The dragon sprawled across the mountaintop like a ski resort. It was so large Zoe couldn’t look at all of it at once, even with her advanced Insight. Flames dripped from her nostrils as it snorted with amusement.
[Why am I here?]
Sparks drifted away as the wind whipped the snow and howled through the rocky crags with furious glee. Zoe felt gazes in the wind, eyeballs straining against the impermeable reality. The dragon leaned forward, so suddenly Zoe couldn’t react as the colossal face filled the sky. She was reminded of the presence of the Smith, the Witch, even the Gambler — but this felt older — older than time — and the heat seared her skin even as her Vitality renewed her flesh.
[You have taken our treasure, and I am here to judge if you are worthy]
Zoe forced herself to stand upright, but it didn’t take much. The dragon’s earlier words rang through her. She could take this monstrosity if it came to a fight. If she needed to defend herself, she could — no, she would.
Her knuckles clenched with a sound like creaking glass and the dragon’s thunderous laughter shook the air.
[I see now why fate dances around you so, but let me reveal the magnitude of your crime]
The dragon blinked and the world shifted like a square turning inside out and becoming a cube. Zoe’s guts lurched as she stared down at the mountaintop, and up, and out, at the points surrounding her. A dozen mountains pointed toward her from all angles, their slopes of blue-grey rock and snow extending away into the sky and blotting out the horizon. On every mountain top, a version of herself stood gaping while schools of Anton’s eyes flashed about. In the center of the space between the mountain peaks, hung the dragon.
It floated on outstretched wings, a tesselation unto itself, for all the myriad dragons fused as one. Scales and limbs flushed into each other into an eldritch pattern that resembled calligraphy more than splayed limbs and heaving, shuddering flesh.
Any thought of fighting left her mind as she gazed up at this kaleidoscopic being. Her heart echoed thirteen times as she gazed past the dragon and into her own eyes. Something sharp cut at her soul, but the wound healed over as whatever power she stole bubbled over the edges of the wounds.
The dragon gazed down at her with burning eyes turning in a wheel through the thirteen-pointed skulls.
[We knew the Crimson Armada could not uphold their bargain forever. Their trinity was a sad thing from the beginning. One mad, one scheming, and one a thief and so always a thief. You reek of the Witch and her foul dealings. As her ambassador, you shall answer on her behalf]
Zoe’s blood ran cold.
“I am not the Witch’s ambassador!” she shouted, but she knew it was futile.
[I see the technique with which you reforged the Mountain of Faith into yourself. The dark star heart in your breast is an interesting invention, but it amounts to little more than a larger hand with which to snatch coins from our hoard. Your other technique is the Witch’s own. Did you not think we would recognize that which we helped fashion?]
“I didn’t know,” Zoe said honestly. “The Witch gave me this technique, but any deal I made with her broke when I was ripped from her womb. I serve myself and the people of my planet.”
Wings moved like a heartbeat, rasping at the air, once, a dozen times, and the dragon hung still in the air between the mountaintops.
[You wish to protect the treaty]
“You know I’m not lying,” Zoe insisted. “If you can see my techniques, if you saw my actions on the Mountain and before, then you know that I did not come here to serve the Witch. I despise her. The only reason I want this power is so that I can kill her myself.”
Another leathery wing dragged through the air like a rasp across stone. Sparks and molten slag dripped from the dragon’s nostrils and spiraled out in all directions like a burning wheel to surround its eyes.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
[You stole knowledge and yet claim ignorance. You committed your crime with the full intention of doing so, yet you knew neither the crime nor the victim. If we let you go, then we become accomplices in your actions and so break our own part of the treaty]
“Who cares about treaties?” Zoe found herself saying. “Don’t you want the Witch to suffer? Don’t you want the Crimson Armada to end?”
[Why would we want that?]
“You said yourself that you expected them to break the treaty. Hell! They have broken the treaty by letting me come here.”
The dragon chuckled.
[Your argument is weak. A star burns, but it is beyond petty hatred. I am disappointed that you show such little Faith in beings greater than yourself. I am disappointed that you have not mentioned the Witch’s spawn you led to our sanctuary worlds]
Zoe stepped back.
