The sound was exactly as Kyle had sensed it from the safety of the castle.
In the heart of the North Ruins, the air was thick with the scent of ozone and iron, blood.
The North was a place that didn't just hold the cold, it was like cold generated from there.
The wind howled through the jagged, bone-white pillars of the ruin site like a wounded animal, biting at any exposed skin.
Rhyena moved through the chaos like a flash of silver lightning, her rapier dancing. She wasn't just fighting, she was carving a path through a sea of black robes. Every time her blade met the obsidian-tipped staves of the Black Circle rogues, sparks flew, momentarily illuminating the hollow, liquid-filled eyes of their attackers.
"Lucas! The monolith!" Rhyena shouted, parrying a blow that would have taken her head off.
Her breath came in short, jagged bursts of white mist.
"I can't hold the perimeter forever! There are more of them coming out of the tree line!"
