Solith's Crown was a place where even the wind forgot its own name, a ragged diadem of five black peaks clawing at a bruised sky, too proud to bow to the storms that had battered them for centuries. It was not holy ground, though the elders whispered it was once a throne for something older than gods, a seat for a sky that no longer remembered how to listen. There was no warmth here, no green, no mercy. Only stone the colour of old ash and the mournful hum of the wind threading through the splintered ridges, a song so old it felt like a ghost's lullaby, echoing off the broken crown.
Reyland ran a gloved hand along the rock, feeling the bite of the cold. His eyes, that pale, wind-carved blue, narrowed as he listened to the hum.
"It sings," he murmured. "The wind carries something... old."
Asyana snorted, boots crunching on gravel as she shifted her pack. "Everything up here sings. The wind, the stones, our bones, when the cold gets in far enough. Let's hope whatever song this Crown is humming doesn't decide to bite."
Dellos said nothing. He looked past the two of them, eyes fixed on the fifth peak's silhouette, barely visible through drifting ribbons of cloud. He could feel the weight of Luka's memory pressing between his ribs, the promise he'd made to his boy, the unspoken dread that the Crown would strip him of all his secrets and thoughts that had kept him whole.
"The monks won't fight us," Dellos said finally, his voice like gravel over old firewood. "Not with blades. But they'll strip us down to the marrow if they think we're unworthy."
Reyland's gaze flicked to him, the faintest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Then let them try."
Above, the wind found a hidden hollow in the stone and howled through it. It was a low, endless note that made the hairs on the back of Asyana's neck rise.
She tilted her head, listening. "Solith's Crown remembers. I wonder what it thinks of us."
Dellos set his hand on the cold rock. "It doesn't have to think. It just has to open."
And as if the mountain heard him, a faint, rhythmic thrum pulsed beneath their boots, somewhere deep within the Crown's bones, something old was stirring. Somewhere above, a bell tolled, no metal, just wind against stone. A signal: the monks knew they had come.
One breath. Five peaks. The Kite at the heart. And the truth is waiting to burn them all clean.
* * *
First Peak: Veil of Embers
The path spirals up in darkness, wind howling through the hollows of ancient stone. When Dellos, Reyland, and Asyana reach the summit ridge, dawn has yet to break, but the mountain's crown is alive. Tiny flickers of blue and ember-red dance along the cliff walls, thousands of lanterns, or maybe fireflies, or maybe the mountain itself, exhaling light from its deepest veins.
Ahead, the Gate of Breath waits, a mouth of stone sealed shut, veins of Sovreg alloy gleaming faintly in the rock like slivers of living metal. No hinges. No lock. Just a row of massive organ pipes carved from the same dark stone, jutting from the cliff face in a crescent.
Waiting beside the pipes are the monks of the Veil of Embers. Bare-armed, robed in patchwork cloth the color of banked coals, their skin inked with flickering glyphs that pulse with an inner light when they breathe in unison. They stand in two lines, heads lowered, lips whispering half-songs that twist the wind into a hush.
One steps forward, taller than the rest, shoulders draped in a mantle of woven ember-cloth, eyes black as a burnt log but alive with a spark that sees everything.
"Who comes to the Gate of Breath?" The monk's voice rolls like coals falling in a brazier.
Dellos steps forward. His boots crunch frost and old ash. His shadow flickers across the stone mouth. He bows, not out of submission, but respect."We seek the Crown's Heart," Dellos says. His voice is rough but steady. "We seek the Kite."
The monk inclines his head, considering Reyland's calm, Asyana's restless grin. Then his gaze fixes on Dellos, sees through him. "Then speak your ember, Jumper," the monk intones. "What lie have you kept banked so long it has smothered the truth?"
The wind stills. The organ pipes behind the monk shiver, waiting for the song that will open the Gate.
Dellos falters, the words burning on his tongue. The wind bites harder, or maybe it's only memory, the oldest scar.
He is young again. Not yet the Dellos they know now, but still stubborn, already marked by loss. The mountains were different then, alive with hope and fear, the world less broken.
It was deep winter. The sky shivered with stormlight, every path treacherous. He and Lira had been searching for hours, chasing the rumor of a blue glow seen flickering in a cave above the old ledges, half-believed tales of the Flame's wild touch. They found the boy huddled behind a spill of shattered stone, not weeping, not begging, just watching the darkness as if daring it to try him. A shock of pale hair, a bruise beneath one eye, hands wrapped around his knees. And the blue flame, not burning him, but weaving through his hair, gentle as a lullaby.
