Ethan had hoped he was done with snow for the year. They were south of Garashire now, though not significantly, but as they climbed into the foothills of the Border Mountains, snow began to cover more and more of the landscape, and the white-capped peaks before them didn’t provide any hope it would change.

The last snowfall in Garashire had been three weeks ago, and even so, Ethan had spent the entire winter standing before a blacksmith’s forge, often without a shirt. Now he pulled his borrowed cloak tighter about him as they walked around a bend in the trail and were met in the face with a cold westerly wind.

Ethan looked back at his two traveling companions, neither of whom seemed bothered by the changing weather. Sera and Yori were old friends, and Ethan had to admit they did look related. Having spent so much time with the young women over the last few years, her different appearance from the other northerners did not even register with him, but next to Yori, her darker skin and light hair definitely marked her as an islander.

Sera had told Ethan that her mother was from the far south but didn’t like talking about her past much, so Sera and her other siblings hadn’t pressed the point. They were accepted in the north, and her father was a prominent and well-respected businessman. Not that there was much discrimination in the north anyway. Even the few Tallashites who chose to live away from their homeland were openly accepted.

It had been difficult at first, trying to get information from Yori while simultaneously pretending that they already knew what was going on. One valuable part of the quest to steal the four weapons was that none of the thieves were made aware of the others, so they were supposed to be strangers when they met. It looked like the Supplanter had hired two assassins and two island warriors for the job. Larken had been surprised that they would send a “Sister” on the quest, and Yori also seemed curious they would send a woman and used the word sister several times. But the second islander had the privilege of seeing Sera fight at the end of the bloodhound battle and didn’t need nearly as much convincing that she was legitimate. Ethan and Sera didn’t know what the two warriors had meant by the term “Sister,” but they rolled with it.

They could only guess that some women in their culture were warriors and were called sisters. Yori had to assume something like that because anyone else would have had dozens of questions of Sera about how she had fought and the equipment she wore. Larken’s sword and shield were far superior to her own, but they were much too large for her.

She wore the teardrop guard on her back, securing the hangar for the shield to a strap she tied under her chest. The top of the metal guard was at her shoulders, while the rounded point at the bottom touched the back of her calves. Sera wore the sword on her hip, and the tip almost dragged on the ground. However, having seen the young woman in combat, the islander didn’t spend any time questioning the oversized equipment.

It was clear from the start that Yori, though much older, was taken with Sera. In the few private moments Ethan had with her, they both agreed that it was best if she played along with him, as it would only help their cause when they met the next group of people that had to be convinced they were mercenaries for hire. Even though Ethan had suggested the strategy, he could barely handle the overt flirting Sera exhibited in the islander’s presence. His desire for her was hardly below the surface now, and he burned hot with jealousy that even the cold wind could do little to temper.

And it wasn’t just Ethan getting in touch with his feelings for the young woman. Sera had changed too. It was nothing tangible, but her appearance had shifted slightly. The youthful girl he had first met three years ago had seemingly matured into a grown woman overnight. None of her physical proportions had changed, but she had a glow that intoxicated Ethan. Her eyes sparkled with beauty when she laughed, and her voice had a melodic quality that simultaneously soothed his anxiety and excited his emotions.

Ethan couldn’t blame Yori for falling hard for her, but the islander didn’t have a heart Elemental raging inside him either, so the young man felt he had it worse. Then there was the conflict he had also felt. In one of the few private moments they had since Yori had shown up, Sera had said that a natural conflict between the heart and the body had kept him from initially picking up the axe. Since the Elementals were divine creations, and the union of desire and body without the mind and soul to regulate them was unholy, they repelled each other in their pure state, but now that each of the Elementals was within a fallen human with their corrupted minds, the interaction between Ethan and Sera felt much more like an attraction than repulsion. Ethan admitted that it was a disharmonious attraction, but his heart didn’t care.

Sera appeared to rule over her Elemental more easily, seemingly not driven by passion as Ethan constantly was. She also complained less about the pace the young man insisted on setting. Her short legs worked just fine, and it was usually Yori who requested breaks first. Now that they were in the mountains, Ethan’s longer stride gave him even more of an advantage as they moved as much up as forward. He thought Sera might need help with some of the climbs, but she leaped over rocks and up steep ledges with ease.

