The darkness receded around Joshua as he returned to the world. He took sharp hot breaths as he blinked uncertainly at the Veil above. He was certain that something had happened, but he couldn’t place what it was. He looked left and right from where he lay, but he could not see Logan or Elaine.

  Sharp pain ripped through his head as the memories came flooding in. He had used too much of the magic. The savod had taken control of his body and attacked Logan. He might even have killed Logan. He gripped his stomach as he turned and vomited in the dust.

  He wiped away the remains with his sleeve after he finished. He frowned as he tried to remember more, but there was nothing but darkness. The savod should still have been in control. Yet, he didn’t even hear its voice.

  “So much for the failsafe,” Joshua said to himself as he stood unsteadily.

  His staff, the savod’s staff, lay in the dirt beside him. Joshua leaned down, gasping as his sore back moaned in protest. He grimaced as he tapped it against the dirt. He wasn’t sure he should keep it, but it would help him walk.

  Where could he go? The thought wrapped a heavy blanket around his mind. He didn’t know where his friends were. He didn’t even know where he was. He looked around frantically as he realized it.

  He was no longer in the plains, of that he was sure. With the exception of the dirt immediately surrounding him in a near perfect circle, tall green grass topping sloping hills were all he could see. To the north, the Watcher’s Eye looked down from above a shadowy wall of mountains.

  A cold breeze blew through his robes, and Joshua held his arms tight around his chest as it bit into him. His heart knew the truth. He was in Abfall now. The savod’s spell had taken him quite a distance in no time at all.

  Then it left him to his own devices in the cold land. Joshua cursed silently at it. This was where its promise of power lead to. There was nothing for it. Joshua set his eyes to the star and started toward the Watcher’s Eye.

  Joshua wasn’t surprised to hear its voice, but he wished it hadn’t come back so soon. The savod didn’t reach out and seize control of him like before. It merely hung on the edge of his thoughts.

  “If you want me to change direction, then why don’t you take control?” Joshua didn’t stop walking.

  “No,” Joshua said. “I think it’s more likely that you can’t take control. That spell cost you too much.”

  “What do you mean?” Joshua asked.

  “What haven’t I seen?” Joshua asked, his heart beating fast in his chest.

  Joshua knew he shouldn’t, he knew that the savod was just getting him to walk the direction that it wanted. But, the void in his stomach moved him west. He had to know what the savod meant.

  He walked for some time, and the night’s cold dug deeper and deeper into his bones. Joshua clutched his arms close around his body, and hunched as much as he could against the wind. Tiny snowflakes rained down upon him as he ventured west.

  Joshua’s left hand was completely numb when he came upon the lake. Its waters still bubbled in defiance of the cold, even though the snowflakes fell upon it as well. As he got close, Joshua stopped. This was what the savod wanted to show him?

  “This is it?” Joshua sighed. “You wanted to show me a lake.”

  Joshua knelt down in the grass and peered into the lake. Despair gripped his heart and refused to let go. It wasn’t his face that stared back at him. The darkness now covered half of his face.

  He pulled back his hood and ran his left hand across his face. It was cold to the touch. Joshua pulled back the neck of his robe. The darkness was there as well, rising up from his chest and covering his shoulder.

  “How much did I use?” he whispered, rolling up his right sleeve.

  All that stood out against the darkness was the bronze band. Joshua wrapped his hand around it, and pulled against the band with all of his strength. He dug his fingers beneath the metal and a crack split the air as he ripped it in two.

  It fell to the ground, and Joshua didn’t care.

  He pulled his hood back over his head. In the dim night, he looked almost like a wraith. He splashed the water with his dark hand and scattered it. The icy bite of the water was just a numb sensation.

  “Damn,” Joshua said as he stepped away from the lake.

  Joshua wanted nothing better than to rip the savod out of his body with his bare hands. He should have listened to his master’s words and left it alone. He should have cut off his arm when he was first infected.

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  Tears welled up in his eyes as he fell to his knees. He took a handful of grass in his left hand and ripped it out of the dirt. He held it tight in his hand and barely contained a frustrated scream from rising out.

  He had to do something. He couldn’t go back to his friends, and he was too far north to simply head back. He might not even survive long enough to reach a town. He had no food or water.

  He let the grass loose on the breeze.

  There was one way. He reached into his pocket and felt the cold surface of the cube. He could ask his master what he should do. He had almost forgotten that he had it. He pulled it out of his pocket and held it in his palm.

  Joshua closed his eyes. The savod was right in that regard. The way he was now, he could not go back to the Tower, even if they sealed the savod again. They would kill him; he wasn’t even human anymore.

  “I don’t need to tell him anything,” Joshua said, throwing the cube into the lake. “I will find my own way through this.”

