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Elias fell.

Plunging into the darkness, Elias twisted himself free from Zane's grip. The bridge vanished above, as the void swallowed him.

The air rushing past pulled a scream from his lungs. He entered a world devoid of light for only a moment. Abruptly, an unseen force gripped him, as if a giant hand wrapped its fingers around his body, slowing his fall.

The breath burst from Elias's lungs as he crashed back first, fading into unconsciousness debris raining down around him.

Elias opened his eyes in the pitch black. HIs head swam in circles, unable to think he lay in the pitch black dark. He pushed mindlessly at something on top of him. The large rough object hit the floor with the thud and Elias rolled onto his side, a fit of coughing over taking him.

It took several minutes laying unthinking on his side when he heard Zane moan.

Zane?

Elias struggled to gain his footing, stubbing as he tried, flailing around, feeling for anything he could use to steady himself. He hobbled over to the source of the moans, almost tripping over Zane laying on the ground. He reached down, feeling for his brother. A large bar lay across his chest.

"Are you okay?"

Zane reached up and gripped Elias's hand.

"Help me get it off. I cannot move it."

Careful not to use it to steady his own legs, Elias followed the bar to its end, unable to see how big it was in the darkness. It was about twice as long as Elias was tall and as wide, and smooth to the touch like cut stone. Elias squatted and pulled up on the cylinder, struggling to get any movement, only able to lift the stone a few inches.

Zane shimmed out from under the stone, rolling clear.

"Thank you. I might not have been able to escape that." Zane said.

Elias let himself collapse down to the floor against staring up at nothing. He couldn't even see the strange light of the blowing balls on the bridge above. The only sound he could hear was Zane breathing heavily.

In the minutes that passed, Elias's brain slowly caught up with the last few hours. Aside from a few brief moments in the cave, it was the first time he wasn't running for his life. Elias didn't know where the Drask were nor how far they had fallen, but he wasn't in any condition to run yet.

"I think it might have been better if you had left me in the snow." Elias said dryly, only half joking.

"What do you mean?"

"Gods be dammed, did I even wake up two hours ago?" Elias asked rhetorically. "I spent what seemed like the last year living the same day over and over and over again for a year. Some strange person told me a tale and said there was a city under a mountain of snow or something like that and I should go there."

"What?"

"I don't know." Elias said. "I then wake up in a cave, find out I maybe died a year ago, maybe not. The gods only know. Got attacked by the most vicious dog I have ever seen."

"It was a Hound of Lupenval." Zane interjected.

"I was then chased through a snowstorm by beasts that if the stories are to be believed, are trying to literally eat me. For the second time in my life, I might add." Elias said, feeling himself ranting.

"I think they are guarding something. Drask don't normally stay in an area for long." Zane said.

"My brother is apparently an expert on all things Drask. Our family and friends, all of Moorhaven are, either dead, or are living in a village somewhere ending our entire way of life."

Elias waited for Zane to say something. He didn't.

"I got sidetracked. After we got chased through the snow, we climb into the earth to a place so dark I cannot even see my hand in front of my face."

Elias held up his hand in front of his face as if to illustrate, but he could not see it.

"We get chased into the very stone of the mountain. Unless my mind and failed me and this is a dream, found a bridge or road or something that definitely doesn't belong in a cave with strange glowing balls I cannot make sense of."

Elias paused and sat up.

"The strange storyteller, his name was Teller by the way, a little on the nose. If he is right about there being a city under this mountain, I think I will actually freak out." Elias knew full well he was ranting at this point.

"A lot has happened," Zane said.

"Oh, you pulled me off the bridge. Did you know we were at least somewhat close to the ground?" Elias asked. He didn't know if he was mad about that or at the situation.

"They would have killed us. I didn't see another choice." Zane said.

"And that thing that happened when we fell, it felt like a hand gripped me, trying to stop my fall. Do you know anything about that?" Elias asked.

Zane didn't answer immediately. moments past.

"I do, a lot has happened over the last year, lets get up. I will tell you about it while we find our way out of here. Hopefully, my lantern survived the fall. " Zane said.

"Gods have mercy, I definitely think I would have preferred staying dead in the snow."

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The lantern flickered to life, revealing a dusty room littered with debris. Part of the roof had caved and burst where the brothers had fallen through. The large stone bar looked to be some sort of giant flattening device with the remains of its handles on each end, the wood long since rotted away.

"It is a bloody city, isn't it?" Elias exclaimed, taking in the ancient building interior.

