You are not alone.

  The final words were still ringing in his ears as he rolled to his feet, wheeling to face the widening chamber behind him. Once again, his hands on the hilts of the Ravens Talons brought no reaction. No screaming bloodlust within his mind. No begging for sustenance in the form of death. Just still and quiet.

  He tugged gently at the blades, readying them, as he expected he would need them soon. Curiously, the steel refused to budge in the sheaths. As hard as he pulled, they would not release themselves from their holsters.

  Risens cursed the blades internally for their difficulty. They were decisively useful and a deadly addition to his already lethal armament, yet now, they refused to comply.

  The voice had confirmed what he had thought implausible. This ravine must somehow be connected to the Roost. The doors he’d unlocked previously were loosed by skills and thought. He had been delivered here—saved again from the clutches of certain death by an unseen hand.

  The trials he had faced in the Roost, while painful and frustrating, had been meant to test his mind. His repeated failures in the trials had been met with pain, scrapes, and bruises—both to his body and ego.

  The ominous voice revealed that this would be different. Failure here would mean one thing…

  Death.

  Again, he had been granted another Brand and, with it, an added mystery to unravel. So far, the Brands had been cryptic, leaving him wanting for the description burned into the pages of the Raven’s Guide.

  Even more so this time, he wanted a return to the Roost itself. This quest, the task to murder Sagra Trufang, had tested him in ways he’d never expected. He had yet to understand how his life would change with his return to the castle, though one thing was sure: he would need far more caution moving forward.

  He anticipated that his private wing of the castle and all of its amenities would soon be lost to him. His immediate future held far too many questions, and he was dreadfully lacking answers.

  Foregoing the Talons and, instead, opting for his standard-issue steel blades, Risens felt a measure of reassurance. They were familiar and carried with them no threat of unpredictability. Stalking along the tiled path, the sounds of movement grew louder. The noises echoing off the walls sounded like footsteps breaking through the icy layer that formed when rain fell on fresh snow. He could see no movement through the gloom in the canyon, yet the din persisted.

  A few meters farther, he noted the first discrepancies in the dust on the stone. Stretching across much of the space between the walls, his footprints disappeared as a wide slash disturbed the layer that had settled. He kneeled to inspect the disturbance.

  There were clear signs of movement in the dust, as if something had been dragged from right to left. He placed his hand on the mark, finding it surprisingly cold to the touch.

  The movement stopped.

  Unease rose in the silence. He glared into the shadows of the crevice, watching for any motion within. A quick whisper, almost like a rapid gust of wind. A shadow darted over the dimly lit floor.

  Diving to his side, he felt the wind of something hefty moving with terrifying speed past where he had just crouched. The ground trembled underfoot as the violent snapping of shattering ice filled the chasm. The sting of sharp fragmentspeppered his back and side.

  Risens rolled to his feet and was met with a sight that sent rimy tendrils slithering down his spine. Grinding across the tiles was what looked to be a massive blade made entirely of ice. Cracks spidered out through the cloudy blade. What was once likely a smooth razor’s edge was now serrated from the jar of impact. With another deep rumble, the whole creature stepped into view.

  Risens had fought and defeated soldiers, warriors, assassins, and mages. He’d battled the ancient sentinels, deconstructing their deadly mechanisms. He’d hunted beasts and monsters—yet the creature that now loomed before him was entirely foreign and utterly terrifying.

  His gaze tracked upward as he took in the sheer scale of monstrosity.

  Its profile was crudely human in appearance, but that was where the similarities ended. It stood hunched forward with what looked to be spines stabbing up from the length of its spine. Immense in size, towering easily three times Risens’ height, its torso was five meters wide and more. It balanced on disproportionally squat legs that had no definitive feet, merely widening into a narrow ring as if the incredible weight crushed down on the stumps of legs. At first, Risens thought the blade to be a weapon it wielded, though upon closer inspection, it became clear that it was an appendage—an extension of its horrific right arm. Its other limb ended in a hand that would have had no trouble enveloping a horse-drawn carriage, beast of burden and all. Currently, it was balled into a fist as it slammed into the ground, where he had just been.

  He cursed as he sprang back again, narrowly dodging a slash from the jagged icy blade-claw. This was not a creature of flesh or steel but a twisted amalgamation of ice, rock, and shards of trees. The texture of its skin was jagged with broken branches poking outward and stone protruding from the ice. In his horror, he realized that mingled in with the rest were the gnarled limbs of men. It was as if the entire creature had been cobbled together from the scraps of the avalanche that had swept him off the mountain pass.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Beyond the rough, irregular texture that covered its body, the head had only two distinct, shadowed sockets where eyes should have been. And though there was nothing immediately evident within those gaping holes, it was clear that the beast knew exactly where to find Risens.

  Darting forward, he charged under the next heavy fist that swung in his direction, diving between the monster’s squat legs, and slashing out with both of his blades as he passed beneath the colossal creature. His attack had little effect beyond chipping off some shavings of ice. It did, however, illuminate a sight that turned his stomach. As the snowy beast bent to follow his movements, deep within the clear ice of its eye sockets, a pair of faces stared back at him, each frozen into their pained expressions of death.

