A chill shot through him, but Malik could not look away from the woman’s face. She had been rendered with unfathomable realism. Smooth skin drawn over high cheekbones and a rigid jaw. Full lips pursed as though they’d just released a breath. Radiant eyes formed of intricate milky-colored stone.

The faces had always been on the pillars, Malik realized, an ancient spiritual understanding washing over him. They had just not been ready to see. The woman’s eyes had always been open. For this world was not dead at all.

Filled with a magnificent spiritual power. Something entirely unlike the power he’d known all his life. And yet, not so different from hish at all.

And though he knew, dimly, that he ought not to continue looking, Malik could not bring himself to look away. As though he’d fallen asleep and slipped instantly into the flow of a dream.

The woman’s face began to transform, grey stone permeating with color. The lighter filigree somehow expanding over the features of the woman’s face, brushing over her skin like strokes of paint. Her skin turned pearlescent. A gradient of a thousand hues. Cheeks radiant. Her lips parted. Drew breath. Eyes blinked and shifted, taking in the room. Then, met Malik’s gaze.

A smile stretched her lips, and Malik felt warm inside. The face felt familiar, though he couldn’t place it exactly.

Another face shifted above her, and Malik’s chest seized as his attention was drawn upward.

It was the engraving of a young man with chiseled features and sad, dark eyes. Also familiar, but this time, Malik knew precisely why.

Derrin Jorensein had never completed his Ascent, and now, Malik knew why. His brother’s stony eyes grew wide, shifting sharply to the side. Malik followed his gaze, and an ache surged deep in his spirit.

In one of the seats beyond the dais, a corpse in late stages of decay was propped up, mouth gaping in an endless scream.

Malik’s entire body went numb. He knew it was his brother’s body, and beyond it, in seats further back in the room, he spotted more. Dozens. Hundreds.

How had they not seen them when they’d entered?

Or smelled them?

Malik’s eyes drifted back to the stone visage of his brother in the pillar. Their eyes locked. Dark pupils widened over stark white eyes, staring straight through him. The pupils shifted. Darkness spread over the entire eye and then drifted away from the statued face entirely.

Tendrils of shifting darkness slithered from his brother’s face like spiders reaching out to envelop their prey.

Malik jolted backward. His head thudded against the stone. A hand dragged him back.

“Come on, Malik!”

Riese’s voice.

He jolted from his revery. Riese was dragging both him and Yuri back from the pillar. Malik scrambled to his feet, dread shooting through him, suddenly aware of the incredible danger. He heaved at Yuri, and the boy turned over, trembling.

Malik and Riese grabbed on to Yuri’s arms and pulled, and together, the three staggered off the dais, tumbled down the steps into one of the temple aisles.

Webs of darkness wrapped around the pillars. The stone faces had vanished from the stone, but a lone, hovering figure clothed in slithering shadow reached toward Malik.

Free of its snare, Malik understood now that it was not his brother at all. It was a malicious spirit. A wight.

Riese seized his wrist and pulled, jerking his gaze away.

“Don’t look back!”

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The three sprinted down the aisle as fast as they could manage. Voices filled the temple behind them.

Dozens. Hundreds. Chanting something in a foreign tongue Malik did not recognize. Impossibly, he could distinguish one distinct timbre among them.

His brother’s voice echoed in his skull, the same way he haunted Malik’s dreams. Rage. Sorrow. Jealousy. Despair. Resentment. All the twisted emotions associated with his fallen brother surged to the surface of his mind.

Derrin, his father’s favorite. The next shaman. The kind and patient and steadfast one.

And weak!

Malik hated himself for that thought the moment it came. But it was no less true.

All his elder brother’s roles suddenly fell to Malik. The restless boy who, until two years ago, would never have shied away from fights with arrogant pricks like Aram Tulsein. Who was made for adventures like the Ascent in a way his brother never was.

He jolted back into the moment. Pushing back against the intruding thoughts.

You’re made for this! You can get out of here!

These were not his father’s words. They were his own.