Zane lead Elias out of a building holding the small lantern. They could not decide the purpose of the ruins of the old building, but it appeared to be some sort of workshop that made something. Anything that might have once been wooden had long since rotted away, leaving trails of rotted wood everywhere, its original shape lost to time. The stone and mortar of the structure of the building appeared preserved with minor damage. Large portions of the roof had collapsed on their own over Elias' presumed centuries. He didn't know how long this would take, leaving piles of broken and chipped clay tiles on the floor.

Exiting the workshop, they walked onto a street of the same finely cut stone that the bridge had used. Balls of light activated near them, illuminating the surrounding ruins.

"Well, whatever they are, they still work at least. Don't need this. We should hurry. If the Drask are guarding this place, they will see the lights and know we didn't die in the fall." Zane blew out the small lantern.

Elias walked up to the ball of light. It sat atop an ornate stone pillar. He reached out and touched it. It felt rough to the touch and was colder than the air in the cave. The cold of the storm above hadn't full penetrated the mountain to this place.

"I think they activate we someone is close to it. Maybe we can turn it off? THey will lead anyone watching right to us." Elias said.

Zane shrugged. "They are magic. We would have to destroy them or know how they were made."

Elias quickly pulled his hand away in shock. "Magic?! I have never seen magic to know what it looked like. How do you know?"

"This city is filled with magic. More than I have ever seen."

"When have you ever seen magic?" Elias asked, shocked. The Moorhaven was mistrustful of magic. His father had been careful to keep it away from his children in the rare case they came in contact with the Church.

"Maybe you should tell me about this Teller character before I fill you in on my year. I don't trust coincidence. I think this Teller spoke to me as well." Zane said.

Elias and Zane started walking down the street, each light lighting up as they approached and the ones behind turning off. Elias eyed them wearily, knowing they were magic. They were beautiful, but the idea unsettled him. A force he couldn't see or explain.

Elias started his story by telling Zane about leaving the Moorhaven convey to practise bow hunting as Master Pelgeway instructed.

"He does that to his better students to keep them humble. Hitting a live animal is much harder than a target. He especially doesn't like it when someone actually returns successful." Zane flashed Elias a grin.

It was the first smile Elias had seen on Zane's face since he had woken up. Given what was happening, Elias hadn't found it strange. He doubted he had smiled himself, but something about Zane differed from the brother he knew.

Zane listened to Elias recount the tale of how the Drask hunting him and his collapse in the snow as they walked through the ancient abandoned city. Zane didn't know what to make of the time loop.

"I tried everything to get it to stop, running away, looking for secrets, confronting nearly every person in Moorhaven in case it was a trick. It didn't matter I woke up on the same day at the same time no matter what I did and I tried everything short of killing myself."

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"Well, I am glad you didn't try that." Zane said.

"I have far too big an opinion of myself for that."

"I am not sure that is how it works. Anyway, what happened?" Zane said.

"One day, exactly like any other, someone new was in the Moorhaven camp I had never seen before. A large man who said his name was Teller. He told a gathering crowd a story in the form of a poem. It was the story of a place called Dellium and its king. King Gerald or something like that, I don't really remember. He was betrayed by someone called the Crow. Have you ever heard of Dellium?"

"No."

Elias paused. The idea of Eronel was dead, and Rivenhall had usurped his power was beyond blasphemous. If the wrong person heard he could be arrested. His brother would understand, but repeating it in the wrong company would at best put him in jail.

Zane noticed his pause.

"What is it?" Zane asked.

"Teller spoke in rhymes. Maybe I am mistaking his meaning."

"What did he say?"

"The crow betrayed the king and built a flame capturing the power of Eronel, killing the god."

Shock overtook Zane's features. "Never repeat that in public."

"I know a few people who would get a laugh out of it." Elias said joking.

"Never, if the church heard of it, they would execute you." Zane said, not acknowledging the joke.

The look in Zane's eyes made Elias pause. "I promise. It has to be lies, anyway."

"It is. The gods no longer communicate with us, but they are alive."

Elias shrugged. He didn't know how anyone could know there were even any gods to begin with. If proof existed, Elias had seen none. The Moorhaven often travelled through lands that took the gods seriously, Elias's father had ensured he understood the rules, but the Moorhaven never practised the gods' teachings.

"Any way at the end of his story I could see nothing I had lived through had been the real Moorhaven. Teller told me in the story I should go to the city under the mountain and snow," said Elias, trying to change the topic.

Zane let the moment pass and relaxed.

