Princess Azura Stellaryn had memorized one line from the broken texts: "Where the twin rivers forget their names." She whispered it now, alone in the cold hall her mother once ruled. Somewhere out there lay the Sacred Wellspring of Aethon, and with it the light her dying world had lost. But she could not chase the twin rivers. She had never seen them. No map of them survived. She pressed her palm to the white display and let it wake. It projected the neighboring worlds above the desk, each one turning in slow light. She dragged them apart with her fingers, searching for two rivers that met. The screen showed oceans, deserts, cracked ice. No rivers. She had spent three nights this way. The emeralds in her crown caught the glow, seven of them, each once bright with her family's power, now dull and cold. A sound came from the corridor. Metal on stone, steady, unhurried. Azura's hand went to the crown. No guard walked like that. A man filled the doorway. Pale blue skin, shimmering. A black braid marked some rank she did not know. His armor was scarred and dented, mended in places with pieces that did not match. A long scar cut from his cheek down beneath the plate. He looked at the turning worlds above her desk, not at her. "You're hunting the Wellspring," he said. Not a question. "Who let you in?" "No one. I walked." He stepped closer and studied the display. "Twin rivers. That's the old riddle." Azura stood. "You know the line." "I know the place." His voice was flat, clipped. "Two rivers ran through the god's temple. They dried when he took it. The beds are still there. They forgot their names when the water left." Her breath caught. "You've seen them." "I knelt there. He marked me." He touched the scar without looking down. "I've been hunting him since." Azura's pulse raced. For years the line had been a locked door. Now a stranger stood in her hall and named the key. She did not trust him. His armor was a graveyard of failed fights. But he knew the way, and she did not. "Show me the place," she said. "On this." He leaned over the display. His scarred glove passed through the projected worlds until he stopped on one, small and gray, ringed with dead cloud. He held his finger there. "North of the temple. The dry beds cross. That's your Wellspring, if it's anywhere." The world he chose lit up beneath his hand. Azura stared at it. Three nights of searching, ended by a man she had never seen. "My name is Sambad Archer," he said. "You'll want a mount. It's a long climb, and the god watches the road." Azura took the crown from her head and set it on the desk beside the glowing world. She had a direction now. She also had a debt she did not choose, and a companion who hunted a god.

The gray world grew large in the viewport of Sambad Archer's ship. Azura had traveled three days with the scarred warrior who knew the way to the Wellspring. He said little. He steered his sleek ship through dead cloud, its blue lights tracing the hull. Below them the dead world turned. No green, no water, only ash and rock. Azura pressed her hand to the cold glass. The place that held her people's power was a grave. "We land soon," Sambad said. He did not look at her. "You can't walk out there. No air. No heat. The cold will kill you fast." Azura had not thought past the door of the ship. She had chased the twin rivers for years. Now she saw she had chased them like a dream, not a place a body must survive. "Then how do I reach the temple?" Sambad rose and crossed to a wall panel. He pulled it open. Inside hung a white suit, sleek, with a rounded helmet and an oxygen tank on the back. Green lines ran down its arms and legs. "This. One suit. It's yours." She stared at it. "And you?" "I've crossed that ground before." He touched the scar on his cheek. "My blood remembers the cold. I don't need it." He lifted the suit down and held it out. "Put it on. Or stay on the ship and learn nothing." Azura took it. The suit was heavier than she expected. She had ruled a hall in a shimmering gown. Now she pulled stiff white fabric over her arms and sealed the seams with clumsy fingers. Sambad watched without helping. When she reached for the helmet, he finally moved. "Wrong way." He turned the helmet in her hands and locked it to the collar. Air hissed. The green lights woke. Cold gave way to a faint warmth against her skin. "Tank gives you four hours. Watch the gauge. When it drops, you come back. No matter what you've found." "Four hours," she repeated. Her voice sounded small inside the glass. The ship touched down. Dust rose and settled. Sambad opened the outer door. Wind screamed against the hull, then died as the ramp met the ground. Beyond it lay the gray plain, and far off, two long dry channels crossing near a broken temple. The twin rivers. Real. Named in her memory, forgotten by the land. Azura stepped onto the surface. Her boots crunched the ash. She breathed, and the breath came clean. The dead world could not touch her now. She turned back once. Sambad stood in the doorway, armed, watching the horizon, not her. "The god knows we're here," he said. "He always does. Walk fast." Azura faced the dry riverbeds and began to walk. The suit kept her alive. But four hours was all she had, and a god waited between her and the Wellspring.

The drowned world hung before Azura's ship like a blue pearl. Its seas shimmered green and blue, with no dry land she could land on. Sambad studied the map in his head. "The stone is below the water," he said. "Deep. Your ship was built for the stars, not the sea." Azura pressed her hand to the glass. Her ship would crack and flood if she tried to dive it. She had no suit for this. The surface was all water, and she could not breathe it. She took the ship low, skimming the waves, searching for anything solid. Fish flashed below. A tail broke the surface, then vanished. Azura cut the engines and let the ship float. "We need help," she said. "Someone who knows these waters." The water churched beside the hull. A man rose from it. His chest was bare and broad, his hair long and gray. Below the waist, a dark green tail beat the sea. Gold cuffs circled both wrists. On his head sat a crown larger than her own. He set both hands on her ship's edge and climbed aboard, his tail folding into legs as he stood. "You land on my sea and cut your engines," he said. His voice was low, like water over stone. "Most who come here come to take. What do you want, land-crown?" Azura met his eyes. She would not lie to a god. "I'm Azura. I rule a frozen world. I came for a stone that lies beneath your water. One of seven. Without it my people stay in the dark." Trident Crown studied her crown. He saw the six emeralds set in gold. He saw the one empty socket. "You carry a broken thing," he said. "And you ask me to help you break mine open." The sea stilled around them. Even the waves seemed to listen. "I ask for passage down," Azura said. "Nothing more. The stone isn't yours. It fell here. I only want what belongs to my blood." He was quiet a long moment. Then he lifted one gold cuff from his wrist. "This holds the sea's breath," he said. "Wear it and the water won't drown you. The deep won't crush you." He held it out, then closed his fingers before she could take it. "But the stone lies guarded, and the god who scattered them watches this world too. You'll trade one danger for another." Azura reached and did not pull back. "Then I'll face it in the water instead of the stars." She took the cuff. It clamped cold around her wrist and warmed against her skin. Trident Crown slid back into the sea. "Follow me down, land-crown. But know the god already feels you here." He dove, and his tail cut the surface. Azura looked at Sambad, then at the water. Her ship could not go where she needed. Her body now could. She climbed the rail and dropped into the drowned world.