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a cloud of smoke.
    Nat fell from her seat, and when she opened her eyes, she saw that her drakon was weeping, it burned with such pain, and her own face was wet with tears. She felt its pain in her own body, in her own soul, and it was intolerable.
    Her drakon was dying. She could feel its pain, its terror, as the iron worked its way into its flesh, into its very spirit, corrupting and destroying with its silver poison.
    She screamed and Drakon Mainas rumbled, its voice cutting through the pain.
    Stop. Stop. Stop.
    What is happening?
    You must calm yourself.
    Nat took a deep breath and slowed her heart.
    Better.
    You are hurt. Make it stop.
    I cannot. We must separate.
    No.
    It is the only way to survive. Listen. I will go deep into the earth, deep into the Blue. I will be safe there and the pain will abate for both of us until I am healed.
    Already it was digging into the sand, its talons scraping the ground, creating a deep and dark hole.
    A tomb. Nat shuddered. A burial site.
    Do not let cowardly thoughts overcome you,
her drakon thundered.
You must return to Vallonis whole and warn them of this magic that is in our enemy’s hands. GO!
    Then the ground opened up, and her drakon disappeared into its depths.
    Nat sat still for a moment, exhausted and shaking from the battle, and now from the sudden separation. She was incomplete again, more alone than ever, especially after having known and lived otherwise.
    She tried calling to Mainas, but the drakon did not answer.
    Where once it was buried in the ocean, now it was underneath the ground itself.
    There was nothing to be done.
    Nat picked herself up, dusted herself off, and walked toward the gateway hidden deep in the forest.
    Home and sleep. Just not the way she’d planned.

Chapter 4
    W ES ENJOYED THE ELEVATOR ’S WARMTH, the quiet music that tinkled soothingly in the background. Shakes’s text message was burning in his pocket. FOUND ELIZA. Was it true? He was impatient to find out more, but even if he wished to move faster, he was thankful for the short respite from the cold. When the race was over, he had returned the half-inoperative heat suit. The organizers lent them to the drivers—it was too cold to drive without one— but they took them back after the race was finished.
Cheap bastards.
He missed it even though it barely worked, but was glad to be standing in the wide and well-heated glass elevator. Since he was alone he stood right beneath the vent, savoring the hot air drifting though his hair, tickling his ears. Heat. He could stand there forever. Through the glass windows he saw soldiers patrolling the streets below and posted at every hotel lobby. He was surprised there wasn’t an armed guard in the car with him.
    Ever since the RSA had lost the battle in the Pacific, the military had doubled their ground troops, making their presence felt in every corner of New Vegas. The brass was on edge, jittery, and dangerous, looking for enemies in every shadow, in every movement. The raids on the marked were more prevalent, and there was no longer any pretense about hospitals or a cure. The white priests were even more visible than before, led by their High Priestess, a madwoman who called herself Lady Algeana Penthos, goddess of pain and suffering. There was no safe harbor for anyone marked by magic. They were considered dangerous, enemies of the state, and anyone caught harboring one would suffer the same fate—there were murmurs that even the military was in collusion with the Lady to get rid of them all. All the more reason to get out of the RSA, out of the crossfire, Wes thought. But where would he go? Where would he live? What kind of life could he dream about for him and his friends on this frozen wasteland of a planet? The time for dreams was long past.
    The elevator shot up toward the skyway, to the casinos that floated high above the sidewalks, and it was easy to see that the lights of New Vegas glittered less brightly these