Ana told her what had happened as they moved through the ark to where the bones met the grasslands and looked up to the watchtowers.

“We have to get them out of prison then,” Elara said, pulling back a handful of vines to judge the distance between them and the edge of the forest. The sun had already begun to set, but for some reason the visibility wasn’t getting any dimmer. The bones themselves were glowing. Like giant sunsticks. And the little flecks of scales that littered the ground reflected the light in a beautiful oily sheen. Elara kicked one, and it skittered out into one of the shadows cast by the glowing bones. “We should be able to stick to the shade if we hurry before the sun sets.”

“Do you think you can make it up the mountain?” Ana asked, motioning to the hacker’s head injury, but she just waved it off like it was nothing.

“I’ll be fine. Let’s go.”

They hid in the shadows cast by the incredible allahlav, keeping to the contour of the hills, until they reached the forest. The way back up the mountain was marked by small marker lights to show the path. Neither of them spoke much as they ascended to Zenteli, until finally Ana said, “I’m sorry. About Koren Vey.”

To that, Elara shrugged. “You said they touched hands, right? And Jax was glowing afterward?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I don’t think she’s really dead. I think she might’ve given her light to Sparkles. Quite genius, really. She redirected her light into Jax from the crystal, depowering the engine.”

“Solani can do that?”

She nodded. “I think she could only because Jax didn’t have much light of his own left. So I don’t think she’s dead—she’s just . . . different now. Something else. Energy or light or stardust. Whatever we become after. She had the best stories, though, about who we were. About our old kingdom before the D’thverek came.”

“Can you tell them to me?” Ana asked, and Elara smiled. As they climbed, she told her the stories Koren Vey had told her, about cities built in the clouds and creatures that swam in the air. Of great ships like the one in the valley that shimmered all sorts of colors as it floated among the skies, and brilliant parties in lavish crystalline palaces, and the more Elara talked about it in her out-of-breath, wistful voice, the more Ana began to dread what the Great Dark would do to her kingdom.

If it could destroy a place so beautiful and powerful as the Solani kingdom, then how could the Iron Kingdom stand a chance?

She needed to find the heart. She wanted to see Jax first, to make sure he was okay—but there wasn’t time. The higher the twin moons of Iliad rose into the night sky, the more the voice in the back of her head itched that she needed to go. To make sure, no matter what, that the Great Dark never found its heart.