The shield wall dissipated into nothing, allowing the light to burst forth and filling the tunnel with a golden glow, too sharp and too sudden. Bright as any sun.

Poire tried to blink away the light, but even with the armor covering his eyes, his eyes couldn’t adjust fast enough. He was not alone. Agra gasped, Eolh crowed, and the rest of the troop made a sound together, not quite a song, but a worshipful note held in unison. All of them had cloth tied around their eyes, and covered their faces with their claws, bowing to the ground. Waiting for their eyes to adjust.

When she peeled off her blindfold, Yarsi’s pupils had turned to sharp slits, her irises a deep, primal gold. She was still squinting, but she smiled as well.

“Why is it so bright?” Poire asked.

“That is home,” Yarsi said, “Where sun never sets.”

A sun? This deep underground?

Back in his Conclave, there had been false suns and moon lanterns, hanging from the cavern ceiling. They slid slowly across the ceiling, mimicking true daylight and keeping all the residents on a healthy schedule. The lights were bright, dangerous to look directly into, but nothing so bright as to fill the tunnel with blinding white gold.

The others were stirring now, taking off their blindfolds. Rubbing their eyes with their knuckles. Clutching at his ribs, the Bloodchief gasped as he tried to climb to his feet, and failed. Yarsi flung herself to his side, while the others watched his weakness. Not with treacherous greed, but with grim worry. Perhaps they could smell the mortal wounds, hidden beneath the furs he wore, and deeper still.

Can anything be done for him? Poire wondered. He had no understanding of lassertane anatomy, but judging from the others’ silence, and the dark look on Agraneia’s face…

Maybe they have nanite or something in their home. But it was a thin hope.

Yarsi was too small to heft her father’s weight alone. Saltaq, the bitter lieutenant who had defied the Bloodchief, grumbled and came over to offer his help. “Ready? One, two-” and then the Bloodchief was up with their help, panting and wincing and growling his thanks.

“I can stand on my own,” he said.

Saltaq shrugged, standing back and giving his dignity room, but Yarsi wouldn’t let go of him.

“You need a healer,” Yarsi whispered. “And rest.”

“First, the Witch.”

“Father,” Yarsi chided him, and he waved her off with a great, clawed hand.

“Let’s go home,” The Bloodchief announced, and stumbled into the silver-gold tunnel, one hand on the craggy wall. She watched him go, the mottled scales of her brow twisted in thought.

The rest of the troop trudged after him, all of them still wincing from the light, squinting or outright squeezing their eyes shut, and using the wall to guide themselves.

“Human?” Yarsi said.

“Poire,” he said. “You can call me Poire.”

“Human Poire-”

“No. Just Poire.”

“You!” she pointed at Poire, and pointed down the tunnel at her father. “You help him.”

Neither question, nor a plea. The Bloodchief’s daughter demanded it from him.

“How?”

“She Who Remembers says you have power. You save me. You make him better too.”

“I’m not sure I can-”

“No,” Yarsi crossed her arms, and fixed a steely gaze up at Poire. This lassertane child was a head shorter than him, at least, though somehow she knew how to take up all the room in the tunnel. “You not leave. Not like Sen. You stay, and make him better. Then you can go.”

Her tone was fierce, but the frightened need in her eyes was fiercer. Poire could tell she wanted to step up, despite the fear that she knew not what she was doing.

A lump formed in his throat. What was he supposed to do? He didn’t have any surgical tools, let alone the knowledge. He didn’t even have a way to see inside the lassertane Bloodchief, to see what was broken in him.

“What about your Dirt Witch? Can’t she help him?”

Yarsi looked at him, as if he was a newborn fool. “How would she do that?”

“Well, how am I supposed to help?”

“You are human,” she said, as if that answered everything.

Human does not mean all powerful, Poire almost said. But then the idea came to him. “I can’t promise anything. But if I can talk to Sen-”

At the name “Sen,” Yarsi wrinkled her snout in disgust.

“She might have nanite,” Poire said. “Or medical constructs, or surgery tanks or I don’t know.” Poire could feel his throat getting tighter.

