The key of Celris, in the shape of a silver crown, settled onto Liv’s head like oil-soaked wood catching fire.

Beneath the Well of Bones, she had experienced a moment, when she had consumed the lingering mana of the Lady of Bones, when every part of those ancient ruins had been laid bare to her. She had seen it all, like a child looking down on a castle made from the river sand, and though the knowledge had been fleeting, Liv had understood how the old enchantments and machinery had fit together.

It had been that god’s eye view, that instant comprehension, which had allowed her to not only witness Commander Jagan’s betrayal, but also take steps to deal with it. Combined with the rush of raw power from the goddess’s corpse, she’d struck down the walking dead as easily as lacing her boots.

That moment had been, Liv understood now, a sort of stolen glimpse into what possession of a key offered - and, she suspected, what the Vædic Lord of a rift experienced all of the time, as a matter of course.

In the space between the silver crown touching her forehead, and any mortal’s ability to react, her awareness expanded to encompass the entirety of the Tomb of Celris. She saw the broken, vaulted ceiling that Wren had used as an entrance, and the huntress herself, facing down the largest Antrian war machine that Liv had ever seen - more enormous than Karis or the half-rebuilt body of Calevis.

She saw Keri, clutching the jagged grip of a looted blade, the handle wrapped in strips of torn cloth, and that both he and Arjun were bleeding from their wounds. She knew that a level above them, dozens of Antrians were detaching from their mechanical cradles, their mana stone cores stuffed to the brim with magical power from their long sleep.

Liv’s awareness slid quickly past the frozen remnants of her aunt’s culling party, and encompassed the room of mirrored ice, which waited only for the next set of victims to come. She listened to the howling of the wolves, grown fierce and strong on the dense mana of the shoals, as they threw back their heads and sung to the moon, the ring, and the dancing lights of the north.

She felt the waystone above the frozen canyon, and knew the destination of every sigil graven into its frosted surface. Liv could have allowed her mind to slip into the wafer-thin layers of enchantment beneath its surface, to dwell there amidst the complexities of enchantments that no one yet alive comprehended.

The veins of mana stone that ran through the earth were hers, as well, connecting not only the waystone outside Celris’s fastness, but also the great double doors that led into the canyon, the mirror-trap, the cradles of the Antrian soldiers, and the sigils that ran along every wall of every corridor and chamber that had once hosted an entire, living city.

Liv had been correct about the order of how it had happened: the defensive enchantment had indeed come later, she could feel the difference between the original structures and the modifications. Of course it had, no one could live in a city that labored under such a curse! She felt how it ate the light and the heat, the very magic of every intruder, drawing them all in like the great lungs of a massive beast, as if it were her own body. And in those lungs - enchantments of such subtle complexity that Liv knew she could study them for months, or years - all was converted into raw mana.

It was that mana that powered everything else, from the mirror-trap to the war-machines, at once sapping invaders of their strength, their very lives, and repurposing everything they brought, turning it to the use of Celris. It was a vicious, cunning trap that gave the rift more raw power than any other Vædic ruin she had visited before.

And not an insignificant portion of that power went to sustaining what remained of Celris, the Vædic Lord of Cold - though she now understood that to be an inaccurate translation. In truth, she doubted now that simply the mana of the rift itself, even augmented by occasional eruptions of power from the ring high above, could sustain the remnant of a god. If Liv had to guess, the ancient mind slumbered for decades or centuries at a time, until someone braved his halls - like a spider in a web, stirring only at the touch of its prey.

An imperfect resurrection, then - and that would explain why, unlike Ractia, Celris had not in twelve hundred years managed to gather a cult of followers and servants. The god had cheated death, but only just. He was hardly more than a shadow, a memory of the past.

All of this Liv saw and understood, and she saw also Rosamund Lowry, lying under a thin blanket of snow, stretched out on the stone floor of the chamber in which Celris’ throne had once stood. Rose’s lips were blue, her skin pale, and the tips of her fingers and ears were already frostbitten.

Liv’s mind raced through a dozen plans for how to save her friend’s life, and discarded just as many. Arjun could save her, but Arjun was too far away, and empty of mana besides. Liv could seize control of the sigil network, and throw heat at Rose, melting the snow and warming her body - but that wouldn’t heal the damage which had already been done. She would lose parts of her body, at the very least, if she survived.

But there was one thing Liv could do that might work.

Her eyes settled on the stone dais upon which the throne had rested. “Clever,” she said, to the shadow of Celris. With a thought, Liv set one of the sigils of the waystone buried beneath the broken remnants of the throne alight with magic.

“This place is not yours!” the storm roared with the voice of Celris. What scraps of Authority remained to the dead god battered at Liv, contesting her control of the entire rift.

