“This isn’t exactly what the duchess thinks you’re doing,” Rose shouted over the whipping wind.

The summit of Bald Peak was a bare expanse of rock where not even moss grew, and there were certainly no trees to provide them shelter from the weather. If it hadn’t been for Liv using waste heat to keep the three women warm, and the enchanted armor that Liv and Rose wore, she doubted they’d be able to remain for long. Thankfully, she’d used Cel liberally in moving snow and ice aside to expose the bare granite upon which they now stood.

“We agreed that I would take control of the rift and the waystone, and that you would build fortifications,” Liv pointed out. “That’s exactly what we’re doing.”

“I’m pretty sure that she imagined walls around the waystone,” Rose insisted. “Not all the way up here.”

“This will accomplish the military purpose,” Sidonie said. “No force that comes through the waystone will be able to leave a castle at their back. They’d have to siege Bald Peak before moving out into the valley.”

Rose fixed Sidonie with a flat look. “You’re not a commander.”

“No, but I’ve read far more about strategy and tactics than you have,” Sidonie shot back. “Now. You’ve got plenty of mana there. Are you going to get started on the curtain wall, or are you just afraid that you can’t handle it?”

“Rust it,” Rose grumbled. “Just remember, if she gets angry about this, I’m blaming it all on the two of you.” She stalked over to where Liv and Sidonie had chalked out the width of a curved out wall, and raised her hands and tore off her right glove, exposing the bracelet and rings that Liv had won from Princess Milisant years before.

“She really is nervous,” Sidonie murmured, standing close to Liv’s side.

“What she did in the painted desert wasn’t nearly as precise as what we’re asking for here,” Liv reminded her friend. “And as much experience as she has with Cem and Aluth, we really are rushing her with the new word. It’s understandable to have a few reservations.”

The wind tore Rosamund’s incantations away, but Liv knew the moment her lover’s magic began working on the mountain. The rock beneath their boots shook, and Liv staggered against Sidonie, the two women clinging to each other for balance.

Rose, on the other hand, stood with her boots planted wide, giving the impression of someone who was immovable, somehow anchored to the rock itself. At first, there was nothing to see, only the continuous tremors to feel. Then, the granite began to move.

Stone broke apart into chunks, then fist sized rocks, pebbles, and finally something that looked a lot like the sand which accumulated along the banks of the Aspen River, where the waters were shallow and sun-lit. Rose waved her arms in the air as if she were pushing and pulling something that could not be seen, and the sand rose in a swirling cloud, leaving behind a section of peak the size of a barn that was perfectly flat and even. It looked as if the entire mountain had been a cake, and someone had just cut a piece out with a knife.

The column of swirling sand moved along the edge of the new rock shelf, diminishing as it passed, and leaving behind a curved wall of granite with no seams, cracks or gaps. When the last of the cloud was gone, the length of wall was only ten feet high, but it looked as if it had grown up from the mountain.

Liv clambered down onto the shelf, walked over to the wall, and placed her hand on it. It was only the very beginning of a fortification, but it was twice as thick as it was tall. Even if someone could haul a trebuchet all the way up the mountain, it would take weeks of bombardment to bring down a wall like this one.

“This looks incredible,” she said, turning to where Rose leaned forward, hands braced just above her own knees. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I just ran up the mountain and back,” the other woman admitted, in between gasps for air. “But I think I can do one more; I mostly used what was inside this.” Rose raised her right hand and waved it around, so that the gold rings and chains caught the morning sunlight.

Liv nodded. “Do that, then, and we’ll get you down to recover.”

Rose straightened to begin working, and Liv walked back over to where Sidonie was sitting on the shelf, with her back up against the angled wall of granite which marked the end of the space Rosamund had shaped.

“Keeps me out of the worst of the wind, at least,” Sidonie called, and Liv sat down beside her.

“How long?” Liv asked.

“The wedge she did right there is about one sixty-fourth of the summit’s circumference, assuming we remain at a consistent, level height,” Sidonie said. “If she can do two of those a day, that means the curtain wall will take her just over a month.”

Liv frowned. “We need to be finished before spring,” she pointed out.

“Curtain walls like this normally take years, Liv,” Sidonie pointed out. “No one in Lucania has used magic to build on this scale in centuries. This is the kind of work the Eld do.”

“The Hall of Bricklayers and Masons uses enchantments to work stone and excavate earth,” Liv pointed out, but Sidonie was already shaking her head.

“They license enchantments to help their workers,” Liv’s friend said. “But none of those tools have the mana capacity to do what Rose is doing. I know it's easy to forget when we compare her to you, Liv, but she’s actually incredibly talented. Fifteen rings at her age, which is already more than someone like Master Grenfell ever had. And you’re loaning her one of the most expensive mana-storage pieces in the kingdom.”

Liv nodded, but she kept her eyes on Rosamund, who was already extending the curved ledge on which they were sitting, breaking granite down into the smallest particles before moving it. The plan they’d sketched out involved leaving the central core of the summit untouched for the moment, but it would eventually be carved into a keep. In the meanwhile, they would need stairs to get up onto the walls, a gate, and barracks for soldiers to live in. Scorpions and trebuchets would need to be moved in pieces, and re-assembled on top of the new curtain walls.

