The victory celebration lasted exactly twelve seconds.

  That was how long it took for the reverberations of the Beast’s death throes to settle into the mountain’s geology. As the monster dissolved into harmless glass dust, the silence returned to the summit—followed immediately by a sound that was infinitely worse.

  CRACK.

  It started at the center of the plateau, right where the Beast had crashed. A hairline fracture zigzagged across the mirror-smooth crystal floor, racing toward the obsidian pillars like a lightning bolt made of bad news.

  “That doesn't sound good,” Faelar grumbled, leaning on his axe.

  “Structural integrity is compromised,” Elmsworth squeaked, his eyes darting around the ruins. “The Beast... it wasn't just living here. Its magical signature was acting as a binding agent for the corruption. It was holding the ruins together!”

  “So?” Liam asked, wiping slime off his dagger.

  “So,” Elmsworth said, pointing at a massive chunk of the cliff edge that silently detached and fell into the abyss, “the glue is gone.”

  The ground beneath our feet gave a lurch. A low rumble, like the stomach of a starving giant, vibrated through my boots.

  “We need to leave,” I stated, trying to sound calm despite the fact that the floor was literally tilting. “Now.”

  “Walk back down the goat trail?” Willow suggested, clutching her staff.

  I looked back at the path we had climbed. A boulder the size of a carriage rolled past the entrance, obliterating the trail in a cloud of dust.

  “The trail is gone,” I said grimly.

  “Then we fly!” Faelar suggested. “Wizard, cast that feather thing!”

  “Feather Fall affects up to five targets of medium weight!” Elmsworth yelled over the rising noise of grinding stone. “But I used my spell slots on the resonance frequency! I have enough mana for maybe... a very slow chicken!”

  Nugget, sensing he was the priority, puffed out his chest.

  “We can't fly, and we can't walk,” Liam shouted as another pillar collapsed, sending shards of obsidian raining down like hail. “Ideas, Commander?”

  I looked at the slope. The north face of Sunstone Ridge wasn't a cliff; it was a steep, smooth glacis of polished crystal that stretched down for miles before disappearing into the treeline of the swampy valley below.

  It was steep. It was slick. And it was our only way out.

  “We slide,” I said.

  Faelar looked at the drop. Then he looked at his shield—a massive slab of tower-iron almost as big as he was. A grin split his beard, wide and manic.

  “Aye,” the dwarf said. “Aye, I like this plan.”

  He slammed his shield onto the crystal floor, curved side down.

  “All aboard the Dwarf Express! Small ones in the front!”

  “This is statistically unsafe!” Elmsworth protested as Faelar grabbed him by the back of his robes and deposited him into the shield bowl like a sack of potatoes.

  “Sit down and hold the bird!” Faelar ordered. He grabbed Willow next, placing her behind the gnome. “Keep your arms inside the vehicle!”

  “What about us?” Liam asked, eyeing the shield. It was full.

  “Improvise!” I yelled, spotting a large, flat slab of slate that had broken off one of the pillars. “Grab that!”

  Liam and I hefted the slab. It was heavy, jagged, and looked about as aerodynamic as a brick, but it was better than sliding on our armor. We threw it down next to Faelar’s shield.

  “On my mark!” I shouted. The temple behind us gave a final, mournful groan. The roof began to cave in.

  “Mark!”

  We shoved off.

  Gravity, as it turned out, was very enthusiastic about our plan.

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  For the first few seconds, it was manageable. We picked up speed, the slate scraping loudly against the crystal. The wind whipped my hair back.

  Then, we hit the slope proper.

  “WOOOOOOOAH!”

  The acceleration was violent. The friction coefficient of polished crystal against slate was terrifyingly low. We weren't sliding; we were plummeting with style.

  To my left, Faelar was howling with laughter, using the handle of his axe as a rudder to steer his spinning shield.

  Elmsworth was screaming, but it wasn't fear—it was math.

  “TERMINAL VELOCITY APPROACHING!” the gnome shrieked, clutching Nugget to his chest. “AERODYNAMIC DRAG IS NEGLIGIBLE! WE ARE A PROJECTILE!”

  Nugget, for his part, had wriggled free of the gnome’s grip. He was standing on the front rim of the shield, wings spread wide, beak open, embracing the speed like the figurehead of a ship made of madness.

  “Focus!” I yelled at Liam, who was sitting in front of me on the slate slab. “Lean left! Left!”

  We banked around a jagged outcropping of rock, sparks flying where our makeshift sled ground against the stone.

  “This is a terrible idea!” Liam screamed back, his knuckles white as he gripped the edges of the slate.

  “It was the only idea!”

  “Look out!” Willow’s voice carried over the wind.

  Ahead of us, the smooth crystal face was broken by a fissure—a ten-foot gap in the mountain where the earthquake had split the rock.

  “Jump!” Faelar roared.

  He didn't have a way to jump. He just hit a small bump in the rock before the gap and leaned back. The shield launched into the air.

