We walk, reaching the tents by early afternoon. Beyond the ravine--filled with shimmering blades jutting from the dirt--lies a wide stretch of bare stone before the night warrior camp, which has been reduced to smoking ruins of black tents, silver barricades.

Kael launches another signal from the edges of our camp, in case Zadia didn't see the last one. We've been on the lookout for a return signal from her, in the event she can't come to us, but haven't seen one.

"You're late to the party," a group of white clad-but-dusty people tell us, lounging around a metal fire pit, fingers vaguely pointing at Kael's light burst. "We scared them all off."

"Yeah, we know." Kael keeps walking.

"Then what was--"

We march through haphazard aisles of tents, in a subtle triangle formation that's got me in the center. I can't decide why they've done it--Berrtie's never been to the battlefront either.

Nomsa and Kael test the tent openings; rounded doors set in pyramids of canvas, white and gold and magenta.

All the tents we come across are occupied.

"Why is Chondra camping here?" Berrtie whispers, in the back of our triangle, hands steady on her sword. "She started with an advantage, now the daylight's just fading and she's doing nothing."

"Maybe she's waiting for the counterattack?" Nomsa prods a curtained tent entrance. A wall of mist tries to smack her away; a sign someone has claimed this pointy pavilion for themselves. She punches it back with a misted-fist and we keep walking, through gray-dirt trails totally bare of grass--these walkways have probably been here for years. Leveled-flat porches with chairs and fire pits have even formed around some tent doors, and the stakes holding the tents down have nearly submerged into the dirt.

"Waiting for a counterattack doesn't make strategic sense," I whisper.

Kael prods a tent door, and needles of mist launch out at them. They exhale a cloud that catches the needles and they keep walking, and all the vapor dissipates.

"Time is on the night warriors' side now," I say. "Chondra already played her cards by attacking them, now the sun is going down, and the night warriors aren't going to hold back once that happens. If she just sits around waiting for a daytime counterattack, the night warriors are never going to actually attack. They'll just dangle that possibility over us until it gets dark, then they'll push with everything they have."

"True that." Berrtie nods.

Nomsa smacks a tent door and mist bulges out, forcing her to stumble away. "Why don't we just have a tent labeled 'changing room?' Goodness."

By changing room, she actually means, place to sneak into the tunnels to wait out the night and potentially summon some dead spirits, but she's still pretending it's a secret the tunnels exist.

"Does every tent have an entrance into the..." Berrtie asks.

"The place?" Kael nods. Then shrugs. "No, but you can't tell from outside."

Never mind, everyone's pretending it's still a secret.

"Are these all taken by people already?" I peer down the winding trails of tents. "How?"

"There were people here before Chondra showed up." Nomsa swats a tent door. It doesn't try to kill her. "Oh, hey." She lifts the flap, slipping inside.

"Maybe Chondra quit attacking," Berrtie mutters, "because nobody here knew she was in charge, so she had to set up a meet and greet."

We both squint at the sky, hunting for the red messenger flag. Kael snorts at us. I glower at them; peaked tents block our view of the rest of the camp anyway.

"Jackpot!" Nomsa calls, and we all rush into the tent after her.

It's spacious; a dirtied white tarp covers the floor, and thin black cots have been pushed into the two far corners. Sunlight filters through the thick canopy, heating the air to slightly uncomfortable.

Nomsa yanks up the tarp in the corner close to us. A circle of wood lies in the ground, and Nomsa raps her foot on it. It echoes dully. "Are we going in right now?"

Kael, still half in the doorway, shakes their head. "It's not dark yet. We should stay in the sun while we can."

"I can stay here and guard our stuff," Berrtie says. "Unless you want to keep it on you." She crosses to one of the cots, pulling it out but pausing to sniff it. Then she wrinkles her nose, stepping away. "Okay, you were right about these."

I sink to the floor. "I can stay too."

Kael ducks outside. "You need sunlight the most. You're our reserves, Troy."

"But"--I unsling my bag--"I'm hungry. Can't we nap in here?"

Kael hesitates, but glances at Nomsa. She drops the tarp over the tunnel cover. "If you really want to take a nap in this musty tent, whatever." She takes off her backpack and tosses it at me, and I barely catch it before it smacks my face. "We're not babysquatting you." She marches out after Kael.

