“All right.” Linden gave herself no chance to hesitate. She did not share Covenant’s vertigo; but the depths of the cavern were crowded with terrors nonetheless. If she paused to think about them—“Stay here,” she told her friends. “Don’t try to cross until you can see that I’ve succeeded—or the Harrow has. There’s no sense in risking yourselves yet. And I don’t think that orcrest or the krill is likely to be of much use.”

“Do not fear for us,” Coldspray replied, still grinning sharply. “We have no wish to meet our deaths in this dire chasm.”

“Good.” More to encourage herself than to express approval, Linden nodded. “As long as Liand can hold off the worst of Kevin’s Dirt, you’ll probably know what happens as soon as I do.”

While her companions watched and waited, Linden gripped herself tightly and started toward the span. When Stave moved to join her, she did not refuse his company.

From her perspective of trepidation, the bridge—the Hazard—looked more delicate and fragile than it had seemed earlier. Making it, they risked everything. Who they were. What they meant to themselves. As she did. And the ceiling of the immense cavern loomed, louring like thunderheads. Hints of chiaroscuro reflected back and forth among the stalactites, implying lightning. Any one of those wet and straining shapes was heavy enough to break the span if it fell.

Stave walked at her side, so close that his shoulder brushed hers. In spite of her fears for him—for all of her companions—she welcomed the support of his inhuman strength, his argute senses. His dedication might serve as valor if or when her dreads threatened to paralyze her.

Together, Linden Avery and the former Master left safer rock and began to ascend the shallow arc of the Hazard.

Really, she insisted to herself, this ought to be easy. It was a short walk, perhaps two hundred paces. If she kept her gaze fixed on the far wall, did not look down—Yet the black abyss seemed to reach up as though it meant to snatch her off the bridge. The darkness itself may have been alive.

Covenant gave no sign that he had noticed what she was doing.

She could still feel the taut attention of her friends behind her. But every step took her farther from Liand and light. As the radiance of the Sunstone dimmed, her health-sense faded with it. Soon she would not be able to discern her companions at all. Unless she turned to look—

Feeling like a coward, she murmured to Stave, “Don’t let me fall. That chasm—” She shuddered. “It pulls at me.”

Stave touched his solid shoulder to hers. “Even here, Chosen, the sight of the Haruchai is merely diminished. It has not failed. This stone is sure. The weight of the Giants together may endanger it. We do not.”