The wave of ice rippled out through the land, a surging tide of frost and rime that covered all it touched with a frigid cold. Their path was swiftly followed by a trail of black sparks, crackling across the riverbank with a shadowy cold, a bone-chilling cold that lingered on all that it touched. Her wail was a keening, shattering noise, one that seemed less sound and more magic as it distorted and cracked the very air that it traveled through.

The frost that had settled on his body was like a poison, a viper that had buried its numbing fangs into his flesh. All strength had left his body, sapped and stolen away by that never-ending winter that surrounded him. Black sparks crackled across his skin as well, dancing along the limbs and the edges of his vision. His body was hard as stone, his nerves numb and unfeeling, dead as a corpse. Even when he thought to move his arms, the thought did not reach his arms. The message had died on its way, the muscles as unresponsive as sheer granite.

Smoke plumed from his flesh, a slow hissing that snuck out of the warmth of his heartbeat. Under that bubbling pressure, his very skin began to split and crack, the grey lips peeling apart to reveal white-red tissue underneath. The bubbling blood was swift to freeze as well, a snowy ice settling over those tender wounds. Black sparks danced out of the blood, frantic and capricious.

His mind was numb, his thoughts beleaguered and lost. He felt like a sole man lost in a storm, like a sole rock resisting the tide. Even as he struggled to assemble his will and once more try to move, he could feel his very heartbeat begin to slow, bewitched by those black frost magic and that banshee’s wail. Like sailors enchanted to stone in the myths, like a statue carved for palace halls, he could only stand unmoving. He could barely fight to keep his eyes open, only by grace were his eyelids frozen apart when that wail had struck him.

And so he was forced to watch, was forced to stare without response at the scene before him. That shadow-thing was burning still, death slow in claiming it. Its blackened tendrils and smoking limbs were swallowed by fire, the vast majority of its body long since rendered ash and soot. Even the banshee’s scream could not fully stifle that roaring inferno, beating down the flames momentarily only for the fire to surge up once more, undeterred by the cold. Black sparks fought occasionally, surfacing through the sea of crimson and orange, yet they could not snuff out the blaze that consumed the shadow.

Indeed, as the fire slowly died, it was not from the overbearing cold but rather from the death of its prey. The shadowfiend was but the size of a man now, brought down from mountain into ash and corpse. Its twitching, darting limbs were barely able to move any longer, curling desperately in tired motions, hopeless death throes of a pitiable creature. Yet the simple-minded flame held no mercy as those limbs began to crumble, as the shapeless black took on form as dust and scattered into the wind. More and more pieces of the shadow slough off, crackling grey and black that flicker in the midst of the inferno, breaking and scattering until the shards of consumed one by one. Gradually, finally, there was nothing more than soot and broken remains, unmoving and devoid of whatever perverse life originally clung to that cursed flesh. There was nothing but embers, glowing coals that simmered and smoked gently in the bed of former shadows, quietly reminding all of the evil it had slain. Children of that hellfire, they promised to once more rise up in a conflagration without warning, a formidable strength hidden in those red-hot pebbles.

His gaze, no longer hindered by the burning shadows, could now properly see the other demons around him. Their forms, too, were covered by a glistening sheen of ice and steam, unmoving as stone as they gazed fixedly forward. Yet he had not been the ones to bear the brunt of that chilling wail, had not been the ones closest to the ghost. That unfortunate title was claimed by the demons closer to the river, closest to that shimmering serpent of ice and glass.

He watched as black sparks swallowed those hapless demons, increasing in number over their bodies until it seemed almost a second skin, a sudden plague that surrounded them. That crackling storm consumed their flesh, and he watched as skin and muscle began to crumble. Gradually at first, limbs began to shudder and break, falling away in great chunks like rock chipped from a cliff face. Hands, forearms, entire lengths of bone and body fell to the ground where they shattered into a thousand pieces, seemingly as fragile as fired clay.

Their limbs broke off, revealing pink wounds that did not bleed, frozen as they were by that wintry magic. Then their legs gave out, fissures sprouting along the knees and thigh as the muscle their failed as well. Their bodies began to fall, toppling at impossible angles when their weight was no longer supported. Like grotesque sculptures, like some mockery of a work of art, they toppled to the ground, still frozen in their poses of surprise and shock. Those expressions would be their last as they struck the frozen ground, their bodies instantly shattering and scattering across the hoarfrost. Among those wind-stirred piles of former-flesh-now-dust, black sparks still danced maddeningly, running from nameless corpse to nameless corpse as if in childish excitement.

One by one, more and more of the frozen demons began to shatter, their bodies helplessly fragile under the assault of that magic. Willem could only watch, his thoughts bleary yet terrified as he awaited a similar fate. Already, he could see more and more splitting flesh, more and more black lightning that skirted to and fro like some manic pixie. While his senseless nerves did not fire, his heart quivered with the expectation of pain, with the anticipation of that agony.

