The colossus dissolved as it fell, a tower of chitin and snapping mandibles one moment, a briny mist the next in RIFT. The ice outside the Chancel of Labors was slick with its black blood.
A handful of Ascended had helped slay the horror. The Defiant favored Kira with a nod and rode off, while the Guardians simply rode off. Water Rifts still covered all of Iron Pine save the high mountains. Someone had to seal them or the planespawn would overflow, flooding Stillmoor and Moonshade.
“Our thanks for your help, Ascended,” said an Icewatch captain whose mountain patrol had arrived midway through the fight.
Uriel strolled over, balancing the point of her staff on the palm of her hand as she always did to unwind after a fight.

The first hints of twilight darkened the mountaintop as the two Defiant neared the end of their ascent. Uriel leapt from outcrop to outcrop along the sheer mountainside, her graceful frame borne upon the wind. Rising twenty yards with every leap, Uriel looked like she was flying to poor Kira, who had to drag herself hand over hand the hard way.
Near the top the crag, Uriel made one last jump. Kira watched her go, envying the smooth motion of her legs and back. But she jumped a bit too high, and fell beyond sight somewhere on the summit.
Kira dangled by her fingertips, cursing herself. Her feet found no purchase on the old ice covering the cliffside, which she would have chipped into footholds if she hadn’t been so reckless. And to make things worse, a hideous white yeti appeared at the top of the mountain, glowering down.
Kira dug her blanket out of her pack and sat down beside Uriel on the rocks, draping it over both of them and sitting close to share heat. They wouldn’t get far if the Mage died of a chill.

She screamed as the burly cultist thrust her head into the freezing lake. Nineteen times they had held her underwater for what had seemed an eternity, and she could no longer muster the energy to keep her mouth closed. The water rushed into her lungs, icing them over. As she drowned, something hideous swirled toward her from the cold black depths.
Then the hand disappeared from the back of her skull. Pure instinct made Shiyesa pull back and collapse into the snow, retching up icy water. She could barely see, but she could hear the cultists all going mad.
They ran in circles, tearing at their clothes and the skins underneath. One Abyssal had another by the horns of his faceless mask, and was bashing his own mask into his comrade’s forehead. Shiyesa heard the brass crunching. She saw the blurry outline of one cultist running naked off the cliffside, laughing all the way down.
A mask hit the ground beside her and a terrified squirrel burrowed out from under it. But the big cultist who had held Shiyesa’s head down plucked up the poor beast and popped it into his mouth, laughing like a child with a treat as he chewed.
Shiyesa knew the Abyssal were insane, but not like this. She pushed herself away as best she could, but the cult leader crawled after her, grabbing her ankle in a bone-cracking grip. She did not think she could have screamed again, nor this loud.
Then a Kelari woman appeared from nowhere behind him, plunging twin daggers into his back like a disinterested mantis. The cultists were gone, and a Bahmi shivering under a blanket jumped down from the ledge where she’d been hiding. Shiyesa saw the telltale glow of a Dominator’s magic fading around the Bahmi’s fingers.