Traveling through the mountains was a chore at the best of times, albeit one that could birth some lovely inspiration. But at night? Well, it proved to be an entirely unpleasant experience. Clymere was wary enough of other monsters that she refused to light their way except in the most treacherous places.

“Our eyes will adjust well enough to the moonlight,” she had said, “I won’t run the risk of attracting anything hungry while we’re half-dead.”

It was sound logic, but Kosta almost welcomed the prospect of a monster or two over branches nearly poking his eyes out. He’d stumbled on slippery slopes, tripped over obnoxious roots that he swore sprouted just to irritate him, and was now littered with cuts, bruises, and countless other relics of their travels.

The attrition left him wearier and wearier as his magic sought to cleanse his body of injuries. Traveling was hungry work, magic moreso. Right now Kosta only lived for three things: the promise of showering this gunk off, the burning desire to prepare his next creation, and the dream of wiping away his exhaustion with a night (and perhaps day) of slumber.

At least Kosta would wake up healthy, hale, and a much, much richer man… once Headsman Linus sent a force to claim the phaetra lode, at any rate.

That brightened his mood a little. Argyropolis was in reach! The horizon seemed a little closer.

Kosta ducked a low-hanging branch as he followed Clymere. She was able to break most of the branches against her armor and swipe the rest away with her spear, but every now and then she missed a few.

He didn’t miss the fact that she ‘happened’ to miss more whenever twigs and leaves crunched particularly loudly beneath his feet.

They finally broke the mountainous forests and looked down upon the foothills. Dytifrourá rested far below them, although Kosta expected dawn to break before he set his head upon his pillow.

A faint haze of light bled into the dark of night from the town, evidence of the magic which sustained the town. Several great flames burned on the walls, manifested by vast braziers which banished the darkness for some distance around. Black helioklepts drank in the sun’s radiance to sustain them, while also fueling various devices that could illuminate specific points in the valley to reveal foes.

No doubt several militiamen would be quite confused to see them stumble to the gates so late in the night. Kosta imagined that they’d be subject to countless rumors in the morning. Clymere had a reputation for foolhardy stunts, and it wasn’t unheard of for her to drag Kosta along. Hopefully Mama wouldn’t hear about it, though…

Still, the sight emboldened Kosta’s steps. Less than an hour to go! Finally!

“Now that’s a sight for sore eyes!” Clymere sounded just as pleased. “I could eat an entire goat right now!”

Kosta didn’t doubt it.

As relieved as both were to have made it out of the mountains and into relative safety, Kosta suddenly became aware of just how exhausted he really was. His legs were like lead. Every step was a feat of willpower. His whole body ached with the wounds of the day.

Clymere must have been worse. She’d pushed herself to the brink to match the manticore. Every step she took was dragging, really more of a limp, and Kosta suspected that Clymere had only managed to make it so far by leaning very, very heavily on her spear the entire way. It was more of a walking stick than a weapon at this point.

Most of their trip home had been spent in relative silence. The mountains took on an entirely different air at night: strange sounds echoed throughout the passes, frigid gales swept in from the north, and it was impossible to escape the unnerving sensation of being watched. Things lived in those mountains, and they didn’t have a hope of contesting them in their current state.

But they (mostly Clymere) were drenched in monster blood. Whatever had stalked them must have decided to leave them be in order to seek easier prey.

Kosta caught up to Clymere now that he didn’t need her to be his personal battering ram through the trees. Her armor put her in a much better place to clear the path. They soon fell into stride as they passed into the open air of the valley. Great mountains rose all around, climbing high as black shadows just barely illuminated by moonlight and Dytifrourá’s shimmer.

Oroneiros humbled them, of course, and it provided a faint luminescence of its own as it crowded out the stars.

Clymere glanced at him from the corner of her eye. She hesitated for a moment, then pressed forward. “Kosta… may I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“What do you dream of?”

His eyes were locked on the dull glow of distant Dytifrourá. Home! They were almost home! Kosta paused to look at Clymere, curiosity flickering within his thoughts. He glanced to the little aspen block between his fingers, currently carved into a rough mimicry of the manticore. “You know what I dream of.”

