The roar went out across the cavern and came back to him, and Noah stayed on his knees.
The weight stayed. Four Established Immensities pressed down on him from every side, Keeping and Penance and Drowning and Refusal, and his Dream pressed back against all of it from inside his skin, held in, held down. Snow fell on his shoulders. The black water lapped at his chest. Around him floated the grey dust of his giants and the cold ash of the Ember-Keeper.
Across the square, the thing wearing his face watched him, and waited.
Noah looked down at his own hands, flat on the stone floor of his first dungeon.
Adversity. Again.
He had met a great deal of it. Every time, there had been a way through. Sometimes the way had been his own strength. Sometimes it had been something he took. Sometimes it had been someone standing beside him.
He thought about his Dream.
