I breathed in and closed my eyes. My Name returned to me.

Rowan Kindlebright. That was my identity. That was the person that stood where I stood. Through the darkness, I felt a part of everything return to the hole in my being. The sensation of it was like filling an empty stomach—the satisfying plop of food against an empty gut. It warmed me. Made me feel stronger than I was before. It imbued me with a sense of certainty in my own existence that I’d almost forgotten. It anchored me. Made me feel real.

I was no longer dust drifting under the sun’s rays. Now, I was a pebble on the earth. Small. Even unnoticeable to most. But I was grounded, secure.

It would take more than a breeze to make the world forget me now.

I released another breath, and when I opened my eyes, I was no longer in Avnlasce. I stood atop the remains of a broken tree, floating over the flood. Rain fell from the sky, falling lightly underneath the curtains of sunlight punching through the clouds. Strapped to my back, Aami and I stared at the world around us and—

…I found myself speechless.

“The trees are gone,” Aami said, her many eyes swiveling around us.

Nothing remained of the forest I escaped through before. Where there used to be trees, now there was only debris drifting along the rain-showered water. I stared at the wasteland stretching around me, and my eyes moved up to the towering spires of flesh poking out from the water.

Gazerstalks.

Their bulbs were closed, now. Asleep. I traced the line of their massive stems with my eyes, up toward the sky above. And there, hiding behind the thin clouds, was the rift. It thrummed in the sky. The gash rumbled with a low drone, the sound of it vibrating agianst my bones. Inside the rift, I heard the faint sound of a distant, thundering heartbeat, pulsating against the world of flesh on the other side. I watched something gather along the edge of the rift. A line of red, pooling. Gathering at the lip.

A droplet of blood.

It fell, and I watched it get larger.

From a tiny blot, it expanded as it neared me; as it fell down the miles that separated me from the rift. I watched it expand to the size of a carriage. Then a house. A tavern. Then larger still, to a size bigger than most buildings I’d ever seen. Its shadow darkened the floodwaters in the distance, and paling, I watched a drop of blood as large as a town’s plaza slam into the clear lake.

An explosion of water roared upward from where it crashed. Towering waves rippled out from the point of impact and undulated towards me. It swept under the log I was standing on and I stumbled, swinging my arms, trying my hardest to stop myself from falling into the water as the lake bobbed and churned.

Dark tentacles extended from my back and stabilized us enough for me to play a quiet song from my bansuri. It carried us up, away from the gigantic ripples.

Once we were flying, I gave Aami a quick nod of thanks, before turning my eyes back towards the site of the crash. The droplet of blood was spreading through clear water like ink. It stained the lake with a cloud of crimson and dulling red, thinning as it expanded. Underneath the water, I watched the blood coalesce into tiny, writhing forms.

Worms. Little parasites of flesh with no eyes or ears. They slithered deep into the lake, disappearing into the darkness below.

Down into the depths, where they corrupted the earth and turned soil into living flesh.

Down where countless monstrosities were slumbering beneath the empty water.

I shuddered at the thought. Even here, flying, I felt like there were eyes on me. Watching, but unfocused. It was as if I was the silhouette of a figure in the mist, and that the slightest disturbance would give me away what hid in the fog. At the thought, a line of shudders rolled up my back. I played softly and gathered the air around me into a steelwind dome. It blocked the sound of my bansuri from traveling far, and the air around me stirred. Brought us up.

Galesong carried me up to the sky. Past the Gazerstalks and the broken forest. I looked around as I ascended, searching for traces of Vivian and the rest. I found none.

A shaky breath escaped from my lips. I wiped my sweaty palms against the hem of my cloak.

I had to trust that they survived. I wasn’t sure what exactly happened after I escaped into Avnlasce, but the destruction was vast enough to span several dozens of miles, decimating the forest and leaving only shards of jagged wood drifting over the flood. I had to trust in the idea that despite that level of destruction, Vivian was able to keep the other two alive. And if not the riftwalker, then Venti at the very least.

“It’s just the two of us again,” Aami muttered. "I feel lonely."

I nodded, “Yeah. Let’s hope that isn’t the case for long.”

Playing, careful not to strain my still-recovering lungs, I let the song carry us away. We drifted past several miles of empty water and floating branches, giving each of the gazerstalks a wide berth. Even then, I felt unsafe. So I carried us up again. Farther. Higher.

I began flying inside the cover of the clouds.

Vapor trailed after me and soaked into my clothes. The chill seeped into me, but I didn’t shiver. Not with my senses suppressed. Even with a fraction of my name returned, the cold didn’t so much as sting. But I knew my limbs were trembling. I could feel it alongside the chattering of my teeth and the shaking of my fingers against the bansuri.

But still, I traveled under the clouds. I had to.

