The Veil spilled them onto black stone. At first there was silence. Then, groan and scrape, the door unlatched itself, opening into a corridor lined with mirrors.

  At first it looked harmless, only glass in neat rows. Their reflections walked beside them, step for step, dozens of Kaels, dozens of Syra’s, each face doubled and doubled again. The air smelled faintly of dust and silver polish, as if the mirrors had been waiting.

  Aethel kept her place at the rear, watching the chain of hands stretch ahead. For a few steps, it seemed normal enough: Kael’s broad shoulders leading, Lyren tugging Syra along, Dereth silent and straight as iron. Their mirrored selves marched with them, rippling across the corridor walls.

  Their reflections kept pace, until one blinked an Tick late. Another smiled when its twin did not. The timing frayed.

  Aethel tightened her grip for Syra’s hand, found only air. Not a mirror’s lie; the hand was gone.

  She turned. The figures still walked with her, dozens of them, but the air was empty. No grip, no chain. Only glass.

  Her heart lurched. She opened her mouth to call...

  and all the mirrors screamed at once.

  The sound rattled the corridor like shattering bone. Dozens of Syra’s clutched their heads, dozens of Kaels roared, dozens of Lyren’s shrieked defiance. For a dizzying moment Aethel thought the real ones were with her, until she realized every scream came from the glass.

  She was alone.

  Aethel’s Sight

  Her chest seized. She called her vascular lens, pulses of blood-lit fire through the panels. But the room throbbed with lies: dozens of false heartbeats mirrored and multiplied until the corridor became a storm of false lives.

  She staggered, closed it, and tried the arc-welder lens. White fire surged against the glass, too bright, too distorted, every panel blinding. She dropped it fast, jaw tight.

  Eyes will not serve me here.

  Her mind steadied. Only one tool left.

  She hissed air through her teeth, then snapped her tongue against the roof of her mouth. The sound came back in waves. Sonar.

  The mirrors could lie to her eyes, but they could not lie to sound.

  Outlines sprang up in her mind: flat glass, hollow spaces, a thin body trembling at the end of a closing gauntlet.

  Syra.

  Saving Syra

  The girl’s arms were up, small frame weaving between swinging mirrors shaped like guillotines. Each panel dropped lower, tighter, until the corridor itself was trying to shear her apart.

  Her Echo flickered wild at her shoulder, a faint distortion of air that might shatter her own path if she lost control.

  Aethel ran, sonar flashing every three steps. She risked vascular lens only once, Syra’s true heartbeat, frantic and fast, and then back to sonar, back to the truth.

  She dove into the gauntlet, seized Syra around the waist, and wrenched her sideways as the jaws snapped, tearing a strip from her tunic and kissing skin a hair’s breadth from blood, before they slammed together in a storm of sparks.

  “Hold my hand,” Aethel gasped. “Don’t move, hum. One steady note.”

  Syra found a thin pitch and held it. The sound laid a faint order on the air.

  Aethel split her sight.

  The cave breathed in bands of light and shadow: ripples slid along the stone where the air bent, a seam on the left shimmering like a knife in water. Over that, the motes lit with little futures, each grain tugged into an arrow, and the arrows all pulled toward the cold seam, quickening where the gap narrowed.

  “Left. Three steps… stop.” She guided Syra by the wrist. “Palm to the stone. Feel the draft? That’s the door.”

  Syra kept humming. Aethel pressed her fingers into the cold seam; hidden pins yielded and the slab sighed inward on a ribbon of air.

  “With me,” she whispered. “Door’s here. Stay put, don’t move. Keep that note; I’ll follow it back.”

  Lyren’s Trap

  Syra’s hum held at the door, a thin line through the dark.

  Aethel shuttered the air-wave lens she’d used to find the seam and drew up the sonar lens. She shaped a staccato pulse in her throat and released it; the chamber answered in bands and edges.

  Two mirror walls ground inward, a ring of false Lyrens frozen in strain, but their returns came back hollow, flat against glass. Only one shape answered soft and living: ribs laboring, breath rough against stone.

  Aethel ran to that answer. The echoes sketched the true panel lines; she drove her shoulder into the gap, pain tearing across her ribs as she took the weight.

  “Move!” she snarled.