“Not like that,” Clymere glanced at the chisel strapped to his belt and shook her head. “Any fool with eyes and ears knows what you want. But… Argyropolis. Sometimes it seems like your mind has already found its way there. What are you hoping to find?”

The question carved through the haze of exhaustion that battered at him. Kosta turned to face Clymere as they strode down the foothills. Good footing was far easier to find now that they’d broken free of the forest, and it would only come easier once they made their way to a distant road. It would add a little time initially, but the stone beneath their feet would make their journey far easier.

“A mentor to help make my dreams a reality.” Kosta said finally. “I want to find someone to set me down the road of world-fashioning. I want an audience that I can share my creations with.”

Clymere arched one black eyebrow. “I believe in you, Kosta, but you expect to find a world-fashioner in Argyropolis? That’s the stuff of legend, the work of an Aretan… maybe even beyond them. You won’t find their like in the Silver City.”

“I’m looking for someone to start me down that path, not to walk me down it.” Kosta defended, closing his eyes for a moment. His mind wandered to the boy in his dream and the wonders that they had made together. “It’s possible. I know it is!”

His sister grabbed his shoulder and turned him so that she could look into his eyes. “You’ll live your dreams, Kosta. I know you will.”

Kosta stared, then smiled as she released him.

“In my dream, my Dòrognosis, I saw it. The Demiurge does not lie, and it promised me. This may be the work of a lifetime, perhaps several. But it’s my path to walk. My path to make. I’ll never find it here,” Kosta waved at Dytifrourá. Home was so, so close. “Perhaps Argyropolis will be a dead-end… but where else am I supposed to start?”

Clymere nodded understandingly, then clapped him on the back. He winced, but she ignored it. “I expect an invitation to this new world of yours, you know! Can I be a queen?” She grinned. “An empress? I’d look good with a crown and scepter.”

Kosta scraped a little monster goo from beneath his nails and looked Clymere over. She was absolutely drenched in the stuff. Boiling it off had removed the worst of the gunk, but doing so had hardened the remains and the smell had really begun to set in. “I can’t think of an empress who’s been bathed in manticore blood.”

“And how many empresses do you know?” Clymere challenged. She turned her nose up at him. “Only the finest monster baths for me! It’s good for my skin.”

He snorted, then turned a bit more serious as they finally made it to the stone road. Home was just a jaunt away.

“What’s your dream, Clymere?” Kosta’s heart panged as he remembered her words. Knowing Clymere, something had driven her to ask that of him. He stared ahead at the glowing town ahead. ”Will you stay here in Dytifrourá?”

Clymere was uncharacteristically silent for a moment. Her fingers clenched tight around her spear. A little light bled from it, cast by a hot flame that surged up for a heartbeat.

She looked away from Dytifrourá. “No. I don’t think so.”

He blinked.

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Clymere! Proud Clymere! It had been her childhood dream to take up arms to defend their home. She’d always been so happy to be in the militia, so proud to guard Dytifrourá with a spear in one hand and flame in the other.

But at the moment she seemed dim and weak, like a flickering candle beating back the vast weight of night’s darkness. Even Kosta found this a rare sight.

“I love my duty. I love my brothers and sisters who fight by my side. I love Headsman Linus and Dytifrourá,” Clymere said as she raised her spear in salute to the city and their leader. “I’ll give them the service they deserve, but they aren’t my future. Not all of it, anyways.” She hesitated, then pushed forward with greater resolve. “You can’t tell Mama or Papa!”

“Of course.” Kosta didn’t hesitate for a second. He would keep her secrets, just as Clymere would keep his.

She took a deep breath and glanced at the stars for a moment. They glittered overhead, circling in a great cosmic wheel, and the silver moon stared back. Clymere steeled herself, then lowered her gaze to spectral Oroneiros. It spread far and vast across the horizon.

“Last week, in my dreams, I received the Challenge.”

Kosta’s heart skipped a beat. “You mean…”

“It’s carved into my mind with the same clarity as striking down that manticore.”

