Vayra jumped to the left to dodge a wave of falling debris, then scrambled back to the right so a toppling fern stalk didn’t crush her. One of its thorns nearly impaled her flesh-and-blood leg, but she pulled it away just in time.

She wove back and forth across the Kausisia platform, keeping her head down and her feet light. She didn’t have enough mana to use the Astral Shroud, but with Larra busy, her own two legs could carry her just fine.

Larra had thrown the torn leaf aside, but with Vayra well out of range and sight, the golems only had one target, and they would keep the God-heir busy.

Vayra just needed a place to hide.

She ducked around stems and under vines, looking for holes in the ground or small caves, but everything on the platform was solid. A thick frame of wood wrapped around the edge, and a few rigging ropes helped support it. There were vines that reached up to other platforms. She could climb, but Larra might see her. Besides, the other platforms were higher up, and she wasn’t sure if they’d have the kausisia.

First, to stay out of sight and catch her breath, Vayra dove down behind a small mound of dirt. At least this way, she had some shelter.

Larra first engaged the root-golems with the strength of a Captain. As Vayra understood it, that was her base-strength. She twirled her three-part staff back and forth, smashing chunks off the golems’ legs and blasting them with jets of water. Her wolf ran in circles, snarling and nipping at the beasts’ ankles.

But then one of the golems struck Larra in the chest with a fist of roots. It flung her a few feet into the air. She fell flat on her stomach.

Vayra watched closely, judging the weight of Larra’s spirit the whole time. The God-heir ran her hand through her wolf’s fur as she stood up, dusting herself off from the hit. The wolf snarled, revealing its fang—some sort of treasure—and Larra’s Arcara strength increased.

She was exerting the pressure of a Commodore now.

Her strikes came harder and faster. Her staff smashed clean through one of the golems’ arms in a single swipe, and when she took a hit, she only skidded back a few feet.

“What exactly are the golems?” Vayra whispered.

‘They’re…similar to the wraiths we found in the Muspellar Chambers,’ Phasoné said. ‘Clumps of stray Arcara that accumulated bits of the physical world into their form. Talock fed them, cultivated them, and contracted them to protect his most valuable plants.’

“They’re losing to a Commodore,” Vayra breathed as Larra stabbed the blunt tip of her staff straight through a golem’s chest. It didn’t kill it, but it tore roots and dispersed some of the mud.

‘They’re designed to keep out thieves, not to kill a favoured daughter of Karmion. They’re buying you time, so use it.’

Vayra glanced around. She could retreat further to the edge of the platform, but that was hardly hiding.

The platform was still massive, though. It was large enough to hold a few galleons atop it, stacked bow-to-stern. Vayra could keep away from Larra if she wanted—so long as she got a bit of a lead and hid, and only sprinted between hiding spots when absolutely necessary.

There might not have been any caves, but there were man-made shelters atop the platform. Near the edge of the dome, where the platform joined with the glass, a clump of sheds waited, covered in vines and fungus.

Keeping her head low, Vayra navigated between the ferns and thorns. She veiled her spirit, for what good it would do, and only moved when Larra was facing away or when a spray of dirt washed up into the air, sheltering her from sight.

When Vayra reached the shed, she pushed the door open and rushed inside. Its walls were simple layered wood, and there were only two windows. Maybe there’d been glass in them once upon a time, but there wasn’t any now. She shut the door behind her and leaned against it to hold it shut.

She made sure to veil her spirit, then turned in a circle.

The shed’s interior should have been large enough to walk ten paces across, but it felt like there was barely enough room to stand. Barrels, kegs, and crates lined the walls, and a wooden irrigation channel ran through the center of the room at precisely head-level—the most inconvenient spot it could have been. It carried Stream water, refined to a slight degree, but with no spirit-imbued pollen in it.

In other words: an excellent source of mana. She sprinted over and dipped her hands in it, slowly absorbing more mana.

As Vayra absorbed the mana, the battle outside calmed down. Through the empty windows, and between a forest of ferns, she could faintly make out what was happening. Larra had destroyed one golem, and she was dismantling the second. The God-heir hadn’t pushed herself past Commodore—the tingling in Vayra’s neck hadn’t gotten any stronger.

Larra stomped and raised tendrils of freshwater out of the ground. She wrapped them around one of the golem’s arms to hold it in place, then struck it with her staff. It lashed out with its free arm, but she blocked it. She shielded her arm with water, then smashed the arm off with a heavy overhead swing of her staff.

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“I’m seeing a Bracing technique to strengthen herself, a Ward technique to shield herself…and a Moulding technique for the tendrils?” Vayra whispered.

‘Not Moulding. Water cannot Mould. The Arcara wouldn’t firm up and hold it in place for long enough. It’s probably just a Reach attack, manipulation of a substance, like your Starlight Palm.’

Larra spun around, and with a shout loud enough to hurt Vayra’s ears, smashed through the golem’s head. As Larra whirled, Vayra ducked down beneath the shed’s window frame to keep out of sight.

