The world ended with a wall of dense fog. Before them, hanging in the still air a dozen yards inside the mist, a single Tear of Dawn pulsed with a soft, blue-green light.

  A low whine cut through the silence. At the very edge of the mist, the Armored Dog, which had been patiently waiting, tensed. Its massive head, previously lowered to the trail, lifted. Its ears swiveled independently.

  It took several excited steps along the edge of the mist, making Ezy and Zeen’s platform lurch sideways with a violent groan.

  Almitad’s voice boomed from the sky above her high, skeletal perch.

  “The Morning Mist covers an immense portion of the hill, reaching deep into the mountainside. Dawn must be crowing from within. The Armored Dog is compelled to answer the call.”

  The giant animal’s agitation was flaring through their bond, a manic energy that pulsed into Trenn's mind. The god began to bounce on its three legs, its barks sharp and explosive against the Morning Mist.

  The makeshift platform on the giant dog’s flank pitched and yawed violently. Spikes of raw terror shot from Zeen and Ezy’s tethers with each lurch. The frantic clatter of chitin against metal became a chaotic rhythm beneath their shouts.

  He suppressed his fear for them, forcing it into a cold, hard knot in his gut. He latched onto the current of duty flowing from the dog—the loyalty driving it forward. He tried to twist that feeling, to graft onto it a new imperative: duty to its passengers.

  He pushed this altered emotion back down the link, an attempt to hijack the god's own motivation. It was like trying to redirect a river with his bare hands.

  The god’s singular focus on the mist was an unyielding torrent that simply washed his influence away, a weaker current swallowed by a stronger one.

  The sudden psychic static from the dog’s link shattered his concentration. The steady, empathic pressure he maintained on the Gem-Croc's tether faltered. He felt the connection loosen, the taut line of control going slack in his mind.

  A deep, resonant grumble vibrated up through his feet. The creature’s giant reptilian eye slid sideways to fix on the agitated dog. A raw, predatory impulse—the simple, brutal need to crush a weaker, wounded rival—surged up the now-unguarded link from the crocodile.

  The two forces tore at his focus, a psychic tug-of-war that threatened to splinter his mind. The dog’s frantic loyalty pulled one way, a fraying rope about to snap. The Gem-Croc’s brutal aggression surged the other, a wave of predatory intent that was cresting, about to crash.

  His sonar registered the low-frequency tremor of the giant crocodile’s muscles bunching, coiling for an attack.

  He could not hold both.

  He did not fight the dog’s pull any longer; he released it completely. Freed from the psychic static, he smothered the predatory impulse with a crushing fear for his Ezy and Zeen.

  The deep grumble in the creature’s chest ceased. The immense muscles uncoiled. The brutal urge to kill receded, replaced by a sullen, resentful stillness.

  He had won control, but the cost was the hound, now running and bouncing along the dense fog.

  A fresh surge of desperation from Zeen’s tether was followed by his ragged shout. “By the forge, Trenn!” The god-bone club slid from the gnome’s grasp, tumbled over the platform's edge, and clattered against the turf far below.

  Ezy’s own panicked cry followed. “Leash your hound before I lose another limb!”

  Trenn saw the Dog’s muscles coiling, gathering for a final, explosive bolt. He had seconds. His mind raced, cycling through the empathic tools he had so painfully learned.

  He decided to test the dog’s duty with a wave of soothing calm, but it was like trying to douse a bonfire with a cup of water. The ancient animal’s unwavering loyalty to the rooster god was a tidal wave of emotion that simply washed Trenn’s influence away.

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  Trenn felt the sting of the dog’s dismissal and immediately turned the feeling back on its source. He honed his own sense of rejection into a hard, focused point of pure disapproval and drove it down the empathic link.

  His attack struck the dog’s absolute loyalty and made the animal pause its frantic movements. It turned its head to Trenn, with a pitiful whine.

  I have to reinforce our bond!

  His world resolved into the network of empathic tethers.

  The link to the Armored Dog, a cord of warm, steady loyalty, had become taut. A low, discordant hum vibrated up from it, grating in his mind.

