Milada could hear every dying thing in the universe.
On Tripolis, those sounds rose with the Diamond Storm—a crystalline scream that always reminded Milada of funeral bells tolling for mortals.
Ten years had passed since the last storm. She stood on the lip of Silica Bluff, their secret place at the edge of Trudge Valley. No merchants had arrived yet. No pickaxes waited to hack at the diamonds once the storm receded. There would not be any for a full year.
Only her, the wind, the moons—and the soft crunch of gravel as her brother approached.
"You're early," Areilycus said quietly.
"So are you," Milada replied, unable to stop the smile that spread across her face.
They had watched every storm together since their creation, shoulder to shoulder on this cliff while lightning split the sky open. The horizon boiled. Carbon and methane clouds blackened, then thinned to a ghostly translucence. In the upper atmosphere, invisible forces dragged down frozen carbon rain. Soon, diamonds would slice through their air like knives. The five moons shifted closer, their gravity pressing warning into her bones.
Ari leaned against the boulder they always used. He wore his usual linen shirt and boots, curls already damp with sweat. He looked like sunlight made flesh, a steady radiance that made the approaching darkness bearable.
She reached up and tucked a stray curl behind his ear, ignoring the heat that flared where her fingers brushed his skin.
"You should have stayed in Millennia," she said, mostly to fill the space between them. "It's… I don't know. I feel strange."
He shrugged. "I'll go when you tell me to. Until then, I'd like to pretend the world is ours."
It was not. Tripolis belonged to the Assigner. But this ledge—with its ridged red marl and pillars of condensed gas—felt like theirs. They had carved their initials into the sandstone when the storm cycle first began. They had built cairns and crowned them with crystals that still glittered in the half-light.
Below, citizens huddled in caves. They would emerge once she anchored the storm, sealing it inside an atmospheric bubble so it did not obliterate their villages. And then, stubborn as ever, they would gather the fallen diamonds and call them Sibelle's blessings, even as radiation slowly ruined their organs.
Tripolis thrived on cruelty. The strongest devoured; the weakest dissolved. And Milada was meant to keep both alive.
Cleo passed behind them briefly, assessing the sky.
She wore hunting leathers, boots streaked with residue from toxic winds. Green cubes pulsed inside her satchel—captured life, preserved and hoarded.
"Do you think Las will like them?" she asked, lifting the bag with a grin.
Milada rolled her eyes.
"He'll love it," Ari said brightly.
"Don't tarry, sis," Cleo sang, dissolving into a flare of emerald light.
Milada exhaled slowly.
"Shall we?" Ari asked once they were alone.
She closed her eyes.
Her awareness sank through layers of ice and methane into the planet's core. Hydrogen churned. Heat convulsed. She wrapped her will around it and drew it upward.
The storm resisted immediately.
It wanted to strip Tripolis to bone. It pressed against her control, furious. She swallowed its fire and shaped it into a shimmering dome above the valley. Diamonds struck the barrier and shattered into powder that would later be traded with Hunat.
Her jaw tightened. Her arms trembled. She had done this countless times. It should have been routine.
Then the storm convulsed.
A spike of radiation shot through a seam she had not seen.
The plume hit Ari square in the chest.
He gasped.
Light burst from his eyes and mouth. Gold fractals spidered across his skin before snapping back into place. Celestials were meant to be immune. They had been forged in Sibelle's light. They could walk through stars.
Yet the radiation had touched him.
Milada's focus faltered.
A vein of molten hydrogen split, and the atmospheric bubble wavered. Diamonds sliced lower, cutting thin scars into distant dunes.
"Ari!" she shouted, forcing the dome back into shape.
"I'm fine," he said, though his voice strained. His glow had dimmed. He folded his arms across his chest as if holding himself together.
"No, you're not."
The storm still raged overhead.
"Go to Millennia," she ordered. "I'll finish here."
"What if it happens again?"
"Then it kills me. Go."
The attempt at humor fell flat.
He hesitated, eyes moving between her and the sky. Then he pressed a kiss to her brow, as he always did, and vanished in a flicker of gold.
Alone, Milada forced herself steady.
She pictured the energy sphere around Tripolis, its edges shimmering like glass. She sealed the seam. She swallowed another jet of radiation. The screams of dissolving matter pounded against her skull.
"Why are you fighting me?" she muttered at the storm.
She held on.
Eventually the storm exhausted itself. The clouds peeled back. The moons drifted away. A thin layer of diamond dust coated the bluff.
Milada sank to the ground, drawing her knees to her chest.
Why had the radiation struck Ari? How had a dome she had shaped a hundred times failed?
She had felt something slip—a minute betrayal from the planet itself.
Tripolis thrived on cruelty.
She had believed she could shield the one she loved from it.
Diamonds began to fall like snow. One landed in her palm, flawless and sharp.
It sliced her skin.
The sting grounded her.
She watched blood bead against crystal, then closed her fist around it and rose to return home.