Ned O’Tennis’ willingness to fly to the Eyelands and land his strohlkraft among the ruins of Caer projected his indifference to life as the war drew nearer. It was of no consequence to him if he caught the bonelight and became a seraph. That, he thought to himself, could be no more horrible than the war spreading cancerously in the world below.

One day, roaming among the weathered walls and weed-cracked avenues, he pondered his options. If he stayed in N’ym, he would have to fight. That he would do if the rebels attacked his city. He feared being sent out to destroy guerrillas among the hamlets, where the people he had once ferried and befriended lived in tacit alliance with the rebels. If he refused to destroy them, he would be executed.

Sometimes he thought death appealing. Shirking his war duty and damned to impuissance, he felt filthy being an Aesirai. But he was no nineteen-year-old. He knew himself well enough to understand that death—whether he doled it out or received it—arrived without glory. Life was mad. Men killed each other, and their women cheered them on. Even away from war—where people wove their own meanings of love and peace as they grew old and withered on their bones—life, in its beautiful rags, appeared cruel. Yet death offered no recourse. Life, with all its elaborate pain and for all its senseless trials, lay in his hands. He would not use it to kill wantonly. And he would not let them execute him. Flight remained his only other option. But to where could he flee? All the worlds raged with war. The Storm-Tree was toppling.

A voice intruded: “You look troubled, pilot.”

Ned jumped about so quickly that the seraphs dangling among the broken walls shot high into the starry sky. A woman stood on the talus of a torn building, a slim silhouette against the foamy light of the galaxy. She stepped down, and he noticed that she wore a silvery shift that rippled with starlight along her slender contours. He backed away, and she called: “Wait. Don’t go. I want to talk with you.”