Shadow Mountain Some form of hyperagonal media,

Black waters in her veins.

Black, ancient waters; rivers running dark with the sand and soil of time, rivers running red with the blood of countless ancestors whose buried bones formed the roots of her ties to this land. Anathema would never know this. But she felt it. She traveled, and each day reunited with a place she'd never been. It almost felt like being home again.

The sea still called to her. It was far too quiet this far inland. Still, some moments made up for the absence.

She crested a rise and saw a raven leading a snake into shadow — but the snake turned away at the last moment, and then the raven was alone. And then it vanished.

She crept along a frozen stream and saw a man with two faces who did not want to remember, and a woman with two names who would not forgive. Ana watched them until they withered and crumbled to dust.

She stepped into a small cave and saw a girl like a thousand silver crystals, always shifting, always reflecting the light in a new way. She saw her again as a woman, the crystals turned to opalescent fangs, and the flashing figure of another woven in shadow. The shadow disappeared, and the woman burst into glittering shards.

Anathema blinked and found that night had fallen over the mountain.