Kosta was no fool. This was a dangerous quest, one that he couldn’t be confident that he would come back from. He still wished Pavlos would aid him, but understood his reasoning. For a time he even considered hiring some of the many mercenary bands to assist him out in the wilds, but Kosta only needed to take one look at their greedy eyes and the bloody aura hanging about them to realize what a foolish thought that was.

He wouldn’t embark on a journey like this with people he couldn’t trust. Pavlos might possess a similar blood and hunger about him, but he was a slayer of monsters first and foremost. The mercenaries whet their blades with the blood of men.

They might accept his request. They might accept his tokens. They might laugh and joke with him as they pushed deep into the north.

And those blades which sang with the promise of death might find themselves buried in Kosta’s back the moment they had the Opal in hand.

No, Kosta would never trust his fate to vultures.

So Kosta set his affairs in order. He wrote letters and sent them to the most likely location of the Dytifrouráns. Kosta had received word of the refugees trickling into a fort town some distance away, although their path had taken them directly to the east rather than to a road with a southern bent.

Kosta couldn’t imagine seeking out his parents now. Not with what had happened. Not with what he’d seen. The simple thought of Papa’s cold eyes left him shivering. But Kosta poured his fears into words. He told his tale to Evanthe, Mama, Papa…and hopefully they would receive it.

He ached to remember that darkest day, but he forced himself through it. They deserved to know, even if he wouldn’t join them. Perhaps they would find him in Notelos, or beyond in Argyropolis proper.

And when those difficult words were written and sent off with a messenger, Kosta organized the last of his belongings and began his trek. Much of the territory he crossed was nothing new. Pavlos had led him on various treks as they slaughtered the lesser monsters that stalked these wilds.

The days passed in quick succession. Flat forests full of aspen, oak, and elm slowly bled into harsher terrain. Gnarled roots curling through the ground like great fingers suddenly found themselves winding through hills. Kosta found the canopies growing harsher and thicker as he progressed, yet he found these lands feeling almost familiar.

Kosta no longer feared the wilds. Not with his staff in hand and the chisel on his belt. What monsters once lingered here had been slaughtered or fled the approach of their hunters. Enlightened beasts were canny enough to recognize the danger and had drifted away to safer harbors.

But Kosta felt the change as the days passed. The forests grew darker. The mountains loomed in the distance. The land itself felt feral, hostile to any who would dare set food within it. Only a few lesser elementals and the occasional young chimera challenged him.

They were easily dispatched. Not all monsters commanded the terrible might of the kynokephalon.

Kosta crafted various shelters and monuments as he traveled. He adorned his stone sanctuaries with his name and images of his travels—the image of a sculptor and a crimson-painted hunter slaying a dog-headed man, a lone warrior with her spear held high against a terrible foe, and that same sculptor with his fist plunged through an earthen beast’s heart.

Would anyone recognize them? Kosta doubted it. But there was solace in forging these monuments. He found comfort in the thought that perhaps his memory would live on past his flesh and blood.

Perhaps another wanderer might take shelter beneath the stone pillars and wonder who these monuments depicted.

It satisfied his itch for creation as well. Kosta found a simple pleasure in shaping stone after a long day’s travel. He would work for hours until his body failed him. Most nights he slept with his chisel in hand.

And one night Kosta found inspiration in the flickering flames he’d spawned with a touch of cinder. The night was cold. Insects chirped and sang, casting their tunes off into the wind as a cacophonous choir. Kosta watched the flames grow and burn, lost in their dancing tongues.

Its heat was achingly familiar. Part of Kosta longed to reach in and grasp it as Clymere might have.

But she was gone.

And yet…

Kosta removed her death mask from his pack. His heart ached terribly to see his twin’s features captured so precisely. They were a feminine mirror to her own, even if the mask still had that determined set to her jaw that spoke to Clymere’s indomitable will.

What would she think of him now? Kosta drank the blood of monsters. He buried his fist in their hearts. He sought the power she always had.

