I couldn't sleep.
Tsukumo remained in the seat beside me, his eyes closed and his good hand resting carefully on his bandaged arm.
Havelyn had moved a little away from the porthole and kept her head lowered, patiently straightening a bent feather on her right wing.
Through the narrow corridor, I could hear the masked man answering Sahger's curt questions.
Sometimes the silence stretched for several long seconds, until the hunter repeated the question more firmly.
Only then would the man speak again.
I waited for the ship to hold steady a little longer, unbuckled my seat belt, and headed for the cockpit.
The prisoner was still strapped into the copilot's seat.
One of his hands trembled nonstop on his knee; the other pointed at the holographic map in front of Sahger, where a reddish band crossed dozens of glowing points.
"The Crimson Veins..." the masked man was saying, his voice unsteady.
"That's what they call this region. Kardris is just beyond it."
Sahger slid his calloused fingers across the projection and enlarged the next section.
"This course adjustment here. Did you make it on the way in?"
"On the way in and on the way out. You can't go straight through without being destroyed."
The hunter checked the indicated route against the data on the main console before changing course.
I stood in the doorway, watching the enormous space rocks pass beyond the armored glass.
Some were large enough to blot out the stars completely.
Among them, the twisted half of a derelict metal structure tumbled through space, rows of openings lining its ruined hull.
Sahger slowed the ship.
The masked man clutched his seat in terror as one of the enormous rocks filled the entire forward window.
We passed beneath it, plunged into a deep shadow where only the console's blue glow lit the porcelain of his mask.
"How much longer?" I asked, breaking the silence.
"A few hours," Sahger replied.
I approached the prisoner.
"Look at me."
He slowly turned his head toward me.
I pointed to the location marked just below the approach route on the planetary map.
"And this spot marked on the surface?"
"That's where I was originally supposed to land. They sent the coordinates when they accepted the delivery, but they decided to intercept me in orbit before I descended."
"So you don't know what's waiting for us down there."
"I already told you I've never set foot on that planet!"
I kept staring at him in silence until he turned toward the glass.
I returned to the passenger compartment.
Havelyn looked up as I passed, but she didn't ask any questions.
I sat down, fastened my seat belt, and rested my head against the upholstery.
The moment I closed my eyes, the image of Arthur holding Laura by the hair flooded my mind.
I opened them again immediately.
The next few hours crawled by, punctuated by shifts in the engines' rumble and abrupt course changes that pressed me into my seat.
Through the window, the edge of a dead gray world appeared, with no sign of light on its surface.
It slipped behind us before I could make out anything else.
I drank some water and kept waiting.
Tsukumo opened his eyes whenever turbulence shook the ship harder.
Havelyn slept for a while with the blanket spread over her legs.
When she woke, she remained silent, staring at her hands.
Then Sahger's deep voice came over the cabin speaker.
"Come take a look."
Tsukumo unbuckled first.
I stood a moment later, my thigh stiff from sitting so long, and Havelyn followed us down the corridor.
Beyond the cockpit windshield, the stars were gradually disappearing behind a thick band of red particles.
Farther ahead, the dark curve of an enormous planet emerged from the haze and stretched beyond the edge of the window.
The masked man had shrunk against his seat, shivering.
"Kardris..." he murmured.
Sahger angled the ship's nose, bringing the entire planet into view for a few moments.
Dense, heavy layers of scarlet clouds covered the surface.
Lightning flashed inside them, illuminating distant regions before fading.
Through the gaps in the clouds, red channels cut across vast stretches of black, their light slowly pulsing brighter and dimmer.
An uneven ring of debris surrounded the planet.
Some of the pale fragments resembled gigantic ribs.
I followed one with my eyes.
There were distinct joints at its ends.
"Is that... bone?" Havelyn asked, shocked.
The masked man didn't answer.
A fragment of rock spun dangerously close in front of the ship.
Its shadow passed over Sahger's face and the glowing map.
The hunter waited for the obstacle to clear our path before accelerating.
Tsukumo stepped between the seats and moved closer to the glass.
"Something's moving down there."
I followed his gaze, but another thick layer of clouds covered the ground.
My fingers tightened against the doorframe.
Laura is somewhere beneath all of that.
"You can still stop in the atmosphere! You don't have to go down there!"
Sahger checked the holographic projection on the console.
"Tsukumo. Take him back to the seats in the common area."
The prisoner desperately clutched his seat belt.
"You're not listen—"
"I am," Tsukumo replied, gripping him firmly.
"Get up."
Tsukumo released the buckle and pulled him up by the arm.
Havelyn backed into the corridor to let them pass while Sahger pointed to the newly vacated copilot's seat.
"Sit here, Suki."
I obeyed without question.
Havelyn returned to the passenger compartment, and shortly afterward, I heard Tsukumo report over the intercom that everyone was strapped in.
