“The Witnesses are closer than we thought,” Anton said. “The Wanderer and I were able to scry for the location of a group of them Pallas sent after us to Kerameikos. We assumed he was sending them from Pallas Athos, but they’re much closer—he must have had some stationed along the river already.”

“How close are they?” Hector asked.

“We think maybe a day, at most,” Jude replied. “The pass is about three leagues away, so we should reach it by evening. We’ll take one rest at the midpoint, but otherwise, try and keep moving.”

They set off at a brisk clip, and Hassan noted what a strange group they made—a prince, a Legionnaire, two disgraced Paladins, a Prophet, a former Witness, a necromancer, and a girl with a god trapped inside her.

Hassan had kept his distance from Beru since their escape from Pallas Athos, and he saw no reason to approach her now. Khepri didn’t seem to have the same qualms and spent the morning deep in conversation with Beru.

The morning mist lifted as they hiked deeper into the mountains, but the dense trees shaded them from the heat of the sun. Long before their midday break, they came to a sudden halt at the bottom of a steep slope. Ahead, Hassan could see Jude and Anton discussing something, both of them looking agitated.

Hassan approached them warily, Hector at his side. “What’s going on? Why did we stop?”

The two of them jumped at the intrusion, and he saw the tension in the set of Jude’s jaw and the line of Anton’s shoulders.

“Anton says he senses more Witnesses,” Jude replied after a beat. “More than two dozen, coming east through the pass. Some of them have stolen Graces.”

“Coming through—?” Hector repeated. “You mean from the valley?”

Jude nodded. “If we keep going this way, we’ll run straight into them. The pass isn’t that wide—there’s no way to avoid them.”

“So what are we supposed to do?” Hassan asked. “Can we fight through them?”

Jude looked like he was considering the prospect. “We probably could. But more likely, they’ll hem us in while their reinforcements come in from the east and we’ll be cornered.”

“Is there another option?” Beru asked, looking worried.

“One,” Jude said hesitantly. “We can double back. There’s a system of caverns and waterways beneath the mountains that will take us to the river valley.”

“Underground?” Hector asked, sounding almost as nervous about the idea as Hassan felt.

“If we double back, we’ll be exposing ourselves to the Witnesses already on our tail,” Hassan argued. “You said they’re what, a day behind us? We’ve already spent half a day hiking. We double back, we lose that whole lead.”