He barely spoke. But when Lira reached out, he flinched, and when Dellos spoke his name, the boy's eyes fixed on him, sharp as a hawk's, wide as the sky. "Are you cold?" Dellos had asked, not knowing what else to say. The boy shook his head. His skin was warm, impossibly warm, even as snow drifted down in silent judgment.
They brought him home. Lied, at first, to Ardentul and the elders, said he was a cousin's orphan, a lost soul from a burned village. Lira wrapped him in her shawl, sang to him as if he was flesh of her flesh. Dellos tried to teach him the old ways, the mountain's lessons, but it was Luka who taught them: how to read the flame, how to listen for a song that only he could hear.
The truth was always a blade at Dellos's throat. He saw it in the boy's eyes: Luka was not just Asirian. He was more. The mountain's own secret, cradled in the bones of an ordinary life.
He had sworn never to speak it. Sworn to be father, not finder, no matter what the world said. Even to Lira, he'd confessed his fear only once: "He is more than we know, Lira. More than I can love. But I will try." She had only nodded and kissed the boy's brow, flame reflecting in her tears.
Back on the peak, Dellos breathes in the memory, the promise he made, the lie that was also love. Dellos' breath fogs in the cold air. He feels Reyland's calm beside him, Asyana's tension like a tether. He looks past them, back down the slope where the night still holds Luka's absence like a wound.
His voice cracks but does not break. "Luka was never mine," Dellos says. The words taste like old blood. "I found him. Lost. Alone. I lied because the truth was too big for my arms to hold. I made him my son because I couldn't bear the flame to take him away. I am sorry. I am sorry."
His knees tremble, but he stays upright. The monks do not move, but their glyphs brighten, threads of blue flickering to gold. The tall monk lifts his hands. He turns to the pipes. The others do too. Together, they exhale, a single note, low and deep, filling the frozen air. The pipes answer—a sound like stone groaning awake. The Gate's veins glow. Ash drifts from the cracks.
With a slow, seismic sigh, the mouth of the rock parts. Warm breath rolls out, scented with resin and ancient smoke. Beyond, a tunnel lit with hundreds of oil lamps twists deeper, pulling them toward the next truth waiting to be burned away.
The monk bows, stepping aside."The flame remembers honesty. Pass, Children of the Sky. May your ember burn clean."
The monk's hands remain lifted as the Gate of Breath yawns wide, stone sighing around them like a waking leviathan. The pipes fall silent, but the wind carries the monk's final words, quiet as embers whispering to ash. He steps close to Dellos, so near Dellos can smell the faint burn of resin, old smoke clinging to the monk's robes. The glyphs on his skin flicker once, gold chasing blue. His voice is low, but it wraps around them like binding rope:
"Listen well, Jumper. What you seek at the Crown's Heart is not what you think it is. It flies a wind you have not yet dared to name."
Dellos swallows, but says nothing. Behind him, Reyland stands motionless, but his eyes catch the faint threads of drifting mist that coil from the hidden valley far below, like breath from a sleeping giant.
The monk gestures behind him, toward the shadowed cliffs, where giant iron hooks pierce the stone. Thick rope, black with tar and age, coils around them like serpents waiting to strike. One rope, thicker than a man's waist, vanishes into the mountain's belly, toward the valley hidden by shifting mist.
The monk lifts his staff, a rod of old alloy, etched with a single line of runes, and strikes the stone once. A deep, mechanical groan echoes underfoot. The rope shudders. Somewhere far below, an ancient weight gives way, and the mist swirling in the hidden basin seems to thin, just a fraction.
"Each peak," the monk intones, "holds a tether. Five bindings. Each bound by the truth you fear to name. Pass all gates, release all ropes. Only then will the bridge appear, and the platform descend into the Maw."
Asyana's mouth curls into a grin, but her eyes are sharp with something deeper, fear, maybe, or reckless hope."And what if we fail?" she asks, voice teasing, but her fingers restless on the hilt of her climbing axe.
The monk's face does not change, but his eyes soften, for a breath, like coals sighing into smoke. "Then the Crown keeps its secret. And the wind forgets your names. You will become us, forever tied to the peak which holds you."
He steps back, robes fluttering like dying embers. The other monks bow, pipes silent now, but their breath humming with a silent song that carries through the Gate's open throat."But not you!" the monk continued, "There are no women allowed on Solith's Crown. You, girl, you will have a choice: die or jump into the abyss!"
