Dara bumped into Page on his retreat, almost burning Page's hair with the torch. The flickering light bathed a sleek, black thing slinking in the shadows, lunging with its claws outstretched. She cursed. It blocked her direct way to the niche. She glanced at the folder in her hands, one that contained nothing of what they needed. She has to know more, but this stupid beast kept getting in the way.

She squinted through the darkness. Only the light from the small hole they came in earlier chased the inky black away, and the quivering flames of the torch made it harder for her eyes to adjust. Her boots scratched against the Athepaliah's compact dirt floor, drawing the attention of the predator towards her.

A curse flitted off her lips. "Dara!" she yelled. "Is there any other way out of here?"

"I'm trying!" came the frantic answer from the opposite side of the cavern. Damn that sleaze. Was he planning to leave her alone with a hungry beast? "That sauroton isn't going to let us go that easily!"

Page felt the walls, fingers running along the bumps and falls of the folders and niches. More dust billowed in the dark air as the sound of claws clicking against the floor resounded. Like them, the animal relied on the light. Also like them, it was stuck in this cavern. What better way to spend incarceration by eating anyone foolish enough to fall into the hole, right?

She waited for a break in the clicks. When the silence thickened, she pushed away from the wall and surged towards the ebbing torch light in the distance. A growl ripped behind her, signaling the predator tearing after her. Arms outstretched, she swiped at the arm holding the inconsistent light and yanked it forward. She prayed her estimates were right, and she wouldn't ram them into a wall. Air tore at the ends of her braid as the pocket of space opened up before them. She led Dara's wrist to shine a circular beam all over the walls of this new corridor. Strange symbols etched in stone guided their way along with the darkness. More clicks and talons screeching against stone trailed behind them. Was running a good option in this scenario? None of the journals she consumed in the Academy taught her how to handle rogue interplanetary fauna. Perhaps, she should write a book about that too.

A weight slammed into her back. In a flash, she whirled the wrist she held in a wide arc, shoving it back down. A grunt followed by a heavy thump and harsh hiss rang in the darkness. The smell of burning skin rose from the ground. Then, Page realized what she had done. Oh. That was Dara. She just fed her companion to the sauroton, or whatever it was called.

Oh.

Her reverie was snapped in two when a firm grip returned in her arm. "Let's go." Dara's voice was loud and clear, flushing the dread out of her system. He was alive? What about the creature?

He didn't waste seconds explaining. Instead, they ran around the corridors, him mystically knowing his way through. They emerged from a hole in the mound, the entrance flanked with wooden planks. The upper plank was lopsided, barely holding on for dear life. It would have fallen and bumped them on the head should the ground shake a bit.

She turned to Dara. "How did you know how to get out?"

"I noticed the ground sloping up when we left the cavern," he replied, bracing his hips while looking out at the rustling undergrowth around them. The trees towered over them in heights she hadn't really comprehended before. None of the trees in Nuvis dared to graze the clouds with their canopies. Quite shameless, the religious sect would say to the trees in Guahiri. "I simply followed the signs of air."

Ah. Where would she be if not for Dara?

"And why did you push me towards the beast?" Dara asked, pinning Page into a moral corner. "Did you aim to kill me in the dark?"

Page's eyes widened. "No!" she said a little too loudly. "I mean, consider it as an instinct. The will to survive. Yeah. That's it."

Dara hummed. The scent of smoke and the crackle of flames wafted across the undergrowth, making Page's senses perk. She glanced at him, and the same idea crossed his mind. Together, they rounded the enormous mound and came across the entrance they used a while ago.

Smoke curled from it, and the funneling landscape only amplified the flames' crackles. It was as if the flames were jubilant, devouring everything they were given. Page's jaw hung open. "The Athepaliah!" she exclaimed, rushing towards the hole. A strong grip hauled her back. She whirled to find a furious Dara glowering down at her.

"You must be happy, seeing a planet be destroyed," he hissed. "And now, you rejoice at seeing our only hope get burned."

Page scoffed, pushing away from him. Her boots scratched against the network of gnarly roots and short blades of grass. "What are you talking about?" she asked. "I am not happy. The library is burning down! If anything, you must be so ecstatic to see any hope of saving my home—the planet that caused you much suffering—go up in smoke."

"You pushed me!" Dara clarified, as if she was about to forget that stupid detail.

She jabbed an accusatory finger into his direction. "You lit the torch."

"You can't pin this on me," he said.

Page crossed her arms. "Oh, I can." She turned away from him just before the frustration succeeded in driving tears down her face. "The Athepaliah was my last hope. Without it...my family would die."

A sigh echoed behind her. She turned to find Dara massaging his temples, his jaw clenched so tight he could have snapped it. "Fine. Whatever. I'm sorry I snapped at you," he said. "I just..."

"I'm sorry too," Page blurted, swiping at her tears with the back of her hand. "I shouldn't have pushed you."

"Let's wait for the fire to die down." Dara leaned towards the wall as far as he dared. The smell of burning dust and parchment still thickened. "Then, we'll see what we can find for what was left. After that..."

Page nodded. "We'll figure it out," she said. "Somehow."

With nothing to fuel them anymore, the flames died in a few hours. Page and Dara touched down on the ground once more. A more stable beam of light shone throughout the cavern, courtesy of the concentrated light stick Page found in the Callagheen. It was easy to bring the ship to her as they waited.

The beam crept along the niches. The haphazardly-stacked folders and files were nothing but ash now. She tamped down the growing guilt in her gut. For a Nuvian, she committed a great travesty against the Guardians of Old. She would never reach the Peak at this point.

Nothing useful remained in the niches. Page pursed her lips, following Dara into the adjacent corridor where the fire started. The smell of burning flesh was also prevalent in the area. "Page, come here," Dara's breathy voice bled from the shadows. The beam of light ran in straight lines down the walls. "Can you read this?"

Page sidled close and snatched the light stick from him. She followed the beam to see...inscriptions on the walls. The fire left charred marks of cinder on it, but after brushing it off with her fingers, the truth revealed itself. It was in the universal script used by the planets in the cluster where Nuvis belonged. This...

"It's the answer," Page exhaled, her chest heaving in both excitement and relief. "The Guardians must have known that parchment could burn easily. Nothing is closer to being infinite than stone. This..."

She whirled to Dara with the widest smile of hope she flashed anyone in a long time. "This is how we stop the Blight."