Hellfrost’s leadership gathered in Zav level of the keep once again. Not for an exploration in the void this time, however. Instead of Aven, Janaya would be the one to venture down into the pit at the center of the prison tower.

  The rest of the tower was entirely cleared, because it had a very reasonable chance of shortly being on fire. Based on their observations, they were fairly certain the flames wouldn’t reach the top level. If they were wrong...well, that was why no one else was going to be in the tower when Janaya descended.

  Aven looked up to the ceiling high above, where the Warden’s Eye still hung. Still and dark ever since Yvris’ overthrow. Every time he looked at it, the image of the voidspawn priestess’ cyclopean eye in the void came to mind. So much of Hellfrost’s horrors could be attributed to the empire. Yvris’ Book of Souls, for instance, was entirely imperial, brought from outside Hellfrost when Yvris received the commission as Warden. The Eyes had been there before. According to records, they’d been there when the empire discovered the abandoned, ancient keep half a century ago. A relic of an older power.

  The nature of that power raised more harrowing questions.

  “Ready, Janaya?” Aven asked.

  The white-haired young woman looked down into the pit, jaw set. “The void is an offense. A taint upon the world. It is my calling to burn it from this keep. I am ready.”

  Instead of trying to lower her down with a harness as they’d done with Aven, the plan was simply to fish Janaya out once the void was burned away.

  “Good luck,” Aven wished her as he departed, last to duck outside the iron-barred down separating the tower from the rest of the keep.

  Sunshine chuckled, rubbing hands together as the door slammed shut, “Oh, luck indeed. Our Lady adores foolishness such as this!”

  Aven gave the boy no reply. He’d studiously avoided speaking to Sunshine as much as possible. Even if the boy kept trying to claim they were friends. Whatever scheme Mother and Sunshine had for Hellfrost, Aven wanted no part. Unfortunately, the looming voidspawn threat meant they couldn’t afford to choose allies.

  Esharah’s voice pulsed through their minds, “We’re ready, Janaya.”

  A second later, all of Hellfrost shook with the explosion.

  Ouron had warned them all to cover ears and open mouths, advice learned from battles when vis powers roared loud enough to burst eardrums. The tower walls vibrated with the force. Through the thick stone and iron, Aven could still feel the heat, a furnace blast. The roar hit like a fist, pressure slamming into bone and teeth, a sound so heavy he could feel it vibrating in his lungs.

  All of them stumbled back from the sheer heat. The ground beneath them vibrated. The door bent outward, bulging in its frame as if some terrible beast within was trying to break free. For a moment, Aven worried the door itself would give way, or the entire tower collapse.

  Another blast, another wave of heat. The tremors shook the keep again. But weaker this time. It was minutes before the aftershocks faded, and the tower finally went silent.

  “Janaya?” Esharah asked tentatively.

  A howl reached them, at once physical and mental. Not pain. Rage. Screaming fury strong enough to hit Aven like another fist before Esharah disconnected with a gasp.

  Aven cautiously approached the door. It glowed with a dull red heat, but held. Carefully, he extended a pair of voidclaws to grip the edges and force the door open.

  At the first crack, a wave of heat rushed out, almost scorching Aven’s face. He jerked back, letting the door cool enough before opening it wider.

  Janaya’s screams only grew in volume. Harsh, guttural curses interspersed with panting gasps.

  “How dare you?!” the screams rose from the pit. “Her face! Her voice! How dare you?! You will burn for this! You’ll burn!” An incoherent shriek of rage followed, enough to send shivers down Aven’s spine.

  Esharah stepped forward, peering down into the tower’s base, “It’s gone. The pit is gone.”

  Aven looked down. The bottom of the tower was a sea of black glass, molten and shimmering. The voidmist was gone. Janaya knelt at the bottom, fists striking shining black stone hard enough to send cracks spreading through the glass. Her hands bled, but she seemed not to notice, her entire body trembling with rage. Her hellfire wreathed her, a storm of flickering orange and red.

