It wasn’t a myth anymore, but a nightmare he could put a face to.

“We took our final stand here, where the Goddess was reborn, and she joined us in the fight. She was barely older than you are now. In our scrying, we could not find a path to a future where we survive the D’thverek—save for one.” Koren Vey stood straighter, raising her chin. “Instead of trying to defeat the D’thverek, we stole the mechanism that allowed it to feed off the light of others. The D’thverek called it its heart. We couldn’t destroy it—we didn’t know how to. So the Goddess buried it with her in an unmarked tomb, and we would be safe, but only for a thousand years.”

The planets in the map swirled, again and again, one year to the next, faster and faster until the planets and their orbits were a blur—and then everything stopped, and the map was the galaxy Robb knew—the Iron Kingdom just after the Holy Conjunction six months ago.

Koren Vey put her hands calmly behind her back.

“We gave you a story—a prophecy—to warn of its return.”

“The Cantos,” Robb realized.

“So now the Great Dark’s looking for its heart,” Ana said quietly, shooting a cautious glance at him. “It’s burning shrines and HIVE’ing Metals to amass an army—”

“No. It is simply staying alive. It has found a way feast off people’s light by transfering their souls into machines. It needs Metals to survive, but the more it gathers in the HIVE, the more energy it takes to control them. The D’thverek is dying still. It must die,” said Koren Vey. “You must not let it find its heart.”

Ana hesitantly exchanged a look with Elara. “But . . . if the Great Dark dies, then it’ll take all the Metals in the HIVE with it.”

The horror of what Koren Vey was asking them to do slid across his skin like icy fingers.

To save the kingdom, they had to let tens of thousands of Metals perish.

“You are asking us to kill them?” Ana’s voice shook.

“Do not let the darkness find its heart,” Koren Vey replied. “I fear that if you try to save the Metals, you will fail.”

He watched as Ana’s hands slowly bunched into fists. She didn’t say anything for a long moment.

“She might be right, Ana,” Elara said, crossing her arms over her chest uncomfortably. “I’ve done countless computations on the code used on Xu. I’ve tried everything. We don’t have the resources to get them all out of the HIVE, and we’re running out of time.”

Ana didn’t say anything.

“Where is this heart?” Robb asked.

“The heart is hidden in a tomb in an ancient ruin on Eros.”

“There are hundreds of those. That certainly narrows it down—”

Koren Vey raised her hands again, and up from the ground came hills and valleys that reminded Robb of the backs of those scaly lizards Erik used to put in his bed as a child to scare him, but then he recognized the strange-shaped pool of water in the valley. “Hold on. That’s Lake Myriad. And that pass in the mountains is the Rigid Bone. I know these landmarks. It’s in the Bavania Range”—Robb motioned to the mountains—“because that’s the valley near . . .” He went very quiet.