Forward. Duty. He kept faith in Rider G’ladheon, but just in case, the little girl he protected may very well be all that was left of their future. If anyone survived what was being unleashed, anyway, for there to be a future.

The dragon from the Great Mounds soared through the dim sky above, its scales luminescing in moonlight as it attacked the engineers, archeologists, overseers, and slaves operating the drill in the Old City. Heward Moody was killed by a single slash of talons, his steam engine knocked apart by another. Steam scalded the dragon. It bellowed in pain and pumped its wings, lifting it vertically into the sky. From a generous elevation, it stooped into a dive, preparing to obliterate any thing and any human left standing at the drill site.

Below, in the tombs, the dust circulated in ever-thickening clouds, and more rubble collapsed from the ceiling and walls.

“Chelsa!” Joff cried.

“Give me a moment,” came her muffled reply from the other side of the cave-in.

Joff could not know of the dragon attack above, he only knew the danger underground, and when he no longer heard the chew of the drill, and yet the tombs still shook, his fear mounted.

The last thing he expected to hear from Chelsa was laughter. Not hysterical laughter, but the hearty laughter of someone who had been told a good joke.

“Chelsa?”

“Joff,” she called. “I have found it, the antidote to the emperor’s weapon, and—”

He never heard more for layers of bedrock and earth, weakened first by the destruction of the castle and Sacor City one hundred and eighty-six years ago, and then by the drill, collapsed. Dirt and rock and tombs crashed down atop Chelsa and Joff. Chelsa’s people would never know of her discovery and how close she came to averting the destruction wrought by the emperor’s dragons.

THE BLADE OF THE SHADOW CAST

It was no longer just a sense of discord Karigan felt from beneath the net that still trapped her, but the palace shuddering. Wall-mounted artifacts crashed to the floor. Cabinets and display cases toppled over. Above the din, she heard Dr. Silk cry out in dismay as he attempted to rescue teetering urns and busts. The lights blinked and the walls around them groaned.

The remaining guards retreated as a heavy scrolled cornice smashed to the floor around them. They ran for the museum entrance.

“No-no-no!” Silk cried.

Cade leaped to Karigan’s side and hacked through the net. They pulled severed strands apart until she was able to slip free, even as a heavily framed painting crashed to splinters beside her.

Karigan prepared to go after Silk, but Cade caught her arm and pulled her back as more ceiling and a portion of wall caved in before them. Cade guided her through a haze of dust to the room of the moondial.

She coughed and waved dust out of her face. “Silk,” she said.

“Forget him.”

The room of the moondial remained strangely serene, Lhean gazing at the phases of the moon. A few panes of glass from the dome had shattered on the floor, but there was little other obvious damage.

“Lhean?”

“Galadheon,” he said. “You are the blade of the shadow cast.”

The riddle! How did Lhean know the line?

His eyes were fathomless as he gazed at her. “The threads of time are in flux,” he said, as if knowing her thoughts.

Eletians did not necessarily perceive time in the same linear fashion as mortals. If time was in flux, that was good, wasn’t it? They were already changing this future.

“What does he mean,” Cade asked, “that you are the blade of the shadow cast?”

A growing rumble and more quaking caused a couple more glass panels to crash to the floor. The four statues of the cardinal directions swayed on their pedestals.

“I am the gnomon,” Karigan said faintly, “just like in Castle Argenthyne.”

Lhean nodded. He held his hand out to her, and she walked toward him as if in a dream, Cade close behind her. Lhean centered her on the full moon.

“Stand close,” Lhean told Cade.

“What—what now?” Cade asked as the world shook itself around them.

“Yes, what now? I haven’t my moonstone—it’s what cast my shadow in Castle Argenthyne.”

Before Lhean could answer her, a drone filled the air.

Ezra Stirling Silk shook himself out of the pile of rubble and dust that had collapsed on him. He felt around for his specs, but could not find them. The ancient urn he’d been trying to protect was in pieces beneath him, and indistinguishable from the ruin that surrounded him. His museum . . . The artifacts he had so lovingly collected. He rubbed his temple. It throbbed terribly. He must have been knocked unconscious for a little while. Where were his guards? His prisoners? The sputtering light seared into his sensitive eyes and revealed in brief flashes the catastrophic damage to his museum.

Above the sounds of destruction, he heard a familiar drone. The drone of hummingbird wings.

He squinted in the direction of the aviary. Support beams had dropped from the ceiling and broken through the cage and mesh.

The drone increased in volume, the sound of furious hummingbird wings working. Had they been fed today?

He glanced here and there, the flashing light burning his eyes, making it more difficult than usual to see. Wings buzzed past his ears. He scrambled to dislodge himself from the rubble so he might escape, but no sooner had he regained his feet than he lost his balance and fell to his side. He twisted to look up, and for a moment, the light dimmed to almost dark, and he saw their auras aglow, a great cloud of blood-red hovering over him, the whir of their wings nearly deafening.