The stairway moved beneath Saul and Olivia, stones carrying them faster yet, as they ran for the top of Adam’s tower. The door at the top stood open. They stormed onto a raised platform cast in gray light, outside the city’s crystal dome. A pair of small ships with scythe blades on rods hanging from their undersides floated, one on either side of the platform. A sloped bridge led to each of the vessels.

  Olivia reached one of the bridges and stopped to catch her breath. Saul caught up with her. “You alright.”

  “I’ve been knocked around a bit today.”

  “And those gern in the city?”

  She sighed and looked up at the cutter ship at the end of the bridge, avoiding Saul’s eyes. “There were too many to stop them all. We have to finish this now.”

  “I don’t think Luther is gonna run further. This root universe is it.”

  “He must know about the consequences then.” Olivia scowled, still not facing Saul. “Why would he want a war between Rokar and Hidria?”

  “There are war profiteers all over creation.” Saul glanced at Nat on his shoulder, so he would have to keep looking at Olivia. “It’s not just Earth, or Rokar.”

  “I suppose.” She started up the bridge to the cutter “Let’s shut this guy down. Then maybe you can make your new world without room for those people.”

  He followed her up the ramped bridge onto the cutter, not wanting to tell her what he thought. Things don’t work that way. Every world has its problems and conflicts. Worldmakers shaped new universes, but the ingredients were always similar.

  As he stepped off the bridge, the walkway folded up behind them, moving on its own. Below the ship, the blade began to spin. The ship lifted off from the platform. Olivia crossed the deck to the other side and looked forward.

  The ship’s hull was twice the width of the wing boat they had taken from Earth to Hidria, and even larger than the one they had taken from Hidria to Rokar. It was also longer, but without wings, the whole ship moved in a jerky strange fashion. Saul had seen the exile’s planes over cities on Earth, but he had never flown on one. The cutter’s propulsion systems felt more mechanical than any vessel built on Hidria.

  He looked back at the gilded cabin that rose from the deck aft of the cutter’s middle. His eyes flicked to the front, where he saw no sign of a helm or steering apparatus of any kind. The exiles always did things differently from makers, no matter where they lived. The ship flew away from Rokar, guided by a mind Saul could not perceive. He gritted his teeth, unhappy at the trust this flight demanded.

  Olivia stood at the bow and looked down as they passed over Rokar’s crystal domes and rusty towers. Her worn gray coat and blood-flecked jeans added to her tired look, and he knew by now there must be bruises forming in places he could not see, from the impacts of Rufus’s throne. She propped her cattle prod against the bow and brushed strands of hair from her eyes.

  Gray clouds shifted behind her. Glimmers of multicolored light flickered below them. She picked up her two-pronged weapon and gazed down at the empty space past Rokar’s side.

  The root universe’s lights flickered and rippled close to the city. The tiny, dark shapes of other cutter ships circled the expanse, and between them darted swarms of even smaller, indistinct shapes, each one an abei-gern. Saul gripped the sword he had taken from the guard a little tighter.

  Hidria might go to war with Rokar if Luther succeeded, but a battle was already raging in this place between worlds.

  The clouds below the ripples of color from the root universe parted. A massive set of eyes glared up from below. Saul stepped back from the side of the ship at the sight. The enormous gern that floated below the root universe could have been the same one from Mortressa. It floated in the emptiness, borne by jets of rippling air that shot from vents on its underside.

  She stared at the monster. “One of those again.”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “It’s a greater gern of some kind.”

  “Yeah. Well, he’s big enough.”

  Saul nodded. He almost wished his only goal was to kill the monstrous thing. He might prefer that to facing Irene at the root universe. With Rufus lying unconscious back at the doors of

  Adam’s inner sanctuary, she was probably the only maker other than him involved in the immediate mess. Luther must be counting on her to activate the aleph shard in the hilt. The seed of the new universe required an infusion of power to sprout.

  Irene, who always fought the hardest when the pressure was on. Irene who he had loved since they had been children. Irene who had chosen the challenge of the worldmakers over him.

  His stomach turned and his hand trembled, but only slightly.

  Olivia walked to his side as the cutter began to descend toward the seed universe’s light.

  “Are you alright?”

  “I was just thinking about Irene.”

  “You cared about her.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Like you cared about Molly?”

