The next cycle I spoke to Roz about the concert. She cackled.

“So ya really not know? Klask ya reeflander I’m already goin with Aqta. Ya can come along.”

So it was that we went out. Roz for her part dressed in dark form-fitting silkweave and low boots. I wore my usual olmleather trencher, a buttoning shirt stitched with shells underneath, and blue trousers.

We picked up Aqta at her new above by the Spire. She wore green-and-red silks and a dragonmetal circlet. As we walked, they led the way, and I fell back at times, and as I hurried I realized they both gleamed with dragonmetal, that Roz wore bracelets with an the unmistakable shine of gold.

We descended into the crustaceous hollows of lower Blackbloom. Here the sporesong still spun and rushed, but I felt ill at ease. Roz and Aqta must have felt the same, as they drew close to me and we walked lockstep here where many people of all types and castes mixed like minnows in the currents.

We arrived at a clustered grove of fruited greatshrooms that engulfed a great hollow pit or punchbowl. At the bottom some polypal fungi structures bloomed.

Within this chambered place there were many upon many within. At a glance, I had never seen such multitudes, and it filled me with anxiety. But all the same it was magnificent, that within this city thousands could be packed into a single room.

I walked around, feeling lost, suddenly alone. I did not have any idea where my companions had vanished to. I sought Lhuna, that she would suddenly appear before me like a luminous ghost. At a bartop, an open seat surfaced, and I took it.

I eyed the strange bottles and tinctures until I saw something I knew, a wine, marello. The barkeep shortly enough took the order and set a fluted glass in front of me, filled with the red drink.

I sipped at it, pondered, and watched the streams of people. The fluted glass bore an unfamiliar mark upon it, a water droplet. In these multitudes I was not sure I could find Roz and Aqta again, but suddenly they came up beside me, pushing through the throngs of people that had begun to surround the bar.

I turned, and all of Valthyr wavered.

“Roz! What—”

She cut me off. “What’re ya doin, Klask? How deep in are ya…?”

She glanced at the drink. Her frills flared.

“The Crimson Lady, Klask!?”

“I’s not bad,” I said.

“Well finish up!”

Aqta sidled up to Roz. “We want to settle in, yeah? Klask you coming?”

I nodded, drew forth my coin pouch and tossed down two lanterns.

“Thanks. Arnhelo!” I told the barkeep, though I doubted he heard.

I hurried behind Roz and Aqta, and we made our way to one of the wide ramps down in the into the seats, and when we sat together I cast my glances about, looking for Lhuna, but she was nowhere to be found, and the spores dimmed and dimmed until there was just a green glow.

In the underglow we saw a cadre of brocaded nefra emerge from the smoke that lay beyond the curtains and take the stage. One had a stringed lute. Two others carried a few sets of shell-pipes, and they played and crooned, the music raw and emotional. After a few unfamiliar songs they bowed and called out thank yous and retreated.

The sporesong again swelled overhead.

“Cool,” Aqta said.

“Are those old songs to you?” I asked.

Roz chuckled. “Naw, though Shello’s songs you may have heard, but, Shello’s the one that made the songs in the long long ago.”

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“Like what?” I asked.

“Ya heard of Footprints on Stone? Walls of the Citadel? The Lover’s Lament?”

“What I Will Miss?” Aqta continued. “Dragons Yet to Come?”

They went on with more, but I was suddenly distracted as a cloud of sporesong dusted right in front of me and unfurled into glyphs. I read quickly. It was shaky, but when a bit of wind moved a corner of the letter it would reform itself into shape.

Klask! If you’re here come up to the Sapphire Suite! ~Lhuna

I glanced at Roz and Aqta, who were watching with interest. “Go on,” Roz said.

“D’you wanna come?”

Roz shook her head. “Have fun, Klask, and we’ll see ya next cycle probably. Go see her. Don’t wait up for us, ya?”

I pushed out into the wide ramped aisle, made my way upward, now the foot-traffic had died down quite a bit, as many of the goers had been seated already. I looked around in the hallways, the bars still clumped with people, and began to walk, choosing a direction aimlessly. Soon the sporesong flickered around me, and trailed forth from me like leading flames. I followed it to a dragonmetal door flanked by two darklings dressed in gray and plain silks.

They said not a word as I presented myself.

“I’m—uh—looking for Lhuna.”

