It took the army another two days to climb into the wide pass of the Granite Gates. As they climbed the foothills, Victor saw that the wide, gravel road followed a sort of natural cleft between the two nearest, enormous peaks of the range. Enormous was an understatement. The mountains began to take on a kind of mythical proportion as the distance shortened. Gigantic, dark gray, very lightly treed slopes rose to staggering heights, blotting out the sky, becoming the entirety of the marchers’ world.

Fanwath was a big world, and though they’d moved steadily southward for weeks, they were still in a temperate climate, and the temperature began to grow chilly as they climbed into the heights. It didn’t bother Victor, and it certainly didn’t affect Guapo, but he saw the breath pluming forth from the soldiers and their roladii. He saw the soldiers pulling out furs, cloaks, and hats of all sorts. The shadows grew very long, and the going was dimly lit as they progressed. Thick gray clouds filled the sky, and snow that seemed distant, remotely nestled in the peaks when they’d approached over the plains, was now visible on the nearby slopes.

Rellia’s airship never managed to rejoin the army; it had needed weeks’ worth of refitting and repairs, and by the time she received notice in her Farscribe book that it was taking flight, they were only days from the pass. Victor had asked why it couldn’t fly over the range or even through the very pass they were hiking, and Borrius had snorted, saying he’d understand when they got nearer the summit of the pass in a few days. Victor was starting to understand—despite the steep incline of the narrower and narrower roadway, they were nowhere near the highest point, and the winds were beginning to rip and hammer at the column.

On the third day of their ascent, Valla and Victor sat on their mounts, discussing their progress. “We’re moving out of the settled lands.” She tugged her heavy fur cloak tight at her throat. It was a pretty thing, made up of a dozen or more small-game furs. Each was white in some way, though dappled with different colored fur from black to red to pale taupe. “Energy is wilder up here and south of here in the Marches.”

“Yeah, I heard the briefing last night, too.” Victor grinned to show he was teasing; Rellia had droned on for a while the previous night in Victor’s travel home. She’d spoken about the wild nature of Energy they were marching into, about how the System would be taking their measure, creating a suitable challenge for the army—it seemed new lands didn’t come easily to the citizens of System-run worlds.

“Why do you think it does it?” He wasn’t specific, but he thought Valla would infer his meaning. They were a mile or so ahead of the column, a short way behind the forward scouts, taking a small break for a bit of travel food and water.

Valla put a piece of dried fruit in her mouth, chewing slowly while she considered. She idly scratched Uvu’s neck for a moment, then said, “I think the System gains something from us as we gain power. This isn’t my theory; I learned it from one of the tutors Rellia hired for me before I chased him off. As we fight and die, we release Energy from those we kill. The System awards us some while it keeps a portion.” She looked at him briefly, running her eyes over his frame. “Imagine the Energy stored up in your body. Not just in your Core; you can see how much is in your Core, but what about all the Energy that was put into improving your attributes? If you died, that would all be released. Whoever killed you would profit, but how much would the System leach away?”

“So it wants us to have to fight and die . . . or kill to gain these new lands. But it makes the challenge? How?”

“I don’t know. Maybe monsters or savages are living in the Marches. Maybe the System will drag them from a dungeon or,” her eyes widened, “another world.”

Victor chewed on his last bite of dried meat, washing it down with a swig of cold water. He put away his canteen. “You think the System thinks about us? I mean, do you think it’s more like a force of nature or a being?”

“I don’t know. It communicates with words, but they don’t usually convey much emotion. Even those ‘warnings’ you got were sort of detached, right?” She shrugged and made a flicking motion with her finger. “It doesn’t matter. We’re like ants to it. Do ants try to understand the person stepping on their home?”

“I don’t like being an ant.” Victor looked down the road past Valla. “I can see the vanguard. Let’s keep going.” He turned and started forward, and the afternoon drifted by in a blur of gray rocky slopes speckled with patches of snow. The wind grew ever harsher, ever colder, and the climb grew steeper, the path narrower. By the time darkness fell, Victor was starting to worry that the larger wagons wouldn’t be able to continue much further.