Without Vivian to save me and another way to escape, waking the Crimson Tide a second time meant death. I wasn’t arrogant enough to think that I could escape the thing that even older immortals like the Hag feared. No, I would be careful. Even if it meant suffering from mild hypothermia.

I drew in what wind I could, trying to warm it as it blew against me, but my control in that regard was still weak.

Thankfully, Aami seemed to feel my shivering. She wrapped herself around me, and the slimy mass that made up her body began to heat up. It coated me like a thick blanket, protecting me against the cold. My shivering stopped as I gave one of the tentacles wrapping around my chest a pat.

“Thanks,” I said. “You aren’t having trouble with the cold in that form?”

“Nope! I’m just burning a bit of the meat-things I ate a while ago.”

“…From the monsters?”

“Mm. Why?”

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“No, nothing,” I said, shaking my head. It was a little strange, being warmed by a blight-powered eldritch blanket, but I could live with it. Aami had done stranger things already. I looked ahead and let silence saturate the air between us for a few seconds, before asking, “Do you think it was stupid of me to take that guy’s trade?”

Aami paused, “Maybe? Rowan two seemed kind of weird. Is suspicious the right word?”

“Yeah. He’s called the Traveler and he makes the word suspicious sound innocent. I feel like I made a deal with a Demon.”

“Mm," she wriggled. "Demon is a cool word. De-mon. Like lemon, with a D,” Aami said, before pausing. She moved a tentacle in front of my face, where a single eye opened to meet mine. “Are you worried?”

“You could say that,” I replied. “But having a Name, even just a part of one… it feels good. Safe. I would probably take the trade again, even if I was given a second chance.”

“Mm. I like my name too. C’thaami. And Aami. Does it mean anything?”

“It means you eat a lot.”

She stopped for a moment, thinking. Then she laughed, “I like it!”

Aami worbled against me, doing that bodily giggle she always did. It was strangely expressive—especially when paired with the new voice that she laughing with. Settling down, Aami sent a tentacle up to rub the top of my head.

“No more worry,” she said, patting my colorless hair. “Worry is bad. It’s all heavy and gooey-like and it makes your heart hurt.”

“That it does. But what’s with the petting?”

“It releases the feel-good thing in the brain I made! Some kind of chemical thing. It should work for you too, right? Like hugging. Hugging does that too.”

I blinked, then nodded. “I suppose it does. It’s kind of emasculating, though.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“…No, not really. I suppose it isn’t.”

“Then I’ll keep at it! Pat, pat; like this. It’s nice.”

Snorting out a small laugh, I let her do as she wished. We flew forward like that for several hours, gaining speed as I recovered a bit of my strength. Below us, vast swathes of flooded woodland blurred away, and slowly, the trees began to rise higher from the water.

But no—that wasn’t right, I realized. It wasn’t the trees that were rising.

It was the ground.

I looked ahead, and in the horizon, a wall of earth began to approach us from the distance. As we got closer, I looked at the cliff faces and crags, and the hanging latcher trees that hung horizontally from the rising rock. The cliff faces extended far up. Even past the clouds. I saw the vast waterfalls roar down from several points overhead, falling from several kilometers high. They crashed against the ground below with enough force to pulverize stone.

We stopped a mile away from the cliff face of the foot of the Heartlands and began rising. Galesong carried me and Aami over the first layer of cloud above, shrouding the world in mist for a few seconds before we broke the surface on the other side.

The mountains showed themselves to us.

They were vast rows of stone, rolling and curling and curving over one another, as if several mountainous spines had been stacked atop each other like a bundle of thorns. They extended far, rising and falling, dotted by humongous trees that dwarfed even the ones we traveled over below. Between mountainsides and under looming canopies, deep ravines filled with roaring rivers ran into waterfalls that disappeared into the clouds below.

We were here. The second sky.

We’d reached the foothills of Central Caereith.

But as I drew close to the ground, the look of relief on my face changed into a grim frown.

Even here, so high up, Caereith wasn’t spared from the influence of the rift that was dozens of miles away. I saw red veins crawling up the stone cliffs, spreading crimson taint over the rocks. The hardened mountainside stones resisted the creeping corruption, but even rock was ultimately susceptible to the taint. Scattered spikes of stone jutted out from the ground like giant teeth, looming over the trees, and I saw the slow spread of corruption eating away at them from the base.

My eyes moved to the red splotches of pulsating flesh that marred the verdant greens and yellows of the canopy. Red, branching patterns. Reaching, splitting like capillaries.

They spread far, far into the distance. Farther than I could see.

And I was sure that underneath the treetops blocking the view, the ground was in much worse condition. Just a few weeks, and this place was already uninhabitable. Nowhere near as dangerous as the area Aami and I had just fled from, but still hostile. And far from safe.

The thought of facing threats like this on a daily basis made me appreciate riftwalkers all the more.

Only madmen could stand to do their jobs without breaking.

