The drums started before the sky did. Metal under ash, steady and smug.
Lucien pinched the dome closed. It sighed flat and was gone. We packed what hadn't melted. The city on the horizon had stopped pretending to be a mirage.
Varga crouched and drew a quick map in the ash with one knuckle—ridge line, the valley of glass ribs, the black river. "We need eyes," he said. "Here." Tap on a notch along the crater rim.
Elise leaned in, hair stuck to her temple. "I can go—"
"No," Varga said before the word finished. "You flare in this air. They'll see you from the inner ring."
She caught a tiny flame above her thumb and killed it with a face. "Okay. True."
Lucien's gaze did the doctor scan—boot, knee, band—then landed on me. "Light kit. Quiet joints. You handle heat better than we do."
Varga didn't argue. "It's him."
I looked down at my own knees like they had voting rights. "Counterproposal: send plate mountain. He absorbs swords."
