Pasha Adderey stands atop the mound wearing the smallest heavy shell her city has ever created.

Through its visor, she traces the coils of snaking flesh, cast into gray and the shade of bark, as they spiral into the shape of a tree’s trunk. From there, the hardened tissues spread into branches, clawing like fingers to the Twin Pales casting high above. Hues of emerald and the once-clear blue of the ocean mix into a blanket that covers the tips of those branches, sprouting into leaves that resemble fungi more closely. Pasha walks under this thing that is neither plant nor fungus, stares up at it, and blinks in relief.

A hole opens just underneath the mound. Balkou takes the lead, Pasha following with four more Entrusted behind them into the passageway leading down.

Bits of flesh and what resembles flecks of pollen hover in the air, stray as dust motes. She catches one with a gloved hand, regards it, and, as it spins, the tiny thing seems to regard her in return. There is no malice in it, only curiosity. It rolls off of her armor and drifts away.

They emerge into a cavity about the size of Kaskit’s war room, bubbled and gyrating. She may as well be standing in a snow globe from all the tiny bits raining down on her. As she observes them, the particles drift together, lock, concentrate as if caught in tubes, and funnel into eleven pillars where, at their bottoms, sit oblong-shaped pods.

Before Pasha can peer inside them, Balkou stops her with a mandible.

An appendage rises out of the ground in front of them, a six-fingered hand the size of a dog approaching but not rushing. Its arm—if Pasha can call it that—bursts from the floor and offers the hand. Then, upon some decision by the organism surrounding her, the hand gyrates, curls upright, and transforms to the image of the man Pasha had last seen in her alcazar’s war room.

She asks no questions. She undoes her helmet, Balkou overseeing her while the other Entrusted fan out.

“You can breathe here,” says Genebrict Stalt, or what he has become. His voice reverberates throughout the room as if to prove he commands the place.

Pasha inhales, not an ounce of fear in her. She looks around. “I guess you’re the only one left.”

He catches her up on the preceding weeks, Ingram’s betrayal, fleeing Lamascus, the Monad Ortet, and how he found it was that maligned, not his sister, that spoke to him all those days. “I think this is a worthy exchange for you leading me to her.”

When she peers into the closest pod and finds a woman inside, Pasha can’t help thinking she came out on top of this bargain. “This was Incited?” She taps the pod-like thing for which she’ll have to think of a name.

“Supposedly, it’s dead.”

“And inside you?”

Another shape sprouts beside them, constructing itself into a person almost equal in height to Stalt. It is the picture-perfect portrayal of the woman who had sat on top of the door of Pasha’s war room.

“Second Signature,” says Delah Stalt.

Pasha orders her Entrusted to drag the pods away, delicately ferrying them through the airlock and passing them onto the remaining medical zoologist, the ones she can’t trust entirely but will have to. While they do so, Pasha returns to an earlier point and removes from a compartment on the side of her heavy shell the syringe containing the violet mixture. “I believe he was working on a vaccine.”

The Twin Admirals look at each other, a host of information probably traveling between them. The hand reaches out, and Pasha places the syringe on it. It sinks to the palm ever so slightly, the liquid in the chamber draining, though not completely.

“It is… close enough,” the twin admirals say. “Thank you. There should be enough for replication.” A pause. “He was… integral.”

Pasha nods at that, trying to encapsulate the man who had worked for half a decade under her and had simultaneously been the downfall and upbringing of her city. The hand offers the syringe to Pasha, and she takes it, dwelling on the influence she now holds.

“I have to admit,” Pasha says, as she pockets the syringe, “that I didn’t think the Twin Admirals would manifest like this.” She coughs, though not from any contagion of this place. “Where will you two go?”

The two share a look, but it’s Genebrict who speaks. “It is a big world, with much strife.”

Inwardly, Pasha frowns. She had hoped to keep this thing named the Twin Admirals around, but how could such a being even be directed? They are even, and Pasha guesses that is as close to an understanding they’ll ever reach.