  Lyren twisted free, dragged by Aethel’s grip, and they stumbled clear as the mirrors slammed together, ringing like iron bells, catching Lyren’s cloak hood in their bite. The jerk stopped her short, cloth only. Aethel braced; Lyren ducked and twisted; the fabric rasped and gave, and together they hauled it free.

  Lyren spat dust, pride as sharp as ever. “I had it.”

  “You were about to be glass,” Aethel rasped. The sonar field held; Syra’s hum cut bright, a taut line through the dark. Aethel hooked Lyren’s wrist and ran the note back to the door, back to Syra.

  Aethel pressed Lyren to the door, into Syra’s reach. “Stay with her. Hand to hand, now. Do not let go. The mirrors will lie and try to pull you apart. Keep holding, no matter what you see.”

  Kael’s Trap

  The sonar pulse revealed Kael lower, outline sinking into a mirrored pit that rippled like quicksand. His arms still thrashed above the surface, but the more he fought, the deeper he sank.

  “Stop moving!” Aethel shouted.

  His chest froze mid-heave. Sweat gleamed across his brow, mirrored a dozen times in false Kaels thrashing in false pits.

  She dropped flat, elbows scraping glass, until her hand found his wrist. The surface clung like syrup.

  “Don’t fight me,” she hissed.

  He gritted his teeth, muscles rigid, but forced himself still. With her free arm braced against the pit-frame, she hauled. Each pull tore him inches free until finally he burst loose, collapsing across her chest with a bark of air.

  Kael rolled aside, coughing hard. “Don’t—let go.”

  “Then stop trying to drown yourself,” she snapped.

  He managed half a grin, bitter but grateful, and together they staggered back to the frame where the twins waited.

  Dereth’s Trap

  Last was Dereth. Sonar caught him still as a stone inside a cage of razor shards. Each fragment hovered inches from his flesh, poised to fall with the faintest vibration.

  Sweat carved rivers through the dust on his jaw; his voice stayed calm. “Do not rush.”

  “I can come back later, if you prefer. Or take my hand and we move now,” Aethel said.

  “Yes, now, please. The mirrors have made their point,” Dereth replied.

  Aethel exhaled, pulse steadying. She closed vascular, kept only sonar: fragile outlines of the shards, every one trembling at the edges.

  Step by step she slid between them, her breath slow as winter air. The glass quivered with every exhale. She reached him, touched his arm.

  “Stay with me. No sudden weight.”

  He moved only when she guided him. Foot after foot, until his heel touched the safe stone. Only then did the shards give way, falling in a shriek of splinters, exploding across the ground behind them.

  Dereth did not flinch. He only said, low: “Patience survives.”

  Through the Corridor

  At last they were all gathered at the frame. Mirrors still shifted, still whispered lies, but now they stood hand in hand, a chain the glass could not break.

  Aethel led, clicking tongue against teeth, sonar returning clear. Each reflection sneered and lied, but the sound did not bend. The chain moved forward, one pulse at a time, until the mirrors gave way to stone.

  The walls flattened. No more reflections. No whispers. Only black rock and a single door waiting in silence.

  They released each other’s hands. The chain had done its work.

  Together, they stepped through.

  They entered a cavern that was a cathedral of frost. Pillars of ice soared from the black sheet of the lake, glimmering faintly where their veins caught the dim glow of their torches. Every surface rang with silence, as if one wrong breath might shatter the whole place.

  Kael took the lead, boots spreading his weight. The ice groaned under him, a hollow note that echoed to the vaulted ceiling. Aethel followed, the twins after her, Dereth last.

  Halfway across, the sheet flexed. Hairline cracks veined outward, and the lake below shifted darkly.

  Lyren stopped.

  She stared down, lips parting, chest heaving. In the black mirror beneath her boots, her own face warped and twisted, not still, not safe, but gasping, pounding against the underside as if trapped below.

  Her breath caught. “No.”

  Her boots squealed across the surface as she staggered back. “No, I can’t—” Her voice sharpened, wild. “I can’t do it. I’m sorry. You’ll have to go without me.”

  The panic cut louder than the ice itself.

  Aethel turned back at once, crouched low before her, hands steady on her shoulders. “Breathe with me,” she said gently, firmly. “Two sips, one hold. Just like before.”

  Lyren’s chest heaved. She tried. Inhale, inhale, hold. Exhale. Shaky, but it slowed her tremor. Again. Two sips, one hold. The rhythm steadied.

  Aethel’s eyes met hers. “Good. Together, we can do this.”

