**[SFX: WOOOO—oooo—oooo…]**
Dawn broke over the venom-scarred pass without ceremony.
No warmth.
No birdsong.
Only the bloated blue sun, leaking pale, merciless light across Blackwind Mountain. The air tasted of iron and frost, sharp enough to cut.
Levi stood at the cave mouth, breath pluming in short, controlled clouds, staring down at the frozen aftermath.
Bodies littered the ledge like broken dolls.
Servants in shredded gray. Guards in dark, dented armor. All claimed by venom, claw, or cold. Their blood had frozen where it fell, staining the snow in jagged patterns.
Mira and Torin lay closest to the entrance.
Peaceful.
Too peaceful.
The faint glow of their soul cores was gone—long since sunk into Levi's veins, thrumming there like a second, чужд heartbeat.
No one else moved.
No one else remained.
Footsteps scraped behind him.
Cassian emerged from the shadows, cloak stiff with dried blood and ichor. His sword rested sheathed at his hip. Amber eyes swept the carnage with cold efficiency, as if counting supplies rather than bodies.
"Just us now," he said.
His gaze met Levi's for a single heartbeat.
"Move," he added flatly.
"Or join them."
Levi nodded once.
There was nothing left to say.
---
They began the final ascent.
The path narrowed almost immediately—bare rock and ice forming a knife-edge ridge, scarcely wider than a man's boots. On both sides, the mountain dropped away into mist-choked voids, bottomless and hungry.
The wind screamed along the crest, eager hands trying to shove them into nothingness.
**[SFX: HOWWWW—]**
Levi's steps were steady.
The stolen strength flowed through him—Mira's quiet resilience smoothing his nerves, Torin's raw endurance grounding each movement. His lungs drew deeper despite the thinning air. Balance came easier now, sharper, almost predatory.
And yet—
Guilt stalked him.
He watched Cassian's back as the guard moved ahead, sword drawn now, testing each foothold with its tip. Cassian never looked behind.
But Levi felt the wariness in every step—coiled, controlled, like a blade half-sheathed.
They spoke little.
Words felt obscene up here.
Then—
**[SFX: *crrk*]**
A faint snap echoed beneath Levi's boot.
Hairline fractures raced outward, spiderwebbing through the ice. The ridge groaned—deep, tectonic—as the mountain shifted beneath them.
A distant roar answered.
**[SFX: RRRRUUUUMMM—]**
Avalanches thundered down adjacent slopes—white walls collapsing in slow, apocalyptic silence. Shockwaves rippled through the stone.
The ridge bucked.
Levi staggered, arms windmilling.
A slab of ice the size of a table sheared loose and vanished into the abyss.
Cassian did not hesitate.
He drove his sword point-first into a stable seam, using it as an anchor, then reached back without looking.
"Step where I step."
Levi obeyed.
He leapt widening gaps he would have fallen through before—Torin's strength powering the jump, Mira's calm steadying his landing. Cracks chased his boots, but he cleared them.
Cassian knew.
Levi could feel it—in the deliberate distance, in the rigid line of the man's shoulders. The guard had seen the shadow. The tendrils. The betrayal carved into the gray dawn.
He said nothing.
Silence was judgment enough.
---
Higher still.
The blue sun burned colder, its light harsh and pitiless. The air thinned until every breath rasped like sandpaper in Levi's throat. Black spots danced at the edge of his vision when he moved too fast.
Then the mountain turned inward.
Visions bled into the world.
Ghostly shapes flickered at the edge of sight—translucent echoes drifting just out of reach.
Servants he had marched beside. Faces he had shared bread with.
Hands reached for him.
Accusing.
A woman whose name he never learned stretched pale fingers toward him, mouth open in a scream that made no sound. The old man left to freeze stared with hollow eyes.
Then—
Mira.
She stood on the ridge ahead, small and fragile, hood fallen back. Her expression was the same as that final moment—surprise, not anger.
Confusion.
She reached for him.
Levi stumbled.
His boot slid on ice.
The world tilted.
**[SFX: WHRRR—]**
Iron fingers closed around his wrist.
Cassian yanked him back with bruising force, hauling him to solid ground. For a heartbeat their faces were inches apart, breath fog mingling.
Cassian's amber eyes burned.
"Weakness has no place here," he muttered.
"Not anymore."
He released Levi and turned away, resuming the climb without waiting.
---
The path steepened into a near-vertical wall.
They climbed hand over hand along frost-slick holds. Sheets of ice tore free above them, shattering against unseen stone below in glittering cascades.
**[SFX: SHRRR—CRASH—]**
Every pull burned through Levi's shoulders and fingers. Each breath came shorter, sharper.
The stolen strength endured.
The guilt did not.
Ghostly faces lingered in the corners of his vision. Mira's surprised gasp echoed, again and again.
Cassian climbed without hesitation, sword now secured, both hands finding purchase with practiced ease—like a man who had walked this edge before. Like someone repeating an old penance.
Above them, the summit waited, hidden in swirling cloud and blue glare.
The final guardian slept somewhere beyond.
But the mountain was not finished.
And Levi climbed with his ghosts gripping tighter than any ice.