"You sure this is the right path?" Roz asked, breath fogging his vision. They'd been trudging for an hour through a bone-white world of dead trees and drifting snow. No frozen lake. No landmark. Just the crunch of boots and the soft hiss of wind worrying at the pines.
They'd dodged fights along the way—ice-wolves pacing their flanks, thorny frost-sprites peering from hollow trunks, a lumbering gel-beast heaving its mass across a ravine—but they'd left them all alone. Saving HP and MP for the Boss was rule one, and even Leonel—itching for a skirmish—had obeyed.
"Yeah," Leonel said, stamping down a tangle of brittle brush. "It should be here, before the mountains."
"Do you know which Boss?" Isolde asked, voice steady, combat calm coiled around every syllable.
"Nope," Leonel said with a boyish grin. "It's going to be a surprise."
"Or we're the ones getting surprised when it outlevels us," Roz muttered, mostly to himself.