  For a heartbeat, calm flickered in Lyren’s eyes. She almost nodded.

  Then the ice groaned again. Her reflection shifted, hair floating, mouth wide in a soundless scream.

  Lyren tore her gaze away, panic surging back like a flood. She shoved Aethel’s hands off, voice cracking into a scream. “You’re not my mom! Stop pretending you can save me!”

  The words cut like a blade.

  Aethel flinched, breath caught sharp in her throat. For a heartbeat her shoulders sagged, her composure slipping, hurt written plain across her eyes. The wound stung deep, but she forced herself still. She inhaled, long and trembling, and let it out slow, regaining what control she could.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  She turned to the others. Her voice was low, strained but steady. “Go ahead. I’ll stay with her.”

  “No.” Syra’s grip tightened on her sister’s arm, voice fierce despite its tremor. “You have to go. I’ll stay.”

  Aethel shook her head, torn, ready to argue, but Dereth stepped forward. His voice was even, certain. “Neither of you. I’ll stay. She needs someone steady, and someone to guard her. Go.”

  His hand came to rest on Lyren’s shoulder, not pushing, not pulling, only anchoring her where she trembled.

  They pressed on, cautious steps echoing across the frozen sheet. When the far pillar came into reach, Kael tried lifting Syra by the waist, bracing her foot against his clasped hands. She reached high, fingers stretching, but the ice groaned under them.

  A seam cracked wide. With a thunderous shudder, a slab sheared off and plunged into the black below. The sound tolled like a bell, deep, final.

  The sheet rippled, splinters racing outward, and beneath the fracture the lake yawned open to reveal a dark mouth under the rock face, a tunnel carved into the water itself.

  Aethel’s stomach clenched. The span was too far, the water too cold. None of them would survive the crossing, not Kael with his burns, not the twins with their small lungs, not Dereth. Only her.

  She stepped to the edge, every muscle tense, stacked two sips and a hold, then leaned forward.

  A hand caught her wrist.

  Syra’s. Her eyes were wide, wet but steady. “You know she didn’t mean that,” she whispered. “She really cares. She’s just… scared.”

  Aethel’s chest softened. She pulled the girl close, pressed her lips to her cheek. “I know. I’ll see you soon.”

  Then she let go, turned, and dove headlong into the black water.

  The cold struck like a weapon.

  The gasp reflex surged, she locked her throat and counted three Ticks in stillness, riding the knives until the spasm passed. Her red aura flared in alarm, a brief scorch in the dark; she held, trembling, denying the water her throat.

  The tunnel opened ahead, jagged ice grinding above and below. She blinked her lenses one by one.

  Vascular lens, noise; her own hammering drowned the field.

  Arc-fire, ice turned to blinding knives of white.

  Bone-sight, fractured silhouettes, warped and lying.

  She hissed bubbles through clenched teeth. Another blink.

  Pressure-lens, at last: the currents drew themselves as thin silver threads, a map of hollows between ice and rock.

  She followed.

  Every kick dragged like lead. Limbs numbed, movements clumsy, her endurance bleeding out into the water. A faint green began to pulse, warning, not strength; each flicker was a guttering candle.

  The tunnel bent downward, narrowing. Ice scraped her arms, skin splitting; the blood silvered to frost where it kissed the ice, then vanished into the black beyond.

  Her vision blurred, edges doubling. Faces pressed against the ice around her, ghosts of memory.

  Lyren, hair spread like weeds, pounding to get out; Children’s hands from the Spiral Pool, small palms slapping in the dark. Echoes, not real.

  Aethel clenched her eyes shut. Lies.

  She fixed on the pressure-threads, silver lines pulling her forward, and forced her body through the black throat of the cavern.

  Her chest spasmed once, reflex clawing at her throat. She bit it back, vision narrowing to threads of silver.

  Then, a glow. Faint, not real, but enough. She swam harder, every kick tearing through leaden limbs. Her body screamed to stop, to breathe, to drown, but she kept pulling, kept dragging.

  Her head broke the surface with a ragged cry.

  She clutched slick stone, coughing water from her throat, lips blue, teeth rattling so hard her jaw ached. Her aura blazed green now, no longer faint, spilling light across the cavern. It was the body’s warning made visible.

  She pulled herself onto the ledge, body shaking uncontrollably. The cavern above loomed cold, vast, and merciless.

