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“I know we make a big deal over Final Night, but it really is very unlikely you’ll die, you know that, right?”

Threl peered down at her, hair whipping about his face in the wind. “Otherwise we’d never be taking you on the dive with us.”

Mika’s hands tightened around the rail posts of the skyship as she groaned, leaning forward to press her head against the rain-wet wood.

“Why do you think I’m so upset?” she moaned. Threl laughed.

“Oh, come on. You mean about last night? You were fun! And I think they were flattered, really.”

She shook her head, growling through clenched teeth as she tried to wipe the unwelcome memories from her mind. There weren’t many of them, at least, but Threl had filled in the blanks for her. To his credit, when he’d realized just how far-gone she was, he’d tried to reign her in.

But that hadn’t stopped her from loudly answering when he asked whose hand she wished to hold. Hadn’t stopped the orc in question from hearing her. And, worst of all, it hadn’t stopped her from finding Uthur in a darkened corner and making an attempt at an advance before realizing that he was, in fact, Durg.

Still, despite her best and most embarrassing efforts, she had made it through the night without holding anyone’s hand. Thank the DeepMother.

For a moment, she imagined she’d succeeded. That the first hand she ever held was that of a Fleshsinger. And as she remembered that she, too, was a Fleshsinger, the weight of her disgust doubled. Adding to her already stomach-churning conflict, there was an absolute knowledge squatting, unassailable, at the back of her mind. The knowledge that, if she did die today, the same failure she’d just given thanks for would transform, becoming yet another regret to add to her list.

“Alright,” said Threl, speaking loudly to be heard over the Singing, the drumbeat, and the surging winds. “This might be a little scary! But it’s just a tradition, none of them will hit us.”

“What?”

Mika pried her eyes open. They’d rounded a tree-drenched mountain peak, revealing the beginning of the end. Down the center of the Rend, nine huge black towers of stone thrust up from the mists. And, issuing from every skyship in their sprawling procession, the voices of Stormsingers grew stronger yet—rising together into a crescendo. She realized what was about to happen only just in time to pull her goggles down. The melody reached its culmination, and the world exploded with light.

Nine luminious trees arched down from the clouds, one to strike each tower, one for each of the great orcin clans.

Ixos trilled and spun with the surge of power. Mika’s heart felt like it might burst. The after-image of the lightning lingered in her sight, but before she could mourn its fading, the Stormsong rose again, lightning struck again. Her hands tightened around the railing bars as her legs weakened beneath her.

So beautiful. Oh DeepMother, it’s so beautiful.

It struck again, and again, until her knees were so weak that Threl eyed her with concern as she sagged against the bars. Nine times, in total. The thunder resounded in her ears well after it had gone, and a heat blazed at her core that was more than just excitement, more than any mere emotion she’d ever experienced. It pulsed like a second heart.

“Wow, you uh…you really like that lightning, huh?”

Footsteps approached, and Mika caught the now-familiar combination of fruit and mineral aromas signature to Ume and Eshge.

“Oh,” said Eshge, smirking a bit as Mika turned around to face them. “What’s got you all blue?”

“Maybe she was thinking about Uthur,” said Ume in a hush, giggling. Like many of the scholas and others unable to accompany their thrall in the Rite, she’d turned to drink to dull her nerves.

Blue? What?

Mika pulled her goggles down around her neck and flipped them up to stare at her reflection in their lenses, blinking in confusion at what she saw.

Her markings had flushed cerulean.

Blue’s for hunger…right? Maybe the markings don’t work the same on me?

But there wasn’t time to think further on the matter, let alone ask about it.

They’d arrived.

The nine clan greatships vied for the lowest levels of the docking tower, while the smaller accompanying vessels found perches higher up. Looking out over it all, it was easy to see why the orcs called this place the Maw. The far western tip of the Rend—the mouth of the branching serpent—was a place where jagged spires of stone jutted up in irregular clusters like broken teeth. And in some places, the otherwise violet mists condensed in swirling crimson.

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When all the ships had docked and the Stormsong subsided, a new song began. First, it was soft—but that changed very quickly as everyone else save Mika joined in. She spun around, eyes snapping upward to follow the collective gaze. The competing princes approached from above on the backs of their blade-winged mounts. By the time they reached the tower, the song had grown so loud and deep it rivaled the thunder of moments before. The black beasts tilted in the air, and eighteen bodies streaked down to drop, heavily and as one, upon a broad platform below the docks.

The song ended, the orcs roared, and for the third time in the last several moments Mika inwardly thanked both Ume and the DeepMother for her earplugs. Then, climbing onto Ixo’s back, she hurried to join the rest of the dive party as her thrall and others of the upper echelons of Clan Dragha gathered around to see them off.

“Good luck, princess,” said Ume, bending at the waist to envelop her in a soft hug. Completely taken aback, Mika froze in her arms.

