The weather was almost cold enough to imagine that Aya was back home, minus the creeping terror of the fog. She tried to push that last fact out of her mind, but it was ever present, along with its smothering sister from beneath the church. Still, despite the unpleasant edge, it was likely the last time she would get a proper rest before the battle.

The twins were obviously in their own world, Frare picking at the grasses around the tree, Sorore with eyes half-closed. The only people to offer any conversation were the paladins.

“Where… where do you come from, Lillian?” she said, after watching another bank of the fog wander overhead.

Lillian turned to her and gave her a strange look, not angry exactly, more wondering why she’d asked the question. Aya hoped that it wasn’t too much of a rude question back in Angorrah. At least she could always fall back on the excuse of being ignorant if it was.

“I come from Angorrah,” said the paladin.

“No, I mean where does your family come from?” she said.

Lillian’s expression deepened as if she was trying to figure out whether the question had some deeper meaning to it.

“Well, my father’s side of the family reaches back into antiquity. They’ve been on the same land for centuries. My mother is from Nieth, if that is what you mean, lady Aya.”

Aya nodded in encouragement, trying to get the Paladin to expand on the details. She didn’t, looking expectantly for a followup to the question.

“I was… just trying to make conversation,” Aya admitted, her gaze falling to the trodden dirt.

“Oh,” said Lillian, leaning back further as she looked elsewhere trying to abate the awkward realisation, “well, like I said, most of my family comes from my father’s side, and thus Angorrah. My mother is the only one that’s lived outside of it. Supposedly I have some uncles and aunts in Nieth, and some cousins too, but…”

“You’ve never met them?”

Lillian shook her head as she looked out to what was probably south - in the shifting fog it was difficult to tell.

“Never. I was inducted into the church at fifteen, I’ve never been outside of the continent. In fact, your village was the farthest I’ve ever been.”

“Oh. So you live in the actual city, then? Angorrah proper?”

“I might as well,” she laughed, although Aya thought it had a bitter edge to it, “I’ve spent over a decade of my life there.”

Aya sat and digested that for a few moments, before risking a further question.

“But it wasn’t always like that, was it? You lived somewhere else?”

“Yes, I did,” Lillian sighed, but said no more.

“I’ve lived in the city all my life,” Niche offered instead, “with my family. We’ve never known anything but the silver city for our entire lives. Both of my grandfather’s lines, as far as I could trace them, stay within its walls.”

“Would you mind… telling me about it?” Aya said, “I mean, we’re going there. But no one’s bothered to explain what it’s really like. Neither Sorore or Frare talk about it much either.”

“It’s the most beautiful city in the world,” said Niche instantly with absolute conviction.

“Anything else?” Aya said, looking rather unimpressed.

“It’s a- it’s difficult to explain,” said Niche, “the city is split in half.”

She vigorously nodded, hoping that this wouldn’t be the end of the details.

“It’s a city which…” he said, grasping at the words he was failing to find, “you really can’t- it’s something you have to actually see before it can be described.”

“Neither of us are poets, and besides, you’ll be in Angorrah soon enough,” said Lillian, “I can try though, however dry it might be. The city is split into two, like Niche said. On the upper half, the edges of the tributaries of the rivers form a bank where the old buildings sit. You’ll find the ecclesial courts, the palace of purity, and the chief garrison of the path of strength.”

She hovered her hands at different levels to illustrate the relative heights of the city districts.

“There’s a great sandstone cliff, with many small waterfalls coursing down. There’s a path that winds a way up under them - we used to walk them everyday as part of our training, then as part of our patrols. The names of all the founders of Angorrah, and many of the heroes that fought against the crown are etched into the cliff face. Of course, most travellers use the iron elevators that were built nearly a century ago.”

Aya already felt the numbing terror beginning to be forgotten almost, and she encouraged Lillian to continue.

“The lower half represents the majority of the city, both in terms of population and size,” she said, her fingers circling out to represent the relative immensity of this area, “layers upon layers of districts criss-crossed by roads and studded with alleys. It’s quite a lot to figure out.”

“They throw you off the deep end when they’re teaching you to patrol,” Niche said, “I remember just how lost you were the first couple times. Remember when you couldn’t figure out which dock you were at, and the sign was right next to you?”

“It was half-fallen off!” Lillian protested, her ears beginning to flush, “and the paint was practically gone, how was I supposed to realise-”

Aya was just about to ask the question of where she would be staying, when she saw a sharp motion in her periphery. Sorore sat bolt upright, staying at the remains of a leaf brought up to a narrow sliver of sunlight. There was a curious interplay within her expression, fear, excitement, and triumph merging together in the green of her eyes.

