Zaphrriyah was craving blood.

  She had been walking restlessly through the frozen fields at a constant, strident pace for hours. The fields were no colder than the Woods, but without the Pines, the winds and snow were unbearable. The winds threatened to blow her off her feet, blasting shards of ice into her skin. The snow was thick and deep with no telling how firm it might be on her next step. It was all too painfully familiar.

  There was nothing but empty fields of snow as far as the eye could see and even beyond that. Beneath the snow were corpses. They were buried deep, frozen in ice and ancient snow, but they were there. And they weren't entirely dead. The child always imagined their glassy, frozen eyes following her as she tore at their bellies and chewed into their cold, putrid flesh. Even when their eyes had been eaten, those empty sockets still weren't dead. She slept beneath the snow, hiding from the winds and the long cold of night, drifting unconscious, wondering if she might wake up the next Gloom to find herself as another corpse beneath the snow.

  Then came the night. There was a time when Zaphrriyah dreaded nightfall, but then she learned that it was Hellawes's domain. And then she dreaded it even more. The night was a complete and utter darkness no light could penetrate. Vision was obsolete. It was physically impossible. The darkness felt suffocating and heavy. It made the Blackwater seem comforting in contrast. In fact, the Blackwater was the only way to escape the night. As much as Zaphrriyah dreaded travel in the night, she had become accustomed to it. Scent and sound weren't always the most reliable senses, especially out here in the blizzarding cold where the air was dry, frozen and razor sharp and the only noise was the raging tempest of frost.

  Zaphrriyah travelled the night with the Touch of Blood. The very same she navigated the Woods with. It was an awareness of herself as an outsider from her own body, where every drop of blood that contributed to her body was clearly visible in the abyssal plane. Wherever the body went, the blood remembered. Having honed Touch of Blood for years, Zaphrriyah could project within a ten feet radius around her body, farther than she would have been able to see in the Gloom of this blizzard. The only downside of the Touch of Blood was the shear amount of focus it demanded.

  She knew her mission. She knew her path. It did not matter that she didn't know her destination.

  The journey was no rest or meditation. The Touch of Blood was an intensive, active exercise. She had to become aware of herself in the third person, aware of every single, individual drop of blood flowing through her veins, as though the blood itself were her, and from it, an idea of the dark unknown.

  The night was always longer than the Gloom. Hellawes had told her that the Gloom only comes at her mercy – that was, when she went to rest. So ultimately, the night still passed, and Zaphrriyah could stop channeling the Touch of Blood. The Gloom was as thick with snow as yesterday, now with the Woods long out of sight. She was stranded in a blizzarding field of white with nothing to see.

  She knew her mission. She knew her path.

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  There was a compass engraved in her blood from months of meditation in the Blackwater. It spoke to her, guided her at will, directing her down the right path. It was the blood of the abyss, and it had flowed through her veins as her own for more than four hours.

  She believed in her mission. She believed in her path.

  So ultimately, she arrived at the sacred grounds of her crusade.

  It was nearly nightfall once more. Though the creeping darkness was subtle, Zaphrriyah could sense its approach. The grounds were still a distance ahead, but it was within sight, and it was a tremendous one indeed.

  Behold a city of glowing gold, erected as high as it was wide, with countless levels built upon the other like towers so great their peaks were lost to the fog of the heavens like the Pines in the Woods. It replaced the horizon of snow with its steel and stone body, shimmering with warm lights so bright they could be seen from such a distance. There was no mistake. This was where her crusade would take place. As she got closer, the magnitude of the city grew, so high that looking up would give her vertigo. But it was not all heights.

  The city began like blood spatter, with a spread of smaller structures only loosely interwoven, whose roofs were still visible from the ground. These buildings, like the visible ones deeper into the city, were oriental, only more individually structured compared to the massive buildings further ahead that almost seemed to be one in the summation of metal jungle. The roofs were tiled, sloped, their edges curved with the frame holding it pointed at the ends. Along the edges of the frame, beneath the roofs, hung a multitude of lanterns that glowed in various shades of red, and beneath them, hung drapes and curtains that covered doorways and intricately designed balconies. The structures themselves seemed to be made of wooden material – though it most certainly wasn't Pine. The wood was dark, almost red under the lights, and they set out the main frame of the buildings whose walls were made of stone. There were many stories to the buildings, and they grew higher the further they were.

  Then there were the residents. Zaphrriyah had been told about the enemies she would likely encounter on her crusade, how they would likely be anthropomorphic in form, but were the furthest thing from human. There were no humans in the abyss. These residents were all dressed in black, be it robes or gowns or armor like the makings of a cult. They also were hats, a high top with a wide, circular edge. Some of these hats also had beads or strings draping from their edge, either a few or completely lining the circumference, hiding the face from view. Others simply wore masks. The masks were mostly white based, painted red and black, though some had other colors. Their painting and designs reminded her of the beasts in the woods. Of the faces she glimpsed, they were unremarkable. By no means ugly, but nor were they beautiful. They were the faces forgotten in crowds.

  Directly ahead of her was what appeared to be the main road. It was the only path in sight that led into the city, paved as flagstones, while the only other visible paths into the city were through labyrinthine alleys and cracks between buildings. As tactically sound as an alternative approach through those indirect passages were, Zaphrriyah's pride simply wouldn't allow her arrival to be so pathetically discrete. The road began not so far from where she was approaching, in a clearing of onyx material with what she recognized to be inscriptions of summoning carved into its face. And there were summons. From the clearing – the altar – more of those residents emerged, manifesting from thickly coalesced darkness that swiveled like smoke upon the altar. These residents behaved differently, uncertain, hesitant, sheepish, and they were naked. The others that were clad who stood by the altar would welcome them with robes and usher them down the road. A few would also leave with the newcomer.

  Zaphrriyah had seen all she needed to see. She knew her mission. She knew her path. So, she approached the altar from out the snow, her blades at her sides, stepping onto the smooth altar that felt warm to the touch. The snow in her hair gradually melted as she walked down the altar, and there never was any snow on her skin where her blood flowed hot. A couple more residents manifested from the altar as she passed by. Zaphrriyah stepped off the altar onto the pavement of the road. She could feel the warmth from the city radiating around her. Then one of the residents standing by noticed her. This resident was tall – nowhere near as tall as Aphrodisia, of course, but they were over a head taller than her. Most were. They were also thickly clad in armor beneath a great, black coat and had mask and hat that might have made them intimidating to anyone else.

  They stood in her way.

  Zaphrriyah grinned.