Kiaria stepped forward.
One step became ten. Ten became fifty. When he reached one hundred and twenty, he realized he had barely crossed a quarter of the stairway. The frost beneath his feet remained silent, unmoving–yet something vast and oppressive pressed down upon him, as if the mountain itself were measuring whether he deserved to breathe within its presence.
He had not entered.
He had not even reached the threshold.
Yet the power of transformed beings sealed deep within the Winter Soul Mount already pulsed against his consciousness, each throb striking like a distant drumbeat meant for gods, not mortals.
Pain bloomed.
It did not remain with him alone.
Through the red silk thread bound to their hearts, the pressure bled outward–reaching Diala, echoing inside her chest. The pain they shared did not weaken him. Instead, it thinned the suffocation, as if their care for one another was being consumed and refined into something just strong enough to keep him standing.