  “Magic!” I screamed at the gnome. “Do something!”

  Elmsworth, eyes streaming tears from the wind, pointed his wand backward. “Gust!”

  A blast of wind exploded behind them, kicking the shield just enough to clear the gap. They slammed down on the other side with a bone-jarring thud, spinning wildly but continuing the descent.

  Now it was our turn.

  “Pull up!” I yelled, though I had no idea how to pull up a rock.

  We hit the bump. We went airborne.

  For a second, there was no sound. Just the feeling of weightlessness and the terrifying view of the valley floor rushing up to meet us.

  We weren't going to make it. The angle was wrong. The nose of the slate was dipping. We were going to clip the edge and tumble.

  “Liam!”

  I didn't think. I let go of the slate with one hand, grabbed the back of Liam’s leather armor, and threw my weight backward, hauling him with me.

  It shifted our center of gravity. The nose of the slate tipped up.

  We cleared the gap by inches. The back of the slate clipped the edge, shattering a chunk of stone, but the momentum carried us forward.

  We slammed down hard, skidding sideways.

  “You good?” I shouted, hauling Liam back to the center of the sled.

  Liam looked at me, eyes wide. He looked back at the gap we had just cleared.

  “You... you caught the rock.”

  “I adjusted the trajectory!”

  “You saved my ass!”

  “Maintain balance!” I ordered, trying to sound like I hadn't just acted on pure panic. “Eyes forward! We’re running out of mountain!”

  The bottom of the slope was rushing up fast. The crystal gave way to mud. A lot of mud. The swamp at the base of the ridge.

  “Brace for impact!” Faelar bellowed.

  The transition from smooth stone to boggy swamp was not gentle.

  Faelar’s shield hit the mud and stopped instantly. The occupants did not.

  Elmsworth, Willow, and Nugget were launched from the shield like catapult stones. They flew through the air in a graceful arc before landing with three distinct splats in a patch of thick, green moss.

  We were next. Our slate slab hit a submerged root, flipped over, and dumped us face-first into the mire.

  I slid on my face for another twenty feet before coming to a halt.

  Silence returned to the valley.

  I lay there for a moment, letting the adrenaline fade. I was alive. My limbs were attached. I tasted algae.

  Slowly, I pushed myself up. I was coated head to toe in black, stinking swamp mud.

  “Sound off,” I groaned.

  “Here,” Willow coughed from a nearby reed bed. She stood up, looking like a swamp monster, wiping muck from her eyes.

  “Alive,” Liam muttered, pulling himself out of a sludge pit.

  “Calculations... complete,” Elmsworth wheezed. He was hanging upside down from a low branch, held by his robe. “Deceleration was... rapid.”

  “That was GLORIOUS!” Faelar erupted from the mud, retrieving his shield. He shook himself like a wet dog, spraying slime everywhere. “Again! Let’s do it again!”

  “Never,” I said, wiping my face. “Never again.”

  Nugget waddled out of a bush. He was surprisingly clean, thanks to the residual Polish spell, though he did have a lily pad stuck to his head like a jaunty hat. He clucked disapprovingly at our hygiene.

  We dragged ourselves to a patch of dry ground. The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the swamp.

  “The Key,” Elmsworth said suddenly, digging into his muddy satchel. “We should examine the Artifact.”

  He pulled out the Prism Key. In the dim light, the dodecahedron looked dull. But as the first stars appeared, hitting the crystal facets, the object hummed.

  It didn't glow like a torch. It captured the starlight.

  The light entered the stone, bounced around inside the geometry, and then shot out in a single, concentrated beam of pure white light.

  The beam cut through the darkness, pointing due west.

  “A compass,” I realized. “It’s pointing to the next seal.”

  Elmsworth pulled out a crumpled map, spreading it on a flat rock. He traced the line of the beam with a muddy finger.

  “West,” he muttered. “Across the valley... through the Iron Pass...”

  His finger stopped. He swallowed hard.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “The Salt Flats of Aethelgard,” Elmsworth whispered. “Also known as the Blistering Wastes. It is a magical dead zone. A desert of crystallized salt and illusions.”

  “Sounds lovely,” Faelar groaned. “Let me guess. No beer?”

  “No water,” Elmsworth corrected.

  “Great,” Liam sighed. “From mud to salt. Can’t we ever go somewhere with a nice breeze and soft chairs?”

  I looked at the beam of light cutting through the night. Then I looked at my team. They were battered, muddy, and exhausted. But they were alive. And we had won.

  “We worry about the salt tomorrow,” I said, standing up and checking my spear. “Tonight, we go back. We have a seed to deliver, a village to reassure, and I believe Faelar needs a bath.”

  “I need a drink,” Faelar corrected. “A bath is optional.”

  “Come on,” I said, pointing toward the distant, glowing lights of Veridian Refuge. “Let’s go home.”

  We began the long limp back to the village, leaving the mountain and the ruins behind us in the dark.