"That has to be this city, right?" Zane said.

"I suppose." Elias said, relieved the tension was gone.

Elias couldn't see far ahead, only having the light nearest them on at a time, but even from the short walk the place was bigger than most of the small towns the Moorhaven passed through.

The quiet of the city felt surreal compared to everything that had happened since he woke up. Not even the sound of the wind disturbed this place.

The roads were all as finely cut and smooth as the main roads of Rivenhall, the richest city Elias had ever been in. Every side road in this city was made from the same stone. From the outside, the buildings looked intact, seeing only the stone, but inside each building.

Elias and Zane stepped into the centre of the biggest road they had found yet. The glowing lights were much brighter here. The street looked big enough to fit ten carts side by side in it.

"Which way do we go? Big roads go to important places or the exit, I assume." Zane.

"How am I supposed to know?" Elias asked.

"Hey you are the one that weird guy from your story told to come here."

"Hilarious," Elias said dryly. "Lets go right."

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The lights in the Castle grounds activated as Elias and Zane entered.

Elias and Zane stood before a castle that rivalled Rivenhall Palace itself. If not in splendour, but in grandeur. The Moorhaven had only travelled to Rivenhall once in Elias's life; the guards kept the common folk away from the centre of the city where the palace was located. But even from the outer ring, he had been awestruck by the massive palace's massive size and elegance. Elias had never expected to see it's like in his lifetime again.

The giant three black stone spires grouped together that reached into the sky before Elias dwarfed the white marble of Rivenhall Palace. Shrouded in darkness, Elias hadn't seen the massive castle until the lights activated. He suspected you could have seen the castle from anywhere in the city if it wasn't dark. Light cast by the strange glowing orbs cast no shadow on the carved rock walls. He imagined once great banners would have cascaded down the castle walls from up in the darkness above. The base of the spires expanded into a large, sprawling base. A white cross like symbol that Elias recognised almost shone, reflecting light, from the centre of the middle tower.

"That's the symbol of the church of Eronel." Elias said.

"It is," Zane looked uncomfortable.

"We should turn around," Elias said, not wanting to return to the topic of the gods. He had never given them much thought. The Moorhaven never treated the gods with the reverence other places they travelled to seemed to. He guessed it was part of the reason locals sometimes looked at them with mistrust. He hadn't known the topic made Zane so uncomfortable.

Zane looked nervous.

"No, I think we should go in."

"Why?!" Elias didn't understand.

"I have put it off long enough. Once you hear the story of the last year, I hope you will understand."

"But the Drask might find us."

"The sooner we are off the streets away from these lights telling anyone who looks where we are, the better. Maybe we can shelter overnight."

Trusting his brother, Elias followed Zane into the castle, the door left open wide, waiting for them. The inner chamber lit up as they entered, revealing a large open room in the same state of disarray as the other buildings in the city. The stone ceiling was higher than most buildings Elias had seen. Once the room may have been a grand sight, time had taken its toll, leaving nothing but an empty husk.

Zane pulled him aside into the first door he could find behind a podium of the end of the room into a passageway. He waited for the lights in the main chamber to turn off.

"We should be safe here. The lights here won't reach outside."

Elias let out his breath and sank to the floor, leaning against the corridor wall. He was glad they came inside; he needed the rest. If the Drask had found them he wasn't sure he could run much further.

"The night the Drask attacked Moorhaven it was chaos. They caught us almost unprepared. They went from tent to tent indiscriminately killing as they went. Our tent was one of the first. I was at home. Father was the first to react, grabbing our family sword and got injured badly in the leg. His sword flung across the room and I picked it up. The Drask ignored him once he was down and advanced on the rest of us. I stepped forward, trying to stop it. He easily over powered me, grabbing me. Then something I didn't understand at the time happened."

Zane paused. "Maybe it will be easier if I just show you. Hold up your hand."

Elias looked at his brother funnily, but did as he asked. Nothing happened for a few moments. Something pushed softly against his hand. Elias pulled his hand back in fright. His eyes open wide.

"What is that?" Elias asked, staring at his brother in shock. He already knew the answer and his stomach sank.

"Magic," Zane said.

"Wha... how?" Elias stammered

"I was told the gods choose people to bless certain people. It is one way they still interact with us. Or so I was taught."

Elias didn't know how to feel. The idea of magic made him uneasy. His father and all the Moorhaven spoke of it as an evil.

"So it's not something you looked for?" Elias asked.