As the “islanders” fell further behind, Ethan kept an ear behind him, waiting for some call to slow down, but a scream in front of him finally stopped Ethan. They were on a ledge too wide and even not to be part of a planned route through the mountains. Searching for where the scream came from, Ethan saw movement across a steep valley along a rise that didn’t have a clear path. Two women were moving along a treacherous slope, likely taking a wrong turn at some point, and should have been on the same trail as the mercenaries. They had come to an icy patch that was too difficult to traverse, and one of them had slipped in trying to turn around. It looked like the other woman would be able to help her friend, but that was when the snow vulture showed up.

The mammoth bird usually had easy pickings in spring as mountain goats, squirrels, and other mammals often underestimated the steep slopes and fell to their deaths. Apparently, the vulture was big enough to consider anything a meal, even humans. The bird swooped down on the pair several times, not attacking per se but trying to dislodge the desperate women so he could fly the 300 feet down to the bottom of the valley and feed on their dead bodies at its leisure.

Yori and Sera were beside Ethan in a moment. The islander didn’t seem too concerned, but Sera spoke up. “We have to do something to save them.” She turned to look at her new “boyfriend” and glanced at his bow. Without a word, the man nodded, unhooked his weapon from his back, and had an arrow nocked in seconds.

As Yori tracked the bird, trying to line up a shot on the broad side of the creature, Sarah searched their surroundings for a way to get over to the two women. Ethan looked as well. The gap between them was over 100 feet, though a few dozen paces ahead, the far cliff wall jutted in, closing the distance a bit, but it was still an impossible jump. The steep walls grew closer as they descended into the valley below, but it was hundreds of feet deep.

Eventually, over a quarter-mile ahead, the two cliff faces joined together, but it would take a dozen minutes to get to that junction over the uneven trail and the trek back along the far cliff face, which didn’t have a nice wide path, would take over twice that long. It didn’t look like the women had that much time.

Behind them, Yori had let two arrows fly, the first missing badly and the second passing through a few wing feathers but doing no damage. The vulture had a body as big as the archer, but it was constantly twisting and turning in the mountain wind. Ethan was ready to start picking up rocks to throw, but the women would still be stranded on the far ledge even if he hit the monster bird. And if he missed, he was just as likely to hit the women with the stones as the vulture. After several more dive bombs from the creature, both women now held on to precarious perches.

Sera didn’t waste any more time and flipped the shield off her shoulders. Ethan turned at the sound of the metal hitting the stone trail and watched as she deposited the large sword next to it. She kept her axe on her other hip. Before Ethan could ask what she was doing, Sera started to climb the cliff wall that rose almost vertically above their trail. The young man didn’t even see any handholds, but Sera moved as quickly as if she were climbing a ladder. Soon she was thirty feet above them and paused, looking over her shoulder at the giant bird circling for another dive.

Ethan put a hand out to Yori to have the man lower his bow, guessing at the insane plan the young woman had in her head, but the archer had already given up on hitting the vulture as he was only down to a handful of arrows.

The bird regarded the odd woman who had just limbed the cliff wall like a spider for a moment, but the primitive mind wisely chose the two screaming targets on the other side of the broad valley. It came no closer than twenty feet to their wall as it circled and then dove back toward the women hanging on for dear life, but it was close enough for Sera. With her own scream, she pushed off hard with all four limbs, turned around, and pulled her axe from its sheath.

She was now flying through the air with supernatural coordination, her weapon gripped tightly in both hands and cocked above her head. She held the axe backward, with the rear point of the weapon jutting forward. Even with her newfound strength, she had no chance to clear the gap between the cliff walls, but she wasn’t aiming for the far ledge. Instead, the vulture flew just below her in its dive, and Sera uncoiled her arms in a vicious overhead chop. She needed to release the axe handle with her left hand, as the bird was slightly to her right, but the sharp point of the axe stuck fast into the doomed vulture’s back.

