The inverted crows remained unperturbed by the song, their beady-black eyes reflecting steel and wood.

  As the melody shivered in the mist, each note felt more muffled than the last, stripped of rhythm or echo.

  A verse that should have ended in strength, returned as lie. Another that would have been hummed, emerged in some strange dialect he once heard in the distant far east of Valekyr.

  Priscilla had started singing as well, threading her own Drathiri lullaby through the legion’s chant.

  It was slow, methodical, meant to quiet children when storms clawed the shutters clean of peace.

  Songs were better than silence, yet reality slipped away and returned only in thinning flashes of lucidity.

  How can I fix this? I need to find a way out. I really want…

  His gaze drifted; her nape, half-hidden by auburn strands, caught it.

  To hurt her.

  Shock flared behind his eyes, and his jaw locked tight.

  He almost drew steel to gash his own forearm, but stayed the impulse.

  The column could not see him falter.

  Still, the desire crawled on deep in his skull.

  He detested this feeling that seemed his but wasn’t. But what he hated most of all, was his inability to do anything about it.

  He had no recourse, no plan, no grand siege he could muster to break the walls of confusion.

  Endurance and marching were left to him as weapons for defence. Nothing more.

  “Klethiar.” Alric was unsure he had spoken, or if his mind had imagined it, until the young man turned.

  The young man’s visage was completely detached from his usual self.

  His eyes were crow-black and vacant.

  Klethiar smiled and came close.

  “Yes, Lord Commander?”

  “How are you feeling? Anything to report? Furthermore, how long have we been marching now?”

  Klethiar looked troubled for a second, then his face stilled.

  “I can’t… recall. I will report when I remember, Lord Commander.”

  Alric gestured and let him go.

  The officer went back into rank.

  The ebb and flow of time had lost all its meaning.

  Hours or minutes could have passed, and he would be none the wiser. Alric could not tell under this canopy of feathers and grey haze where even light lied.

  Alien voices had started speaking to him in hushes of whispered truths since some time ago, and he was unsure on how to silence them.

  And although the song did little, it did stave off these maddening whispers, giving something tangible to remember Valekyr as: home.

  Some men walked half a pace out of order, others spoke in strange tongues none knew, but everyone kept their rank, breaking nothing of the predetermined orders given before coming into the Crag itself.

  Their formation held, and so did they. The column remained unshaken.

  But Priscilla worried him. She had stopped singing her lullaby, and now sat motionless staring forwards.

  He paused mid-chant and spoke to her.

  “Sing,” he warned. “Or you might lose yourself to the Crag.”

  “Alric…” Her voice came out strange. Almost foreign.

  “Speak.”

  “I love you.”

  “What?” He thought he had finally gone insane.

  But one thing caught his attention through his jolt of cold uncertainty.

  “How do you know my name?”

  She turned to him.

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  “You told me yourself long ago, don’t you remember?”

  Her eyes did not move, yet her irises were spinning in on themselves like wheels chasing themselves.

  Something fouled the air between them.

  “Is it you speaking, or something else?”

  She offered a vacant smile and silence, nothing more.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but was stopped midway.

  Every boot stilled, every hoof froze. The entire column halted in one impossible heartbeat, and his horse carried him one step forward out of rank.

  Confused, he wheeled his horse around and called out.

  “Why did you stop?”

  None answered; all watched him from their post.

  “Klethiar! Veracles! Regulus!” He called out again. But they didn’t answer either.

  “VARGO!”

  Silence.

  Only Priscilla stirred.

  “You ordered the halt, don’t you remember?”

  He looked at her bewildered.

  “I gave no such order, woman.”

  His pulse hammered; lungs dragged at the thick air.

  “Don’t worry,” she began, soothing. “We’ll get out of here safe and sound. You’ll see.”

  Anger flickered for a moment, then faded as something bright edged his vision.

  On the bough ahead, among the hanging black shapes, perched a single white crow.

  It dangled inverted like the rest, yet its head lay straight on its neck, eyes reflecting a scene different from the one before it.

  A pool of crystal water rippling beneath a colossal, age-scarred tree.

  Its bone-pale feathers gleamed against the murk, an unholy beacon amid the shadows.

  It was so striking he couldn’t get his eyes off it. It possessed a strange allure, as if he had already seen it a vision long ago.

  It blinked once, then vanished.

  Something inside him screamed to follow, whatever the cost.

  “Priscilla?” he asked, voice low.

  “Do not call me by my name, you hypocrite!” For an instant her irises slowed, then resumed their frantic geometry.

  Alric tried to keep her sane.

  “Can you hear me? What’s happening to you? Are you fine?”

