The Moon Fey Druid clenched the null shard sword unfeelingly, the razor edge parting pale skin of her fingers to allow a trickle of blood to stain its smooth surface. She slumped forward on Kona's back, and the tired gryphon chirruped concernedly. The images that flooded Rilana's mind did not pass through their Bond to him. Her thoughts went dark, blocked by the power of the null shard, darker than they ever were even when she was asleep. It was what Kona would expect to feel if Rilana died, and it terrified him.

[color=fff200][i]Rilana? Rilana![/i][/color]

But she did not answer him.

It was like being in a dream. A dream where she knew things that she couldn't possible know. Where she was in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar thoughts in her head, but somehow they made sense. Of course she couldn't be seeing out of Juloya's eyes. That was absurd. But yet, she was.

[color=00aeef][i]Juloya?[/i][/color] It was difficult to think of someone she was less enthusiastic about having inside her head. The woman Svarak loved so much and who, according to him, never returned the feeling. The woman who needed to die so that everything else would be safe from the cruel red-eyed God.

And yet, Rilana couldn't help but feel a note of sympathy for the woman, of respect, because she could feel the truth of Juloya's sacrifice. The truth of the pain she was enduring and had endured all this time. Killing her wouldn't be a murder, it would be a mercy.

[i][color=00aeef]Make sure what?[/color][/i]

Fiery pain jolted through Rilana, a burning so hot that her eyes saw searing white behind her lids. The Moon Fey cried out and nearly slipped from Kona's back, throwing her hands out to clutch at his feathers and keeping herself mostly upright only by sheer luck. She left a smear of crimson across his feathers and stared at it blankly.

[color=fff200][i]You saw the woman?[/i][/color]

[color=00aeef]"Yes." Her voice was breathless.[/color]

[i][color=fff200]We are committed then.[/color][/i]

[color=00aeef]"Of course."[/color] As if Rilana hadn't already been willing to see this through to the end because of Svarak.

They managed to pass several floors of eerie statues before the shrieking mindspeak rang in Rilana's ears. Somehow she knew that the screaming woman was another Moon Fey, and that she was screaming at Alya, and those two facts together served to focus her mind on something other than the visions of the shard.

[i][color=00aeef]Hurry![/color][/i]

Kona pounced forwards, but before they could make it to the top level the glint of blue scales flashed by the window and the tower rumbled joltingly at the impact of the massive ice mage. Rilana hesitated to join the the confrontation above, and Kona fled from it completely, scrambling across the shuddering snowy floor and bursting out of one of the windows into the open sky. 

By the time he circled back, the presence of the hovering, floating dragon seemed to fill their sight. The awesome power in its voice in her mind made it nearly impossible to think about anything else. The creature looked magnificent, proud, powerful. Nothing like the wasted, drained creature she had rescued from the pit. It occured to her that she should be terrified. It was only through Ortha's faint and random thoughts that Rilana knew Alya was safe.

[i][color=00aeef]"...what?"[/color][/i] Rilana stammered to no one in particular upon seeing the white glint of the familiar raven alighting on the dragon's snout. [color=00aeef]"Drat that bird!"[/color] There had been plenty of times on the trek from Green Falls (it seemed a lifetime ago now) that she had been tempted to try Bonding with the white creature, but now...

The voice commanded her to look down, and Rilana's eyes fell on the dark shape of Svarak, apparently alive and well enough to be petting a random dog. [color=00aeef]"Oh."[/color] Relief, on many levels, flooded through her. Kona sank down towards the ground as the dragon disappeared, landing heavily in the snow and swishing his tail exhaustedly. Beaten and bloodied, Rilana and her Familiar just leaned against each silently for a moment.

Ortha scurried down the stairs like a horrible mutant cat and bounded out into the snow, her black plated skin stark against the white ground. By the time she reached Rilana, there was only one book left, and the Moon Fey had to brush it off carefully to avoid being affected by the balauradons dangerous saliva. [color=00aeef]"Well done, little girl,"[/color] the Druid approved, patting the two heads while Ortha grawped and gurgled disgustingly.

The mutter of voices as the formerly frozen people began to emerge confusedly from the tower reached Rilana's ears and she moved towards Svarak, Kona limping slightly behind her and eyeing the Charr sternly. For a moment Rilana was distracted by the look on the Lord Knight's face and didn't know what to make of it. Finding herself in Svarak's arms was sudden but certainly not unwelcome. In spite of the snow, he felt warm, and in spite of his armour his fur was soft. She reached up to tuck her arms around his neck, pressing her face against Svarak's chest, and his breath in her ear brought a touch of pinkness to her cheekbones. It felt so good. Even so, when he the wonderful moment was over there was something sad in her pretty eyes.

[i][color=fff200]Which God?[/color][/i]

Turning back to the congregating people, Rilana took a deep breath and sighed. There was still so much to do. Many more people meant many more mouths to feed, and Rilana was infinitely glad that she had insisted on so many extra supplies. They would still be cutting it close, and they would likely need to send a few people out to hunt while the rest of the party continued towards Frigmount, but with the promise of good weather she was less worried.

Some of the statue people and creatures disappeared of their own accord, and while Rilana worried about them striking off into the wilderness, she had no right to stop them. The rest she divided into groups and assigned a knight to watch over them. At one point she stomped up to Drisecya and angrily demanded that she unload all the books from the rams, insisting that the valuable mounts be used to move people, not loot.

[color=00aeef]"You can't be serious. Put all that back in the tower and bar the door! If it's still here when we come back this way then we can pick it up then. Better to haul it back to Ebonfort from here rather than taking it to Frigmount and back this way again, and we can easily get a wagon from the city rather than overloading the poor rams."[/color]

She even conducted a brief funeral for the nameless statue people who had died while under Leandra's spells, entombing them in cairns of stones since the ground was too frozen to dig graves.

They celebrated as much as they were able. Rilana found Alya so that they could trade their sides of what had happened in the tower (and hopefully the songweaver would wrap her hand for her). The Moon Fey felt Svarak's eyes on her and wanted to talk to him alone, but what would she say? It felt like there was something more between them now, but she knew his heart belonged to someone else. She had [i]felt[/i] it. 

Once satisfied that Kona had been patched up and all the people had been settled down, Rilana passed out in her own tent with a lazy balauradon and a grumpy gryphon to watch over her.