“It’s just like Jurian showed me,” Liv said. She and her companions stood just beneath the last stunted, half-dead tree that had the misfortune to plant its roots close to the rim of the crater. “I’d almost wondered if the dream made it worse, if what happened there shaded his memories. But this is it.”

  Keri reached out and took her hand, and Liv gave him a little squeeze in return. The contact was a comfort.

  The land sloped back behind them, but over the rim itself, the rocky ground fell downward sharply, in a great tumble of scree to the bottom of the crater. Liv was certain that if you had put the Tower of Thorns at the very center, the top would not have reached ground level. The entire thing was miles across, and it played tricks with her sense of distance. That boulder, there, looked like nothing more than the sorts of pebbles she might take from the banks of the River Aspen - save that she knew, from the scale of everything else around her, that it must be nearly the size of a farmhouse. That earthworm, wiggling into the deepest shadows? It was a wyrm large enough for an Iravatan rider to mount it and wield a lance.

  The wind shifted, a gust of gritty sand blew into her face, and Liv caught the scent of rotten eggs. Her eyes burned, and she blinked away tears. From one side, she heard Sidonie cough, and to the other, she caught a glimpse of Arjun raising a cloth to cover his face.

  Above the crater where a city had once stood, a thick mass of clouds blotted out the sun, dark as heavily-laden stormclouds. There was even, Liv saw, a flash of lightning. In the depths themselves, however, great crevices ran through the black stone, and a ruddy, violent glow seeped up. Here and there, clouds of mist or steam had gathered, stirring back and forth on the shifting winds that scoured the dead land.

  “This was a place of white towers and gardens, once,” Ghveris said, his voice like a crash breaking the silence. He lifted his arm and pointed. “Look to the east. You can see the sea, beyond the crater.”

  “Why didn’t they put it right on the bay?” Sidonie asked. “I suppose we’re lucky they didn’t, or the entire thing would be underwater, but I would have thought they’d want a port.”

  “Flat land was more important,” Ghveris explained. “To land the flying ships that came and went from the ring.”

  “It’s anything but flat now,” Liv said, with a sigh. “And the air smells foul.” Like eggs that had been allowed to go bad.

  “No one should enter until the enchanted scarves have arrived,” Arjun said, and stepped around the group to meet Liv’s eyes. “No one.” He turned to fix Wren with a glare, as well, and the huntress raised her hands in a sign of surrender.

  Liv nodded, though she would have preferred to step into the shoals for just a moment - long enough to ease her pounding headache. Relief was so close she could almost feel it, like a physical pull. “Alright. Let’s get the camp setup. Do you have a place in mind, Keri?”

  “Far enough downslope from the rim to shield us from this foul air,” he said, after thinking for a moment and then nodding his head. “A screen of trees and brush will help with that, so I don’t want anyone taking firewood from the direction of the crater. I don’t think we can trust any water here, either. We’ll need to bring it from that last cenote.”

  Reluctantly, Liv went with her friends back down the slope, to where they’d left the army. She was certain that everyone wanted a rest, after spending so long cutting their way through the jungle, but the truth was that none of them would really have a break until the encampment had been raised. She was grateful that she had Keri and Soile to tell them that for her.

  They worked until dark, all of them. Liv used her magic where she could, chiefly to clear trees and brush with great blades of coherent mana. Now that they’d finished their journey, she told Arjun to leave that to her and Sidonie, and save his own mana for healing injuries, of which there were no few. With so many saws, axes, and hammers at work, in such an unfamiliar location, Liv honestly considered it a stroke of luck that they’d had no worse than a few cuts and broken fingers yet. Steris and Sakari were coming with the wagons, neither of them having ever been particularly suited to a forced march through the jungle, which left Arjun as the only dedicated healer for nearly two hundred people.