The flap flutters shut before I can ask about a mist shield over the door.

"Okay." Berrtie undoes her sword, and sits across from me with it on her lap. "You give them a weird dynamic, you know that?"

"No." I drop Nomsa's bag to the side, dusting off my hands. Then I lie down, my own rocky bag a dirty pillow.

"Usually, when it's them plus Zadia, Kael's the odd one out. Now you've got them united against you."

"Hmmph." I shut my eyes.

"Actually, when I met you in the library, I'd have thought Nomsa was the oddball. But this week you and Kael have seemed..." She purses her lips. "So you two kissed. Is that why you're acting...different than a week ago?"

"Can we not talk about it?" I say.

"Sure." Berrtie rises from the tarp. "I'm going to have something to eat. Enjoy your nap, I guess."

I squeeze my eyes tighter. This isn't a nap, it's an attempt to dreamwalk. No offense to Berrtie's talk-to-the-spirits plan, but I doubt some dead people can keep us from dying. They clearly don't have successful records in that regard. And I seriously doubt they'll know what to do when the night warriors start playing their cards all over Chondra's.

Like snow in this overly warm tent, it settles on me what we've done here: Chondra is an idiot. We, like fools, followed her all the way here, never mind that we left because nothing remained for us at the fort, plus also, Chondra's plan dragged everyone along.

We should start running back to the mountains, but we're not, because we have me. Destroyer or sunlight reserves--I am entirely responsible for Kael and Nomsa having protection tonight. Possibly the whole army of Waiters on the Dawn.

We can hide in the tunnels, while Night Warriors counterattack over our heads, hoping they dont' find us.

But if they do...

I don't have time to play at being One, the demure healer with the night warriors; or Troy, who hasn't decided what they want except something simple, something nice.

Berrtie crackles through food packages, and footsteps echo outside. An insect lands on my face and I swat it away.

I fall into near sleep many times, senses going fuzzy until sharp footsteps or shouts blare in my skull, dragging me back to awareness until I drift off again.

Nomsa was right, about this feeling in me. Of course it's anger, fermented or whatever. But it's not like I'm mad that someone punched me yesterday and I have a grudge. It's like, vengeance at everybody. It's like, what if I just want to go into the mountains and do nothing? "Well too bad, Troy," the feeling says in everybody's voice, everybody's desires, "you're a herald, you've got to end a war, if anyone dies it's your fault for not healing them, we need you to please us, don't expose who you are here."

Well what if I don't want any of that? What if I just want to...sabotage?

Our tent door tears open and I bolt up, Berrtie draws her sword and leaps forward--but it's Kael, and Nomsa, and a stranger; glossy brown hair to her shoulders, face scarred with two uneven slashes.

It has to be Zadia.

She's taller than Nomsa, slightly shorter than Kael's hairline. She's got a pack around her shoulders that's also tied around her waist, and she wears gray boots, long pants, plus a tank top crossed with white and magenta stripes. She pokes the tip of Berrtie's sword, gaze sweeping around the tent. "At least you picked a good one."

I sit upright. Not sure what else to do with them, I fold my arms. The light's dimmed; I must have actually fallen asleep for several hours. And I didn't dreamwalk.

"Nice to see you intact still." Berrtie sheaths her blade, stepping back.

Zadia shrugs. "Who's this?" She glides forward and crouches in front of me, ruby eyes penetrating mine, sepia lips slightly open.

I lean away. "I'm Troy. Hi. Who are you?" Even though I already know.

"I'm Zadia." She stands up. "So Chondra's in charge now I hear." Not waiting for a response, she marches to the corner, kicking away the tarp.

"She's also more powerful," Nomsa says, pushing past Kael further into the tent. "She dragged people out of the fort with giant mist tentacles to make them come."

"Here's your bag back." I kick it towards her. She hoists it onto her shoulders without a word. "You're welcome," I say.

Zadia bends over, twisting the wooden cover off the tunnel. "Everybody in, gang."

"What?" I rub my eyes.

"It's dusk." Kael swings the tent flap shut. "We'll have night pests out soon."

I glance at Berrtie. "I slept that long?"

