When I come to, I am in Psy Dwok’s transtemporal. I have no recollection of how I got there but I was alone, save for the ever-present hostess. She doesn’t notice me wake; she seems busy with something. I roll off my side to stand up and stretch my aching limbs before I remember that I don’t have limbs in here. I do, but they’re just part of my mind so stretching doesn’t have the same effect.

  “Oh, good, you’re awake,” Psy Dwok says. “We are on the way to find you now. Perhaps you can help. Which location did your class make it to?”

  “Gisk’s hunting world,” I reply.

  “We assumed that was the case based on the time frame but it’s good to have clarification. You’re lucky, you know. What were you thinking out there? You could have died.”

  “Gisk did already and Rust—”

  Psy Dwok interrupts me. “Wait, Giskalantan died?”

  “Yes. And Rust might, too, if he doesn’t get proper treatment. Drake Rov did what he could, but Rust is in a bad way.”

  “What happened?”

  “There were these bat-like creatures. They were big, but more than that, they were everywhere.”

  “And?”

  “That’s it. They attacked Jade and me and Xy, but Drake Rov saved us. Drakera Hyver found Rust and Gisk, but she was too late. She got Gisk out of there, but he was dead already. And Rust… Rust was very badly injured.”

  “And you’re worried he might die, too.”

  I nod. “Did you bring Drakera Sol?”

  “Of course we did. We brought the whole cluster.”

  “The whole cluster?” I say, shaking my head in disbelief. “I didn’t mean to cause a panic.”

  “It’s right that you did. To lose a hatchling… there is nothing worse. You know this.”

  I do. But still…

  The ride is quiet for a while after that. I assume Psy Dwok relays the information to the rest of the cluster but she’s good at shielding her conversations from her inner thoughts. You have to be if you’re a psy.

  As we get closer I can start to feel my body again. When I say this to Psy Dwok she tells me maybe one day I’ll have a mind powerful enough to be a psy. Before I get the chance to contemplate this my mother is there in Psy Dwok’s transtemporal and she is crying. No matter how much I tell her I’m alright she just keeps saying, “I can’t have you putting me through this again.” We tap our heads together and convey our feelings through touch—I’m surprised to realize that it works in the transtemporal. I’m tired and scared and very happy the cluster decided to make the trek deeper into the galaxy. My mother is relieved and scared and back to mothering.

  Once the cluster is close, I realize I can snap back to my body without much trouble and I let my mother and Psy Dwok know that I am returning so I can alert the others to what I’ve done. My mother nuzzles me one last time and then I’m off.

  When I come to in my body, Xy is hovering over me. He’s guarding me. I groan into him and he is surprised that I’m awake. “Stryx?” he whispers.

  “I’m here.”

  “What happened? I thought you were alright and then you just… fell.”

  “I contacted the cluster,” I say.

  “What?” Xy says with disbelief. “How?”

  I say it louder. “I contacted the cluster and they are close. How is Rust?”

  I look over to see him still out of it, unconscious. But breathing. Drake Rov is still sleeping and though Drakera Hyver is awake, a few of the others, including Jade, are taking care of her.

  “How did you contact the cluster?” Xy asks again.

  “I used my mind. I traversed to the rim of the galaxy and I sent out distress calls until they heard me.”

  “Stryx…” he says, only loud enough for me. I can feel in that one word all the suffering I’ve caused him and I lament not letting him know what I was doing.

  “I’m sorry, Xy,” I whisper. “I didn’t think you’d let me go if I said something. So I just went. It needed to happen and we didn’t have time to wait for Drake Rov or Drakera Hyver to go.”

  “By the dark and by the light…” he swears.

  “You did the right thing, Siluastryx,” Drakera Hyver says. I think I hear a note of approval in her voice, but I am likely imagining that. It is Drake Rov who likes me, not Drakera Hyver. “I’m quite impressed that you did that. I doubt if I could have reached them with my mind.” Maybe I’m not imagining it after all.