  Once the ground was cleared, one portion of the soldiers set to work stripping the smaller tree trunks of branches for use in building a palisade, while another group set to work with their shovels, surrounding the entire encampment in a ditch. The Eld who’d come to them from House Keria, including Soile, dropped seeds into the disturbed earth, then used their word of power to grow saplings to act as anchor points for the palisade. Then, after a second round of sowing, thorned vines twined their way across saplings and sharpened stakes alike, binding everything together tightly, and presenting a vicious obstacle to anyone who might think of scaling the palisade from the outside.

  For now, the encampment itself went up in the form of the same tents they’d used during the journey through the jungle to Godsgrave, but Liv knew that would change. The longer they were here, the more permanent and substantial the fortifications would become. Keri and Soile had plans for guard towers at the two palisade gates, to keep watch on the road they’d cut through the jungle from the river, in one direction, and on the crater itself from the other. Not the first or second load of supplies, but the fourth, was scheduled to include disassembled scorpions, to be fixed atop those guard towers. Before any of that, however, the field hospital would be the priority, so that anyone hurt in Godsgrave could be well-tended when they returned to the camp.

  To Liv’s very great satisfaction, the first wagons made the journey from the banks of the Airaduin? to the newly built palisade gate in only four days. She considered it a testament to the grueling, backbreaking work they’d done cutting their way through the jungle. That first shipment of goods consisted mainly of medical supplies and food, but it also included the first crate of enchanted scarves. The moment she’d found out which one it was, she conjured a hand of shimmering blue mana to lift it off the second wagon, place it on the ground, and then tear the top off, sending half a dozen black iron nails flying.

  “ - barrels,” Keri was saying, to the soldiers who would be headed back with the empty wagons. “The kind they use to hold water on ships. Tell Duke Matthew to talk to Captain Athearn if he needs help finding the right kind.”

  Liv, in the meanwhile, thrust her hands into the layers of silk, selected a length of vibrant blue embroidered with gold, and pulled it out. She wound it around her face and head so that it covered her mouth and nose, and tucked the loose ends behind her neck before standing up.

  Keri turned toward her, and lowered his voice. “Are you desperate to get into the shoals?” he asked her, voice low.

  Liv nodded her head, then bent over and fished out a length of white silk, also embroidered in gold. “Here.” The colors reminded her of the light he threw out using Savel.

  “We should gather everyone else,” Keri said, accepting the cloth, but not yet putting it over his face.

  “I don’t intend to go all the way in,” Liv told him. “Just step into the shoal and get a feel for it. Besides, this will let us test the enchantments.”

  Keri sighed, wound the cloth about his face, and glanced over to the two guards who had shadowed Liv over to the newly arrived wagons. “You’d better each grab one of these for yourselves,” he told them.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  After waiting just long enough for all four of them to be situated, Liv set off through the encampment toward the gate in the opposite side of the palisade. All around them, soldiers went about their business: dozens of tasks which needed to happen, every day, in order to keep this entire operation functioning. Some were carrying supplies to the tents which would serve as a hospital until something more permanent could be finished; others were hauling casks of wine to the cooks, where they would be used for the evening’s cooking, presumably as the base of some stew or soup. A few men were seated on a log, oiling the blades of their halberds with scraps of cloth.

  “Heading out, Your Majesty?” one of the Ashford men asked, when he saw them approaching the palisade. “Do you need an escort? I can have a dozen men ready to go with you in a quarter bell.”

  “No need,” Liv told him. “We’re just going to the edge of the shoal to test these enchantments.”

  The soldier hesitated, but at the end of the day, this was her army, after all, and so he opened the gate and let them through. Liv had no doubt that both Kaija and Soile would know what she was doing by the time she and Keri reached the rim of the crater.

  They made their way uphill, and then through the screen of trees and brush that had been left to break the wind off the crater. This time, Liv kept walking, heading right up to the edge. Stepping into the shoal was glorious: in fact, Liv was certain that the mana density here, at the very furthest border of the rift, was already more dense than the depths of Bald Peak. She could feel her muscles immediately relax, and a jolt of energy ran through her body.

