Much like traveling from Windwake to the Barren, the shift was accomplished with as much discomfort as merely blinking his eyes. The small chunk of land with the cone-topped structure was no wider than ten meters. Upon entering it, one’s predisposed notions would have prepared them to be greeted by a complementary-sized interior, though Risens was rapidly learning to abandon his assumptions. The Roost—and now the Barren and the Under—followed rules of its own making and design.

  Had it not been for his previous experiences, the widely disparate dimensions of the chamber he found himself in would have been troubling. It was the continuing sense of dread oozing from the Talons that currently rankled his senses.

  The room was large, dimly lit by a single beam stabbing through the ceiling. His eyes adjusted rapidly, and he scanned his surroundings for any signs of alarm or danger.

  The walls were natural, moss-covered stone, with creeping vegetation. They were damp, with irregularities that made the space feel more like a hemmed-in void than a room. The purposeful, squared walls and carved ceiling hinted at its manmade origin.

  The floor underfoot was a mix of flat rock and sand. Not relegating itself to the walls, moss and a verdure carpet grew in patches. Tiny leaves from the crawling cover sprouted miniature flowers in vibrant hues.

  There was a definite organic beauty to the room—a serenity that was unexpected when compared to the trepidation that emanated from the blades still sheathed at his sides.

  The chamber floor was relatively level, though it sloped gently upward toward the left side of the room, rising as it approached the edge, until it was nearly vertical where it met the wall. There was no disguising the fact that the ceiling was unnatural. Constructed from raw, uneven rocks, it was a patchwork of small stalactites, mingling with the stones’ expected variations.

  The far right side of the chamber featured a small pool of clear water fed by a humble spring bubbling from the wall. The quiet gurgles and splashes of the water running over the stones were the only sounds. As he looked more closely, the stones’ discolorations resolved into an undeniable form. With its wings splayed out wide, there was no hiding the silhouette of the raven on the wall over the pool. With its majestic head turned so the profile was visible, the gentle stream that fed the pool flowed from the hole that marked its eye.

  A solitary opening in the center of the roof, nearly ten meters overhead, allowed a broad pillar of light into the chamber below. The lance of illumination landed purposefully in the middle of the room, highlighting a carved stone pedestal. Placed atop the waist-high display sat the item Mother Raven had sent him to retrieve. A wide, round bowl waited for him to collect it.

  The area was as unique as it was confusing. Risens found himself lulled into a calm, relaxed state. To his mind, there was nothing untoward amid the chamber’s unrefined features. To this point, the abject fear of the Talons was unfounded.

  His calculating gaze swept over the chamber, still identifying no threats. It was this fact alone that caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand erect. His senses had saved him countless times. Though they were new to him, motivated by an urge to destroy, he trusted the warnings of the Raven Talons. That Mother Raven, too, had prophesied danger, was another detail he could not overlook.

  He forced himself into a heightened alertness. No shadows existed to shroud an assassin. Risens stalked carefully, testing his footing on the flush paving stones. He could see nothing of note beyond the pedestal and the item that sat atop it. He’d crossed only a few steps when a quiet hiss, a gentle movement in the air, drew his attention behind him. The Talons whispered into his hands as he wheeled around, their glowing symbols igniting in the corners of his eyes.

  “This place…” one said.

  “… brings bad tidings,” the other finished.

  The wall where he’d only just entered through the portal was now uniform, matching its surroundings. The black void of the doorway leading him back to the island and the Barren had vanished.

  The unexpected tests he’d faced over the recent weeks had opened his mind to the possibilities within the hidden places beyond Windwake. Unlike the Roost, he doubted that failure here would be forgiving, yet he did not expect that he would be trapped forever. There was a definitive objective assigned to this place, a task that must be completed before he would be granted access to leave.

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  Risens expected that over time, the quests would only grow more challenging.

  Refocusing his attention, he cautiously crossed to the stone pedestal. The vessel atop the pillar was round and clearly weathered by age. Made of what appeared to be smoothed stone, the pillar of light cut through the hole in the ceiling, its mineral grooves sparkling and reflecting it.

  The bowl itself was empty, waiting patiently for something, concealed within the confines of the world within a world, accessible only by the individual bearing both the Brand of Avowal and the Quillkey.

  Accessible only to him.

  It had been carefully tucked away, but for what purpose? At first glance, it appeared to be no more special than a bowl he would find in any market in Windwake, and even in the houses of the most downtrodden of Halthome’s society.

