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  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ALUNA UNHOOKED THE STRAP securing her tail to Vachir’s saddle, shifted her weight, and slid to the ground. Over the last few months in the desert, her legs had fused together and sprouted a thick covering of greenish-gold scales. Delicate fins had formed along her thighs but stayed flat and lifeless under her skirt. Instead of feet, a large tail fin folded up and wrapped itself around her ankles and calves like a thin, glistening veil.

  Her fins were sleeping, waiting to awaken with their first touch of water. Aluna longed to feel them unfurl in the ocean and show her what they were truly meant to do. Swim swift as a seal, fast as a dolphin.

  But here, at the desert’s edge, there were no waves to welcome her. Only dried earth, stubborn trees, and the crumbly beginnings of the distant mountains. When she stood, her whole body’s weight rested painfully on what used to be the heel of her foot. Even with the sturdy leather tail sheath Hoku had designed for her, she could only hop a few meters. Or walk on her hands. She needed crutches to cross any significant distance. Kampii were not meant to live in the Above World.

  She gripped Vachir’s mane, grateful for her friend’s four solid horse legs. Vachir. It had taken Aluna weeks to get used to calling her that instead of Tal, the horrible name the Equians had given her. Tal meant half, and Vachir was called that because she was born looking like a horse instead of a Human-horse mix like “real” Equians. After they’d defeated Scorch at the Thunder Trials, Khan Tayan had changed Tal’s name to Vachir — Thunderbolt — a perfect match for her bravery and speed, and for her gray star-speckled coat. Now no other name seemed right.

  Vachir nickered and stomped a hoof. Hoku, Calli, and Dash had dismounted their horses and disappeared into a tight cluster of shrubs and trees, leaving Aluna to follow behind at her own pace. She preferred it that way. The first few times the others had waited for her and watched her struggle. She’d found their patient stares unbearable. The new arrangement worked best for everyone.

  Aluna unlatched her crutches from Vachir’s saddlebag and slid her arms into the braces. Her fingers wrapped around the handgrips. She’d have preferred her talon weapons or a spear, but these were the tools she needed to master now.

  The shrubs rustled and Hoku emerged. Aluna’s special Kampii hearing devices carried his whispered words directly to her ears. “We found a group,” he said. “It’s the perfect size. Hurry, before they’re out of sight!”

  He disappeared again but she answered anyway, knowing his Kampii ears would pick up her voice. “I’ll be there in two flashes of a tail.” She turned to Vachir. “Keep an eye on the horses.”

  Vachir snorted and rolled her huge black eyes.

  Distances seemed longer now that Aluna couldn’t walk, and the terrain always seemed devious, as if it were trying to surprise her by being too soft or too hard or covered in twisty sticks and tumbling rocks. When she got to the shrubs, she hooked her crutches to her belt, dropped to the ground, and dragged herself forward on her hands. Her palms, callused from years of weapon training and her recent crutch use, were now tough as sharkskin.

  She found Hoku and Calli crouched at the lip of a ridge, Calli’s huge tawny wings pressed firmly against her back. Dash had scrambled up one of the sturdier trees. Aluna could just make out his long dark hair and pale desert clothes near one of the higher branches.

  Aluna quietly pulled herself to Calli’s side and peered over the edge of the ridge. A dozen meters below, a group of Humans slowly made their way along the path, a massive striped rhinebra lumbering behind them. The beast’s shuffling feet kicked up so much dust that Aluna could barely make out the figures through the cloud of particles.

  “What do you see, Calli?” Aluna asked. The Aviars had far better eyesight for distances.

  “There are five in the group there, although more may be scouting ahead,” Calli said.

  “I thought I saw something glint. Metal, maybe?” Hoku asked.

  “Oh, they’re definitely Upgraders,” Calli said. “There’s one with two metal prongs instead of feet, and another with what look like horns jutting out of his head. I haven’t seen any swords or flame shooters, but they could be hidden.”

