47 lines
No EOL
2.4 KiB
Markdown
47 lines
No EOL
2.4 KiB
Markdown
The wind here had changed.
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Where once it screamed with indifference, it now whispered with purpose—dragging snow in listless spirals across the cliffside trail. The soldiers moved slowly, hunched beneath white-washed cloaks, their steps muffled by old frost and new fear.
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At the front walked Verrin, his gait half-limping, half-sliding. His skin had not fully healed—stretched too tightly across reknit bone and sinew. His breath steamed like smoke through cracked lips, and he said nothing. But his eyes burned.
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They reached the edge of the high ridge as twilight bled into full dark.
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From there, the valley opened below—its bottom choked in ice and shadow, the far side a wound of black stone. Half-buried and silent, the Keep of Ash loomed like the carcass of a beast too ancient to name. A thin plume of smoke curled upward from a campfire near its gate—faint and distant. A handful of tents. Shapes that moved. Watching. Waiting.
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One of the soldiers crouched and murmured, “Looks like they’ve stopped for the night.”
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“They shouldn’t have,” Verrin rasped.
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And then it came.
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A pulse.
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Not of sound—but of _something else_. The stone beneath their boots vibrated with sudden, aching stillness. Snow slid off ledges without wind. The air grew heavy—pressed down like an unseen hand. A few soldiers stumbled, looking wildly around. One swore he heard singing. Another dropped his weapon.
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Verrin fell to one knee, his fingers curling into the frostbitten earth.
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He felt it—not just in his skin, but in the marrow of the mountain.
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A gate had opened.
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A bond unsealed.
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*The blade had been drawn*.
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He turned, teeth bared in what might have been awe—or horror.
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“Make ready,” he said hoarsely. “We descend at first light.”
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One of the sergeants hesitated. “Do we wait for command? The Legate hasn’t—”
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“There is no more waiting,” Verrin said. His voice carried now, sharp and iron-laced. “What just woke beneath us will not sleep again.”
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He stood slowly. Blood ran from his nostrils. He wiped it with the back of a trembling hand, smiled crookedly, and looked to the black ridge below.
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“She’s found it. Whatever it is.”
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The soldiers exchanged nervous glances.
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Verrin closed his eyes.
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“We're already too late. But perhaps not _entirely_.”
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Then the wind rose, howling through the teeth of the peaks, and whatever they would face below had already begun to shape the world in its image. |