The frost-hawk was a creature born of the high peaks and the Emperor's own marrow, a construct of living ice and predatory instinct designed for endurance.
For weeks, it had been a silver needle threading through the tapestry of a darkening world, putting hundreds of miles between the spires of the capital and the jagged, forgotten fringes of the northern provinces.
It had flown through gales that would have shattered the wings of a common eagle, fueled by the singular, driving command etched into its core by Soren.
But even a creature of magic is subject to the violence of a world in flux.
As it crested the Razor-Back Ridge, a sudden, unnatural updraft... a localized pocket of unstable, humming air... slammed into the hawk with the force of a falling mountain.
The bird was tossed like a leaf into the teeth of an ice-crusted cliff. There was a sickening crack, not of bone, but of the arcane lattice that held the bird's left wing in alignment.
