Causes, transformed into strings of something far too intricate!
Countless of them. Purposes, wound one over another, Age upon Age, until they had grown so thick they had become an Immensity!
A purpose to keep, a purpose to drain the warm, a purpose to sit the throne, and to hold the keys, and to sweep the halls, and to feed the stolen warmth inward toward the Heart. Thousands of purposes, millions, each one a thread of cold, all of them braided together into one vast, gaunt shape.
And every one of them rested on a single Cause at the bottom.
Its keystone.
He looked closer, and his gold eyes stayed calm, and behind them, something cold and certain settled.
It belonged to someone else.
