thrusters stay running or they don’t; there’s nothing I can do!”

Kinfild ran to the cockpit and strapped himself into the copilot’s seat. Jace spared a glance at him. He let out a soft laugh.

“Yeah, real funny,” Jace muttered. “The worldjumper can’t fly starships…and we’re both going to die. Unless you want to fly it.”

“No time to swap seats,” Kinfild said. “The good news is that my enhanced form will likely survive an impact with the surface. But yours?”

“I thought you wanted to keep me alive. And you can’t survive in the void yet, can you?’

“Yes, that’d be a problem for me,” Kinfild said. “We need to wring what little speed we can out of the thrusters. I’m shutting off everything—even life support. We’ll have enough atmosphere to last until we reach the surface.” He began flipping switches. Every light in the cockpit blackened, and the whir of the ventilation system tapered off.

“I thought the thrusters used rotational power,” Jace said. “Not…whatever energy you’re redirecting.”

“The furnace also acts as a reactor, generating power for our other systems,” Kinfild said. “Some of them help accelerate the thruster wash after the particle props blast it out.”

Another cloud of pebbles scraped past their starboard flank. Jace pinned his eyes wide open, afraid to look away for even a moment. There was no more speed to be coaxed out of the damaged vessel, except what gravity could provide.

Sweat beaded under his fingernails. His grip on the control yoke almost slipped when he guided the dropship around an especially large asteroid—and right into a patch of dust and gravel. Pebbles bounced off the viewscreen, leaving tiny cracks. Kinfild sprayed it with sealant.

Then, in an instant, the rain-like patter of rocks stopped. The flight seemed too smooth, and for a moment, Jace feared the worst: they had already died, and his mind was tricking him. But there were no more stones. The band of rocks and gravel had ended, and they had made it out of the ring.

Jace pushed down on the control yoke, guiding the dropship on a steeper descent. It began to shudder again. A basket of flames enveloped the viewscreen; they had entered the upper atmosphere. The starship groaned and creaked. Metal plating ripped off the prow and tumbled along the hull, burning and smoking behind them.

The control yoke jolted up and down, tearing at the skin of Jace’s hands. He pulled back on it as hard as he could, trying to keep their descent smooth. Heat radiated through the viewscreen, and his cheeks burned.

More sheets of the dropship’s outer plating ripped free, tumbling away into the atmosphere, and acrid smoke wafted into the cockpit. The dropship picked up speed, and they burst through a layer of clouds. Jace yanked the control yoke towards him as far as he could. The roar’s pitch shifted; the thrusters tried to obey the command but struggled.

The flames dissipated from the viewscreen, and he could see clearly. They crashed toward a vibrant lavender landscape—hills and patches of trees; purple fields and marshes. He guided them toward the forest up ahead.

Jace clenched his teeth so tight that his jaw ached. They kept losing altitude, and there was nothing he could do about it. Beneath his feet, he heard a metallic clunk. After that, the control yoke flopped back and forth listlessly. The roar of the thrusters simmered down to a hiss. He released the yoke from his grip, and desperately reached across the console to flick the limp power shunting levers back and forth. It did nothing.

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The ground was barely forty meters below them now. They passed over a small marsh, then over a herd of grazing fawlgoats. A second later, they shot over the forest.

He’d done everything he could. At least they were level, now.

At twenty meters, there was a shrill shriek of metal. The dropship plummeted uncontrollably, cockpit first. The trees caught the ship, smashing and cracking against the viewscreen. Jace lurched forward in the seat.

If they hit the ground with him in the seat, he was dead. He had a split-second to react. He activated his hyperjump, phasing through the crash harness and the viewscreen and coming to a halt outside the dropship.

The ship plunged into the dirt behind him, cracking in half and tumbling overhead. He dropped to his stomach, shielding himself from the wave of dirt and debris flying overhead. His limbs shuddered and vibrated, but he was unscathed.

“Kinfild!” Jace shouted, running after the starship and following the gash it had made in the ground. “Kinfild! Are you alright!”

A hatch popped open on the roof of the front half of the vessel, and Kinfild hauled himself out, coughing and waving his hand in front of his face. “I am alive.”