"Yeah." She nods, hoisting on her bag. "I was worried I was going to have to wake you and we'd have to crawl inside before they returned." She elbows Nomsa. "Thanks for showing up on time."

"Don't thank me, you're not my mother," Nomsa drops into the tunnel, disappearing head and all.

"I know and I'm so glad," Berrtie calls down.

Zadia coughs. Berrtie gives her a withering stare, but climbs inside. Then Kael goes, then I crawl over and slip in feet-first. I drop a full two head-lengths under the surface before my boots squish in cool dirt. Then I shuffle to the side, and Zadia thumps down beside me. Mist leaks out her breath to pull the cover--and I assume the tarp--back into place, then the mist dissipates, sinking us into blackness. I exhale a breath of light, but Kael whispers, "No light. We have to conserve it."

"Okay," I whisper, and my breath comes out invisible.

This is risky, what we're doing--we have to summon the spirits after dark, because that's when they wake, banished from the sun's touch or something according to magic book jumbo. But whatever light we use to call to the dead will leave us that much weaker if the night warriors find us.

"Come on, gang," Zadia says. Footsteps mash the soil.

I don't dare reach out and touch the walls; white plant roots must slither through the dirt, bugs crawling among them. I hesitate, but plant a hand on Kael's shoulder, fingers brushing the edges of their bag. They tense, then calm under my touch. I dig my nails into their shirt.

Berrtie's hand finds my elbow, then travels up to my shoulder. She whispers, "Sorry, I don't know where we're going."

"I don't either," I hiss back, then Kael starts moving. We creep forward, slowly, Zadia navigating probably because she memorized these tunnels. When she was five. She acted like it up above, anyway, marching in and taking charge.

"Where are we going?" Kael whispers.

"There's a sleep circle up this way," Zadia's voice floats back to us. I roll my eyes. "You said we're summoning dead people to help us, right?"

"Yup," Nomsa says.

My fingers tighten on Kael's shoulder. "Did you and Nomsa tell her about the destroyer thing too?" I whisper.

"No." Their head shakes imperceptibly.

I sigh in relief. Or...annoyance? I don't want them spreading my secrets around, but how am I supposed to do it either? "Hey, Zadia, I'm the Destroying One" as an announcement in this dark tunnel sounds utterly out of place, too real for the blackness.

"Are you going to?" Kael whispers.

I grit my teeth. "Hey Zadia," I say, "I'm the Destroying One. We're hoping dead people can unlock my powers."

Zadia snorts. "Really? Wow, that's a cute spook-story, new kid. Do you think there's also night pests hiding down here?"

"Zads," Nomsa hisses. "They're legitimately serious. Troy's the Destroying One."

Our line stops.

"Like," Zadia says. "For real?"

"Yeah, I'm straight out of prophecy."

"But they can't actually do anything yet," Nomsa says.

"We were hoping some ancient dead person could help," Berrtie says, breath hot on my ear. "Before the night warriors slaughter a lot of people tonight."

"What she means is," Nomsa whispers, "we are that desperate."

"Okay." I glare in the dark.

"Alright then," Zadia whispers. Our line continues moving.

We plod onward, breaths and rustling bags and steps too loud in the confining tunnel. I exhale at Kael's backside, "Are you going to tell her about your Gardener thing?"

"What would be the point?" they whisper back.

The tunnel turns, then the echoes of our steps widen, diminishing in volume. Kael quits walking and their shoulder descends, backpack thumping on rocks.

"Hold hands, everyone," Nomsa says, voice close to the ground.

I shuffle to Kael's side, sinking to my knees. My fingers trace down Kael's arm, closing around their wrist. Berrtie's breathing moves behind me, and her hand bounces down my sleeve. Her sword scrapes the stone.

"We're going to play Bloody Moon," Nomsa sing-songs, like a giddy child.

"That game requires a mirror," Kael whispers. "And I hate it."

"Murder moon, oh murder moon," Nomsa chants, "have you any hidden tombs?"

"Weave out undead from the loom," Zadia breathes, "make those wretched spirits swoon."

Goosebumps prick up my skin. But nothing happens.

"We're in a hurry." Berrtie's hand squeezes my knuckles. "And this isn't a children's game."

"Quit being so old and boring," Nomsa says.

