Riven wasn’t sure he wanted to follow through with Mhell after all. Carrying a small girl through half the village turned out to be a harder task than he had thought at first, made all the worse by the fact that no one was there to receive her when he returned.

But maybe that was a good thing. He tried the door and it came away unlocked. Shouldering past it, Riven deposited the girl on the nearest chair and made his way back out. It didn’t seem right leaving her all alone like this. He looked around. Where were they all? Riven had spent at least the better part of an hour since they’d separated from this exact spot. They seriously couldn’t intend to keep him waiting for even longer. Then again, maybe this was a good thing. He had to meet Mhell.

Riven brought out his gun, aimed it straight at the sky, then fired. The shot blasted into the air, glowing like a comet. That should do it. In this tiny little village of Rattles, a gunshot carried the weight of an avalanche. One of them had to be coming now.

Mind at peace, Riven set off.

#

The greenhouses were deserted when Riven found them. Light still swung from the Sept lamps hanging from the poles near the greenhouse doors, but the two guards were well and truly asleep. Any Deathless would have no trouble ruining their meagre crops, and any thief only had to muster their daring to pick it completely clean.

That they were asleep sharpened the sudden sense of loneliness. Riven looked on either side. No Viriya with an expression that granite would be jealous of. No Rio lighting up the atmosphere with his cavalier bearing. He was alone. It might have been nice to have them alongside, but he wasn’t up for explaining everything he’d heard. Nor was he aiming to explain to Rio just what he had done.

Quietening his breathing, Riven brought out his gun and kept it at the ready. Any sight of trouble, and he’d be prepared to at least not go down without a fight. Wasn’t like he could depend on his fickle Essence.

“You won’t need that with me,” Mhell said from behind him.

Riven jumped. Once his pounding heart had settled down, he turned to see her near the back of the greenhouse, mostly swaddled in darkness. The only difference being that her eyes glowed with their own light, two brilliant diamonds set in sea of jet. “Don’t creep up on me like that.”

“You should be used to it now, my dear.”

Riven opened his mouth to retort, but then snapped it shut for a moment. “How about we get going already? I think I’ve wasted enough of the night.”

“All business are we?”

Riven led the way past the greenhouses. “To the Frontier, right?”

Mhell’s smile was somehow as bright as her eyes. “Yes, to the Frontier. But not that way. Come, I’ll show you.”

She led him in a tangent to the road, away from the light and any path he might have recognized. With every step, Riven kept cursing himself. It wasn’t just the thorngrass he had to keep clear off, or the rare Coral tree he nearly collided with, or even the cracks in the ground that swallowed his boots and refused to let go. Nor was it that Mhell simply phased through everything like she was hollow, an apparition who only existed here visually. A trick of Riven’s eyes.

No, Riven was cursing himself as much as anything else. The stupidest idea ever had to be following this witch into darkness. If she chose to betray him, he’d be at her complete mercy.

“Are you frightened?”

Riven cursed again, holding himself back from jumping at her sudden voice, but only barely so. “Of course. It’s dark, I have no idea where I am or where I’m going, and finally, I’m with you.”

Mhell’s tinkling laugh sent little pricks of ice digging into his spine. “Fear not. No harm will come to you while I’m around.”

“What, you think you can beat back an entire mob of Fiends coming at you?”

“I do not lack confidence in that regard, no.”

Riven laughed. It sounded strange here in the pitch darkness, as though everything hidden was staring at him and sucking in his laughter.

They walked for longer, and Riven felt like asking when they’d reach their destination, or what in the Chasm that might be. He was getting tired of pulling his trousers free from the higher thorngrass and stumbling whenever he tripped on a crack. But the idea of asking reminded him too much of Rio. No one deserved that kind of nagging, least of all a witch who basically held his life in her hands.

“I still don’t understand why they’re acting like this, and I hate it,” Riven said, more to break the monotony of silence than any meaningful conversation.

Mhell glanced back. Her eyes still glowed, Riven blinked to clear the impression they left on his eyelids like he’d been staring at a bright light for too long. Which he had now that he thought about it. “Do you hate you don’t understand, or do you hate the way they are acting?”

“Both.”

“Well, one has an easy remedy. Understanding takes longer than simply learning. You can know much, but only time will ever let it sink in properly and leave the right impact. The latter is something we are both working towards, no?”

Riven grunted. What was there to say to that?

“Do you have the Sept crystal with you?” Mhell asked.

Riven’s hand went straight to his jacket, where he had been keeping the Sept crystal ever since they’d first left the tavern earlier today. He hadn’t taken it out since. The only reason Riven kept it around was because it could very well be a source of Essence, because it definitely wasn’t dead. But that begged the question, could it have had the opposite effect and prevented him from using his Essence?

“I do,” Riven said. “I haven’t forgotten our deal. If you still want a piece of it, I can help find a way to get it.”

