The descent took two days.
The mountain released them gradually, path widening, the frost thinning, the grey sky breaking into sections of pale blue that spread as they moved lower. The constructs had not returned. Whatever function they had served in herding them toward the pass and the trials beyond, it was complete. The plateau, the Keeper's ground, the chamber, all of it existed somewhere above them now, settled into altitude and stone and the distance of things that have already done their work.
Elowen descended differently than she had climbed.
She was aware of this in small and specific ways. The way she held her sword, still close but no longer white-knuckled, the grip of someone prepared rather than braced. The way she breathed, deeper, fuller, from the bottom of her lungs rath