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By the time that the paladins had turned, she was gesticulating wildly, saying that she had found something. Aya had barely any time to wonder before she’d taken off, leading them around the corner of the church. Apparently what she sought was not there, for she took them into the church and down through the door into the earth.

At the end, before a wall of black stone, they found Efrain with his cat companion. He was holding a black knife, glittering in the gloomy light he’d cast. He turned as Sorore approached him, telling him that she understood what to do. Aya watched as, after a few further questions, he handed her the knife, which dissolved into a liquid in the girl’s palm.

With bated breath, Aya stared as the fluid metal branched out to form a new shape. She realised, with no small amount of envy, that the girl was using magic just as she had. The construction would’ve been a beautiful thing to watch if not for the deathly cold that permeated the catacombs. Aya felt like she could lay down and simply die here if she wasn’t careful.

When it was done, Sorore handed the knife back to Efrain, now solid, which he placed against the stones. They were promptly steered away as he told the Paladins to remove them from whatever lurked behind the door. The party was up the steps and walking past the beds, Frare whispering some consultations to the obviously upset Sorore when they heard the sound.

A long, distant wail, half-lost among the tombs.

Sorore took off running, managing to rend herself free of the paladin’s grip. By the time they managed to catch up, she was at the stairs, taking them two at a time, going deeper and deeper into the earth. The paladins were ahead of Aya with their longer strides, pounding down on the sands as she saw that the passage had changed.

In the distance, past where the black stone wall had been, there was a far distance light, barely visible in the dark. The cold had deepened even further, becoming something hateful to life itself. They were almost to the edge of the hallway, and within moments, they’d passed out through the door and into this new hidden place.

More stones, more elegantly laid and carved, more beds, these ones with carved reliefs of ancient men. Intricate pillars and vaulted ceilings rushed past as they pushed deeper and deeper into the tomb. Aya nearly fell over more than once in the gloom, even as the light grew closer and closer to them.

The paladins finally caught up to Sorore just before the opening to that little light, catching her by the arms and lifting her off her feet. As she struggled, Aya made it past her, finding Frare to her side and a great expanse before her. She caught a brief glance of the gaunt form of the mage, and something large and misshapen beyond him.

Then the scene exploded into light and heat as fire leapt from up and around them.

Her last sight, other than the inferno that rose like a flaming curtain was that of the mage, his black clothes now glittering a dark crimson. In silence, he regarded them, and Aya realised for the first time how empty his eyes were. The twin pits of blackness betrayed nothing about the man behind the mask, no sardonic warmth or cultivated intelligence.

She was carted away from the frightful sight, and back up the hall at a prodigious pace. The paladins had simply slung them over their shoulders and fled. Harder the gauntlets dug to her back, as the catacombs behind them went from darkness to a dull red. The children were not given rest or respite, only carried onwards, through the tombs, up the stairs, to burst out onto the church landing and through the door.

Several of the peasants in the church started and turned at their sudden reemergence. Aya staggered over to the wall, heaving as she tried to sooth her aching chest. The twins were much the same, Sorore fully bent over and wheezing with effort. However, before any of them could settle, they were steered roughly towards the small alcove of the medical bay.

The sights of the swords in hand sent the watching group into alarmed chatter. This was only compounded as Lillian and Niche took up positions from within the door they’d just come through. Moments later, there came the sound of the groaning of wood and stone as they began to shift and strain.

Worse still was the sight of red light from beneath the door and seeping through the joints of the stones. The air began to haze and billow, a hot breeze rushing past them. The door bursting into flame was enough to send some of the frightened defenders running for the church-front. Knights were beginning to gather, pointing and exclaiming their confusion at this new, mysterious threat.

“What is it? What have you done?” called Damafelce, starring in horror at the burning door.

Lillian didn’t even bother to answer, just squared her shoulders and gripped her sword tighter.

Whatever animosity between the two women vanished as Damafelce drew and stood beside Lillian. Sweat began to pool and drip despite the unnatural chill of the fog.

Doubt began to creep into Aya’s heart - perhaps she had indeed been wrong, and perhaps the wisdom and experience of the Paladins had steered them right. The brilliant flames and empty eyes had left their impression upon her. All her interactions with Efrain seemed to be cast in a new light, each comment taking on a sinister cast.

The stones were beginning to glow in their own right, cracking and popping as the mortar disintegrated. A child couldn’t take it anymore and began to scream. It brought to mind the previous evening, the impaling claw lifting the boy into the air. Fear mixed with what must’ve been resolution within Aya ,and she managed to bring herself to lay a hand on a child’s sleeve.

They all looked at her, eyes wide, many brimmed with tears, having already seen far too much.

“It’ll be alright,” she said, squeezing the arm of a girl, “we’ll make it. They’ll protect us.”

