The valley was a throat, and it screamed.Snow tore sideways in jagged sheets, torchlight flickering against the storm until it looked like the sky itself was burning. The scavengers had stopped advancing, their crooked line etched against the white. They didn’t move like men preparing to strike. They moved like zealots at prayer.Each torch they carried tilted lower, the flames bowing with them, until a hundred ragged silhouettes seemed to kneel in unison across the plain. The storm carried their low chants up the cliff face broken syllables, guttural, half-devoured by the wind.And then the ice split open.The first of the burrowers tore free. Pale, slick bodies dragged up from beneath the crust, limbs bent the wrong way, shoulders dislocated only to snap back into place with sickening cracks. Their veins throbbed black against translucent flesh. Some crawled on all fours, others scuttled sideways like insects. Their mouths gaped wide, but no breath steamed in the cold.They didn’t

The ridge shook beneath their boots.Burrowers poured over the edge in waves, their pale bodies clawing, teeth snapping, the single droning hum now a scream. Elyra’s line bent, almost broke, then held by sheer force of her voice a barked order, a curse, a promise of death to any who faltered.Garran fought like stone given rage, hammer cracking spines and shattering skulls. Still the tide pressed, weight enough to drag even him to one knee.Veyna’s sword carved arcs of steel and fire beside Dren, her cloak torn, her cheek bloodied, but her eyes sharp as blades. She was the anchor in the storm.And Dren... Dren bled ghosts with every strike.Each mimic he cut apart whispered his name, his sins. You drowned her. You betrayed her. You buried her.Myra’s scream. Veyna’s oath. His own voice twisted into lies.The Archive pressed against his chest like a second heart. Kneel, and they stop. Refuse, and you kill her again.His arm wavered.Then Veyna’s hand caught his, grounding him in the fl

The five strangers did not lower their hoods, though their hollowed cheeks and frost-burnt lips marked them as wanderers of the north. They smelled of woodsmoke and iron, but beneath that clung something older the same scent that clung to the Archive’s echoes.The woman with the staff stood firm in the path, her shard glinting like a captured sliver of night. “The bells toll for you,” she said again, her voice raw but unshaken. “Every step you take stirs the gates awake. You will not cross them without this.” She raised the shard high, and the air around it trembled with a faint resonance. The bells overhead shuddered in response.Elyra’s hand tightened on her blade. “You’d sell us tricks.”The staff-woman shook her head. “Not sell. Trade. Nothing is free here. Not even survival.”Her eyes swept the soldiers but always returned to Dren, like she could see the Archive smoldering inside him. “The shard answers to the Archive’s bearer. Without it, the gates will close before you. With it

The guardians stayed bowed, stone bodies groaning faintly, like mountains straining under their own weight. The mist pressed heavier, smothering every sound but the grinding of their joints.The soldiers didn’t lower their weapons.One man whispered, too loud, “They’re not bowing to us. They’re bowing to him.”The words spread like oil on water. Dren felt their eyes burning into his back, hot with fear, hotter with blame.Veyna stepped forward, her stance sharp, protective. “Keep your mouths shut. They bow to no one but themselves.”A soldier barked back, trembling with his own courage. “Then why him? Why point? Why not you, commander, or the Captain?” His spear wavered as his voice rose. “It’s him. It’s always him. The shadows, the voices he draws them.”Another spat on the ground. “He’s marked.”The column wavered. Shields dipped, blades shook. Fear had teeth now, and it was gnawing through their discipline.Elyra snapped, her voice like steel striking stone. “Enough.” Her spear lif