Dawn came grey and cold.

Gabriel was already awake. Had been all night. He checked their gear methodically while Tess ate a cold breakfast of preserved meat and hard bread.

The climbing equipment from Tormund was well-made. Rope rated for mountain work, pitons that would hold in ice, a hammer that felt balanced in the hand. Everything they'd need.

Assuming they survived long enough to use it.

"Stay close," Gabriel said as they approached the mountain face. "If you fall, I won't be able to catch you from below."

Tess tightened the straps on her pack. "Then I won't fall."

The first section was manageable. The rock face angled at forty-five degrees, rough enough for handholds, stable enough that fear didn't enter into it yet.

That changed after the first hour.

The angle steepened. Handholds became scarcer. The rock was slick with ice that formed in the shadows where sunlight never reached.

Gabriel climbed like he'd been born to it. His movements were fluid, each placement of hand and foot deliberate. He found holds that shouldn't exist and used them without hesitation.

Tess struggled.

Her breath came in gasps. The altitude was worse here, the air thin enough that each inhale felt insufficient. Her hands ached from gripping frozen stone.

Gabriel paused above her, waiting without comment while she caught up.

"I'm fine," she forced out between breaths.

He didn't respond. Just waited until she'd closed the distance before continuing upward.

They found the second body near midday.

It hung from a rope still anchored into the rock face, swaying slightly in the wind. The climber had made it surprisingly far before whatever killed them struck.

Gabriel examined the rope. "Cut. Not frayed."

Tess looked up at the peaks above. "The wyvern?"

"Yes."

The rope had been sliced clean through, the edges sharp despite months of weathering. Something with claws had cut it. Something that could reach a climber on a vertical rock face.

Something that could fly.

They continued.

The sun crawled across the sky as they ascended. The temperature dropped with each meter gained. Tess's fingers went numb inside her gloves despite the thermal lining.

Gabriel's hands remained steady. No trembling. No signs of cold.

They made camp on a narrow ledge as the sun touched the horizon. The space was barely wide enough for two people to lie down, a shelf of rock jutting from the mountain face with nothing but empty air beyond it.

Tess sat with her back pressed against the wall, legs pulled tight to her chest. Heights had never bothered her before, but this was different. One wrong move and there'd be nothing to stop the fall.

Gabriel sat near the edge, legs dangling over the void.

"You should sleep," he said.

Tess shook her head. "Can't. Not here."

Gabriel turned to look at her. The last light of day caught his eyes, making them glow faintly. "You need rest. Tomorrow is harder."

"And you? When do you sleep?"

"I don't."

"That's not healthy."

Gabriel's lips twitched. Not quite a smile. "Neither is climbing a mountain to hunt a wyvern."

Tess couldn't argue with that.

She watched him sit there, perfectly still, staring out at the darkening sky. The wind pulled at his cloak but he didn't react to it. Didn't flinch when gusts strong enough to make her grip the rock tighter swept past.

"You're not even human anymore, are you?" The words came out before she could stop them.

Gabriel was quiet for a long time.

"I don't know what I am," he said finally. "Not anymore."

Tess wanted to say something comforting. Something reassuring. But the words wouldn't come because she wasn't sure they'd be true.

She pulled her cloak tighter and closed her eyes, knowing sleep wouldn't come easy.

Gabriel sat vigil through the night while red smoke leaked from his clenched fists, dissipating in the mountain wind.

When dawn came, neither of them had truly rested.

The second day brought them higher into the mountain's grip. The rock face became vertical in sections, requiring them to hammer pitons into cracks and haul themselves upward using the rope alone.

Tess's movements were slower now. Each breath came harder. The altitude was affecting her more severely, turning simple actions into exhausting ordeals.

Gabriel climbed above her, checking each anchor point twice, making sure the rope would hold. His movements were still fluid, still certain, as if the thin air and brutal cold meant nothing to him.

They found another body mid-morning.

This one had made it further than the others, nearly to the snow line where the peaks disappeared into white. The hunter's gear was expensive, professional. Multiple weapons lay scattered around the corpse, all of them broken or bent.

Gabriel crouched beside the body and examined the wounds. Deep gouges across the chest. Claw marks, like all the others.

But these were different.

