Leopold watched Duffy make tracks and sighed. Though power swelled between them, even gods had to walk sometimes. He followed, clunky boots slipping and sliding precariously over the broken snow fall. He broke into a run and barely managed to slow down as he caught up panting and wheezing.

“So, you just thought I’d agree to walking directly at our greatest enemy without a plan, huh?”

Duffy chuckled.

“I didn’t want to rub all the times I’ve babbled incoherently and you all ignored me in your face.” There were too many to count. Youth had an unfortunate side effect of making you inferior to your older peers.

“But…” Leopold continued to enjoy his cigar, one small mercy in the thankfully thawing chill.

“Don’t get me wrong, I swore blind that the last Forgotten One was hiding in plain sight. I didn’t realise it would be quite so blatant.” He pointed north to where a conspicuous peak was amiss from the horizon. “It’s not as simple as that, though.”

“Of course, it isn’t. Even you’re not so fucking stupid as to walk directly into the strongest Tap wielder’s lair with just a piss artist and his ridiculous luck. So, let’s spare the melodrama after the last week. What are we doing?”

Duffy pulled together the threads he had toyed with for three years. With the Tap welcomed back to Berevar, and the Old Gods returned only one dangled free of a carefully tightened knot.

“Your father’s map is a little misleading. The orcs didn’t name the mountain after Apotheosis. They named it after what it represented, which in this instance was Change. The seasons. The flows of time.”

Leopold considered Duffy’s words carefully. It had been decades since he’d so much as thought about his father, never mind his work. As the sun rose higher and higher the bitter chill of dawn began to fade. He unbuckled the top clasp of his cloak and adjusted his hat.

“What came first then, the mountain or Him?”

“I’m not sure. Perhaps at the end of the war, he fled to Berevar to hide and recuperate. The orcs may have seen him as an Old God, an embodiment of the true drive behind this country. Whatever happened, the name was lost in translation and the return of the Tap has broken the defences.”

“Like an ex coming back onto the scene at your wedding.”

“Hey, if your life helps you understand go for it.” Duffy’s smirk stretched from ear to ear.

“Duffy. Come on. I’ve had to put up with enough shit from Ruby without you making me regret my sacrifices.” He stubbed out his cigar on his breastplate and tucked the dog end into his overcoat pocket for later. “What are we looking for?”

Duffy pictured what he had seen in the coruscating surface of the Orrerry. The viewing globe at the heart of the Tantalum’s sanctuary showed him a grand, crumbling temple in the caldera formed in the absence of the mountain. He wasn’t sure if Apotheosis had simply occupied it, or crafted it out of the ancient bedrock and cast an illusion to hide himself away.

“I just want to know if what the Thayne said is true…”

“Which is?” Leopold undid the second clasp and pulled the folds of the cloak away from his chest. Darkness gave way to golden sunlight and he took a deep breath of cold morning air.

“That the Forgotten Ones were not fighting to control the Tap. They were fighting to destroy it.”

Leopold’s eyes widened with disbelief.