The return flight from the Dust-Kingdom of Orizon was a long, silent vigil
through a sky that had finally stopped trying to be a mirror.
The drakes—Argentis and the gold-scaled Western scouts—flew low, their rhythmic
wingbeats the only sound in an atmosphere that felt heavy with the scent of rain
and damp earth. Below us, the Sea of Glass was melting back into sapphire water,
and the red sands of the desert were being reclaimed by a stubborn, emerald tide
of moss. The "Revision" had been undone, but the world it left behind was a
bruised and battered thing, a patient waking up from a surgery they weren't sure
they would survive.
I sat on Argentis's back, my legs aching from the hours in the saddle. My ivory
skin felt cold, the internal furnace of the Sanguine resonance having settled
into a low, flickering ember. I looked down at my hand. The "Author's Scar" was
a jagged, silver-white line across my palm, a permanent reminder that I had