This was his test.

Not Derrin’s.

Not his father’s.

They’d nearly reached the halfway point across the enormous chamber, where a wide aisle ringed the entire hall. They’d followed the path they’d come from. But Malik knew that was not the shortest path out of this temple.

In the corner of his vision, he saw shadowy figures shooting from the dais.

Malik pointed to another aisle, as they neared the central ring. “Over there!”

Heart racing, Malik led the way along a new path through the worship chamber. Riese was the fastest of the three and reached the door first. She heaved at the stone handle, and it groaned.

Malik reached next, and pulled with all his might. It shifted again, but did not open.

The first wight shot toward them, a blade of shadow formed in its wispy hand. Yuri huffed to catch them. And Malik knew his friend wasn’t going to make it.

Malik let go of the door and drew his brother’s dagger from his belt. He ran back toward Yuri, blade raised high. Yuri’s mouth gaped, confused, but he lumbered past. Malik swept dagger and met the shadow blade.

There was a sharp scraping sound as their weapons met. The wight spun away and veered back for another attack. The next creature dove, and this time, Malik didn’t go for the blade. He drove the dagger straight into the wight’s torso. As the tip of the blade met the creature’s ethereal form, a chill shot down the hilt. The dagger disintegrated in his hands.

The wight vanished.

Riese pulled him to his feet. Yuri had shoved the door wide enough for them to squeeze through. More wights shot across the vast haul, shrill cries echoing off the high ceilings.

The three hurried out of the main temple and emerged back in the antechamber. Shrieks echoed behind them as they spilled out of the doors and hurried down the stairs onto the ruined street.

Yuri tripped, tumbling down the final steps. Malik and Riese helped him back to his feet.

No wights emerged from the temple. They waited, bracing for the ghastly monstrosities to pour out of the stone of the front staircase. But they did not follow. Far in the distance, a dragyr soared over the city, its back to them, and passed out of sight.

A burst of laughter broke the silence.

Riese covered her mouth, and then giggled again.

Relief flooded over them, and all three of them laughed. Malik instinctively felt at the lump in his pack, suddenly worried his prize might have slipped out during their flight form the temple.

They each had what they’d come for.

“I don’t know about you guys,” Yuri said. “I always heard cities were beautiful from the trader’s tales. But I think they were all full of shit.”

Malik grinned.

“Let’s get home,” Riese said.

They hurried through the ruined streets of the dead city, and made for the Gate of the Ancients once more.

***

Dark clouds poured over the mountains, shrouding the upper spires entirely in muted light, though it was still the middle of the day. Gusts of wind tore across the valley.

Fewer parents asked Joren for news of their children’s fates. Most retreated for the cover of the forest at the edge of the valley.

Most of the climbers had begun their descent. The leader, Aram Tulsein, was already halfway down the penultimate spire. Everyone in the valley knew it. They could spot his crimson cloak even from this distance. Several more resonances were making their way down, somewhere in the clouds.

So far, not a single climber had fallen.

But had any been lost in the Abyss?

It was still too early to tell.

Madri and Surel remained close. Joren could feel the tension in their minds, fear pressing in like a spiritual weight.

And the shaman felt that weight pulling against the barriers of his own mind, picking away brick by brick. He fought to focus on the resonances of the other climbers. Fought to push back the memories that encroached on his mind.

It was like his family was cursed. First, his younger brother. And then, his eldest son. And now…

There was nothing that could be done.

Madri’s hand grasped his as he stood on the boulder, looking up at the Spires. He closed his eyes. His body relaxed. Tension evaporated.

And all at once, relief replaced the fear. A warm and unmistakable awareness swept over his senses. Joren choked back a sob and squeezed his wife’s hand back.

“They made it out!”

“Oh, thank the gods,” Madri whispered, a sob catching in her throat.

Surel hugged them both.

Joren opened his eyes, gazing up into the dark clouds sweeping over the spires.

“Be wise, my son,” he whispered. “This is your greatest test.”