When I woke up, Thukkar and Nissikul had joined Joanna and me at our camp. The fire was little more than ash, but the air was still fairly comfortable. I sat up carefully, taking my now dry pack, which was still empty, and replacing my arm under Joanna's head with it so that she didn't wake. She looked very peaceful there, curled up on the stone beside me and sleeping soundly. She seemed so small and fragile in sleep, and it seemed impossible that this was the same woman who had directly challenged one of the Eater's Children with nothing but a spear, and who had carried my unconscious body up a ladder and saved my life. How could so much strength of body and will be contained in such an unassuming frame?

I looked up from Joanna and met the eyes of Nissikul, who was sitting cross-legged across the fire from me, running through a series of stretching exercises with her remaining arm. We matched stares for a moment, and I resisted the urge to look away, even as I felt the subtle crawling sensation at the corners of my mind that meant she was reading the psychic leavings of my thoughts. Eventually, she smiled; narrowing her eyes to happy slits of liquid black, and she cocked her head to the side, gesturing to the sleeping Joanna with a twitch of her chin. I didn’t look away. It would tickle her to no end if I showed any embarrassment about whatever she had gleaned from the edges of my mind about the events of the previous night. I knew that she couldn’t actually read my mind directly, but what she could draw from me could be more than enough for her to seem eerily prescient. After a minute, she commented quietly, “Be careful, big brother. She’s walking wounded.”

I tilted my head to one side in question, not daring to speak for fear of waking her. Nissikul continued, speaking carefully. “She’s grieving, Vol. Can’t you see it? She’s lost everything, and just looking at her, I don’t think this was her first time.” She stopped, musing, but did not speak right away. We sat in silence, and I turned those words over in my mind, again and again. Nissikul huffed out a short sigh, then continued, her expression pained. “I can see that you care about her. And I understand why. She’s a remarkable woman: strong, brave, and dedicated. But she’s hiding something, brother. She seems small and frail, but she fights like one of us. She doesn’t have claws, her teeth are flat as a vulyak’s, and her senses are pitifully limited- but sometimes when I meet her eyes, I’m not sure which one of us is the more dangerous predator.” She stood, and even dressed in a tattered collection of rags, she somehow maintained her instinctive poise. Even exhausted and worn thin as we all were, my sister still looked the part of the priestess mage. “I’m not telling you that you shouldn’t love her. But I want you to keep your eyes open, Volistad.” Without waiting for my response, she turned on her heel and joined Thukkar in harvesting breakfast from the magnificent garden that surrounded us.

I looked back down at Joanna, who was just starting to stir. She didn't look like a predator. Palamun knew, she didn't even look dangerous, not curled up on the stone as she was. But I would be a fool to disregard Nissi's warnings. Joanna had already proven to be much more than she had initially seemed. It was not far-fetched to wonder what other hidden depths lay behind those liquid brown eyes. I suddenly felt a powerful impulse to run my fingers over her smooth scalp, and my hand was halfway to her head when I stopped myself. Nissi was right. Joanna was grieving, and it wouldn't be right for me to push this. God or not, she was a person, with feelings not so different than my own. If I really cared about her- and I did- I would give her a little space and let her heal from the wound she had suffered in her heart and soul.

I moved to stand, and the claws of one of my bare feet scuffed against the stone. Joanna snapped awake, her arm flying up to smack my still-outstretched hand away from her. Her eyes snapped open, and I froze. Those were not the same eyes I had gazed into last night. They were not warm with inner light- they were empty and flat, and something deep inside them writhed with unspoken fury. Her face was as stone. She didn't move, didn't say or do anything. But the threat in that stare was unmistakable. I felt the beginnings of an instinctive growl tickling at the back of my throat, and my body tensed, ready to fend off the impending attack. Then Joanna blinked and sat up, yawning sleepily. "Hello, Vol," she said around the yawn, speaking in her people's language. "How did you sleep?" Her eyes had resumed their usual warm, friendly state, and she didn't seem to know that anything had happened. She frowned, noticing the look on my face. "What's wrong?"

I shook my head and finished standing. “Nothing.” I turned and walked over to where we had laid out our clothes to dry. “I’m just ready for this journey to be over.”

Joanna seemed to notice her own nakedness then, and she stood, making little abortive motions as she instinctively tried to cover herself with her arms. After a moment, she seemed to come to terms with the ridiculousness of such an attempt, and she stopped, instead standing and joining me in sorting through our spread-out clothing.

By the time we finished dressing and collecting our gear, Nissikul and Thukkar came back over to us, bearing an assortment of fruits and edible fungi, piled in the center of Thukkar's ragged cloak. We chatted companionably through the meal, all of us pretending we weren't increasingly anxious as to what fresh horrors awaited us beyond this room. Nissi and Thukkar recounted their passage through a room filled with various traps, each one of them poisoned. It was clear that someone didn't want this place disturbed. That made sense if this temple was somehow directly connected to Ravanur. This place was sacred to our people, and we already felt like interlopers for trespassing upon holy ground. That this place had been strewn with traps was not very surprising, considering how thoroughly it had been sealed away beneath the ice. No one was supposed to set foot in Ravanur's temple ever again. But here we were.

When we finished our meal, we once again took up our packs and set off toward the wall of the chamber that Joanna thought was the right one. Upon arriving, we were surprised to see that the wall was solid. There was no sign of a door, no cracks, no latch, nothing. We circled the garden cave twice and found no secret way forward in any direction. Returning to the cave wall, we tried everything we could think of to effect change. Nissi summoned up what dregs of power she could access under this much stone, but to no avail. Thukkar and I tried our hammers on the craggy stone, but that did little more than create a pile of rock shards at our feet. Finally, Joanna sighed and placed a hand flat against the wall. Nothing happened.

