The Star-Spire was the highest needle of the floating palace, a tower of white obsidian that seemed to pierce the very heart of the moon. As Kael and Silas moved through the upper gardens, the air grew unnaturally thin and sweet, smelling of crushed lilies and ozone.
"No guards," Silas whispered, his hand white-knuckled on his sword hilt. "We just climbed the most heavily defended chain in the world, and there isn't a single Griffon-Knight on the battlements?"
"They aren't needed," Kael said, his voice a low vibration. "The Norns don't use steel to keep people out. They use possibility."
Kael stopped at the base of the Spire. The silver tattoo on his arm was no longer just glowing; it was burning, the skin around it blackening as if branded by an invisible iron.
Varg rippled across Kael's chest, sensing the distortion in the air. The Shifter began to form a Viking Helm over Kael's face—a nasal-guarded mask of obsidian and blue ice that protected his mind from the psychic hum of the tower.
They stepped through the archway. Inside, the Spire was hollow. There were no stairs, only thousands of glowing silver threads stretching from the floor to the apex, vibrating like the strings of a cosmic harp.
At the center of the web sat three women.
They weren't old crone-witches. They were beautiful, but their beauty was static and terrifying. Their skin was the color of moonlight, and where their eyes should have been, there were only spinning gears of gold.
"The Bone-Breaker has arrived," the middle Norn said. Her voice didn't come from her mouth; it echoed from the threads themselves. "A soul that refused to sink. A glitch in the tapestry."
"Where is Harald?" Kael demanded, his hand reaching into his shadow. The Blue-Ice Axe materialized, its edge smoking in the thin air.
"The King is at the banquet of the gods," the youngest Norn giggled, her fingers dancing over a thread that looked suspiciously like Kael's life-line. "He didn't just cross over, Skane. He bought his way in. Do you know the price of a kingdom in this world?"
Kael stepped into the web. "I don't care about his gold."
"Not gold," the eldest Norn hissed, her gear-eyes spinning faster. "He paid with the Ancestors. To power the Gravity-Plates, to keep this city in the sky, he traded the souls of every Viking who died under your command. They aren't in the Great Halls. They are the fuel for this palace."
Kael froze.
The weight of it hit him like a physical blow. The thousands of men who had followed him into battle, the brothers-in-arms who had died for his glory—they weren't at rest. They were being burned as mana-batteries to keep Harald's city floating.
The Viking soul within Kael let out a roar of pure, unadulterated grief. The Shifter responded to the agony, turning from obsidian to a Blood-Red Crystalline Glass.
"Varg..." Kael's voice was a guttural sob of rage. "Mimicry: The Grave-Robber's Vengeance."
The Shifter didn't form a weapon. It exploded into a cloud of red mist that surged into the silver threads.
"What are you doing?!" the Norns screamed in unison, their beautiful faces contorting into masks of horror. "You're touching the Loom! You'll unravel yourself!"
"I am already unraveled!" Kael roared.
He grabbed the silver threads with his bare, Varg-clad hands. He didn't pull them; he began to Chant. Not a magic spell, but an old Northern Death-Song. As he sang, the souls trapped in the city's engines heard him. The floor of the Spire began to vibrate with the spectral drums of a thousand ghosts.
The silver threads began to turn red. Kael was "hijacking" the Loom.
"Silas! Get out!" Kael yelled over the roar of the mana-storm. "The city is going to fall!"
"Kael, you'll go down with it!" Silas shouted, shield raised against the flying sparks of fate.
"I've died in the mud once!" Kael laughed, his violet eyes glowing with a terrifying light. "Today, I'm going to see what it's like to die in the clouds!"
With a violent yank, Kael snapped the central thread of the Loom.
The Star-Spire groaned. Above them, the Great Gravity-Plates began to flicker and die. The floating Capital of Aethelgard, the "Gallows of the Sky," let out a metallic scream as it began its long, terminal descent toward the earth.
And in the distance, at the top of the High Palace, a golden door burst open.
King Harald stepped out, his crown glowing, his eyes wide with the realization that his debt had finally come due.