  And the climb awaited.

  She set her hands against the ice-slick wall. Her fingers numbed at once, skin tearing against sharp edges, but she pulled upward. Every hold crumbled or cracked under her weight, sending shards tumbling into the dark below.

  The wall gave her nothing freely. She climbed with bloodied hands, nails splitting, shoulders burning. The cold dragged her down, every pull a war against her own body.

  Her aura burned bright green, no longer faint but blazing at her ribs and arms, spilling light across the wall. The glow flared with each ragged gasp, marking how close she was to collapse. It wasn’t strength she carried anymore, it was warning.

  Halfway up she slipped. A foothold she trusted shattered. She dangled for a heartbeat by one hand, blood smearing the rock. She hissed through her teeth, pulled herself higher, the green aura blazing hotter, painting the cavern with light.

  She blinked her lenses. Bone-sight showed faint fissures in the rock, guiding her to holds that would hold for a moment longer. She followed, dragging herself hand by hand, the wall seeming to sway under her vision.

  Near the top, icicles broke loose, slamming past her, shattering on the ledge below. One grazed her shoulder and sent her spinning sideways, but she caught herself, chest heaving, aura blazing so bright it was almost white at the edges.

  She waited two Ticks for the fall-quiet, then moved, hand, heel, breath, before the next shiver of the wall.

  At last her hand found the rim. With a guttural cry she heaved herself onto the ledge and collapsed, sprawled across the frozen stone. Her green aura still flared, lighting her chest and ribs like a lantern, showing how close she was to breaking.

  She pushed herself upright on trembling arms. The rope lay coiled on the floor where the chamber had left it, waiting. She fumbled for it, looped it around a jagged spur of stone, and shoved it over the edge.

  Only then did she sag against the wall, aura burning bright around her as if her own exhaustion had set her alight.

  Boots clattered on the rope. Kael climbed first, his breath heavy, his muscles trembling from the cold he had already endured. When he reached the top, he found her collapsed against the stone.

  “Aethel.” His voice was low, urgent.

  She tried to wave him off, but her arm shook uselessly. He knelt beside her, his own body shivering, and without hesitation pressed himself against her.

  It was a Core technique, one he had learned in the barracks as a boy when training under frozen nights. Skin to skin, body to body, heat traded back and forth until one steadied. He cupped warmth into her, hands firm under her arms and along her back, working heat in small, steady passes until her shivers loosened. Steam rose faintly between them in the frigid air.

  Her teeth chattered, but her breathing slowed. Slowly, warmth returned to her skin. She let her forehead rest against his shoulder, too weak to pull away, too tired to fight the intimacy of the moment.

  The rope trembled again. Syra climbed, hands clumsy on the slick braid, boots slipping once before catching. Halfway up she called, breathless: “You know… you could pull me anytime.” She gritted her teeth and kept climbing on her own.

  When she reached the top, her first sight was Kael pressed against Aethel, both shrouded in a thin mist of steam. She arched her brows and muttered, “You two need a room.”

  Kael flushed, looking away, stammering. Aethel only exhaled, half a laugh caught in her throat, too drained to answer.

  Below, the rope swung. Lyren stood on the ice, arms wrapped tight around herself, still trembling from her earlier panic. She would not climb. Could not. Dereth stood beside her, his presence a shadow at her shoulder, steady and quiet. He looked up once, gave a nod to those above, and returned his gaze to Lyren.

  On the ledge, Aethel watched them from above, her chest heavy. She wanted to call down, wanted to promise again, but her voice caught, the weight of what had passed too fresh. She let her forehead rest back against the cold stone instead, her breath shallow.

  The rope hung between them, one line, two answers.

  The next chamber roared with silence.

  It was not the stillness of stone but the silence of fire so bright it devoured sound. Above, the broken ceiling of the world let in spears of sunlight, raw and unfiltered, shafts that quivered with heat. They fell across the cavern like molten columns, cutting the space into islands of shadow. Between those islands, the floor shimmered like liquid glass.

  The islands were shrinking, the sun crept by Ticks, and every Tick stole shade.

  On the shaded sides of the stone pillars, moss grew in thick clumps, pale and veined like sleeping embers. Wherever the light licked its edges, the moss glowed faint green, pulsing like the breath of something alive. It was not a plant alone. It was a clock. A fuse. A riddle.