Asyana widened her eyes and then spoke with defiance:" I'd rather jump and let the wind take me, than to die by another's hand."
The Gate sighed open, heavy as old regret, its stone jaws swallowing the lamplight in a slow exhale. Asyana lingered on the threshold, jaw clenched, her body a portrait of bravado: spine straight, chin tipped up, boots planted with just enough care to look careless. But her fists, buried deep in the folds of her coat, trembled. Every heartbeat echoed at her wrists, sharp as a fall.
The tall monk was waiting. Ember-cloth draped his shoulders, catching the flame's fickle gleam, a mantle woven from heat and ruin. He watched her, eyes black as coal at midnight but alive with glints of something almost human. Not pity, not yet. Something more like recognition, a flicker of kinship between one soul flayed bare and another still shivering beneath its own skin.
He looked at her the way only the Sky Children could, seeing past the armor and the swagger. His lips parted in the ghost of a smile, sad and spare. "You wear your courage well, child," he said, his voice rolling low, soft as ash on stone. "But the mountain cares nothing for masks."
For a moment, Asyana could only meet his gaze. Her face, so often all angles and challenge, was drawn tight, a sheen of sweat glinting at her hairline. She wanted to laugh, to toss some quip into the wind and break the tension, but the words snagged in her chest. Fear prickled her scalp, electric, cold as rainwater. She'd always worn her wildness like armor, but the monk's eyes saw through it all, down to the shiver beneath.
She managed a crooked smile, brittle at the edges. "I've been afraid since the day I learned how high the sky goes," she said, voice thin but steady. "You think fear's going to turn me back? I'd rather leap blind into the wind than wait for death to find me curled up on a cold stone."
The monk's mouth curled, neither approval nor censure. He stepped in close enough for her to smell the smoke in his robes—old wood, bitter resin, the memory of a thousand vanished fires. He tilted his head, studying her as if searching for the crack in the stone, the flaw that would let the flame in.
"Death is not what you think it is, Asyana," he murmured, voice rough as weathered bone. "It waits at every summit, but here, it wears a thousand faces. Some look like mercy. Some, like hope. Will you keep your footing when both call your name?"
His eyes bored into hers, searching for something raw. For a breath, she wanted to look away. But she held his gaze, even as a tremor ran through her knees. Inside, her thoughts pitched and spun, memories of falls survived, friends lost, the dark beneath the ledges where even her courage dared not look. She remembered every time she'd laughed too loud to drown the sound of her own heart pounding.
Her voice, when it came, was low and sharp as a blade's edge. "I don't need mercy. I stopped hoping a long time ago. I came here to climb, not to kneel."
The monk's face softened, just for a moment, a shadow of grief passing behind his eyes. He reached out, fingers almost brushing her shoulder, but thought better of it. "Good," he whispered, voice no louder than the wind curling through the Gate. "Because if you kneel, the Crown will swallow you whole. Trust the wind, Jumper. It remembers what you've forgotten."
For a moment, the world shrank to just the two of them, the hush holding them together like hands around a candle. Asyana's pulse thundered, the ache of fear and pride braided tight in her chest. She nodded, a single, sharp gesture, and forced her boots to move. On her face: the cool defiance of a girl who would rather fall than yield. But inside, she was spinning, every footstep a question, every breath a dare. And still, she walked on. Because it was better to risk being broken than to never climb at all.
Dellos squares his shoulders. He looks at Reyland, whose eyes catch the mist's dance, and at Asyana, whose grin is defiance incarnate. Then he touches the stone arch as he passes, whispering a vow only the mountain can hear.
Together, they step through the Gate of Breath, the first rope released, the mist thinner now by a hair's breadth. Four peaks remain. Four truths yet to burn. And far below, hidden in the valley's patient throat, something stirs, waiting for the day the wind calls its name again.
Second Peak: The Veins of Quartz
The path to the second peak was steeper, crueler, a stairway gouged from bone-white rock and caked in drifts of old ash. The air was sharper here, thinner, flecked with cinders that tasted like regret and charred bone. Asyana coughed, wiping grey dust from her lips. Dellos followed, silent, eyes fixed on Reyland, who led the way with a Navigator's stride that looked steadier than it felt.