“Wise, brother,” echoes Delah Stalt and turns to Pasha. “Will you be alright here, girl?”

Pasha shrugs, thinking of the city she just burned to the ground and the Incited bodies inside. Inevitably, some were not under that strand’s influence. She’ll pay for that. “I have to be. Don’t I?”

There is no arguing this point, and once the Entrusted finish loading the eleventh pod, they respectfully wait near the exit to the mound.

Pasha has always thought partings should be sudden, not strung out along a line of awkward emotions. She fastens her helmet, nods the twin admirals away, and anchors herself as the floor beneath her decays, the space disassembling, the rest of the organism receding. The wave of tissue and flesh evaporates into the distance like a river drying up in minutes.

She considers her allies and hopes they feel the same towards her.

Their departure is just in time, as a shadow in the shape of a moth casts long over the distant countryside. Pasha ensures it’s the only being in the airlock when it arrives, for it takes up almost the entire space. Its eyeballs spread along its forewing and hindwing, each looking in a different direction but surveying mainly the charred, ruined, and rubble-strewn city of Kaskit, where stone seems to be the only survivor.

Pasha sways to break off the vertigo and stands with her hands behind her back on the parapet of the alcazar’s bullwheel terminal, a fragment of her Entrusted cadre surrounding her. Balkou stands directly behind her, flanked by two females Pasha has not named yet.

“Should we go away?” Balkou asks.

“He’s already seen you,” concedes Pasha. “If he has questions, he can take them up with me.”

She notices the beetle sway a bit, perhaps intimidated by the sight of this otherworldly thing. It’s a humbling realization until Pasha remembers Balkou was born hours ago.

Sacramount, the great moth, the being that had appointed her this position of Second Signature, folds its wings into itself as it steps through the opening of the bullwheel terminal. Once inside, it spreads those wings to reveal the myriad of curious eyes that look upon this world as if for the first time. Pasha can’t count them all without feeling nauseous. Still, as she attempts to, they turn at once to regard Balkou before straying to the pair of female Entrusted next to Pasha. They finish their scan by observing the other beetles flying around the bullwheel terminal or combing for survivors in the rubble below.

“They will be coming with me,” says Sacramount.

Pasha has feared this but cannot argue. “Let me keep two, as Written. A male and female.”

“As Written.” Sacramount’s murmurs are like the roars of beasts heard across lakes. “Now, please be quick about it. It is much work to come here, you realize. Traversing the Places is long and arduous, and I am… tired.”

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Pasha very much wonders what those Places look like and if she will ever get to see one. She walks over to the edge of the terminal and points to the crater where Ruinalk’s protective shell had encased her. Now, the flesh is burned away, and the boy with it.

“A shame,” Sacramount utters, with the air of a merchant on the short end of a deal. “I trust he had all the necessary provisions completed in preparation for his demise.”

“He had.” Pasha hands the draft Decree to Sacramount. As he grips it with two arms, it expands to the size of a cathedral door. A swarm of black fireflies seep from orifices in Sacramount’s abdomen and fly towards the Decree. They hold it aloft while the moth skims the document, and Pasha gages the importance of each section by the focus of the moth’s eyes. Most linger on the bottom portion for some reason.

“I see the edit,” says Sacramount. “You’ve named it the Inciter strand? Well done.”

She relishes in that bout of satisfaction before feeling the morbid guilt and allowing it to pass. “You know something about it?”

She comes to know what it’s like for a beast this size to sigh as Sacramount’s body sags, a few of its eyes rolling. “We do not profess to know anything about this place, Second Signature. We only write the rules that must be obeyed.” He pauses. “And this rule seems rather petty compared to what else is happening out there.”

How close is the ‘out there?’ “I just burned the entire core of my city and most of the people in it because of something ‘petty’?” She wasn’t the one to drop the seed, but her Entrusted knew she would have in a heartbeat. She can already anticipate what The Smatter will say about it. Maybe that will be the first meeting she’ll attend.

