“The valley near . . . ?” Ana prodded.

“Near the Academy.” His gaze lingered on the dot where the tomb was located, pulsing at the base of the mountains. He . . . he knew those coordinates, the town nearby, Resonance. The memory scratched at the back of his head, but he couldn’t quite place it. “There’re ruins there where students used to run off to before the Plague came.”

Before he could try to remember any more about Resonance, the image rippled again and burst into bits of stardust, startling him out of his thoughts. “You must keep it safe. The Goddess will help you—”

Ana jerked ramrod straight. “I am the Goddess reborn. I’m the first girl born to the Armorov line in a thousand years—”

The C’zar looked at her sadly. “You are not the Goddess.”

“But the prophecy—your prophecy—said I would be!” she argued. “If not me, then who? Who is?”

“I am sorry. I do not know that answer, but—” She cut herself off with a gasp. The crystal in the center of the giant astrolabe gave a flicker. Fear crossed the woman’s cool, sharp features. “Elara, I fear we have spoken too long.”

Elara gave a start. “What? Why?”

Koren Vey flickered, pain creasing between her brows. “Get out,” she commanded, and then more frantic. “Leave!”

“What? No—I can’t—” Elara began, reaching for the woman even though she was only a hologram, when the crystal gave a pulse, and the rings began to spin faster. A terrible, high song echoed through the cavern of the ark, so loud it rattled Robb’s heart in his chest.

He cursed. Of all the times for a thousand-year-old piece of technology to decide to blow up, it had to be now. Koren Vey had told them to leave, and he didn’t need to be told twice. “Elara! We have to go!”

“I won’t! We must do something,” she replied, turning back to the ancient C’zar. “Can’t we do something?”

Koren Vey tried to take Elara by the shoulders, but her hands passed through her, and her eyebrows furrowed all the more. How many times had Elara visited this ark while her parents studied it? How many conversations had they had? Elara must have been the first person Koren Vey had seen in a very long time. “Please, you must leave before—”

There was a loud crack, and a fissure opened down the middle of the crystal like a bolt of lightning. He spun around, trying to see if there was an exit or some way to jam the rings—some way to get out of this death trap. His metal arm twitched, gears whirring as dread began to pour into his blood.

“Shit,” Ana hissed between her teeth, and whirled back to Koren Vey. “Can’t you stop it? Can’t you do something?”

The ancient C’zar shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m only a part of it—I can’t control it.” And then she said something quieter to Elara in the Old Langauge, pieces that Robb picked out between the high song of the rings whistling through the air.