The climb grew colder, the air thin and knife-edged. Here, the path wound through a barren field of broken stone, every surface veined with pale blue quartz, cold to the touch. The wind tasted of minerals, dry and sharp, scouring away warmth and memory. When they reached the summit, the monks were already waiting—six men, shrouded in robes of storm-grey and silver, their faces gaunt, marked by glyphs that looked like frost or shattered glass. Their eyes glittered with hard blue light, and none offered a smile.
Where the monks of the Veil of Embers had stood in lines, these stood scattered, feet braced as if daring the wind to move them. Their voices, when they spoke, were iron, no song, no poetry, just the plain, pitiless measure of old duty.
The head monk was tall, lean as a blade, his robe trimmed with veined crystal and sharp-edged glyphs that seemed to pulse like lightning under his skin. His gaze swept over Dellos and Asyana, but settled, merciless, on Reyland.
"Navigator," he said, his voice ringing in the cold, "the Crown demands purity and purpose. All who climb must bear their failure, not for comfort, but so the wind may know whom to trust."
He stepped closer, quartz beads clicking on his wrist, and his mouth twisted in a humorless, almost mocking smile.
"You climb high, sky-reader. But tell me, when did you last lead others to ruin? What duty did you betray, whose trust did you break?" His voice carried, rising so the other monks could hear—and, worse, so Reyland himself could not look away.
The others pressed in, their faces expressionless, yet the lines of their bodies tensed, eager for a flaw.
For a heartbeat, Reyland could not answer. The world seemed to narrow, the cold air closing around him like a fist. And then, unbidden, came the faces, one after another, a procession of memory and regret. Jorah, grinning at the start of the climb; Maelin, eyes bright with faith; little Tam, always a step behind but never complaining. The storm that stole them. The decision that doomed them. Their voices lost in the gale, their hands slipping away. Even now, their absence pressed on him heavier than the mountain's crown.
He shut his eyes, swallowing pain sharp as frost.
Reyland stood rigid, jaw clenched so hard it hurt. The cold cut through his cloak, but it was memory that froze him, old ghosts rising, sharper than any wind.
He forced himself to speak, each word like a stone torn from his chest.
"I failed those who trusted me. I read the wind and saw only what I wanted—ignored the warnings, believed the path was safe. I led three to their deaths in a storm. Another vanished. It was my error. I carry their names. I do not expect forgiveness."
A murmur ran through the monks, low and scornful, like a chorus of crows.
As the monks murmured, Dellos glanced sideways, pain flickering in his eyes, not accusation, but the ache of shared scars. He remembered every soul he'd lost or left behind, every secret the mountain kept.
Asyana stood very still, her usual bravado smothered. She watched Reyland with an intensity that left no room for judgment—only a kind of fierce, silent solidarity. Her hand brushed his arm as if to steady him, a touch that spoke: I see you. You are not alone in this.
The head monk's eyes narrowed, a cruel gleam sparking.
"Duty is not measured in words, Navigator. It is weighed in memory and loss. Will you sing their names, here, for the wind to remember? Or will you hide them, as all cowards do?"
Reyland hesitated, but the mountain offered no mercy. He spoke each name, voice shaking but clear, letting the wind carry them into the abyss. A cold silence fell. The head monk raised his staff, a rod of clear quartz, etched with the glyph for Judgment, and struck it against the stone. The sound rang out, pure and cruel.
"Let the wind keep your secrets and your scars, Navigator. You have passed, but the stain remains. Remember: purity is not in the blood, but in the wound you carry."
He gestured, and another massive rope, white as bone, coiled with quartz, unwound from its mooring, falling into the valley below. The mist thinned again, the path to the Crown growing clearer.
As they passed, the monks did not bow or wish them well. Their faces remained cold, unreadable, the frost of memory lingering in the air.
Reyland walked on, shoulders squared, his eyes bright with loss. Dellos clapped a hand on his shoulder, silent but steady. Asyana watched him, respect and dread mingling on her face.
The trial of purity and duty was behind them, but the cost would echo for many climbs to come.
Third Peak: The Silent Spire
They climb in near-darkness, the rock here smothering all sound—no wind, no loose gravel, not even their own breathing seems to echo. It's as if the world itself is holding its breath. Above, the second peak looms: a pale tooth of stone, its summit shrouded in a hush so total it presses against their eardrums. The sky looks faded, drained, as if afraid to intrude.