The most convenient thing to do, of course, would have been to create a small waystone at the top of the mountain, like so many of the Vædim had maintained in their personal living spaces - but even with complete control of the rift, Liv didn’t have the slightest idea how to build a waystone.

When Rose had finished, Liv and Sidonie stood up and crossed the granite shelf to join her. This time, their friend hadn’t even bothered to attempt to remain standing: Rosamund had simply sat down on the bare rock, at the place she’d been standing when she finished her work, and slumped forward to rest her forehead against her forearms, which were crossed over her knees.

Liv placed a hand on Rose’s back, and Sidonie took hold of her on the other side. “Nesēmus,” Liv said, and all three women were consumed by brilliant light. The movement through the dark between places was short - perhaps because they had so little way to travel, before appearing on the waystone at the foot of the mountain. The door to the guard shack opened, and Piers rushed out with his men to help the three women inside, where a pot of steaming tea waited for them.

“I can’t believe you really did that, Lady Rosamund,” Albert gushed, bringing her a cup. His pox scars hadn’t faded, Liv saw, but he seemed to be attempting a mustache on his upper lip which so far amounted to little more than fuzz.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“You could see it from all the way down here?” Sidonie asked, while Rose guzzled down her tea as if she hadn’t drank anything in days.

Piers nodded. “Like a dark cloud up on the peak, and when it had passed, the shape of things had changed,” the older guard explained.

“Sidonie thinks about a month to finish the curtain wall,” Liv said. “But there’s no reason we can’t start working on structures along the shelf Rose cleared, in the meanwhile.”

“There’s a lot to do,” Sidonie said, flipping open her notebook to the two facing pages where she’d sketched out a rough blueprint in ink. “To say nothing of getting a gate mounted and carving a road down the mountain to the waystone.”

Liv shook her head. “No. If we make a road down the mountain, we’re only making it easier for someone to attack.”

“You can’t still be thinking of a second waystone, can you?” Rose asked, passing her empty cup back to Martin to be filled again.

“No. We already have a road up to the cut, and we can build a gatehouse there,” Liv said. “We’re going to open a staircase up inside the mountain, with gates along the way - like at Akela Kila.” As soon as the comparison was out of her mouth, she realized that neither Rosamund nor Sidonie had ever seen the massive fortress in the east, and for a moment her thoughts drifted to Wren.

“What can we do, m’lady?” Piers asked.

“You can keep watch on the waystone,” Liv told him. “I have an idea about how to get a bit more help as we go.”

☙

The first shipments of food and supplies had come from Al’Fenthia, by waystone, during the days that Liv and her friends had been fighting their way through the Tomb of Celris, and flying over the painted desert. Organizing troop movements had taken her father a bit longer.

There were wounded to treat, of course, after the grueling fighting to hold the pass at the Garden of Thorns during the recent eruption, and there had also been enough Elden warriors lost that a certain amount of reorganization was required. Garrisons needed to be left at not only Al’Fenthia, the supply hub of what Liv was beginning to mentally label the northern alliance, but also at the bridge waystone and at Feic Seria.

But in the days and weeks which followed Rose’s first work at the heights of Bald Peak, the disc of white stone down by the river began to shine with light regularly. Additional supplies came through, not packed onto wagons but instead on sledges, pulled by thick-coated northern horses that Liv suspected had come from Kelthelis and Mountain Home.

Two hundred Eld of House Däivi, half armored in enchanted plate, the other half carrying long bows and quivers, arrived on the fourth day, their blue hair ranging in shade from so dark as to be nearly black, to the vivid, bright hue of a mountain lake in summer, beneath a cloudless sky. They marched south, first to Whitehill, and from there they would report to the pass, where Liv’s great-uncle should already be waiting for them. Word came back that Arjun had arrived from Varuna, and was working to help Matthew and Julianne prepare a hospital for the wounded they all expected come spring.

From House Keria, a hundred more archers came, but at Liv’s request they did not leave immediately. Instead, they set to work, remaining for an entire week to fell pine, which was loaded onto immense planes of mana that Liv flew up to the peak. There, the half dozen Kerian soldiers with Deru for a second word - the word of wood was a quite popular choice to combine with Cer, the word of growth, for obvious reasons - shaped her a stout barracks.

It was a long, low building of granite foundations, thanks to Rose, and floors and walls of wood. The Keria Eld were even kind enough to build bed frames before they left, stacked one on top of another to form two layers of bunks.

When a force arrived from Kelthelis on the eleventh day, Liv was pleased to find that it was led by Kaija, the gruff armorer who’d first taken her measurements years before when she visited her grandparents.

A score each of tundra riders, swaddled in parkas of caribou hide with tassels dangling down, atop their shaggy horses, and hunters with spears and snow shoes and short skis strapped to their backs, hurried off the waystone while Kaija first wrapped Liv in an embrace, and then examined her armor with a critical eye.

