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rest again soon. Before I do, I want to see something change.
    Donia looked down at the ice, completely unsurprised to see a face watching her in return. The eye alone was bigger than she was, set in a rough, craggy, mostly human face somehow leeched of all color. The green light glowed, far below.
    His voice was no longer too much to bear. Compared to the thunder of hearing his name, his usual speech was nothing more than a bumblebee's whisper.
    "Release me," Donia said. "Save the boy."
    Then she whispered one long name.
    With a thunderous crack, the ice split beneath her. The huge chunks and boulders of ice that had surrounded her whisked away, hurtled into the distance as though they had been thrown from a catapult.
    A single hit from any of those flying bits of ice would have torn chunks out of her flesh. She felt no fear.
    Compared to his fear, still burning in her mind, her own was nothing.
    She sat up, blinking around at the world. A circle of black-coated cultists stood a few yards away around a circle of red, stumbling backwards and pointing into the air at the flying ice. She looked in another direction, and saw Nikolos' blond hair lying almost at her feet. He had been so close all along.
    His chest rose and fell, barely. Hope kindled once more in her chest, though it seemed a tiny, feeble thing, barely noticeable against his loneliness and despair.
    But it was enough for her.
    Donia turned her head and met the eyes of the nearest cultist.
    "Well," he said, and she instantly recognized his cultured voice. "Well, well, well. That's an impressive showing, I know, but—"
    Ice cracked beneath the bloody circle, and a huge body shifted beneath the ice. The black-dressed Travelers stumbled backwards. They pointed and started laughing. Some of them cheered in victory. The speaker turned around and rubbed his hands together.
    "At last!" he cried.
    Donia had the feeling that he was about to be drastically disappointed. She pointed.
    "Him," she said.
    With a sound like a collapsing barn, a blue-skinned fist big enough to grip a horse punched straight through the ice, sending black-coated Travelers flying.
    Donia’s blood had frozen on her skin. Her vision was blurring, and her thoughts swirled with memories taken from the ancient titan. She wondered if she would survive this. Even if she did, would she be able to open up a Gate and take Nikolos home?
    Whether we make it or not, she thought, we still won. She supposed she had accomplished something great today, after all.
    Pushing his way through the ice, the Frozen One rose.

    To summon a creature of Helgard, you must understand its name, its nature, its very soul. To understand another, you first reveal yourself. To do so is painful, fraught with risk, and highly rare.
    It is also the key to the Violet Light.

    -Elysian Book of Virtues, Chapter 1: Violet

T HE F EATHERED P LAINS
    Loyalty is a fine attribute, though it is often misunderstood. Some interpret loyalty as nothing more than allegiance to a group or cause, but this is far from complete.

    -Elysian Book of Virtues, Chapter 2: Orange

    Denner had never liked Avernus. It was one of the safer Territories, but that only meant that it wasn’t always crawling with murderous specters and fire-breathing monsters, and it had plenty of water and fresh air. In Endross or Naraka, drinkable water was far more valuable than gold. As locations went, Avernus boasted some impressive scenery: waving plains, forests of impossibly tall trees, sharp-sided mountains like daggers of stone.  
    He wasn’t sure what it was about the Territory that irritated him so much. Probably the people.
    Denner stood in a high-roofed tent that was lined with Avernus Travelers. Each of them wore some arrangement of buckskin or hide, decorated liberally with feathers. They clearly meant to imitate the Avernus Travelers of old, who had lived off the land in the Feathered Plains and only occasionally stepped out of their Territory.
    Unfortunately, these