He fought to conjure up some semblance of resistance, fought to stir up some will within him. Kha would not break free, he knew. The king could not save him—they were both worn out from the strain of their magic. Neither did any of these simple demons have a hope of shaking off this spell. It was only him, he realized with a quiver of terror. Only he could throw off these shackles, with the magic that coursed through his blood. He had to, lest they would all scatter into the wind with hardly a trace on this earth.

Magic, came the single thought, desperate and simple in its urgency. It was a handhold on this cliff, a rock in this surging river, and he fought to cling to it. He needed to stir the magic in him, as he had before when he had burnt the skal’va. Burnt the skal’va. With fire. Fire.

Black sparks crackled across his eyes, blinding him with a numbness that he knew ought to be mind-ruining agony. His vision went utterly white, the scream that he wished to give unable to escape stiffened lungs. Instead, he tried to once more feel that pulling in the pit of his stomach, tried to once more feel the ribbons crawling up through his limbs and out of his fingertips. Desperately, hopelessly, he tried to remember that feeling, that trancelike feeling. Please, he shuddered, the sensation growing more and more fleeting with every ever-slowing heartbeat.

Without a breath, his mind began to blacken, his thoughts slipping through weakening fingers. No! His pleas fell on unhearing ears, that creeping numbness now spreading to his heart. His vision flickered dimly, the black sparks passing as he slowly died. His tired gaze hazily focused on that ghost standing atop the frigid river, so familiar and yet worlds impossibly apart.

Kat was trembling madly, what seemed to be black blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. Her outline was fuzzy, the white ribbons of her image frayed and tattered like weathered rags. No longer did she stand straight; no longer did fury and strength flicker in her eyes. Instead she bent and slouched in staggered weariness, her eyes lifeless and devoid of emotion. Her pale, colorless lips were pulled up into a mockery of a smile, held in place by those wormlike stitches that seemed to wriggle in her flesh. The blood that fell from her chin struck the ground with a soundless hiss, leaving behind no trace.

Is her face to be the last thing I see before I die? The thought did not nearly strike him with as much fear as if ought to have, for he could not erase the fondness that he held in his heart for her. Truly then, I am a fool, he knew. Truly, then, I have been useless, he knew. The thought filled him with resigned peace, a motionless smile creeping across his frozen lips, if they could move. His gaze began to fade to black, much as Kat began to flicker and fade as ghosts did.

Sudden sparks.

Showering sparks and flames. They rained blurrily from the sky, indistinct as they struck the river. Yet they must have struck Kat as well, for they clung to her like a lover, desperately. They were swift as well, in their hunger, for she soon wore them like a cloak on her back—a coat of flames that swallowed her whole.

His vision flickered still, yet as the flames grew in strength, so too did a sudden heat in his own chest. My heart, some dim part of his mind understood, even while the rest of him could only thoughtlessly watch as Kat burned. And as his heartbeat strength, so too did his gaze, sharpening and coming into focus with a sudden clarity.

He could see the arrows buried in the ice, could see the tongues of fire that clung to the wooden shafts, and he understood that they had struck her in their flight. He could see the ribbons of white unraveling altogether, turning to ash underneath that hungry flame. Her mouth was agape, horrifyingly stretched open in a mixture of agony and relief. The black stitches were shattered and torn, flickering in and out of existence with an impossible transience, even as the rest of her began to disappear. The black sparks that clung to her, that darkness that had protected her, it was all gone now. Her legs were gone, her arms were gone. Her chest was burnt away to nothing, her hair a glowing halo that too was swiftly consumed. And finally, all of her was burnt away, the very last to go that desperate, agonized smile that seemed to cling to reality half a heartbeat longer than the rest of her memory. That smile had been confused and lost, helpless and afraid, just like a child’s.

And then, like a painting burnt by flame, her image was no more. Her ghost was gone, without even a trace on the earth. Her memory was but ash in the wind, strewn about by an uncaring nature. For all the creeping eternity of the past heartbeats, her death had been a flickering instant, terrifyingly short. Almost in a single heartbeat, the flame had swallowed her. In two heartbeats, she had died. There had been no time to celebrate; there had been no time to grieve. Three heartbeats, and the last remnants of her were gone.

With her death, so too did that frozen chill on his body begin to thaw. Needles pierced his muscles, flaming tongues stabbing into flesh, a comforting heat flowing out of his chest. The ice that covered his skin began to melt, their numbing tension dissipating as life once more began to flow through him. Black sparks were snuffed out, disappearing with the same easy grace as their appearance. As the final vestiges of stone leave his stiffened body, a sudden weakness claimed him and he fell to the ground.

His knees struck the earth with a thud, the sound echoed by the others of his kind that still lived. His vision blurred for a brief moment, lightheadedness making his limbs and body float underneath him before he once more tightened his grip on reality. Wearily, he lifted his head and dragged in a cold breath.

The arrows, some part of him reminded. They had come from upriver, from the north. Slowly, he turned his tired neck towards a small bluff, a gentle hill that sloped out of the earth. Atop the earth, he could see small figures in the distance, wearing legion armor and bearing massive bows nearly matching their height.

And as his vision sharpened, he could clearly make out a familiar face amongst the men, a legionary with an old scar running along the base of his neck.