Dreth drank the violet light rising from the fissure, his shrunken flame swelling back to the size of a house.
Stamping the crystal, he roared, "The bell took my dead, little brother, so I'll take the mountain's hearth instead!"
"Observation, the bell cuts the link to the fallen, but the fissure is a second well," Aria said quietly.
Hajin read the field with the Divine Eye, tracing violet roots from the crystal teeth deep down under the snow. Above the fissure the north cliff hung over the basin like a held fist, loaded with twelve winters of ice.
"Juna, Loccy, keep him busy at the bottom... Anvil, don't stop ringing."
"I can't stop, Scrap, my arms won't let me!"
Dreth clapped at the nearest fallen militiaman, the Kindling Rite snapping out like a whip across the snow. The man's coat smoked, then sputtered out, the bell's low toll swallowing the spark before it could catch.
Staring at his own hands, he snarled, "Oh, that's cheating!"
