Naomi's fingertips trembled, frozen at the sight of the unmoving man. Her ears rang, her blood rushed like raging river rapids. There was no evidence of gold around him, but rather a dagger of ice impaled in the back of his skull. The pool of red grew bigger and bigger with each passing second.

Cassien didn't need to see her expression to recognize the horrific stain on her conscience. He reached out and squeezed her hand.

"I got him first."

It was the only acceptable instance of a lie, one that she needed.

Darius cursed. "We can't go back."

There was only one path forward, a wide open mouth that sensibly would lead them to the centre of the grotto. The sound of distant, charging footsteps could be heard, tiny pebbles vibrating on the ground like an impending warning.

Kaelen gritted her teeth. "The more we take down now, the better."

"Didn't peg this guy for needing a whole army to take down a few of us," Thom muttered under his breath.

The roaring charge grew louder, crumbles of tiny rocks falling onto the surface of the bloodied waters. Where the water didn't ripple, it pelted onto the backs of floating bodies instead.

Floating bodies in water. Frozen bodies in water.

Cassien's mind recalled a fuzzy memory of a frigid river, spilled grain and the blur of mercenaries splashing through the water. Blood stained their clothes, their hands - they had been trying to escape in the waters before it all turned to ice.

He couldn't remember when it took place or even the name of the river, but the final imagery of such a memory was seared into his brain.

His eyes widened. "Find a spot to hide - all of you, except Darius."

"What?" Thom scrunched his brows. "What're you-"

"I do not have time to explain," Cassien said with an urgency that made Thom's mouth snap shut. "Hide anywhere but the top of the ledge or waters."

Naomi's stomach twisted - not in apprehension of his hidden plans, but in preparation for whatever he was willing to do. She rose to the tips of her toes and kissed him quickly before releasing his hand.

"Come back to me, okay?" Her words were a demand, the fierce paleness of her eyes like a commandment.

"I always do," he murmured. Cassien stepped back and nodded to the group, who already began to shift away to the darker recesses of the cavern room.

Darius gave him a steady look as the stampede continued to thrum, the heavy barrages of voices clear and heavy. There was no mistake now that they were duly outnumbered.

"What do you need me to do?"

"Get as many as you can to the edge of the ledge. We need to get them into the water, all at the same time."

"How are you gonna force them in the water?"

"I'll make them. You just need to make sure you don't fall in either."

"Got it."

"Oh, and be ready to shield your head."

Darius blinked. "Right. Got it."

They may not have always seen things eye to eye, but Cassien respected that he was willing to do whatever was needed.

Cassien made his way to the far side of the waters from the opening, and pressed himself flat against the towering rocky ledge. Shadows covered him like a thick blanket, tendrils of heavy smoke curling around his body. He nodded approvingly at Darius's projection - he should be virtually undetectable.

He peered around the corner that hovered just above the waters, and watched as the shadows of numerous men began to appear in the dim light of the cave. Two, five, eight, sixteen men - all heavily armed and wrapped in thick leathers and smooth bronze, their faces red with bloodlust.

The largest of them wearing a necklace of animal fangs and thick hide stepped forward, his sunbrowned skin wrinkled with scars and apparent cruelty. His eyes nearly burst out at the sight of the slaughtered Seravethians before him.

He spat as he bellowed outwards. "Find the motherfuckers responsible for this and take them straight to the king. Four of you start salvagin' weapons."

Despite the earlier stomps and the savage statures of the men, the cave was eerily quiet as they broke formation to begin their search. Metal scraped against stone, stiff yet sludgy sounds of bloodied fingers pried from around the handles of ownerless weaponry. One man with stringy orange hair bent down near the shore, reaching out for a fallen warrior just within reach - and halted.

Cassien tensed and pulled back from around the corner. He couldn't have seen me.

Dark, stealthic magic still lingered around him like a cloak. There had to be something else that caught his attention. Cassien willed his left eye's vision to Naomi's in the case she was watching, and instead found smooth pale skin and silvered hair - Aryn's - likely pressed against him in hiding, obscuring her sight from the expanse.

At least she couldn't see what was about to happen.

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Cassien turned back around the corner just in time to see a necklace of red appear around the orange haired man's throat. Blood spewed out like a geyser, and the man clawed at his throat feebly before his body plunged halfway in. Darius stood beside his exposed legs with a red stained dagger at his side, facing the group of warriors who turned to the sound.

Cassien couldn't see his expression, but he knew Darius was smirking. "I'll save you all the time for hide and seek."

The fanged leader held out a hand to stop the men who stepped forward. "You expect me to believe that a single shithead like you took out everyone here?"

"Didn't I just take out a carrot over here in less than a second?"

The man didn't miss a beat. "Where's the rest of you?"

"No clue what you mean."

"You don't fool me. We know there's six of ya."

"Is there?" Darius looked around in confusion, holding up a single finger. "I only count myself."

"Shut the fuck up - you're not stalling. I'll give you one chance to sell out 'yer group, in exchange for a slightly more painless death."

"Doesn't seem like a good trade."

Darius's hand twitched, and Cassien barely registered the speed of which his wrist flicked outwards, sending his dagger shooting out like a fired bolt. It embedded deep into the flesh of the leader's thigh.

"Oops. Butterfingers."

Without a sound, he yanked it out like it was merely a toothpick, blood dripping down his leg. He held the dagger to his mouth where a white, cracked tongue lapped up the blood. The man pulled a battleaxe from his back and pointed it towards Darius. "Cripple this fucker."