Just as I was about to suggest that we try backtracking, Joanna abruptly shuddered and fell hard against the wall, groaning through gritted teeth as she gripped it as if her life depended on it. The air grew thick around us, buzzing with invisible energy as if a great surface storm were coming to life all around us. Still leaning against the featureless wall, Joanna twisted one arm and reached into her ranger's pack, withdrawing a familiar dense, black shape that I recognized immediately. It was the heart of a burug; the strange metal device found within every single one of the insectoid predators. It looked like an oversized Erinye heart, and as I watched, it began to beat in her hand. Each wriggling, writhing movement of the heart spewed little jets of black powder into the increasingly humid air around us, and as we watched, the wall began to melt away, dissolving like a liquid into a new shape. I met Nissikul's eyes, and to my surprise, she didn't seem shocked by this new development. Her eyes were wide, and she was clearly terrified, but behind the terror, I could see something else in her face. Recognition.

The temperature in the garden began to drop, rapidly, and despite the fact that we were encased in solid stone, I thought I could feel a breeze whispering through the cavern behind us. No longer able to brace herself against the wall, Joanna fell forward to her knees, writhing in pain. I stepped forward to help her stand, but Nissikul stopped me with a hand. "No. This is how it begins. If you interfere, you will surely die."

I froze, horrified, and waiting for Nissi to tell me more. Her mouth firmed into a grim line, however, and she would say no more. I looked to Thukkar for support, but he was completely stricken with mingled awe and fear, and he wouldn't look away from the spectacle unfolding before him- even as he took slow, careful steps back away from Joanna.

The wall that had stood before us was now gone, and in its place was the front of a great mausoleum, its massive, carved face supported by twisting pillars of stone that stretched all the way to the floor of the cavern like elongated stalactites. Hundreds of scenes from the High Epic were carved into the structure’s surface, each of them rendered in exquisite detail. Steps swept up from where Joanna writhed, leading to an array of open archways into darkness. Her face still twisted in agony, Joanna planted one foot on the stone and stood slowly, shakily, throwing her shoulders back in defiance and screaming a challenge up at the dark tomb.

A figure began to coalesce from the air before her, and without hesitation, Joanna drew out her bright, curved sword, aiming the tip at the emerging head. The being seemed to have been shaped from lightning, and its broad, masculine frame was clothed in dark shrouds of storm cloud. It crossed its monstrous forearms over its chest and regarded Joanna silently, its face enigmatic. A tense moment stretched, in which Thukkar, Nissi and I didn’t dare move. “What is that?” I whispered to my sister.

Nissikul laughed, the sound high and hysterical. “He is the Herald of Ravanur, the greatest of her servants! Beware, brother, for you look upon the Great North Wind!” I felt the blood drain from my face, and it was all I could do to keep to my feet. The Great North Wind was the bringer of the storms, the patron spirit of the Stormcallers, and one of the most feared beings in all of my people’s lore. It was he that forever scoured the surface of Ravanur’s frozen skin, devouring the unwary and destroying any servant of the Dark Ones that dared to attempt a rescue of its imprisoned masters. The regular storms were bad enough, but when one came howling down from the north, even the hardiest of the Erin-Vulur knew to hide far beneath the ice. Anyone caught out in such a terrible tempest would be flayed to the bone, and their bones would be ground to dust and spread across half of Ravanur- anyone but a Stormcaller. And now Joanna was standing before him in abject defiance, challenging him with the point of her sword. She looked so frail before such majesty and overwhelming power, but she did not falter. She met the glowing ember stare of the Great North Wind and dared him to move. The terrible spirit of the storm watched her for a moment that seemed to last an eternity. Then, he threw back his head and laughed, and I was deafened by cascading thunder, blinded by the flashing radiance of his seething skin.

When I could see again, and my hearing returned to me, I looked up to see the Great North Wind speaking quietly to Joanna, a hand resting casually on her shoulder as if they were old friends. I could not make out the words, but whatever passed between them seemed to shake Joanna to her core. Her shoulders slumped, and her sword dangled from her grasp, the tip dragging against the smooth stone beneath her feet. “What is happening?” I asked, but Nissikul shook her head. Wait, her face said. So I waited. They spoke for just a little while longer, and then the demigod straightened up. His burning eyes shaped a sad smile as he regarded Joanna with… was that sympathy? As abruptly as he had come, the Great North Wind disappeared, unraveling into spiraling patterns of light and twisting remnants of spun cloud.

I dashed over to her, my heart pounding in my chest. “What was that?” I blurted, forgetting to switch to her language. “Are you alright?”

Joanna turned toward me; her face turned blank and expressionless as the stone beneath her feet. "I'm fine," she said in my tongue, but as she spoke, a thin dribble of blood eked from one of her nostrils and traced a red line down to her mouth. "We've done it. We've been allowed into the temple. Come on, let's have this done."

I wanted to push, to bombard her with questions, to look her over for damage myself, but I reined in my worry. She was a god, or at least she was about to become one. Where she was going, what was happening- it was the purview of the gods, not of mortals like me, or even exalted mortals like my sister. "Lead on," I said simply. "I'm with you to the end."

Joanna’s face crumpled, and for the barest of instants, she wasn’t herself, wasn’t the woman I had fought to find and protect. She wasn’t even the dead-eyed thing I had seen by the remains of last night’s fire. She was a little girl, a child, battered and terrified. She looked up at me with eyes wet with the threat of tears and said, in her own language, “Do you promise?”

I didn’t know what she meant, but faced by the raw anguish in her eyes, I agreed without hesitation. “I promise, Joanna.”

The mask reformed as the others came up from behind and joined us, and Joanna was once again hard, confident, and self-assured. “Then let’s finish this,” she said in the tongue of the Erin-Vulur. “I will need all of you for what is to come.”