Clymere would find this new Kosta endlessly amusing, he thought. The road and wild world had hardened him. Pavlos had stained him with his bloody grin. Silver blood filled his veins.

She would’ve loved to cross blades with this Kosta. He could take comfort in that.

Yet there was something missing. Kosta pulled a block of limestone from his pack as the flames flickered before his eyes. He would’ve preferred fine marble for a work like this, but he could make do. The fire’s dance filled his mind and stirred his blood…and his hands.

He cast Clymere’s death mask into the fire. It struck him as terribly unnatural as cold, still wood. The mask didn’t burn. No, it seemed to feed upon the fire, infused with an echo of its spiritual progenitor. Kosta smiled as its glowed cherry red, every feature highlighted and enhanced by the scarlet heat.

That was Clymere.

And that was the image Kosta held in his thoughts as he carved the limestone with his chisel. Grey magic suffused the rock while he worked, seeping into every pore and infiltrating through the entire block.

Heat. Fire. Will. Clymere.

Such imaginings guided Kosta’s every motion. Every cut. Every scrape. Every grinding movement.

And just as Kosta channeled feelings of protection, firmness, and resilience into his carvings of Teris, he channeled those emotions and concepts into the carving of Clymere.

He worked tirelessly besides the fire. Clymere’s mask shone so vividly in the flame that it was almost like she was beside him once again. Kosta blinked away hot tears.

Time passed. It might have been an hour or a day, but by the end Kosta had his creation: Clymere in miniature, a warrior carved of limestone. Her armor was pristine and well-maintained. Her spear was raised in challenge to some unseen foe. Her proud face was twisted in determination. Flames licked at her greaves.

“I miss you,” Kosta whispered, and the death mask shone ever brighter. He reached into the flames with a hand armored in grey magic and plucked the mask from the cinders. It cooled swiftly without the heat to sustain it. The light faded.

Kosta reverently tucked it away into his pack. Part of him longed to throw the Leukopyr’s mask into the flames and watch it burn, undone by what hadn’t even scratched Clymere’s last memory.

He couldn’t.

As much as Kosta wished, he had to keep the Leukopyr’s face. It would haunt him until he tore the man’s flame-filled heart from his chest and beheaded his white griffin. Kosta found the bloody thoughts sweet. Perhaps they’d fill his dreams tonight.

Kosta admired the little replica of Clymere that would act as his greatest talisman. It would be his guardian. His spear. If only it were marble…Kosta couldn’t help but imagine carving a perfect copy of Clymere from sacred stone. Perhaps he could bring an echo of her forth one day.

A spark, a dream, invested into an invincible marble warrior.

The Whiteflame would never burn her again.

Those wild imaginings haunted Kosta as he drifted into slumber. He dreamed of smoke and ash.

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Kosta followed Polemus’ map most days. He’d trusted his own instincts and various constellations to lead him to the north, but he manifested the magical painted map more and more as he drifted into unknown territories.

He couldn’t be sure of Polemus’ magic, but whatever he’d done had imbued the map with the power to track the Opal. It remained still for the first few days of his journey, but Kosta froze on the sixth dawn.

It moved.

Part of Kosta was overcome with fear as it shifted for the first time. Something had found it before he had! Would it devour the Opal whole as Polemus had said? Was it one of Pavlos’ people who had stumbled across the find of their life?

Kosta couldn’t know. But there was one trace of relief: the Opal was carried to the south. Not to the heartlands, not to the vicious lands of the barbarian tribes, but to the southernmost pass. Just within his reach.

Trepidation filled him at the thought of challenging whatever had claimed the Opal—Kosta doubted they would give it up without a fight—but there was a newfound hope as well.

He wouldn’t have to leave the mountains for it. Only death waited if he strayed beyond. Kosta felt confident in his practiced martial strength since he’d been forced to whet it against dozens of monsters outside Yoreme, but he was no fool.

