The mountain path became a ribbon of torment stretched between stone and void. What had been treacherous in careful descent was now potentially lethal at speed, each step a gamble against loose stone and ice-slick surfaces. Behind them, the Bloodfang pursuit continued, their torches turning the mountainside into a constellation of vengeful stars.

  Magnus’ breathing was replaced with offbeat gasps once his limit was exceeded. Each gulp of thin mountain air burned in his chest, his legs trembled with every move. Sweat poured down his face despite the killing cold and turned to ice that pulled at his skin with every expression.

  “Just... need a moment…” The words came between gasps, his hand reaching for the cliff face to steady himself.

  Kaelen dropped back, gripping the older man's arm with firm pressure.

  “Don’t stop,” He said gruffly. “Move or die.” But even as he spoke he saw the tremor in his muscles and the sag in his posture that said Magnus’ body was losing the fight despite his will to continue.

  Magnus jerked his arm free with surprising strength, eyes blazing with the drive to fight for each step. He was going to die on this mountain; they both knew it, but as long as they kept going, his death would mean something.

  They reached the section where the path widened slightly, no longer single file but still far from safe. Magnus's boot caught on a protruding stone, sending him stumbling. He caught himself against the cliff face, palms scraping raw on the rough granite.

  A dire wolf bounded up the path with impossible speed, muscles bunching and releasing pure and uninterrupted. Its bloodlust ignited by wartime injustice as foam flew from its jaws. The beast had tracked them by scent of massacre and the primal need to avenge its slaughtered pack.

  Magnus saw it coming. His hand fumbled for the dagger at his belt, fingers clumsy from exhaustion and cold. The blade’s steel caught starlight as it came free in a grip that recalled old training, but his body betrayed him. The warrior's instincts were there he knew how to meet the attack, but it was wrapped in muscles twenty years past their prime and that were far beyond what they could endure.

  The wolf launched itself through the air, a missile of fangs and hatred. Kaelen spun with his sword in motion, but he was two steps too far away. His blade would arrive a heartbeat after impact in time to avenge but not prevent.

  “No!” The word tore from his throat, but the mountain swallowed it.

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  The wolf's jaws closed on Magnus's torso with the sound of a butcher's cleaver hitting meat. Its fangs punched through clothing and flesh with equal ease, finding the soft organs beneath, crushing ribs like dry kindling.

  The wolf shook its massive head with savage efficiency. Magnus's body whipped back and forth, limbs flopping like a child’s doll. Blood sprayed in great arcs, painting the stone and ice with hot crimson that steamed in the cold air.

  Magnus's eyes remained conscious. His lips moved, trying to form words around the blood frothing from his mouth. No sound emerged, but Kaelen read them anyway. Save them.

  The moment slowly expanded like molten glass, and suddenly Kaelen wasn't on a mountain path anymore. He stood in the great hall of the Iceblade Citadel, heat from the burning walls washing over him in waves. Brother-Knight Maddox - no, that was Magnus - screamed as Sir Aldric's corrupted blade opened his belly. Commander Thrace stood on the dais laughing as he orchestrated the slaughter but his face kept shifting. It was the dire wolf's muzzle, then back again.

  “Fight back!” Kaelen heard his younger self screaming. “Brothers, fight back! The Commander has betrayed us!”

  Edwin fell with his throat opened by someone he'd trained beside for years. Aldric turned from Maddox’s corpse, blade dripping, eyes full of madness and something worse - enjoyment. The corruption hadn't just turned them into killers. It made them love it.

  Past and present collapsed into a single moment of paralysis. Magnus became every brother he'd failed to save. The wolf became every corrupted knight he'd been too weak to stop. The mountain became the burning hall where everything he'd believed in had turned to ash and screams.

  Kaelen stood frozen, sword half-raised, muscles locked in the grip of trauma that had scarred over before it healed. He watched Magnus die the way he'd watched his brothers die, frozen by the magnitude of helplessness and loss.

  The wolf finally released its grip, letting Magnus's ravaged body drop to the stone with a wet, lifeless sound of a broken body. His eyes never left Kaelen's, still trying to communicate, still fighting to make his death mean something.

  Then the light went out of them, and Magnus Frankheart was gone. The dire wolf turned toward Kaelen, jaws dripping with gore, eyes promising the same fate. It took a step forward, muscles flexing for another leap while blood from its teeth landed softly on the snow.

  Kaelen was lost in the burning halls of memory. His trembling sword was a useless implement at the end of an arm that had forgotten how to fight like the rest of his body. Behind him, he heard Lyraleth's voice as if from a great distance: “Kaelen! Move!”

  But he couldn't. The ice that had protected him for three years had shattered, leaving him naked before the raw wound of his greatest failure. He'd survived the Iceblade Order's fall not through skill or courage but through paralysis as his brothers were dying around him.

  Now Magnus had paid for it with his life.

  The wolf gathered itself for another murderous spring and Kaelen Frostborn stood waiting for it, trapped in the amber of memory while death approached. Some part of him, distant and clinical, noted that this was fitting. He had been living on borrowed time, a ghost pretending to be a man. Perhaps it was right that he died frozen and helpless, just as he'd been when it mattered most.

  The wolf leaped and he just stood there.