Pirin’s fingers brushed past the ledge, but he was a half-inch too far away.

He slammed into the cliff wall. He turned his head right away, but it didn’t stop his body from smashing into the rock. For a millisecond, he was stunned.

He raised both hands, grasping for a ledge—or anything he could use to stop himself from falling. His fingernails grated against stone, and the rock stripped the flesh off his fingertips. He shouted, as if that might somehow help.

Then he forced himself to look down. Two feet to the side, there was a crag in the stone. He wrenched his body to the left, then shot his hand forward. His fingers slipped into the crag, and the stone tugged his arm upward so fast that it felt like it would pull out of the socket.

He had no Essence left, and without it, his arms felt cold. A little weaker, a little bit useless.

At least he hadn’t gotten used to using a fortification technique to strengthen himself, nor an enhanced body that required Essence to fuel.

“Of course not,” he muttered to himself. “Because you didn’t have one, idiot.” It wasn’t a badge of honour.

But he’d made it work. Now he had to keep making it work.

Gray peered over the ledge high above, her feathery head poking out from behind the ledge. She stared down at him and let out a concerned cheep. There was no room to take off, though, and if she tried to come get him, she’d just plummet to her death as well. But without any Essence, he effectively had no Reyad. He couldn’t talk to Gray.

With his free arm, Pirin waved and tried to shoo her away. “I’ll get up there!” he called. “I can still climb!”

With just the strength of his muscles, he pulled himself up to the next little crag in the rock. He was ten feet below the upper ledge, but the longer he waited, the more exhausted he’d get.

As he pulled himself from crag to miniature ledge to crack in the wall, he dared to take a peek back. As best as he could see the other side of the crevice, the torchlight had gotten brighter. Whoever was following them was getting closer.

Pirin picked up his climbing speed. Blood from his fingertips welled beneath his fingernails (or what was left of them), and if he waited too long in any single place, his blood made it slippery.

When he got within a foot of the top, Gray latched onto his free arm with her beak and helped haul him up to the sandstone floor of the culvert. He sprawled out on his back, panting.

Gray nudged him with her head and squawked.

“Yeah, I’m up, I’m up…” Pirin pushed himself to his feet, then rubbed his hands on his pants. Bad idea. His hands were raw, and it just made his skin sting even worse. He stuck to shaking them out in empty air.

Taking controlled breaths, he steadied himself. He drew in the Eane and cycled it into Essence, then passed it to Gray. Once he had a stable loop between him and his gnatsnapper, he asked, “Are you alright?”

Aside from…feeling like my talons have just been ripped off, and all the skin of my feet shredded? Yeah, I’m fine.

“Sorry,” Pirin whispered. He’d also transmitted his pain through their bond. “I’d say ‘at least you’re not actually bleeding’ but I doubt that makes a difference.”

Not at all! But that’s alright! Or, no, it’s not. But I forgive you. Next time, just jump a little further…

Pirin rolled his eyes. “Next time, I’ll be stronger.” He turned around to face the chasm they had just crossed. “We need to get moving. I hope no one can cross behind us, not after we’ve knocked all the crystals down, but that seems like an assumption that’d get us killed. If they’re Saltsprays, they might have a way.”

Oh, oh! That’s smart…you’re learning, aren’t you?

“Was that sarcasm?”

You still haven’t told me what that is.

“Right.” He stepped back from the ledge, then opened his haversack. He still had a few bandages inside, and he began to wrap his hands. “Look, it was just a long way of saying that we need to move.”

Climb up on my back, Gray said.

“We’re not flying in here.” Spires of crystals and mineral buildup still clogged the culvert on the other side of the chasm, and there was barely enough room to fit a wagon through now, let alone for Gray to get off the ground.

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No, but you’re tired, and I’m less-so. Besides, I can hop along faster than you can walk, and we need speed.

“And you’re not tired?”

I’ll live. You need to get more of our foundation Timbers set up, and you’ll do it faster if you aren’t worrying about where we’re going.

Pirin climbed up into the saddle. As soon as Gray set off, hopping down the hallway like an enormous sparrow, he turned his attention inward.

The rest of the Timbers wouldn’t be any different to form, as he understood. It was just resisting the urge to let his core advance that made the difference between an average wizard and an excellent wizard.

At the moment, he had five Timbers. He would already be above average, but he wanted to push it. If he wasn’t an Embercore, everyone would have expected him to be above average—the effect of such a powerful Bloodline, and befitting of a king. This quest wouldn’t mean anything if he couldn’t surpass expectations.

Seven, he thought. I will reach seven Timbers. I’ll be more than just lucky.