“Actually, less than ‘petty’ if there’s such a word in your language. In the time we’ve stood here, entire worlds have been born and have died and will continue to do so. Yet here we are, squabbling over the composition of this place. We do not have enough attention to focus so sharply here.” He looks upon the Entrusted. “Thankfully, these will help.”

The beetles step toward Pasha by instincts inherited from their mother and father.

“Loyal things,” Sacramount continues and resumes his reading. “I must admit that choosing only one Signature is a sound choice. Democracy is a thoughtful concept, very generous in practice but too slow in reality, as we have seen. If the being that dictates is all-knowing, all-encompassing, and with no faults of judgment, then what is the point of having another complicate the decision process? This is truly the best option.”

Pasha had stopped listening at the first part. “Let me see it.”

“You haven’t?” The fireflies spin the document over.

Pasha skips to the bottom and finds not two signature lines anymore, but one. Where Ruinalk’s palm print was in the original Decree is now a blank space. Pasha’s print is still there, tiny and ignorant as the day she was plucked into this whole mess. It’s the same size as now.

He never intended to be a Signature. He let this all come. How wrong she had been to suspect her maligned partner, even for a second. The two were dragged into this, not just her. Ruinalk wanted what was best for Pasha, and this shows it.

“It was not entirely my choice,” Pasha manages. If she had gotten her way, Rue would be planting his palm print beside hers.

“Things often aren’t.” Sacramount continues scanning the Decree. “Best not to dwell on these things, Signature. You will have a lot of work ahead of you.”

She has already begun formulating plans for humanity on the backs of this second version of the Decree. Is the best defense a sound offense? Can humanity ride out its days slowly but securely? What about those other places Sacramount mentioned just now? Where are they? She is on the brink of understanding, peering into an endless chasm where she hopes lies every answer and explanation to every question. The thought of it makes her feel small and inconsequential but hopeful.

She looks down to the ruined alcazar where a trio of her Entrusted surrounds the armored form of what had once been June-Leckie. The shells of Vakye and Sixt were her prison in the end, the surface that her head smashed against when she fell. It is another poetic moment Pasha wishes she had the dexterity and talent to sketch.

“A woman?” Sacramount tilts downwards, curious. “What has she done?”

“Made a terrible mess of everything.”

“What a waste.” Sacramount doesn’t speak on these petty affairs, and Pasha wonders how much judgment is in his mind or if he operates strictly based on the Writings.

More fireflies emerge behind Sacramount’s wing, carrying a bowl of ink. It looks no different from the one she dipped her palm in only once before, with Ruinalk by her side.

“Whenever you’re ready.” Sacramount beckons the fireflies forward, the tiny creatures dangling the Decree to within arms reach of her. When it stills, a cloud of fireflies bundles and releases, leaving behind another document just like the first. “Before you sign, I will dissolve the current Decree, so you must be quick.”

Shields down for a moment. The idea of the city’s core scorched mostly of the Inciter contagion frees her of some regret, but not all.

Pasha pushes the Decrees aside and thinks. A great weight has left her, something she had been carrying ever since June-Leckie took a seat at the dining table that night at the Debut. There is a more profound possibility on the edge of Pasha’s awareness, fraught with strife and hardship, but also definition and hope. The future that could be plays out in her head and it both troubles and excites her.

Sacramount flaps his wings once in a gesture that could be the moth equivalent of clearing one’s throat, and every one of his eyes trains their focus on the girl that inherited humanity’s existence.

Pasha sinks her right hand in the floating ink bowl. Cold creeps underneath her fingertips, goosebumps rising from her flesh. She offers her hand to the floating parchment while the black liquid drips onto the bullwheel tower’s floor. “Wait.”

