Safiyah sighed. “We were all long-lived people, once. Nashins and Senyans. We were from different worlds, it’s true, but related ones. We had a shared religion, shared culture. Shared genetics, even. For a good long time, the richest were like immortals. Lived for centuries. On Umayma, that changed. Mutations happen faster here. They are difficult to correct, and nearly impossible to control. But we found that if we kept a few bloodlines very pure, we could maintain some of those genetics. You should have seen the things our conjurers could do, even in my time. But those skills are degrading. The bugs are mutating faster than we are. I worry that someday we may lose our hold on them all together. And the shifting… Well, the shifting is getting worse. Sometimes I think we’re fighting the bold truth that what the world really wants to do is change us to fit it. We keep trying to change the world to suit us. I don’t think that’s the way—ah, there it is…”

Safiyah pointed back up at the sky.

Nyx followed her gesture, and saw a brilliant blue burst of light puncture the night from the direction of Mushtallah. It roared across the darkness, into the atmosphere, fast as a comet. It left a misty trail of debris in its wake, like a spent burst.

Nyx watched the light change, grow smaller as it ascended. Then, a bloody eruption of light: purple and blue, tinged in orange, ringed in green. For a moment, it was as if a small star had exploded in the sky. Then bright flares broke apart from the mass and rained down from the atmosphere. It was like fiery hail. The end days from some bloody book.

Nyx took a drink. It was one of the prettiest things she ever saw.

Safiyah sighed as the rain of debris flared, darkened, and died in the night sky. After just a few minutes, the residue from the explosion had all but dissipated, leaving just a few misty trails of aurora-like folds in the sky and gaggles of awed spectators on the streets.

“Not as dramatic as I hoped,” Safiyah said.

“Did you shoot down the Drucians, a thousand years ago?”

Safiyah sipped her drink. “There were still a few of us alive, then. We could afford to be more dramatic. Their ship was bigger, too. A proper colonial ship, not a military vessel like that one.”

“Military?”