The ice was a treacherous, living entity. It groaned and shifted under their feet, a chorus of protest against the unnatural energies bleeding from the Rift. Anya led them with a preternatural grace, her every step a negotiation with the unstable plain. She read the pressure ridges and snow-covered fissures like a map, her body tense as a drawn bowstring. The Wolves moved as an extension of her, silent and fluid, their forms almost ghostlike in the perpetual twilight of the northern expanse.
Ren followed, his focus a scalpel. The overwhelming dissonance was now a tool. He let the vile hum of the corrupted energy guide him, a perverse lighthouse in the frozen desolation. Kael brought up the rear, his senses stretched taut, his hand never far from his sword. The air was so cold it hurt to b
