“Less than an hour?” Kassar’s voice, usually a rumble of quiet strength, was a raw rasp. He clutched the beast-hide map, his knuckles white against the dark, viscous stains. The symbols depicting the monstrous Korthos Leviathan pulsed with an unnatural chill, even on the brittle parchment. Danira, still leaning heavily against the frozen cavern wall, pushed herself upright with a grunt. Her core thrummed with a dull, insistent ache, the aftereffect of the Frost Weaver’s Wake. “An hour,” she repeated, her gaze distant, already calculating. “Meaning we get to the Maw, kick Jelmeq’s teeth in, and I get to nap. Sounds efficient.” She gestured vaguely towards the tunnel Jelmeq had used. “Let’s go. I’m tired just thinking about it.” Oghlun nodded grimly. “The frozen crater at the ridge. It’s the highest point in the canyon, a dormant geyser. He’d need the deep core resonance of that place to draw something so vast.” His stare held a hard focus. “And if he’s using those captive core-weavers, the outpost itself is already compromised.” “Precisely why we’re not waiting for backup,” Danira stated, already striding towards the tunnel opening, her movements a touch stiff. Kassar immediately fell into step beside her, his hand hovering near her elbow, ready to steady her. She shot him a quick, annoyed glance. “I’m fine, vanguard. Just… conserving.” The tunnel twisted upward through jagged stone, opening into rock hollows where raw Ash-Rot pooled in curdled, nauseating puddles. The air grew colder, petrified frost and sulfur replacing copper reek. They moved fast, Kassar leading, boots scraping icy scree, Danira following without a whisper of sound, and Oghlun sweeping the rear. As they burst from the subterranean passage into the biting wind of the upper canyon, the sun, a pale disc in the steely sky, was already dipping low. Below them, the Iron-Sand Garrison spread out across the trench floor. But Oghlun snapped his attention toward the main gate. The outpost's overseer, recognizable by his crested iron pauldrons, barked at a squad of sentries. “The marshal,” Oghlun rumbled, slowing his pace. “He needs to know about the chained kin draining their cores.” Danira sighed, a puff of visible vapor in the frigid air. “He won’t care. To the high lords, they’re just fuel.” “He has to,” Oghlun insisted, a fire burning in his eyes. “The honor of the Orolan. This is a rot, a desecration of everything we stand for.” He broke away from the ridge trail, sprinting toward the officer with furious speed. “I will not let this truth remain buried!” Kassar hesitated, looking between Oghlun’s receding figure and Danira’s impassive face. “Danira, he… he risks too much.” “He’s pursuing his brand of glory,” Danira said with a shrug, though a flicker of respect, rare and fleeting, crossed her features. “Let him. It buys us time.” Down the slope, Oghlun confronted the officer. Rapid gestures cut the air. Oghlun pointed back toward the lower depths, toward the hidden pens. The officer stiffened, throwing his head back in a harsh laugh that scraped against the gale. But Oghlun thrust a small, black ledger into the man's chest, pages snapping in the breeze, his shouting voice carrying upward across the stone. “The high lords butcher their own! To power the wards! To feed the Leviathan!” Oghlun's voice boomed over the rocks. The sentries shifted, side-eying their officer. “This is the truth! Jelmeq is a monster, but you, warlord, engineered his misery!” The officer’s expression hardened into flat fury. He tore the book from Oghlun's grip, crushing the binding in his gauntlet, and bellowed at the line: “Traitor! A rot sympathizer! Cut him down!” Several sentries backed away instead, staring at the ruined ledger and Oghlun's braced stance. Danira gave a low whistle. “Kid actually planted doubts. Look at them stall.” “He truly is honorable,” Kassar murmured, his gaze fixed on Oghlun, a faint smile touching his lips. “He found his path.” “Which is why he’ll probably get gutted,” Danira muttered, tugging Kassar up the ridge path toward the rim. “Come on, vanguard. Our turn.” The Glacial Maw loomed ahead, a massive, jagged crater of petrified ice and obsidian, its ancient slopes scarred by time and wind. The air here was thin, brittle, and thick with an insidious chill that seeped into bones. This was the place. The exact spot where she had drowned, in a past life, under a collapsing ice-shelf. The memory was a dull, cold ache, quickly suppressed. At the precipice, Jelmeq stood outlined against a swirling funnel of jade fire. Beneath him, the Maw pulsed with sub-zero force, churning the corruption into an emerald spiral. The air hummed with a bone-jarring vibration. He pivoted with an exaggerated bow as they crested the rocks, grinning wildly. “Danira. My beloved Frost Weaver. You made it.” He swept his hands out toward the howling emerald funnel. “Behold! The liberation! The cleansing fire that will burn away the imperial chains!” His voice grew, amplified by the strange energies of the Maw, echoing across the barren landscape. “Join me! We will be gods! We will remake this world, free our blood, and bring true balance to the steppe!” He reached out a trembling hand. “Your frost, my will… imagine the ruin we can bring down on those who shackled us!” Danira yawned, a wide, unhurried stretch that pulled at the ache in her core. She glanced at the emerald funnel, then at Jelmeq, then at Kassar's steady shoulder beside her. “Honestly, Jelmeq,” she said, flat and casual despite the howling winds, “you need new material. It’s exhausting.” Jelmeq’s triumphant smile faltered, replaced by a scowl. “Cliché? This is the dawn of a new age!” “Nah, it’s just cheap theatrics,” Danira said, flicking her wrist. “All this posturing. It takes so much energy. I just want to kill you, squash this leviathan, and sleep for three days with Kassar. Somewhere dry, without glowing sludge.” She nodded toward the funnel. “The racket alone is giving me a headache.” Jelmeq’s face contorted with pure, unadulterated fury. “You mock me? After everything I’ve done? Everything I’ve sacrificed for our kin?” “Your kin, who you used as a shield to escape, like the coward you are,” Kassar interjected, his voice cold and flat, a stark contrast to Danira’s bored apathy. The quiet accusation struck Jelmeq harder than any ice-lance. Jelmeq reeled, his eyes flashing with raw hatred. “You arrogant fools! You think you can stop this?” He laughed, a high, brittle sound. “It’s already too late! The core resonance is complete! All it needs is a final… catalyst!” Iron greaves scraped the frost behind them. The garrison overseer marched up the crest with three armed retainers, blades unsheathed. The officer ignored Jelmeq entirely, fixing his glare on Danira and Kassar. “State secrets stay buried,” Raldos growled. “No traitor walks away from this rim alive.” Danira’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, so now you’re on his side? Convenient.” Before Danira could shift her stance or Kassar raise his shield, Raldos drove his sword forward. The steel sank straight through Oghlun’s spine as the disciplined weaver crested the final rise, breathless from shaking off the pursuit below. Oghlun coughed thick crimson, his knees buckling toward the swirling emerald void. Droplets scattered across the frozen rim and hissed into the center of the pit. An ear-splitting screech erupted from the chasm, ancient and starving.