  Saul exhaled. “Molly died because I couldn’t protect her. Because I didn’t tell her enough.”

  “I don’t know what happened back then. I’ve only even known you for a few days.” She folded her arms. “Everybody makes mistakes.”

  “Yeah.” He had already ransacked his mind in search of clarity more than once in the past four years. “I know.”

  “You makers think you’re so different from exiles, but from what I’ve seen, you’re still human.”

  Being human isn’t enough.

  The light of the root universe flared up in red, casting the fleet of cutters below into stark black outlines. The gern that fought them appeared as swift shadows between. The greater gern below opened a set of massive jaws and rose toward a single larger cutter which was skirting the outer edge of the root universe, where the ripples reached their furthest expansion.

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Finally.”

  “Finally what?”

  “You admitted you’re not all powerful.”

  Not yet anyway.

  The cutter angled toward the largest vessel in the fleet, the same one drawing the attention of the great gern. Rult poked his head out of Saul’s backpack. “The god-enemy is on the big ship.”

  The hilt. “Good,” said Saul. “Seems like Adam knows that too.” He turned to Olivia. “I may just be a human, and I can’t be sure my new universe won’t have bad people in it, but I want to tell you something.”

  She raised her eyebrows, a hint of a smile on her lips. “Well come on. What is it?”

  “When this is all over, I’ll do what I can to keep the guardians away from you. New world or not.”

  Her smile slipped as he spoke, but then brightened. “I’ll hold you to that, Saul.”

  I hope you’ll be able to do that. “Thanks, Olivia.”

  Nat’s fur prickled against Saul’s neck. “Master. Hush is comparing with me.”

  Saul met Olivia’s eyes.

  “Go on. Talk to Irene.”

  Saul nudged Nat with his chin.

  Nat began to speak with Irene’s voice. “Saul. You have to turn back. There are gern everywhere. You won’t even make it to the root universe.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” said Saul. “I made it to Rokar, after all.”

  “I don’t want you to die, Saul. Gern don’t know the meaning of mercy.”

  She’s still worried about me.

  “Thanks, Irene, but I have to see this through.”

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  “And you’re not? If you start a new world here, Rokar and Hidria will go to war for it.”

  “If they do, which side of that war will you be on?” Irene asked. “You seem to like exiles better than makers these days.”

  His hands trembled. He held onto the sword. “I need that hilt, Irene.”

  “And so do I, Saul.”

  “Then we share it. We take it somewhere else. You worked with Rufus before. Work with me now.”

  “What did you do to him?”

  “He’s alive.”

  Irene scoffed. “You fought him.”

  “Yeah, and I don’t want to have to fight you too.”

  “I’m not giving up. The end is too close, whether you win or I do.”

  “If either of us makes the world here, everyone loses.”

  “Everyone but me, Saul. I don’t need a war between makers and exiles, but I’ll deal with that if it happens.”

  “Damn it, Irene. Listen to me.”

  “Clearly neither of us wants to listen to the other. Take my warning, and I’ll see you in my new world.” The connection broke.

  The new world offered wealth and power to become among the greatest forces that influenced Hidria. City lords did not equal their power, and even the council could do little to rein one of them in without the backing of others with the same power. The council wresting control of a world of a rogue maker by force, would be a terrible struggle.

  Nat’s fur softened and subsided from Saul’s neck. He folded himself under Saul’s collar. “I don’t like this, master.”

  “Neither do I. This is just how it is.”

  Olivia frowned at Saul. “We’re in this together.”

  He nodded.

  The lights of the root universe brightened below them, closer than ever in blue. The sounds of human cries and gern roars rose up from the battle among the fleet. Luther’s large flagship glided over the surface of the universe’s outer shell. Closer now, Saul made out three towers of iron armor rising from the large cutter’s deck.

  Suspended between the towers were deep yellow tarps that covered most of the deck, turning green in the light from the root universe. Gern flitted here and there around the ship, then began to touch down, but wouldn’t touch the tarps. As each one landed, it was struck by someone from under the tarp, and either retreated into the air or plummeted into the root universe below.

  Saul and Olivia gazed at Luther’s flagship. Then, their cutter angled down toward the larger vessel. Saul and Olivia exchanged glances. The cutter’s angle steepened. They held on tight.