Her mouth was cold. Her tongue felt bloated and hot against the snow stuffed inside. Emalia coughed, spat, and writhed enough to breathe; her nose ached, and she could only wheeze the faintest of breaths through it. Still, it was difficult to get much air in at all. She assumed she was buried under the collapsed snowbank she’d blundered into. At least her hand was warm. Wait, why is it warm? she thought, an echo of sensibility through the hazy blur of half-consciousness. She squeezed her fingers and felt the glass bottle from Feia. It was nearly hot to the touch and wet with melted snow. Emalia tugged on her arm, but found it was nearly locked in place. She wiggled and twisted for a few minutes, a mounting fear of never escaping making her movements more desperate and panicked until she was throwing her body around against the confines of the heavy snow like an insect caught in a spider’s web.

  In no minor fashion, Emalia realized then that she would die here. She would suffocate and freeze in the mountains of the north, far from her home, from her people who she’d defied. Far from her purpose she’d chased so fervently to the ends of the earth.

  Raizak, forgive my transgressions, she prayed, straining against the weight upon her back. Forgive me. Forgive me! I have been a poor servant, a poor priestess. I am not worthy to wield your name! Black dots swarmed her vision, shrouding, thickening, making her head swim and eyelids fluttering. Help me! Please, oh great Forger, please! The air was thin. Her lungs gasped in for air and came up short. Tired. Oh, so tired.

  And then came the pain. It was sharp, hot, and consuming. It burned through the pores of her skin, melting away the freeze sinking into her bones, rushed through her blood, and filled her heart with the spasms of death. Emalia croaked out a gasp, eyes rolling back in her head as the blaze of agony consumed her. And then the world was gone.

  She woke on the lowest step of the three-layered ivory ziggurat at the top of the Column. The weight here was immense, and she could scarcely move under it, never mind her exhaustion. And yet, she found herself being pulled up. Her limbs dragged along the smooth white blocks, but she had no strength here. Eyes half-opened, she saw the weaving web of blood-red ruby veins through the ivory, cutting in and out like faint capillaries of some ancient, osseous creature. The skeleton of a god. Her mind began to work, eyes flickering wider as realization set in.

  Straining, heaving, pushing against the weight of the deep sea and heavy snow, she stared up at his hazy, mutable form, strangled by the constrictors loosed upon him by Rotaal for his insurrection, yet alive, proud, and staring into her with eyes of violet. Her gaze slid off him, pulled to the floor as her strength gave way, finally. The forces raising her higher waned, allowing her to kneel upon the ivory masonry of this hallowed place. Somewhere not meant for the eyes of mankind.

  “Great Sunderer, Great Raizak,” she gasped out, words like whispered promises of a scared child in the threatening darkness of night. “You’ve come for me. I knew you would.” Tears filled her eyes, pain wracked her body, and she convulsed with lung-wrenching sobs of sorrow. “Forgive me. Oh Raizak, Warrior of Humanity, forgive me!”

  “SILENCE!”

  The cold sting of snow filled her mouth and she was struck with panic so deep she began to writhe and twist, breath hardly coming, mind once more going fuzzy and dark.

  “DO YOU THINK YOUR SUFFERING ELICITS SYMPATHY?” his voice boomed, creaking her bones and washing away the hard-packed snow, freeing her lungs once more.

  “No!” she cried. “No! No, I am weak. I am broken…”

  His all-consuming gaze was burning through her. “YOU ARE. AND I AM HERE TO FREE YOU FROM THIS, CHILD.” He paused, letting the words sink in, stir her Soul into elation, into rapturous joy. “YOU HAVE FAILED ME WITH THE CONFINED IN ROTAALAN. YOU HAVE LET HIM LIVE, AND SO HE HAS GROWN STRONGER. HIS SACRIFICE WILL BE MORE DIFFICULT NOW.” As her heart dropped with his words, Raizak continued, “BUT HIS HEART, RENEWED IN SPIRITS, WILL BE MORE POTENT. NOT ALL IS LOST AS LONG AS YOU KEEP TO MY PATH. SWEAR TO THIS.”

