Energy flowed, and Amice grew stronger.

In the bright hours of early morning, Amice sat on the tallest hill overlooking the makeshift town and meditated, feeling the energy all around as it moved from entity to entity in a swirl of power. Her eyes were closed, yet even still she could ‘see’ farther than any pair of eyes could, her mind constructing an image of the expanse of land around her from the disparate sounds and smells and even the touch of the wind against her skin.

The wind was of most interest to her now. In the far west, on the horizon, a storm brewed, dark and menacing, its cold winds buffeting against her already and sending her hair into a tumultuous dance. White lightning flashed, blinding, so bright she saw the red veins of her eyelids, and Amice counted the seconds until thunder boomed.

There was no rain, yet, which was good, as the local farmers hurried to herd their animals inside. This was to be a big one, the Chanat said, the work of Shuurg, their pagan god of storms. Drygallins did not believe in such gods, of course, but there was an alien fear in them regarding the Chanat’s gods, and they had heeded the warning nonetheless.

As the last farmers brought their animals to safety the rain began, at first a slow trickle of heavy raindrops. The farmers ran inside, closing their wind shutters, and a few stopped to look at Amice, who remained where she sat. A few gave mutters of reproach; fewer still uttered obscenities.

“Foreign whore,” she heard one say, a tall fat farmer with a giant dark beard and so much hair on his arms he might be mistaken for a bear.

She did not mind his words. She had heard the same and similar time and again since childhood. A natural, if unfortunate, aspect of being a ‘half-breed’, as the nobles of Hilva liked to call her.

Even had she minded the man’s words, however, she would not have had time to react. She was approaching Tribulation. She needed to focus.

With the storm came a new wave of energy, thick and powerful, that she absorbed into her core. Like sculpting clay, she layered the energy over the sphere of her inner self, then applied a degree of her power onto it as one would apply heat, and the energy solidified. She repeated the act, again and again and again, strengthening the barrier between the condensed energy that lay at her innermost point and the outside word.

Cracks formed on the surface of her sphere-self. She was quick to direct energy to them, filling in the cracks and solidifying the energy once more, only for more cracks to appear. Again she filled them, and again her inner sphere’s surface cracked, the cycle repeating for seconds, minutes, hours.

By then the storm was fully upon her. Rain poured over her, blown almost sideways from the powerful gusts of wind. Every few moments the world was engulfed in white as lightning struck; more than a dozen times it struck the metal conducting rods the baron had built, protecting the houses and buildings of the tiny hamlet that was to be his seat of power.

But for every three that struck the rods, one would strike Amice, forcing its violent energy upon her. She would absorb what power she could, but in the end each strike tore at her inner sphere, stripping away at it layer by layer and undoing her work.

Is this how it was for you, Mother? It had been so long since her death, yet Amice remembered that dark day as easily as remembering yesterday. Tribulation came for her mother, bringing with it a storm that lasted so long her father’s lands flooded. She had set out the day before to meditate, alone and grim as a corpse.

Amice’s cheeks burned with embarrassment at the memory. She had been seven, just a girl, and foolish. The storm brought with it terrifying thunder and lighting, and she’d cried for her mother for hours. And when she did not come, Amice, in her ignorance, escaped from her father’s manor and ran into the rain in search of her.

That she did not find her mother’s corpse was some small fortune, she liked to believe.

She never did learn where they found her, nor had she cared to. But she knew her mother was well and truly dead. She saw her corpse first hand, strewn across a purple rug the servants had used to carry her parts. What parts they could gather, at least. Amice remembered seeing a hand, first, as pale as her own skin, so different from the natural complexion of her mother’s skin. She had not believed the hand to be her mother’s, at first. Then she saw her head, with its long dark hair that flowed like river water. Streaks of dried blood ran from the eyes, and her face was twisted into an expression of intense agony, one so terrible Amice had thought a monster had taken her mother’s body.

She screamed, and that was the last she saw of her mother.

Isolda Witchester, known as Zhan Zemin before her marriage, had only ever achieved the Eighth Step in her life. A commendable feat, Amice had always assumed. She’d been told as much, first by her father, then, after weeks of prodding and just as she was about to give up, her mother relented and answered her.