“She Who Remembers says you are stronger than Sen.”

“I don’t think so, Yarsi. I don’t think that’s right.”

She eyed him harshly, her lips pressed into a firm line.

“Look,” Poire scratched the back of his head, his metal covered fingers digging into the tight curls of his hair. “I’ve never healed anyone. Never had more than basic medical training. But I promise I’ll try.”

Yarsi seemed to be weighing something in her mind. Then, all serious, she nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“You try real hard though.”

Poire cracked a smile, “I’ll try real hard.”

“Follow me. I’ll show you home.” Yarsi started off down the tunnel, not waiting for him to follow. Her voice echoed through all that golden light, “She Who Remembers says you maybe can fix everything.”

How? Poire wondered.

“Sounds like you got a new boss,” Eolh said over his shoulder, before following the young lassertane into the tunnel.

“She would make a good captain,” Agraneia agreed.

The tunnel couldn’t have been more than a mile deep, but with so many forking paths Poire found it hard not to feel lost. Deeper and deeper, until the tunnel fell away. And so did his breath.

Impossible was the first word that leaped to his mind.

They were standing on a ledge of stone, with a bridge made of scavenged metal, bound together by thick rope, swung over a chasm. A chasm that was, quite literally, the size of a planet.

Sen’s world was hollow.

The height was dizzying. The scale, incomprehensible. The curving boundaries of the world made no sense. Mountain ridges, hanging upside down, marching away against the brilliantly-lit inward curve of the world.

A whole curving forest of enormous columns, tens of thousands of them, pierced down through the crust. The columns split like branching trees, becoming more shafts and spears, octagonal, hexagonal, and other shapes the size of cities. All to hold up the world. They went on forever into that vast expanse below, running across or connecting to each other in random places. Some were made of glass, the thinnest ones made of metal, and some made of a material that might’ve been fabricated stone; polished to a shining black.

A cold wind blew over the ledge, not strong enough to blow anyone over. But still…

Agraneia, Poire noticed, was as far away from the ledge as possible. Her eyes glued to the ceiling. Eolh was standing at the edge of the ledge, looking down.

“What is that?”

“This is wrong,” Agraneia said. She still hadn’t left the tunnel.

Below the ledge and the scrap bridge, there was no ground. Only empty space, and all the columns that laced through it. And beyond that, a piercing white light leaked through the crisscrossed pattern of the planet’s internal supports. The light seemed to change shape, though it never dimmed. From this far away, he couldn’t be certain, but he thought he saw a soft, glittering mist.

But how? Poire inched towards the edge to get a better look, but there were too many columns. He took another step, spilling dust over the side.

Agraneia shouted, “Stop!”

“Ags?” Eolh said, his head turned backwards towards the tunnel’s exit. The cyran soldier was still standing there, her back pressed to the wall. Her eyes squeezed shut.

“Don’t-” she spoke through gritted teeth, though she was nowhere near the edge. “Don’t fall.”

“I don’t think she likes heights.”

“Well, that’s a problem, isn’t it?” Eolh nodded at the bridge.

A small figure was scampering back across the bridge, making it sway gently so all the metal pieces tinked against each other, and the ropes groaned. Yarsi was coming back towards them, saying, “Home! Home!”

Thin, metal wires attached the main bridge to the ceiling (the crust of the planet), but many of the wires had popped out of their sockets, leaving dangling metal hanging across the bridge. Flat panels of metal that reminded Poire of the shipping containers that were sometimes delivered to his Conclave were lashed together with rope and more metal wire. More ropes, as thick as Poire’s arms, were stretched like handrails across the bridge, bouncing every time Yarsi bounced.

The main bridge connected the mouth of the tunnel to the first upside-down mountain ahead. An enormous stalactite, honeycombed with holes and tunnels and carved doorways, exactly like the ones they’d found on Thrass. There were more of those hills, like termite mounds, made of stone, hanging from the ceiling. In some places, huge boulders or cracked hills appeared to be attached to nothing at all, or dangled from thin metal wires that couldn’t possibly hold up all that regolith. Free floating mountains. Some kind of anti-gravity at work here, Poire thought.