Mhell had paused. “Bring it out.”

Riven took a deep breath and pulled out the Sept crystal. He frowned. The crystal glowed, darkness swirling alongside the spots of gold floating within like fireflies caught in a void. It almost tried to slip from his grasp, but he kept a tight hold on it. Could it have been the demons? But why, when it hadn’t reacted to the Deadmages and Phantoms?

Mhell’s eyes glittered just like the spots of gold. “When did it become like that?”

“I don’t know. I had it when facing the demons. But it’s never been like that before.”

“Strange. Very strange.”

“What is it? Why do you want it so much?”

Mhell laughed again. “I have no need right now. At least, not yet. Keep it with you, but keep it safe. It is likely very important.”

Her skirts swished as she glided away. Riven stuffed the crystal in his jacket and hurried to catch up, while still keeping his eyes on the ground to make sure he didn’t trip or get caught in the thorngrass. There was no telling how far they were from the Frontier, but at least they had paused for a bit for Riven to catch his breath. Damn, but he needed to raise his stamina. No Essentier surely became tired with such ease.

“I’ve been wondering for a while now,” Riven said, words catching in his throat. If there was a good thing about the darkness, it was that it hid his face and the flush creeping onto it. “Can a Deathless have a child with a mortal? As in, can they consummate?”

“My, my.” Mhell sounded quite scandalized. “Where the mind wanders.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Yes, they can.”

She didn’t say anything more, and Riven tried to work up the courage to ask more, specifically about the process involved. But it was highly improper, and his courage failed him.

He didn’t have to remain embarrassed for long. They came to the Frontier’s fence before long, where Mhell paused and stared up at the spikes, her hair pointing backwards. Riven looked around. It was barren here, devoid of any outstanding marker of any kind but also bereft of any people. The Guards were undermanned. Something to bring up on his report. If he got to write reports, that is.

“What are we doing here?” Rivne asked.

“Hmm.” Mhell considered. She looked up, down, left, right, then straight ahead. “We are going in.”

“How?”

She answered by raising a hand and placing her palm against the fence. Waves of grey light rolled off her fingers and wrapped themselves around the fence top to bottom. They started to corrode. The iron bars turned thin and brittle, red rust spreading like a bloodstain on cloth, flakes falling off like dead Sept. In moments, the stretch of strong and sturdy fence they stood in front of had been reduced to a row of mere metal twigs.

Mhell waved her hand like she was waving a hand fan. “Be a dear, dear, and break a way in.”

“Did you just destroy the fence?”

“Well, I weakened it. The destroying part I leave up to more… handsy people, if that was all right with you.”

“I can’t just break down the fence. Do you know how many Deathless might come in through this?” Rivne stared from left to right. The whole barricade might as well have been turned to cobwebs. “I’d understand if it was a small hole at the bottom or something like that. But you destroyed the whole thing.”

“Again, the destroying is something you need to do.”

“What if I refuse?”

“Do you know another way in?”

Riven glared at Mhell. He saw too little of the Necromancer in the darkness, but there was enough visible of her eyes and her smile to know she was having great fun. At his expense too, very likely. “Fine. And if anything gets in that wasn’t supposed to get in, I can blame you, correct?”

“Feel free. Though I do suggest letting the poor dears who run this ramshackle little wall know.”

Riven shook his head, then faced the fence. Taking a deep breath, he punched the first metal twig. It collapsed into flakes that rained around his arm, and the rods on either side broke apart into more flakes, creating a hole more than big enough for the both of them to walk side-by-side through.

Smiling, Riven bowed and flourished. “After you, my lady.”

Mhell’s retuning smile was more radiant than the sun. “Why thank you, kind sir.”

She floated through, and Riven followed. That strangely happy, adventurous mood he’d had ever since this crazy night had started evaporated to nothing. The Frontier sucked it away, leaving him hollow, skittish, jumping at every perceived sound and shifting shadow.

“So,” Riven said, trying to let the sound be anther member of their tiny company. “What exactly are you looking for?”

“I’m not completely sure. A demon perhaps, or some other Deathless to interrogate. I will settle for any other smaller clue as well. But ultimately, something to at least hint at all that is going on.”

“I have a feeling it all boils down to this Sundering that they keep talking about.”

“Hmm. Have I told you the Scions are actively recruiting the strongest Deathless to their sides? I can only assume it is because of this Sundering.”

Strongest. Like the Revenants, Wraithlocks, and Cataclysms. Of course. “Wait, how do you mean sides?”

Before Mhell could answer, something dashed away in the shadows to their left. Riven stared, heart jumping into his mouth and skin nearly leaping off his flesh. A demon. Had to be. There was no other possibility that he could entertain out here.