  But she wasn’t here only for her own health. Liv pulled the cloth away from her face and took a deep breath of the foul-smelling air. It sent her into an immediate coughing fit, and it was a moment before she could get a full breath in her lungs again.

  “You alright?” Keri asked her, and Liv nodded.

  “The enchantments,” she gasped. Then, she touched a finger to the embroidered sigils, and let a bare ring of mana slip into them. There was no good way to fit mana stones to the veils, and Liv wasn’t ready to commit to that much mining at Bald Peak, anyway, so the cost of the magic needed to be borne by the wearer.

  The next breath she took, through the silk, was as fresh and sweet as mountain air. Try as she might, Liv couldn’t detect even a hint of the rotten smell that wafted up from the crater. While she suspected the irritation in her throat would linger until she’d washed it down with a mouthful of wine or water, the urge to hack her lungs out had gone.

  “How does it feel to you?” Liv asked Keri.

  He nodded. “You’ll probably want Arjun to check, to be certain, but it feels like the enchantments are working. It’s certainly better than without.”

  Liv turned toward the guards who had accompanied them, and both nodded.

  “Alright, I’m going to call this a success,” she declared. “Let’s head back down to camp and get everyone together. I want to head out first thing tomorrow morning.”

  ?

  Liv’s biggest problem, as it turned out, was not being prepared to depart at dawn: it was setting a limit on just how many people she was going to bring along. Keri, Wren, Ghveris and Arjun would come, of course - that went without saying, as far as she was concerned. They’d come through the Tomb of Celris with her, and the wars that followed, and there wasn’t anyone she trusted or depended on more.

  Sidonie was the only one present who might actually have spent more time studying the ancient V?dic enchantments and machinery that they were likely to encounter. While Liv’s old friend had taken a step back from actually throwing herself into battle, in favor of first studying with Elder Aira and then helping to keep the kingdom running, Liv was confident that she had enough culling experience to keep herself alive. On top of all that, her first culling had been at Duskvale, which made her their primary expert on the lingering effects which might arise from the presence of Asuris’s remains.

  Which left Liv staring at her cousin Miina, Kaija and a half dozen of Liv’s personal guards, Soaring Eagle, Sakari and, to Liv’s surprise, a very satisfied Apprentice Karina.

  “This is your own fault, you know,” Keri murmured in Liv’s ear. They hadn’t yet put their helms on, instead keeping the pieces of armor tucked between their arms and their chests, which meant that his breath tickled her skin. “You told her what she had to do to come. Did you think she wouldn’t do it?”

  Liv felt her mouth twist as if she’d just bit into a lemon. “Aura passed you?” she asked Karina.

  The Elden woman nodded her head, and reached up to sweep a lock of sickly, venom-yellow hair behind her delicate, pointed ear. “In all fairness, I had the advantage of years of education in the north before ever arriving at Bald Peak,” she said. “The only class that really presented a challenge was Guild Law and History.”

  “Alright, seventeen is too many,” Liv declared, looking from face to face. “Kaija, pick one of the guards and leave the rest behind.”

  The once-armorer bristled. “Our entire job is to keep you safe,” she argued. “You took us with you at Nightfall Peak -”

  “I’m not saying you can’t come,” Liv told her. “But we’re not throwing ourselves up against hundreds of enemy troops here. We’re exploring a rift. This is more of a culling team than it is an infantry charge. Seventeen is too many. A dozen is more than I’ve ever brought before, honestly, but I’m going to see how this goes. And the first thing is this, especially for those who’ve never culled a rift before: once we’re inside, the chain of command is me, and if I can’t give orders, Keri. If we’re not actively fighting something, you can ask questions, and you can give an opinion, but otherwise you do what I saw, without argument or hesitation. If anyone thinks they can’t do that, step back now.”