Which made sense, given everything below.

Dozens of bridges connected the clusters of mountains and outcroppings, and steps were either carved into the rock, or ladders and metal steps jutted out, hanging precariously over the empty inner planet. Scrap-metal scaffolding decorated every entrance, reflecting the light and focusing it into the rocks. Bringing light and warmth inside those.

Hanging structures, like lanterns on thin wires, hung at different heights across this colony, some of them swaying gently in the breeze. Poire saw plants growing in some of them, and in one, there appeared to be a pen full of animals. All of them, everything here, connected by bridges and wires and ropes. All of them swaying.

And the wires that hung down, attached to nothing? Broken off and spilling their cords? He tried not to think about what had fallen loose. Poire could see more than one place where a bridge had fallen, and never been replaced.

“Come on!” Yarsi shouted, beckoning their group forward. Scampering back and forth along the bridge, filled with too much energy. The rest of the troop was already trudging across the bridge, tired and ready to drop their gear.

“What happens if they fall?” Eolh asked, ruffling his wings under his heavy fur coats. His breath, still coming out in a cold vapor.

“Don’t,” the Bloodchief said, “You fall, you don’t come back.” His voice thick and heavy from the effort of walking. He was leaning against the metal spikes that bolted it to the stone. Clutching at his ribs, trying to keep himself upright.

Agraneia was taking a few tense steps towards the bridge, when he said that. She stopped. “I don’t know if I can-”

“Yes, you can,” Eolh said. “I’ve seen what you can do.”

Yarsi scampered back across the bridge, making it shudder slightly. Agraneia clutched the sides of the guide ropes, leaned too heavily, and almost lost her balance. Her scales were noticeably draining of color.

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

“No.” She said.

“If you fall, just scream real loud. I’ll catch you,” he thumped her on the back with one hand, causing her to flinch and flail far too much.

“Don’t!” she hissed, gaining her balance again. Her legs spread in a low stance, both hands clutching the rope, so the sparkling scales on her knuckles stood bright against that far deep light. “Cyrans aren’t meant to fly.”

“Thought your kind was superior to mine.”

She grunted something about being uncivilized. Eolh countered with something about being a brave little soldier, and she threatened to skewer him on the spot, to which he responded, “Now who’s being uncivilized?”

“Eolh!” Poire shouted. “What is wrong with you?”

“What? This is how you treat fledglings who are afraid to fly.”

“I’m not a fledgling,” Agraneia said.

“Prove it,” Eolh countered.

That earned him an angry grunt. And she let go of the rope, and took a firm step forward. The bridge shook. She jumped as if she’d been doused with ice water, and surely would’ve fallen if Eolh hadn’t been there to catch you.

“You’re alright,” he crowed. “One step. It’s that easy, okay?”

“Don’t touch me. I can do it.” But her eyes were squeezed shut, and her strong hands were squeezed around Eolh’s slender arm, and the corvani’s eyes bulged with pain.

“Ags,” he struggled to say. “Ags, you’ve got to let go of me.”

The rest of the lassertane were watching them with decreasing interest. Eventually, the rest of the troop split off, most of them checking in with their Bloodchief, who only waved them off with a shake of his head or a rattling cough.

Agraneia, meanwhile, was still clutching the bridge and not moving. Eolh was offering to help Agraneia cross, but she growled at him.

Eolh shrugged. “Fledge, why don’t you go on ahead. I think we’re going to be a minute.”

Poire went with Yarsi, and together they helped the Bloodchief cross the bridge. It creaked and swayed as they walked, but Poire was too fixated on the world hanging ahead to care about falling. The mountains sparkled with scavenged metal, hundreds of thousands of flecks angled to direct the light and warm up the stones. Water dripped from the thousands of stalactites, milky icicles of stone that bearded the mountains. He wondered what happened to the water that fell.

And all the light shed up, disorienting him with every shadow and every movement. Between the gaps of the metal planks of the bridge, there was always light.

“What’s down there?” Poire asked.