The monks of the Silent Spire are waiting: tall, severe, draped in robes of moon-grey and pearl-white, their skin marked with faint, geometric glyphs: diamonds, lines, circles, all sharp and cold. Their faces are covered with featureless masks, smooth as river stones. No words. Not even a gesture of welcome. Just the soundless rhythm of their arrival, a choreographed step aside to clear the path.
Asyana falters, suddenly hyperaware of every movement, every heartbeat. The silence is not empty. It's oppressive. The monks' gaze, black, unfathomable, turns to her. She feels them, all of them, staring, but it's one in particular who holds her: the head monk, standing at the center, eyes visible through slits in the mask, burning with a clarity that cuts deeper than accusation.
He raises a hand, one finger, pointed at Asyana's chest.
She waits for a question, a riddle, or some test to be spoken aloud. Nothing. The monks are statues.
And then, inside her mind, a single question forms, colder than wind, sharper than loss:
What secret do you guard so fiercely that you would die before confessing?
It's not a voice, but a pressure, a presence. The silence pierces under her skin, worms through memory and shame. Asyana's mouth goes dry. She sees Dellos and Reyland's faces, both tense, both watching, Reyland frowning, Dellos a flicker of worry in his eyes, but neither moves to help her. They can't. This trial is hers alone.
She tries to speak, finds her throat locked. The monks wait. Not impatient, not cruel, just unmoving, as inevitable as the dawn. The question churns inside her.
What are you hiding, Jumper? Who are you when the laughter fades?
The words echoed inside her chest, setting her heart hammering. She opened her mouth, but no sound escaped. Instead, memories surfaced—painful, vivid, raw.
She saw herself as a child, cowering beneath the old bridge while the other kids laughed and dared each other to leap. Saw herself, fists balled, promising never to let them see her cry. Saw herself standing tall, grinning wide, every fall and failure spun into a joke before the bruises even faded. Every heartbreak hidden beneath a sneer, every fear buried under bravado. She remembered the nights she'd wept alone, biting her fist to keep the sobs quiet, hating herself for being weak, for needing anyone, for ever letting her guard slip.
The monks waited, merciless and patient as winter.
Asyana's eyes shimmered, but she forced herself to stand tall, to keep her chin up. But inside, the mask was cracking. Her hands trembled, not from fear of death, but from the terror that someone, anyone, might see her as she truly was: not fearless, not untouchable, just a girl who never learned how to stop pretending.
She tried to fight it, to conjure a quip, a wry smile, a roll of the eyes. But the silence stripped her bare, left her no refuge. There was nowhere to hide.
The presence pressed harder: Why do you hide your pain? What would you be if you let them see you, truly see you?
Her throat ached with unshed tears. She stared at the monks, then at her friends, at Reyland, whose steadiness had always unnerved her, at Dellos, who saw more than she ever let on. For a heartbeat, she wanted to bolt, to leap from the spire and vanish into the wind.
But she didn't. She forced herself to stand there, trembling, mask slipping, and finally let it fall.
She let herself cry. Not loud, not broken, just tears sliding silently down her face, shame and longing and the desperate need to be seen, to be loved even here. No jokes. No walls. Just the truth.
The monks stepped aside as one, but their leader remained. He moved closer, robes trailing soundlessly over the stone, the mask catching the thin, trembling light. Without a word, he reached out, his hand steady, ancient, stained with faint blue glyphs, and touched Asyana's cheek, as gentle as a parent, as implacable as fate. He caught a single tear on the tip of his finger. For a moment, he studied it, head cocked in silent wonder, as if the salt of her grief contained a secret only he could read. Then, with deliberate reverence, he pressed the tear to his lips. His head leaned back, his body arching in a way that seemed to defy bone and balance, a silhouette bowed against the silent sky. His mouth fell open in silent exultation, and for a heartbeat, the world stopped.
The other monks turned as one, their blank masks raised to the heavens. In that frozen tableau, Asyana couldn't hear her own breath; the hush pressed in until she almost doubted she had ever spoken, ever laughed, ever wept at all. The silence was absolute, so deep it seemed to erase her memories, to hollow out her very self.
Then, from the monk's open mouth, a single sigh escaped, no louder than a breath, but in it was the sound of every secret ever hidden, every mask ever worn, every wound that learned to masquerade as strength. The hush broke, not with a shout, but with that fragile, human exhale. And the mountain, sensing the truth at last, let her pass.