And I was far from crazy.

I lowered myself down to one of the uncorrupted spires of stone rising from the earth. I stared down from one of Caereith's many stone ribs and observed the world below.

I reached for the tri-point compass in my pocket.

It read 42.28-HR to Felzan.

I clicked my tongue. “We’re still so far,” I muttered, leaning back against the stone to rest. I looked out into the partially blighted forest and the distant horizon, peeking over a sea of clouds where the mountains didn't reach. The sun rose behind it at a snail’s crawl. Under its light, the clouds seemed to glow even whiter. The crimson treetops caught the light against a sinister red hue, contrasting with the rest of Caereith's oranges, yellows, and greens.

Sighing, I leaned back against the stone and looked up. Up at the gray thunderheads of Caereith’s second cloud layer. They roiled and churned, waiting. Gathering vapor for another storm.

Soon, the rains would fall again.

“I’m tired,” I sighed, drawing one knee up to my chest. There, at the top of the spire, all my exhaustion seemed to catch up to me. All the fatigue. All the weight of the thousands of miles that I’d traveled. I felt my legs go slack, as if the soles of my feet were suddenly made of solid steel. Heavy. Painful, almost. It made me want to sit and never stand again.

Aami slithered away from my back and puddled up beside me, rising into a mass of black goop. She stared at me with three dozen different eyes and tilted her mass to the side, copying a gesture I so often did.

“Do you want to sleep?” she asked, blinking.

I shook my head, “Immortals don’t need to sleep. No, I just want to sit for a while. Rest.”

“But your eyes are closing.”

“Are they?”

“Mm.”

“Huh,” I mumbled, my shoulders going slack. I stared at Aami, blinking my suddenly heavy eyelids, “I think they are. I’m… sleepy. I haven’t felt sleepy in so long.”

“Do you want a blanket?”

“Hm, yeah, that would be nice,” I yawned. Was this what it meant to get a fraction of my Name back? Did it mean that a fraction of my mortality returned as well? The rock was so comfy. So cool. And the sun was warm. My eyes fluttered closed, then opened again. Blinking. I tried forcing the drifting thoughts away, but it was hard.

Aami slithered forward and draped a part of herself over me like a blanket. Warm again, like before. Like home. Warmer. I felt my eyes begin to close.

Beside me, as the sun rose, my shadow stretched against the stone.

Lengthening. Growing.

And just as I closed my eyes, my shadow abruptly stood up with a 'boo!'

I jumped with the blubbering of a startled man and Aami recoiled in surprise.

“Ancestors!” I screamed, drawing back, watching the shadow stand. It materialized a cloak, then a hood. It fell over the figure’s head. Silver eyes stared at me from behind the shadows. Then a curling grin. The scythe-curve of a smile full of jagged teeth.

“Heya, chief,” the Traveler said, his shadow flickering under the sunlight. “I'd normally let you sleep, but I’m gonna have to stop you right there. Don’t want us regretting the fact that you got your Name back, eh?”

I stood, staggering back, blinking the bleariness out of my eyes. I glared at the shadow, “How are you here?”

“I ain’t,” Traveler said, shrugging. “I’m just a glamour projection.”

Aami waved a tentacle. “Hi, suspicious Rowan.”

“Heya, Aami-girl. You’re as cute as always, for a horrifying eldritch thing,” he said, before walking towards me and patting a hand over my shoulder. His touch felt cold—like shadows turned solid, icy and faint. He jerked his chin towards the rising sun. “Anyway, the topic of our friend here aside; we got a problem, chief. I didn’t expect to have to do this so soon, but I got a favor to cash in.”

I frowned, “Already? You said I only needed to keep three people alive.”

“Right-o, chief. And you’ve already met one of ‘em. Remember that riftwalker guy? Ildrex? He’s one of those guys. And he needs you. Now.”

“I don’t even know where he is. Where could he possibly—”

A boom exploded out from the distance. I ran to the spire’s edge and peered down just in time to see a segment of the far cliffside collapse. Deep into the forest. A cloud of dust rose, and inside, I saw the blue flash of magitech gunfire. Then a screech—the sound of something big, wounded and hurt and angry.

The Traveler walked up next to me and whistled. He clapped twice.

“Well, there you go. A deal’s a deal, chief. Chop, chop.”

Aami slithered up beside us and wriggled. She copied the gesture with a hint of confusion.

"Chop, chop?"

I closed my eyes. I remembered the comfiness of the stone and the call of sleep and the warmth of my eldritch blanket. Despite the obvious choice, a part of me wanted to just lie down and pass out. But when a second screech tore through the forest and the crimson patches below began coming to life, I sighed.

“I’m starting to realize why Vivian is so grumpy all the time,” I grumbled, before I took a step off the ledge and fell. I brought my bansuri up for another Galesong.

It seemed today’s concert wasn’t over yet.