Unseen menace snarled at them from deep in the undergrowth, making even the sturdy, impervious pack ponies skittish. Ramsey and Hel had shared duty keeping an uneasy guard throughout the nights, while the diaman crystal held the other demons at bay. Hel had not repeated the invitation to join him during his watch, so Adonia had shivered in her blankets, alone. Adonia found herself in the unusual position of missing Lord Ramsey’s acerbic comments and Hel’s barbed retorts. Things were too quiet and the silence carried a strained, unnatural quality. As the group of four came closer and closer to the end of their journey, Hel retreated more and more into somber gravity. Adonia suspected he hid a deep grief over the state of his realm. Lord Ramsey also lapsed into taciturn remoteness, and Adonia caught him staring with severe intent at the frozen landscape they traversed. Not even Steffania could temper her husband’s dire mood. The quartet had broken out of a heavily wooded stand of trees into a valley clearing where, for the first time, their destination’s up-thrust spires and rooftops rose distinctly out of the surrounding mountains.