  “Show me the seal,” Joshua said. “I make my own choices.”

  “Why don’t you show me how to jump through the Veil,” Joshua said. “I want to know all the secrets you can teach.”

  Joshua turned to the west and did as the savod asked. In an instant, he could see the fortress it was speaking of in his mind. The parapets and tall grey walls rose around him. The stark scent of pines and cold biting winds enveloped him.

  Joshua did as the savod told him. Striking the staff against the ground, he called the gate to open. A dark circle opened beneath him. It stretched up over him with grasping tendrils, until it consumed him.

  Moments later, he exploded back into the world. His knees were like jelly as he landed. His staff clattered out of his hands as he fell to his knees on the rocky ground, heaving as he tried his best to catch his breath.

  Now he knew why the savod hadn’t been able to maintain control. The path through the Veil was straining, even for a shorter distance. He stood unsteadily, grabbing hold of his staff again and using it for balance.

  “Where are we?” Joshua whispered as he searched around.

  He was inside the fortress. The crumbling walls were all around him, forming a square. White snow covered everything in sight, but the decrepit buildings inside still stuck out from the white blanket like the snapped bones of a dark beast.

  “So the seal is here?” Joshua took a step, but his foot sank in the snow.

  His boots were soaked instantly. He wouldn’t last long if he had to stay out in the cold. He started toward the closest covering, an archway still standing in between two of the upright buildings.

  Joshua sat down in the archway, laying his back against the stone as he slid to the ground. He didn’t care what the savod was saying anymore. All he wanted was to be warm. That was all that mattered.

  Joshua brought his head up, but it didn’t obey correctly. His body wasn’t moving like he wanted to as he rose up. He could only walk a few steps at a time, and he leaned heavily on the staff as he followed the savod’s directions.

  It led him to the keep, a building of wood and stone in the center of the fortress. The iron doors lay to the side, ripped from their hinges and leaving it open to the cold wind. As he got closer, he could see the cracks in the walls.

  “What is that?” Joshua asked as he stepped through the doors. “I sense something in here, a dark presence.”

  “It’s the crystal,” Joshua whispered.

  Joshua walked forward, into the main keep’s hall. The crystal loomed before him, standing taller than at least double his height. It floated in the air, untethered. He reached out to its clear surface, and ran his fingers across it.

  It pulsed with a life all its own. Joshua placed his ear against the stone, letting the warmth reach through his mind. A stone with a heart. He could scarcely believe it. He smiled like a child discovering fire for the first time.

  “Amazing,” Joshua said, stepping back and looking the crystal up and down.

  “You’re saying I’ll need this power to break the seal,” Joshua said. “Can I really take this much and still be me?”

  He wasn’t asking the savod, and perhaps the savod was wise enough not to answer. He had held power in his hands many times. Sometimes it was like a great storm that threatened to sweep him away. Other times it crept up and then soared like a strong wind.

  He was always able to maintain control, except where the savod was concerned.

  If the savod was able to overpower him, he did not know how he could expect to maintain control when a great swath of its magic flowed in his veins. He looked at his reflection again in the crystal.

  In truth, what did he have to lose?

  “Alright, savod,” Joshua said. “Tell me how this will work.”

  Joshua placed his hand against the crystal and closed his eyes. He concentrated on his breathing, calling it in and out of his chest. After five breaths, he tasted the first whiff of the magic and drew it in willingly.

  He couldn’t help but smile.

  Nathaniel walked through the camps, his knights behind him. He tapped his cane against the ground as he surveyed the ordering of the prisoners. The air was thick with a burning stench. It was a glorious day.

  His inquisitors had already completed their work, at the back edge of the grounds. Five long pits deeper than three fully-grown men were tall lay stretched out in the ground. Fires burned in each of the pits.

  “Bring forward the first,” Nathaniel said, nodding to his knights.

  They brought forward the first prisoner, carrying the man by his arms and dragging his legs across the ground. There was no hope left in the man’s dark eyes, and his black hair was in tatters around his face.

  “By the Word of Astor,” Nathaniel said as the knights forced the man to kneel before him. “I pray that you find your peace through his guidance.”

  “Piss on Astor.” The man spat at Nathaniel’s feet. “Briln will guide me to my place, but you will walk her empty fields one day.”

  Nathaniel picked his cane off the ground, holding it in his hand and examining the pommel. With a swift swing, he struck the man across the face, drawing blood from his cheek. It served the heathen right.

  “You, my friend,” Nathaniel said, nodding to his knights. “You will burn for that.”

  The man screamed as he fell into the fires. The stench of burning flesh filled Nathaniel’s nose as the man’s screams faded. Nathaniel smiled a crooked grin. There were many more traitors left to burn.

  “Bring the next one,” he said.