There was a great deal to do, but the first and most important thing was that Rosamund survive. Liv wrestled a portion of the sigil network under her control. Celris fought her; they both knew that if she managed to take it all, he wouldn’t have enough power to remain conscious, and once he fell back into his long slumber the battle would be over. But she only needed a piece.

Magic roared into Liv, filling her body. She summoned a pane of blue, coherent mana beneath Rose’s body, lifted her, and sent it skimming toward the broken throne and the small waystone beneath it.

Celris ripped Liv’s wall of ice apart into enormous, jagged hunks, and threw them at the oncoming mana disc, determined to crush Rose into a bloody paste. Liv threw her hands to either side, and the flying ice followed her movements as if they were partners dancing at a masque. The ice parted, and Rose reached the building light of the waystone.

Liv could have sent her to Al’Fenthia, and trusted in Aira and her family. They would have done the best they could, of course, but Liv couldn’t be certain that would be enough. She could have chosen Mountain Home, or Coral Bay, or Bald Peak, or any of a dozen other places where she knew they had friends and allies.

Instead, she used a trick that had been built into the waystone network by a very cautious, scheming god. If Liv had known which one, she would have thanked them in a prayer, even if they were a thousand years dead.

Rose disappeared from the Tomb of Celris, and appeared high above the world, on the very table which had been used to examine Liv’s body, inside the great ring of the gods.

“A combination of Cost, Ract, and Cail,” Elder Aira had said. “There are healing enchantments layered into the construction of that table that could bring a person back from the very edge of death.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Liv could glimpse it, her awareness connecting to the ring itself, where a glass pane lit with the image of a woman’s body, outlined in bright colors, and went to work. The ancient enchantments did not know who their patient was, or why she had been sent, but they did what they had been created to do so long ago: they began to save her life.

“How many of the Vædim even knew about that?” Liv asked, turning back to the storm of Celris. “All of you? Or was it a secret? I would have thought more of you would have survived the war, with a trick like that.”

“Tamiris seized control of the ring early,” Celris answered. “He barred us from it.”

“And then he used it to kill the last of you, at the end.” Liv nodded. “I’m sure if he’d realized there was a piece of you lingering here, he would have come to finish the job.”

“Finish the job,” the ghost of the god scoffed. “So dismissive. As if my end could ever be so easily accomplished.” The network of sigils inhaled, and it breathed in the light from the ring and the moon above, and even the colored lights that danced across the sky, plunging Liv into darkness lit only by the sigils themselves. The enchantments exhaled, and a portion of their stolen power poured into Celris, who shaped it into a spell.

It was an archmage spell, Liv saw immediately. The magic wove together not only Cel, but also Savel and Æs, Nec and Vær, and other words besides, into an intricate intent that expressed, finally, the very truth of Celris. It was a truth that he had hinted at in Liv’s nightmare, but only now was it made fully clear to her.

Heat was motion; cold was stillness. When warmth and light were exhausted, what remained? Eternal emptiness, darkness, and cold. The absence of all life. The emptiness at the end of all things.

That was Celris, and it explained so much. He made nothing of his own, only fed upon that which was brought to him. Whoever had once lived in his ancient city, all of their labours had existed only, in the end, to be consumed by him. Whatever women he had once lusted after, he had gorged himself upon as well: not loving them, but taking all they were until the only things left were the horrid, beautiful statues frozen in his endless halls. His vision of Cel was utterly and inextricably destructive.

That ending came now for Liv: not a spell rushing toward her, but a pulling away from her. The heat of her body, the light of her eyes, the very motion of her lungs and heart, all bent toward Celris. They would be stolen, and leave only a frozen, withered husk.

But for Liv, Cel had never been a thing of death. From the very first time she had grasped the word, she had used it to create, and to save. A hand to lift Emma Forester from the cold waters of the River Aspen; a chute of ice through the winter garden at Whitehill, for two girls to skid down, shrieking and giggling with laughter. A sculpted flower in the palace garden at Freeport, and soldiers to face her brother Matthew in the courtyard.

Liv’s Authority erupted from her in the form of intricate, geometrically perfect and unique snowflakes dancing on a sudden breeze. Frost cracked out along the floor, drawing arcs and branches along the stone. She cast her mind to a wide, blue mountain sky, and the morning sun glinting off mountainsides of pristine white. Against emptiness and endings, she threw beauty.

The archmage spell pressed in at her, but in the end, she was not really fighting Celris - only a fading dream, preserved long past its time by the power of the rift and the ring and the sigil network. If Liv had been facing the old god, she would have lost: of that she was certain. Even against this shadow, it was a near thing.

