The thought was almost too much to bear. He loved the Vir Requis behind him—they were his people, and each soul was dear to him. Yet if he didn't find his wife and children, how could he go on? The pain of losing little Requiem, his daughter, still clawed at him; how would he survive if he lost Maev and Tanin too? Many nights, Jeid still dreamed of his first wife, of fair Keyla whom his own brother had slain. If Laira too was lost to him, the only woman he had loved since, how would he find reason to keep flying?

I will find you, Laira, he thought. I will fly to the ends of the world. I will crumble empires to the ground, and I will boil lakes, and I will uproot forests, and I will watch this world burn to find you. Wherever you are, know that I'm coming for you.

They kept tunneling. Foot by foot. Mark by mark. The demon dug through soil and granite alike, tearing boulders apart as easily as sickles cutting stalks of grain. Dorvin soon panted and had to step back, letting another man replaced him at the right-hand harness; soon that man too tired and allowed a third Vir Requis to hold the shaft. But Jeid kept to his post, his palms raw around the wood, always shoving the creature, grinding his jaw, thinking of his family. Tunneling up and up through the darkness, seeking the sky.

"Requiem," he said through the flying dust, through his dripping sweat. "May our wings forever find your sky."

After what felt like days, like marks and marks of tunneling, he smelled it ahead, and he closed his eyes and savored it.

Cold, fresh air.

He growled and leaned against the shaft, shoving the thrashing demon forward. Its claws lashed. Its teeth bit through stone. Rocks collapsed and dirt rained, and there Jeid saw it, and tears filled his eyes.

The sky.

The stars.

Freedom.

Golgoloth twitched and squealed. Bound to the edge of the harness like a chunk of meat on a skewer, the demon burst out into the open air.

Jeid looked at Dorvin; the young man was back holding the other shaft. The two shared a glance, then tightened their lips and stepped out of the tunnel and onto the mountaintop.

The wind blew across them, cold and wonderfully scented. The moon shone above, snow flurried around their feet, and distant pines spread below upon the mountainsides, sliding down into shadows.

Jeid turned to look south. Far in the distance, a mark away or more, he could see fire streaming out of the mountainside. Bryn, the last defender of the mountain, was blowing her dragonfire from the cave, keeping the sphinxes out. In the night, the distant sphinxes looked like fireflies, orange in the dragonfire; hundreds buzzed there.

The Vir Requis began to emerge from the tunnel, pale and weak, many of them wounded.