And that was enough. Dreams came and went, fleeting and ephemeral, but when the Demiurge took root it ensured you would never forget. It was a fairly common sight—the specter of a slight, focused boy often visited Kosta, and they would fashion together through all hours of the night—but never one to take lightly.

“What did you see?” He asked, reverent. Kyromedes’ Challenge was a modern legend, one that had not quite settled its roots yet. Tales were scarce, though the greatest Challengers were famed far and wide… although half their renown came from those regarding them as glory-hungry fools.

“I remember it,” Clymere repeated, more to herself than to Kosta. “The Demiurge passed through the flames, took my hand, and then he was there! A silver-crowned man, Kyromedes himself! It wasn’t him, not really, but it was his memory.”

An Aretan in the flesh… well, dream. Kosta could only imagine it.

“Descend to the Dredged City,” Clymere recited, each word flowing easily from her tongue. How many times had she thought back to those words? Such a decision couldn’t have come easily. “Seek my Corporeal Trial beneath the frozen waves. Prove your strength and receive the first of my blessings. Then Kyromedes faded away, lost in the smoke.”

“The Challenge…” Kosta trailed off. “Part of me always thought it a myth. Just a story to keep us entertained as children.”

Clymere shook her head. “It’s much more. Some of the others—Arcules, Agnon, and Headsman Linus himself—said they’ve received the Challenge in the past. I mean, technically we all received it fifteen years ago.”

“I’d thought it a fantasy,” Kosta admitted. There was little to remember about a childhood dream. He could only recall the faintest details: vague promises and a man with the empyrean reflected in one eye and the surreal in another. “And you plan to accept Kyromedes’ Challenge?”

She nodded stiffly. “This is my path. The others, Arcules and the rest, turned away from it. They’re duty-bound. But Kosta, he offers the world!”

Kosta blinked. “Literally or…”

“Figuratively,” Clymere groused, rolling her eyes, then softened. “You can’t understand. You haven’t seen what I have. It’s… well, you’ll just have to see for yourself one day.”

Everyone had heard the stories of the Challenge and its dangers. Most thought it the realm of fools and madmen, a lure to steal away the best and brightest from their homes in search of riches and treasure. But he would not dissuade Clymere—he couldn’t, really, even if he wanted to.

Kosta knew his sister. Folk cursed the Challenge, but if anyone could do it, it was Clymere. She was indomitable.

It hurt to think of her so distant, though. What would life be without her at his side? They’d been two halves of one whole since birth, and part of him had hoped that they’d remain such until death.

Perhaps this was how she’d felt whenever he spoke longingly of Argyropolis and its famed workshops and storied sights.

“Visit me from time to time, won’t you?”

Clymere socked him in the arm. A great tension lifted from her shoulders, and Kosta realized that she’d been horribly anxious about this conversation. She’d probably imagined him lashing out or raging or retreating into himself. How long had she waited to tell him?

“You have my word!” Clymere declared. “First in Argyropolis, then in that fancy new world of yours! You’ll make monuments to all my victories, won’t you?”

“Of course,” Kosta promised. Realization struck him. “This is why you’ve been such a pain about sparring lately, isn’t it?” He said accusingly. “You’ve always pushed me, but recently…”

“Guilty!” Clymere laughed. “No offense, but you’re not the best fighter. Your barriers are great practice, though! No one in the guard can pull them off. Besides,” she said with a smile, “someone has to make sure that you can protect yourself. I’ve been pushing us both… and thank goodness for that, or we’d have just been a juicy snack for that manticore today. I wonder which of us tastes better?”

Kosta rolled his eyes. “Probably me,” he said. “You’d probably taste half-burnt.”

“Maybe, but look at you! So stringy. At least I have some meat on my bones.” Clymere poked him. At least she was nice enough to use one of her relatively clean fingers. He absolutely did not want anymore of those guts on him. She sighed as she thought back to their fight, then brushed uneasy fingers over the pack where the Hesperian insignias were concealed. “We fought well, but there was too much luck involved for my liking. Too many chances for everything to have fallen apart.”

He nodded along, allowing Clymere the opportunity to vent.

“I have to be better. Faster, stronger, tougher. The Challenge will eat me alive otherwise. I’ve come up with something to help me. Something to give me an edge. I’m no Linus, but it works.”

