Liv sent four of the blades toward the winged Antrian in arcs from four different angles - half from above, half from below, and two to either side. At the same time, she sent the other two swords to strike the column of ice that had encased Rosamund. As soon as all six blades were in motion, she used a backstroke of her new wings to kill her forward momentum and fly higher, up into the shadows above the throne.

The winged machine had taken her feint, and lunged forward with its single remaining clawed hand extended to meet her. Instead, it found itself under attack from every direction at once.

Sigils on the remaining arm flared to life, and a mana shield rippled into existence just in time to deflect one of Liv’s incoming swords. The blade of adamant ice skittered off to one side, having cracked the mana shield, but no more.

The war-machine lifted the armatures of its remaining four wings, tilted them at a forward angle, and flared the jets of fire that kept it aloft. Its efforts to melt LIv’s blades were futile, however - the swords were travelling at such great speed, under the control of Liv’s Authority, that they passed through the fire in only an instant. There was a burst of steam from the outermost layer of the ice, but the cores, strong as well-forged steel, remained.

One blade sank into the hip structure that connected the remaining functional leg to the Antrian’s body; while it didn’t sever the leg completely, the strike did send crackling sparks shooting out into the air, along with a burst of acrid smoke. The leg twitched spasmodically.

The frozen sword that struck the war-machine’s remaining arm did so with far greater effect. The shoulder joins, smaller and less well armored, crumpled and broke under the attack, giving way and leaving only a tangled wreck. The arm swung useless for a moment, gave a shriek of protesting metal, and then finally what was left of the joint couldn’t support the weight of the limb any longer, and the arm tumbled down toward the stone floor of the chamber.

The final blade pierced through the break in the armor that had been made by Rosamund, using Keri’s spear. For just a moment, Liv imagined that she could see relief in the cold eyes of the Antrian. After all, if Rose’s spear-thrust hadn’t hit anything vital, a sword to the exact same place wasn’t likely to kill it, either.

“Celent’he Aiveh Svec Aimāk Scelim’o’Sekis!” Liv shouted, and the armor of the Antrian deformed outward in half a dozen places. Blades of adamant ice erupted from the sword inside its body, shredding every bit of delicate machinery inside its torso, as well as any living heart that might still beat inside that ancient chest.

The plumes of flame extending from the Antrian’s four remaining wings guttered out, and Liv let go of the only vaguely sword shaped hunk of ice that remained inside the dying war-machine. While it tumbled down to the stone floor, she banked around toward where Rose was frozen in ice.

The first two sword strikes had chipped away at the column, leaving hunks of ice on the floor below, and cracks in the pillar. Liv flew closer and directed all five of her swords to hack desperately at the frozen prison while she tried to think of a better way to save Rose.

Normally, she would have used waste-heat from her own spells to just melt the thing, but the enchantment that encompassed the entire Tomb of Celris had already pulled that away, the very instant she’d cast. Liv considered and then discarded the idea of using Dā; aging ice didn’t mean it would melt, absent an increase in temperature. She knew the ice that made up the walls and towers of Kelthelis had been frozen for a thousand years or more. Neither dreams nor lightning seemed likely to do much of anything useful, and blades of mana wouldn’t be any more effective than those of ice.

With a shout of frustration, Liv reached out with her Authority to take control of the spell, just as she’d done beneath the Well of Bones and then again when she’d broken the lingering magic that twisted her own skeleton. The winged Antrian hadn’t had any Authority whatsoever - she hadn’t felt even an attempt to contest her magic during their battle, and like Karis, it had seemed to fight only with enchantments built into its armor.

In an instant, Liv took control of the pillar of ice and rent it apart, scattering glittering shards and frozen dust across the entire chamber. Rose fell, and Liv swooped down on her wings of mana, wrapping her arms around the other woman in an attempt to catch her.

It was a stupid instinct - she should have used a disc of mana, or a chute of ice. Rose was bigger than Liv was, and armored all in enchanted Elden plate as well. They tumbled down together, not because Liv couldn’t stay aloft - her wings, after all, were pieces of mana under the complete control of her Authority - but because she didn’t have the physical strength in her arms to hold a fully armored Rosamund up.

They hit the floor together in an impact that drove the air from Liv’s lungs, but for once she didn’t feel the sharp, cracking pain that would indicate she’d broken a bone. Bruises she could deal with later.

Liv rolled Rose over onto her back. Her skin was so pale that it was nearly white, and tiny crystals of ice clustered about her eyelashes. The Elden armor was enchanted to keep the wearer warm, but the helm left a ‘t’ shape open for her eyes and mouth, and there her exposed flesh had been in direct contact with the ice. Worse, Liv couldn’t tell if Rose was breathing or not.