Asyana walked forward, face wet but lifted, every step a quiet defiance, the last echoes of her old armor dissolving behind her. Dellos and Reyland watched her—no judgment, only fierce, wordless pride. Another rope released; the mist thinned, the valley breathed.
Above them, the third rope—ash-colored, threaded with pale blue—uncoiled from its ancient anchor with a sigh like a soul released. It slipped from the stone, falling slowly and silently into the mist below. For a breath, nothing changed.
Then the valley answered. The ashen mist drew back, swirling and parting as if a veil had been lifted from the mountain's dreaming face. The shapes below grew clearer, shadows stirring in the deep, and the platform in the hollow shuddered, rising an inch higher, as if awakened by the price paid above.
The silence left behind was not empty but sacred, a hush that wrapped itself around the three as they pressed on, closer now to whatever waited in the heart of Solith's Crown.
Fourth Peak: The Black Fire
The fourth peak rose above the world like a blade. At its summit, the air thinned to little more than shadow and memory. Here, the village was a ring of old stone, the dwellings empty, the wind refusing to cross the threshold.
In the center, the pyre burned, a bonfire not of blue, not of gold, but of thick, undulating darkness. Its flames were smoke given the shape of fire, tongues of black lapping upward, devouring the light, giving nothing in return. It radiated no heat. If anything, the air grew colder the closer they stepped. The fire's heartbeat was slow and thunderous, like the world itself bracing for bad news.
The monks, their robes the grey of stormclouds, sat in a perfect circle around the pyre. Hoods drawn, faces hidden, they neither sang nor chanted. Their silence was total, so profound it pressed on eardrums until the only sound was the quick, frantic beat of one's own heart. The glyphs on their robes were not blue, but black as obsidian, etched in patterns that seemed to crawl when no one was looking.
Dellos, Asyana, and Reyland approached, each one feeling a tremor crawl up their spine. The darkness was not simply the absence of light, but the presence of something older, a memory of what the world was before flame ever chose to burn.
They stopped just outside the circle. Fear slithered beneath their skin, not the useful, adrenaline kind, but something colder, vaster, a fear that had no name, no shape. For Dellos, it was the old terror of losing Luka, the horror of being found unworthy, of failing as both father and guide. For Reyland, it was the knowledge that every path he'd ever chosen had left someone behind. For Asyana, it was the ancient dread that she would climb and climb and never be enough, never find what she was looking for, always almost but never quite.
The monks did not move. They watched, hooded heads turning as one, black glyphs pulsing as if in silent laughter. One monk, older than the rest, rose. He did not speak, but pointed to the pyre's heart.
The meaning was clear. Step closer. Face what waits inside.
A voice, not a voice, but the impression of one, slipped into their minds, cold as night air: To reach the heart, you must walk through fear. To hold the Kite, you must let yourself be lost. Only the truth of your terror will open the last gate.
Dellos hesitated. Asyana's bravado flickered. Reyland, usually so sure, felt his knees threaten to give. Every step forward was agony. The pyre seemed to exhale, and their doubts became a storm:
What if you never find your son?What if the world is better without you? What if you are nothing but wind and want, and when you fall, no one will remember your name?
For a moment, all three nearly turned away. The fire pulsed, hungry for surrender. But the only way past was through.
Reyland looked at the others, eyes wild, lips white. "If we go, we go together," he whispered.
Dellos nodded, voice hoarse. "No one leaves anyone behind."
Asyana, trembling, managed a crooked smile. "If this is where we fall, at least we'll do it loud enough to wake the gods."
They stepped into the circle, and the world vanished. All sound died. All color drained. There was only that black fire, coiling like a question in the pit of their souls.
It was like falling without end. The first breath burned. The next barely made it past the knot in their chests. The pyre's shadows wrapped around them, pressing them to their knees. Not in worship, but in surrender. It was as if the mountain itself demanded they bow to something darker than gods or memory: to the sum of everything they'd failed to become.
The agony was unspeakable. Regret crashed in endless waves. Images rose and broke inside their minds, blistering and raw:
Dellos, searching the ruins for a son who might never have been his, haunted by every harsh word, every broken promise, every night spent cursing the sky for what he could not save.
Reyland, stumbling through snows soaked in the blood of fallen Jumpers, feeling every loss like a stone sewn to his heart. Faces blurred, names forgotten, voices accusing: Why did you live? Why not us?
Asyana, every joke a thin shield, every smile a lie, the ache of all the nights she'd lain awake fearing she would never matter, would never find the edge she was searching for. She saw herself, brave, brash, empty, and for a breath, wanted only to lie down and let the darkness close over her.
