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Elegy senses the battle, in its present shape, is finished. The enemy ships are pulling back and the Dawnchaser is climbing out of its low-level scan. What she feels next is not her own fear — it is a creeping, omnipresent dread of control slipping away, and she knows whose emotion it is: the Cinder King's. Her own fire still wants another enemy, another swing of the Shardspear that kills without wounding.

There is no one left to kill. She holds herself back from going for the pilot of her own ship and, instead, vaults across to the Dawnchaser and pushes into the cab. Rebeke turns and smiles at her — a real, glad smile, not the practiced kind. After the high of the killing it is utterly incongruous; only minutes ago Elegy had been contemplating attacking her. The smile is disarming. Intriguing. Even inspiring. *What is wrong with her, to want me here?* she wonders. *You're remembering*, Rebeke tells her gently. It is going to keep happening.

Over the radio the killer — Zellion — coordinates the next move. Confidence objects that the Cinder King's forces are entrenched on the Refuge location and will shoot any landing ship out of the sky. Zellion sounds something close to *grumpy* — a word Elegy thinks she may not yet fully understand — and scolds the Greater Good: people who fly their lives away should not be this ignorant of air superiority. He demonstrates. One of the gunships peels out of formation, swoops past the landed enemy at an angle with its sunheart cannon pointed groundward, and rakes the immobile line. Ships explode, people scream and scatter. Elegy finds the method effective but too distant for her taste, then catches herself wishing to be down among the screaming — and reminds herself that getting killed would mean no one was left to make Rebeke smile. A conundrum.

Everyone lands and gathers. Rebeke uses the Dawnchaser's dirt-movers to scrape off the topsoil and exposes a large silvery metallic disc set perhaps two feet under the ashen mud. Elegy jumps the twenty feet down to the soft ground. Zeal hands Zellion the smaller access disc they have all been treating as the key. He looks it over and tosses it back. Instead, standing on the surface of the silver plate, he calls out in a loud voice — formally requesting asylum at the facility under the Refugee and Lost Expatriate Bill of Silverlight Codes of Interplanetary Conduct.

Silence. Elegy watches the Cinder King's forces re-gather overhead, looking even more dangerous than before. She tries to feel the others' fear, struggles — because the tyrant above is no longer afraid. He thinks he has them.

Then a four-foot speaker pole shoots up from the disc beside Zellion. A heavily accented voice asks, in their own language, *are you Rosharan?* He confirms; he seeks asylum under — yes, yes, the voice cuts in, you can negotiate. He insists that the people with him will need protection while they talk. Silence again. Then a beam of energy rips up out of the ground across the Cinder King's bow, sending his ships back in a panic: a public message that the dirt itself is now armed. *Fine*, the voice allows. He may bring three.

A second, much larger column rises beside the first, opens like a door, and reveals an elevator down into the Refuge. Zellion assumes he should bring the full Greater Good, but Compassion — sitting in her chair on the earth — asks him to bring Rebeke in her place instead. *We should not send all three. Just in case. As you taught us.* He and Rebeke share a glance; he nods.

Then he looks to Elegy and asks for the sword back. She makes herself extend it; before she can hand it over it vanishes from her fingers into glowing mist and is gone. He steps close and speaks softly: she may be the only one these people have left after this. If the next part goes badly, try to protect them. *Why would it go poorly?* she asks. He answers with a grim look she has no trouble translating — a fight is coming. *Are you going to fight the people who live inside?* she whispers. Not physically, he says. Which is unfortunate, because he is fairly sure he could win that one. With that cryptic statement he steps into the metal tube with Confidence, Contemplation and Rebeke, and the elevator drops them down into the place of safety.