The darkness did not leave the sky all at once. Instead, the deep violet overhead slowly thinned at the eastern horizon, turning the color of cold slate before a pale, amber glow began to bleed across the gray silt. It was a dry, silent dawn, completely lacking the mechanical bells or steam whistles that had signaled a shift-change in the High Spire for generations.Vance woke up because the basalt beneath his shoulder was losing its fierce heat. The volcanic fissure was still breathing its lazy white mist, but the stone further from the crack had turned cool in the morning air.He sat up, his joints popping with a dry, hollow sound. His single organic eye adjusted to the new light, and for the first time, he saw the True Surface clearly.The gray silt wasn't an endless ocean. Now that the daylight had cut through the horizon, he could see that the ash-gray plain terminated three miles to the north, collapsing into the jagged, towering teeth of a massive red-rock canyon. The canyon wa

The red sand at the end of the canyon was different from the ash of the plains. It was heavy, coarse, and smelled faintly of rusted iron. As they walked, it began to slope upward, forming a long, sweeping dune that swallowed the towering walls of the canyon until there was nothing ahead of them but the ridge of the sand and the pale amber sky.Vance was breathing hard by the time they neared the crest. The light gravity made lifting his legs easy, but the sand shifted constantly beneath his boots, forcing him to fight for every inch of traction.Marcus reached the top first. The old miner didn't announce what he saw. He just stopped. His heavy shoulders dropped, his hands resting loose at his sides, and he stood completely still against the wind.Amaya reached the crest a moment later, the wind instantly whipping her hair back. She let out a soft, sharp breath.Vance pushed through the last yard of sinking sand, pulling himself up beside them. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with

The pale amber daylight didn't fade gently; it thinned out like oil on water, leaving the deep violet sky to reclaim the red-sand cliffs. As the twilight deepened, the wind from the north turned sharp, bringing with it a freezing haze that coated Vance’s leather collar in a layer of fine, white frost.The path along the ridge had finally sloped downward, flattening out into a wide beach of coarse red grit that met the edge of the dark mirror. Up close, the cracked methane sea looked even more imposing. The giant white veins that had ripped through the ice at noon were jagged trenches, three feet wide in some places, cutting deep into the black obsidian floor.Marcus stopped, his heavy boots crunching hard into the red grit. He didn't turn around, but his arm lifted, pointing toward a dark silhouette that broke the flat horizon of the ice about fifty yards from the shore.It wasn't a rock formation.Emerging from the solid, frozen methane at a sharp, forty-five-degree angle was the bow

The morning didn't break with a flash; it rose like a slow, pale gold ink bleeding through the violet fabric of the sky. The cracks in the methane sea below caught the first light, turning the white fractures into brilliant, glowing ribbons that split the dark mirror into thousands of glittering shards.Vance woke up when the satchel beside him shifted.The small gray creature was already on its thin, wire-like legs. It shook itself vigorously, sending a tiny spray of white frost off its fur, and let out a sharp, clicking sound from its needle-nose. It didn't linger. With two quick, silent bounds, it cleared the rusted iron lip of the cargo hatch and dropped onto the frozen grit outside."It's leaving," Amaya said, already on her feet. Her coat was buttoned tight against the early chill, but her movements were loose and ready.Marcus grunted, swinging his heavy legs over the iron winch. He picked up his tool harness, the heavy leather supple from the warmth of his own body during the