There were hundreds of them, and more pouring in from the broad avenues and dark, narrow alleys, or staring down from balconies or roosting on the rooftops, their talons clutching the ledges and gutters.

Aliens. Most of them feathered, though she saw skins covered in scales or fur or wet slime. Old and young and fragile and strong. Almost all of them, vaguely humanoid.

Unlike the nomads, who were little more than overgrown insects, so primitive and single-minded and all the same, these beings wore clothing and carried tools. Sat on pack animals, or had small, knee-high constructs following them around. Their infrastructure was made of complex materials. Not simple mud and sand, but industrial brick and clean-cut stone. Iron poles dotted the streets, with what looked like gas lanterns embedded at their tips.

The last wisps of cold vapor steamed off the disc of the gate. Khadam was sweating, and not just from the humidity in the air.

There were hundreds of them.

What kind of trap is this?

If the boy who was Herald meant to kill her, she could think of a hundred easier ways. Any number of planets he could have sent her to, devoid of atmosphere, or with crushing gravity, or no star at all.

Here, the air was breathable - if a bit thick with moisture. Here, the sun was a great, golden globe and the trees and broadleaf plants shed emerald shadows on the cobble stones and bricks.

And the inhabitants… they were just staring at her. Hundreds of eyes, on her.

She had no armor. No drones to defend her. No weapon, save the chisel gun - a hand-held power tool, made for punching metal with a burst of air.

If they decided to attack, all she could do was run. And the winged ones… how fast can they fly?

But the hordes of aliens made no move to get closer. And as the crowds gathered, the strange silence only seemed to deepen. Feathers of all colors. Beaks of all shapes.

What are these things going to do to me?

One of the feathered creatures broke the silence.

“By the gods divine,” the creature said. “Kneel, you fools! Kneel!”

The creature’s ornate tail feathers shook and fanned out in the sunlight, shining gold and turquoise as it shifted to lay on the ground, even pressing its beak and forehead against the street.

The crowds began to shift. Fear stung in Khadam’s gut, in her arms and legs as she wheeled around, trying to find a gap in the crowds through which she might escape.

But the crowds began to ripple. And then, they dropped in waves. Not just kneeling, but prostrating themselves on the stone streets. Until she was the only one standing.

Poire, what is this? She thought. Where did you send me?

Movement caught her eye. There were two bird-things who did not fall to their knees. The first was tall, taller even than Rodeiro had been. And the crowd seemed to split open before her, shuffling on their knees out of her way.

Her skin looked wrong. Khadam thought there were spines growing out of her flesh, but it was only stunted feathers, growing back through her pink and white flesh. She had a sharp, proud-looking beak, golden except for a long, forked crack running down the center. More than a few of them jutted from the top of her scalp, like a crest or a crown.

The other one trailed her, another bird-thing with white feathers, who was shouting, “Your highness! Please, slow down!”

But the tall one reached Khadam first. She stepped to the edge of the disc, and bowed before Khadam. “Divine One,” she said, and her voice sounded so musical. A beautiful imitation of a human.

The white-feathered bird dropped to her knees, next to the tall one’s side. And it was like they were waiting for Khadam to say something. To say what?

Khadam shifted uncomfortably. She forced herself to ignore the two bird-things, and scan the crowds again.

Don’t let them distract you. He could be here. He could be anywhere. She squeezed the chisel gun in her fist. Feeling the heft of the rubberized grip conforming to her hand.

So what if all these bird-things attacked her? If she could destroy the Herald...

“Divine One, it is an honor,” the tall one with the broken beak said, “To welcome you to my city. Please, forgive my impertinence, but I’ve heard nothing for months. Have you seen Eolh?”

“Who?” Khadam said.

“A corvani,” she said, almost desperately. “Black feathers, black beak and one of his hands is made of metal.”

“Corvani? What is that? I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

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The proud one’s crest feathers fell. Is that sadness in her eyes? And then, a new thought seemed to fill the bird-thing with that same hopeful need.

“What about Poire?”

Khadam’s heart stopped. Her muscles tensed, ready to…

To do what, exactly?

She snapped her eyes back to the crowd. Searching. Trying to feel his presence.

She saw towers, in the distance. Old. And taller than any of the nomads’ spires. They looked a lot like shield pylons, the kind the architects used to build…

“Poire?” Khadam started carefully. “You know who he is?”

There was a murmur among the crowd. Several of the bird-things started whispering to themselves. Are they praying?

“Of course,” the tall one said. “He was foretold. The Savior Divine, who delivered us from death. We owe him everything.”

Oh.

Realization washed over her. Layers of understanding, coming in waves. Right before he opened the gate, Poire had asked her a question:

Were you sent to kill anyone else?

The boy wasn’t trying to kill her. Rather, he was making sure that she wouldn’t kill them.

All these… people.

Khadam shook her head, a laugh, escaping her lips. Softened her fingers around the hilt of the chisel gun, which she had been gripping too tightly.

They’re not going to kill you. But something still felt wrong about all this.

“Poire isn’t here?” Khadam asked, “Then where is he?”

