The silence in the sunken crypt did not last.
Above their heads, the outer colonnade groaned under a sickening impact. Iron shot smashed through the high arches of the mountain terrace, raining pulverized white stone into the dust below. The vibrations traveled through the foundation, humming against the iron-shod soles of Malakor’s boots.
He did not release her immediately. His hand remained wrapped securely around Aurelia’s waist, anchoring her while the last tremors of the binding ritual settled into her bloodstream. Her skin was still flushed, the silver sheen in her veins dimming back into the warm undertones of living flesh, though the raw cut across her palm throbbed with a persistent, rhythmic heat.
"Can you stand?" he asked, his voice low and stripped of gentleness, returning to the sharp cadence of a commander whose perimeter was collapsing.
Aurelia pulled away an inch, planting her boots firmly against the flagged floor. The dizziness was a distant fog, easily swept aside by the cold spike of adrenaline flooding her senses. "I told you, Malakor—I do not break under siege. Give me my daggers."
A faint, lethal tilt touched his lips. He reached down and retrieved her twin curved blades from where they lay beside the cracked altar, pressing the carved horn hilts into her uninjured hand. When her fingers closed over the grips, he leaned in, his mouth skimming the curve of her temple, voice dropping to a graveled whisper that sent an electric shiver through her marrow.
"Stay within four paces of my back," he murmured, his breath hot against her temple. "Anyone who steps between us dies in halves."
"A generous offer," she retorted softly, her gaze narrowing toward the archway. "Try to leave a few for me."
Malakor turned, retrieving his great sword from the dais. The dark steel hummed as he lifted it, coated in a faint shimmer of awakened sovereign fire—a lingering gift from their shared blood.
Together, they moved through the shattered nave.
The narrow stairwell leading to the terrace smelled of burning pitch and wet wool. As they emerged through the collapsed archway onto the high ledge of Mount Sorrow, the valley below opened before them in a sea of torches.
The High Inquisitor’s vanguard had established a crescent perimeter along the mountain road. Hundreds of iron-clad footmen pushed portable timber mantles through the mud, their banners bearing the crimson eye of the Solar Concord snapping in the biting squall. Near the tree line, three heavy trebuchets were winding back their counterweights for another volley against the temple's outer battlements.
"They brought half the Black Watch," Aurelia observed, the wind whipping strands of dark hair across her mouth. "They didn't come to negotiate our surrender."
"They came to harvest your remains and parade my head on an iron pike," Malakor said, stepping onto the outer ledge where the cold wind tore at his cloak. His broad shoulders blocked the worst of the gale, framing him against the dark abyss of the valley like an ancient monolith of war. "The Inquisitor believes the seal broke on his terms. He does not know we severed the chord."
At the front of the advancing line, an armored horseman rode forward onto the rocky slope. Beneath a silver-chased helm, Lord Commander Vane lifted his heavy broadsword, pointing the blade directly toward the ledge where the two stood outlined against the ruined portico.
"Surrender the witch of the Veil!" Vane’s voice bellowed across the gorge, carried by the roar of the mountain gale. "Deliver her to the pyre, Lord Malakor, and the Concord will grant you an honorable death!"
Malakor let out a low, humorless laugh that rumbled like distant thunder in the hollow of his chest. He reached down, grasped the heavy clasp of his travel-stained cloak, and let the wet wool fall away into the mud, freeing his arms.
"They speak of honor," Malakor said, not looking at her as he rested the flat of his great sword against his shoulder. "Shall we show them what honor looks like in the dark?"
Aurelia stepped up beside him on the rim of the precipice, crossing her twin daggers before her chest. The silver glyphs on her palms flared to life, casting an eerie, pale luminescence across the rain-slick stone.
"Take the front ranks," she answered, her lips parting in a dangerous smile. "I'll take the archers."