“Ah, I knew there was something new,” Kosta said. “Was it when you set yourself on fire?”

“One of the times that I set myself on fire,” Clymere corrected, then winced as she stumbled over an uneven stone. Kosta caught her easily. “You know what my magic’s like: it needs a sacrifice. Fuel. And in this case, that fuel is me. I toss myself on the pyre. I make myself kindling for my fire. It makes me stronger. More potent.”

“And that’s safe?” Kosta asked doubtfully. There was a fine line between bravery, recklessness, and stupidity. Clymere seemed to straddle that line more with every passing day. “Certainly there’s another way. One a little less…”

“Dumb?” She asked. A smile played across Clymere’s blood-streaked face as she shook her free arm like a limp noodle. Her spear arm trembled with every step. “My magic’s not like yours, Kosta. There’s always a price attached—it’s why I’m so useless right now. But it’s also why I could trade blows with the manticore. Give me a few days and I’ll be good as new! I burn twice as bright now!”

“And half as long.”

Clymere cracked a grin. “Worth it.”

The walls of Dytifrourá were near, towering high above them. Kosta nearly wept at the sight. Several torches brightened, fueled by whatever magic the militiamen standing watch commanded, and Kosta hissed as a great beam of light struck him and Clymere. Stars twinkled in his eyes as he struggled to adjust to the sudden radiance.

“It’s them! Open the gates!”

Clymere groaned. She looked awful. Kosta doubted that she’d even be able to roll out of bed in the morning. “Run home, Kosta. I still have a report to make.”

“Have fun!” Kosta laughed at her miserable expression. He made a show of sniffing the chill air. “Make sure to shower, too. You’re rancid.”

“Don’t I know it? I reek. Just count yourself lucky that you didn’t have to get up close and personal with that thing.” Clymere half-wretched as she took a whiff of her bloodsoaked armor. “Ugh, even Mama won’t be able to get these stains out!”

She’d scrubbed and picked off the worst of the monster gunk that had been baked onto her skin after she’d burned away the worst of it, but it still left her a dark maroon. The armor itself was practically ruined. What wasn’t torn to shreds by the manticore’s claws was absolutely infested with dried blood, clumps of meat, and various scraps of tissue. Her expedition into the manticore’s den left bone dust and rotten flesh pasted to her as well.

“I’d just burn it.”

That brought a smile to Clymere’s face. “Now there’s an idea!” She waited as the gates creaked open, fueled by the arrays which powered them. Several members of Dytifrourá’s militia waited patiently on the other side, led by a great bear of a man. “Headsman Linus, sir!”

“Clymere!” Their leader greeted them, relieved. He sounded more like a concerned father at that moment than a stern commander. “We were worried. What happened?” Linus’ bushy black eyebrows rose as he took in the poor sight of them. “Are you injured?”

“We’re mostly uninjured. We’ll heal up quickly enough, sir. It’s a long story!” Clymere grinned. Dry, scorching heat emanated from her as she burned the last dregs of her power to remain upright. She leaned a little less heavily on her spear. “I’ll tell you all about it… but can I please, please wash first?”

Headsman Linus wrinkled his nose as Clymere’s noxious scent finally reached him. “Please do!” No doubt he didn’t want her stinking up his office. “Dismissed, Clymere. Clean up, then meet me at the barracks. It sounds like you have quite the story to share.”

“Yes sir!”

The giant of a man softened as Clymere and Kosta strode through the gates. Coming home had never felt sweeter. “I’m glad that you’re both alright! I was worried when you hadn’t returned by nightfall. It warms my heart to see that you’re safe!”

He knew the words were directed more at Clymere than himself, but they were appreciated all the same. Headsman Linus had always been kind to him, though they’d never developed the same sort of relationship as the Headsman and Clymere. She was his protege, Dytifrourá’s rising star, and she spent more time with him than with their own father.

Linus almost reached out to clap them both on the shoulder, but wrinkled his nose again at the stench wafting off them and waved the siblings along instead.

“Thirty minutes, Clymere!”

She laughed, saluted again, and then they were off.