  She gave them a moment, but no one moved. Liv looked Kaija in the eye, raised her brows, and then jerked her head toward the half dozen other guards waiting. A moment later, five of them were walking away, leaving only Lina, who’d come with them to the Tomb of Celris.

  “Good.” Liv looked to Wren and Soaring Eagle, next. “Pick us out a path down into the crater, and keep an eye out for anything that looks like a way underground. Jurian and Genevieve found your people beneath the surface, so that’s where we need to go.”

  The two Red Shields immediately took their bat forms and fluttered off, beating their wings to rise up over the palisade and through what remained of the canopy, after so many trees had been cleared to make way for the camp. Liv and the rest of her companions wound their scarves of silk around their faces, each helping another to knot the pieces of cloth tight at the base of their skulls, where it wouldn’t get in the way of a helm, and then set off. Of them all, only Ghveris had no need of the enchantments - according to him, at least.

  They made their way out through the palisade gate, which was immediately closed behind them, and then upslope to the rim of the crater. Liv paused the group for a moment once they were inside the shoal itself.

  “Can everyone handle the mana density?” she asked, and waited for a nod from each person in turn before asking the next question. “Are your scarves working? Do you smell anything rotten when you breathe?”

  Again, Liv met each set of eyes, waiting for a headshake. “Ring count,” she demanded, and listened to the numbers as they came in. There were no surprises from her friends; she’d fought beside them so many times now that, even with a few slight increases in capacity, she felt like she had a good feel for their capabilities.

  That Sakari could hold twenty-one rings of mana impressed her; that Karina could hold sixteen made Liv raise an eyebrow. That was more than most human journeymen.

  “The two of you are on wyrm-taming duty,” Liv said, once everyone had given their responses. “Wren and Soaring Eagle will find us a path. Ghveris, take the lead - I want you and Sidonie on defense with mana shields. Arjun, save yourself for healing unless you’re in immediate danger. Keri, I want you to make certain we can still see where we’re going, above anything else.”

  Around her, Liv’s friends, companions, and guardians drew weapons. Panels opened on both of Ghveris’s shoulders, exposing the rotating barrels that his armor normally concealed. Keri spun his N?v’bel, as if remembering how it felt in his hands. Miina, Sakari and Karina carried short blades of Elden make, etched with enchantments. Kaija and Lina had their polearms, while Liv, Sidonie, and Arjun drew their wands.

  Following the pair of circling bats, the party picked their way down the slope into the crater, leaning into the wind.

  volume eight is finished!

  here. I am more available there than I am here.

  Dramatis Personae

  Livara T?r Valtteri Kaen Syv? - Guildmage, former scullery maid at Castle Whitehill, the bastard daughter of Maggie Brodbeck and Valtteri Ka Auris. Mountain Queen, and Lady of Winter. Score one for planning ahead and leveraging the resources of a (small) kingdom. [36+ Rings of Mana, not counting mana stored in items.]

  Arjun Iyuz - Journeyman Guildmage from Lendh ka Dakruim; his jati specializes in healing magic. "Don't look at me like that, Liv, I know you! No breathing toxic fumes!" [18 Rings of Mana]

  Ghveris, the Beast of Iuronnath - Formerly a Great Bat in service to Ractia, now the remains of his body form the heart of an Antrian juggernaut. The only one in our party who knows what was lost when the sky fell. [Mana Battery: 10 Rings]

  Inkeris "Keri" ka Ilmari k?n B?lris - A young warrior of the Unconquered House of B?lris, father to Rei. Doing the logistics job. [20 Rings of Mana.]

  Kaija - Former Armorer at Kelthelis, captain of Liv's personal guard. Would bring all 20 guards if permitted. [21 Rings of Mana]

  Karina of House Iravata - First year student at Bald Peak. Smug. [16 Rings of Mana]

  Sidonie Corbett - Guildmage. "Why is the port not on the water?!" [19 Rings of Mana]