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The light co beads of ice They shileaet aze away from their beauty

"Ice faeries," Raffaele says, his voice echoing to us from somewhere in front "Tiny creatures of the north They must have awoken at the ripple of our movement in the air I have seen thees here This is the place that travelers worship as the Dark of Night, but they go no farther"

The glow lights our way, leading us along a trail painted by stardust

Minutes pass Hours At soainstthe cave’s exit I tense, wondering what lies on the other side Beside host walks in and out of the shadows, faded and gray The wind turns steady, until we round a curve in the cavern and find ourselves looking at an exit

I suck inworld of snow beyond it

I have heard thein front of it now, staring into an untouched,our world with the gods And we cannot enter without Violetta’s alignment, her link to empathy

Raffaele stands at the entrance and reaches out a hand tentatively He shudders, and so do I--the energy beyond this entrance is overwhel, aso intense that I fear it h When the priests co for this place, is this where they stop? Do they sit under the light of the ice faeries and ad in the cavern? Perhaps mere mortals cannot even tell that this entrance is here Perhaps the energy here is so strong it is lost on the between one space and another Then he looks at us He is going to step through "We are already ghosts," he whispers I open ht, as he always is If this is hoe must end, then so be it Raffaele takes a deep breath, and I study his silhouette in this diical realiano nods and takes ether Teren looks ahead without fear

There is a space beside me where Violetta would have stood Without her, I a Without her, the world is that h And we follow

It is said that the Dark of Night can be entered solely by those who have known and suffered true loss--that only through surviving such agony can a mortal understand what it is like to set foot inside a realht, compiled by Ye Tsun Le

Adelina Amouteru

My boots sink into fresh snow that looks untouched for miles A forest of frosted trees towers around us, their branches bare and layered with thick blankets of white What freezes us all in our tracks, though, is the sight of the three olden and cold, covering half the sky, so large that I feel as if I could reach up and brushtheir marble surfaces Sheets of stars litter the sky, the constellations iht We are close to the heavens here As I stare, a curtain of faint green dances against the stars, undulating, appearing and disappearing in coht like this It is as if the realreet us here, and our asps beside me

We entered, after all

How is this possible? We shouldn’t have It should have killed us Beside me, Raffaele stares in astonishment

When I look over my shoulder, I notice Teren Like the rest of us, he is frozen in place at the sight His pale eyes are very wide, and his mouth is open There are tears in his eyes, and frozen streaks on his face I can hear hi a prayer as he stares, so ods

We in is a steady beat now, guiding each of us along The snow crunches softly under our boots I tremble in the cold The whispers in rowing stronger the closer we get to the origin I try again to keep theradually, they start to drown out the silence aroundanye too ancient for me to understand The trees in this forest seem to blur and shift every ti toflashes across ure, I’m not sure Other tilass Each ti myself to focus I can controlin the realods

Another shape darts between the trees and vanishes I stop to look for it No use--it’s already gone I look back at Magiano "There is solances at the gaps between the trees

And at that oes up to the trees I halt in ives me an alarmed look "What is it?" he asks

But I can’t answer hi froling by their necks froray, their faces ashen, and as I look on in horror, I start to recognize each one of them The one closest to me is my father His chest is skeletal as always, caved in, and drops of blood stain the white snow underneath him Nearby is Enzo, his hair a deep, black scarlet, his neck broken, the sa body Behind him is Gem There is the Night King of Merroutas, whoh with a sword There is Dante, his face contorted in pain There are Inquisition guards I’ve killed, soldiers fron lands I’ve conquered, and rebels I’ve executed for daring to defy my rule And there is my sister, my latest victim