SKYE'S POV
The crossing of the basalt bridge felt like walking across the spine of a sleeping dragon.
Below us, the abyss whistled with the sound of a thousand freezing needles, but the black pillars I had called from the deep earth did not shudder. One by one, the hundred elite sentinels of Nighthaven and the fifty Ironwood scouts filed across, their boots gripping the rough, unpolished stone. They moved in absolute, reverent silence. When they reached the northern side of the chasm, they did not look back at the void; they looked only at me.
Eryx kept his arm locked around my waist until the last warrior cleared the bridge. The moment my feet touched the solid bedrock of the northern peak, the connection severed, and the massive basalt pillars groaned, settling back into the dark thro