  She is nursing a dozen cuts and more bruises. None too serious, but any one of them might be life-threatening to one of us hatchlings. She gets up anyway. By this point, I’m sure she can tell the others are nearby. I can feel Psy Dwok and Psy Hek reaching out.

  I’m glad that they are come, but I’m afraid for what this might mean for the rest of our trip. I know it’s selfish of me to think about our excursion while Gisk lies there, dead, Rust dying. But I want to see the other worlds. I want to see what’s happened in my world—not my world, but the one where I did my experiment. Mine is the deepest into the galaxy, however, so mine will be last. Though I doubt we will see any more of them, now that the cluster has arrived.

  The pyramid Drake Rov formed over our heads is flung away and through the rubble and debris I see Drakera Sol’s determined snout as she plummets to the surface, only turning at the very last second to spread her wings and land, which kicks up an enormous amount of dust. Two others land beside her with a massive stretcher. Rust looks so small on a stretcher meant for an adult. So small and so alone. Within seconds they load him up onto the contraption and take off again. Then they are gone from sight once more and I think we all feel better about his chances of survival.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Next come the mothers. All of them at once. Each looking for their child to take them home. Even Xy’s mother shows up. When my own arrives I smile at her sheepishly.

  “Hello, mother,” I say.

  Our reunion isn’t like the others. We already had ours back in the transtemporal. But I can tell she’s happy to see my scales anyway. The only mother who is not reunited with her child is Gisk’s. When she lands on that desolate moon, she is greeted with the most profound and unenviable reality: her son is dead.

  The next few years of this planet’s life are spent with our cluster in its orbit. There are debates about whether or not the animals on the planet should be exterminated. Gisk’s mother wants retribution and no one will deny her. But the truth of it is: those animals were not at fault. They live their whole existence hunting game a hundred times their size. What difference does it make whether it’s the bumbling herbivores on the surface or the seaborne predators below? Or us from above? If the rumors be true, Gisk and Rust attacked one of their nests anyway.

  In the end, the decision is made. If Gisk’s mother and any others wish to eradicate life on the planet they are welcome to do so, but it is not sanctioned by the council, so it is strictly voluntary. By this point, much like we settle most of our disputes, enough time passes that any vengeance found won’t taste nearly so sweet.

  Drake Rov is one of the few drakes who cannot be moved, no matter how many of us try. He is simply too big to be transported. So a second, smaller pyramid is erected around him, that he may sleep until he is ready to wake. We will wait.

  Drakera Hyver is questioned by the council to determine if she and Drake Rov were negligent. Each of us is called in to answer for her. Not one of the students testifies that she did anything wrong, though Drakera Hyver herself doesn’t appear quite as convinced of her innocence. The inquiry is quick, though, and we all go back to our lives as usual before the first year has passed.

  I go to visit both Drakera Hyver and Rust in the hospital. Jade’s and my injuries weren’t bad enough that we needed to bother Drakera Sol. Much like the community did for me after my accident, we rally around Rust. Hatchlings are magical like that. When the community looks upon a hatchling they see all the potential in the universe. What will be. When they look upon an adult, they see only the mistakes over the course of their life. What has been. It’s a brutal realization, but one I will never forget.

  Halfway through the next year, Drake Rov wakes and returns and we are scheduled to meet to determine our next course of action: do we stay and finish the remaining projects or do we go to avoid deepening the catastrophe?

  “Siluastryx, we are going to be late!” my mother roars from the kitchen.

  I know, mother.

  I finish my stretches and pull on my stormcoat. It’s nasty weather in this system. I wonder if all these solar storms will kill off the animals on Gisk’s hunting world before his mother decides to do it herself.

  When we arrive at the meeting, the whole cluster is already there. I briefly wonder why it is that we’re always late, but perhaps it’s just in our nature. Drake Rov is at the head of the room, along with the council members, which just consists of the oldest five dragons in the cluster—apart from him, of course. The entrance behind us squeezes closed, the one at the back opens to let the compressed air in, and we begin.