Sahger switched off the autopilot and took manual control, guiding the ship through a narrow gap in the wreckage of the orbital ring.
A metal beam spun far too close to our side.
He corrected our course with a short, precise movement of the control levers, and the steel sliced through the vacuum without touching the hull.
The dense red clouds grew rapidly in front of us.
"Hold on!" the hunter warned.
The first violent jolt slammed my head against the seat.
A red flash streaked through the glass, followed by a sharp crack that traveled the length of the hull.
The console displays flickered amid a burst of electrical interference.
Sahger silenced an alarm and pulled back on the flight controls, but the ship kept losing lift and plummeting.
Its nose suddenly pitched downward.
"Sahger!"
"I know!"
He activated the emergency side thrusters.
The floor vibrated beneath my boots, and the ship's nose struggled back up a few degrees.
Another violent bolt of lightning split the sky in front of the windshield.
For a second, I saw reddish clouds above us, below us, and on every side, so close they seemed to be closing in to crush us.
Then everything turned red again.
The sound of something falling and rolling echoed from the corridor behind us.
"Stay in your seats!" Sahger ordered, shouting over the noise.
I heard the masked man begin screaming in terror, but the roar of the engines drowned out his words.
On the console, the landing marker drifted away from the center of the radar.
Sahger corrected our course with his teeth clenched, watching the altitude numbers plunge across the projection.
The emergency alarm blared again.
A strong, acrid smell of burning wires flooded the cockpit.
"There's smoke coming out of the panel back here!" Tsukumo called from inside.
Sahger quickly activated two more controls.
The ship lurched sideways, and the thick layer of clouds finally broke.
The ground was far too close.
Sahger hauled the ship's nose upward with all his strength.
The engines roared until the sound became a high-pitched whine.
The impact with the ground was brutal.
The blow folded me against my seat belt.
Something buckled and snapped beneath the hull, and the ship skidded uncontrollably across the stone, throwing up a storm of sparks and pushing a thick wave of red liquid ahead of it.
A stone column passed within a few meters of the window before we finally stopped.
Sahger kept his hands steady on the controls until the craft came to a complete halt.
The last auxiliary engine was still popping and juddering when it was shut down.
For a few seconds, the only sounds were the ticking of cooling metal and my own heavy breathing.
"Tsukumo?" the hunter called, his voice hoarse.
"We're okay! We're here!" he answered from the common area.
I struggled to release my seat belt, my chest aching.
Sahger was already on his feet, pulling his spear from the rack beside his chair.
He strode past me and down the corridor.
When I left the cockpit, dark smoke was gathering near the ceiling of the common area.
Havelyn covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve, coughing.
Tsukumo was pulling the masked man out of his seat while smoke poured from an open electrical panel on the rear wall.
Sahger shut off the power at the panel beside the exit.
The main lights went out, leaving only the dim red emergency lighting, but the burning smell kept growing stronger.
"Everyone out! Now!" the hunter ordered.
Sahger activated the ramp's manual release, and the large metal door slowly began to lower.
The air that rushed into the ship was hot and heavy, with a strong metallic taste of iron.
The hunter went down first.
He stopped at the foot of the ramp, surveying our surroundings with his spear at the ready.
I caught up with him and stepped onto the ground. A thick red layer parted beneath my boot.
There wasn't a single dry patch in sight.
The dense liquid covered the entire courtyard, pooled between the stones, and ran over the edges of old loading platforms.
Near a broken support, a dark pool bubbled slowly.
I lifted my foot.
A thick, viscous strand stretched from the sole before snapping and falling.
It was blood.
The strong, nauseating smell of iron filled my nostrils when I breathed again.
Ahead, a broad passage stretched between two unlit buildings.
The red mist hid everything beyond them.
"Stay close to the ship," Sahger warned without lowering his guard.
I heard Havelyn descend the ramp behind me.
Her boots touched the wet stone, but her footsteps stopped abruptly.
I turned to look.
She stood motionless, staring wide-eyed into the dark space between the buildings.
"Havelyn? What's wrong?"
Havelyn slowly raised one hand as though asking for absolute silence.
With the other, she seized the front of my clothes.
Her knees suddenly buckled.
I caught her firmly around the waist before she could fall face-first onto the ground.
"Havelyn! What are you feeling?"
She tried to brace her hands against the ground, but her fingers slipped through the red layer, leaving trails in the liquid.
Her mouth was open, but almost no air was reaching her lungs. She was suffocating.
"Sahger!" I gestured frantically.
The hunter turned immediately.
Havelyn dug her nails into my forearm with tremendous force, opening small cuts in my skin, and my own blood ran down to her fingers.
"Can you hear me?! Look at me, Havelyn!" I pleaded, holding her face.
Her eyes wandered over my face without focusing on anything.
