A mountain arose in the middle of the wall. Like the incoming teeth in Corvo’s jaw, rock sprouted from the ground and pushed aside the structures above. Some of the huge black bricks crumbled and collapsed down steep stony slopes, sprinkled like pepper across the uneven surface of a meal, grown over with plants at the foot of where they once stood, while most had simply lifted upward, stretching with the changing land.

At first the terrain became hilly. In the thick forest, it was hard to notice the sloping terrain. But as the ground became rockier and the trees thinned, they soon found a cliffside parallel to the Oldwalls, and the way forward became very steep.

For miles the wall had been solid and sound as the day it was built. Here pockmarks appeared, and the parapet crumbled, and there was a hint that somewhere, not far now, they might be able to find an opening.

Trito led them up the mountain. The horses climbed steep rocks, past boulders, and the world around Corvo twisted to a sharp angle. He might not have noticed but for the trees around him that always stayed upright and straight.

Mother held him tightly. She was more nervous than he was.

They reached a dark prairie between the pinnacles of stone around them, where orange grass radiated in a place without any trees. The terrain leveled, and Mother sighed in relief.

“Let me lift us over the wall,” she said. “This is too perilous. I can do it with simple magic.”

“We’re nearly there,” Trito said.

“I do not care. We are dead if our horses trip.”

“The horses handle uneven ground well. But we can go with them no further.”

He nodded toward the wall. They had come some distance from it, but now, half a mile away, the section that led up higher into the overhanging cliffs came again into view. It reached its zenith on a high but flat spire of rock, a butte with tiers of rock down along its sides like a staircase for giants.

“We do not want to enter the City with the scent of spent mana to us,” Trito said. “Your spell on Dorian is subtle, at least, but levitation will draw too much attention.” He shook his head. “And I know only one safe route through the City. It starts here.”

With that he dismounted. He began stripping his saddlebags for supplies. Aletheia followed, then Dorian, and at last Mother.

Corvo looked to her.

“I don’t want to leave Sinir,” he said. “She’s my favorite horse.”

Mother ran a hand through Sinir’s mane. “She is… a good horse,” she said slowly. “But she is just an animal. Animals must come and go.”

“Why?”

“That is the way of things, my—Corvo. We live longer than they. So it must be.”

“Will she be okay?”

She shook her head as she helped him down from the saddle. “This is a dangerous place. You must understand that without us to care for her, she is not likely to—it is almost certain, in fact, that she will….” She worked hard to choose her words, stopping at every other syllable. Corvo did not understand what she was saying.

“She’ll be okay,” Aletheia said. She came up near them and scratched Sinir’s mouth. She and Mother shared a look, and she added, “I know she will. The other horses will keep her safe. Right?”

Mother said nothing. She took a deep breath. “Aletheia…” she began, but whatever tension was in her body soon faded. “Yes. She is right. Sinir will be fine without us.”

Corvo had been uncertain at first, but with Mother’s affirmation his fears dissipated, and he nodded.

They said goodbye to her, and she said goodbye to them. They packed their bags and took their things. That was that.

But it wasn’t quite. As Corvo took a long drink of water, he looked over his shoulder to see Mother still standing with Sinir, scratching her ears.

“I am sorry,” she whispered. Then she removed the horse’s last tack, dropped her saddle, and pushed her away.

It was a long ascent. Trito took them up a path that was no path. They carefully climbed rocks with their gear dangling from their backs, coming from one tier to another as they neared the top of this part of the mountains. The range extended like a huge ridge back into the forest, away from the wall, where its highest peaks were shrouded in the endless dark. Here it wasn’t so tall.

But it was still tall. When Corvo dared to glance off the rock he stood on, he saw a very long way down. The glowing trees far beneath him now seemed microscopic.

It became much colder as they went higher.

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No single climb lasted long. The tallest sections they traversed were no taller than Dorian. Mother was the worst of the climbers, but she was tall enough to continue without more than grunts and complaints.

Corvo was too small and too tired already to do any climbing himself. When Tirto saw this, he picked him up easily, and said, “Hold tight.”

Mother came to protest. But there was no one better to carry him, and she relented.

On Trito’s shoulders, he seemed to fly up the rocks. It was the most fun he had had in weeks, carried as though he weighed nothing from one tier of rocks to the next.

But when he looked down, he screamed.

They came to the butte after two hours of climbing. Here it was level, and the wall was flush against the stone in the distance, rising another two hundred feet above them still.

And the ground was white.

Snow covered this part of the mountain pinnacle. It lined the distant wall, too, piling at its visible bottom and stacking atop its parapet high overhead. Corvo was set down in a deep pile, where he rested and waited for Mother to join him.

She did, eventually; she arrived last.

She panted and sent clouds of smoke from her mouth in the cold.

“There must be a simpler way into this place,” she said.

“Simpler, perhaps. But not better,” Trito said. He motioned for them to gaze downward, to the other side of the mountain they had scaled.

The gate of Ewsos came in sight.