  “Janaya! Can you hear me?” Aven called down.

  Incoherent sobs stole any words she might hold.

  Aven leapt into the pit, falling down towards her. He stretched out a voidclaw to grip the side of the pit.

  The moment the claw touched the voidglass covering the side, a flash of heat seared the claw. The mist-formed claw dissolved as Aven cursed and tumbled. Slammed against the wall.

  All along the wall, the voidglass protruded in malformed lumps. If not for those lumps breaking his fall, Aven would have splatted at the bottom of the pit. As it was, he still slammed hard enough to bruise bones. And break a few.

  Thankfully, a void-forged body of the third-circle of power could take a few broken bones. It took a good minute to move the bones inside him back together, to force the fractured flesh to close. A few minutes more until his breathing came steady again. There. Still bruised. Maybe a little cracked. Not broken.

  Janaya was still sobbing. Steam rose from the tears.

  “Aven!” Esharah’s mental voice finally reached him, even when the shouts from above remained incoherent. “Are you all right?!”

  “I am...alive,” Aven replied. “The voidglass...reacted strangely to my claws. It’s hot.” Come to think of it, he hadn’t touched the material with his claws before.

  “Is Janaya safe?” Logash’s deep voice called down from above.

  Aven rose. “Janaya! Answer me!”

  The girl shook her head, burying it in her hands. “How dare she?!”

  “You...saw the goddess?” Aven asked. “The-”

  “That was no goddess!” Janaya snarled, whirling on Aven with balled fists.

  Aven raised his hands, back away, “I don’t know what you saw, but we can talk about it later. Once we get out of here.”

  Janaya looked around, as if realizing for the first time they were in the pit. A pit currently filled with voidglass.

  Above, a crash sounded. Along with gasps.

  “What in the hells was that?” Aven asked.

  “The...the Warden’s Eye,” Esharah answered. “It fell. Crashed onto one of the upper floors.”

  Well, their stunt was even more destructive than they’d feared. How on earth had Aelia been possessed to allow such a reckless experiment? Surely she’d have better judgement than to allow them to do this. Someone in Hellfrost was having a terrible influence on her. Someone who was currently at the bottom of a voidpit rubbing his bruised bones.

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  Curiosity, however, quickly overwhelmed Aven’s self-recrimination. He reached a tentative voidclaw out towards the glass again. Just grazing the claw tip against the impossibly smooth, glossy surface. The instant the mists flowed from Aven’s body, the glass all around started vibrating. Singing. That was the best term for the ringing tone that hummed through his mind and bones.

  Claw tip touched glass. Just an instant’s graze. At the touch, a flash of light and fire. Hellfire.

  Aven jerked back. He looked to Janaya. Even with a tear-stained, steaming face, she stared at the place his claw touched, transfixed.

  “You saw it?” Aven asked.

  “Hellfire,” Janaya whispered, eyes wide. “I-I’ve never...” she gulped. “I’ve never seen it...except when I’ve used it.”

  Aven looked around the pit. More glass here than in all the previous pits combined. And the entire pit was sealed shut. No sign of the crack in the bottom where Aven had peered into the abyss in the past. No more mists. Only this beautiful black glass, singing softly, resonating with something deep within Aven. It was...dangerously fascinating.

  From out of the corner of Aven’s eye, he saw a face in the glass. Not his own. Not Janaya’s. Just a fleeting flash of the face like Mother’s, like Aelia’s, like Esharah’s. The goddess smiled. She winked. And then she was gone.

  “I think,” Aven laughed, more out of giddy reflex and wonder than anything else, “you’ve created something extraordinary.”

  “I’ve...created...” Janaya looked around, whispering faintly.

  An arcsteel chain descended, and a glance up saw Logash at the top of the pit. “Let’s get you out of there before anything else explodes.”