Her black wings spread in a violent spasm, and the right one slammed into the metal ramp.
Sahger laid his spear on the ramp and immediately knelt beside her.
"Support her back, Suki! Don't squeeze her chest!" he instructed.
I shifted my arm to support her.
Sahger brushed the dark hair away from Havelyn's face, touched her neck, and rested his palm against her ribs, following their shallow, rapid movements.
"Havelyn. Breathe with me. Breathe in..." he said.
She shook her head in panic.
"Stop... please..." she whispered, her voice barely audible.
"What hurts?! Where?!" I asked.
Havelyn released my arm and brought both hands to her ears, pressing them hard against her head.
"Stop... please... shut up..." she moaned, writhing.
Tsukumo was still at the top of the ramp, holding the masked man by the arm.
The prisoner had frozen on the last metal step, refusing to set foot on the ground.
"What's on this planet?!" Tsukumo demanded, looking around.
"I'm not stepping down there! I won't!" the masked man shouted.
"Look at her! What's happening to her?!" Tsukumo roared.
The white mask turned toward us.
"I warned you! I told you this place was hell!" the man bellowed.
He tried to turn around and climb back into the smoke-filled ship, but Tsukumo tightened his good hand around the man's arm, preventing him from retreating.
"Tell me what the fuck is happening!"
The masked man jerked his arm, trying to break free.
His shoe slipped on the metal, and he lowered one foot to regain his balance, stepping into the red layer covering the courtyard.
His body went completely rigid that same instant.
When his knees gave out, Tsukumo released the prisoner's arm and grabbed his collar with the same hand.
He quickly knelt, lowering himself with the falling man to keep his face from striking the metal.
With his injured arm tucked against his torso, Tsukumo kept his good hand clenched around the collar and supported the masked man's body against his own thigh.
The man's head hung limply forward.
"Hey! Wake up!" Tsukumo called, shaking him.
A thick, dark drop fell from inside the mask and struck the metal ramp.
Then another.
Tsukumo lifted the man's chin.
Blood gushed steadily from both eyeholes in the white mask, running down the porcelain and filling the grooves of its carved smile.
At the lower edge of the mask, the streams pooled together and dripped onto the ramp.
"Sahger..." Tsukumo called, his voice faltering.
The hunter looked over his shoulder.
Tsukumo pressed two fingers against the prisoner's neck.
He waited a few seconds, shifted his hand, and tried again.
The man didn't respond.
His body had gone completely limp, like an empty sack.
"He's dead. He stopped breathing."
I stared at the bloodstained mask, motionless.
Blood kept pouring from the eyeholes.
Havelyn writhed harder against my chest, and I turned my attention back to her.
Her hands trembled uncontrollably over her ears.
"Do something, Sahger!" I shouted.
The hunter was already trying to ease her hands away from her ears.
"Havelyn! Look at me! Here!" he called.
She made a muffled sound, choking as she tried to breathe.
Only then did I realize that I was also finding it increasingly difficult to draw breath.
A constant, uncomfortable pressure was building behind my eyes, and every heartbeat sent a sharp pulse of pain through the scar on my chest.
Tsukumo laid the masked man's body on the ramp.
As he stood, he pressed his fingers to his temple, his brow furrowed in pain.
The red mist was spreading rapidly across the courtyard.
Viscous strands of red vapor clung to Havelyn's wing feathers and dissolved when she shook.
More followed, passing over her face and slipping between her fingers.
Sahger tracked the mist with his eyes, recognizing the threat.
"Suki! Get that mist away from her! Now!"
I looked at the red mass surrounding us.
Tsukumo hurried down the ramp, knelt on Havelyn's other side, and slipped an arm behind her back to support her.
As I stood, Havelyn reached toward me in panic.
Her fingers couldn't reach me.
I took just two steps forward into the courtyard, leaving my companions and the ship behind me.
The air around me stirred and began spinning violently around the soles of my boots.
The brilliant white lines of my power climbed over my wrists and spread along my arms.
The wind billowed my clothes and drove the pools of blood away across the ground.
I raised my left hand and pulled the red mist sharply upward.
I kept the air currents spiraling higher until they rose above the ramp and the ship's hull.
Above the courtyard, the red mass of mist began spinning into a vortex.
I drew a deep breath to channel more power.
Tsukumo lowered his eyes to the ground.
"Tatsumaki!"
I swung my arm violently to the side.
The ring of wind expanded with a thunderous boom above us.
It tore the red mist into dozens of strips and hurled it over the rooftops, scattering it among the high clouds.
A crash echoed across the courtyard.
With the mist blown away, the lightning illuminated stone columns and more red liquid.
Beyond them, the terrain stretched across an immense area, cut through by thick, dark channels of blood.
Bones littered every bank.
Some skeletons were partly buried in the red mud.
