Kip drew his last breath on the seventh day Luna spent in hiding.
She hadn't realized it was coming. Or perhaps she had thrown up a fragile wall of denial, telling herself the grey spreading across his lips was just Ash-stain. That the wet sound in his chest was temporary. That eight-year-olds didn't die.
She had lied to herself, and the cost was laid bare.
The summons arrived from Nia just as the false dawn smeared the sky—a blur of desperate hand-signs through the window: Come now. Kip dying. Hurry.
Not "sick." Dying.
Luna didn't tell Mother. She slipped out while Zia prepared Father's morning medicine, scrambling down the rope ladder with trembling hands. She followed Nia through the warrens without a word.
Nia walked with the steady gait of someone already attending a burial.
The Dust-Runners' shelter was in the desolate section near the quarry's edge. Luna smelled it before she ducked through the broken doorway.
Copper. Old blood. The cloying sweetness of rot. And underneath, the organic odor of a body giving up.
Kayo knelt beside a pile of ragged blankets in the corner. His massive frame was hunched, shoulders curved tight. His hands—hands that could splinter rock—were clasped until the knuckles turned white.
He looked up. His eyes were bloodshot. Broken.
"He was asking for you, Little Lark," Kayo rasped. "Kept saying your name. Said he had something important to tell you."
Luna crossed the room. Her legs felt numb.
Kip lay curled on his side, lost in the fabric's folds. He looked hollow. His lips were pure grey—the color of bloodless tissue.
His breathing was wrong. Each inhale was a wet rattle, as if he were drowning in his own lungs.
She knelt beside him, grasping his hand. It was ice.
"Luna?" His voice was paper-thin.
"I'm here, Kip."
"Did you bring medicine?" The hope in his voice was a razor.
Luna's throat slammed shut. She had nothing. The herbs were gone. They couldn't cure this anyway.
But Kip stared at her with stubborn, desperate hope.
"I brought some," she lied. The words tasted of ash. "Let me make it."
Nia brought water. Luna went through the motions. She crushed nothing in her palm. Added nothing to the hot water. She made medicine out of lies.
Kayo watched her, saw the lie, and looked away.
She brought the cup to Kip's lips. "It'll taste terrible. But it'll help."
Kip drank. He grimaced. "Tastes like mud."
"Magic usually does." Her voice didn't shake.
"Will I get better now?"
"Very soon," she said. When you stop hurting.
She set the cup down and took his hand.
They sat in heavy silence. The only sounds were Kip's wet breathing, the crackle of the fire, and the whisper of Ash-Snow outside. Time stretched, agonizingly slow.
"Luna?"
"Right here."
"Are we in the High-Tier? Everything's so... bright."
Luna looked around the dim room.
"Yeah," she said. "We're in the High-Tier. You made it."
"I knew we would." A faint, heartbreaking smile. "You always said."
"I was right."
His breathing hitched. Shallower now. "I'm so cold, Luna."
Kayo piled blankets on him, but the shivering didn't stop.
"Better?"
"A little," Kip lied.
They watched the cold spread. His lips turned blue. His fingernails darkened.
"Luna?" Fading fast.
"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
"Am I dying?"
The question hung in the stale air.
She couldn't lie again. Not about this.
"Yeah," she whispered. "I think you are."
Kip nodded. He knew.
"Does it hurt? After?"
"I don't know, Kip."
"Will the gods take care of me?"
Luna thought about the gods who built an empire on bones and called it mercy. Parasites.
"Yes," she said, the word poison on her tongue. "They'll take care of you. You'll be safe. Warm. You won't hurt again."
Kip relaxed. The knot inside him loosened.
"That's good," he whispered. "I'm so tired of hurting."
"I know."
"Tell the others I wasn't scared?"
Luna blinked back the tears.
"You're the bravest person I ever met," she said fiercely. "I'll tell them."
His smile was barely there. "Thanks, Luna."
His eyes closed.
He breathed—in, out, in, out. But he didn't answer when she said his name.
She held his hand and watched him die.
It took three hours. His breathing slowed, the pauses growing longer. The last breath came as the false sun reached its zenith.
Inhale—wet, rattling.
Exhale.
Silence.
Luna waited. She counted her own heartbeats. One-two-three.
She opened her Sight. The faint grey flicker of his aura was gone. Snuffed out like a candle.
Kip was dead.
Kayo broke first. A sound ripped from his throat. He slammed his fist into the stone wall, cracking his own bones. He didn't seem to feel it. He just hit the wall, trying to punch through to oblivion.
Nia sat frozen, hands over her mouth, shaking.
Luna sat perfectly still. Something deep in her chest cracked. Like the flawed Sun-Stone. The container had reached its limit.
She looked at Kip's peaceful face.
The gods didn't care. They had allowed this.
"We need to bury him," she said. Her voice was flat.
"Luna—" Kayo choked.
"The Guard will seize the body. They'll 'process' him. He deserves better than becoming fertilizer."
"Ash-fields?" Kayo wiped his face, smearing blood from his knuckles.
"Ash-fields."
They wrapped Kip in his blankets. Luna helped carry him. Her hands were steady. She felt nothing.
They walked through the warrens in full daylight. No one stopped them. The Sump knew what a small bundle meant.
The ash-fields stretched beyond the warrens. They found a spot near the edge. Kayo dug with his bare hands, ignoring his bleeding knuckles. Nia helped. Luna knelt by the hole, hollow.
They lowered him into the earth.
Kayo tried to speak, but his voice broke. Nia placed a small carved stone on Kip's chest.
They filled the hole. The Ash-Snow began to fall, erasing the fresh earth.
Luna walked home as the false sun dimmed.
She scrubbed her hands in the basin. Kip's blood was still there. She scrubbed until the water ran red, until her palms were raw, until the old scar tore open.
She watched her blood mix with the traces of Kip's. Something permanent settled in her chest.
Not peace. Purpose.
Father was not going to die like this. He wasn't going to drown in his own lungs while she did nothing.
She was going to steal the Elixir of Renewal.
Impossible. Suicidal.
But the alternative—sitting here, washing blood from hands that would never be clean—was worse.
That night, Luna lay stiff in her room. The sun-melon hidden. The obsidian bird in her palm. Kip's blood under her nails.
One-two-three.
Kip's heart had stopped. Father's would follow.
Unless she fought back.
She closed her eyes. The violet light hummed beneath her skin—patient, hungry.
I will learn to control you, she promised. I will use you to save them.
Outside, the Ash-Snow fell like tears the city couldn't cry.
Inside, Luna's innocence broke.
And something else—something cold and dangerous—took its place. The girl who would burn down an empire was born.