Just thinking it wasn’t enough. His gut clenched, and now, every cycle of Essence strained on his core, trying to advance it and seal his Timbers in place. He tightened his teeth together. Every cycle of Essence required twice the concentration, every inch he manipulated it took twice the exertion, every channel he pushed it down took twice the breath.

Sweat poured down his brow. He wiped it with the back of his hand and kept going. Two more Timbers. Two more…

They had to be perfect. He activated the Memory Chain. Instead of keeping it slow to view individual memories, he pulled through all the instances of sword training he could muster, shifting them through his mind as fast as he could while drawing the experience and lessons from it.

He needed pure swordfighting knowledge and prowess, and he needed to reabsorb what he could, but he also needed to mix a touch of pure Essence into his Timbers to improve their quality.

From his skim, he deduced that he had trained under Kal for half a year. Every day, they had practiced and sparred. All of that experience couldn’t be reabsorbed or remade in a few minutes. He would need multiple attempts—multiple weeks of attempts—to take it all back in.

As he filtered through the Chain, he lingered on a few sequences more than others. He needed the pure Essence, and it would help take his mind away from forming the foundation Timbers.

“Lahess-Aya,” Kalénier had said. “It is the name of the main stance across all elven noble sword-forms. Say it aloud when you take it until it is burned into your bones.”

In the memory, he and Pirin had been standing in a small wooden room—maybe an inn, or maybe another ship; it was rocking. They were holding their swords up. Kal tapped Pirin’s sword down an inch and kicked Pirin’s heel, widening his stance.

“It is defensive,” Kal continued. “You dodge and deflect, until at last, you find your opening—and then you take it, no matter what. Go for the kill. If you don’t, then your opponent will take your life. Mercy is not a luxury people like us get.” He walked around behind Pirin. “You are an Embercore, as was prophesied. For now, you are a mortal man like me.”

For a few minutes, they had run through the stance and its importance, all of the swipes—up, down, to the side, and the eleven different angles of attack. They all had different names in the old elven tongue, but Pirin couldn’t recite them from memory yet.

“Why do you know a sword-form reserved for ancient elven nobility, Kal?” Pirin had asked.

“The Chancellor taught them to me himself.”

“He’s not nobility, is he? Not from the noble line?”

“No, he is not.” Kal shook his head. “Much has changed, and Sirdia doesn’t have the luxury of enforcing who can and cannot learn such styles. I’m not nobility, nor am I even an elf, yet I learned.”

“You’re a master of it?”

“Perhaps. I have trained in it for nearly two decades now.”

Pirin let out a puff of air from his nose. “Since the Chancellor took you in?”

Kal opened his mouth, then sighed. “Yes, ever since the Chancellor gave me purpose.”

“Purpose?”

“My parents sent me away from the Scar of Reyldaren when I was too young to remember any of it.” Kal turned his sword over and leaned on the pommel. “I never had a people or a land to call home. No traditions, cultures, any of that. The elves gave me what I never had.” He lifted his sword up a few inches, and with cold certainty in his purple eyes, he said, “I will die for this land.”

Something told Pirin that it wasn’t an exaggeration.

Pirin lingered on a few memories, watching them closer, as he split his attention between his foundation Timbers and the Chain. He felt a boom of pure spiritual force radiate away from him as he solidified one more Timber, wind ruffling Gray’s feathers.

His core bubbled and popped, now. The cracks, which he had once envisioned as cold orange, now seared his imagination. Every few seconds, it lurched, trying to run away from him. It wanted to lock everything in place.

Pirin bit his lip so hard that he tasted blood. He clenched his fists, holding his Essence in place for a few seconds, before continuing to form up the layers of his next Timber.

Waves of pain blasted through his chest, originating from his heart. Needles of flame rolled through him like volleys of arrows. The strain wasn’t just spiritual, nor on his soul. His heart thrummed in his ears, which he had expected. But he had expected it to sound like a war drum pounding in his head, not a squirrel writhing on a timpani.

Desperately, he turned back to the Memory Chain to provide a distraction. Anything would do. He flitted through it, unconcerned over which scenes he was viewing. He saw all sorts of memories, from any time he could imagine. They flowed in and receded with his breaths, casting him back through time with every inhale and pulling away with each exhale.

Centuries of memories passed before he finished the last foundation Timber. As soon as the air around him boomed and the Timber solidified, he released everything and let himself relax. His Essence did the rest. Anything left retreated into his core, pulled down a whirlpool, and the insides of his body flashed gold for a heartbeat.

Then the light died, and Pirin fell unconscious.