But slowly, she pushed his Authority back with her own, shrinking the area affected by his spell until it collapsed in upon the figure in the swirling storm. The ghost of Celris screamed and raged, but Liv did not listen to it.

Instead, she took control of every part of the Tomb.

The Antrian war machines - all save one, which had a mind of its own - turned and walked back to their cradles, where they would sleep again. The dense vault of ice that Wren had broken grew back into its accustomed shape, guided by Liv’s intent. The throne rebuilt itself from adamant ice. The sigils surrounding Arjun, Keri and Wren changed their pattern, pulsing not all at once, but in sequence - forming a blue light that seemed to travel down the corridors, and would lead them in time to Liv.

She wrested the last of the font from the sigil network and took that power into herself, cutting the shadow of Celris off completely. As the storm shrunk, Liv understood what she had to do. The dreamer would not be permitted to awaken again; there would be no further nightmares spawned by her ancestor.

As she had done beneath the Well of Bones, Liv reached out to Celris. Having long discarded his body, the old god consisted now only of mana. And mana Liv could consume. She closed her eyes, and breathed in slowly.

The intricate arrangement of mana that supported what remained of Celris’ mind jerked toward her, then paused. It struggled to retreat while Liv exhaled, but when she drew in her next breath it was pulled toward her again.

Unlike the mindless torrent which had remained at the bottom of the Well of Bones, Celris fought Liv with every breath she took. The struggle was not to survive the flood of power, but to draw it in, one inhalation at a time.

When the first spark of Celris entered Liv’s mouth, and shot down into her body, she began to circulate it, just like her father had taught her. Mana of such surpassing purity and density would, she was now certain, have killed any human who attempted what she was doing. It probably would have killed the Liv of a decade before.

But she had drunk from the eruption of Bald Peak until it had nearly killed her, and survived the font of Costia’s remnant, and Liv had been changed by both experiences. She felt the power of Celris ripping away at her body as it passed, but once it became her mana, and under her control, she could use it to heal, as well - to rebuild her body, piece by piece.

As she worked, Liv healed every scrape and bruise, every injury she’d suffered during her journey through the Tomb of Celris. She reinforced her bones with the purest mana she’d ever felt, and built them as strong as the casque of the strongest mana beast she’d ever seen. She felt herself expanding - not physically, no, but the well of mana that she could contain.

How many rings could Liv hold now? She wouldn’t know for certain until she measured, but it felt like a great deal more than twenty-seven. Thirty? Thirty-two? It was a nearly painful stretching sensation, but finally it stopped, as if she’d reached some sort of limit of what changes could be made using the power available to her. She could feel herself practically thrumming with it, vibrating like the plucked string of a lute.

Finally, there was no more. Liv inhaled, and she inhaled only the cold air of the tomb, only the mana of a rift that was now fading from greater, to lesser. Whatever had remained of Celris was gone. Nothing remained to contest her control of the Tomb.

Liv opened her eyes, and saw that Keri, Arjun, Wren and the massive Antrian had set up camp in front of her. Keri must have searched out his spear while they were waiting, for it was back where it belonged now - in his hand. Though she did not remember sitting, her legs were crossed and her hands rested on her thighs.

“Are you alright?” Keri asked her.

“Where’s Rose?” Arjun followed, and then Wren piled on as well.

“You ate him up, didn’t you? Just like at the Well of Bones?” the huntress asked with a grin.

“Who?” the war-machine asked, its voice a rumble of machinery and a hissing of steam.

“Celris,” Liv answered. “Or what was left of Celris, at any rate. A kind of ghost or memory - there wasn’t enough power here to sustain it, and it had lost most of his power. I don’t think it could even stay awake for very long, and only the mana of the rift kept it around at all,” she explained. “But yes. I have complete control of the ruins, and Celris is finally, completely gone. There is nothing of him left.”

She turned to look at the war-machine. “Is that going to be a problem?” Frost cracked along the steel plates of the Antrian’s armor, and Liv felt that whatever poor wretch had been stuffed inside it had no Authority of their own.

“No,” the machine said, after a moment. “Wren Wind Dancer says that you are a friend to my people. I know nothing of the world as it is now, and so I will be guided by her. You have my service - the service of Ghveris, who was once General of the Vædim.”

“Ghveris, the Beast of Iuronnath,” Wren added, as the juggernaut knelt before Liv.

Liv stood, a silver crown upon her brow, the ancient warrior at her feet. It was jarring - she was no king or queen, nor even a duchess, like Julian. For a brief moment of panic, she was afraid that her friends might follow Ghveris to their knees.

“Come along with me,” Liv said, to push that thought away. She stepped up onto the dais where the rebuilt throne awaited her, and with a thought activated the buried waystone. “I need to see Rose.”