“Sen,” Yarsi said simply.

The Bloodchief, his breathing too labored to answer, only grunted his agreement.

“That’s where Sen sits. Or used to sit. Long ago, before all things broke, Sen used to talk to us. To sit with us. Kings and Queens and Monarchs go to see her. Talk with her. Pray at her feet, and she answers their prayers sometimes. Unless they’re bad prayers. Then she says no.”

“Stories,” the Bloodchief managed to cough. “Dirt Witch’s stories.” He was leaning heavily on Poire, for Yarsi was too small to support his shaggy, old muscled weight. Poire doubted he could’ve carried the haggard lassertane if it wasn’t for the armor. Strength his biological body alone could’ve never had.

“Not stories,” Yarsi whispered indignantly, just loud enough for Poire to hear - and not her father.

Yes, Poire was almost certain what was down there, now. If Yarsi is right… he worried what that might mean.

A scar, in the center of this hollow world.

I shouldn’t be here, Poire thought. Not after what happened on Cyre.

That Scar had started to break open, they said.

Did the Emperor know this was down here?

Chimes and trophies and trinkets, hung over the doorways and windows and holes that pockmarked the mountains, clinked their music in the wind.

From here, he could see other bridges, and xenos walking into and out of the stony outcroppings. Some of them basked in the light reflected on the flatter patches of ground by the metal overhangs and staggered balconies that fringed the mountains. Huge chunks had fallen from some outcroppings, and had been crudely patched over the years with metal, or turned into terraces and balconies.

Someone was pulling on wires, changing the angle of the garden overhangs to let the plants rest. The gardens were greenish brown, but even from this far away, Poire could tell the plants were thin and weak and malnourished. Just like the people tending them.

The main bridge fed into the largest mountain. A huge stalactite, maybe as large as the hollowed-out cavern of his conclave, towered above. Growing thicker at its base, where it attached to the planet’s crust above.

An unnatural shape, like someone had hollowed out the innards of this planet, and left flecks of crust and mantle to cool on the undersides.

More lassertane stopped their work in their strange, hanging fields. Peered down at them from the balconies, stuck their long necks out of the holes that riddled the stalactite city.

One of the lassertane walked heavily down a set of stone-carved steps, carrying a metal rod on her shoulders, two clay jars swinging heavily on either end. The scales under her eyes were darkened with some kind of paint, maybe to help her see better in all this strange, glaring light.

The jar-carrier squinted at the Bloodchief, “Another empty haul?”

“We killed,” He grunted back, “We borrow later.”

“You said that last time,” the jar-carrier said. But there was no malice in her voice. Only a knowing sadness.

The Bloodchief echoed her tone, when he said, “I know.”

“And you’re hurt.”

He waved her off, “I’ve had worse.”

“Anyone else?”

“All alive,” he said, and the jar-carrier flicked her tongue in the air, satisfied with his answers.

“Is she awake now?” The Bloodchief said. “We need to see her.”

“No, Father!” Yarsi said, “You rest. I take him-”

“I am fine,” he said. Clenching his snout shut as something caught in his throat, and a new wave of wracking coughs threatened to bring him down.

“You go to healer!” Yarsi stamped her foot.

“Yarsi,” he growled, brooking no argument from her. But Poire thought he could hear the quiet fear in the older lassertane’s voice.

“What is he?” the woman asked. Squinting through her black paint at Poire.

“Him? He is Human,” the Bloodchief answered, as if he was almost embarrassed to admit it. Yarsi stuck out her chin, defying the woman to argue.

The woman’s reptilian eyes went wide, the same gold as Yarsi’s and the Bloodchief’s. Her head shook a disbelieving ‘no.’ “Human,” she echoed. Voice full of awe. She took a careful step back. “You bring human here?”

“The Dirt Witch,” the Bloodchief said, his tongue flicking in the air.

And the woman nodded, seeming to understand. “She will know.”

“She will know,” he agreed.

Only Poire could see the pain it was causing Yarsi. The worry on her face.

