The trail had narrowed into a jagged ridge clinging to the mountainside like the spine of some vast, sleeping beast. One wrong step would send them tumbling into the clouds below. Rowan observed the path. His breath puffed in the frozen air. His legs burned, and the tips of his fingers were numb inside his gloves. Still, he pressed forward, one careful step at a time.

Bjorn led the way, steady as stone, his axe strapped across his back. His heavy boots struck the ice with absolute certainty, even as the wind tore at his cloak. Rowan found strength in that. If Bjorn could keep going, so could he.

Above them, the sky grew darker though the sun had not yet set. Gray clouds gathered, thick and heavy, swallowing the last streaks of daylight. Tiny flakes of frost danced in the air, vanishing before they touched the ground. The final slope rose before them, broken with jagged rocks and thin sheets of ice. The summit stretched wide before them. 

And then Rowan saw them. Shapes scattered across the summit, frozen where they had fallen. Some curled as if they had simply gone to sleep. Others leaned against rocks, clutching rusted weapons or cracked satchels. One still gripped a sword so old the blade had snapped in half. Another sat cross-legged with arms wrapped around a frost-covered pack, guarding it even in death.

“Looks like they were Seekers,” Bjorn said softly. His words fell heavy in the silence. “Just like us.”

Rowan stepped carefully among the fallen, brushing snow from brittle cloaks and dented armor. The silence here was heavier than before.

“They made it,” Rowan whispered. “All the way to the top. But they never made it back down.”

He knelt beside one of the frozen figures. The Seeker wore a battered helmet and clutched a broken shield. A strange mark appeared, carved deep into the metal surface, three arrows pointing outward from a circle in the center. Rowan did not recognize it, but it tugged at something inside him, like a half-forgotten dream.

Nearby, another Seeker wore rusted armor. Its edges chipped, but faint designs still curled across the metal, almost like a crown. So many had climbed. So many had tried. Now they had become part of the mountain.

Bjorn stepped toward the edge. “I wonder what stopped––?”

An unsettling sound cut Bjorn off before he could finish his thought. It wasn’t a roar or a screech. It drifted across the summit like wind slipping through a cavern. The sound was not the sound of something waking. It was the sound of something waiting.

Rowan edged closer to Bjorn, his voice barely a whisper. “Did you hear that?”

Bjorn nodded. 

Then came a howl. The mountain trembled beneath the boy’s boots, and Rowan thought the summit might break apart, as a shadow swept over them. It glided slowly and steadily. Each beat was deliberate. Its body curled like a serpent, tail jagged, wings sharp as blades slicing through the clouds. 

The creature circled once. Then again. Then it vanished into the clouds. The wind slammed back in a violent gust, lashing their faces with snow.

Rowan’s knees shook. His voice trembled. “That was the Burlok.”

Bjorn’s gaze swept across the summit, over the frozen Seekers locked in silence. “They fought it,” he said softly. “Or tried to. They never made it back… but we will.”

Rowan’s voice was firm. “Then let’s finish what they started.”