The corpses still smoldered behind them when Team Argent resumed the ascent.

  The sun was high over the Frostline ridges, washing the cliffs in pale gold. Frostford lay far behind, its walls shrinking into grey silhouettes. The cold air tasted sharper now—tainted by the memory of what they found in the snow.

  The group moved in silence at first. They had slept well enough at the border inn, but the weight of the battle hung heavily on all of them.

  Lira rode a little closer, her breath fogging the cold morning air.

  “You didn’t rest long,” she observed quietly.

  Eis kept her gaze forward.

  “Long enough.”

  Ronan adjusted the strap of his pack, giving her a sidelong glance.

  “You were already up when I came downstairs.”

  “Early start,” Eis replied.

  Lira huffed.

  “Eis, most people who slept well don’t look like they’re halfway through planning a battle strategy before sunrise.”

  Kael smirked faintly from the front.

  “She plans battle strategy before breakfast. We’ve accepted it.”

  Eis didn’t deny it.

  And despite the grim air, a little of the tension eased.

  By late aftenoon the road gave way to stone.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  The Frostline Pass rose like jagged teeth, cliffs towering on either side. Snow clung to cracks where sunlight never reached. The air carried that same strange vibration—faint, rhythmic, like someone dragging a finger across glass.

  The Archmage guide paused often, eyes flicking between the glowing compass and the faint blue threads of ley energy pulsing under the frost.

  “The lines are unstable,” he muttered. “Interference from the Vault.”

  Eis felt it too. The heat in her chest was reacting to the leylines.

  Ronan halted near a narrow ridge.

  “Kael, distance?”

  Kael checked the map.

  “If it’s accurate, Frostline Shrine before dusk.”

  “And if not?” Lira asked, eyeing the dark slopes.

  “We improvise,” Kael answered simply.

  Ronan nodded.

  By evening the pass widened into a high ledge overlooking a valley of swirling fog.

  Lira slipped off her mount with a low whistle.

  “Almost makes you forget everything below.”

  “Don’t,” Kael said. “That’s the world we’re protecting.”

  Eis stood near the cliff edge, the cold wind tugging at her cloak.

  Ronan approached quietly.

  “You’re thinking,” he said.

  “Always.”

  “About the creatures?”

  “No,” Eis murmured. “About what twisted them.”

  Ronan looked northward toward the mountains.

  “Then when we find it, we end it.”

  A rumble cut through the cliffs—deep, distant, wrong.

  The guide stiffened.

  “That wasn’t weather.”

  Ronan’s voice dropped into command.

  “Weapons up. Quiet.”

  The frost along the rocks vibrated, as though something beneath the mountains had just stirred.

  The road to the Sun Vault was no longer merely dangerous—

  It was waking.