They left the castle by one of the western gates and took a narrow stone path that wound around the mountain before vanishing between walls of dark rock. The farther they went the quieter it grew, until even the noise of the castle had fallen away behind them.
Nothing else lived this high in the peaks. No village sat beneath the walls, no market road crossed the snow, and the nearest settlement lay kilometres below, past cliffs and forest and layers of cloud that often hid the lower world altogether.
Lysandra went through the terrain without a pause, familiar with every turn. Trafalgar followed her over a natural ridge and down a long slope where years of footsteps had beaten the snow hard against the stone.
Several minutes later the path opened into a broad basin, walled by rock on three sides. The fourth looked out over a field of white peaks, and the floor underfoot lay unusually flat, scored all over with old cuts left by weapons and mana.