“I was the strongest fighter of my village,” she told Amice.

Amice never dared question the truth of that statement. But, as the years passed and Amice ascended the Steps with relative ease, Amice could not help but wonder if her mother had truly been commendable or if, in truth, she had lied to spare Amice some childish shame.

That very same thought crossed her mind now as she sat amidst the storm of her Tribulation and gathered its energy, fusing with her own and bringing her to the brink of ascending to the next Step.

The air cracked as Amice gathered a final burst of energy and fused it to her inner sphere, blasting the wetness off her body and leaving her perfectly dry. Above her the clouds opened up, revealing a sky of bright afternoon blue. Rain and lightning ceased, leaving in its place an unnatural calmness. At any other time such calmness would have lulled her into relaxation, perhaps even a light slumber.

But in the distance to the south there was a disturbance, so far away that she could not see it even as her senses expanded over the world. But she could hear it, that distant set of sounds, all of them familiar. The sounds of travel, of hardy horses trotting along and the chatter of men and women. And a particular voice, almost drowned out by the commotion.

Rising from her spot on the hill, she ran, pushing her legs harder than she had in weeks. And by the Gods! She was fast, faster than wind, so fast her mind could barely keep up as the barns and houses and grass and stone passed by in her vision. Then, much sooner than she expected, she reached them and slowed herself, stopping a distance away from the group of riders.

The group stopped at her arrival. There was fear written on their faces, even those familiar with her, their hearts racing as their hands inched toward their weapons. She paid them no heed.

He wasn’t afraid. The opposite. He was smiling.

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“It’s good to see you,” Alden said in a voice that could crack stone. A voice that made her tremble. A voice that had seemed strange to her, at first, when she first heard it. Between it and the changes he had made to his form, Amice had been uncertain of how to approach him. Before he had seemed to her a boy, somewhat tall with a build that suited a lazy nobleman’s son more than a soldier, along with an ill-fitting mop of hair upon his head and a short, scraggly shadow of a beard on his face. He had impressed her all the same. First with magic, then with his words and unique outlook on life, and then again with his sheer talent, which seemed to apply to all walks of life.

Amice was never one to put much weight on one’s appearance. She had seen plenty of those poor souls deemed ugly by the populace, and plenty more that others deemed handsome or beautiful, as well as every kind in between. Yet none drew her attention the way he did, before the changes. So when she saw the changes he had made to himself she was afraid. Afraid that her interest in him would wane. Afraid that he was a different man.

But now, as she glossed over his massive, inhuman figure with her enhanced sight, she saw it in its completeness. His bones were thick and strong and dense, like that of a monster’s, and his muscles were like a living armor that sat atop them. His lungs and heart and stomach were all strangely shaped, yet each seemed to do for him more than any other creature alive. And then there were the minor parts that were not so minor any more, enough to make a sheltered young noblewoman blush.

He was impressive in every sense of the word. And it thrilled her.

Yet, despite it all, she knew that she did not like him for what he had become. If anything, it was the reverse. She liked what he had become because, in the end, it was still him.

“It is good to see you as well, my lord,” she replied. Alden pulled back as if the words were a slap.

“Again with this? No formalities, I said.”

“It would be rude, my lord.”

“So is disobeying your lord’s command. Now, I command you, act as you like.”

“Act as I like?” Amice asked, seeing it as a challenge. An idea sprung up in her mind. A dangerous and exciting idea. One she could have resisted easily, if she chose to. But she chose not to resist the urge, and her heart skipped a beat.

She approached him and his destrier–a giant of a horse taller than her, among the few able to withstand her lord’s weight. She leapt up onto it, throwing one leg over the saddle onto the other side and firmly planting herself in Alden’s lap.

There were murmurs from the others, heard easily with her ears that could hear for miles, yet their words did not reach her. Only the sound of Alden’s quickening heartbeat reached her.

“Shall we go?” Amice asked.

Alden smiled. “Let’s.”

