The corpse stared up at them with Lysandra's storm-blue eyes, its skeletal fingers tightening around the journal. The crew froze, the air thick with the stench of decay and ozone. Garvin's dagger trembled in his grip, his remaining arm slick with sweat. Lysandra's storm-marbles sputtered weakly, their light reflecting off the corpse's hollow gaze.
"What in the seven hells—" Garvin choked, voice raw from the rot's retreat.
Lysandra stumbled back, her boots crunching on brittle bone fragments. "That's… me."
Zmey snarled, flames licking his jaws as he circled the corpse. "A reflection. The Talasüm's mockery. They wear your face to unmake your resolve."
Sera's roots lashed out, pinning the corpse to the vault's crumbling wall. The thing didn't struggle. Its jaw creaked open, and a sound like grinding glass spilled out—Lysandra's voice, warped and broken.
"Too late," it rasped. "The warden wakes. She hungers for your song."
The derelict ship shuddered, godglass walls splintering as shadows pooled beneath their feet.
The shadows erupted first.
They peeled from the walls, twisting into grotesque parodies of the crew. A shadow-Garvin lunged, its thornvine arm dripping venom that hissed against the deck. A shadow-Zmey unfurled wings of liquid void, spewing fire that ate light rather than cast it. Worst of all was the shadow-Lysandra—storm-marbles orbiting its head like a crown, lightning crackling in its palms.
"They're copying us!" Lysandra hurled a marble, but the mimic caught it midair, absorbing its energy.
Garvin ducked a thornvine strike, his infected veins burning like acid. "How do we fight ourselves?"
"By being better," Sera growled. Her roots surged, golden light searing through the mimics. But for every shadow destroyed, two more clawed free of the darkness.
Zmey roared, flames engulfing a swarm of shadow-Seras. "They feed on doubt! Focus on what separates you from these hollow things!"
Lysandra's mimic laughed, hurling a bolt of lightning that singed her cheek. "You're just a thief," it sneered. "Stealing power you can't control."
"And you're a bad copy," Lysandra spat, slamming two marbles together. The resulting shockwave vaporized the mimic—and half the vault.
Zmey snatched the journal from the corpse's grip, his claws slicing through pages brittle with age. "The Dawn Pirates didn't just steal the Veil's heart—they bound the warden. A being of pure entropy. Their first captain."
Sera's blood ran cold. "The sketch… it's me."
"No." Zmey's gaze darkened. "It's what you'll become if the Anchor consumes you. The warden was once like you—a guardian. Until the rot took her."
The corpse laughed, its voice still Lysandra's. "You'll join her. You'll become her. It's written in the stars."
Garvin kicked the corpse's ribs, his face pale but fierce. "Shut it. We're not dying in this rustbucket."
Garvin's corruption had retreated, but not vanished. Black veins snaked up his neck, pulsing like parasitic worms. He slumped against the wall, breath ragged. "Sera… do it."
Lysandra grabbed his arm. "No! We'll find another way—"
"There is no other way!" He pressed his dagger to her palm, his eyes pleading. "Take my name. Give it to the void. Before this thing wears my face."
The star-memory's bargain echoed: A name for a cure.
Lysandra's tears sizzled as they struck her storm-marbles. "I can't."
"You have to." Garvin's voice broke. "I won't let this thing pretend to be me. Not after… after Talin."
The name hung heavy—Garvin's brother, whose blood he'd spilled years ago.
Lysandra whispered his name—Garvin Voss—into the star-memory's fading light. The void trembled, swallowing the syllables. The air itself seemed to recoil, as if the universe had forgotten a fundamental truth.
Garvin's body convulsed, the rot retreating into a single, obsidian seed lodged in his palm. He gasped, color flooding back into his skin. "Did it… work?"
The corpse screamed. "Fools! You've fed the void a thread. Now it will unravel everything."
The derelict ship imploded.
The crew barely escaped, the Argent Whisper's roots stitching the hull shut as the Serpent's Coil collapsed behind them. The nebula dissolved into a vortex of antimatter, and from its heart rose the warden.
She was Sera, but more—golden roots coiled around her limbs like armor, Zmey's wings torn from shadow, her eyes twin supernovas.
"Little star," the warden crooned, her voice a chorus of dead stars. "You've brought me home."
Sera's roots recoiled, the Anchor's light dimming. "What are you?"
"Your future. Your failure." The warden raised a hand, and a nearby star winked out, its light devoured. "The Dawn Pirates tried to cage me. Now I'll feast on their legacy… starting with you."
Back on the Argent Whisper, the crew huddled in the root-chamber. The Compass of Shattered Skies lay inert, its needle shattered.
Garvin stared at the obsidian seed in his palm. "We need to kill her. Before she becomes… that."
Lysandra's storm-marbles flickered, their light dimmed by the void's hunger. "And if we can't?"
Sera touched the thorn-vine skull, her golden veins pulsing in time with the ship's roots. "Then I'll drag her into the void with me."
Zmey's growl rattled the walls. "There's another way. The Dawn Pirates' first captain—she left a weapon. A shard of her own heart."
"Where?" Lysandra asked.
"Where all journeys end. The Inverse Spires."
Above them, the stars began to die.