She sheathed her wand, tucked her wings behind her back, and ripped her own gloves off, then reached beneath Rose’s borrowed helm. Liv put her palms on Rose’s cheeks, and felt how frigid and clammy her skin was. With a thought, one of the five remaining swords lowered itself down to rest with the flat of the blade directly above Rose’s mouth.

Liv watched, holding her own breath, until she saw the faintest bloom of fog on the blade of the sword. Rose was breathing, if shallowly. She was still alive. Liv needed to get her to Arjun as soon as she could, but before she could do that, it was time to do what they had come for.

“Stay there for just a moment,” Liv murmured, then leaned down to kiss Rose’s lips gently. “I’ll be right back for you.” She stood up, and her swords took up positions to either side of her like an escort of armed guards.

Liv strode forward, making for the gap she’d already ripped down the middle of her own icewall. The Antrian’s broken body lay off to one side, smoking and sparking, but the light in its eyes had died.

Something wasn’t right. Liv frowned, peering at the corpse on the ancient throne as she approached it. Costia’s body, even after more than a thousand years, had shed mana in such quantities that Liv had been able to feel it easily. According to Sidonie’s theories, that was what separated a greater rift from a lesser - the presence of a Vædic corpse throwing off waves of incredibly dense mana.

And yet, from this corpse, Liv felt nothing. It might as well have been the withered husk of a human, or even a piece of rock. Was this even the body of Celris at all? Perhaps his seneschal had been the one wearing the crown when the assault on the Tomb came. But if that was true, where was Celris’s actual body?

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Liv decided that it didn’t matter, and reached her hand out to take the crown. Once she had the key to the rift, she could take control of Celris’ entire stronghold. That meant she could disarm any of his remaining magical traps, along with the enchantment that was constantly leaching away light and heat. If the ancient Lord of Cold had a personal waystone, she could take control of that as well, and get Rose to help.

Her outstretched fingers came within an inch of the skull and the silver circlet it wore before a blizzard erupted around her. Liv was blown back by winds that lifted her off her feet, and only spreading her wings of mana allowed her to hold herself in place. Snow and ice blinded her, and she had to close her eyes against the onslaught.

Liv raised an arm to shield her face behind a vambrace, and realized that her Authority had been pushed back away from the corpse, the crown, and the throne on which they rested. A massive weight fell upon her - the weight of a god. It was just like when Liv had seen Ractia in her vision, all those years ago.

Only Liv herself had changed.

She was not the same girl that her father had brought to the edge of Bald Peak Rift. Liv had gone through years of training since then, with half a dozen masters. She’d thrown herself against Celestria Ward’s Authority time and time again, and she’d beat down Calevis with nothing but sheer determination to save her friends.

Liv heard herself screaming - not in pain, or terror. It was the scream of someone pushing themselves past any limits they might have thought they’d had. Her legs nearly buckled, but Liv clenched her fists, widened her stance, and did not fall.

The storm swirled in front of her, sleet and snow drawing back from Liv just enough to coalesce between her and the throne. Gradually, a shape became clear. It was only vaguely humanoid, with the merest hint of arms and legs, but the eyes burnt a baleful ice-blue, and from it poured thick surges of mana, more powerful even than what had erupted from the corpse of Costia.

“Celris,” Liv said.

“Blood of my blood,” the old god returned, speaking in the same archaic dialect of Vakansa his ruined war-machine had used.

“You faked your death,” Liv said. It was only half a question.

The blue eyes flicked down to the corpse on the throne. “Those who came here before you killed only a body. Nothing more.”

Liv flexed her fingers around the grip of her wand. She hardly had any mana left at all - half a dozen rings. She’d emptied all of her stored power to get to this point. That was fine, she decided. The last few spells she’d cast had persistent effects.

With a flap of her shining wings, Liv rose above the throne, getting herself a bit of distance from the manifestation of Celris. She sent her five remaining swords swooping down into the storm, and Celris did nothing to stop the attack. The swords entered the localized blizzard, each from a different angle, and then shot back out again, blown off course by the wind, having struck nothing.

“You strike at me with my own power?” Celris asked, and the god’s laughter was the cracking of ice. Those monstrous cold eyes flashed, and ice exploded out from him in every direction. Jagged, frozen lances erupted in a wave that crashed upon Liv faster than she could fly away, but she ground her teeth until her jaw hurt and held her Authority firm.

The upthrust ice parted around her body, passing to either side but not touching her. Liv clicked the heels of her enchanted boots together. Vefta caught her up in its magic, the gift from Lendh ka Dakruim, and the world seemed to slow to a crawl around her.