  * * *

  Aelia’s hands were still shaking an hour later. The clamour had, naturally, attracted attention from everyone in the fortress. And the town. And the outskirts, where the Hravast and Kvormskaja still camped.

  “You should be fighting the void, not meddling with it!” Mensikhana was irate. In hindsight, consulting with her as one with knowledge of the void would have been wise. The euphoria of discovery had them all carried away. “Such dangers have destroyed tribes and unleashed greater evils upon this world!”

  “I believe this voidglass, or kharshil as your people call it, is supposed to be a gift from your deity?” Aelia said.

  Mensikhana bit her lip, hands curling and uncurling in agitation. “You...you destroyed a sacred pool! A place where our goddess dwells and voidspawn do not! It is not a gift to be broken and harvested!”

  “By all appearances, use of hellfire is the only thing that actually destroys the pits,” Aelia looked to Aven for confirmation.

  “None of the pits Janaya has burned have returned so far,” Aven said. “In some of the first that she destroyed, there are mists in the pits again, but they seem to be refilling very slowly. No spawn in those yet. In a normal cycle, we’d already see new spawn emerging.”

  In a sense, it was a relief that burning the pits did not seem to permanently destroy them; that meant the voidglass could be at least somewhat renewable as well.

  Mensikhana was not mollified. “You do not know or understand the powers you face. Such recklessness...” she shook her head.

  “You’re right,” Esharah interjected. “We don’t understand the void. We know so little about our enemy. Isn’t understanding an enemy the key to defeating it?”

  An apt point. Aelia impressed her feeling of gratitude through their mental connection at the support. And the reminder that she was not alone in this.

  “Understanding and exploitation are very different,” Mensikhana insisted. But her shoulders slumped a bit. Her voice was weary when she continued, “What happens in Hellfrost is now my people’s concern as well. We will live or die together by your decisions. All I can do is advise caution.”

  “And we appreciate the advice,” Aelia gave a respectful nod.

  The promise of the voidglass was enormous. The risk of it...unknown. Hence why they needed to experiment. Needed to understand. They had to move forward, even with keeping caution in mind.

  So much remained a mystery. Such as the Warden’s Eyes. At first, Aelia had dismissed them as some innovation used for better control over the prison. And perhaps that is what they were, but perhaps more as well. The eye previously above the prison now sat in a chamber by itself, one of those chambers once used for torture and now used for training. The metal casing had melted from the hellfire eruption. What remained was some sort of crystalline material Aelia had never seen before. Nor, apparently, had anyone in Hellfrost, their finest crafters equally baffled. It was not the same as the voidglass or blackstone.

  Perhaps Elesmara Genthus would have something to say about it. Aelia looked over the letter again. A missive from the Governor himself. Commanding her presence in Northstar after the first new moon of spring.

  Not just her, either. Aven. Esharah. And all others who had fought against Sergrud. Though it was technically phrased as an invitation rather than a summons.

  “In the future, we will consult the Kvormskaja before undertaking any experiments regarding the void,” Aelia said. “If your teachings warn of any dangers, we will take those into consideration as we move forward. Would you consider that arrangement satisfactory?”

  Uncertainty still pulsed from the mindspeaker, but she nodded. No further objection voiced. For the moment, that was enough.

  * * *

  Aven found Janaya behind the fortress staring at the setting sun. He’d needed Esharah’s help to find the hiding spot. Probably could have used her for this conversation, but one couldn’t rely on an empath for everything. Some things needed to be said directly. Without the buffer of another’s mind to smooth the edges.

  “Ready to talk about what you saw?” Aven flopped down beside her without preamble. Right in the snow. Even in early spring, when afternoons were warm enough that some snow began to melt, most in Hellfrost were still bundled (most, however, not quite as bundled as Aelia). For two vis, however, one of hellfire and one of void, the cold air lost its bite.

  Janaya grunted, hugging her knees. Like this, she almost looked her age. Whatever her age was. Aven only suspected she was younger than him, though the sheer volume of scars and burns stole most of that youth away.