  He traced the vibration to its source, deep within the god’s own being. A second connection existed there, a pillar of incandescent light that radiated an unwavering, ancient duty. It anchored the giant dog’s soul to a distant presence lost in the Morning Mist.

  Dawn.

  He watched in horror as the unshakeable pillar pushed against his own connection with the dog god. The gentle light of their fragile connection began to fray where the massive, incandescent pillar ground against it.

  Trenn forced his eyes shut tight and pushed his hands on his ears. Sweat gathered on his forehead as the psychic noise became a high-pitched, metallic shriek—the sound of a steel cable being sawed to its final threads.

  He felt the strands of their bond begin to snap, each one a sharp, percussive crack in his skull. The warmth of the connection bled away, replaced by the searing, impersonal heat of the dog’s ancient duty.

  "IT'S GOING TO RUN INTO THE MIST! GET OFF THE PLATFORM!" Trenn screamed through a Message spell.

  He tried to hold firm to the final strand, but the pillar of light pulsed with a declaration of loyalty and vaporized it.

  The shriek in his mind cut to an absolute, deafening silence. The pillar of light stood alone, unwavering. Where their own connection had been, there was nothing. Only the lingering echo of a snapping chain remained.

  A wave of violent vertigo hit Trenn, the world tilting on its axis. He stumbled back with a choked gasp. The psychic void was a profound shock. His power had never been so completely and willfully broken.

  He panicked, thinking he was going to lose his connection to the Gem-Croc next… But what he found was a new thread reinforcing their tether. With its rival gone from the network of empathy, the giant crocodile felt more belonging than ever before.

  Jumping off the Gem-Croc, bow in hand, Mara was a blur of motion. "The rear port-side tendon, Ezy! I've got it!"

  She drew and loosed in a single, desperate motion, a black streak sent skyward. The arrow clipped one of the wildly lurching tendons, then sparked uselessly off the Dog's armored flank.

  On the platform, Ezy and Zeen were hacking frantically at a thick Husk tendon. "It's taking too long. There are too many tendons, and they’re so thick!" Ezy shrieked, her carving knife scoring against the gristly fibers.

  Mara drew again. Her second arrow struck true. The obsidian head didn't sever the bond, but its hole, combined with the tension, caused the fleshy cable to snap.

  Ezy and Zeen’s efforts sent two more gut wires whipping sideways with the violent force of a snapped anchor chain. The platform tipped violently to the side.

  The Giant Perenees barked loudly—a sharp, decisive sound that cut through the chaos.

  Freed from Trenn’s Charm spell, it exploded into motion. It was a scramble of white armor and churning legs, an avalanche charging headlong into the grey wall of the Morning Mist.

  The violent lurch put the final, unbearable strain on the damaged net of tendons. The platform bucked like a catapult, tossing several chitin plates to the ground.

  A shriek tore from Ezy’s throat as the platform bucked violently. Zeen’s grip faltered. They were a chaotic spill of limbs and gear, tumbling through the air before they struck the ground hard, a few yards inside the Morning Mist.

  Behind the bounding giant dog, the rest of their precious, hard-won assets—the pieces of White Metal, the black Husk plates, the disassembled parts of Ezy's rifle—clattered and scattered into a trail that disappeared into the fog.

  The world held its breath. Below Trenn’s feet, the Gem-Croc was a quiet, breathing mountain of golden scales. Its rhythmic exhalations were the only sound in the oppressive silence. Trenn’s boots scraped against the warm, jeweled hide.

  High above, Almitad hung as a silent, skeletal silhouette against the perpetual grey sky.

  Zeen was painfully pushing himself to his feet, looking for Ezy’s crutches. Mara, Trenn, and Almitad hesitated to walk into the Morning Mist, a point of no return.

  When it became clear Ezy and Zeen could not see them, they tried to scream. The Gnomes didn’t react. The Morning Mist that separated them didn’t allow sound to travel.

  Trenn took a shaky breath, the psychic shock still ringing in his head. “Wait for us,” he ordered through a Message spell.

  "They can’t even see us. We have no choice," he said, his voice grim. "We have to go in."