Liv tucked her wings and dove, skimming the slowly expanding surface of Celris’s assault. She flew just above the sharp ridges of ice, then into the storm from which her ancestor had assembled the merest suggestion of a body. Just ahead, she could see the shadow of the throne, and there upon it would be the crown. If she could get to it before Celris had time to react -

The silver band shivered upon the brow of a yellowed skull, then the bone broke apart and crumbled to dust, and the crown shot into the storm, away from LIv’s grasping hand. Cursing, she came out the other side, the magic of the boots already falling away from her. Celris turned to face her, and the crown now floated above his burning eyes.

“If you brought only a single word to face me,” Celris taunted her, “there is no point in continuing to fight. Close your eyes, and let the cold lull you to sleep. It is a gentle death. Peaceful.”

If she could overcome his Authority - and that was assuming quite a lot - Liv could use the spell her grandmother had taught her to age him. Unfortunately, the old gods really did seem to be immortal; Celris had been waiting here in his last refuge since the end of the war, and it didn’t seem to have weakened him. It was clear that physical attacks weren’t going to do anything, but what about -

Liv reached out with both Cel and Luc at the same time, using them in tandem to build charge among the particles of ice in the air. While the heart of the storm was under Celris’ direct control, it had now filled the entire chamber, and there was room for Liv to work with. She tried not to picture Rosamund being buried under snow, freezing to death while Liv fought a god. This couldn’t be allowed to go on for much longer.

“Lucet Aiveh Æ’Celris,” Liv incanted.

With the crack of thunder, lightning tore through the storm, striking the throne beyond Celris. The flash illuminated each pane of curved glass behind the throne, making them shine brightly for just a moment. The corpse in the throne was obliterated, and while the god’s swirling body of snow and sleet didn’t seem affected, the silver crown was a physical object. It flew out of his ephemeral shape, hit the tiles twenty-feet or more away, and skittered across the icy floor of the chamber.

Liv thrust her hand out, and her swords shot forward. She could use one to lift the crown and bring it to her; all she needed was to get just a single blade over there. A great gust of wind blew out of Celris’ blizzard, knocking Liv’s swords aside and battering them against one wall of the chamber. Two of the swords broke, leaving only three, each one pinned to the stone wall by the wind.

Three rings of mana left.

Liv’s mind raced; it wasn’t going to be enough. A single spell, and then she’d have no magic left to fight with at all. What could she do with one spell that would defeat a god?

“I can see it in your eyes,” Celris said, stalking toward her with measured steps. The suggestions of feet formed by the storm were anything but solid, but somehow the attitude of contempt his makeshift body communicated was clear. “The death of hope. You’re desperately listing your spells, your enchantments, trying to think of something, anything that will save you. And that moment when you realize there is nothing - that this fight is over - I’ve always loved that moment. When my enemies stop trying to win, and start begging for their lives.”

“Dāet Aiveh Skeris Erga Mæ,” Liv said, and forced the very last of her mana out through her wand.

The world seemed to shudder around her: not an earthquake, but as if every part of existence was moving. Liv grasped at her intent and held firm, though everything that was not her tore and pushed and fought back.

“What are you doing?” Celris demanded.

Liv’s very memories altered, rearranged themselves, as she re-lived a succession of moments - moments that were almost the same as the first time she’d experienced them, but not quite.

“Rose.” Liv choked the name out as if it were vomit from her belly, and it came up just as painfully. She blinked tears from her eyes and looked from the Antrian, high above, to the corpse of a god on its ancient throne, and the silver crown that rested still atop Celris’ long-dead skull. Liv looked down at the impaled, withered corpse of her aunt, and then back up at the machine. If she could have just used the waste heat from her icewall, she could melt Rose free. But the rusting enchantments had already stolen it.

The crown was what they had come for, and it was within her reach.

“Aluthent Aiveh Dvo Fetim Æn’Mæ,” Liv growled, and her magic roused to answer her intent, and her fury. Two wings of blue light, striated with gold, extended out to either side of her torso, anchored to the back of her Elden steel armor. She reached out with her left hand, yanked the crown off the head of the withered corpse on the throne, and then turned to kill the Antrian, the words to her next spell already fixed in her mind.

The world stopped moving.

“No,” Celris screamed.

Liv looked down at her left hand, where her fingers were wrapped around the silver circlet that was the key to the Tomb of Celris. With her right hand, she shoved her wand into its sheath.

Wind, snow and sleet exploded from the form of Celris, but for once, it was the Vaedic Lord of Winter who was a step behind - who tried desperately to stop Liv, and failed. She could see the desperation in the eyes of a god.

Livara tär Valtteri ripped her helm off, flung it aside, and set the silver crown upon her head.