“ARRIVED AT POINT OF origin. Brrrrr ...” A crackle of static. Smoke hangs in the air. The smell of something electrical burning fills my nostrils. “Arrived at point of ori—brrrrr.”

The ringing in my head is deafening, and it’s difficult to see—or move. The restraints cut into my shoulders. I’m ... sideways. The ship must have rolled during the crash. The crash. By the great hands of the creator, we’re alive.

“Demitri. Demitri, we’re alive.”

He’s not in the cockpit.

A harness hangs from the empty seat where my friend should be, and a hatch in the side of the ship is open. Wisps of smoke drift out and are stripped away by a cold, cutting wind. I unlatch my harness and fall hard to the opposite wall.

“Demitri? Demitri, where are you?”

Every muscle aches as I climb up and through the portal. A gust of icy wind rakes across my face. It’s the most amazing feeling. I scramble from the cockpit and stand on the hull of the crushed vessel. The wreckage and the trench from the crash are remarkable. There’s no logical reason we should have survived.

Sitting on the edge of the long furrow is Demitri.

“Demitri. We made it. We did it. I can’t believe we did it.”

He doesn’t answer. Maybe he’s still bleeding? I dangle back into the hatch to grab a bright-orange medical pouch that hangs precariously from the side wall. Pulling it free from its case, I hoist myself out, then quickly unzip the pouch. Rifling through the contents, my fingers eventually find an auto-injector labeled, “Medical Stabilizer.”

“Okay, Demitri, I think this will help.” I hop down to the ice-covered ground and trudge toward him. “Try this. It’s a medical booster. It’ll help.”

Demitri takes the injector without looking up and presses it to his neck with a hiss.

Patting him on the shoulder, I step past to survey the distant ruins of Etyom. Back where the launchpad still smolders, there’s an occasional pop of a rifle or the echoed concussion of an explosion.

“Please be alive, Faruq,” I whisper. Is it possible he and the others survived? Maybe. But even if they did, what do we do now?

“Okay, Demitri. We’re going to get ourselves fixed up, regroup, and then figure out what we can do to help everyone. We owe them that much. Right?”

He’s on his feet now, holding his wound, his eyes cast down.

“Demitri?” Crossing to him, I smile and touch his wounded shoulder. “Let’s find the others. We’ll figure this out.”

The back of his fist strikes me across the jaw like a slab of steel, sending me sprawling back into a snowbank. I clamber to my feet, my legs rubbery, my jaw throbbing. “What the hell, Demitri?”

He turns to walk away.

“After all this, you’re going to ... attack me?”

“Stupid little bitch. You and your pathetic band of misfits better not get in my way again.”

No. It can’t be. “Vedmak. Don’t do this—”

The demon laughs. “It’s done. I’m free. And Hell will follow with me.”

My dream. It was a warning, but not about the Gracile Leader or even Kapka. Famine, pestilence, and war we have survived, but no matter what I do, there’s no stopping the coming of the fourth—the coming of Death.

Bile rises in my throat. My muscles tingle with shock and adrenaline. At long last, we freed ourselves from the tyranny of the Leader, but at what cost? I can only watch as Vedmak steals my friend’s wounded body, limping across the wasteland of snow and ice toward the ruins of Etyom. His dwindling silhouette melts into the twisting pillars of smoke waving like long lazy arms into the sky. And then, in the distance, the emergency balloons holding the last lillipad give way, and it collapses in plumes of debris, crashing down into the enclaves beneath.