He squeezed his massive legs gently against the horse’s ribs, and the horse responded with movement, its gait powerful and confident, as if the combined weight of its riders were nothing. Even still, it was slow. So slow that Amice could not help but compare it to the speed at which she’d run before.

She reached out with her senses, following the trail she’d taken until she could make out the buildings of the village and the boats docked in the harbor, though even with intense focus they were only blurred shapes. What drew her most of all, however, was the expanse between. A frightening distance. So frightening it could only mean one thing.

The gulf between the Divine Steps grew further and further as one ascended.

Pressing her back against Alden’s chest she shoved the thought aside. There would be time later to ponder its meanings. Here, now, she wanted only to focus on him. And when she did she could feel the beating of his heart, steady and powerful and rhythmic. It was music to her, an intoxicating tune that enamored her ears and skin alike and dousing her world in a fog of pleasant and intoxicating feelings.

That she could not sit in that moment forever pained her. The fact that she was the one who needed to cut it short pained her more. But she had important tidings.

He needed to know.

But as she parted her lips to speak she felt him move, tilting his head such that his ear was aimed behind them, where a group of Chanat discussed something of interest in their incomprehensible tongue.

“What are they saying?” she asked, quiet so as not to arouse their suspicion.

But when the beat of his heart changed, and was no longer music, she felt her insides tighten into knots.

“They are discussing rumors,” Alden said, voice loud and clear, such that they must have heard him. “Bilge, with me.”

The oldest of the five nodded and strode forth.

“A few days ago,” Alden continued, “we met a trader from the Sky Plains and shared a campsite and a few meals together. He had many stories to tell. Tall tales, mostly, but the most believable of them is about a visitor.”

“Yes, my lord,” Bilge said as he fell in beside them, his accent so thick Amice could barely make them out.

“The Sky Plains visitor. Tell her about him. In Stanwyrhta.”

Bilge nodded and his lips curled.

“Yes, my lord. Strong warrior come to Sky Plains. No hair, have…” he pauses, then motions to the white scar across his face. “Word?”

“Scar,” Alden says.

“Scar, yes. Warrior have many scars. Challenges visitors from Bloody Grass. Beats first, kills second. Very strong. Ahngira very happy, give gifts, ask questions. Man from far south, mountain people.”

He’s one of them, Amice thought. South of Tejin’s strait were the southern mountains, an expanse of harsh, mountainous terrain rarely traveled to by those of the Empire. A footnote in the geography lessons of noble children, as well as the topic of untold rumors from their parents. A place shrouded in mystery, conjecture, and plain old curiosity.

A place her mother once called home.

“Is he still there?” Amice asked.

“No,” Bilge said. “Leave many stars ago.”

“He went back south before we even met the trader who told us,” Alden said.

All at once the excitement Amice felt withered away. If he had been closer, then perhaps she would have gone after him. Or perhaps she still could.

It was possible. She could leave and search for this man. It would take only a few days, perhaps a week.

No. I can’t leave him. Not now. He would need her, now more than ever. And time was precious. Days? What if this man was a cultivator? It would be difficult to find. And if he were stronger than I…

And you still haven’t told him yet.

She had to, she knew. The task was important. A letter causing so much grief. But each time she mustered the courage to speak she felt it die in her throat.

He’ll need me. That was the thought that kept repeating in her mind. He’ll need me. He needs me even now, yet I am too coward to fulfill that need.

She felt him place his warm hand against her shoulder, and she touched it with her own with a gentle caress. They interlocked their fingers, as if by habit. The touching calmed and distracted her, and more importantly made her realize that she had shrunken away from him.

There were no words spoken between them, but the sentiment was clear.

“I want to travel south,” she blurted out.

“Then let us travel south,” he said, the words both a comfort and a cause for grief.

“I cannot,” she said, pulling out the sealed letter that was causing her so much strife. That would cause him even more strife.

She handed it to him without words. He broke the blue hawk seal and read the letter within.

Alden's mouth smiled, but his eyes did not. “A ball in honor of Count Stowgardyn’s third son. And I’m invited.” He leaned back, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply. “I think I’d rather be a soldier again.”