  Aluna squinted, but the figures remained vague. “At least they don’t have a dragonflier. That improves our chances of speaking to them without being killed from a distance first.”

  Dash shimmied quietly down the tree and dropped to his stomach next to Aluna. Dirt smudged his tunic, and a gnarled twig stuck out of the cloth tie binding his hair. He smelled like horse, and he probably always would.

  “We could simply follow them,” Dash said. Aluna used to think his accent was strange, but now, after months of living with the Equians in the desert, she couldn’t imagine him speaking any other way. “They travel the same direction as all the other groups we’ve seen. Perhaps they will go straight to Karl Strand.”

  “More likely, they’ll just join his growing army,” Aluna said. When she’d suggested they take the fight to Karl Strand, she’d had no idea it would be this hard to locate him. Then again, Strand had been around when all the LegendaryTek splinters were created; he knew the value of hiding. “We have to convince the Upgraders to take us to Strand himself. It’s our only chance of finding him.”

  “I still don’t understand why Dash and I can’t go by ourselves, since we can pass as Upgraders,” Hoku said.

  Calli shoved Hoku in the shoulder. “We’re just supposed to stay safe and let you two have all the fun?”

  Hoku snorted. “Infiltrating a group of Upgraders sounds like fun to you? You’ve obviously been friends with Aluna for too long.”

  “They won’t take you to Strand without a reason, and there’s no better reason than valuable prisoners,” Aluna said. “Besides, we need to stick together.” She looked at each of them in turn. Hoku, Calli, Dash. Kampii, Aviar, Equian.

  They’d never have freed HydroTek from Fathom if Hoku and Dash hadn’t found a way to win the Dome Meks to their side, or if Calli hadn’t distracted Fathom at just the right moment, or if Aluna’s sister, Daphine, hadn’t helped her pin the monster to the ground until High Senator Electra arrived.

  And at the Thunder Trials, Aluna had lost her fight against Strand’s clone Scorch. Scorch should have killed her, and the desert Equians should, even now, be marching to join Strand’s army. Except that Hoku had put himself in harm’s way. He’d stepped between Aluna and a vicious killer, and he’d convinced the High Khan that honor was worth fighting for. When Calli and Dash and the Equian herds had joined him, the whole battle had turned. That one act of courage — no
t on Aluna’s part, but on Hoku’s — had changed everything.

  Asking for help was sometimes the bravest thing a person could do. The lesson had taken Aluna a long time to learn, but now she clung to it as if it were the last bubble of air in the ocean.

  “We’re about to walk into the middle of our enemy’s army,” Aluna said. “I don’t know what dangers we’re going to face, but we’ll have the best chance of succeeding if we stay together.”

  “If we stop Karl Strand, then we stop his army,” Calli said.

  Aluna had been thinking the same thing, yet the words sounded so strange coming from Calli. In her mind, Aluna still saw Calli as the innocent bird-girl cowering in her mother’s throne room. But Calli had grown braver and stronger during their travels. She’d been poisoned and almost killed. Innocence couldn’t survive in a world gripped by Karl Strand.

  “Calli’s right,” Aluna said. “The Equians are preparing for an all-out war. If we can get to Strand first, then maybe we can end this before thousands of people lose their lives. It’s worth the risk.”

  Dash sat up and Aluna’s gut twinged. He moved so effortlessly, with so much hidden strength. She used to be like that, too, although she was never so graceful. Now she felt clumsy all the time. Her body seemed to delight in defying her.

  “I will follow the Dawn-bringer, even into the heart of the enemy,” Dash said. He wiped his palms on his shirt, stood, and offered Aluna a hand.

  Aluna’s stomach fluttered again, but in a warm, happy way. Dash pulled her up and steadied her elbow while she got her crutches in place.

  Calli stared at the Upgraders disappearing down the path. “They’ll camp soon. We can take our time and approach them in the morning.”

  “No,” Aluna said. “We go tonight. I don’t want to risk losing them. And Hoku and I can see in the dark.”