  There was no confusion as to their identity.

  Orio and Feylen glared at him, their hatred lingering beyond the ends of their treacherous lives.

  He had no time to consider the implications, as death was one mistake away.

  Seeing the trivial effect of his blades, a sense of frustration surged within him. His blades would be of little use against ice and stone. The Shadows Shroud that covered his face would do nothing to stop its vicious attack. The Ravens Talons craved blood, and it was evident there was no blood to be had in this fight.

  But he had to do something. Dodging beyond the reach of the ice blade, he attempted to employ the Voice of the Raven to still the creature’s wrath using his best imitation of the commanding voice that rang in his ears.

  Compared to the ominous voice, the sound that issued from his lips was weak and hollow. Unsurprisingly, the creature paid him no mind, leaping disturbingly high with its stubby legs. The skills he’d earned through trials were meaningless here. The abilities earned over a lifetime of training would only extend the battle. He could chip away at the body, hacking off chunks of ice and stone in the process, yet he saw no obvious areas of weakness.

  In the first few moments, he had been forced into a permanently defensive position. Risens knew intrinsically that even as agile as he was, his endurance would fade long before the creature’s would. There would be no second chances if he failed this test, only death.

  Shielding his eyes from the spray of icy fragments, he sprinted toward the wall of the canyon as the monstrosity crashed down. It had struck out with the entirety of its impressive weight as it slammed to the ground, aiming to crush him beneath its enormous frame.

  Its attack had provided a glimmer of an opening.

  Planting his feet against the smoothed face of the mountain, Risens coiled his legs before springing back toward the beast as it worked its feet out of the holes it had created in the tiled floor. His foot found easy purchase on a protruding stone on the back of its upper arm. Using the broken section of a log sticking out of its shoulder, he vaulted onto the creature’s spined, hunched back. He stabbed one of his daggers into the ice, then repeated the action into the base of the creature’s neck. Over and over, he hacked, and the flurry of ice that scattered around him raised his hopes that one chunk would provide an opening to something vital within.

  The beast roared, flailing its arms wildly. The length of the blade attached to its right hand kept it well out of reach, but the left nearly grasped hold of Risens more than once. He didn’t stop until weariness demanded it. Though he’d carved a hole, there seemed to be nothing but more of the same as deep as he could see.

  Risens abandoned his frantic attack, bracing himself between the icy spines as the abomination reached its feet. Like a dog shaking the water from its coat, it tossed its head violently. He strained his muscles, struggling to maintain the constant pressure with his legs while retaining hold of his blades that still dug into the ice.

  His feet were the first to give out as they slipped on the icy surface of the monster’s back. The blades’ tenuous purchase held for a breath before failing spectacularly. He clenched the muscles in his core as the momentum of the beast’s actions slammed him brutally between the spines.

  Risens had been sore when he’d awakened to find himself at the bottom of the ravine, but now, every fiber of him throbbed from the abuse. He’d somehow managed to maintain his position on the beast’s back, yet with every twist of its massive neck, he regretted the foolish attempt. He’d chopped several more chunks from its neck, but nowhere near enough to do any significant damage. Clearly not sufficient to slow the raging beast down.

  Contemplating a means of escape, he considered his quickly fleeting options. The creature maintained a speed that far exceeded anything he’d anticipated for something of such a size. Even if he managed to leap off and land precisely on the ground, the deadly blows had nearly been the death of him already—a fall the colossal creature could have been lethal.

  Unfortunately, it was the beast that forced his decision. Before he could time a jump, the monster lurched toward the nearest ledge. The spires of ice that had painfully prevented his fall moments earlier again proved helpful as he used them to scramble up as the wall of stone rushed toward them. The pillars crumbled under the force, ringing through the ravine like the sound of shattering glass.

  Risens fought to maintain his position, and when he was certain he wouldn’t plummet to his death, he scratched his way back up to the shoulder of the monstrosity, using his daggers like ice picks. He sought desperately for his chance for freedom and success. In that desperation, he gave a foothold to a dangerous endeavor. If he could blind the creature, perhaps he could buy the time he needed to determine a manner to destroy the beast. Of this, there could be no doubt: there was no hope on the creature’s back.

  Digging one of his blades into the ice on the side of its head, he swung around and stabbed his other weapon into the closest eye socket. The failure of his plan was as rapid as it was painful, as a massive hand swatted him down as if he were nothing more than a nagging fly. There was no chance to retain his grip on the dagger jammed into the ice.

  He was falling. A million thoughts streamed through his mind before his left arm went limp upon impact. The bones in his shoulder snapped, and his vision spun as his back and then his head rebounded off the sheer wall of the cliff.

  Risens had no time to recover or consider his next steps as the monster grabbed and collected him from where he’d come to a painful stop. Hoisting him up by his feet, it held him upside down and raised him before its cocking head.

  The frozen faces of Orio and Feylen met his gaze, looking back as if laughing at his failure and impending death.