Pavlos feared the inhabitants of the Pugnic valleys. Kosta would be a fool to challenge them, at least at this point. One day he would slay them with but a glance. There was no way he could ever forge a world if mere mortals could threaten him.

But that was tomorrow. This was today.

So he pressed onward to the southernmost pass. Fierce rain came pelting down like piercing daggers of water, but Kosta made it regardless. He wouldn’t stop now. Not after he’d come so far.

Kosta’s magic sang to him as he stepped into the Pugnic mountains. Forests became foothills. Foothills became mountains themselves. He fought the lesser monsters which stalked these wild lands, drank their blood, and claimed their fragile power for himself.

One grew closer to the Dream as they grew in strength. Every day kindled that little spark of the divine within each mortal, but wielding one’s power with intent fostered it to greater heights. You could feed that flame with practice, time, and resources.

He fed it with all three.

Kosta was at his strongest when the first whispers of intuition came to him, fed to his spirit by his spiritual senses. Wood turned to stone. Bark turned to marble. Leaves turned to filigreed gold.

It reminded Kosta of his Dòrognosis. Hazy visions of a marbled forest and precious gems filtered into his mind and his gut twisted. If only he could drift back to that realm of memory.

Things were so much better then. Clymere at his side, Dytifrourá blooming like a rose…

But those were dreams. This was reality.

For now, anyways.

There was no denying the changes, though. The landscape grew harsher and harsher as he approached the southern pass outlined in great detail upon Polemus’ map. It was painted in fantastic detail, growing greater and greater in precision as Kosta approached, and he grew suspicious of Polemus as individual trees grew outlined in the map.

Why had the painter so emphasized this place?

Kosta was wary of the stone trees and the eerie wind as he stalked towards his goal, but he grew most suspicious of all when he stumbled into a frozen menagerie after a long day’s journey. He was drifting aimlessly in his thoughts one second and utterly wary the next.

He’d entered a narrow valley. Great hills rose up all around to frame the beginning of the southern pass, looming dark and great above him. Oroneiros rose above them all, of course. Yet shadows crawled beneath the cradling mounts in miniature. Danger reared its ugly head.

And Kosta raised his staff to light his way.

Even so, his heart froze when a manticore greeted him in the valley’s heart.

Fuck!

Its body stretched thirty feet from eerily human face to the tip of its spined tail. The beast’s face was feminine, full of wrath and pain and uncanny intelligence. Great jaws stretched out to engulf him whole, a throatful of writhing fangs twisting on the path to its gut. The manticore promised agony.

A scorpion tail greeted Kosta, raised to pierce his throat and fill his frail body with venom enough to inspire agony for years to come. Leonine claws sprung forth to tear Kosta’s head from his shoulders.

Kosta flinched the moment the sun’s fading rays illuminated the creature hidden beneath an oak’s canopy, then blinked when he still lived a second later.

“Stone,” Kosta whispered. He stepped forth to explore the massive manticore further. No wonder Clymere had been so insistent that the terrifying monster they faced was just a baby…Kosta reached forward to rest his hand upon the creature.

His slate magic exploded forth, propelled by his will, and fed him information about the beast.

Kosta stumbled backward, a grey shield Projected immediately.

It was alive! But not.

It was furious! But peaceful.

It was murderous! But a void.

The manticore was stone…to a point. But it hadn’t always been that way. Kosta’s magic fed him countless contradictory strands of thought. Living, yet dead. Moving, yet still. Stone, yet flesh. His magic left him dizzy and uncertain, wary of the beast before him.

But that was only the beginning. Kosta grudgingly moved forward after nearly an hour of inspecting the beast, but he only found more fearsome shades. Chimera, griffins, man, furious and grasping trees…all had been frozen in time. Each and every one fed the same contradictory mess of information into his soul.

And yet Kosta was fascinated. He could’ve gone ten more miles on his enhanced legs, yet he wasted all that effort upon these frozen monsters. They could rear alive at any moment, but Kosta pressed his bare flesh against them. Their musculature was perfect. Whatever sculptor had carved these beasts was a true master.