  “I’m sure several of them have night vision, too,” Hoku said. “It’s a very common Upgrader modification. Rollin told me they don’t even need medteks to add the lenses to their eyes.”

  “Okay, so we won’t have an advantage, then,” Aluna said gruffly. Hoku knew more than she did about Upgraders — he’d studied with Rollin for months in the desert. “But I still want to go soon. Now, even. Before . . .”

  “Before I lose my courage,” Calli said quietly. Aluna saw Hoku squeeze her hand.

  Dash pushed his way through the shrubs back toward the horses. Hoku and Calli followed, and Aluna tried not to hear the sweet words Hoku whispered to Calli as they walked.

  Aluna went last, trying not to catch a branch in the eye. When Khan Tayan of their new Flame Heart herd had renamed Vachir, she’d also given Aluna a new name: Dawn-bringer. But was she leading them to a new day — to a new world without Strand — or to their early deaths?

  Vachir met her at the edge of the scrub. Aluna leaned on her friend and watched Hoku and Dash pull their disguises from their horses’ saddlebags.

  Hoku donned a mask that covered half his face and one eye in shiny silver and circuits. It wrapped around his neck for protection and hid his Kampii breathing necklace. The neck cover had been Rollin’s idea, if Aluna remembered correctly. Weeks of planning meetings back in the desert now blurred together in her mind. But Aluna had been the one to insist that Hoku wear the force shield he’d made for her for the Thunder Trials. It had already saved her life; maybe it would save his, too.

  Calli touched Hoku’s metal cheekbone and shuddered. “I don’t like it,” she said. “I miss your freckles.”

  Aluna agreed, but said nothing. She’d known Hoku her whole life, and yet the mask had transformed him into someone she barely recognized. She turned away, reminded of the hideous scope that Karl Strand’s clone Fathom had attached to her sister’s eye.

  Dash slipped a crude metal skeleton over his left forearm. He’d lost that wrist and hand in the battle at the HydroTek dome. The medteks had replaced it with a mechanical limb, but the tech wasn’t obvious enough. The new external piece glinted dangerously in the amber dusk. Aluna hopped over and helped Dash strap his retractable sword to his other forearm in the hopes that it would look built into his flesh when he extended it.

  It had taken so long to convince Tayan and the other Equians that this was the best plan. If they’d stayed in the desert and joined the Equian army, they’d be just five more swords among thousands. By going after Strand himself, they had a chance to make a difference.

  Tayan had hated Aluna’s plan. “Bravery is honorable,” she’d said, “but this? It is merely foolish.”

  High Khan Onggur had disagreed with Tayan, and so had Khan Arasen of Shining Moon. Aluna hadn’t needed the Equians’ approval, but it certainly helped to have their supplies and Rollin’s tech, and a place to stay while they prepared. Eventually, Tayan had come around, and she had even granted them the sun’s blessing when they’d left. Nothing would ever be easy between Aluna and Tayan — not even when they were fighting on the same side.

  After Hoku and Dash finished adjusting their new upgrades, they slipped behind the horses and traded their desert clothes for patchwork leathers and a few mismatched pieces of armor. When they emerged again, Aluna gasped. Her friends had become Upgraders.

  “We’re ready,” Hoku said. “Only one thing left to do.”

  Calli looked at Aluna, her face pale but resolute. Aluna nodded. They were already dirty enough, and Aluna had a large scratch over one eye that she’d allowed to crust over with dried blood. Now she attached her crutches to Vachir’s saddle, hopped up, and secured her tail.

  “Hands,” Hoku said.

  Aluna held them out and watched Hoku wrap his custom-made cuffs around her wrists. “Remember, you can struggle all you want in these. If you need to break out of them, twist out with both arms at the same time and they’ll pop open.”

  She gulped and stared down at the shackles while Hoku bound Calli’s hands. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered to Vachir. “You’re my secret weapon.”

  Vachir threw her head back and whinnied, clearly pleased to be a weapon of any sort.