  I spend the first while wondering exactly how the system works. In outer space there is no atmosphere, no air to breathe. And yet, by some combination of science and magic and genius, we are able to seal these asteroids and somewhere inside there is a pocket of air that releases enough oxygen and nitrogen and other elements that we are able to breathe. And this isn’t just one asteroid, it’s every single asteroid in the cluster. I’ve been told that if I pursue a future in engineering I’ll learn on day one how it works. I always take that as a roundabout way to say: “It’s too complicated for you to understand.”

  Dozens of dragons want to be heard and the meeting gets heated early and often. Again, all I care about is going to visit my planet. I don’t even need to land on the surface, I just want to see it. I don’t mean to be callous about what happened to Gisk and Rust, but every single generation deals with tragedy. It’s the way of life. I nearly died on my first visit. This is Gisk’s and Rust’s ordeal. One of the reasons the previous generation was so small—and ultimately led to the male drakes leaving—was their own tragedy. Four hatchlings killed in solar accident. I’ve learned about it from Psy Dwok’s memories in her transtemporal.

  That’s one reason I’m not terribly keen on becoming a psy. There is absolutely no privacy. Anyone who spends more than a few hours inside your head could potentially stumble across your deepest and darkest secrets. It isn’t as though they are always buried in the deepest recesses of your mind; sometimes they creep around. And when other things are creeping around in there, too, it becomes not only likely, but inevitable.

  I’m resolved to do as the community decides, as regards visiting the remaining planet projects—or in Howl’s case his star. My mother made me promise to do as the council decrees. She made me take an oath. Again. But that doesn’t mean I won’t argue my case if they cancel the remainder of our excursion.

  For the next long while—long enough that I nearly fall asleep more than once—they go back and forth listening to the arguments for why we should continue and those for why we should quit this galaxy now and forever. There are a few cool heads somewhere in between, but fewer than there should have been. Such is the case when tragedy strikes.

  When the matter is finally, mercifully put to a vote, it is decided three to two that the excursions are allowed to continue. I am elated, but I do my best to keep my reaction to myself as a shouting match breaks out between the different camps. Words and claws and curses are flung about haphazardly and more than one drakera will be nursing a nosebleed when they return home. Mother and I retreat shortly after the verdict to discuss it more calmly at home.

  While she made me take an oath that I would follow the council’s decision, I forced her to do the same. I think she’s regretting her decision now. She was quite confident that the excursions were dead in the galaxy, as it were.

  “Drakera Dex,” she curses under her breath when we get home. “Do you want some dirt discs?”

  She made my favorite dessert because she thought I would be the one lamenting the decision. Good thing it’s her favorite, too.

  “Love some,” I say.

  “I thought for sure…” she mumbles as she moves the cookies from the oven to the counter top. “You know, they may let me come along.”

  “You aren’t allowed to ask,” I remind her. It was part of the oath. No arguing for them to change their decision in any way. I was fully prepared to break my oath to fight for my right to finish out my experiment. I wouldn’t have gone far enough as to finish on my own. But now I don’t have to worry about making the distinction and I doubt mother has as much reason to argue as I would. I told myself that she would forgive me after a time, if it came to it. Once I could convince her how important this is to me. I am glad I didn’t have to do it, though.

  “Not even a little bit?” she pleads.

  I shake my head as I bite into a warm lead disc topped with onyx. The metal is so dense and chewy while the somewhat rare onyx is a nice, softer alternative to the usual gemstones. The earthy tones of the onyx pair well with the full, rich taste of the lead and it makes for the ultimate “I’m sorry.”

  “Did they say when we will leave?” I wonder.

  “I suspect after we all get a good sleep you’ll be on your way again. You should rest anyhow. I’ll clean up here.”

  I agree with her. It’s been a long couple of cycles and I’m ready for a good, full sleep. When I get to my room I settle onto my bed with a groan, leaning away from the wounds on my left flank. Once I get comfortable, it takes me no time at all to fall asleep.