“Even if we did, I wouldn’t. Not in this place.”
I have never met anyone taller than I, yet Zarrek towers over me by a whole head. He’s a battle tower on two legs—covered in runes, scars, burns, and equipped with a face that would make the Destroyer turn tail and run.
Looking at his bald head, I scratch at my beard. How long has it been since I bothered with my appearance? Not that there’s anyone to impress. Women come to my bed when I summon them, parting willing thighs and moaning sweet praises whether I smell of blood or Lustral oils.
Zarrek looks up at the sky. He tracks the sun. The clouds. I look up, to see what caught his gaze. Crimson clouds bloom like blood in river water. The wind moans, bending the century-old pines around us to its whim. My Second wraps his cloak tighter around his shoulders to keep out the frost.
I envy him that cold, for I feel none of it.
None at all.
“It’s the Bleed,” he says. “Drift has been coming for weeks. Dark will come sooner at this rate.”
He’s right. Soon, night will swallow the sun, and morning will not rise for months. Rifts will vomit monsters into the Emerald Moores, and many of my men will die. But I don’t have time for his fear-mongering now. We already lost too much time thanks to his grumbling back in town.
“Keep moving. We’re nearly there.”
We nudge our mounts forward, riding farther up the Spines until the ground tilts too sharp for anything but boots. Astenos could pick his way up the trail, but Zarrek’s mount would slip a shoe. The last thing we need is more delays.
Zarrek chooses a tree and ties his horse’s reins to it. There’s a clean patch of grass. Not too dead, just wilted. Enough to keep the animal alive until we return. But the weather has it spooked. Or perhaps the atmosphere.
Fog. Decaying mana.
Everything about this part of the mountain is unnatural.
Reaching up, I touch the bridge of my nose, whisper a command—Kenaz—and blink. My vision sharpens, details in the distance coming into focus as the rune’s magic flares to life. I see the tree hollows at the mountain’s peak, the shaved rocks worn from countless Cycles of Ice and Fire. And there, I find what I am searching for.
A door, hidden in a cluster of stone and minerals, surrounded with roots long choked of life. Mist seeps from the seams, carrying the stench of stagnant water and dead stone. The vines quiver in the wind as though sensing my gaze.
I point. “There’s the entrance. We’re nearly there.”
We continue our ascent, scaling the rocks, packs of gear and weapons in tow.
“This better be worth it,” Zarrek grumbles, though the fever of excitement already blooms in his golden gaze. “Ten years chasing scribbles on parchment. If we don’t find the Destroyer’s gold-plated bedpan, I’m starting a new religion.” He spits and grinds his heel into the dirt, sealing the vow.
“Didn’t think you believed in the Doctrine, Zar.”
“I don’t. But even gods piss, and they’ll plate the pot in gold to call it a chalice.” He gives me a sideways look. “Isn’t that what you’re hoping to find? Something for the glory of the Crystal City?”
“Not this time.”
This time, the glory will be mine alone.
We make it to the doors, carved from stone and obsidian, every inch etched with unfamiliar symbols. At my signal, Zarrek summons mines to sunder them.
And sunder they do.
All too easily.
I don’t like it. I was prepared for a fight. With complex webs. Riddles. Ancient pit traps. Voids-damned heathens guarding trinkets and hedge magic.
But there’snothinghere. No wards to stop intruders. No foreign spells. Just a lock that gives way to Zarrek’s low-tier explosives and a well-placed bag of mage’s sand.
“Strange,” Zarrek says, the scar over his eye tugging with his grimace. He rubs his bald head, spits on the ground, and raises his arm, so each carved rune along his skin activates to sense for mana. “No shield. No web. Nothing.”
I touch the ruined doors, brushing my fingers against the smoking cracks. I should feel the thrill of the chase. A decade spent looking for this place. Yet my heart doesn’t race. As always—whether in battle or at rest—it beats with dispassion. With an apathy born of what I am.
A weapon.