It was too much. They couldn't stand. Their arms shook, knuckles white, faces slick with tears they didn't remember shedding. Some of the memories weren't even their own, ghosts from the mountain's endless record, regrets of those who had come before. There was no way to tell what belonged to whom, and it stopped mattering. Suffering was suffering. Shame was shame.
They might have broken, would have, if they'd been alone. But through the pain, through the tangle of lost moments and half-heard cries, something else flickered. Dellos looked up and saw Reyland, curled and gasping. Reyland, through a veil of tears, found Asyana, shaking but still upright, a stubborn light in her eyes.
And in that look, a truth deeper than the fear:
We are here. Now. We are not alone. The past is a shadow, the pain is a teacher, but the only thing that matters is the hand beside you in the dark.
Their hands found each other. Not to hold, not to rescue, but to remember that terror shared is terror halved. The black fire flickered, hungry for one last surrender, but they did not give it.
Dellos managed to speak, voice torn raw: "The past is gone. The mountain can keep it. We walk forward, together."
Reyland's reply was a whisper, but it carried: "We carry each other. That's the way through."
Asyana wiped her eyes, managed a laugh, a true one, for the first time in days. "Let the darkness watch. We're still here. That's all it gets."
And as one, battered but unbroken, they stood. The fire did not burn them. It receded, folding in on itself, its hunger denied. They stepped back from the circle, weaker, yes, but lighter too, as if some ancient weight had been left in the coals.
When they emerged from the circle, bruised and blinking, a second rope released overhead. This one was black as old coal, thick and braided, coiled with the ghosts of a thousand lost prayers. It slid free with a low, grinding groan, trailing sparks as it vanished into the hungry air.
Below, the last wisps of mist peeled away from the valley floor, thin as breath on cold glass. The platform rose higher still—no longer hidden, but revealed, stone and alloy and ancient wood gleaming where sunlight finally reached. For the first time, the three could see the bridge stretching toward it, suspended in nothingness, a path both invitation and warning.
And now, with the ropes released, only one tether held fast—the thickest, most intricately knotted, a rope woven with threads of gold, copper, and flame. The fifth and final bond.
Fifth Peak: The Arena
The fifth peak was nothing but an open arena, a hollow carved by hands and weather and will, ringed by every monk in the Order. Their robes, once so distinct, were now unified, a tapestry of blue and ember and shadow, each monk a witness to the last trial. Above, the sky burned cobalt, split by veins of flame that licked the circling stones. The only way forward was through fire and memory, together or not at all.
Blue fire traced the arena's edge, forming a living boundary that pulsed with every heartbeat. It hissed and coiled, hungry for doubt, for division. Beyond the ring, the monks stood shoulder to shoulder, silent, expectant, a living wall of memory and judgment.
Dellos, Reyland, and Asyana stepped into the arena's heart. The air was hot, vibrating with something older than war, a promise, or a warning.
The ring of blue flame danced and hissed, a barrier as alive as anything that waited inside. The monks watched, their eyes reflecting every fear, every hope, every wound their Order had ever bled for.
Dellos, his hands wrapped tight around his twin blades—the Severants, forged from the bones of old sky-beasts and bound with veins of living flame, stepped in first. The blades whispered to him, a thousand voices of those who had failed before. They were light as thought, heavy as regret.
Reyland stood beside him, the Aelion Spire burning with electric hunger, every inch an extension of his will and his memory. Asyana cracked the Riven Lash, its serpentine length glowing, alive and wild, matching her own wild heart.
The blue flame along the edge of the arena surged, and the ghosts came.
First, the Hollows: faceless, translucent things, their mouths impossibly wide, howling a hunger that made the air shiver. They moved in swarms, passing through the fire as if it was water, reaching for skin, for warmth, for the breath itself.
Dellos met them head-on. His twin blades flashed, one slicing wide, the other a whip-crack of precision. Where he cut, blue fire spilled, burning the Hollows into memory, but not before their chill brushed his soul. Each swing took a piece of him, each howl echoing an old fear: you are alone, you will fail them. But Reyland's voice steadied him: "You're not alone. I see you."
