"It must be tonight," Isbert said. "I won't last another."
Isfrid stood at the foot of the bed, pale. "Grandfather, I'm not ready—"
"You've said that nine times today." The old man's voice was a whisper, but it cut the boy off instantly. "Frost is a Relic—seven Orders above the swords our knights carry... No, now they are your knights. Has Frost ever answered you?"
Isfrid stayed silent.
"It lets you lift it because of me. It forms its blade because of your blood. But he remains asleep in your hands, waiting to see what you are." Isbert turned his grey eyes to Faust. "Carry me down. Both of you."
The undercroft sat three iron doors deep beneath the estate, each colder than the last. The air bit into Faust's lungs with a sharp, metallic tang. At the center of the ice-rimed chamber stood a plinth of black rock over a stone drain.
Faust carried Isbert down the final flight of stairs.
The old man felt like an empty coat in his arms.
"Set me against the wall," Isbert said. "Give the boy the cane."
Isfrid took the shaft in both hands.
The hoarfrost on the dragon-head pommel began to steam, a thin mist rising from its jaw.
"Sit on the stone," Isbert ordered. "Cross your legs. Lay Frost over your knees and sleep."
"Sleep?"
"Relics wake when invited into the mind," Isbert said, his breath rattling in his chest. "You'll enter the dream and face whatever is inside. You come back out, or you die down here."
"And if I fail?"
"Then I won't be around to hear the end of the story," Isbert said.
Isfrid let out a short, sharp laugh.
He climbed onto the black stone, resting the cane across his thighs, then looked up at Faust.
"Stay?"
"I'm here."
Isbert raised a thin hand.
The remaining aura drained from his skin—a pale blue haze that drifted across the stone and sank into Isfrid's grip.
Faust watched the old man's chest stall, his pulse flattening to a thread.
Isfrid's eyelids dropped.
Across his knees, the dragon-head pommel exhaled a plume of frost as the aura of Isbert settled through Isfrid's body.
The ice on the chamber walls cracked, and deep beneath the foundations, the mountain vibrated.