Light illuminates Kael's face; a puff drifts through the air, twirling to their knees. Their stomach inhales. "Ready to?"

In flickering breaths, Zadia and Nomsa nod, with Zadia scooting over to take Berrtie's elbow.

"Am I supposed to do something?" I keep my breath clear.

"Soon," Kael says.

"Okay," I say. My tongue moves to point out the imbalance in our pentagon--with Berrtie and I right next to each other both doing nothing--but mist pools from the three of them, waterfalling to the floor. So it's probably too late to change anything now.

The vapor bounces over rough stones, pooling in the center of our ring and casting light over gray and mottled yellow rocks, fitted together like uneven tile.

"You said four people would be enough." Zadia's eyebrows furrow, her face shimmering in the light. "But we're getting nowhere close with three."

"Just wait." Kael closes their eyes, slowly inhaling then exhaling out clouds of mist. Over and over, their stomach expands against their shirt, recedes, then expands again.

"Troy," Nomsa says, puffing out mist, "you're going to have to charge at least two of us at once, so none of your energy goes leaking out. Probably all three of us, actually."

Kael taps my knee. "Please don't expend all your light at once. You need to stay conscious to talk to the dead."

Frowning, Zadia asks, "What do you mean, goes leaking out?"

"We mean"--Kael taps my knee again--"Troy holds a ridiculous amount of light."

My eyes widen a little--both times I charged either one of them, I wasn't even at full strength. When fleeing from the castle, I could barely heal my own wounds before running from the sewer tunnel (maybe I charged up a little bit in the meadow though?), and with Nomsa, it was barely daybreak, after a whole night--Kael said I don't seem to lose any during the night, but this was also after a day of using lots of mist.

"Define a ridiculous amount," Berrtie says, nibbling her lip and staring at the growing orb of mist, "for those of us with no context, please?"

"Like"--Kael licks their lips--"eating so much food you can't hold it all inside, so you barf it up, except actually the entire length of your throat and stomach and mouth are packed full of food, and a whole bounty of food is hanging from your arms and draped in your hair and you're walking in a pool of mashed up food--"

"Okay, ew." Berrtie grimaces.

"--But you never want to stop eating," Nomsa says.

My heart flutters. "Really?"

Both of them nod.

I swallow. I don't...feel like that on my own.

Zadia wrinkles her nose. "And you think the three of us can hold that?"

"Ideally, Troy feeds us a little bit at a time," Nomsa says, puffing out mist, "but they really aren't that good at this."

I glare. "I can do it. If it's to speak to someone to figure out how my powers work, I can do it."

"Sure," she says. This makes my expression harden.

I squeeze my eyes shut, fingers clenching Kael's wrist. I have to do this, I say to myself, otherwise we won't be able to stop the night warriors. If I don't give them only bits of energy at a time, we might lose most of it and we won't be able to summon the dead.

What if this doesn't even work? We could summon some random warrior who died here five weeks ago and has no clue what's going on--

I pick that thought out of my brain and psychically hurl it at the tunnel walls.

I must make this work, or we might all die. I'll make this work, like the crossbows in Zadia's doorway, or when I sucked Nomsa's energy out because I thought Kael was in danger. I can do this.

"Okay, Troy," Kael says.

I jolt, eyes snapping open. Berrtie gives me a weak smile. The orb of mist has grown bright enough to silhouette the outline of a tunnel behind her. Black soil shines with mucus, sticking to the curved ceiling.

"I'm super empty," Kael says, hardly any light leaking from their breath.

"Yup, same." Zadia and Nomsa both nod.

"Okay." I squeeze Kael's wrist, two times. I inhale, I imagine warm sunlight inside of me spreads out, radiating and soft through our touch. But not that much.

"Stop stop stop stop," Kael says.

I let go. Mist still streams from my fingertips into their wrist. "Already? I barely started."

"Stop stop stop," Kael says.

I shake my fingers. "I don't know how."

"Funnel it into me." Nomsa shakes Kael's other arm, and they nod.

"How did you stop breathing mist earlier?" Berrtie's hand squeezes. "Can you do it like that?"

I shake my hand, breathing hard, but the mist tendrils keep leaking into Kael, giving off light that could be feeding them instead.