“I can wait,” Poire said. “You’re wounded. You need help. I can see the Dirt Witch after we get you-”

“No!” the Bloodchief whirled on Poire, his nostril slits flaring. A mad, animal look in his eyes. He cringed and clutched at his ribs. Forcing his eyes to focus on Poire. “I take to Dirt Witch first.”

They were afraid of him, for some reason. The Bloodchief, and the woman, too.

But not Yarsi.

Behind them, the bridge creaked as Eolh was saying, “That’s it,” he was saying. “One foot. Then another.”

And when Agra reached the ground, she collapsed and pressed herself to the solid ground, her whole body going slack as she sighed with relief.

Poire gave Eolh a look. Eolh just shrugged.

“Now is time!” Yarsi announced, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “We take to Princess! And then,” she turned to her father, her eyes just as stern as his, “Then, I take you to healer.”

“Yes, daughter.”

“No more bridges,” Poire heard Agraneia whisper from the ground. “Oh, gods.”

Unfortunately for her, there were six more bridges. Some of them little more than ropes and metal tied together. The Dirt Witch, it seemed, lived in the last stony outcropping of their village. An enormous boulder which hung by three metal threads, none of which moved in the slightest. Only one bridge lead to it, and there was no sign that any of the lassertane lived here, as the balconies and railings collapsed or had crumbled away. All this ruined grandeur, eerily bright in the light from below.

“Does the sun, er, the light ever set here?” Eolh asked.

Yarsi and Poire answered at the same time, “No.”

She looked at him, surprised. “How you know?”

Poire shrugged. How am I supposed to explain there’s a Scar in the center of their world?

I don’t even know what it is…

And again, that little voice in the back of his head, warning him: You shouldn’t be here.

“So how do you sleep?” Eolh asked.

“We sleep inside,” Yarsi said. “Where it’s dark.”

“Is that where, uh, She Who Remembers is? Inside?”

“Yup. She always sleeps, very sleepy. That’s why she likes me, because I never have to sleep.”

The Bloodchief snorted a laugh. Yarsi frowned at him.

“You never sleep?” He said, “I remember when I carry you around whole village, you always sleep.”

She scrunched her face again, thinking hard. “Well, now I am big, I don’t have to sleep anymore.”

“Oh? You are big now?”

“Yes. Now, I am strong like you.”

This time, he smiled without laughing. “Not big yet,” he said, and put a hand on the back of her head, squeezing her lovingly. “But one day, Yarsi. Bigger than any of us.”

She beamed with pride, and wrapped both arms around him. Squeezing him back. The Bloodchief winced, saying nothing, letting his daughter hug him despite the pain.

They deserve better, he thought. And he found himself turning back to Eolh.

They all deserve better.

Poire could feel his own heart breaking, but he didn’t know why, couldn’t understand this feeling spreading across his chest. He gritted his teeth and was glad that his armor covered his face, and hid the wetness in his eyes.

You have to help them. To do anything you can.

“I’m ready,” Poire said. “Let’s go meet this Dirt Witch of yours.”

Yarsi proudly lead the way up the stone steps, and into the shadowy entrance of this last outcropping. A wall of rank, ancient air and the animal smell of decay greeted them. Rotting scales littered the cramped tunnel, and the crisp, hollow pieces of shuffled-off skins.

Perhaps the tunnel had been wider once, but now it was overgrown with some kind of dusty, dry moss that crunched under his every footstep. It took him far too long to realize he wasn’t walking on carved stone, but a hallway of smooth-paved rock. This was no boulder, but a chunk of a hall, of a great temple from the city above. How did it get down here? A hum filled the hall, as it expanded into a low ceiling. A hum, not mechanical, but a voice from someone deep in thoughtful song.

“Old one,” Bloodchief whispered. “Old one, we have come.”

The humming continued, throbbing so deep, Poire could feel it in his nose.

“Princess?” Yarsi asked. “Are you awake?”

The humming jerked into an echoing grunt that rumbled the stones, and made Poire’s armor quiver in response.

“Awake? I can’t remember,” the voice breathed. Slow and heady, almost drunken.

