Chapter 33. The Blood Between Suns

Volamed shifted its weight for night the way a great animal rolled to keep its heart from sleeping. The city inhaled and stairwells grew cooler; the canals went still enough to count breath on their skin. From Rael’s tower the high terrace was a thin walk of stone hung over water and roofs, and tonight it carried a geometry of runed spires like tuning forks waiting for a single note. Airenna met them at the last bend of stair, her palms inked with small, neat sigils that looked less like art than like instructions.

“The angle comes fast,” she said, not out of fear but out of calendar. “Volamed misjudged by two degrees this morning. The sky rarely forgives that.”

“The sky might, the city doesn’t,” Rael answered. “We’ll count honestly.”

Lora knew her counts. The practice sat in her tongue like a coin, ready to be bitten. She stepped out into the open air and the terrace read her feet. The stone had a temperature like thought—cool, then steady. Spires rose in a circle