Komalie very well may fall, and if it does, so will Bava Nisos. They will come for us. Half of our ranks are ill or enraged by the poison's curse now, even those we thought tolerant. Every day since Otho returned with the gate, its otherworldly energies have penetrated every corner and every mind. The dead nearly outnumber the living. All of our children, the gildless—they're all gone. All of them. Gone. And then there's Manikaz. He, in absolute desperation, has turned into a being of pure bloodlust. He is now done with the city of Gavril—the White Mantle surrendered all of them to us. And now he turns to them, our devout. All blood for the stone, even though that effort feels far from useful. The gate does not want to be opened, and the keystone is plump from the feast.