It was around midnight when they stopped to set up camp along Brakker’s rocky coast. A full moon had allowed them to push a bit further.

It hung high overhead, a crumbling white disc emblazoned with a spiky, arthropodan silhouette—the Pariah’s Spine. Bits of glittering debris wreathed the moon’s body, and above it hung the Martyr’s Wound, a brilliant red gash from which poured swirling stellar clouds. The myth claimed it would bleed through eternity, such was the devotion of the sacrifice.

A night where its spillage curtained the moon to bathe the World in crimson was considered precious. A so-called Sanguine Eclipse occasioned much celebration. They claimed it signaled great change and the turning of the ages.

Tonight was not one of those nights. Apparently, Gwil had never seen one, despite Reverie having hosted a dozen of the spontaneous festivals on nights where the red tint beamed bright.

Caris would spend the whole night scoffing to herself whenever that happened. She complained that people were just eager and desperate for piddling revelry. She’d told Gwil that a true Sanguine Eclipse was a blinding nightmare, and that it had only happened twice, with the last having been three hundred years past.

Sat beside the fire, Gwil leaned back on his hands, bits of gravel jabbing into his palms. Looking up at the black sea of stars, he wondered if he’d ever get to see one of those eclipses. Sounded like it was past due.

A metallic clang drew his eyes to Leira. Coincidentally enough, she had found a shovel, had actually tripped over the thing. It was lying on the ground outside an abandoned cabin, snagged in the thick of overgrown weeds.

She clumsily swung the rusty, rotten shovel around, striking it against spires of rock. She yelped.

Gwil ducked as the broken-off blade went spinning past his head.

“Oops!” Leira flung the handle into the sea and then came back to the fire. “That’s fine,” she said as she sat down. “If I actually needed to fight with that thing, we’d be in trouble.”

Gwil tilted his head.

“I can hold my own,” she said. “But I don’t fight like a brute. I’m very elegant. You’ll see soon enough, I’m sure. It’s you that has some work to do. Are you really gonna stab things with a fork when you could be using Nirva?”

Gwil made a finger gun and aimed it at a tree. Nothing happened. “What do I do?”

“How should I know?” she said, swatting at a mosquito. “It’s inside you. Figure it out.”

Gwil stood up.

“I didn’t mean now! Aren’t you tired?”

“Not at all,” he said.

“Well-” Leira yawned and stretched her arms over her head. “I’m exhausted. Let’s eat so I can sleep, then you go off and do that.”

***

They made dry meat sandwiches to finish off the bread, which would’ve molded soon. Then Leira shooed him away.

Gwil wandered off into the wilderness. He didn’t need to pay any attention. He knew these parts well. But he’d always try to fool himself like this, with these little windows of faux freedom.

It never worked. The illusion never held. His heart yearned for the unknown, to plunge into blind depths.

He scaled an outcrop of rock that he’d climbed many times before. Brakker had the roughest, steepest terrain of the islands, so Caris had brought him here often.

Reaching the top, Gwil kicked away a slug and sat down cross-legged at the end of the jut.

White-capped waves slashed through the velvet. He often liked to watch the ships along the Mikaran coast, but there were none to be seen tonight. That was lucky, because the swells were towering, and the wind was gusting. A storm brewed. Gwil hoped it wouldn’t affect their crossing.

He took his jacket off. It was a cold night, but he was drenched with sweat. Ever since he died, he’d felt feverish. Not sick, but frantic. Heart-thumping, mouth dry.

He forced himself to take deep, slow breaths. Now that he could reach for the horizon, he felt smaller, and the World looked bigger than ever.

North, eh? Sorry, Caris, but I hope it’s really far.

With a start, Gwil realized something that made him feel stupid. He’d spent all that time hoping he’d become Hallowed without ever giving any thought to what it might entail. This ‘Nirva’ felt obscure and unfathomable.

What did he have to go on? Dubious, drunken tales he’d half-overheard in Erwin’s pub when the odd traveler crossed through Alnami. Just scraps of the World beyond.

Damn. He closed his eyes and shook his head. He was supposed to be concentrating.

There was some strangeness inside. An elusive tingling. It felt like that instant where you first touch a hot stove, before it burns.

Mosquitoes kept buzzing in his ear and landing on his face. And he kept fidgeting with the weeds and bits of rock beneath his fingers.

Gwil bit at the inside of his lip until it drew blood. And then he heard whispering. A voice out of the wind. One at first, then many. Calm at first, and then furious. It swelled into a swarming cacophony.

Erratic emotions flooded his heart and head, aching and soothing, blooming and stabbing, too fleeting to measure. Sensations he’d never known.

Gwil clutched his hair as a splitting headache cleaved through his skull. The voices harmonized into a shriek of unbridled agony. It burned hotter than any fire.

Everything and everywhere, infested by brutality. An array of tiny slivers opened across the sky. Those wounds were pristine, like skin sliced by a razor. Blackened blood, the hue of a dark garnet, oozed out and then poured. The earth drank it down.