“Th-thank you,” she managed.

“Luck is for those who need it,” sniffed Eshge. “We are better than that.”

Before long, Mika found herself streaming along with the rest of the party, straight past the lift and down a long stair, falling in behind their princes as they descended beneath the upper reaches of the mists. Above them and out of sight now, the other orcs began a new song. A disconcertingly mournful one. Reaching another platform, they came to a stop. There, along with the thralls who’d reached it before them and her own guards, stood the King Regent.

Mika had known to expect her presence, but upon seeing her, she knew she’d have recognized the orc for what she was regardless of any forewarning.

She was small, for her Arkha. Her skin blue-gray, her hair silver and arranged in a mane of braids linked by silver rings and strung with diamonds. Tattoos of branching antlers danced down her cheeks. But her power was in her presence, not her appearance.

When she spoke, she spoke in orcin. And though Mika couldn’t understand her words, she could see how they moved the heirs. All around her, heads dipped in reverence or agreement and jaws gritted with resolve. But the orcs didn’t whoop or howl. They held absolute silence in the presence of their setting sun.

As her speech seemed to draw to a close, something the King Regent said appeared to surprise her listeners. Muscles tensed and several looked up suddenly or glanced to one another. And then she was done, her movements fluidly elegant as she inclined her head to them and stepped aside that they might continue on.

Threl fell in beside her as they started down the final stretch of stairs. His expression was nearly blank, eyes distant, brows slightly knit.

“So what is it?” she pressed, though she dreaded the answer. From what the orcs had told her, the Maw was home to beasts which would have made even the uncured Wretchblight look like a friendly mudpuppy. “What’s the quarry?”

“It’s….it’s the Bloodwrym.”

He sounded lost.

“And what is that?”

“It’s ancient. The biggest, worst thing anyone with eyes in the Rend has ever laid eyes on.”

“Oh,” chirped Mika as her stomach did a series of backward flips.

As they neared the ground, a cage-like outer wall rose up around them. Beyond it, only black fronds and mists were visible. At the end of the stair lay a gate, flanked by eight guardians. On the first thrall’s approach the gate was opened, and after the last spilled through it was shut heavily and at once behind them. The nine princely thralls split into three groups and then spread out from one another, the orcs of her own crowding protectively around her. Packed-to-brimming with energy, Ixos hummed along so easily that she found herself constantly reigning back his speed and elevation.

For the first time, it occurred to Mika just how incredibly, unfathomably powerful the orcs would be when they had mastered the Stonesong. For they—and only they of all the Facets of Ahvar—could Sing the storms as well, unlocking near infinite reserves of energy.

Her blood ran cool with fear, even as something like hope sparked in her heart.

With power like that, they could crush the humans.

But then…if that were true…why didn’t they before, all those ages ago when our species supposedly lived and fought together? She shelved the thought for later consideration.

They gathered in the lee of a rocky spire, some forty-eight orcs—including three elf-blooded—and her. The strategy of teaming up with allied clans for the majority of the Rite was, apparently, so old it was practically a tradition itself. But the news of Uthur’s reviled Songs had already spread, and even Mika could sense the uneasiness of their temporary alliance. While the princes and their captains grouped up to amend their opening strategy, she took in her surroundings.

The spire’s base was choked with clinging growth, its upper reaches home to the crumbling ruins of houses…by all appearances, Ulvari-made. The whooping call of an unseen beast sounded through the mist, and somewhere off in the distance, something roared. Then the leaders broke apart, their thralls clustering around them to receive their orders. As Uthur briefed the guardians, Retga dealt with their hunters. Then her crimson eyes fixed Mika’s way, and she marched up to her.

“You’re with me,” she said.

Mika swallowed. “But aren’t you—”

“Going back up to scout, among other things, yes.” Retga’s smile was grim.

She explained the plan as she climbed the spire with the help of a Greensinger’s vine, eyes set on a worn rooftop that was clear enough from the surrounding trees that she might remount her beast. Mika hovered at her side on Ixos’s back, reaching heights she’d never have thought possible.

“The Wrym goes berzerk when anyone messes with the gob—er, Ulvari ruins here. Most especially the constructs and the palace.”

“There’s a palace in this place?”

Retga grunted.

“The remains of one. All the way at the bottom.”

She was quiet for a few heartbeats as she hauled herself over an abrupt protrusion of stone.

“So, while our hunters thwart the enemy clans, we get guardians down there to draw the Wrym in. We get you there.”

“I’m to be bait again?”

“No,” said Retga, eyes flashing. “Not quite. This time, you’re the teeth of our trap.”

Before Mika could press her any further, something howled—something nearby. Ixos’s buzzing hum ceased at once. The glow of his crystal etchings flickered and went dim. Before she could so much as cry out, he dropped away beneath her.