The road’s edge was well-defined; whatever Earth Casters had built, it had cleaved the roadway into the Western, right-hand side of the pass, and the shoulder grew steep and rocky, and the fall on the left became a dizzying drop—it made Victor nervous to get within ten feet of it. In the evening, he asked Rellia about it, but she assured him that her record books indicated that the road would remain wide enough, if only by a matter of inches, for her wagons to make it through. They might have to clear snow or scree from the shoulder, but that wouldn’t be hard with more than six thousand soldiers ready to do the labor.

The next day, as the sky lightened from black to gray, the column started out again, eager to get through the pass. If Rellia’s records were correct, they should reach the summit by nightfall, and the most challenging part of the climb would be over; the trip down was shorter—the Marches were higher in elevation than the Imperial lands.

The cold wind began to sting even Victor as it delivered flecks of icy rain in its passage. Borrius called out the Wind Casters, risking the wrath of the elemental spirits in the heights by pushing the gusts to the sides, trying to clear a path for the army that wouldn’t be so punishing. It paid off for most of the day, but by the afternoon, the casters grew taxed, found their efforts too little to fend off the wild winds, and the army had to buckle down and forge ahead.

Visibility was poor, so Victor summoned his banner, riding Guapo with the vanguard, providing a beacon for everyone to drive toward. Though the sun was still hours from setting, it grew very dim and gray; snow dusted the stones of the roadway, kicked up in swirling eddies by the gusts, and Victor could see the soldiers, even Valla, shivering. He noticed the sharpness of the frozen flecks of moisture on the wind, but it didn’t bother him; his skin was ruddy with warmth, the magma in his chest keeping him warm despite his naked arms.

He still didn’t know how to use the Breath Core, not really. He’d played around with it a bit, using his mind’s eye to study the swirling, writhing ball of orange-red Energy, focusing his will upon it and trying to pull it into his pathways. It didn’t move like the Energy in his other Core, though. It didn’t seem to want to flow into the same pathways, and he knew there was a different trick to it, a different way to access it. He just hadn’t figured it out. He’d begun to wonder if he had to do something else first. Maybe he had to build up the Core and get it out of the “seed” stage. Perhaps he had to build a different pathway, something he had no idea how to do, just like he didn’t know how to cultivate the magma Energy.

He'd tried. He’d tried pulling Energy out of campfires, out of fire-attuned Energy beads, and from orbs of fire summoned by the Elemental Casters in the army. Nothing had worked; it seemed there was something different about cultivating Energy for a Breath Core. All that considered, Victor felt frustrated by his inability to help the army cope with the inclement, brutal weather in the pass. He looked down at Valla, shivering on Uvu’s back. “Hey, why won’t you ride with me?” He patted Guapo’s back, sliding back to show there was plenty of room. “I’ll keep you warm.

She looked up at him, frost in her eyebrows, and for a second, he thought she’d accept the invitation, but she glanced over her shoulder at the first line of soldiers marching behind them, steadily driving forward into the wind, chasing Victor’s banner, and shook her head. “Bad example.”

“Bullshit. Come on—Uvu’s fine. Let him run off and hunt himself a snack. The soldiers don’t care if you ride with me.” Victor leaned down, holding out his hand. Watching her eyes, he saw her will crumble, and she reached up to grasp hold of him, and he tugged, almost effortlessly lifting her off Uvu’s back to straddle Guapo in front of him. As the big cat yowled and ran off into the icy wind, Victor wrapped his arms around Valla, savoring the victorious moment.

Stolen story; please report.

“Ancestors, you’re warm even in this cold.” She nestled back into him, folding her arms up under her cloak. Victor reached up and pulled the front of her hood down as Guapo started plodding forward again, utterly oblivious to the weather.

“Yeah.” He chuckled, once again wishing there weren’t so many layers between them. Still, it felt good to hold her, and he wondered at that, at how he’d grown to think of Valla, and really, only Valla in that regard. When they’d spoken more than a month ago in Persi Gables, and Valla had called him out about his infatuation with Tes, he’d had to admit that she was right. If they had the same discussion today, though, he felt like his response would be different. Already, Tes was kind of like a pleasant dream, a beautiful unreal near-deity that he’d met in a strange far-off land. The whole thing was surreal to the point of feeling like a fantasy he’d conjured up.