His tears kissed cool against his cheeks. Is this the World?

The stars turned into butterflies with prismatic wings. Their fluttering created a song. Countless, they cast a spectrum of swirling color—joy, rage, love, sorrow, hope—all haloed by the foul-blood agony.

Quick footsteps. Gwil’s eyes snapped open.

He was falling from the cliff. He twisted as he fell and saw Leira, waving and smiling.

She must have had a good reason.

Six stories? A cluster of jagged rocks below. He would surely die. But it was taking forever. He fell so slowly.

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Vapor trailed from his pores. His flesh burned. It felt like he was smothered in flames, but it didn’t hurt.

Whatever tricks his mind played, the ground was close. He threw his hands out ahead of his dive. They shimmered with something ethereal.

Terrible impacts ripped through his wrists. He felt his bones shift. Pain lanced through his arms.

But he had caught himself, landing in a miraculous handstand with both hands braced against sharp peaks of rock. Blood dripped down their surfaces.

Still upside down, he tilted his head to see that he’d been a hair’s breadth from having his skull skewered.

The fire went out. Gwil’s arms buckled, and he fell into the rocks. He hit his head with a few inches of momentum rather than several stories, so that was okay. Just a bonk.

Lying in a twisted sprawl, he laughed. Everything felt so vivid. The stars shone bigger and brighter. The blustering wind tickled. The sea groaned.

He wiggled his toes, shimmied his hips. Everything was intact. He brought his hands in front of his face. They were stained red with writhing scabs in the middle. Pieces of dried blood crumbled away to reveal fresh pink skin.

“Nice!” Leira screamed. Gwil looked up at her. She leaned over the precipice, holding out a thumbs up, beaming. Then she started clapping. “Wait, I’m coming down.”

Oh good. She wasn’t trying to kill me, Gwil thought as he stood and brushed himself off.

He took a couple of shaky, stumbling steps. He felt drunk on adrenaline and disbelief. That was Nirva. He looked at his hands again. All that remained of the wounds were faint outlines marked by peeling skin.

Leira came running around the side of the cliff. “Don’t be mad, please! I knew you wouldn’t get hurt.”

“I wasn’t mad,” Gwil said.

Leira stopped in her tracks. “But I threw you off a cliff.”

Gwil shrugged. “I trust you.”

She stared at him. “Right. Well, remember I said I’ve met a lot of Hallows? I know a bit more than I let on. And I knew that a near-death experience was the best way to awaken Nirva in a virgin Hallow.”

Gwil grimaced. “Is that really what it’s called?”

“Please,” Leira said. “See, I couldn’t warn you, or it wouldn’t have been a surprise. So… voila! There you go. Do you feel different?”

He nodded. The whispers had grown so faint that Gwil was not sure whether he actually still heard them. “It’s in my bones. And my blood feels like it’s on fire.”

“The basics will come naturally,” Leira said with a wave. “Durability, strength, healing, heightened senses. It’s the sorcerous aspect that you’ll have to work for.

“Most Hallows only get one, and as far as I know, it’s preordained. An Invoke, it’s called. That’s the wild stuff, like elemental manipulation, telepathy, manifestation, what have you.”

Gwil thought his eyes might pop out. “Show me more.”

“Don’t get too excited,” Leira said, throwing her hands up. “I hardly know anything worth a damn. Just little tricks I’ve picked up. Lemme think.”

They made it back to their camp. The sea crashed against the base of the cliff, spitting up spouts of sea spray. Hands on her hips, Leira scanned the rocky shelf. She picked out a jagged stone spire and clapped her hand against it. It was as thick around as Gwil’s waist.

“Punch this until you break it,” Leira said.

Gwil raised his eyebrows. “Wat.”

Caris had taught him to fight. He could throw a good punch. But this was a big chunk of stone.

“You don’t think you can?” Leira said, her eyeflower fluttering in the wind.

“I didn’t say that,” Gwil said.

“Then do it. Maybe it’ll take all night. Maybe you’ll break all your fingers. Struggle makes it flow.”

Gwil scrunched his face up and punched the rock with all his might.

He couldn’t say whether the impact to his wrist or his shredded knuckles hurt more.

“Shit,” he whimpered, shaking out his wrist.

“Again,” Leira barked.

Half-heartedly, Gwil punched the sharp and seemingly indestructible spire. Right fist, left, on and on. His punches turned slow and timid. The misty aura didn’t form. He felt foolish. His blood painted the rock, and his wounds were screaming.

“C’mon!” Leira shrieked. “Beat the shit out of it!”

Gwil closed his eyes and focused on the crashing sea. Right, left, right, left. His wrist cracked, splintered, like cracking kernels of corn. Burning numbness, no feeling in his fingers. He couldn’t hold a fist; he felt his hand flopping as he drew it back and threw it forward again.

Upon impact, rigidity stole through his hand, shocked it back to life. He kept his eyes closed, kept punching. The pain vanished, turned to ash. His fists landed in time with his heartbeat.