“I see it’s kept you alive,” the older woman said. “And you’ve traded out a few pieces.”

“I had to,” Liv admitted, feeling as if she owed the armorer an apology for breaking up the set. “After so many fights, parts of it were getting worn out.”

“Don’t feel badly,” Kaija told her. “That’s what armor is for - and better it get wrecked, than you do. When this is all over I’ll see what I can help you do about fixing everything up into something like a matching set.”

“Thank you.” Liv grinned. “You’re headed south? Can I convince you to stay and help us garrison the waystone?”

“You don’t have to convince us of anything,” Kaija said, with a laugh. “Your grandmother is the head of the council at Kelthelis, and your father is warleader of the north. Tell us what you want, Livara. Give my people an order, and they’ll see it done.”

“You’re with me, then,” Liv commanded, with a grin.

☙

The curtain wall was not quite a complete circle when next the waystone lit.

Liv had moved up to the barracks with Kaija and the warriors from Kelthelis, though the scouts roved up and down Bald Peak and across the flanks of the nearby mountains, split into regular patrols that she hoped would ensure they saw no trouble from southern raiders. She'd fallen into a routine of practicing her Authority with the northern Eld, when she rose each morning, since it was evident Acting Guild Mistress Every wouldn't be making it to Bald Peak after all.

At first, she thought that the arrival would be a shipment from Al’Fenthia. Liv had sent a request through to Airis ka Reimis and Elder Aira, and they’d agreed to supply the new fortifications at Bald Peak with siege engines. The prospect of assembling the machines, once they arrived, and getting trained engineers from Matthew to actually man them, was something that Liv was only beginning to grapple with. Her adopted brother and Baron Henry were focused first on holding the pass, and then securing Castle Whitehill as a fallback point. The waystone was something of an afterthought, which was why they’d been happy to put it into her hands.

Rather than sledges from Al’Fenthia, however, when Liv flew down to the waystone on a conjured gyrfalcon, with Sidonie’s arms wrapped around her middle, she found dozens of human soldiers hurrying off the disc of white mana stone, while the sigils lit again for a second arrival, with hardly any pause. What was more worrying was that many of the new arrivals were clearly wounded, wrapped in linen bandages that were stained with blood.

Liv slid down off the gyrfalcon as soon as it had landed, and hardly waited for Sidonie to get her boots on the ground before allowing the mana-construct to dissolve into glowing embers of blue and gold that floated away on the winter wind. She strode forward into the chaos and grabbed the first man she could find by the shoulder, pulling him around to face her.

The man had the look of a knight - he wore the armor, at least, gleaming plates of steel that had been fitted not for fighting on foot, but from horseback. When he spun to regard Liv, she saw that, with the visor of his helm back, one eye was covered by a diagonally placed bandage, which had soaked through with blood.

“Whatever it is, I’ve got no time for it, girl,” the older man growled. “These men are dying, and there’s more coming. Who’s in command here?”

“I am,” Liv said, narrowing her eyes. “Livara tär Valtteri kæn Syvä, adopted daughter of Duchess Julianne and Baron Henry, Culling Mage of the Guild. And who are you, Sir Knight?”

The man’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. After a brief hesitation, he fell to one knee. “Please accept my apologies, my lady,” he said. “Sir Hardwin of Ashford.” Behind him, another flare of light shot up from the waystone, and another group of wounded began to pile off. Many of them wore no armor at all, Liv saw, with not a few women and children who could not possibly be combatants.

“Ashford?” Liv frowned. “You’re Baron Isaac Grenfell’s people?”

Sir Hardwin grimaced. “Baron Isaac is dead, m’lady,” he said. “Murdered by Genevieve Arundell in front of the whole rusted court after the princess’s wedding. We hardly got word before Benedict’s army hit us.”

At Liv’s side, Sidonie gasped. Her own first thought was for Master Grenfell, who didn’t even know yet that his nephew was dead. But before Liv could see to her old teacher, she had to help the people in front of her.

“How many?” she asked. “How many are being evacuated?”

“Everyone we can get through,” Hardwin told her. “We’ve got hundreds of men holding the walls of the castle while the wounded and the servants are evacuated, but there’s a limit to how many times Lady Bryn can use the waystone. It was charged for the first load, but -”

“You know the sigil for Ashford?”

Hardwin nodded, and Liv followed him over to the edge of the waystone closest to the river.

“See to your people,” Liv told him. “I’ll get the rest out.” She knelt down and slammed her left hand against the sigil the older man had indicated, and the waystone began to glow.

Sidonie stepped up beside her, while Hardwin backed off. A moment later, Kaija pushed her way through the crowd, with a mix of warriors from Kelthelis and Piers’s guards accompanying her.

“We’re going into a fight,” Liv warned them, drawing her wand in her right hand.

Though she looked a bit pale, Sidonie merely nodded silently.

“That’s why we’re coming,” Kaija said, as the light built from below their boots. “Can’t very well tell your father I let you go off alone, can I?”

The waystone burst into brightness, sending them through the darkness to Ashford.