Nova Starlux struck her flint again. The spark caught, flared, and died. Around her the mist of the Cryptobiome pressed close, thick as wet wool. Somewhere above it, past the fog and the void, her starship drifted lost. Only a burning beacon could call it home. But the mist ate every flame she made. She had tried a dozen times tonight. Twelve small deaths of light. Her boots glowed faintly in the murk, two blue smears at her feet. The pink halo above her head threw no useful light. She needed fire, and fire needed shelter. She pressed her palms to her eyes and made herself think. Shelter. The word stuck. She remembered the room she'd passed hours ago. A stark metal box, sealed on every side, built to stay dark and dry. Pipes ran along its walls in tidy red and blue lines. No mist could seep through those tight seams. If a flame could not survive the open fog, maybe it could survive inside four walls. Nova ran back through the gray. She found the room and hauled the heavy door. Inside, the air was still and clean. No wind. No wet. She set her kindling on the floor and struck the flint. The spark caught. This time it held. A small flame stood up and stayed. But a flame in a sealed box guides nothing. The walls that saved it also hid it. Nova stared at the metal ceiling and swore. She had traded one problem for a worse one. Then she saw the thing in the corner. A white husky, sleek and still, with green-blue eyes that caught her firelight. A decoration, she thought at first. Its fur shimmered. When she stepped closer, its eyes tracked her. "You're not a toy," she said. The creature rose. Frost curled off its fur, yet its chest glowed with a buried ember warmth. It walked to her flame and breathed on it. The fire did not go out. It brightened and turned pale blue, steady and strange. Nova understood. This cold-born animal carried its own fire, one the mist could not smother. She cupped the blue flame in her hands. It did not flicker. She carried it out of the sealed room, back into the open fog. The mist reached for it and failed. The blue flame burned on in the gray, small but constant. Nova lifted it high. For the first time, a light held against the Cryptobiome. But one cupped flame was not a beacon. It would not reach a ship across the void. She needed it bigger, fixed, and burning through the night. And the husky was already walking away into the mist, as if it meant for her to follow. Nova gripped the flame and went after it.