  “I swore to Daecinus I would not until he found the truth of his people—”

  “AND THIS OATH BINDS YOU AGAINST ME?”

  “I…” she trailed off, lost, floundering. What was a mortal promise to her existential purpose? To the needs of a god? “Can he assist in the ritual without his death? He is a great Sorcerer…”

  “I AM SORCERERY. I GIFTED THE POWER OF SOULS TO THE WEAK AND FEEBLE CREATURES CALLED HUMANKIND. AND YET YOU QUESTION ME?” He leaned closer, the impossible pressure of his stare like a spear pressing through her ribs, ripping flesh and pinning her through. “THE PETHYAN MUST DIE.”

  “Tell me of his origin! Of his people,” she exclaimed. “I can fulfill my oath to him and be right by all the gods.”

  “YOU TEST ME, CHILD. YOU WEILD THE NAMES OF THOSE WHO SOUGHT TO BREAK ME AS IF THEIR CARES MATTER TO ME. YOU WEIGH SUCH OATHS NEXT TO MY WILL.” He paused, voice thundering out over the vast emptiness of the chamber like rolling thunder, settling with the easing of storms. “HIS PEOPLE ARE DEAD. THEY BETRAYED THE WILL OF VASIA AND SUFFERED THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR AMBITIOUS FOLLY. YOU WILL FIND WORD OF THIS IN DRAZIVASKA, WHERE THE RELICS OF THE PAST AGE LIE, AND THE BROKEN PORTAL STONE I REQUIRE AWAITS YOU. IF YOU ARE WISE, YOU WILL KILL HIM THERE BEFORE THE OPPORTUNITY EVADES YOU. IN LUTELIA, THEIR TREASURED RELIQUARY MUST BE COMBINED WITH THE STONE AND HEART, BROUGHT THEN TO THE COLUMN. TO THE CROWN.” A pause, the implications of all that was said condemning, unavoidable. “YOU MUST NOT LET THE PETHYAN LIVE. HE MUST DIE BEFORE NOVA. YOU MUST HAVE HIS HEART. HE MUST DIE.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  Her mind was spinning with the new instructions, the new information. A reliquary now? And containing what? I’ve heard of this treasured item in Lutelia, but what is it? she thought, then quickly pushed away such worries. It was not her place to question his will. And yet, had she not been doing so time and time again? To escape such things, she asked, “Did Vasia kill Daecinus’s people? Who is to blame?” But her vision was fading once more, and the agony of the present began to replace the weight of this holy place. The smoky form of Raizak, god of Sorcery, the mind, and human will, was gone, his words reverberating in her consciousness, sinking into the folds of her brain. The unanswered questions like a stone in the back of her throat, like a icy grip around her heart. No, the cold there was also from the snow packed around her, the darkness shrouding her eyes. Buried deep. Hopeless strugglings. Dying breath.

  Darkness.

  …

  “Fucking snow,” Oskar hissed, kicking through the shit. The wind was even worse—which he hadn’t thought was previously bloody possible—and it scoured his face, leaving skin red and angry. “Whore’s cunt of a damn idea. Cross the mountains in springtime, eh? All will be fine, eh?”

  They found a rocky path down, sure enough, but the only thing it led to was a long stretch of a ledge winding along the mountainside about twenty paces wide. Oskar’s first thought upon seeing it was to turn around and head back. Oh, the thought of a warm fire and sizzling salted meat never sounded so good. But no, he agreed to risk death on the slim chance of the priestess’s survival like a young fool. This was the kind of thing that got boastful, fresh-faced warriors killed, after all. And now look at me. One sniff of true wealth again, and I toss out all my caution like a dead body into the river.

  “We have to be getting closer!” Sovina shouted from up ahead with the Soulborne.

  Oskar glanced to Nifont, who shrugged. “Hard to say.”

  “My thoughts too.” He raised his voice to reach Sovina up ahead. “Careful there! Watch for the edge!”

