They traveled in silence.
Beyond the Flameborn camps. Beyond the snowline.
Northward—into the Icefang Mountains, where the sky hung low and the winds screamed like they remembered every war ever lost.
The path was treacherous. Jagged cliffs. White storms that blinded even Kael's wolf-eyes. But Lyra pressed forward with Ashenya bundled against her chest and Thorne trailing behind, muttering fire-wards to keep the cold from turning their breath to stone.
Lyra felt it long before she saw it.
A pull—low and ancient. Like the mountain itself was watching her. Like something deep beneath the ice remembered her name.
They reached the temple by dusk.
Or what was left of it.
A mouth in the ice. Hidden beneath frozen stone and carved bone pillars. It wasn't built by hands—it had been bled into existence, as though the mountain had once cracked open to weep something sacred.
Lyra knelt at the threshold, brushing snow from the ancient sigil carved into the frozen ground.