Heart pounding, Riven pulled out his gun. Mhell tutted at him, then went forward where they had seen the shadow. Where a demon had to be.

Riven stayed close. If anything came, he’d be ready to blow its brains out. Fat load of good it had done him last time.

Mhell stopped all of a sudden. “Don’t stumble into me from the back. I don’t want to fall into this.”

Riven peered past to stare down at the crack in the ground. A large crack, too wide for him to jump across and too deep for him to see the bottom. Just like the one at Welmark. It even had that sense of a draft coming from within, a slow stream of warmer, different air exhaling out of the dark maw.

“What’s this doing here?” he asked. That stream of different air seeped into his clothes and clamped over his skin, turning him cold and dry.

“You’ve seen this before?”

“There was a similar one at Welmark too the southwest of here. Have you see this before?”

“This is perhaps a little worrying.”

A cold shiver crawled up Riven’s spine. That didn’t sound good. “What in the Chasm is it?”

“In and of itself, it’s merely a crack in the ground. It’s what it connects to on the other end that bothers me. At the very end of this crack, far, far below, is an entrance to the Sundering Pit.”

“What?”

“Crawl far enough into this hole and you will end up at the Sundering Pit.”

Riven tried to consider that, but his mind was travelling at a hundred leagues per hour. The implications of what Mhell said didn’t land. Sundering Pit? He looked up. Far ahead, the horizon ridged up, highest the centre like the king of a mountain range. Sundering Pit. How in the world could this little crack in the ground lead to something like that so far away. That wasn’t how cracks worked. Or that was what his geography lessons claimed.

“Tell me, Sundering Pit is an enormous hole, right?” Riven glanced at Mhell who was staring into the crack like it had personally offended her somehow, her floating hair whipped into pointed little horns. Going by the way Mhell went, offending her seemed a difficult task. “What’s at the bottom of the Pit?”

“A broken god.”

Broken god. Hadn’t he read in the library that a broken god had come down on the meteor that had created the Sundering Pit? That had caused the Sundering? “You’re saying some god talked to me?”

Mhell stared at Riven then, eyes sharp as icicles. “Explain what you mean, dear.”

“Back in Welmark, there was another crack just like this. I heard a voice from it. Well, I’m not sure I’d call it hearing so much as just experiencing it through my whole being. It was… not normal.”

“Hmm. I think you may have communed with this god, then.”

“I see.”

Both their voices were quiet, calm as though they might as well have been discussing yesterday’s weather. A minor oddity, like they had witnessed an unprecedented cloud shape. Certainly not the sun going out and being replaced by a meteor growing larger and larger.

“That’s…” Riven struggled for the words. “Insane.”

“I agree.”

“But—”

Something skittered behind them. Riven whirled alongside Mhell, gun raised, heart pounding, cursing himself for the fool he was. He’d become distracted by a stupid crack in the ground and now he was at the mercy of that demon and possibly his friends.

Shapes swirled in the gloom. Figures resolved from the shadows. Demons. So many of them, too, as though their momentary fascination with this crack that was supposedly some broken god’s mouthpiece had allowed the demon they had noticed to retreat, grab his monstrous companions, and return to give Riven and Mhell the warmest of welcomes.

“Well, hello there,” said a red Fiend. Rivne had no idea if she was one of the ones who had attacked him, Viriya, and Rio all that while back. She looked back at her companions, a twisted grin worming onto her face. “Oi, have any of you ever seen a human walking hand in hand with some Necromancer? Got to be a first, right?”

Her friends laughed. Little singsong voices that made Riven’s hair stand on end.

“I suggest you all retreat before you regret it,” Mhell said.

They all laughed again.

“Listen to her,” another bluish-grey demon sneered. “What can one of you do against all of us. I have a counter suggestion for you—give up the boy and be on your way. We can forget this little intrusion into our territory.”

“Don’t talk like animals.” Mhell’s voice had lost all the warmth, harsh and cold as deepest midwinter, the tone so jarring from normal, Riven’s eyes were dragged to her. Her lips were pressed together, the light from her eyes revealing a ring of cracks all around it. “You speak as if you’re beasts who have stained the lands with your filth, all to mark off some metaphorical land that belongs to you. I will warn you once more. Get out and don’t look back. Do so, and I will be lenient.”

Silence followed the pronouncement. None of the demons stirred. The first statement could have been taken as false bravado by the foolish, but even the stupidest of people could see the meaning, the pure implacable intent, behind her last.

“Don’t force a confrontation, Necromancer,” the red demon said. “You’re one of us, and we’d hate to hurt you.”

“Do try.”

Another pause. Then, sudden as gunfire, the red demon charged.

Riven shouted, but that was as far as he got. She moved too fast. Too quick for him to even think of using his gun. Mhell, though, was ready.