Greed stirred in Kosta’s thoughts. Could he learn from this master? Could he master that same skill? Even his best efforts paled in comparison to these glorious works. It was like they were frozen in time…

It wasn’t long before Kosta realized he was painfully out of his depth. He stepped through forests of stone, passed dozens of impossibly pristine statues, and waded through impossibilities. But courage filled his heart. When Kosta was at his weakest, he clutched his Clymere statue.

Kosta pressed onward.

At last Kosta came to a great stone warrior like nothing he’d ever seen. It stood eight feet tall and was built like Headsman Linus. Coiled muscle was preserved perfectly beneath a stone skin, rippling mid-motion in a frozen stance. All the rest felt as if they’d been trapped mid-motion, but this rocky hoplite seemed as if it had claimed a defensive stance before it had been carved from a great heap of stone.

It was impressive in all aspects. Kosta appreciated the intricate lines upon its stone form as an artist. Whoever had cut its shape from rock had been a master! Even he might strain to match that level of quality and detail.

But as a warrior it was ferocious. Aside from the stone warrior’s heaping muscle it also boasted a refined technique. Something about the way it gripped its great stone spear spoke to deadly precision in Kosta’s observations. It was the memory of a masterful warrior.

He could only admire it. The stone man deserved it. What could he do besides treasure this brief inspection? It could teach him so much!

And then it started moving.

Kosta’s breath hitched as dust rained down from the grey warrior. Its flesh matched the tone of Kosta’s own magic, but it was devastatingly alive. Those beautifully carved muscles rippled and flexed as trunk-like calves straightened with its spine. An obsidian spear leveled down at him in challenge.

He had barely a moment to rejoice in its animation before the warrior struck. It stepped off its plinth and jabbed its spear at Kosta in a ferocious motion. Such a strike would’ve torn his chest apart had it landed.

“What are you?” Kosta whispered as it struck again. He ducked, but it was close. Still, it didn’t take long to recognize as old tales whispered into his mind. His chisel rose in defiance as the stone spear lashed out in a great horizontal sweep.

His father whispered tales of great stone warriors to Kosta as he rocked the boy to sleep. They were warriors of the Stonegaze, according to Papa. Footsoldiers of the Aretan who had once ruled these lands all those centuries ago.

Kosta dodged another heavy blow. At least it was slow!

They were much like the kynokephalon, Kosta mused as he lanced out with his chisel. His staff’s power of light and flame would do little to such a foe. Kosta smiled as he carved a vicious furrow into its armored thigh and flung out a palm to catch its next spearstrike with a Projected barrier of stony magic.

The spear clanged as it bounced helplessly off the strength of his spirit, though repeated strikes would test him.

Stone warriors, the Petranth, had been the warriors whom the Stonegaze Aretan breathed life into back in the old days. Centuries had passed since the Stonegaze was frozen beneath the glacial waves of the Glass Sea, yet some of his minions still strode the earth.

Most were as mindless as the kynokephalon that Kosta and Pavlos had slain. Their father had animated them with his breath. When he was gone, their sapience went with him.

Pavlos might have suffered against this stone guardian. And yet…

Kosta rolled beneath its heavy blows. His chisel carved deeply into its armor with the power of his grey magic. The stone warrior groaned with every wound, growing slower and slower. It still fought fiercely, though.

His bones rattled as the stone head of its spear plunged into the earth beside him. Kosta roared as he raked his chisel against its forearm, nearly severing the rocky limb, and tore it out to smash into the Petranth’s face—

The great stone warrior froze as the sound of furious hissing greeted them both. Its stone spear stilled in its hand, mere inches from Kosta’s chest. Teris’ Projected wall stood poised to catch it, though such a defense proved unnecessary.

Kosta was wary in the battle. Too wary to think. The sound came from behind the Petranth and grew louder with every second, so Kosta dared to look past the stone man…

And met the deadly grey eyes of a gorgon.