The Slithers came next, writhing and coiling, half-metal, half-living agony, their bodies gleaming with oily, fractured light. One wrapped around Asyana's leg, crushing, threatening to snap the bone. She screamed—anger, not pain—and brought the Riven Lash down, lashing again and again until the Slither spasmed and let go, blue sparks flying. Another snaked toward Dellos, but he spun, blades in a figure-eight, slicing the beast clean through its metal and sinew. For every one they cut down, two more came, hissing and grinding, seeking any weakness.
Above them, the Matriarchs floated, faceless, ancient, their robes trailing like dying banners. Their screams, high, shattering, slowed time itself. Reyland felt his body move as if underwater, every thought a battle. He planted the Aelion Spire, blue fire crackling up its shaft, and forced himself forward, step by brutal step. Dellos almost fell, but Asyana caught his wrist, a tether to the real.
"Don't listen!" she shouted. "They only know the names you won't say aloud!"
Dellos grinned, teeth bared, sweat stinging his eyes. "Good thing I stopped keeping secrets."
With a roar, he spun, his Severants tracing burning arcs, one to sever a Matriarch's claw, the other to drive through its empty chest. It shrieked, then burst in a rain of cold blue flame.
The Forsaken were last, the storm's edge, old Asirians made monsters by failure, blue fire guttering in their hollow eyes. They struck as a unit, their movements eerily familiar. Reyland recognized a stance, a grip, the tilt of a head—that was Miko, once, he realized, heartbreaking. He almost faltered.
But Asyana vaulted overhead, the Riven Lash snapping out, cracking one Forsaken across the face. "He's gone, Rey. Only we're left. Fight for what matters."
They moved together, then, all three. Dellos at the front, blades a living shield, catching blows and returning them twofold. Reyland behind, the Spire flashing, sending currents of blue flame through the ranks of the dead. Asyana everywhere, the Lash a wild streak, blinding, binding, freeing. When a Hollow got close, Dellos would pivot, one blade parrying, the other slashing down. When a Slither tried to drag Reyland under, Asyana's whip tore it away. When the Matriarchs screamed, Reyland planted his spear and bellowed, the wind answering in a wall of force.
For a time, the arena was chaos. Not even the monks could have predicted who would fall. But the blue flame in their veins linked them, pain shared, courage multiplied.
At the last, the monsters came all at once. The three stood back to back, bloodied but whole.
Asyana's laughter, wild and fearless, rose above the howling. "If we die, we die together!"
Dellos barked a raw, broken laugh. "That's one secret I'll keep, for once."
Reyland, teeth bared, called the wind one last time, channeling it through the Spire, turning it into a storm of blue fire.
Together, they surged forward, a single force, fire and fury, blade and wind, lash and will. They cut down the last of the Forsaken, drove the Slithers into oblivion, silenced the Matriarchs' screams with the sound of their own voices, and turned the Hollows to nothing with the heat of their hope.
When the silence fell, it was not empty. It was sacred.
The monks bowed as one. The blue fire receded. At the arena's heart, the final rope, braided from every trial, every memory, awaited their hands.
For a long moment, there was nothing but breathing—shaky, uneven, more alive than they'd ever felt before. The arena was littered with the ashen echoes of horrors that, until now, had only lived in story and warning. The monks watched in utter silence, firelight flickering in their inscrutable eyes, as if weighing what kind of mortals could stand against legends.
Asyana doubled over, palms on her knees, sweat mixing with blood, laughter caught between disbelief and relief. "Tell me," she managed, voice hoarse, "did we just fight the Hollows and Slithers? Did you see their teeth?" Reyland, chest still heaving, nodded, not trusting himself to speak. His spear was still humming, flame running down its length like a live wire. He glanced at Dellos, who was staring at his own hands, the twin blades cooling, trembling ever so slightly.
"They're stories," Dellos whispered. "Old mothers' tales. Nightmares to scare children. We... we faced them." Reyland wiped his brow, eyes wide, a grin splitting his exhaustion. "If those were just stories, I'd hate to meet their author."
All three were silent then, letting awe settle into their bones. The arena, the fire, the very air, everything felt changed, as if the world itself was trying to catch up to what had just happened.
Behind them, the monks released the last rope. The mist in the valley below shivered, thinning almost to transparency, and the final ascent awaited. But for a heartbeat longer, the heroes simply stood in wonder, bearing the memory of a night when every ghost and monster was suddenly, impossibly, real.
And this time, when they reached for it, they did so together. Not three, but one.
With a single motion, they pulled.
The valley below was clear at last. The platform rose. And the heart of the Crown—the Kite, the secret, the wind's last promise, waited in the new light.