She leans in closer to the new Decree. The words have changed slightly, but now, she sees them leaking not with potential but with restriction. The fireflies bring the floating parchment close enough to touch her nose. In the fifty or more clauses, the winding sentences and paragraphs, the legalese that spans their worlds, and the eons beyond, Pasha comprehends the chains that hold her. Her binding to two Entrusted, the words that imprison her aging mind to a child’s ageless body, and the protection of women and Minds are Written here. The entire preservation of her race and the maligned rests in front of her ink-dripping hand, but at the same time, those words have formed a wall humanity could never scale. Now, they just might.

“Sacramount,” says Pasha. “I refuse to sign.”

All of the eyes on the moth’s wings blink at once, and it is like the close of some great curtain. It is the first time they have done that—ever. “Signature?”

“I refuse to sign.” Pasha withdraws her hand, letting the black ink drip onto her leg. “Do away with both of them. Burn them. Whatever you have to.”

Below, the Entrusted, the remainder of her alcazar elites, and the rescued incubators shield the sun from their gazes and turn up to the giant fluttering moth. Sacramount doesn’t move, yet his eyes seek out the Entrusted standing around Pasha and closing in. The beetles below fly up to the bullwheel tower and surround Pasha until they’re all arrayed behind her, like a massive firing line ready to launch a volley.

It is imperceptible, but Pasha thinks Sacramount takes a step back. “I must inform you,” the moth begins, “that if you choose not to sign, I will never return to draft another. I will consider this your realm’s resignation from what is Written.” Its voice lowers to a tone of finality. “Is this your choice?”

Pasha breathes in. She is at a crossroads. Humanity is at a crossroads. The Inciter strand had come for them, and though they repelled it for a time, the raw ground breaches the world, the maligned linger, and forces that seek to undo humanity run amok. Pasha can tell herself a hundred thousand times she still has a hold on this world, but it will never be true. Yet how can she tighten her grip on the shield protecting them while the Decree’s chains bind her?

Humanity may never get another chance.

“That is what I choose.” Pasha wipes her inking hand on her dress. “No more.”

The eyes on the moth’s wings narrow in the manner of a smile. Is it the relief of freeing himself from administering this world? Or perhaps he agrees Pasha has done the right thing. More likely, it is the excitement at her failure and that he will witness humanity’s collapse from his comfortable perch beyond.

“Very well,” Sacramount says. It flaps its wings once and a flame catches on the parchments, fueled by invisible oil. The words melt off the paper, caught in an ethereal haze. Then, a shimmer, peering at someplace beyond. That could just be elation or wishful thinking. “This place is Unwritten now.”

Pasha doesn’t hear the rest. There is a lull in the winds, a cycling of a distant airlock. Her eyes are closed as she braces for the inevitable downfall that will come any moment now. The towns outside the city, the hills beyond, and the Gashes nearby could house a thousand maligned in waiting, and no force in her employ could protect her against such an onslaught.

Yet, the city still sleeps.

“Is that everything?” asks Sacramount.

Pasha Adderey, her title of Signature now as meaningless as a dream, presses the question that Ruinalk never learned the answer to but that she may. “Did you omit the Inciter strand from the Decree on purpose?”

The moth blinks its army of searching eyes, and in the briefest, almost imperceptible moment, Pasha thinks she has disarmed the creature.

“Good luck,” it says, taking one final look at the Entrusted cadre arrayed around Pasha before closing its wings and launching off the bullwheel terminal, its trail of fireflies forming a black cloud in tow. They push through the open airlock, and a time later, they are all gone.

Distant possibilities linger as Pasha gazes over the core of the city she had burned. By doing so, she had protected it against the invaders seeping through the cracks in its doors. And the holes in the ceiling.

She looks at her hands and they seem the same, but even in the passing seconds, a rushing wave propels her through time, the same that, before, had caught everyone in its wake, except for her.

“The Unwritten Age,” she murmurs, and it sounds right. “Our destiny manifest and in our own hands. Finally.”

Let us begin.

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THE END OF

Book One of

THE UNWRITTEN AGE