But before I had even finished my sentence, the door had been thrown forth. There was a brief hallway and a set of wooden doors, and then silver stairs that circled upward.

“Go on,” the left darkling prompted. “First time, eh?”

“Thanks,” I said lamely.

I paused at the next set of doors briefly, then shook my head and looked for the sporesong, which faintly here still streamed from me, pathing up the stairs. So I went, and in each circle there was a hallway that led from the stairwell. At the third circle the sporesong turned toward the hall. I passed down the corridor, walls carved into friezes of roots and blooms, worked through with thin veins of dragonmetal, and opal-hued gems that rippled in the sporelight. The sporesong turned at a silver door. I rapped upon it.

Presently it opened to a mild-mannered nefra, milk-colored and splotched with teal, wearing a silk doublet.

“Yes?”

“I’m here at—at Lhuna’s bequest,” I said, in as dignified a tone as I could muster.

One of its appendages motioned me in.

“Welcome, guest of House Taladet.”

The nefra shut the silver door behind me with a click, then skittered away, leaving me to wander. I stood in a tall but narrow atrium. Above me glass windows filtered in prismatic sporelight from the mushroom-spires of middle and upper Blackbloom above. Beyond the atrium a set of steps led down into a red-hued room with an open far wall with a glass balcony that looked out over the stage. Here couches and divans had been set with pillows, and a few plush chairs.

I looked around, recognizing Glym, but not the person beside him, and before I’d done more than that, someone embraced me from behind with a hug. I froze, as it was unexpected, then they let go and I heard Lhuna’s voice.

“Klask! You came!”

I grinned. “Wouldn’t miss it,” I said.

“Come on,” she said, and took my hand, and led me to a divan.

A wide dragonmetal tray lay upon the divan already, and Lhuna leapt into the wide space, which somehow did not disturb the tray. I treaded more gingerly, knowing that despite my stature darklings were known as being heavier than some of the other races, a fact I was acutely aware of in Blackbloom more often than not.

“Lessos?” Lhuna gestured to the tray.

There were little biscuits upon the tray. They had a shape I could not place, like a double teardrop. “What are they?” I asked.

“Delicious. Just try one.”

So I did. It was sweet and cut through with a sour currant-like taste. I nodded to her.

“Thanks.”

“Feel free,” Lhuna said, laying out. “Shello’ll start soon I bet. Sporesong might tell us first if it catches wind of the Heart’s on its way. I told it to anyway.”

“You know I’ve only been here a couple weeks.”

“Yeah.” Lhuna smiled and sighed. “Does it all still feel like magic to you?”

“It’s incredible. Where I come from—we heard these stories sometimes, you know, and it all sounds so incredible to a kid from a little coral village.”

“Coral village, huh? Hey is it anything like Vahana?”

I considered briefly while I ate another of the lessos. “From what I’ve heard yeah. Coral islands in the Sea of Flame. Only difference is nobody goes to the S’uldra for pleasure really. Just those of us that live there pretty much.”

“Lived,” Lhuna said. “You live in Blackbloom now. Vahana’s great. Warm sands, warm waters, ancient resort buildings you wouldn’t believe. There’s this frost spa there that…my, Klask, I just…is there anything like that in your S’uldra?”

“A frost spa…?” I said dubiously. “No, not really.”

“No Myr ruins at all?”

My veins froze. I shook my head. “No…no…” I said, and it was all I could manage.

“D’you have any water?”

Lhuna gestured backward. “There’s a pitcher or I can call a servant.”

I rose, finding it a good opportunity to settle my thoughts, and with shaking hands poured a pitcher of water, and drank at it. The water was vigorously cold, both in the pitcher and the glass, so much so that when I returned to Lhuna with the glass of water its exterior had fogged and it steamed as it sat upon the bed.

“Like that,” Lhuna said. “Just think of that glass but a whole room full of artifice such as that. Truly magnificent stuff.”

Just then the crowd began to roar and Lhuna groaned. She mumbled something, and a tuft of sporesong came down and she spoke a whisper to it and it flew away.

She looked at me and quirked a smile. “It’s time.”

I settled back onto a pillow, and urged my heart to be calm, as a floating flame of purest pearltone came out onto the stage. Everyone cheered, sporesong gusting about it like a halo or a tornado. The flame coalesced into a sword, whose keening voice swept over everything and everyone.