I stir embers, watching orange chips fall. “Long before dragons bled to seal Narkarath, another offering paved way for Sundering. Something older than heartstone. I do not yet know what.”
He grunts. “We’ll find out.”
“It may require cost greater than we anticipate.”
His gaze locks mine. “Then we pay together.” The certainty shakes me; he speaks as if our bond has matured beyond hours. I start to protest, but his stare holds. “Sleep, oracle.”
With effort, I obey. I ease onto pelts, turning back to fire. Yet awareness of him settles beneath skin. Each crackle of log, each inhale of mountain spice, pushes me closer to quiet but not beyond. Still, exhaustion soon lulls lids.
Dreams drift lighter this time—snowflakes turning into constellations, wolves running through stars, dragons sleeping under ice. Somewhere amidst those images, a voice echoes—a whisper riding cosmic wind, gentle yet edged with sorrow.
“Blood on the altar was not the first price.”
I jolt awake. Fire has dwindled to glowing coals. Kylan sits unmoved, flute resting across his knee, amber eyes half-lidded yet alert. He notes my shiver.
“Vision?”
“Message.” I clutch cloak. “Repeat of earlier phrase. Feels… urgent.”
“Record it when dawn breaks.” He gestures toward pelts. “Still hours til light.”
Strangely, I do not feel fragile after sudden waking. Lattice hums low, steady; spark remains but doesn’t flare. I ease back down. Outside, storm hushes to whisper. The bridge exhalations soften.
As I drift again toward dreams, Kylan’s quiet baritone threads the stillness. “When sun rises, we reach the shrine. Whatever price came before, we’ll face it.”
Trust seedlings put out cautious roots in heart soil. Yet fear twines around them—fear that every shared breath quickens crystal expansion. I bury worry under resolve. The realms hang by fractures; my own cannot dictate course.
Sleep folds over me one last time before dawn, and in that dark, two pulses—wolf and oracle—beat in reluctant harmony, heralding future unions or fractures the gods alone can name.
8
KYLAN
Dawn slices the storm’s remnants apart, flooding our high perch with a glare so bright it turns frost to molten glass. The sky-bridge above us—an ancient rib of stone jutting from one cliff to the next—creaks as sun warms one flank while the other still shivers. We have no time to admire contrasts. The shrine waits another thousand paces upslope, and every hour the Convergence shoves moon and stars into tighter alignment.
Carmilla stands beside me on a lip of ice, cloak snapping in a wind that smells of hidden caverns. Her silver hair now braided tight against the nape of her neck; moonwort salve dulls the shimmer of the lattice, but the veins have crept farther overnight. She touches the ribbon a pup gifted her, then meets my gaze. I nod. No need for words.
We start up the final approach—a narrow ledge carved by unknown masons into the face of a vertical cliff. Frost feathers every chisel mark. Beneath us, cloud tatters drift through chasm voids, hiding how far we would fall if one of us slipped. I set crampons into tiny holds, hear Carmilla’s lighter steps echo as she trails my line. The pact of rope between us feels different thismorning, heavier with shared dream residue. I push away that thought; focus must remain on terrain.
An hour passes in silent ascent. Then the cliff peels back, opening onto a shelf broad enough for a small village square. At its heart stands the dragon shrine.
Columns—each the girth of redwoods—thrust from frost like spears. Their surfaces are carved with spirals that mimic icicle filigree. Domed roofs once covered their arcs, but centuries of quake and freeze have smashed the crowns; shards lie embedded in drift heaps like fallen stars. The main wall remains: a sweep of white granite shaped into three rising peaks, mirroring the mountains behind. In the central peak yawns an archway taller than any fortress gate, sealed by a sheet of crystal ice so clear I see the antechamber beyond.
Carmilla inhales softly. “The Frostglass Gate. Built after the first binding to trap residual dragon breath.”
“Which we need open.” I plant axe in snow, scan surroundings. The air vibrates here, humming with so much stored power my fur tingles beneath skin. The shard in my pack stirs, though still muted by her spell.
“No living soul has melted that gate,” she murmurs, stepping forward.
“Maybe it doesn’t need melting.” I touch crystal—unexpectedly warm. It thrums, responds to my heartbeat with lower counter-note. The sensation travels up arm, into ribcage where Yarrow’s memory sleeps.
Carmilla extends palm beside mine. Her lattice pulses pale blue against transparent surface. Two rhythms merge, beating like wings. A hairline crack spiders from the meeting point, webbing across pane. With a groan like glacier calving, the gate splits. Two slabs drift backward, floating an inch above stone tracks before sliding into recesses. Warm breeze—yes, warm—wafts past us, carrying scents of cinnamon ash and aged lightning. Guardian breath.
We step inside.
The antechamber’s ceiling arches high, covered in a mosaic of tiny scales—amethyst, jade, lapis—catching dawn rays and casting kaleidoscope patterns across floor tiles. The tiles themselves form a map of the known realms pre-Sundering: one vast landmass ringed by seven sea serpents. Each serpent’s eye is a socket of black glass; six hold spheres of luminescent quartz. The seventh eye gapes empty, glass cracked as if sphere exploded outward.
“That missing globe?” I ask.