There were some sparse nods and hopeful murmurs, but Aya could tell that some of the older ones didn’t believe it.

The stones were now a yellowish orange, and Aya was concerned that they might begin to melt and run like candle wax. The charm of the stones, their strength that almost seemed more akin to a confidence, was now utterly forgotten. The air within grew almost uncomfortably hot, villagers and knights alike holding their breath as they waited for whatever horror was going to emerge.

They waited, and waited, and waited.

The stones were still glowing, but it seemed whatever had come up from the deep had moved on and up. Slowly they faded from yellow, to orange, to red, and by the time they were brown, the peasants were turning to the paladins for guidance. Last to relax was Lillian, though it was only enough to see her sword tip faltered slightly.

“It’s moved to the roof,” she barely managed, such was the tension she held in her jaw.

Damafelce turned to remark, or perhaps to ask a question of the paladin about what she had just witnessed. She didn’t even open her mouth before a long chime echoed through the cooling air. She, along with the rest of her knights turned and rushed for the front doors.

Out from the pan and into the fire - another attack had begun.

Lillian and Niche looked at each other and then at the children, all three watching the stones resume their usual black.

“Mage or monsters?” said Niche, “which first?”

“Stay near the children until I get a better idea of what’s happening,” Lillian said, following the group of knights past the barricade.

Not long after she’d vanished into the night, a group of men burst through the charred door, partially taking what was left off its hinges. Doused in sweat, but otherwise unburnt, they stumbled into the mainstay of the church, and gesticulated wildly all around. When their glances fell on Niche, they began to beseech him, telling him of the living fire that had emerged onto the roof.

Niche picked up one of them that had fallen to the ground in haste or shock, shaking him, trying to get him to elaborate. Stories tumbled out of them of a great inferno, perhaps in the shape of a beast, perhaps not, that emerged, nay erupted, nay crawled from the tower stairs. At the heart of it was a black figure, one of the creatures, no, something horrible, no, the mage!

Niche’s eyes narrowed as he tried to parse some coherent meaning from the disparate stories. In the midst of the confusion, Aya took a half step toward the tower, terror, resolution, and a faint curiosity fighting with each other. Her foot pressed to the floor, and everything around her fell into a crystal clarity.

Bellows of command, clashes of claw and sword, the screams of men and beast, the whimpers of the frightened children. Every line on the stone, every bead of sweat and glance of eye, the smell of sweat and blood, the icy chill and the still-warm air. Everything, everywhere, at all once, clarion and present.

And beyond that, above them, something overshadowing them all, gathering, building itself. A wall of something, fulgent and hot, frothing and bearing down like a river breaking a log dam. Instinct drove her down to the cool stones, flattening her body and covering her head.

Behind her closed eyes, the darkness flipped to bright red, accompanied by a roar so great it became her. The entire building was shaking so violently she was sure she would be thrown out the front doors and to the slavering monsters. Heat rolled over her, smothering her like a quilt, driving away even the terrible chill. When she opened her eyes, she found soldiers, peasants and paladins on the ground, rolling and struggling to stand back up amid a floor of barricade splinters and glass shards.

The heat was reaching unbearable levels, driving Aya up and out, past the barricades in a mad scramble. Stumbling out into the comparatively cooler night, she looked up past the door and roof edge. Above the church extended a halo of fire, blooming outward like the bows of a mighty tree.

The branches fell to the earth, streaming sparks and embers into the evening as they furled across the remaining gardens, destroying all it touched. Most of the men had noticed the source of the heat and light, and were scrambling away desperately. The monsters, apparently having no such presence of mind, drove themselves further, and into the incinerating light.

The darkness came alive with the final screams of the things as they were burnt to ash. The human defenders were left mostly untouched, and the tide spilling over the outer wall were subsumed in the inferno. Aya slumped to the ground, witnessing this miraculous occurrence, not minding the cuts on her hands or knees.

“What…?” she said, watching the fires begin to wink out.

With that, she turned back, leaving the battle and its remnants all behind her. Through the barricades, through the aisle, through the clumsy grab by a still dazed Niche, through the door, up the melted stairs and out onto the roof.

There, across from the exit, lay a pair of slumped figures against the far wall. The mage was crumpled, motionless, saggy robes no longer cutting his trim figure. In his lap laid Innialysia, fur now merely coal black, no longer aglow as it had been.

On the railing of the roof, above the two, stood something faint in the light from the fire below. A shimmering, hazy outline, of a girl, looking down at them. As Aya drew to look at her, she could’ve sworn that the spirit was smiling as it began to fragment and dissipate. With a final gust of the warm breeze, the shimmering remnants were carried out to fade into the now clear stars.