  Dash looped a rope over Vachir’s neck and another over Calli’s horse. He kept the ends loose in his hand and mounted his mare, Sandwolf.

  The world seemed to fall silent around them, the only noises the distant caw of birds, the swish of the horses’ tails and the shuffle of their hooves as they shifted their weight.

  “The word is Zorro,” Aluna said. “Anyone says it and the mission is over. We get away as fast as we can. If we get separated, we meet up again at the HydroTek dome.”

  Aluna lowered her chin to her chest and let months of travel sweep over her body. She and Calli needed to look like prisoners: hungry, exhausted, and defeated.

  They were ready to meet the Upgraders.

  HOKU TOUCHED HIS CHEEK and felt cool metal instead of flesh. He didn’t mind it nearly as much as he probably should have. The faceplate felt slick and dangerous under his fingertips. No one could see it and think he was still an ignorant youngling who only understood books and tech.

  “I wish Rollin had changed her mind,” Dash said quietly. He rode next to Hoku and pulled Aluna’s and Calli’s horses behind him. “I would feel safer if we had an actual Upgrader with us. Someone who knows their customs.”

  “She said she’d be more trouble than help,” Hoku said. “I know she was afraid of being recognized; I just don’t know why.”

  Dash huffed. He sounded just like a horse. “Well, it would be unfair of me to condemn someone for keeping secrets. Perhaps she was exiled, just as I was.”

  Hoku said nothing. He knew Rollin better than anyone, and he knew it wasn’t just the Upgraders that Rollin was avoiding, but Karl Strand himself. She’d gotten twitchy when Strand’s name came up during their planning meetings, and she had been far more likely to punch someone soon after. But they all had their scars, and Rollin’s were none of his business. Maybe someday she’d trust him enough to share.

  Up ahead, the Upgraders had started a campfire, and Hoku cou
ld see hazy forms clustered around it like fish at feeding time. Their rhinebra had settled itself into a slumbering mountain nearby. “We’re close enough. Are you ready?” He wasn’t sure whom he was asking, Dash or himself.

  “Yes,” Dash said. “Walk us between worlds, friend.”

  Hoku smiled. After the Thunder Trials, Khan Tayan had given him the name Sun-strider, he who walks between worlds. Time to see if she was right.

  He glanced back at Aluna and Calli. Their faces were grim but determined. He sucked in a big breath and tried to remember how Rollin talked. Mostly he remembered her throwing things.

  “Yo,” he called out. His voice came out softer than he wanted, so he tried again. “Yo! Got room at your fire for a couple of Gizmos with a . . .” What should he call Aluna and Calli? Prisoners? Prizes? “With some cargo?” He winced.

  “Good,” Dash whispered. “This is a game. We must play our parts.”

  “Don’t say ‘parts’ when we’re around Upgraders,” Hoku said.

  The Upgraders around the fire stood and one took a few steps toward them.

  “You on horses, then?” a man called. “Just two of you?”

  “Two of us and two prisoners,” Dash said.

  “We don’t want blood,” the Upgrader said. “But we’ll spill it everywhere if we have to.”

  “Not necessary,” Hoku said, probably too quickly. He forced himself to stay calm. “We just want a seat at the fire.”

  “He is posturing,” Dash whispered. “They are a small group, too. He tries to assert his dominance to make us think they are stronger than they are.”

  “It’s working,” Hoku mumbled. He pulled his horse Sunbeam to a stop while they waited. The silence stretched and stretched while the Upgrader conferred with his group.

  “Can you hear what they’re saying?” he asked Dash.

  Dash shook his head. Hoku saw him twitching his right arm, the one with the expandable sword sheathed under his sleeve.

  “Steady,” came Aluna’s quiet voice from behind them, and Dash settled.

  The Upgrader called, “Come closer. We want eyes on you.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Hoku answered. He nudged Sunbeam. His heart seemed to beat louder with each clomp of his horse’s hooves. He squinted, trying to count the shapes taking form amid the smoky campsite. Calli had said there were five, but he only counted four.