  “The...Watcher,” Janaya spat the name like a curse. “You’d mentioned she took on others’ faces. But even so, I didn’t think she’d dare...” her fists clenched tight, and hellfire flickered.

  “The first time I saw her, it was my mother’s face,” Aven said.

  Janaya gave a puzzled glance.

  “Yes, the same mother that filled me up with voidblood, made me the monster I am,” Aven returned the look with a lopsided smile. “Claimed that people see her as the person they most wish was with them in the darkest, loneliest moments. Now, the face I see has changed. Which I suppose means I’ve changed. Think of it less as an impersonation and more a...reflection.”

  “Even so,” Janaya whispered. “Some things are too sacred to allow a violation like that.” A pause. “Some people.”

  Aven waited. Just sat by her as the sun continued its descent.

  “Her name was Zophia,” Janaya finally said.

  Another long pause.

  “A...friend?” Aven hazarded. “Family?”

  Janaya let out a choked sound between a laugh and a sob, “Those are just words. They don’t capture who someone is. She was Zophia. A saint. A healer. Kind. Radiant. The most devoted follower of Helena, Lady of Light.”

  “Helena,” Aven repeated. “That’s...my sister’s name. Named for an imperial Paragon.”

  Janaya shrugged, “Many in Amaklos hold the Lady of Light’s name too. It’s no surprise your empire has also taken that name; they’ve taken more than enough of our people to steal such names. Helena is our greatest goddess. The champion goddess of Amaklos. Of light. Of truth. Of goodness.” A growl rose in her voice with every word.

  And in Octarnis tradition, a Paragon of Justice. As the empire so adored to do, taking other cultures’ deities and fitting them neatly into the imperial mythos. No matter how such deities clashed with the actual teachings of the Ideals.

  “You speak of Zophia in the past,” Aven noted.

  “She died,” Janaya’s voice turned flat. As if it went beyond rage into some realm of cold, hard truth. “She burned.”

  Her fists tightened enough to draw blood from her palms, only for hellfire to burn the bloody marks away.

  “And in her death, I learned what those who call themselves gods truly are. Pretenders. Petty tyrants who think all mortal lives are just pieces on their boards. I learned that evil can come dressed in radiant light just as it can come in gnashing void. I dedicated my life to burning all such lies from this world. To purifying it. All of it. And now this thing that calls itself the Watcher...to use Zophia’s face. To whisper her words. ‘The light is brightest in the darkest night.’” She mimicked a whisper. “Defilement!”

  “I can’t imagine what that must have been like,” Aven said. And he couldn’t. He’d seen his mother’s face, and the feeling had been a complicated mix of love and hatred. Longing for the presence that held Aven in his childhood’s most nightmarish moments...and inflicted some of those nightmares herself.

  “We’ll burn the void,” Janaya promised, eyes on the horizon, out towards where the pits waited and the voidspawn crawled up from the abyss. “And if this Watcher, this false goddess, lies in the void, we’ll burn her too. All of it will burn.” She didn’t sound angry anymore. Determined. This was the creed she lived by. The fuel for her fire.

  They sat in silence for a while, watching the sun dip below the mountains, painting the sky in hues of orange and violet that seemed anathema to the black and grey world of the void.

  “Careful not to burn yourself as well,” Aven said, more to himself than to her.

  A dark laugh, “Too late for that.”

  “Maybe,” Aven conceded, glancing at the burn-marked skin. “But...well, your hellfire leaves behind glass even when it destroys the abyss. It’s a power of creation as well as destruction. Maybe it leaves something behind when it burns you too.” It was a weak platitude, but it was all he had.

  Janaya just shook her head, her knuckles white where she gripped her arms.

  “Let’s get back inside,” Aven said. “It’s getting colder.”

  “I don’t feel the cold,” she said. Still, she rose with him, and they walked back to Hellfrost together.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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