Topeagler -

Kaelira was old. Her brass feathers had dulled to a patina of green and rust. One of her three amber eyes—arranged in a triangle atop her broad head—had gone white with cataract. Her left wing bore a scar from a poacher’s harpoon, fired twenty years ago by a man named Sorvus, who now lay buried in the belly of a sinkhole, his bones picked clean by crystal shrimp.

And the Topeagler, as always, would remember.

For a moment, there was peace.

The sphere pulsed.

And somewhere, in a deep trench where no machine could follow, a young male Topeagler—his feathers still bright, his three eyes clear—lifted his head from a nest of glowing eels and hummed back. topeagler

LAST OF YOUR KIND. DO NOT FLEE. WE WISH TO PRESERVE YOU.

She rose to the surface of the chamber’s air pocket. The ceiling was low, barely a foot above the water. She could not fly here. But she could remember . Kaelira was old

The sphere spoke. Not in words, but in vibration. She felt it in her bones: