Malik stood at the edge of oblivion, bonespear outstretched like a long, menacing claw extending from his arm, and he faced the winged jackal without fear.

Sweeping spires of rock jutted into the darkening heavens like fingers of giants, reaching up to blot out the sun.

Malik’s chest heaved with labored breaths, blood spilling from a gash in his side.

But Malik had traded blood for blood.

Eyes wild and bloodshot, the jackal uttered a low growl, and circled, eyes never leaving Malik’s, the creature’s spirit consumed by a beautiful, primal rage.

All Malik Jorensein’s childhood, all his training boiled down to this moment.This dance of survival that all living things faced.

He took a step to the side, sending small bits of gravel plummeting through the skies to the valley below. The jackal matched the movement, hair bristling along its bony spine.

Malik and the beast faced off on a small ledge, little more than a splinter, jutting out from one of the sacred floating mountains at the heart of Malik’s island home. A space of ten feet at most. In this moment, that space was the entire world.

Malik took one more step, his spirit focused on the beast before him, eyes focused on not slipping over the edge.

The jackal took one step, pawed at the ground.

“I fear neither life nor death. I am a descendant of the gods…”

Malik calmed his breaths, pushed back against the terror. Focusing on the magic pulse at the heart of the world.

Hish.

He reached for the power, drawing the very breath of the gods themselves into his spirit.

Malik took a step forward, daring the beast to make its move. He thrust out with his spear, and the jackal snarled. Vicious fangs flashed, but it kept its distance, waiting, evalutating.

Blood seeped from the wound in its neck.

Malik had come so close to the killing blow. He could not afford to make another mistake. With drew back his weapon and threw with all the hish he could muster. Threads of energy erupted behind the spear with the force of a war bow.

The winged jackal sprang.

The bonespear shot through the air with lightning speed. Straight into the beast’s front shoulder.

The world slowed, floating hulks of rock becoming a blur.

Claws lashed out, scraping Malik’s calf as he launched himself upward. Malik soared over the length of the creature’s body, his jump reaching past human capabilities.

Her landed behind the attacking beast and spun.

The jackal’s injured shoulder shuddered as it turned on him from the edge of the spire.

Malik reached for hish with the focus of a striking serpent. The magic force collided with the winged jackal as it fought to regain its balance at the edge of the precipice.

With a howl, it fell into the skies.

Malik peered over the edge of the spire. The jackal expanded its primal wings—thick webs of skin lining its chest that flashed outward—and slowed its fall.

Jackals didn’t have the power of actual flight. They could only glide. At times, catch strong gales of wind to climb short distances. It would take the beast hours to return to this height, but it would not perish.

And for this, Malik was grateful.

The winged jackal was a sacred beast. One of four on the Isle of Faltara. And their deaths were not a cause for celebration.

But to best one today, of all days, was a great honor. Malik had passed the first true test of his Ascension.

It would not be the last.

With deep breaths of relief and exultation, Malik watched as the winged jackal caught a draft and veered toward another mist-cloaked spire a few hundred yards across the expanse of sky. A pair of cloaks were halfway up the massive shard of rock.

Two more of the eighteen young men and women from the island clans making their Ascent this day. Malik hoped the jackal would land far below them.

But not too low either. For the lowest spire was fixed to the peak at the heart of the valley below, where all their families watched and waited.

Through the mists, Malik could make out faint dots in the valley below. Wind rushed through his hair and the forces of the world tugged at his chest like heavy chains, drawing him down.

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He pushed back from the edge and rose to his feet. Above him, more spires jutted into the mists, some little more than boulders, others as large as an entire village. They hovered above the peak of the Mountain of Souls as though caught in some invisible web in the sky.

And today, it was Malik’s task to climb them.

An Ascent could be made by several paths, all required climbing at least four of the larger floating shards of rock.

It was the true test of Malik’s people. A test that risked everything

Every year, Faltari youth plummeted to their deaths, just as his Uncle Pender had. Just as…

Above, he glimpsed something dark shifting with the mists. Wings perhaps. But he couldn’t be sure. The thought filled with fear and exhilaration. He was nearing the summit.

A peal of laughter filled the skies and jolted him from his revery.

Malik spun.

A crimson-cloaked figure dropped from further up the spire. The boy drew up at the last moment and landed in a crouch on the ledge, softening his landing with a flourish of hish.

The boy’s forearm was tattooed with a dark set of bony wings. Dark paint streaked his cheeks, signifying the Dragyr clan.

“And here, I thought you might actually make the kill, Jorensein,” Aram Tulsein said on a derisive laugh. “A damn shame. Thought you might show some spine after your brother’s Fall. Some things just run in the bloody family, don’t they?”

Malik swallowed all the foul things he’d like to say.

A boy shouts back. A man lets words glance off him like wind.

The shamanic mantra came unbidden. Drilled into his brain over the past two years. Guiding him. Chastening him.

“I don’t blame you for being a coward,” Aram went on. “One son is a fluke. But it’d really be a bloody embarrassment if our own shaman lost both his sons to the Ascent, wouldn’t it?”

Malik shrugged. “I’ve got climbing to do, Aram.” He brushed past the boy and reached for holds on the face of the spire. He looked up. The ledge Aram had jumped from was his next target.

A dark blur sailed over his head. Aram leapt back up the entire distance in one hish-fueled maneuver, landing on the next ledge with ease. Malik loathed the boy’s talent. Typical Dragyr. All half-convinced they could pull off true flight.

“If that ledge were ten feet higher, he’d be dead.”

Malik turned at the familiar voice.

Riese Torendeil clambered over the ledge, blonde hair pulled back in a series of tight braids, one side shaved to the skin. She flashed a smile and sauntered over to him. Three claws were tattooed on her left wrist, and she wore the dark gray cloak of the Jackal clan.

“Figured you’d try to go it alone,” she said, clapping him on the shoulder. They’d separated on an earlier spire, and he was relieved to see her.

“Best hope I leave some eggs up there for you!” Aram shouted down from the ledge above, then, he leapt again.

“That bastard’ll be lucky if he don’t take the never-ending Fall,” Riese murmured. “Better him than us, ey?”

Two years ago, Malik would have voiced his assent right alongside his friend. But he knew it wouldn’t be proper of a future shaman.

But Riese was right. Some would die today. Most of them promising young men and women with bright futures.

Just like Derrin.

Malik pushed the thought aside.

Focus.

It might not be worth dying to be the first to reach the summit. But Malik would be damned if he’d be the last.

“Let’s climb,” he said.

***

Joren hung back at the edge of the crowd, murmuring prayers softly. Prayers his father had taught him since his youth. Prayers he’d passed down to his daughter, and both his sons.

The prayers of the Faltari shamans.

“Spirit of life. Spirit that dwells in my own spirit and that of my ancestors. Draw near to my son. Remind him of the power that dwells within him. In all things. May he remain calm and wise. May all those who Ascend brush against the glory of the gods. Whether they rise or fall.”

Joren stood on a boulder, and released a thin stretch of blue cloth into the wind and watched it writhe with the currents like a feathered serpent.

The breath of the gods drawing his prayer up into the heavens.

Half the island was gathered in Kalengal Valley at the base of the spires. All donned the colors of their clans. All but Joren, who wore the colors of all four sacred beasts: winged jackal, sabercat, feathered serpent, and dragyr.

Like all shamans. Like his son would wear, should he survive the ordeal.

A warm presence drew near from behind. Joren knew Madri’s aura from any distance. Her fingers interlaced with his own, and her warmth seeped into his spirit, pushing back against the autumn chill.

Together they gazed silently up into the mists. The floating islands of stone were little more than blurred masses in the haze.

But with his true sight, Joren sensed much more. Distant spirit resonances, slowly bearing themselves higher into the skies. Rising to the task before them, as Faltari youth did every year at the solstice.

Madri knew better than to ask for a report, but the same could not always be said for the other parents of the Ascending.

“Please,” whispered a young mother named Pelesa of the Saber clan. “Can you sense her?”

Pelesa had stood dutifully at the base of the boulder, anxious for news of her eldest daughter’s progress. This was not the first time she’d pestered the shaman.

The Ascent was as much a test for parents as it was a rite for their children. First-time parents were always the worst worriers at every stage of life.

Joren did not avert his gaze from the spires, but Madri released his hand. Dimly, he could sense his wife comforting the young mother.

He extended his true vision higher into the mists, beyond what his eyes could see. A sudden burst of clarity jolted him. He smiled dutifully.

“Aram Tulsein has passed through the summit,” he announced.

Fervor spread over the valley in a great hum.

“That’s my boy! Aha!” the boy’s father shouted with unabashed pride. “First Ascendant! Just like his brother!”

How a man liked Tul Eriksein became elder of the Dragyr clan, Joren would never fully understand.

But First Ascendant was always met with excitement, no matter who the climber. It brought hope for all the others. The valley filled with cheers.

More resonances made their way higher.

“Ulgar Fenrisein has reached the summit,” Joren said.

More cheers. It was rare to see a climber from the Feathered Serpents at the front of the pack.

“Leesa Rimadeil.”

Over the next ten minutes, several more sons and daughters of the island reached the summit of the final Spire.

“Petyr Bromsein!” Another elder’s son, which was always a relief.

“Therin Magnasein… Lera Pelesadeil.”

The young mother’s gasp of relief brought joy to Joren’s heart. And then, at last—

“Riese Torendeil… Malik Jorensein.”

Madri and their daughter Sura both joined him again on the boulder.

As more children reached the summit, the tension in the valley pressed on Joren’s spirit, anxiety quickly crowding out the joy at the successful climbs…

Not a single child had Fallen, but it left little peace for the Faltari gathered in the valley.

For they all knew that the Ascent was the easy part.