"Not at first, I felt the blessing in the moment the Drask held me, the power entering my body burned the beast's hands, father stabbed it in the back withy a knife as it howled in pain and we escaped."

"I can only imagine how father must have reacted." Elias said.

Zane nodded. "Word spread as we entered Alendria and I was sent away. It wasn't really father, I think he might have accepted it eventually. You know how it was in Moorhaven."

A silence fell over the corridor in the Blackstone castle.

"What do you think?" Zane asked.

"I don't love it," Elias admitted truthfully. "But you are still my brother."

Zane let out a breath.

"To keep it short, I ended up joining the church in Rivenhall and study magic under their tutelage."

"Ah, that explains the reaction to what Teller said. I didn't know you believed." Elias said. "Sorry."

"You don't know how relieved I am having told you, I was sure you would turn your back on me like everyone else." Zane said. It looked like a weight that had been on his shoulders since Elias had woken up had lifted.

"It's definitely a strange change. But I just spent a year reliving the same day over and over. Its not the strangest thing going on right now." Elias said.

Zane laughed.

"True. and I have to admit, it's why I want to explore this place. The Drask leader implied they were guarding this place. They are the ancient enemy of the Church for longer than the records go back. The Church will want to investigate this place, but they likely won't even believe what I tell them it is so outlandish."

Elias admitted to himself he wouldn't believe it if someone told him this tale.

"Whoever these ancient people were, the Eronel was clearly very important to them. They built a city filled with more magic than I have ever seen doing things I cannot even begin to understand. This city is likely to be the greatest discovery in magic that I can think of. If I can find something small and complex enough to take back to them they will at least believe enough of the story to come look. My mind explodes thinking about all that we could learn from this place. I doubt even the masters of the church could create a single one of the lights we saw outside. You lack the sense to see magic so you wouldn't know, but the very stone of this city was cut using magic."

"You can see all this?" Elias asked.

Zane got more animated the longer he talked.

He really is interested in this magic?

"Yes, the very first mantra they teach you is, time does not touch magic, and magic does not touch time. Once magic is cast, the story will always remain. If at the end of the world someone were to come into this corridor, they could tell that someone exerted force where I touched your hand. But equally, magic can affect many things. The one thing it cannot affect is the passage of time, as the passage of time does not touch it."

Elias sat in stunned silence. The longer he sat, the more the events of the day hit him. A thought entered his mind unbidden.

Nothing would be the same ever again.

He could go find his family, but even that wouldn't be the same. All his life he lived on the road, stopping from town to town and now his family lived the life of the farmers they were so proud not to be.

Could I do that? Do I want to?

"Elias... are you okay? If you want, we can leave. I didn't mean to overwhelm you." Zane said.

Elias shook his head.

"No, it's not that. I do want to leave. I want nothing to do with magic. I wish everything could go back to how things were. No matter what I do, nothing is ever going to be the same again."

Zane nodded sympathetically.

Elias continued, "but that has nothing to do with you, or that you can use magic, nor even that you chose to join the church. Just look at where we are, what has happened. I don't think I could avoid any of this, even if I ran in the other direction. Something has led me here."

The more Elias spoke, the more sure he was.

"I am going to have more questions than you will answer later. But all of this started in one place. Why did you come looking for me? How did you find me in the snow? From Teller telling me to come here, you finding me, us getting here. Nothing that has happened feels like happenstance. And I cannot explain it."

Zane walked over and sat down next to Elias.

"I don't have the answers. Over the last year, I felt like I abandoned you. No one even went to look for you. Everyone just assumed you were dead."

"What could you do? The Drask attacked. Only a fool would have stayed." Elias said.

"Then I should have been a fool." Zane snapped, anger in his voice. "My family abandoned me, just like I abandoned you."

Neither Elias nor Zane spoke. Elias didn't know what to say.

"Around a month ago, a man appeared in my dreams. He had neither form nor voice, yet I knew he was real. He told me you survived. I did not believe and. He came the second night and told me to find you. Still, I am now ashamed to say I did not believe."

Zane did not look at Elias as he spoke.

"For a month he came, each night my guilt growing. Until one day I couldn't take it anymore and I requested leave and travelled south to do what I should have done over a year ago."

Elias stood up and look down each corridor.

"What are you doing?" Zane asked.

"This church stuff is pretty important to you know, isn't it?" Elias asked.

"Yes," Zane admitted.

"Then let's see what this place has to offer."

"You are sure?" Zane asked.

"We are definitely going to die." Elias forced a smile and offered Zane his hand to help him to his feet.