  She clutched her temples, shook them, and tried to speak. But managed only a splintered speech.

  “Crow…King…East…Crown…Fire…”

  The fit ceased, and her madness returned, now staring beyond him with vacant gaze.

  He checked her form for a moment. All seemed fine aside her vacant, spinning eyes.

  He turned to his men, but they gave no reaction.

  They remained still like ranks of hollow puppets.

  Glassy eyes and empty hearts stared at nothing but fog-laced emptiness.

  Facing her again, he pointed to the limb where the white crow had been.

  “Did you see anything there?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “My son,” she said, voice calm as still waters.

  He found no answer to give, as pressing her further felt useless.

  Instead, he turned back to the line.

  “First rank, eyes up!”

  Nothing.

  “Klethiar! Veracles! Regulus! Front!”

  Veracles showed a twitch of the head, and Regulus followed with one of his own.

  Klethiar’s pupils slowed for a breath, then resumed their spin.

  Some life remains, Alric thought. I can work with that.

  He rode close to the nearest breastplate, and slapped it with the flat of his blade.

  Metal rang, but the soldier didn’t blink. Not even the man behind him seemed to have heard the sound.

  Rank-and-file are gone. Lieutenents retain some thin thread of responsiveness. Like speckled glass and turmeric seeds cooked in the oven…

  The alien phrase jolted him awake. What?

  A second lapse in detachment. This one worse.

  He dragged the edge of his sword across his forearm.

  Pain flared, and control over himself came back once again: real and welcome.

  I must stay vigilant, or I’ll lose myself to this mist.

  Having seized some influence over his mind, he scanned the legion again.

  Thirty-eight thousand sculptures of flesh and steel greeted him.

  Marching them now would be complete folly; yet lingering meant the Crag would finish its work.

  And instinct spurred him on after the bird of white that had dissolved into shadow.

  He raised his voice once more and addressed his men.

  “Klethiar! Regulus! Veracles! You are to take charge if I do not return by sundown!”

  He saw their eyes silently tracking him like a half-remembered dream.

  “I will be back,” he said, though the certainty of those words felt thin on his tongue.

  He turned his mount toward the limb on which the bird had perched.

  The road ahead led deeper into the Crag’s thicket.

  Guiding the destrier forward felt frictionless, as if someone was leading it over sturdy glass.

  The more inward he went, the more trees pressed close lining both sides of the pass.

  They formed a tunnel of bark and beak, its inner path narrowing until only wood and soil could be felt.

  He touched heels to flank, and the horse settled into a cautious canter.

  Priscilla remained seated slack at the bow, staring at nothing, answering unseen whispers in tongues he did not know.

  Noticing her precarious posture, he looped a rein around her to keep her from sliding.

  The canopy of trees and crows grew thicker and denser with branches knotting overhead, heavy with motionless crows.

  Torchlight guttered in pale flickers, yet even without it, he caught shapes and direction in the thin spill of grey seeping through feather and fog.

  He resumed his war-chant to fight the mist’s dead hand over his mind.

  Every word an anchor. Every tune, a prick against confusion and stillness.

  I am Alric Vaelgard, Lord of War, Commander of the Sixth and Third Legions of the great Valekyrian Empire…I am Alric son of the Vaelgards, Lord of War, Conqueror of a thousand cities…I am…

  His thoughts circled identity, clutching at memories he knew were his own, setting aside what the Crag pressed upon him.

  As one takes a snake by its tail to control it, so did he with the recollections and perceptions that weren’t his.

  The image of his men swallowed by oblivion, beckoned him to still beside them like iron left to rust.

  He searched for certainty in the flowing blood staining the reins with red heat.

  But if he leaned too far into it, he could feel himself flow out as well, as though he were the liquid.

  The straps too, were real for a heartbeat, but not the next, as though he had forgotten the feel of leather.

  Simple breathing drills steadied him while he sang. His father had taught them when he entered the legions as a foot soldier.

  Memories from those long-gone times flooded him.

  His father’s hands wielding his spear.

  The heat of summer during marches through plains and fords.

  The blood of his friends spilled in foreign lands.

  Funeral pyres stretching to the horizon, and the fire that came after.

  Everything came back as though he were there again, reliving every moment.

  Wait. He slapped his cut forearm. Waves of pain climbed his spine and snapped him from the half-sleep.

  I was almost taken by memory again. I must be wary of my own recollections too.

  He gritted his teeth and shook his head slightly trying to chase away the confusion.

  He lifted his eyes and saw the narrow path widening into a small clearing with a shallow pond resting below a centuries-old tree.

  On the bough above, the white crow perched, eyes closed, surrounded by dark-feathered omens on all sides like shadows cast by a single, eternal flame.