Unbound

“We cannot find a single trace of them, Chosen Imara,” an Inquisitor reported. “The vault is too damaged.”

Imara heard but said nothing.

“How certain are we that they didn’t die in the collapse?” Bellar asked, his voice pure acid. His arm was in a sling, and his face was covered in dark bruises.

“One hundred percent positive, sir. Our trackers would be able to identify corpses with ease, even in this high-Tier rubble.”

Bellar waved away the man with a sharp impatience. “Impossible. How could we have lost them? Not only here, but across the entire mountain!”

Distantly, Imara was aware that the Inquisition troops had been scouring every inch of the Vault of Nine Kings—the parts that were still whole, anyway. The entire thing had collapsed shortly after she had been…knocked out. Again.

Shame and regret curdled in her chest, opening a hole inside of her that had once been filled with Light. She had heard the reports—of the Fiend and his team disappearing into thin air. Of the Gnome. Gone again. Yet, she could not find any part of her that cared. Instead, the shame was rudderless, the regret without visible cause. Phantom emotions echoing down a barren hallway.

“Chosen Imara?” Bellar prodded.

She blinked. “Has it grown dimmer here?” she asked.

“It–it has not,” Bellar said. “Are you alright, my Lady?”

“I’m fine,” she lied. She wasn’t sure what was wrong with her, but things felt…wrong. All of her armor had been covered in molten stone and metal, rendering it all but useless until it could be repaired. If it could be. She held up a bare hand.

This…why do I feel…?

Y—ou Must—

A breath caught in her chest, but the voice faded away. The interference of this Dwarven realm and…and whatever the Fiend had done to her…together they worked to silence the Pathless.

A hand closed on her shoulder, and Bellar gazed down at her in compassion. “Are you? Fine?”

“Yes.” Imara stood, shrugging off the man’s touch. She shoved the aimless weakness away, banishing it to a corner of her heart. “Gather your forces. The hunt continues.”

Lilian slipped unnoticed through the dark streets of Elderthrone. They were harder and harder to come by, as the Glyphmaster slowly modernized even the farthest edges of the growing city. Thankfully, the inscribed street lamps ended two blocks ago, and Lilian slunk through a wide alleyway.

The snow fell heavy as she came to the narrowest point of the alley, and she cast her eyes back. No one had followed. Biting her lip, Lilian lifted her hand and traced a pattern upon the empty brickwork. Mana flowed from her palm, filling the pattern like a mold, until it finished with a muted shimmer.

Between one moment and the next, a door appeared across the bare stretch of wall. Lilian swiftly pulled it open and slipped inside.

Within was dark, cramped, and dusty. Beams hung low overhead, and unfinished walls gaped like broken teeth in a drunkard’s smile. Perhaps the most unnerving detail, however, and one which she would never grow accustomed to, was the breathing.

A heavy wheeze filled every inch of that dim space. A rattling gasp in, followed by a prolonged, wheezing release. Again, and again. The volume only increased as she shuffled through the cramped corridors, unwilling to let a single timber touch her spotless gown. Soon, it opened up into what had once been a parlor. A low fire crackled in the hearth, casting more shadows than light, and providing a cloying warmth tinged with the smells of mint and jasmine.

“Ah. Child. Come closer.”

The voice interrupted the ceaseless wheezing, and it came from the most shadowed recess of all. Hidden behind diaphanous curtains and enchantments she could not parse, her benefactor laid upon a bed. She drew nearer, and there the perfumes in the air failed; she could smell the sickly sweet odor of rot and something else. A seizure of fear raced across her spine, but Lilian held herself as still as she could.

“Do you have a report?” her benefactor asked.

“I do, master.” She curtsied. “The head Alchemist has increased my status within the Fiend’s Lab, and my expanded access to materials has allowed me to refine our project.”

“What of the accident?”

Lilian winced. “An unfortunate setback, but the fire killed only a few Untempered. There has been no public outcry, and none have tied it to the Alchemy Lab.”

