Defiant, at the very front of his ship, nose pointed almost at the ground, almost everything illuminated by brilliant white light, could see the Simurgh’s upper body, and part of her face.

“Connect to Fortuna!” Defiant called out. “She knows what to do!”

The Titan Dauntless moved again, the spear sweeping up.

The data readouts warped. The electricity was its own distortion, its own interruption.

Defiant hit the button for the manual instruction to fire, but the timing was wrong.

Titan Skadi was there too, her blade-hand at the Simurgh’s back. Digital readouts read that the Custodian Titan was active in the area.

All dogpiling the Simurgh, who struggled to make contact with Titan Fortuna.

Dauntless’s spear moved again, and this time, Defiant simply held the button down. When the spear’s disruption overrode the Simurgh’s signal, the signal got through.

Simurgh, Titan Skadi, Custodian, and Dauntless were all flung back. The Marduk ripped in half from the strain of firing—

And Defiant leaped, ninety feet between himself and the rubble below.

It was his old halberd that he used to catch himself. His old halberd that fired out a grappling hook, catching Titan Fortuna by the side.

Skadi had been there.

He lowered himself to the ground by stages. When he landed, dust was kicked up by his boots scuffing the ground.

The Simurgh lay prone within the storm that was the Sleeper. Unmoving. That hadn’t been him. That had been Dauntless, acting with the benefit of Titan Fortuna’s sight, guiding the direction of the blast.

The storm crackled, boiled, popped, the colors taking on a rainbow sheen that somehow felt it shouldn’t make sense with the way the colors unfolded.

That would be enough to take her out of the picture.

The Titans had gone absolutely still.

He could see Titan Eve. Titan Kronos. Titan Skadi. Titan Arachne.

The Titans who had been drilling had stopped. Whoever or whatever they’d been digging at, they were done.

The cracks in reality that separated their world from this one began to glow, the near-black red crystal taking on a deep red light. There was no light in the sky above. The only illumination came from below.

He looked.

He saw Titan Pouffe. The Titan who transported people and Titans en-masse, across vast distances. She was here, not where Antares had wanted her to be.

He counted heads, backing away by what felt like milimeters, given the scale of what was happening. It was as though he were an ant, taking a single step in a world at human scale.

A vehicle landed. It was the Uther. It was damaged, wrecked, half the weapons non-operational, the hull strained to the point it looked like it could crack apart if it made too sharp a turn.

His boots met the deck, metal on metal. It normally felt satisfying. Now it felt like a knell. A door closing. An executioner’s axe.