  Aethel stepped forward, skin already stinging, aura humming under her ribs. The red of danger flared once, then dimmed into the weary green of her endurance. She looked at the gap to the first pillar, only a few strides, but each stride meant stepping into the sun itself. She drew a breath.

  “I’ll go first.”

  Kael reached for her, but she was already moving.

  Her body cut through the first shaft of sunlight like a moth plunging toward flame. Heat slammed her shoulders, peeled moisture from her lips, blinded her eyes until only the pulse of her own aura guided her. Red and green wavered in her veins, searing outward in defiance.

  She stumbled into the shade of Pillar One and fell to her knees, chest heaving. Smoke curled faintly from her sleeve. The skin of her arm prickled, raw and blistered.

  She turned, hair plastered to her face with sweat. Her voice cracked:

  “There’s no way! Not across this, not alive!”

  The words echoed against stone, swallowed by heat.

  Kael’s jaw tightened. He stared at the moss clinging to the pillar’s dark side, at how it seemed to brighten whenever the sun brushed it, then recoil like flesh from a blade. His hand plunged into the moss, ripping a sheet of it free. The glow dimmed but did not die. The moss was soft, slick, and strangely cool.

  He lashed it into a crude blanket, thick as a mat, binding it with a strip torn from his tunic.

  “Maybe not bare,” he said. “But under this.”

  He grabbed Syra’s wrist before she could protest and hauled her into the blaze.

  The moss blanket sizzled, edges curling, but where it covered them the heat bent back. Kael ran hard, Syra huddled beneath his shoulder, the moss trailing smoke behind. They burst into the shadow beside Aethel and collapsed together, the moss blackened at the edges but still whole.

  Kael lifted it, panting. “It holds.” His voice was hoarse but firm. “It won’t last forever, but it holds.”

  Aethel’s eyes burned with heat and tears. She wiped her face and forced herself to stand. “Then we move together. No stragglers.”

  They pressed under the moss as one. Three bodies crowded close, Kael shouldering the weight, Aethel steadying Syra’s arm. The shaft between Pillar One and Pillar Two was broader, blazing white. The air itself seemed to scream.

  They ran.

  The moss hissed like fat in a pan. Its glow dimmed, edges blackening. Smoke rose around them, acrid, stinging their throats. Aethel coughed, the sound raw, but she pushed with her shoulder until they crashed into the shade of Pillar Two.

  The moss blanket sagged in Kael’s grip, thinner now, holes scorched into its weave.

  “It’s burning down,” he rasped, sweat streaming from his chin. “One more like that and it tears.”

  Aethel pressed her palm to the pillar, aura flaring red-green. The stone itself felt fever-hot even in shadow. Her skin still screamed from the first crossing. She glanced to Syra, who clung silent and pale, lips pressed tight against the smoke.

  “Then we use it until it’s gone,” Aethel said. Her voice was low, but it carried like a vow.

  The path to Pillar Three shimmered worse than the first two. Heat bent the air, warped the floor, made the cavern seem to tilt. The moss on the far pillar glowed faintly, beckoning like a green star.

  They threw the moss over themselves again. Kael barked, “Go!” and they plunged forward.

  The moss shrieked this time, fibers curling into ash. Smoke billowed around their heads. They coughed and stumbled, crammed shoulder to shoulder, skin exposed where the moss had already burned through.

  Aethel’s aura pulsed red, danger flaring outward in bright streaks, deflecting the worst of it. Kael’s old scars along his forearms reddened, cracked open like new wounds. Syra whimpered, her eyes screwed shut as she ran blind in the furnace light.

  The moss tore as they collapsed into the shade of Pillar Three. Only half of it remained, charred and brittle, a blackened shroud.

  Even in shadow, its glow had thinned, the fuse running shorter with every crossing.

  Aethel lifted her head, sweat streaming down her face. Her hair clung to her cheeks like wet roots. She stared at the glowing moss on the far side of Pillar Four, then at the shrunken blanket in Kael’s hands.

  Her voice broke: “It won’t cover us all.”

  Kael looked at her, then at Syra. His lips were cracked, blood drying at the corners. His eyes, though, burned steady.

  “Then I’ll carry her,” he said.

  The moss hung in Kael’s hands like a corpse, brittle edges crumbling into flakes that smoked away on the hot floor. Even in shadow, the heat pressed on them like a giant’s palm, flattening their lungs, slicking their skin with sweat that boiled as fast as it formed.