Valla was real. She was brave, intelligent, talented, and very, very principled. “And beautiful,” he muttered, wondering if she’d connect the dots and figure out his thoughts. She didn’t speak, though, and he held her so close that he wasn’t sure she was awake; maybe she’d dosed off. He hated that he had to move so slowly. If he and Valla were alone, they’d have crossed through the mountains in half a day, Guapo charging through the pass, ignoring the cold. “God, that would be fun!”

Victor looked over his shoulder and saw the shadowy, hunched figures of the vanguard pushing forward, many with balls of glowing Energy floating near their heads. They were doing their best; it was kind of shitty of him to want to bail on them, even if it was just a fleeting impulse. He urged Guapo to slow down a little, allowing the soldiers to gain on him so his banner fell on more of them. With a determined frown, he buckled down, using his will against himself for a change, reminding himself of his responsibilities.

As the gray sky darkened and the shadows grew long and thick, Victor heard a shout from behind and slowed, turning. He felt Valla stir and realized he’d been right earlier; she’d fallen asleep in his arms. He was grinning slyly, pleased with himself, when he caught sight of Rellia and Borrius riding forward. “Hey,” he called, straightening, letting his hands and arms fall to his sides. For some reason, he was self-conscious about hugging Valla close as her mother approached.

“Scouts with Far Sight spells say they see shadows moving on the slopes. We’re afraid we’re about to be ambushed by rock trolls or . . . something.” Borrius shrugged.

“We don’t think we should camp,” Rellia added, her eyes drifting from Victor’s face down to Valla’s shrouded, hooded form. Both she and Borrius were bundled in furs, though neither looked particularly chilly—Victor had already heard about their warmth-enchanted cloaks. They weren’t the only ones in the army with such garments, but the vast majority relied on good, old-fashioned layers to make it through the cold.

“Yes. We’ll call out for more lights and keep pushing forward. Victor, we had an idea.” Borrius licked his lips, then drove ahead, “We think you should ride forward a bit more and unleash your aura. Let the denizens of this pass know what they’re stalking.”

“Oh?” Victor shrugged. “All right. I’ll keep my banner up. Are we pushing through the whole night?”

“We think that would be best.” Rellia continued to peer at Valla, then said, and when her daughter met her gaze, she asked, “Want to join me until Uvu returns?”

“No. I’ve felt Victor’s aura many times. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. I’m finally warm—ancestors, mother! Why didn’t you warn us about the heights of this pass? I would have bought better cold-weather gear.”

“Is it my fault you didn’t study the geography of the lands you intend to conquer?” Rellia snorted, then tugged at her reins, turning her beautiful vidanii around. Over her shoulder, she called, “We’ll be close behind should trouble arise.”

Borrius nodded and turned also, and Valla, with some rare humor in her voice, said, “She doesn’t like that I’m riding with you.”

“Tough.” Victor clicked his tongue, and Guapo started forward, putting a hundred yards or so between them and the front ranks of the army’s vanguard. His banner still blazed, and when Victor let go of his aura, he felt like it brightened as the part of his will relegated to holding his aura in check was released of its burden.

“Oof!” Valla groaned. “It’s been a while. I think it’s heavier now.”

“Sorry.”

“No. Truthfully, it’s almost comforting. Something in me knows that pressure isn’t meant for me.”

“Hang on.” Victor concentrated for a moment. Then he summoned forth a pack of pony-sized, inspiration-attuned coyotes. As they yipped and howled, pacing around in the windy, frigid island of light cast by his banner, he willed them to patrol, to climb the slopes where they could and where they couldn’t, to pace the length of the army, weaving among the soldiers, spreading the influence of the inspiration Energy that bled from their silvery, misty forms. He watched them pad off into the darkness, and even outside his banner’s light, he could see them glowing with faint luminescence in the dark.

“Will they tell you if they find trouble?”

“Not exactly tell me, but I can feel what they’re up to. I’ll know if they find something.”