“What do you mean?”
[Your companions battle the Mubilashi as we speak. Do you wish to witness?]
Without waiting for an answer the Mountains and flapping dragon vanished. Zoe stared up at a cracked landscape of charred and dusty clay. A flower field worth of ash swirled in the winds generated by a burning sword. The blade moved in the hands of a tired warrior, her eyes as pale as the mountain sky, but her every step slowed. Black spears, snakes, tendrils, and chainsaw worms, danced toward Bella. Teeth melted from the air to close around her flesh, only for her to jerk out of the way at the last moment. Lightning crackled as Skidmark blasted Bella away from an ichor scythe aimed to cut her in half.
The battle continued in an endless, bloodless dance.
Zoe felt a nimbus around Bella, not just her skein coursing beneath her skin and pulling the strings of power this way and that, but a coruscating presence of Faith. Bella believed with every swing of her blade that she must continue, that help would come eventually, that she must protect Skidmark, that they would not fall — not here, not now, and not like this — because below even these surface hopes and prayers Zoe saw the true belief in her friend’s heart: that everything would be ok.
This view, these thoughts, came as unbidden as breathing, but it shocked Zoe. She felt none of this when she gazed upon the dragon. She turned toward Anton and staggered as she saw a mirror instead. He saw her, shining, a being of rushing steel, unconquerable, unstoppable, and she had to yank her gaze away.
How could anyone look at her like that? She squeezed her Mirrored hands so hard that Moth fluttered across her heart with concern. How could he see her like that after all that she’d done?
She looked back up and saw the dragon once more. It sat on the mountaintop, the singular mountaintop, and gazed at her with eyes older than the dinosaurs. The smell of baked earth and the stink of the slithering void filled her nostrils. Clangs of runic iron against spectral teeth echoed in her ears.
“I have to help her,” Zoe said.
[You are on trial]
“Let me down or I will leap. You will not stop me.”
[Do not underestimate me]
“I’m not.”
The dragon laughed.
[Fate pulls you in so many directions, yet you tug harder at the threads as though they may snap]
“I don’t know what you mean,” Zoe snarled. “Are we done here?”
[No]
Mirror poured over her skin. She didn’t know how to activate the Mountain, but she realized she didn’t need to activate anything, it waited for her, inside her, like an iceberg beneath her thoughts — it would be harder to turn it off than use it.
The air rippled out from her and the rock crushed beneath her feet. Light shone from her eyes as she faced the dragon without hesitation. In the mirrored skin across her body, the dragon saw itself step back, and it grinned with teeth like jagged telephone poles.
[I offer you a deal]
Zoe gazed at the creature before her.
[Speak]
The air shook with her words. Anton gazed at her, weeping, rapturous, and Zoe felt his Faith feed her strength. This wasn’t five times her power, or even five hundred, this was thousands. She wanted to fight. Wanted to slay the dragon. She stepped forward and knew that she could.
[We offer a coin from our hoards, but you took far more. To keep it, you shall undergo a test. If you succeed, the power is yours]
Zoe smiled.
[And what if I choose to fight?]
The dragon flapped its wings and reared up onto its hind legs. It towered above them and cast its shadow across the mountaintop.
[Then we fight until my blood drowns the mountain. Even if you kill me, will your friends last long enough for you to save them?]
Zoe glared, but she withdrew her Mirrored armor and felt the Mountain of Faith sink beneath her surface.
“Fine,” she spat. “I accept your test, but my friends come with me.”
The dragon settled back down on the mountaintop and folded its wings with a sound like a car crash.
[Your terms are accepted]
“What is this test then?”
[You desire power beyond a single system, and so you shall pass the test of all systems. Find your way back from the void beyond voids]
“What does that mean?” Zoe shouted up at the monstrous lizard. “Why can’t you give me a straight answer? You keep talking about faith and contracts but —”
Her voice trailed off as the dragon vanished. The mountaintop vanished. It was as though that dimension blinked and no longer gazed at her. In its stead, Zoe floated within a dark and empty space. Grey, featurless, vast. Her friends floated around her, equally perplexed, and Zoe turned, stunned silent by the limitless expanse of nothing surrounding them.