It was distant and dark, but enough trees gave light to see a colossal archway cut into the massive Oldwalls. It began right where the hills ended and forest started proper anew. An overgrown road led to its mouth. Indistinct shadows moved down there, shifting beneath the light cast by the canopy. Corvo could not make out anything in detail except the inhuman silhouettes of great creatures lumbering back and forth.

It was a sheer drop down a thousand feet. Maybe more.

Trito walked directly to the ledge.

“Are there people down there?” Dorian asked. He was more winded than Mother but came to look anyway. Yet he stayed well away from the edge.

“Not people. Nor elves.” Trito stepped away. “Orcs. We have caught them at the start of an ambush.”

Corvo edged closer. Squinting. Trying to make out anything at all.

Suddenly an enormous fire flared. A ball of amber light exploded into being and was thrown across the road. It streaked in Corvo’s vision, burning his eyes, before hitting a target—some target—and exploding. Fire consumed the area before the gate.

A moment passed.

The rumble of an explosion reached Corvo’s ears.

Three microscopic lines of glowing blue shot out from a dark figure. They returned to the source of the fireball.

A moment passed.

Another fireball.

The exchange went back and forth, looking almost like nothing, for minutes. Finally it stopped, and then everything was dark. Corvo saw nothing but the arch of the gate below him.

“Who was fighting?” Aletheia asked. “I mean—who were the orcs ambushing?”

“Each other, most likely,” Trito said. “Or perhaps some of the Regizar’s men were foolish enough to try the main gates. Elves may have been their victims.” He looked to Mother. “This is why we come through the hidden pass in the mountains.”

Mother glared at him. But she said nothing.

They rested for an hour, eating lunch, before proceeding to the wall. This top of the mountain was wide as a field but shaped strangely, narrowing here or broadening there. The adults, except Trito, seemed exhausted. Corvo had been, too, at first, but the cold revitalized him, and he quickly felt ready to play, or climb, or do anything.

“Do not leave me,” Mother said. “Stay at my side.

She cleared away snow for them to sit down on cold earth. Corvo wished she would use a spell to heat up the ground, but he knew that was no longer allowed.

But snow. It had been so long since he saw snow. He was miserably cold at the mountain’s top, but he remembered making snowmen with the other boys in Verarszag, and throwing snowballs, and playing until Mother forced him to return to her.

So while she rested, he went to a patch of the snow.

He picked up a handful.

He formed it into a ball.

He threw it at Mother.

The ball hit her armored shoulder and blew itself apart. He giggled, but when her eyes opened and she turned his way, she did not look amused.

She grabbed him by the wrist and tugged him toward her.

“Corvo!” she scolded. “Now is not the time to play!”

He felt chastened immediately. He hung his head, whispering, “I’m sorry.”

She sighed but said nothing further. But after a few minutes of sitting with her again, he grew bored and cold.

So he picked up another snowball. This time he threw it at Dorian.

It hit him in the head. He turned, alerted, but calmed when he saw its source.

A smile formed on his lips.

“Now really isn’t the time, chicklet,” he said.

Again he hung his head. But he found it funny, and he considered doing it again, when a blast of frost hit him in the head.

Snow fell from his hair.

He turned, and he saw Aletheia nearby. She already had another snowball in her hands.

Corvo jumped to the side. She missed, and he picked up another ball and threw it her way. A stray shot hit Dorian, and he stood and joined the game.

Soon all three of them were playing—far from the butte’s edge—and throwing snow at each other, laughing and becoming covered quickly in white.

Corvo threw another at Mother. He hoped she would join in.

She didn’t. When she was hit, she stood angrily.

“We are entering the most dangerous place in the world,” she shouted. “My son is stalked by an ancient force of living shadow. And you have a snowball fight?”

They all stopped. They stared at her in silence. The echoes of their laughter faded.

Only Trito was brave enough to break the silence.

“It may be Corvo’s last moment of fun for some time yet to come,” he said. “Let the boy play.”

“Fun will not save his life!” she said.

“Eris,” Aletheia said. “Please.”

Corvo ran up to her. “Please?” he whispered.

She glared down at him. She had unusual anger in her eyes—the anger she often reserved for combat. For mortal enemies. But Corvo knew it wasn’t directed toward him. She wasn’t angry at him at all.

She was afraid.

Her eyes closed.

She sat back down.

“Play,” she whispered. “Just—play.”

But no one did play. They all stood awkwardly, in silence.

Corvo sat down at Mother’s side. He hugged her. Then, from her side, he grabbed a handful of snow. A few pats, and he handed it to her, offering it like he would offer a toy.

“You can play too,” he said.

“Mother does not play,” she said.

“You used to play with Dorian.”

She snorted, closing her eyes, shaking her head, before saying, “That is—not—yes. But that is different.”

“Playing is fun,” he said. “Aletheia plays. Why don’t you play?”

She stared at the ground. “I would not even know how.” She kissed him on the head. “Play with Aletheia. I will be watching. Think of yourself. Do not fret about me.”

With that the snowball fight began again. It was subdued this time, with less laughter and more conversation. But when Corvo looked to Mother, checking to make sure she was okay, he spotted a smile on her lips whenever he landed a hit.