"Okay uh here you go Zadia." Nomsa starts breathing faster, puffing clouds of mist that roll into the orb.

"What?" Zadia whispers, widened eyes darting between us.

"Please stop doing it," Kael says, panting mist that shivers to the floor.

I try shutting it off like I do my mist breath. "I don't know how much a little bit is! I don't know how to feed two of you at once!"

"That's not important right now, just stop!" Nomsa breathes rapidly, clouds of mist roiling into the ball in the middle. A stream of mist wiggles off her hand, dissipating, and Kael's fingers start glowing. Zadia's hyperventilating out mist.

"Fine!" I yelp, this is just like cutting off my mist breath--the fog tendrils vanish.

Kael's eyelids flutter, but their breathing slows to normal. Shuddering, I flex and close my fingers.

"Whew." Zadia sits up straighter, and Nomsa shakes her head.

"Ridiculous," she mutters.

"That was..." Berrtie shifts positions. "Are we all good?"

"Not much got away," Kael whispers.

"How much more do you have left?" Zadia asks me.

I stare down at my chest, like that will tell me. "I have no clue."

"Way more," Kael says. I take hold of their wrist again, fingers creeping down their palm. Three sets of breaths release vapor to pool on the ragged stones.

***

The three of them exhale all their mist, then I refill Kael again, who transfers it onto Nomsa and Zadia. We only lose a tiny bit of light because, instead of making the transfer flow stop, I breathe out a puff of mist, but it cuts out after my second breath.

Then I feed them a third time, and Berrtie grumbles about her crossed feet going numb with all this waiting. Nomsa, predictably, calls her old, and Berrtie fires back at least she has two feet to get numb. Nomsa just laughs at that though.

The mist orb in front of us grows, but before it tickles any of our knees, it quits expanding wider, instead stretching toward the ceiling. The rising column glows brighter, and brighter, and I ask when the dead are supposed to show up.

None of the others reply. So Berrtie shrugs. "When they feel like it, I guess?"

Zadia starts trembling first; I predict she's the one maintaining the shape of the mist column.

Then Kael's hand starts shaking, and Nomsa's teeth squeal, so I toss that theory out--they're all sweating, eyes squeezed shut. "Do you need more light?" I ask, fingers interlaced with Kael's pressing the back of their palm.

They shake their head, and I turn to Berrtie. "Do we have to...say something to summon them? Or..."

She shrugs. "I've never summoned the dead before."

"But this was your idea!"

She shrugs clear to her ears, chewing on her lip. Zadia curls over her legs and Berrtie leans to her, rapidly patting her back. "I don't want to mess with their spell. Maybe this is normal?"

Nomsa's thighs shake, and Kael's elbows bounce on their knees.

"This is not normal." I extract my hand from Kael's, slipping away from Berrtie. I crawl over the stones and poke a finger into the column of light.

"Troy, are you sure that's wise?" Berrtie hisses, scooting back. The others tremble, panting for air.

I slide my wrist into the light. Tingles race up my skin, something inside me calls out to...something else.

"Troy?"

This feels right.

I shove my face into the column of mist. Tears leak from my eyes, evaporating and joining the cloud.

I can see--the whole room of the tunnel; slime-slicked ceiling and dirt walls and the cracks in the rocks under our bodies.

I can see above the surface; the last dregs of twilight vanishing red and violet into blackness, night warriors donning shields and inhaling the sky.

I suck in a breath, and like a heartbeat, the column trembles.

"Come speak to us!" light explodes from my mouth, the concussive blast hurling me backward, to the stones. Berrtie shouts, curling around Zadia, and Nomsa and Kael just flop over, rumpled clothes cast jagged by the blinding glow.

I sit up, shielding my gaze.

"I'll tell you my name," a gray silhouette whispers, rippling in the center of the column of light, high as the ceiling.

My skin shudders, my abdomen spasms. "If you tell me yours," I mouth, air refusing to leave my lungs. Shivering, I meet the silhouette's gaze, if it had one, in that blurry, rippling face. "I am the Destroying One."

A lance of light spears from the column and strikes me in the forehead. My world spins.

"Troy!" someone screams, then all fades to silence.

***

Author note: hey, it's Zadia! That person whose quarters we spent like 5 chapters in! Nice to finally meet you, Zadia.