“Lights,” the voice croaked.

There was an earthy cracking sound, as the floor began to shift, and gaps opened in the floor. A wide circle at the center of the temple disappeared, letting the light from the Scar far below pierce up into this place. As the circle opened, all the rocks and loose gravel began to float, swirling in a slow circle around the temple. And against the far wall…

“What?” Eolh crowed. “What is that?”

A towering figure seemed to grow out of the walls. A living statue lifted its great, reptilian head.

Even Agraneia took a step back into the hall, her body crouched in a stance, ready to strike.

The head, which was as large as Poire’s whole body, was connected to a wrinkled neck, far too narrow and far too long to support so much weight. Her eyes were so sunken in, Poire couldn’t tell if they were even there at all. And her beak-like mouth - not avian, but a reptilian beak made for snapping bones - was covered in dirt and moss. Even the wrinkles of her neck were shaggy with moss.

Her shell was huge, as large as a house, though it had lost much of its color and her body had withered so greatly, the shell might’ve belonged to someone else. Tubes, coils of wire, cables that were so worn-out, they were almost naked, were embedded in every inch of her exposed scales. Hundreds of them held up her neck, or supported her head, and every time she bobbed her head, the wires bobbed with it.

“Mmmhmmm,” she said, as her great nostrils snuffed at the air, inhaling all the airborne dust. “Mmm, hmmm. Welcome, Yarsi, my favorite granddaughter. And you have brought your father, I think, but he is-” And here, the Dirt Witch made a grimace that cracked the thousand, thousand lines of her face.

When she turned her head, it was not like she was moving it, but the wires were moving her. Only, so did the stones that floated in orbit around her. A ring of gravel and dust, floating gently around the room. The Dirt Witch leaned forward, her shell creaking as all the wires struggled to uphold her weight.

“I do not smell scrap, oh, Bloodchief.”

The Bloodchief kneeled, grunting as he struggled to get down on one knee, and bow before her. Yarsi was already sitting on her heels, her hands clasped in her lap.

“I did not bring any,” the Bloodchief said. Resigned.

“And yet you come, expecting payment?” She sniffed at the air again. And all the wires moved, making an arm, all bone and spindle, lift in the air, one claw extended beyond the others. Making her look every bit a massive puppet made of stone and scale. “What is that smell?”

She leaned forward, her neck extending impossibly long. Scales sloughing off and falling to the floor as the wires worked to get her beak closer to Poire’s face, as she inhaled more deeply.

Agraneia’s hands were on her knives, but Eolh held up his hand. Still, Poire could hear him mutter, “Careful. Careful…”

“Princess,” Yarsi said. “We found a human.”

“A what?” Now her arm traveled up to the earhole on the side of her wrinkled head.

“A human. Remember? The one you said would come?”

“No, no,” she said, as all the wires holding her began to shift and stir. “No, no, it’s been too long. All dead. Not a human…”

With her other arm, she grabbed a fistful of wires still embedded in her scales, and pulled until they made a dry popping sound, and came out. She spun around, or rather, the other cords still holding her spun her around, as she drifted towards an ancient wooden chest against the back of her temple. Where had she gotten the wood? Poire had seen no trees here.

She fixed the wires to the lid of the chest, and when they pulled, the chest creaked open. The Witch dug inside, and pulled out two orbs, sparkling like clear gems set in gold. Pinpricks of light at their centers. She tilted her head back, and dropped the orbs into her eye sockets one at a time.

These eyes reminded him nothing of Laykis’s, somehow these were too mechanical to even emulate expression. Maybe it was because she never blinked. And when she cocked her head, light scattered through the eyes’ jeweled surfaces. Dots of light appeared on Poire’s chest, sliding up and down his body.

“Oh, no,” she said. And all at once, all the Witch’s wires sagged her body against the floor.

“Princess?” Yarsi’s voice was tight and too high, “Did I do wrong? Is it not him?”

“I had hope,” the Dirt Witch said, wires coiling and moving her jaw for her, helping her enunciate. “Every day it grew. I hoped it would not end with me.”