The tall one clacked her beak together a couple of times. A gesture that Khadam didn’t understand. And when she spoke, she kept her voice low so the other bird-things wouldn’t hear.

“He went through the gate, months ago. I didn’t mean for it to happen. We thought the Emperor took them both, but we haven’t heard anything since they went through. Do you know if he is still alive?”

“Poire? Yes.” Khadam said. “He most certainly is.”

The proud one sighed with relief. Even her emotions look human. So strange.

“What...” Khadam said, and stopped herself. And tried again, “Uh, who are you? What is this place?”

“Apologies,” the tall one bowed from the waist. “I am Ryke av’Ryka, Queen of Aviankind, Monarch of the Cauldron.”

“The Cauldron?”

The Queen swept her spike-feathered arm grandly around her. At all the buildings, some perfect and tall and straight, others like mismatched teeth. Thick-trunked trees grew along the streets, and ivies and vines and ferns filled in the pathways, glistening green. Some, heavy with fruit. A high mountain ridge surrounded the city, wrapping it in a jagged embrace.

The streets were thick with feathers now, and she could smell their must, almost like the scent of livestock. Not quite dirty, but sharp and stinging nonetheless. And slightly sweet. They filled the alleys between the buildings, flapping their wings as they moved from rooftop to rooftop, trying to gain a better view.

Of me.

Her heart fluttered, but not with something as simple as fear. She wasn’t sure what she was feeling.

Breathless. Out of place.

“And you?” Queen Ryke interrupted her thoughts. Those brilliant topaz eyes of hers, striated with dark, flickering fire. A gaze, sharper than any talon. “What should we call you, Divine One?”

Divine One? It sent another breathless flutter through Khadam’s chest. At least, none of these people were trying to eat her.

“I am Khadam. I’m a coldsmith from… from long ago.”

“Khadam from long ago,” the Queen bowed her head once more, savoring her name. “How did you come to our city, if I may ask? The Savior does many things that we often fail to understand.”

“The planet I was on was dying. I had many gates, but nowhere to go until he opened one of them.”

“Ah,” the bird-thing nodded knowingly. “So, he saved you, too.”

No, she wanted to say. But she couldn’t, because none of this made sense. Her mind was twisted into knots.

He saved your life.

The Herald of Ruin saved your life.

Everything she had known. Everything that had ever happened to her people - the lightning war, the Swarm and their endless death march. The scars and the change.

It began with the scars, and ended with him.

Wait. Khadam’s heart stopped. There was still another way to kill a human. The Herald’s way.

Khadam searched the horizon above the mountains. Blinking up at the sun. Trying to see through the clouds drifting across the open blue.

“Is there no scar on this planet?” Khadam asked.

“A scar? What do you mean, Divine One?”

“A break in the fabric. It would hang in your sky, like a crack filled with light.”

“Ah,” Ryke nodded, “I’ve heard of the one on Cyre. The old Magistrate had drawings. But there is nothing like that on Gaiam.”

Safe.

This planet, this place.

The feeling rose up from her heart and thickened in her throat, making it hard to breathe. She blinked away the stinging in her eyes.

He saved you.

He saved us both.

Why?

The Herald was made to destroy. Everyone had seen it. So what did this mean?

Khadam dragged her eyes over the crowds of the bird-things, and all the other peoples besides.

Seedfall had corrupted all new progeny. No more children. No more humans. She had heard of the biologists, desperately carving out new worlds, so they could experiment for hundreds of years in isolation. Trying to create new lifeforms, to merge humans with other life in a vain hope to find some mixture, some graft that might escape the change. To make something close to human that wouldn’t come brutally undone in the first few hours of conception.

They failed. Again and again.

Through the centuries, their efforts became more desperate. They dared to try ever stranger, more twisted combinations. And the radicals dared more than all the rest.

When Khadam had embarked on her final mission - going into the cold chamber - only one thing was certain: all the biologists’ tests, and those of the coldsmiths, and the flow engineers, every desperate attempt to save humanity was doomed to fail…

Then, what was this?

These bird-things were frighteningly sapient. Language, and civilization. They even walked upright, just like humans.

None of the visions had shown this. For all their visions of the future, none had seen free, sapient life after the quiet death of humanity.

Did the biologists know about their children? Or were they dead and gone by the time these feathered people rose from the ashes of humanity?

And, most important of all…

What do they believe about us?

A sound peeled out over the living silence of the crowds. A single voice, rising and rising and reaching skyward. A note, sustained impossibly long, before it came falling down.

It was answered by three more voices. Each from a different corner of the city, each one climbing triumphantly, sending their echoing exultation across the city.

And silence.

And then, started the first voice again in slow, jubilant ecstasy. It clung to every syllable of its song, holding each vowel in a warbling vibrato, as if the voice could not bear to let go of this pure, aching adoration.

And one by one, the other voices returned. Droning or harmonizing or singing bestride the first voice, until the whole basin of the city reverberated with their song.

“What is that?” Khadam asked. Trying to hold down her breathless wonder. “Why are they singing?”

Once more, the Queen bowed her head. And all who were gathered sank deeper into their worship.

“For you, Khadam. And for all the gods.”