  She gave no sign of responding, he sighed and eyed the dark drop-off with wary suspicion as they went. Daecinus, not far away from them, said, “My Soulborne will sight it before she. Their eyes are capable in the night.”

  “And what can’t your Dead do?”

  “Raise more Dead.” He gave a brief smile. “Yet.”

  Oskar shuddered and tried not to think about that horrid prospect. Especially with one like Protis, that could speak and evidently think on its own. Maybe not a bad time to have a priestess on our side to save us from such a damnable future, he thought with a sardonic grin.

  And so on they went, trudging through the snow like poor blind beggars, huddled into themselves to keep warm, yet alert enough to keep an eye ahead for any disturbances that might reveal her location. Not that Oskar knew what to look for, particularly, but he figured a big pile of snow might be a good giveaway.

  Suddenly, Protis let out a harsh grunt and stopped in its tracks, nearly bumping into Sovina. She tried to move around it, but the intelligent Soulborne stood in her way as if corralling her.

  “Drop,” it said, voice rough as broken stones, pronunciation off just enough to make you realize it wasn’t a man speaking but something else. Something that shouldn’t speak. “Do not move.”

  The other two Soulborne edged forward carefully until they paused and straightened up to stand like stone monuments, drawing a line where the cliff ended. Protis then crawled forward, testing carefully until he found the cliff’s continuance. Oskar couldn’t tell how much of their coordination was of their own accord, and how much was because of Daecinus, watching the scene with that curious gaze of his. Oskar blinked. For the longest time, he couldn’t tell what the other man was thinking, what was going on in his mind, for his strange demeanor and stoic expressions revealed little. But just then, watching this Sorcerer from a distant past observe his creations upon some lonely mountain, Oskar saw a commander overlook a battlefield. He saw some lost piece of himself, bold and decisive, within this other man, combined with something he never had. Some observant, dangerous calculation that summed up everything and figured undeniable outcomes turned behind his eyes. It was only a thing he’d seen in commanders and voivodes who’d been raised in the games of power and betrayal, where lives on the battlefield or in their schemes were pieces to sacrifice in order to win.

  Quite an assumption, he thought, reflecting on that, frowning. But horseshit if it isn’t the truth.

  “Here!” Sovina was shouting, pushing into the darkness of the swirling snow along the narrow, three-pace-wide span edging along the sheer drop. “Right here!”

  The others went ahead, and after a moment, Oskar followed.

  A pile of snow chest-high lay ahead. Sovina was the first there, digging with desperate fervor as if it were she who was buried alive. Quickly enough, however, the Dead came up behind and sped up the process considerably, sweeping aside great heaps of snow with each movement of the arm. Nifont and he waited behind with little space to join in. Oskar squinted up and found the ledge where the priestess had toppled off of, the icy outcropping of snow broken. No, observing it now from below, he noticed something different. Maybe the moon was out and just a little brighter, but he could make out the broken edges of rotten wood planks. He frowned and looked down to the stone wall to their side. Something about it was off too.

  He nudged Nifont and nodded to it. “Looks a little flat to you, doesn’t it?”

  The other man studied it, wading closer to wipe away the snow and ice. He leaned in then turned back to Oskar. “It’s a wall!”

  “Yeah, I know that.”

  “Man-made!”

  Oskar’s mind ran, scanning through memories of the Kosican Range and all that used to be here. His history was poor, but if he thought about buildings in the mountains…

  “She’s here!” Sovina screamed back to them, digging frantically now, the Soulborne and Daecinus helping clear the way.

  Oskar looked back and saw something move. Packed in snow near the base of the wall shifted, pieces falling out. “The fuck is that?” he muttered, taking a step closer.

  Nifont gasped and jerked back just as a bleach-white hand of bone shot out from the snow to grab the man’s throat. He scrambled backwards, bumping into Oskar as they both stared at the wall, frozen in shock for a brief breath as the snow facade shuttered and collapsed. He barely had time to collect himself, turn to the others, and yell out in warning before the whole thing gave way and a wall of bone and frozen, blackened flesh streamed out from the mountain crypt.