The hunter had fought back. Blood on his weapons suggested he'd landed hits. The wyvern's black blood had frozen into the steel, permanent evidence of contact.

"Someone hurt it," Gabriel said.

Tess pulled herself onto the ledge, breathing hard. "Then it can be hurt."

"Yes." Gabriel studied the blood more closely. "But they still died."

The message was clear. Wounding the wyvern wasn't enough. It had to be killed, decisively, or it would kill you first.

They continued climbing.

The temperature dropped further as they ascended. Ice formed on every surface now, making handholds treacherous and uncertain. Each placement of hand or foot required careful testing.

Tess slipped twice in the space of an hour. Both times, Gabriel's hand shot out and caught her before she could fall.

His reflexes were inhuman now. There was no other word for it.

"Thank you," Tess gasped after the second catch.

Gabriel didn't respond. Just waited until she'd regained her footing before continuing upward.

The sun was past its peak when they reached the snow line. The world turned white around them, snow covering everything except the steepest rock faces.

Gabriel's danger sense began screaming.

He stopped climbing and went absolutely still.

"What is it?" Tess whispered.

Gabriel didn't answer. His eyes scanned the peaks above, searching for movement, for anything out of place.

There.

A shadow moved against the white. Large. Circling.

The wyvern was hunting.

"Don't move," Gabriel said quietly.

They pressed themselves against the rock face, trying to blend with the stone and ice. The shadow circled again, lower this time, massive wings spread wide.

Then it passed beyond the peaks and disappeared.

Gabriel released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"We're in its territory now," he said. "It knows we're here."

They climbed faster after that, urgency driving them despite Tess's exhaustion. Every moment spent on the open rock face was a moment the wyvern could return.

The triple-peak formation appeared as the sun began its descent toward the horizon.

Three massive spires of rock jutting into the sky, the central peak taller than the others. Snow clung to the upper reaches, gleaming in the fading light.

And at the base of the central peak, a dark opening.

The cave.

Gabriel helped Tess onto the final ledge before the approach. She collapsed immediately, gasping for air, her lips blue despite the thermal gear.

"Stay here," Gabriel said. "Rest."

"Where are you going?"

"To look."

He moved across the approach, stepping carefully over fresh kills that littered the ground. Mountain goats torn apart, their blood still steaming. A dire bear with its throat ripped open. And in the centre of it all, a body in Church armour.

Gabriel knelt beside it.

The breastplate bore a Paladin's symbol, though the man's face was unrecognisable after what had been done to him. The armour was shredded, rent by claws that had punched through steel like parchment.

A medallion lay in the snow nearby.

Gabriel picked it up..

"Someone was hunting it." Gabriel pocketed the medallion. "The wyvern found them first."

He straightened and looked toward the cave entrance. Bones littered the approach, picked clean and scattered. The dark opening led deep into the mountain, impossible to see how far.

That's where it wanted them to go.

Into the dark. Into its lair. Where it had every advantage.

"We're not going in there," Gabriel said.

Tess blinked. "What?"

"The cave. That's where it wants us." Gabriel turned away from the entrance and began studying the terrain around them. The peaks, the approaches, the natural corridors carved through the rock.

His eyes settled on a narrow ravine between two of the peaks.

"The frozen hunter's journal," he said. "It hunts at dusk. Patrols its territory."

He pointed toward the ravine. "It flies through there. Uses it like a path."

Understanding dawned on Tess's face. "An ambush."

"Yes."

"You can't ambush something that flies."

Gabriel pulled his swords and began checking the edges. The Ironscale steel caught the fading light. "Master Arthur used to say the best fight is the one your enemy doesn't know they're in."

He moved toward the ravine, his eyes already calculating angles, positions, timing.

Tess watched him work. This was the Gabriel from Eldenreach. The one who'd killed two Ironstingers and a vampire in the space of minutes. The tactical killer who turned every disadvantage into an opportunity.

"What do you need me to do?" she asked.

Gabriel pointed to a high outcropping overlooking the ravine. "Get up there. When I engage, aim for the eyes. Don't stop shooting."

"And you?"

Gabriel looked at the rocky walls flanking the ravine, measuring distances in his head. "I'll be waiting."

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