Waves of grey light burst out from her raised hand and overtook the onrushing demon, and she immediately collapsed to the ground. A horrible shriek echoed everywhere, and Riven watched, mouth opening wide in surprise as she fell apart. Flakes and crumbs of dead Sept broke off and clumped onto the ground, and the piercing shrieks jabbed into the air, into he quivering ground, into Riven’s ear and stabbing his eardrums.

The demon lasted no more than a rapid patter of heartbeats. It crumbled to dust.

Mhell lowered her hand. “Have you seen enough?”

The demons hesitated. Masses of purple, green, grey, and far too many more colours for Riven to keep track of. Then the one at the back shouted again.

“Don’t wait! Charge all together!”

They did. Riven’s feet were frozen in place, but his heart made a desperate attempt to get away, drumming against his chest like shots from a fusillade. He didn’t need to react though. Mhell raised both her hands this time, one to signal at him to keep back, the other pointed at the hordes of Fiends coming right at them.

Grey light burst out in a waterfall rather than a wave, a barrage of greyness seeping into the ground all around them like it was quicksand swallowing here Spirit. Riven stepped close. If his assumptions were correct, he needed to stay as close to the epicentre as possible. He needed to stick to Mhell.

The demons’ collective shouting made the very air vibrate. Riven would have clamped his hands over his ears but it didn’t last long. Mhell clenched her fingers into a grey fist, and the ground fractured. A hundred thousand cracks spiderwebbed everywhere, spreading like a delta of tributaries from the main crack behind them, the one that led to the Sundering Pit. The web of cracks spread out quicker than lightning, faster than thought, and the land beneath the demons’ feet began to turn to dust.

With more piercing shrieks and shrill cries, the Fiends fell. Packed dirt, earth, and rocks dissolved to dust, no longer able to bear the weight of more dust on top, much less the demons who trod on it. It slid down and away, taking the surprised demons with it. Riven had to drag the air into his lungs to breathe. Sundering Pit. Wasn’t this how it had been formed in the first place? By opening an enormous sinkhole?

“How are you doing this?” Riven asked, incredulous.

Mhell laughed, but this was cold as well. That tinkle was ice clinking against each other. “Luck, skill, and lots of trial by error.”

Not all the demons had fallen. Several had withheld from charging in the first place, and some of the winged ones had taken to the air. They didn’t make the same mistake as the Fiends who had disappeared into the array of crumbling holes though, staying far back from Mhell and her grey waterfall.

“This isn’t the last of us,” one of them said. He flapped his butterfly-like wings and rose higher in the air, a barely perceptible shadow in the gloom of deep night. You will be marked, Necromancer. “You are now known.”

Mhell gave a sweet smile. Sweet enough to choke on. “Why, I’m quite honoured.”

The demons began retreating, disappearing into the gloom beyond. But one of them rushed in, stopping at the edge of the holes Mhell’s Spirit had dug. “You have succeeded here human, but know that your little village is forfeit. We know of a way in, and we will raze it to the ground. No one is allowed to get away with insulting us so. Anvarroh will hear of this!”

They left. All of them until only Riven and Mhell remained.

Riven took a deep breath, and sighed it out, letting his heartbeat reduce to a regular pulsing. He had survived. No thanks to his Essence, though there had been no need thanks to Mhell. He had survived, and now he was alone and stranded beside a crack that would let him hear a god. No more colours to distract him, no more sounds to scare him save the slipping and sliding dust, no more sensation of impending demise. The adrenaline keeping the oncoming fatigue and sleep at bay was rapidly fading.

He had survived, but would the villagers of Rattles?

Riven swallowed. “I have to go.”

“Of course.”

“You have to help. Those villagers—”

“Are none of my concern.” Mhell was staring back at the enormous crack, the ones she had created connecting to it like nerves to a spine. “This must have been what the demons are guarding. But why…?”

Riven thought of arguing, of begging even, but there was no point. If she could kidnap a little girl to serve her own ends, what was a handful of villagers? Whatever Mhell was, however different from the other Deathless she appeared, she was still one of them. Regular mortals were far from her sphere of concern. “I’ll be leaving then.”

Mhell smiled at him. It didn’t seem the same anymore. In the darkness, with the holes threatening to grow and swallow him, all Riven saw was more and more demons screaming as they fell into the abyss. “Take care, dear.”

Riven nodded. “Thank you for your help. Will you be investigating more?”

“Yes. Need to find an actual demon who might be willing to talk. Oh, and I suggest you keep that crystal off you if you want to use your Essence. I hear it’s quite potent.”

Riven had no time to ask what that meant, or where she had heard such a thing. Rattles was in danger. Maybe Rio and Viriya could handle themselves, even if it was a surprise, but the rest of the people there would surely die. Or become Deathless against their will, rather.

No. Not if Riven could help it. Bartle and his daughter were not dying under Riven’s watch.