The ages had molded this rock, but it was only a natural thing. It could break.

Right, left, again, and again, his fists as uncaring as the stone itself. Gwil couldn’t feel his arms, couldn’t feel anything besides the overwhelming heat. This strength was not his own.

Craaack.

“Don’t let up!” Leira yelled. “Finish it!”

She didn’t need to say it. He hadn’t even opened his eye a wink to check the damage. The sound of the crack had only steeled his resolve.

The translucent aura sheathed his hands like liquid-hot wax. With every blow, he could feel the ethereal substance—the Nirva—seeping into the stone, eroding the innards.

Each of his next two punches wrought two more satisfying cracks. The next one would be the last. Gwil opened his eyes and unleashed.

A chorus of voices screamed. Prismatic sparks erupted at the point of impact.

The rock spire shattered into dust and bits. All that remained was the stump.

“Ooh! Did you see that?”

Leira was beaming. She snapped her fingers. “Oh no, I missed it.”

Gwil doubled over to laugh and then toppled face first onto the ground. Everything was spinning and ah… so nice to lie down. It felt like his arms hung by tattered threads. “I don’t think I can…” He yawned, his cheek scraping against the gravel.

“Yeah, Nirva can be rough on the body,” Leira said. “And you have no tolerance for it. Gotta break yourself in.”

“How long did that take?” Gwil slurred.

“Four hours,” Leira said. “I took a nap. It’s almost dawn.”

Gwil opened his eye a crack to see that it was light out and then groaned. “Can you throw me a blanket?”

“No point,” Leira said.

He was already asleep.

***

Gwil awoke to the pattering of rain on canvas. The soothing rhythm made the prospect of opening his eyes feel dreadful. He scratched at the pit-shaped scar on his chest. So cozy, wrapped tight in his blanket and…

Unfamiliar surroundings eventually poked through his sleepiness. Gwil rubbed at bleary eyes and propped himself up on an elbow, his head grazing the canvas. The tent’s musty smell was comforting. He’d spent hundreds of nights under the shabby, patchwork thing. Leira must have dragged him inside. How nice of her.

Gwil stretched. His shoulders ached, but he felt so refreshed. The skin on his knuckles was raw, but there were no wounds. He crawled out of the tent and saw that Leira had also raised a tarp over the fire.

It was a merciless downpour, with the rain whipped into windswept funnels.

“Fucking hell,” she said. “You slept ages. It’s past noon.”

She laid on her side, poking at the dying fire with a stick. “I thought to let you rest until the storm passed but…” She made a needless gesture at the terrible weather.

Ink black clouds spanned the sky from horizon to horizon.

Gwil shrieked in a most embarrassing manner and then clamped his hands over his mouth.

Leira had a guest at the fire. A two-headed jaguar slept beside her, with one head covered beneath its paws, and the other flopped to the side, mouth open to reveal dagger teeth and a lolling tongue.

The flower-eyed woman cackled. “Don’t worry. She’ll be out for two days at least.” Leira scratched one of the beast’s chins. “That’s what she gets for trying to steal our food. I’m surprised my screaming didn’t wake you.”

Wide awake now, Gwil said, “How’d you do that?”

“I told you before—elegance.” The petals of the lotus flower flapped in the gusting wind.

They prepared breakfast—lunch for Leira—and packed up as they ate, leaving the tarp for last. They left some scraps for the jaguar.

Gwil had intended to go along the coast—the slower, but less arduous, path. With the rain, he decided they’d better cut through the jungle.

The rainfall made for a symphony—pattering droplets thumping against the leaves, streams of water trickling into the mud. What landed on their heads was a misting.

Gwil pulled aside a bundle of branches and let Leira pass. Something had been prickling at him since he woke up. “I hear voices when the Nirva is working.”

“I’ve heard about that,” she said with a shrug. “Ignore it, I think. It’s a small price compared to what you’ll be able to do.”

“How’d you know so many Hallows?” Gwil asked.

“I grew up in an evil cult,” Leira said. Then she grinned like a demon. “Just kidding. But don’t ask me stuff like that. I’ll say what I want to say. Nothing about me matters except my capacity to serve as one of Ashkana’s Vermin.”

“No problem,” Gwil said.

“Don’t worry about it,” she sang. “I have a question, too, though. And feel free to tell me to eat shit the way I just did to you.

“You really don’t know anything about who this Caris woman was? Why did she raise you? What happened to your parents?”

Gwil scrunched his face up and shook his head. “I don’t know. Or don’t remember. And asking questions only earned me a smack. Caris was… strange. She hated everyone in the World, I think. It was like she just wanted to be a hermit or something, but she was stuck with me.”

Leira was silent as they clambered up a slippery, muddy slope. At the top she said, “It’s weird. Hallows are rare, but there’re still hundreds—probably thousands—in the World. Why would it matter so much if you turned into one? And she knew you would. She had to have known.”

Gwil shrugged.

“Whatever,” Leira said. “Ashkana will know everything.”