The high pass did not so much end as it reluctantly yielded, spilling us out onto a vast, wind-scoured plateau. It was a place of stark, brutal geometry—a flat expanse of grey stone, punctuated by the occasional skeletal remains of ancient, petrified trees, all huddled beneath the brooding, snow-capped peaks of the Spires. The compass pull in my chest was now a constant, physical ache, a lodestone buried deep within my being, drawing my gaze inexorably toward the tallest of the peaks that loomed in the near distance. We had arrived. The final leg of this stage of the journey lay just ahead.
But the sheer scale of the place, the oppressive weight of the sky and the silent judgment of the mountains, dictated caution. To rush forward now, with a fatigued child and depleted resources, would be the height of arrogance. The Warden had tested my nature. What awaited in the heart of the Spires would test my strength, my will, and my ability to protect the fragile life now in my charge.
And so, the plateau became our temporary world, our training ground. The first order of business was shelter. We found a shallow overhang in the lee of a colossal boulder, a natural windbreak that offered some meager protection from the elements. It was a barren, comfortless place, but it was defensible and dry.
The next morning, as a pale, watery sun struggled to breach the mountain mist, I began Lys's training in earnest. I drew my shadow-blade, the dark metal flowing from the ring into the form of a lethal short sword. The sight of it, a piece of solidified night appearing from nothing, still made Lys flinch.
"Your affinity for shadow is a gift," I told him, my voice cutting through the constant moan of the wind. "But it is a fickle one. It requires focus, and focus can shatter in the heat of battle. A blade is a simpler truth. It does not care about your fear or your concentration. It only obeys the laws of force and leverage."
I had fashioned a practice sword for him from a sturdy, petrified branch, using my own blade to shave it down to a manageable size and weight. It was crude, heavy, and unyielding.
"First, you learn to hold it," I said, demonstrating the basic grip. "Not a death clutch, not a timid touch. A firm, confident handshake. It is a part of your arm."
His small hands struggled to find the right purchase on the rough wood. He shifted his weight awkwardly, the sword looking like a fallen tree in his grasp. For the first hour, we did nothing but practice the grip and a basic, neutral stance. I adjusted his feet, the angle of his shoulders, the slight bend in his knees. He was a collection of angles and nervous energy, his brow furrowed in intense concentration.
"Balance," I repeated, for what felt like the hundredth time. "The wind will try to push you. The ground is uneven. Your enemy will try to unbalance you. Your foundation is everything."
We moved on to the most rudimentary of actions: the thrust. I broke it down into its component parts—the step forward, the rotation of the hips, the extension of the arm. He mimicked the movements, but they were disjointed, a series of separate actions rather than one fluid motion. His thrusts were weak, his recoveries slow. He tripped over his own feet. Frustration began to simmer in his blue eyes.
We stopped for water. He drank greedily, his chest heaving.
"It's too heavy," he mumbled, looking at the practice sword with resentment.
"It is the same weight it was an hour ago," I replied, unmoved. "The change must come from you. Your body must learn to carry it, your mind must learn to forget it is there."
The afternoon session was slightly better. The sheer repetition began to carve new pathways in his muscle memory. His stance became less of a conscious effort and more of a default position. His thrusts, while still lacking power, became straighter, more direct. I introduced the parry—a simple, horizontal block. We practiced the motion slowly, my practice blade tapping against his, the clack of petrified wood echoing dully in the vast space.
He was exhausted by the end of it, his face pale and smudged with dirt, his hands raw. But as he dropped onto a rock, his body trembling with fatigue, I saw not just exhaustion, but a flicker of something else: the dawning understanding that his body could be taught, that movement could be mastered.
That evening, as Lys fell into a deep, immediate sleep, the crude practice sword lying beside him like a loyal, wooden hound, I sat with Croft by our small, contained fire.
"The boy is not without promise," Croft observed, preening a feather on his wing. "There is a natural coordination there. It was buried under fear and malnourishment, but it is emerging."
"He learns," I acknowledged, watching the steady rise and fall of Lys's chest. "He is stubborn. That is more valuable than natural talent."
"He will need that stubbornness," Croft said, his tone shifting to one of clinical analysis. "This shadow affinity of his... it is not a passive trait. It is a hunger."
I looked away from the boy and towards the raven. "Explain."
"For a mortal, such power is not merely practiced; it is consumed. To strengthen his core, to deepen his connection to the void, he must take the essence of other living things. Each kill, each absorbed spark of life force, is a log on his internal fire. It is a path of accumulation. With enough essence, the most powerful of his kind have been known to develop secondary cores, specializing their abilities further."
The method was brutal, yet it held a dark, pragmatic logic. It was a path of becoming a predator, of growing stronger by ending other lives. I looked at Lys's sleeping, innocent face and felt a profound dissonance.
"And I?" I asked, turning my focus inward to the vast, cold ocean of my own divine core. "Could my power be augmented in such a way?"
Croft let out a dry, rattling chuckle. "You? No, Cassian. Your core is not a campfire to be fed with sticks. It is a fragment of a dying star. The essence of common beasts, even the powerful corrupted ones we have faced, would be less than a single grain of sand added to a desert. To see any measurable growth through absorption, you would need to consume entities of primordial power—ancient earth spirits, lesser celestials, perhaps even other angels. The effort required would be Herculean, and the gain, for a being of your nature, would be laughably insignificant."
He tilted his head, his dark eyes gleaming. "The only efficient path for your growth is the one you are already walking. Reclaim the shards of your god. Each fragment you absorb does not merely add to your power; it multiplies it. It restores the fundamental architecture of what you are. A scattered god is a weakened concept. A consolidated one begins to approach its true nature."
The clarity was chilling. My path was one of divine reassembly, of becoming whole. The path I had potentially set Lys upon was one of mortal accumulation, of becoming more. Two roads to power, both paved with endings, but on vastly different scales.
I looked at the boy, who had just learned how to hold a sword without dropping it, completely unaware of the predatory potential sleeping within him. I had given him a tool for defense. Croft's words suggested I might have also given him an engine that required a very specific, very dark kind of fuel.
"We will not speak of this to him," I said, my voice leaving no room for argument. "Not now. Perhaps not ever."
"Of course," Croft replied smoothly. "The knowledge is a burden he is not yet equipped to carry. And the path... it has a way of corrupting those who walk it with conscious intent."
The wind whispered secrets across the stone plateau. Ahead, the central Spire waited, a silent monarch holding a piece of my shattered past. And beside me, a new complication slept—a boy with hair the colour of straw and a soul now touched by the void, his future a tangled knot of my own making. The path forward was clear, but the consequences of walking it were deepening, becoming a chasm I feared to look into.