“She dealt with them,” Vayra whispered. She kept her breaths tight and controlled, and didn’t let any mana move through her system. “We’re here, and we’re not going anywhere unless we advance.”

‘Aim for First Lieutenant.”

“If we cycle, she’ll sense us.”

‘If you keep talking, she’ll hear you, too.’

Vayra shut her eyes, then dropped down and leaned back against the outer wall of the shed. She crawled back to the door and wedged her back up against it.

We know Larra’s arsenal, Vayra thought, directing the thoughts at Phasoné. We know her trick, assuming she hasn’t…been hiding anything else in her corespace. What can we do to keep her from narrowing our location down?

‘She isn’t can’t the wolf’s treasure-tooth to improve her Arcara quality for long,’ Phasoné said. ‘Whatever she’s doing, it’s not permanent—or maybe she’ll hurt herself if she holds it too long.’

How do you know? Vayra thought.

‘Why wouldn’t she present herself as an admiral at all times if she could?’

Surprise?

‘She strikes you as one to favour surprises? Her “ambush” on us in the foyer was barely that. She announced herself as soon as she could, and she marched in with that smug look plastered to her face—’

Vayra got the point. She nodded, then thought, And when she dips back below Commodore, she won’t have as powerful of spiritual senses? She won’t be able to pick us out when we start cycling?

‘Precisely.’

What about by the tingling sensation? Myrrir did it as a captain.

‘And she’s not Myrrir. He was a tracker, trained by his father to hunt.’

Larra wasn’t subtle. Right.

Vayra waited until the tingling in her neck weakened. Instead of pinpricks, there was only a faint static, like popping bubbles. Larra had dropped back down to Captain. Talking aloud wasn’t on the menu yet, but cycling was. Vayra thought: Do we have enough elixir in there to get ourselves to First Lieutenant?

‘We should,’ Phasoné replied. ‘Just not enough to get us to Captain anymore.’

Shutting her eyes, Vayra dragged herself into her corespace. She arrived on the barren dirt landscape and marched up to the central hill, where Phasoné, Adair, and the barrels of golden elixir waited.

“We need to plant a garden in here, right?” Vayra pressed her hands against her hips. She looked up at the ceiling of the dome. Instead of just a pure black sky, streaks of stars ran across it, and they made everything glimmer in a silver-white light. “Or at least the impression of them.”

“Silver pagwart is my suggestion,” Phasoné said.

“Don’t know what that looks like.”

“Imagine those ferns outside, except the leaves are tiny. It’s just groundcover, but it spreads over everything. Its leaves have tiny silver hairs, and only a wisp or two of green seeps through.”

While Vayra absorbed and integrated elixir, bridging the gap between Second and First Lieutenant, she imagined lining the ground of the corespace with the plant Phasoné had described. She doubted it was a perfect replica, but it didn’t need to be. The silver leaves glittered and glinted under the swathes of starry sky, reflecting it all around the dome.

Vayra never stayed in the corespace for more than ten seconds in a row, though. She needed her consciousness outside her body, in case Larra approached. The God-heir prowled around the platform, sweeping from left to right. She still held her three-part staff in one hand, and an orb of water swirled above her other hand.

But by the time the sunset began and the greenhouse dimmed, Larra still hadn’t reached the shed. She made a routine sweep, pushing away from the edge of the dome with each pace back and forth. Eventually, she would reach the shed—and Vayra.

How close are we to First Lieutenant? Vayra thought.

‘A quarter of the way,’ Phasoné answered. ‘We need to keep layering the plants in the corespace, and once we have enough Arcara, the advancement will begin—we’ll seal it.’

When the sun dipped entirely below the horizon, Larra stopped. She sat down at the center of the platform, unmoving, but still scanned back and forth with her eyes. The kausisia plants glimmered in the night, and pulsing veins of blue energy ran through their ferns. Whenever Vayra looked at them, she felt light-headed, and foreign whispers seeped through her mind. She couldn’t make out any words.

Then Larra patted her wolf’s back and said something that Vayra couldn’t make out. The God-heir’s spirit surged, and the tingle in the back of Vayra’s neck doubled.

Vayra stopped cycling immediately. Larra climbed up to Commodore, and she was about to use her spiritual senses. Vayra veiled herself as quickly as she could, but it might not have been enough.

After a few minutes, the tingle dimmed, and Larra dropped back to Captain. She stood up and grabbed her staff in both hands, then looked directly at the shed Vayra waited in.

Vayra hadn’t veiled herself quickly enough.

If she stayed in the shed, she would be trapped. She nudged the door open, then crept out into the night. It was dark, and if she moved slowly, she could keep hidden behind dirt mounds until she reached another shed or building—or some place to hide.

A ray of moonlight crossed right in front of the door. She darted through it, trying to drop down between mounds of dirt, but the moonlight glinted off her mechanical arm—the starsteel wires beneath the wood panels reflected the moonlight.

Larra’s head snapped towards her.

The God-heir leapt to her feet and charged.