  From where they stood, the next pillar was too far. The gap shimmered wider, the floor beyond rippling as if it were molten metal. The moss could not cover three. Maybe not even two.

  Kael’s voice came low, tight as a rope drawn to breaking. “I’ll take her first.”

  Syra stiffened. “No—”

  But he had already scooped her into his arms, the moss dragged over them like a funeral cloth. She bit her lip, face pressed into his chest as the heat screamed around them. Aethel saw the fabric at Kael’s shoulders smoke, saw his jaw clench, veins standing out in his neck.

  He charged through the blaze, feet pounding. The moss sparked at the edges, curling inward. By the time he burst into the shadow of Pillar Four, the sheet had burned smaller still, black around its fringe.

  He lowered Syra gently, then turned back. His chest rose like a bellows, breath tearing raw in his throat. The skin of his arms was raw and red, his scars angry lines reopened.

  Aethel met his eyes across the gulf. She wanted to scream stay, but she knew he would not. He swung the moss over his shoulders, squared his body, and ran again into the fire.

  The light seized him like claws. His silhouette blurred, heat rippling the air. Aethel’s gut twisted, she could smell him burning. She leapt forward into the furnace to meet him, and his hand clamped hers like iron. Together they stumbled the last steps, collapsing into the narrow strip of shadow at Pillar Four.

  The moss dangled between them, no larger than a cloak. Blackened, fragile, it left smoke stains on their skin where it touched.

  Aethel bent over, coughing, every breath raw. Her aura throbbed green now, endurance stretched to breaking. The veins in her temples glowed faintly, as though her blood itself were light.

  Syra’s eyes darted between them, wide and wet. “It’s gone. It’s too small.”

  Aethel shook her head, took the rag of moss from Kael, and shoved it over Syra’s shoulders.

  “Then you go.”

  Syra’s lips parted. “Not without you—”

  Aethel seized her hand, voice hoarse but firm. “I’ll be there. Run.”

  She shoved Syra forward, pushing her into the light. The moss still had just enough breadth to cover her slight frame. Aethel ran alongside, half-shielded, half-exposed. The sunlight seared her hip and shoulder raw. She staggered, switching sides of her body under the moss as they ran, her aura flaring red against the burn. The two of them crashed together into the blessed shade of Pillar Five.

  Aethel fell against the stone, skin blistered, chest heaving. She turned her head back across the gulf...

  and Kael was still on Pillar Four.

  The last scrap of moss lay at his feet, useless. He reached down and brushed the edge of sunlight with his hand. His skin hissed. He drew back, jaw clenched.

  “No way,” he breathed. The words drifted across to them, flat with dread.

  He looked at Aethel, then at Syra. His lips cracked into a half-smile that was more pain than humor. “I’ll try.”

  He stepped into the blaze.

  The sun tore into him. He staggered two steps, teeth bared, skin searing. His body shook like a tree in a storm. Aethel’s heart lurched.

  Then Syra screamed.

  Her Echo ripped free of her, a pale double bursting into the light. It blazed white where the sunlight struck, edges burning away. The Echo shrieked, a sound both hers and not hers, and threw itself into Kael’s path.

  For one breathless instant, the heat bent. The Echo’s body caught the fire, its own outline charring, but where it stood a shadow fell across Kael’s path.

  Kael lurched forward into that shade. His voice broke through the roar:

  “You burn.”

  Syra’s lips moved, tears cutting tracks down her face. Her Echo screamed with her:

  “You shade.”

  Aethel staggered to her feet, aura blazing so bright her veins burned like lanterns. She lifted her voice with theirs, hoarse but unshaken:

  “Together, we endure.”

  Kael staggered through the last steps into the shadow of Pillar Five. The instant his body cleared the blaze, Syra’s Echo collapsed in a burst of light, burning to ash that lifted on the heated air.

  Overhead, the sky answered.

  Capricorn flared into being, horns of stars arched across the cavern roof, radiant even in daylight. It gleamed like frost-fire, the constellation of the climber, the endurer, the one who survives what should not be survivable.

  Kael dropped to his knees, chest heaving, skin streaked red and raw. Syra fell beside him, clutching his arm with shaking hands. Aethel leaned against the stone, aura flickering, her own burns bright as brands along her side.

  But all three of them were together.

  And above them, Capricorn blazed.