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from the quakedust.
    Krawg crawled into his blankets, assuring himself that the distant thunder came from the sky and not from the ground beneath. Beside him, Warney’s bed lay empty, but Krawg was too wrung out to worry, sore from the toil of hauling debris.
    Soon after the last thought left his head, footsteps awakened him.
    Lurching awkwardly between the sprawl of slumbering laborers, Warney’s scarecrow silhouette advanced. In the faint candlelight, Krawg watched him kneel and pat the floor to find his folded mat of reeds.
    “Spit it out, Warney. Somethin’s got you running scared. Are the beastmen back?”
    “Hope not.” The mat crackled as Warney smoothed it. “I’m just losin’ my mind.”
    “That’s been certain for years. But what’s the story?”
    “It’s the season, Krawg. Bad things happen when a red moon’s up. Say-ressa’s half-crushed. Some say the quake’s a sign we don’t belong here. Andthere’s something else.” Warney shivered, wrapping himself in bug-eaten blankets. “Don’t make me say.”
    “How can I sleep if your bones keep rattling? What do you think you saw with the eye you haven’t lost?”
    “Saw? It’s what I
heard
that bothers me.” Warney burrowed deeper into his cocoon. “Help me forget. Tell me an Auralia story.”
    “I’ve told you—no bedtime stories about our little girl.” Krawg pressed his head into the yellow scarf he had rolled for a pillow. “I have bad dreams about what happened to her.”
    “Gimme riddles then.”
    Krawg picked at his fingertip calluses. “Fine, I’ll fold you a riddle if you promise to tell me what’s tied you in knots.”
    “If our cave don’t collapse, I’ll tell.”
    Krawg sat up and cleared his throat. “Who am I?” He stared into the darkness of the cave’s high ceiling.
    Fish nibble my toes,
my head’s in a cloud,
got so many riches,
I’m boastful and proud.
    Warney’s silence might have been deep thought. Impatient, Krawg embellished his trick.
    One crown sinks,
then the next one dies.
My eyes, they’re blinded
by moonlit skies.
    Warney noisily gnawed at his lips. “Fish nibble my toes,” he repeated. “Is it a ship?”
    “You’re close. Bring her in to port.”
    “House Bel Amica!” Warney gasped. “Built on a rock in the Rushtide Inlet. Clouds around its head.”
    “And the two crowns?”
    “King Helpryn, dead in a shipwreck. His heir, Partayn, slain by beastmen. But what’s that line… ‘blinded by moonlit skies’?”
    “Moon worshipers, Warney. Those fish-brained Bel Amicans spend too much time out on their boats, I tell you.”
    “Maybe
we
should pray to the moon.” Anger flared on the edges of Warney’s words. “Ask it to help us outta this mess. Gimme another riddle, Krawg.”
    “Tell me what scared you.”
    “In the morning.”
    Another breeze wafted through the cave, the earthy perfume of a warm rain stirring up another wave of sneezes.
    The beastmen come a-hunting,
but I’m always underground.
And on a map of the Expanse,
I just cannot be found.
When the floor fell out from under me,
I fled to a safe haven.
Oh, what will become of me?
Go ask King—
    “Cal-raven,” Warney almost shouted. “House Abascar.”
    “Until we get to some new home and become New Abascar, that’s the whole of it.”
    “What’ll we be when we get there, Krawg? Will they need us anymore?”
    “Someone’s coming!”
    A torch bobbed in the dark as a soldier found his way through the maze of sleepers.
    “He’s looking for you,” said Krawg.
    “I had nothing to do with it,” blurted Warney. “But I heard the screams. Screams, Krawg. Coming from a solid stone wall.”
    “I’ve come for you, Krawg,” said the torchbearer.
    “Tabor Jan?” Krawg recognized that broad jaw line, the obvious displeasure.His fingers clenched his pillow as if he might wring comfort from it. “I gave up thievin’ many years ago. Ask anybody! They’ll tell you—”
    “King’s called for you. Bring your