Valla nestled back into him, and Victor continued forward, his banner banishing the darkness as they climbed. Soon, he became aware of presences outside the glow, a vague feeling of animosity, and the occasional falling pebbles or stones. The impression he got from the lurkers was one of fear and flight; they weren’t sticking around to watch him; they were trying to get away. His coyotes’ howls, yips, cries, and yapping barks echoed through the canyon, and he knew they were heartening the troops as they walked back and forth through the column.

“It’s nice how the Energy you use summoning those companions of yours affects their nature.”

“Yeah. I felt the inspiration had the right note for what we’re trying to do. Courage would have been good, but the army isn’t exactly scared right now. At least, I didn’t get that impression.”

“Agreed.” Valla gestured to the left at the sloping, rocky mountainside on the other side of the dizzying drop. “I saw a shadow off that way.”

“Uh-huh, we were surrounded for a while, but most of them ran away.”

“Truly?” She jerked, twisting in front of him to look up into his face, perhaps to see if he was teasing.

“Truly. You didn’t feel them?”

“No, but I feel something else . . . we’re no longer climbing!”

Victor immediately realized she was right; the rocky roadway had leveled off, and though the wind still blasted at them out of the heights, he thought he could see a sliver of light in the distance. “Is that one of the moons?”

“If so, it’s kind of strange; doesn’t it seem green?” Valla leaned forward, reaching out to grasp Guapo’s mane. Victor could see she was right. The clouds and flicking gusts of frosty rain made it hard to focus, but somewhere ahead, as distant as the imagined horizon, a weird green light seemed to be glowing. “Definitely not a moon unless something in the air is tinting it oddly.” Valla leaned back again, pulling her hood down.

“We’ll see soon enough.” Nothing attacked, though Victor felt several more entities flee his banner and aura through the night. He didn’t know what they were, and they might not know what or who he was, but they knew they didn’t want any part of him or his people. As the night wore on, and the pass shifted into a downward slope, he chuckled, and Valla stirred, turning to look up at him again.

“What’s funny?”

“What if this whole thing is that easy? What if our numbers or our levels are so daunting to the creatures of the Marches that they just kind of flee ahead of us? What if we just walk down there and can claim all the land we want?”

“A lovely thought, but don’t get your hopes up. This pass is still, technically, part of the Ridonne Empire. Whatever the first peoples on Fanwath did to claim the lands north of here also counted for this pass. The creatures in the darkness, threatening the column, are just typical monsters similar to what you might find anywhere in the wilds of the Empire. When we emerge from these mountains, the real test will begin. Well, that’s what Rellia says. I believe her, though; she’s probably the most versed scholar on the subject in the Empire.”

“She’s wanted to do this her whole life, huh?”

“Maybe not her entire life, but most of it. Didn’t she tell you about how she used to chastise her uncles about their complacency? She’s wanted to conquer new lands since she learned about the Writs of Conquest.”

“Yeah. She mentioned it.” As they followed the road as it wound around an outcropping of solid stone, an uncommonly straight view down the pass resolved, and Victor could see the black sky was lightening, turning toward gray. He wished he could see through the mountains on the left toward the sunrise. However, the thought of sunrises faded from his mind as the path switched to the right, skirting another bend. When it straightened again, they had a view of the distant sky from a new angle, and he felt Valla stop breathing. He couldn’t blame her.

“What . . .” Her voice caught in her throat. Sensing Victor’s stress, Guapo slowed to a stop, his front hooves lifting up and down, pawing at the rock road. Victor hardly noticed; he was staring at the brilliant ball of sickly green light in the sky. It had to be a hundred miles away, but it hung nearly at their eye level like a weird, diseased sun had fallen from the heavens to shed its light on a small part of the world. Victor could see the contours of hills, forests, lakes, and plains under that otherworldly light, though everything was glimpsed through a haze of thin, anemic fog. He tried to formulate a statement or question and was just about to give voice to his words when a System message appeared, blasting the thoughts from his mind:

***Challenge of Conquest! Halt the invasion from the world of Dark Ember. Drive the forces of Prince Hector of Heart Rot from Fanwath and reclaim the lands they’ve begun to taint. Rewards: New territory, a Colony Stone, and Chests of Conquest at strategic locations.***