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.Only now did the obscure ideas and discoveries he had studied fully make sense as he added, "And long live the dead."He met the blank stare of Thaena from across the room.The light of her eyes was gone, and for a moment he feared that she too had joined the ranks of the walking dead.Faint puffs of steam still escaped her parted lips.Duras lay cradled in her arms, thankfully peaceful for the quiet death that ordinary steel had given him.Finding his balance, Bastun shook his head and picked up a discarded sword.A groan rang in the air.Dark translucent hands peeled away from one of the bodies followed by a thin arm and the wispy trappings of a desecrated soul.Movement forced stale air from the lungs of another wraith still trapped in flesh, its horrid wail of grisly birth echoing through the short-lived silence.As newborn wraiths crawled from Rashemi corpses, Bastun realized not all of their previous adversaries had been of the Creel—some had likely been of the Rashemi, of those fallen far below in the entrance hall and left to rot.Familiar strangers, the faces without names, shuffled off the coils of death to haunt him anew.The point of his swordraised slowly, ready to end himself for fallen friends and with acquaintances never made.A hand pushed against the center of his chest, and he started as Syrolf appeared in front of him, looking over his shoulder."Go," the warrior said, his grumbling voice now even more so."Stop the durthan.""It doesn't matter," he replied."It's too late, I—""It's only too late if you've decided to quit," Syrolf said."I don't know what she's planning, but I'd rather not die knowing she succeeded."Bastun took a step backward, staring at the rising dead, at the weary warriors that hacked at writhing bodies and insubstantial spirits.Their ethran stirred slowly, her attention torn between Duras and her duty.She took up her discarded mask loosely in her hand and stared at it as if betrayed.The bones beneath Serevan's white armor cracked as he tried to rise, straining at the ice that had frozen him to the stone.The vremyonni's boot crunched on snow.Flakes fell on his shoulders and hair.He realized that despite all, he was leaving.Logic drifted to the surface of his thoughts, and reluctantly he latched himself to it, filling his willpower with what must be done.He would leave his comrades to die and commit himself to the duty of a vremyonni.As he turned away, the image of Anilya, gripping the Breath and walking toward the northwest tower, burned itself into his mind.+ + + + +Each step upward felt like a step backward.Anilya almost glanced over her shoulder, imagining reflections of herself walking away, staring up, her own eyes fixed on her back.Though she progressed forward, time seemed to move in reverse.The ice grew thicker, each stair more dangerous and misshapen than the last.Man-made walls disappeared beneatha frozen facade, a wintry cavern likely un-tread by the living since its creation.Blurry faces rested just beneath the surface, their mouths open in quiet screams, their weapons dropped in pursuit of escape and caught before hitting the stone.Soldiers of old Narfell, perhaps trusted officers or supporters of Serevan's ambition, had been the first to realize their mistake.The farthei she ascended, the less human these faces appeared.Hideous sculptures spanned clawed arms from one wall to the other.Insectile mandibles framed open jaws teeming with needle-sharp fangs.Long, barbed tails rose to the ceiling, hovering over fleeing prey.There was no flesh beneath these images; the trapped fiends seemed frozen only in spirit or presence.The Breath trembled in her grip, pulling her faster.Its blade gleamed with a white torrent, the image of a blinding blizzard in waves of steel.She shivered as what little light behind her was swallowed in a slow, hesitant darkness.Stone and ice bruised as the ghostly children kept pace with her, but they did not approach the sword in her hand.Bright eyes darted in and out of those shadows, fearful to see and unable to look away.Cautiously she turned sideways, pointing the Breath at them as she continued climbing.They slowed but maintained their morbid vigil.The stairway grew colder, the ice more jagged, and the children stopped.Their shadows retreated.Anilya felt as though she stood over an immense gulf.Shaking, she turned and stared briefly into the heart of a limitless abyss.She averted her eyes, doubling over as the wind was stolen from her lungs.Gasping for air, she focused her eyes on the edges of the black doorway.Carved into an arch, it was a likeness of the city's shattered portal in shape only.The runes here were like those upon the Breath—Ilythiiri and human magic merged by the hands of King Arkaius
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