That didn’t come from the rift, she told herself. She knew. Bodi, her ex-fiancée, was responsible. It was an act of sabotage, designed to spare only her. It stunk of him. Immediate. Remorseless. Savage. The cowardice of asking lackeys to sacrifice their lives.

Anlyn looked at her palms. Below—past the grav panels and through the transparent visisteel—she could see ships darting out from their stations. She watched them as they roared toward the expanding cloud of debris.

Edison wrapped his arms around her as she fought valiantly to not break down. She felt like a Wadi canyon with its base eroded by the wind. Her shoulders shivered as if they threatened to topple off her body. Outside, all her hopes were scattering in a billion pieces. So many noble, valiant believers had been reduced to dust. Thinking of them—of the many faces, smiling and bowing in the corridors—it made the ridiculousness of her mission hit home. It made her feel lonely and young. A little princess, spoiled and spouting prophecy, journeying to the Great Rift because of some old words handed down through time.

The shame she felt—the guilt—they shattered floodgates already weakened by despondency. Anlyn sobbed into Edison’s fur. She heard his lance drop, felt him scoop her up into his lap.

Over his arm and through the tears, she watched a pointless fleet of emergency response ships circle the new nebula, looking for clues. The only good they did was to whip what remained into whorls and eddies of nothingness.

ѻѻѻѻ

“We caught something on vid,” Bishar said softly.

Anlyn tore her eyes away from the debris field. She had no idea how long she’d been staring, transfixed, into the blossoming cloud. She wiped her face and looked up at Bishar, then pushed herself from Edison’s lap. She took a few steps away from them both, trying to look less like the child she suddenly felt.

“It looks like a solid beam of light,” Bishar said. “It’s only there for a single frame, right before the explosion. We’ve never seen anything like it from the Rift. It’s—there’s nothing we could’ve—”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Anlyn told her cousin. “And it wasn’t the Rift’s. I know who did this, and I know why.”

“Cousin, I know you’re upset. We all are. Several among your volun-teers had family here at the Keep. There will be a great cooling for all—”

Anlyn turned to face Bishar, her face as stern and serious as she could muster. “There will be a great burning, Bishar Nooo, that’s what there’ll be. And I do not doubt the Rift’s involvement out of some superstitious fancy—I know the work of my former suitor. Check your vid again, and tell me which direction that beam of light was going.”

“But Cousin, I already told you it was on a single frame. How do you suppose we determine the direction if we can’t see it moving?”

“I don’t expect we will. You have your bias and I have mine. They just point in opposite directions.”