“Be wary of the Glyphmaster. He is not what he seems,” the man hissed. His voice sounded full of liquid, like bubbles in a stream. “You’ve altered the location of your testing site.”

“I have.”

“Acceptable.” Fabric rustled, and Lilian could dimly tell her benefactor was moving on the bed. That was unusual. “Here. Take this. Use it to refine the project.”

A twisted hand that looked half melted reached from the curtains, holding an odd metal box covered in a jagged script. Lilian took it, not allowing her skin to touch her benefactor’s, and grunted at how heavy the little item was. “What is it?”

“A device. Place it within your solutions when tincturing the active reagents.”

Lilian turned the device over in her hands. The jagged script was colored like the embers of the nearby fire, and it was curiously hard to look at directly. Painful, even. “How does it function?”

“Do not question, child. Just do.”

Despite his apparent frailty, her benefactor’s voice was a whipcrack. Lilian knew too well the power he wielded. She flinched into a deeper curtsy, her skirts touching the floor now. “Of course, master.”

“Good.” The hand withdrew, quivering. “Things are coming to a head now, child. Keep on as you are, and you shall have all that you have wished for.”

Lilian looked up, and her heart thudded hard within her scarred chest. “Soon then, Master Tiene?”

Behind the curtains, the man moved. Master Teine’s cadaverous face emerged from shadow and silk, far more gruesome than Lilian’s, but his eyes gleamed in the low light. “Yes. Things are only beginning.”

In the depths of the earth, where caverns opened into a forest of moss and crystals, Felix tried and failed to sleep.

The journey down the mountain had been rough as they were forced down a thin stairway barely clinging to the edge of a cliff and fully exposed to the gale-force winds of the Voidstorm…but they had made it. Once they’d hit the lower slopes, it was only a short jaunt to the Rockshaper’s workshop, then through his emergency exit to the Low Roads.

That was where they were now, camped out in the miles of tunnels between Dwarven Holds. They were still beneath the Rimefangs, still within spitting distance of a great many enemies—but they could breathe.

Felix’s Claw had, hopefully, already set out from Birchstone. The smugglers had been hired to get them out of the city and into the mountains, where they could escape to the Hoarfrost…and where his chosen Exemplars could use Labyrinthine Wing to return home.

His friends were around him, laid out on patches of moss while the Eidolons watched for oncoming threats. Beef was snoring alongside Hallow, Laur, and Archie. The Delven’s wounds were patched up, and he’d even woken up for a time, but only to curse profusely before passing out once again. Evie was beside Harn, not sleeping, but standing guard over the injured man. Tzfell had once again cast her limited healing magics on him, which had stopped his bleeding but could do nothing for his missing legs.

That hit Felix hard. Anothing failure on his growing list.

At his side, Pit was curled up and breathing deeply in a slumber he’d yet to wake up from. The chaotic power of the Mote of Frenzy still rippled across his body like an iridescent oil slick, and the System told him his Evolution remained in process.

Vess was nearby, too, wrapped up in her cloak against a boulder-sized pale pink crystal. Next to her, perched atop the smooth, glass-like core, was Yintarion. The orb flickered regularly, like a heartbeat, molten colors swirling within its fathomless depths.

Felix scrubbed at his face with his palms. They had retrieved Archie. They’d taken the Mote of Frenzy. They’d even secured so much treasure that they hadn’t cataloged it all. Everything Felix had set out to do had been accomplished…and yet he felt empty.

Gabby.

He knew his Unite the Lost had done something, but the last look they’d shared wasn’t one of recognition. It hadn’t been enough, and that drove him crazy. She was out there, bent and twisted into Imara, while the Pathless rode shotgun in her soul.

Felix wasn’t having it.

The Pathless and the Hierophant took his sister, and they would answer for it. He had to get back to Nagast, but plans boiled in his Mind, churning through dozens of possibilities every second. Plans for reaching Master Tier and for weaving his Tenth Pillar. Plans for his friends, his allies, and his army. All of it burned his Mind, but he held on within the walls of his Void Sanctuary, until a single, irrefutable fact emerged.

Felix bared his teeth.

He had to kill a god.