Others lay piled against the stone foundations of buildings, mixed with rusted chains, scraps of torn cloth, and dozens of black feathers stuck together.
I lowered my hand. A steady current of wind circled protectively around us.
The red mist was already trying to return.
When it struck the wind barrier, it was diverted to the sides, forming a wall of red smoke a few meters from the ramp.
Behind me, Havelyn dragged in a breath with a painful whimper.
I turned in time to see her fold forward onto her knees.
Sahger helped turn her onto her side while Tsukumo supported her back.
She vomited a dark liquid between her hands, coughed violently, and tried to draw another breath.
I ran back and knelt in front of her.
"Havelyn!"
She raised her tear-filled eyes.
This time, she managed to focus on me.
"Suki..." she called in a faint whisper.
I took one of her trembling hands.
"I'm here. Easy."
Her mouth moved with difficulty, but it took a moment for her voice to emerge.
"You... don't you..."
She swallowed with effort and looked around in terror.
"Can't you hear?!"
I went still, listening closely.
The wind of my barrier whistled around the edges of the ramp.
The ship's metal ticked as it cooled, and far away in the darkness, something heavy repeatedly struck a metal structure.
"Hear what, Havelyn?!"
Large tears rolled down her pale face.
"Them..." she whispered.
Sahger checked her pulse again, his expression grave.
"Who?"
Havelyn squeezed my hand with desperate strength.
"They're screaming... they're calling..."
Her breathing faltered in another spasm.
Her right wing twisted, and she tried to pull it against her body, covering the feathers with her free arm.
"Don't let them... don't let them cut..." she begged.
I looked at her wing.
It was hurt from the impact against the ship, but it was still whole and attached to her body.
"No one's cutting anything! No one's going to touch you!" I assured her firmly.
Havelyn shook her head, crying.
"It's not me..."
Tsukumo looked at Sahger, bewildered.
The hunter remained focused on Havelyn, waiting for her to explain.
"They killed..." she murmured, her body trembling.
"They killed harpies here... So many... Hundreds..."
My eyes immediately returned to the black feathers scattered among the bones in the courtyard.
One came loose in the breeze of my wind and rolled across the flagstones before sinking into the red layer.
"How do you know that?" Tsukumo asked quietly.
Havelyn opened her mouth but couldn't get the words out. She brought her free hand to her chest, struggling for air.
"I... I can feel it..." she said.
Her voice dissolved into a painful sob.
She suddenly folded forward, and I released her fingers in time to catch her shoulders before her forehead struck the stone.
A tendril of red mist brushed past my knee.
I kept Havelyn supported against my left arm and clenched my right hand.
A quick gust drove the red smoke off the ramp.
"Keep that mist away from her!" Sahger ordered.
I nodded without taking my eyes off Havelyn's face.
The hunter took a clean cloth from his pocket and carefully wiped her mouth.
He waited patiently until Havelyn's breathing began to settle, growing slower and less strained.
"It could be some spiritual or blood connection tied to her harpy lineage..." Sahger murmured to me.
"Do you know how to make it stop?!" I asked, anguished.
Sahger met my eyes.
"Not yet. Your wind is the only thing keeping the mist from affecting her and the rest of us. Keep the barrier up."
I looked at the wall of red mist surrounding our small perimeter around the ramp.
The viscous vapor gathered outside, collided with the current of air, and retreated, only to try advancing at another point.
My back ached from the strain.
Even so, I kept my hand open and the wind spinning.
Sahger pointed toward the upper part of the ramp, near the ship's doorway.
"Let's get her off this wet ground. Slowly."
I slipped my right arm beneath Havelyn's knees, and she desperately clutched my collar.
Tsukumo supported her back as we carefully lifted her, avoiding pressure on her injured wing.
We took the few steps up the ramp and settled her on the dry metal, on the opposite side from the masked man's corpse.
Havelyn kept hold of my coat.
I knelt beside her so she wouldn't have to stretch her arm.
Tsukumo glanced at the masked man's body, whose mask was still dripping blood.
Then he looked toward the dark road my wind had revealed in the courtyard.
"I can't separate them..." she whispered.
"Separate what? The voices?" I asked softly.
She nodded, crying silently.
I tightened my grip on her fingers.
"Then focus on my voice. Listen only to me."
Havelyn tried to curl closer.
I settled her head against my shoulder while Sahger carefully examined the wing that had taken the impact.
I raised my eyes to the sky over Kardris.
A red bolt of lightning cut through the dense clouds and briefly illuminated the imposing black stone buildings at the end of the road.
Laura is somewhere in that hell.
Behind me, the man in the white mask lay dead on the ramp.
Havelyn remained clinging to me, terrified, while the blood mist pressed against my wind barrier from every side.
We had barely made it away from the ship.
But the battle for Kardris had already begun the moment we set foot on that cursed ground.