  Risens was well-trained and well-versed in identifying, avoiding, and disarming traps. Yet, he saw nothing of concern—nothing indicating anything of concern secreted on the pillar or within the vessel itself. He spotted no trip wires binding the relic to the stone; he noted no tingle of magical wards. The pedestal’s top was uneven, though the bowl balanced perfectly. The small gaps beneath showed no hidden pressure plates.

  Keeping his focus evenly spread throughout the room, Risens reached out to collect the bowl from its stand. The quiet clatter of pebbles skipping on the ground snapped his attention to the wall, where the rocks angled up to meet the ceiling. In two small but distinct locations, the stones shifted as if something were pushing up against them from behind. He shimmied to the side of the pedestal, pulling the Raven Talons from his sheaths.

  Abject fear pulsed from the weapons, mounting as the cause of the disturbances came to light.

  Titanic pinchers were the first thing to protrude from the rocks. Entirely black and shining in the low light of the chamber,they preceded the body, a shape that was familiar, yet utterly disproportional. He watched with a sense of revulsion as what appeared to be a pair of massive, disfigured bugs wriggled from the wall.

  Compared to the versions that were commonplace throughout Windwake, these were the size of a medium dog. The vicious pinchers extending from the front of their bodies were as long as his hand. The click of their pointed ends echoedthrough the chamber. Aside from being overlarge, their bodies presented some odd features. Where he was accustomed to seeing the smooth, rounded backs of the creatures, these were lumpy and gnarled as if they were some wild mutation of their siblings that haunted the city’s refuse piles.

  His first reaction was to scoff at the terror that emanated from the blades, though he rapidly bit back the emotion. Aside from the blades’ insistence on killing, the fear felt was neither learned nor irrational.

  Darting forward, he struck at the disfigured head of the first bug, anticipating the blade would slice through the all-black carapace with little resistance. However, he nearly lost his grip on the blade as it rebounded off the hardened shell. As ifhe’d struck a solid metal wall, his attack did nothing beyond forcing the creature to the side.

  “Fool. The carrion will not feel the sting of our edges.”

  The symbols for each Talon ticked down.

  What began as an initial failure of his weapons to penetrate the shell devolved rapidly into a defensive dance, swatting away his attackers. The chamber reverberated with the ring of metal against metal. Rewarded with failure upon failure, the blades screamed in his ears that they were of no use to him, yet he had little choice but to defend himself from the bugs’ charges.

  These creatures—those the Raven Talons had referred to as the carrion—weren’t overly speedy or nimble. Their attacks followed predictable lines, their pinchers easily avoided. There was little adjusting to the tangent of his strikes as the blades exposed no openings.

  Risens jumped aside, swiping at the carrion’s back as it charged him. The strike did nothing, but the action sent it skittering across the stones behind him. Grunting from frustration, he pummeled the second with a vicious blow to its side. It spun wildly as it slammed into the pedestal’s side, flipping over onto its back. Seizing the opportunity, Risens stabbed the Talon down onto the center of the creature’s exposed abdomen. Like it had so many times already, the blade skipped off the shell. This time, it bit into the stone floor.

  “Idiot!” the Talon’s voice bellowed in his mind.

  “Stop damaging us!”

  Reacting out of a growing sense of aggravation, Risens kicked the overturned carrion into the water of the pool before turning to meet the charge of the other.

  The heavy splash of the beast crashing into the water was immediately overwhelmed by a high-pitched squeal. Risens covered his ears as best he could as the volume increased. Fragments of stone and dirt rained down from the ceiling as the noise persisted. Even the second creature seemed affected by the sound, pausing as it screamed in apparent agony.

  The water-logged bug’s motions were sluggish and uncoordinated as it stumbled through the shallow pool. This was the first indication that these things were not as invulnerable as they had proven so far. Risens brought an arching strike down on the seam between its armored head and its carapace. With only a muffled crack and minimal resistance, the Talon cut through, severing the stubby head from its body. A viscous black slime, the consistency of tar, oozed from the wound.

  At the sight of death, the companion bug hesitated. Instead of pressing the barrage that had threatened to wear Risens down, it skittered across the floor, fleeing his pursuit. Batting it against the side of the wall to stall its motion, Risens repeated the attack, hammering his foot into the spinning shell. It found the pool as well. This time, Risens didn’t wait for the deafening scream of the carrion to nearly incapacitate him. He leaped into the shallows and plunged his blade through the monstrosity.