The young woman was about the average size of the bird’s preferred prey, and it was used to carrying that much weight. Its wings flapped twice more on instinct before its brain realized an axe was sticking into its body. The dying vulture didn’t manage any more wing flaps, but it still glided the rest of the way across the expanse before crashing headfirst into the far wall, well below the frantic women.

Sera saw the collision coming, yanked her weapon out of the doomed bird early, and then drove it into the cliff wall as she ungracefully collided with it. She took a moment to stabilize herself as the dead vulture fell to the valley floor beneath her but was soon hoisting her petite frame up by the anchor. The wall was jagged, with plenty of small handholds. When Sera had secured herself to the wall with her left hand and both feet, she clipped her axe back to its sheath and started to climb. She only had about ten feet till she reached the women and soon had both safely back on the narrow ledge they had been walking.

“I thought we were told not to use the weapons,” Yori said calmly.

“That’s what concerns you about what you just saw?” Ethan dared to say, his breathing barely under control. To have the woman he suddenly cared so much for fling herself off a cliff wall like that had almost given him a heart attack, and even though he was used to his heart attacking him over every emotional reaction he had experienced these past few days, this one had nearly sent him into unconsciousness again.

Yori just returned his look with a shrug. Ethan shook his head in disbelief. If that didn't impress the fighter, these sister warriors from the islands must be something special. Ethan tried to regain his composure enough to address the man’s concern. “We can’t use the weapons on humans,” Ethan was quick to reply, a lie he hoped was believable.

The fighter weighed that answer and chose to accept it. He moved past Ethan and picked up the discarded shield. “You can carry her sword,” he said as he continued down the trail. Across the way, Ethan watched as Sera was now guiding the two women along the narrow ledge toward the junction ahead. He obeyed, picking up the sword and hurrying after his new partner.

About 15 minutes later, the three women made it safely to the intersection, where Yori and Ethan waited. The two new members were out of breath, and the five took a few moments to rest and gather themselves. Sera wasn’t even breathing heavily, but she took a seat on a large rock and pretended to relax.

“Why are you two out here?” Ethan asked once it looked like they could talk again. They had spent what little breath they had in the previous few minutes thanking Sera profusely, and the young woman hadn’t had a chance to ask them anything.

The two women weren’t as young as Sera and Ethan and were closer to their mid-twenties. They were both taller than Sera, one significantly so. Both were dressed in long wool cloaks, with thick underclothes beneath. One of them carried a pack of supplies, but neither had a weapon.

“We are going to the Temple of the Supplanter,” the taller woman said. She used a tone to imply that it should be obvious. “What else is out here?”

Ethan didn’t know, and since they were also going to the temple, he assumed there was no other reason to be out here unless you were trying to sneak across the border into Talla, which didn’t make much sense since none of the boundary was guarded. Also, sneaking across didn’t make sense for these two women since neither looked remotely like a Tallashite. They shared Ethan’s ruddy complexion and had red and blonde hair, respectively.

“Our temple sent us,” the tall redhead continued. “Chosen out of 20 applicants to be servants to the Supplanter.”

“Ah,” Ethan said aloud, and then in his head, sycophant supplicants coming to join the harem.

“Why are you out here?” the shorter blonde woman asked.

Ethan and Yori exchanged looks and shrugged. The women would eventually find out as they were going to the same place. “We are returning on a mission from the master,” Yori said, knowing enough about the Supplanter religion to correctly label the leader.

“We hear he is close to attaining all of the Elementals. After centuries of waiting, the time of our ascension is almost here.”

Ethan looked hard into the blonde as she said this, a look of pure ecstasy crossing her face. Despite physically possessing one of these Elementals, he couldn’t help but mock her sincere spiritual enthusiasm. Any doubts about how willing these sexual supplicants were to participate in this sick religion fled at this woman’s reaction. Sera had never seemed that emphatic about her beliefs, not that he held them in any higher regard. However, between the two faiths, he found it more likely that this Supplanter would save the human race, but that would require this religious leader to pry the Elemental from Ethan’s unwilling heart, and he would fight against that to his dying breath, which is probably what it would take.

Without inquiring further, Ethan announced they had rested long enough and should try to get to the temple before nightfall, or they would all freeze to death. The young man took the lead, and the rest of the troop followed faithfully behind him.