"Can't cripple what you can't catch," Darius said tauntingly before black streaks of darkness enveloped his body, legs pushing off the ground in a gusting sprint.

A mark of blood appeared across three of the men's arms in a blur, not enough to severely injure but only to enrage. Darius weaved beneath the swing of a longsword, tucking his head back and twisting his body in an awkwardly flexible angle to avoid the grapple of another. Each strike and lunge of the warriors were fruitless against the blur of speed which he moved.

The sharp glint of silver appeared for a split second in a flourishing toss just before a streak of shadow caught it, slicing downward. An arc of blood sprayed out from the shoulder of another warrior.

He was quick, far quicker than anyone in the group - Darius may have asked Naomi to play the part of bait back then, but it was clear that he was the better trapcard for antagonizing people.

A gust of pure black wafted at the base of the ledge with Darius posed down on one knee, dagger held casually at his side as if he did nothing more than an acrobatic drill. On his back was a slightly bent but usable metal shield.

"Much too slow."

The leader let out a low, mocking laugh and pointed his axe at Darius's calf. "Were we?"

There was a tear in his dark slacks that revealed a line of crimson that trickled down to the leather of his boots. But Darius kept his smirk.

Cassien's brows furrowed. Not a single one of them touched him. How?

He recalled the precise slits across each of the deceased men's throats and understood his play. Darius had made the cut himself, to goad the men into thinking he had been too cocky. Enough to trigger the bloodhound lust of each warrior, to blind them with overconfidence.

The warriors surged forward, waves of voices barking the same kind of mindless command: "He's wounded, that was all for show, get him!"

Darius pushed off the ground, shadow bursting behind him like a cape. Splatters of blood marked the stone as he sprinted towards the ledge, keeping a calculated distance. Bolts launched from crossbows, but even with a simple injury, Darius weaved around in perfect dodges.

He stumbled halfway - a subtle slip, a faked buckle of his knee. The warriors roared in a bloodthirsty cheer, their combined weight causing bits of the ledge rocks to plunk into the blood-tinged waters below. Even the leader seemed maddened with savagery.

The men were beginning to disappear from view at where Cassien stood. He held out a hand towards the reflecting light of the water, relieved to see Darius's stealth magic was still actively applied. Moving quickly, Cassien approached the shores appearing barely more than a blurred shadow. He could see the chase after Darius reaching the top, though a few split off to surround the bottom.

Figures, Cassien thought. They'd be idiots to all go up there.

Still, taking out the bulk of them would be worth the diversion. Several stranglers wouldn't take more than a few seconds to handle.

Cassien cracked his fingers in anticipation as the group began to corner Darius. With a dry chuckle, he held up his hands.

"Fellas, let's talk about this like men…."

Darius glanced back, both to see the bare strip of space left between him and the drop. He mouthed frantically: "What are you waiting for?!"

Cassien placed one foot in the water that, to the warriors on the opposing ends of the shore, seemingly rippled at nothing. He held up both palms towards the rocky ceiling, aiming for the space above the army's heads. He wasn't sure if he had done this in the past, if this was part of his magical skill set - but something in his instincts gnawed at him.

Willing the water around his legs, up his torso and around his arms, a thick, constant cannon of slush and tiny droplets of frozen water surged outwards in a defiant blast. It hit the ceiling with an explosive sound, the mound of hardening snow covering the rocks. It was like a blanket of icicles, as chunky and large as a forearm.

Cassien clenched his hands and pulled downwards against an invisible pull, compelling his magic to rain down like a frozen hellfire. The shadows around him broke.

His voice boomed at Darius. "Go!"

Ice crackled like a whip as the massive spikes of ice snapped free at Cassien's will. Darius jumped without hesitation, his reaction readied unlike the others. As he jumped, he fell a short distance before jamming his dagger into the side of the ledge, catching himself from falling. His feet skittered across a shallow landing, finding his footing before holding the battered shield directly above himself. Cassien deliberately avoided casting the icicles too close to Darius, falling around him in a perfect dome.

The warriors reacted too late. An icicle immediately impaled itself into the neck of one. A man jumped to avoid being struck, but instead crashed into one of his comrades - and the two plunged too far from the water and into the hard shores, bones and meat and blood bursting like an overfilled balloon.

Most of the men jumped for the waters as the shower of ice forced them away from the wide descent downwards; their choices were either to be skewered or to dive.

Either worked in Cassien's favour.

Men dropped into the red-tinged waters like sacks of stone. Cassien could see in his peripheral vision that with Darius's magic broken, the warriors who had chosen to guard the shores were heading towards him, weapons raised. Three of them on land, but eleven in the waters. It was his turn to choose.

It was a split second decision.

His breath turned visibly white with tiny crystals of ice floating out. Cassien stepped back as he wrung the longsword from his sheath, stabbing it into the waters with both hands firmly on the hilt. Crystalline formations erupted from his hands and down the metal, into the waters that were still only seconds ago.

It was louder than even thunder.

Gnarled, jagged veins of pale blue exploded outwards like branches of lightning. Lengths of water froze solid in less than three heartbeats.

The first assailant closest to Cassien barely had time to scream.

From the chest down, his body became encapsulated in ice. Each warrior was swallowed whole by the waves of incoming frost, their bare armour snapping off from the frigid pressure. One barely reached the shores, hand outstretched for a rocky ledge before his fingers froze midreach, skin blistered deep-blue and a screech forever lodged in his throat. Their organs imploded, bones splintered, brain matter condensed into something less than goo.

Once, an underground lake of water that was bluer than even the azure sky - now a bloodied winter tomb to a dozen terrified crystal sculptures.

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