They had crashed in the forest. Jace looked up at the sky, searching for the suns. The problem was, he didn’t know if it was morning or evening here, and so he couldn’t tell the direction. “The Luna Wrath will be in the Candleshire.” Kinfild pointed to the left. “Aur-Six will be running out of patience.”

So they began to walk.

For a few hours, they trudged through the forest. By the time the forest ended and they arrived, it was late afternoon—Jace was certain; the suns were getting lower in the sky. An orange glow bathed the fields. Cupping his hands around his eyes to shield them from the evening light, he searched through the scattered buildings for a starship.

The Luna Wrath perched on a distant hill, almost convincing him it was some alien building on short stilts. But it had a smokestack. A crowd of Candlefolk surrounded it, including makeshift guards with pitchforks and hoes.

Jace adjusted his course to walk straight towards the starship. Whatever they were up to next, they would need the Wrath.

But before they could get any closer, Kinfild held out his arm. “You will remain here, Mr. Baldwin.”

Jace stopped, then tilted his head.

“You are a risk and a liability,” Kinfild said. “With the Watchmen angry with us, we are in greater danger than ever. I would rather their attention be focussed on me, and not you.”

“This again?” Jace complained, “And so you’ll just leave me?”

“Yes.”

“But—”

“That is final. You have plenty of fodder here, and you have the Vault Core. You can continue to advance.”

Jace tightened his fists. They’d had this conversation before, and he might have once been content with the Vault Core, but…that wasn’t enough, now. There was more here, and there were better ways of advancing—even if he didn’t know what they were, he knew that he had quests to complete.

Besides…he was here for something more. Lessa would’ve insisted that he was.

“If it wasn’t for me, you’d be dead by now,” Jace said.

“If it wasn’t for you, many things would be different,” said Kinfild. “Do not play warm-hearted with me, Mr. Baldwin. You need me. You are using me for your own advancement gains. You, like everyone else, will betray me. You are not a friend, but an associate.”

“Betray you?”

“No one can be trusted anymore. Not even Stenol, the wisest and strongest of the Crimson Table Elders. If he would betray me, there is no one who wouldn’t.”

Bluntly, Jace stated, “You’re judging me for things I haven’t done yet.”

“And I am rarely wrong in my judgement.”

“Just because your teacher—”

“Not just because,” Kinfild snapped. “If such a wise man was corrupted, then…” He trailed off. The wind rustled the grass and stirred a nearby pond. A pair of candlefolk paused to stare at them.

Jace shook his head, then kicked a stalk of grass. “Kinfild, I’m sorry. But maybe wisdom isn’t the solution, here. You know what’s right, and you know what’s wrong. Why belabour the point?”

“Because it doesn’t solve the problem of you. You, a worldjumper, are precious. Your power is unmatched, and you will have a job to do. This is safer.” Kinfild began to walk towards the Luna Wrath. “Safer for you, and everyone out there. I must do my duty, so that you may do yours as well.”

“You can keep me here…” Jace ran to catch up with Kinfild. “But only if it is the next step in my journey. If not…then I’m coming with you. It might be safer to stay, but…I’m tired of playing my life safe.”

“My next step is on Lyvarion, yes.” Kinfild led them down a hill and into a valley, then across a cobblestone bridge and onto the path of the other side—the path that wound upwards to the Luna Wrath. “But not in the Candleshire. I will leave you here with the lord of the shire, as you were supposed to be, and you will improve under the guidance of—”

“What is your next step?”

“If I told you, you would follow me.” Kinfild adjusted his stolen cuirass. After a few attempts to straighten it, he peeled it off and cast it aside.

“We’re being hunted by Watchmen,” Jace tried, searching his brain for a reason that he should come with Kinfild—a reason that Kinfild would agree with. “How do you know they won’t find me here?”

“I know that the risk will be higher offworld.”

They arrived at the Luna Wrath’s boarding ramp. It was raised up into the hull, but when Kinfild banged on it with his fist, it chuffed and ground open. Kinfild said, “I will hear no more arguments. This is the final word—you are staying here, as you always should have.”

“But—”

Before Jace could finish, Kinfild whirled around and struck him hard on the back of his head with an open palm.

Jace’s legs collapsed, and there was nothing he could do. A dark veil fell over everything.