The descent onto the frozen expanse of the Bozbolyk proved far more brutal than any of them had anticipated. Harrowed by torrential autumn rains and frozen into a slick, glassy sheet near the water's edge, the steep cliffside demanded a primal, near-animalistic footing from the Moyyrs. The livestock picked their way down with equal terror and hesitation. The tuyeks resisted, groaning and wrenching against their tethers, drawing sharp shouts and curses from the nomads; under the immense strain, the camels blew long, blood-red bubbles from nostrils where capillaries had ruptured in the piercing cold. The Stena-Warr warhorses, despite their massive weight, slipped and slithered, their hooves striking dull sparks from the frozen stone with a hollow thud. Yet the first to set foot upon the river’s icy void was not Erasyl, their leader, but Ospan Kariy himself. The blind man stepped forward with absolute certainty, as if convinced that the first stride into this icy abyss belonged by right to him alone. Beneath the old man's felt-lined boot, the frozen crust responded not with a crack, but with a deep, barely audible hum from the depths. It vibrated with the long, low resonance of a heavy, composite bowstring released in dead silence once a target is locked—a tremor that shivered straight through the soles of one's feet. "Solid," the old man rasped, the dry vapor of his breath instantly settling as rime upon his shaggy collar. "Solid here. For now." The party ventured onto the ice slowly, hauling the braided horsehair rope along with them. The men tugged at the reins of the tuyeks, who were driven mad by the raw, damp stench of the river. The khoy sheep huddled into a dense, shivering mass, while the dakh-gals—usually fierce, lean hounds—now tucked their tails and walked with their muzzles pressed low against the crust, as if sensing a slumbering beast beneath the ice rather than frozen water. Erasyl walked second, directly behind the old man, his fingers in heavy leather mittens desperately gripping the lead camel's tether. Guarding the rear was the other Elder—Nurlan, a stocky, broad-shouldered young man with brown eyes and a smooth, youthfully hairless chin. Barely one full moon ago, the old village had finished celebrating his betrothal toy. Throughout the march, Nurlan kept whispering his fiancée's name—Fariza, Fariza...—like a protective amulet against the lethal frost. He was perhaps the only soul in the entire party whose eyes still held a warm, living spark. But once they had ventured fifty paces into the canyon, the world beyond the ice seemed to die. The fog, which from above had looked like an innocent haze, turned into a dense, sticky shroud upon the ice, as thick and opaque as koumiss. It swirled at their waists, but in places, it surged menacingly in heavy, gray sheets above the heads of the Moyyrs, swallowing their silhouettes entirely, to say nothing of the khoy and dakh-gals. The riverbanks vanished from sight, and the towering cliffs dissolved into nothingness. The sole thread anchoring these twenty souls to the living world was sound: the dry, monotonous, almost crystalline chime of the konyrau bells upon Ospan's staff. Ding. Step. Dong. Step. And beneath this thin chain of trudging souls, the river lived on. The Bozbolyk was wide awake—it breathed beneath the ice, and both man and beast could feel it. From the depths below, a long, mournful groan drifted into the ears of the living, a sound so agonizing it could set one's teeth on edge, followed by sharp, dry snaps like splitting pine logs. "It is only the frazil ice grinding against the underbelly of the river's shroud," Ospan said without turning his head, his voice muffled by the dense fog. "It carves away at the icy monolith. Erasyl, if the ice beneath you falls silent, it means there is nothing but empty air under your feet, and the shell is thin. Listen closely, and pass it down the line." How long they marched, or how many logs would have burned to ash in a hearth during that time, was impossible to tell. Time had utterly lost its shape, dissolving into a single, endless step through the all-consuming mist. And then, from the right, out of the thickest, milky-white depths of the fog, came a soft voice. It was infused with a warmth that felt like the breath of a family hearth, carrying the faint scent of dried chengyl and melted butter. "Erasyl... Erasyl-jan, where are you?.." The leader froze in his tracks. The horsehair rope clenched in his fist tightened, ringing like a taut wire. "Erasyl, why did you abandon us?.. Why did you leave with strangers instead of staying with us? The children have been weeping for nights on end. Oh, my hearth fire has died out! I cannot keep them warm alone, Erasyl... Come closer, jan, help me take off my heavy coat..." Erasyl would have recognized that voice among a thousand. It belonged to Aigerim. His wife. That very same throaty, slightly raspy, beloved voice he usually heard before every departure for the distant winter pastures or the night patrol. Erasyl's heart hammered against his ribs with such sudden, violent fury that crimson sparks flared before his eyes. "It's her..." he breathed, his feet tilting involuntarily to the right, straying from the path of the blind man ahead of him. "Ata, it's Aigerim... She was supposed to ride with the other party, the one ahead of us, along the riverbank. She must have fallen behind. She's here with the children!" "Halt, you young fool!" The old man's staff slammed violently into the ice right before Erasyl's boot. The bronze konyrau on the asatayak scattered a sharp, angry ripple of chimes around the leader. "Listen! Listen with your ears, not with your foolish, unreasoning heart!" Erasyl breathed heavily, swaying unsteadily on the slick ice. "Your wife was born to the clan of the Mazars," the old man hissed, enunciating every single syllable. "For ten years, she has waited for you every evening. Would a Mazar woman ever call her beloved husband by his true name when there are so many stranger ears around? Remember, boy, what Aigerim calls you in front of others!" The old man's words brought Erasyl to a dead halt. The cold sweat that had broken out on his flushed brow instantly turned into prickling needles of ice, biting into his skin and snapping his mind back to reality. Yes. Aigerim would never dare call him by his name in front of others, let alone use the intimate word jan. To her, he was otakhasi—the master of the house. That is what she called him before strangers, even before family. And sometimes, she needed no words at all; a single look into his eyes was enough. Yet the voice from the fog kept calling, growing more insistent with each passing moment, but now strange, metallic notes began to bleed through—as if some entirely alien creature were struggling to articulate foreign, human words: "Er... a... syl... co... ome he... ere... i... it i... is wa... arm..." "These are but the illusions of the Breath of Ulgen," Ospan whispered grimly to Erasyl. "It is testing your inner core, trying to find your breaking point. Hold the rope, leader, and keep marching behind me to the chime of the konyrau!" Ding. Step. Dong. Step. Erasyl shook his head, clenching his jaw so hard his teeth ground unpleasantly, and took his next step forward behind Ospan. Behind his back, the weeping in the fog dissolved into a dry, venomous hiss, like that of an infuriated steppe viper, before fading away entirely into the white shroud.