“You want some?” I ask, motioning to the half eaten peluda.

It is obvious Yalun isn’t here with good news, so I try to distract her from whatever concerns her. I can guess rather easily what it is. A single glance to the deserts below reveals the vast storm to the southwest. It wasn’t there when I climbed the Middle Elevation, still hidden by the horizon.

The ocean spread far faster than anyone expected.

“No,” she says, barely even glancing toward the dead beast. Yalun leans against the rock by my side while Kiko gives us space, watching over the surroundings for us.

There’s not much I can do but wait for her to start, so I turn and watch over the world beneath us. From this high up, the sky is as dark as night, and yet the sun still burns bright. The ever so slight curve I noticed down in the lower altitudes is emphasised as you climb. So many other small little oddities appear in the Middle Elevation that I can’t help but be curious what might lay higher.

One thing I’m more curious about than anything is the rising temperature. Leading up to the top of the Lower Elevation, it got so cold it felt like my flames would freeze with a single breeze. The border was worse. But strangely enough, it got warmer after climbing this region. Where we are now, it’s almost as warm as the sands of the wasteland.

Almost. It doesn’t quite reach comfortable levels, especially with how difficult it is to breathe.

But what if this rising temperature continues up in the Higher Elevation? I mean, it would make sense, right? The closer we climb to the Eternal Inferno, the hotter it will get.

The idea of climbing to the peak of the Titan Alps inflicts many conflicting thoughts on my mind. For one, such a journey would likely be impossible, and not even for the growing strength of the beasts at higher altitudes; I’m already at my limit of what I can breathe. Any higher than the absolute bottom of the Upper Elevation will be too much. Ignoring the danger, if one were to reach the peak, could they see directly into the Eternal Inferno? They should be close enough up there. Could one talk with the dead?

I shake my head. The very idea is beyond comprehension. This area may be called the Middle Elevation, but we aren’t even a tenth the way up the Alps.

“Solvei, how do you feel about reaching for the threshold?”

I tilt my head at Yalun. She finally gathers her thoughts, and it’s to ask about that?

“Of course, I’m excited to try.” It’s only because she prohibited me from making the attempt that I haven’t done so in all my time up here.

“Good,” she says, letting out a breath. She seems relieved, but also doesn’t appear any less concerned. “Kikotawân, can you watch over us for the next few days? Don’t let anything near,” she shouts, her voice carrying over the sharp mountains.

Kiko closes the distance, standing before us in only a few seconds. “If you don’t want to be disturbed, then this really isn’t the place to do so.”

Yalun clenches her jaw and turns to me. “I know, but we really can’t risk taking this any lower.”

“We’re at forty kilometres above…” he trails off as Yalun nods seriously at him.

“Solvei, you understand the dangers, right?” She says, returning her attention to me.

“Yes,” I say, slightly unsettled. “Anything but the slightest addition to my binding will kill not only myself, but anyone around.”

It’s not something I could ever forget. Not only because of Yalun’s constant warnings while I was staying with her, but the knowledge that if I fail, I might take others with me is daunting.

Yalun climbs the rock I lean against. Once at the top, she burns away the sharp tip and wipes away the excess stone, leaving a flat area to sit upon. She gestures to the space before her. “Come, sit. Let’s start.”

I join her, but pull back as she reaches an arm out. “What is going on, Yalun?” I ask. “I’m happy to go forward with this, but it’s obvious something happened. You’ve always told me patience is key.”

Her gaze meets mine for a few moments before her chin drops into her fists. “You’re right. You’re right,” she says and straightens her posture. “What has happened isn’t anything to worry about. I’ll tell you after we succeed.”

Yalun spreads her flames and I welcome them in. We both relax, my flames calm from a raging inferno to a subdued smoulder, guided by Yalun. Kiko is already gone. I can’t feel him in my thermal sense at all. I force my mind straight. Any wandering thoughts will end with disaster when I truly start, so stopping them early is important.

“I will guide you through the first part, helping you calm your fire so you can feel the binding you have to reach for. After that, you’ll be on your own.” I lose focus and snap my eyes open.

“What? I thought you were helping me take the leap?” I say, and immediately recoil at how immature it sounds.

I know I should have expected to do that part alone, but in all our practice attempts, her flames have always been there, guiding mine and stopping me when I stepped too far. As much as I’ve been impatient to actually go through with this, I’d always assumed she would be right there to snap me away from any mistake. A foolish assumption, I now realise.

“You’ll achieve nothing If I’m reaching with you.” She smiles sadly, as if that’s something she’d love to do. “This is something that only works if you take it for yourself. If it were that easy to guide someone, every elder would have greater binding than both of us.”

“Right.” I settle myself again. “I’m ready.”

It takes a few hours until my mind is in a focused enough state to satisfy Yalun. I can feel nothing besides the guiding heat of her flames intermingled with mine. Unfortunately, just placing myself in a mindless state isn’t enough. I need to be searching for something that has no feeling, no presence nor trail. My experience from interacting with my mind rope helps — and is likely the only reason we only wait a couple hours rather than days — but as I have to actively search, I can’t drop my thoughts to the absolute bare minimum that might have made this faster.

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Yalun gently guides my search in the right direction, pointing the way before abruptly disappearing.

I panic at the loss of her flames for a moment before forcing myself to calm. Losing concentration now would be worse than horrible.

Still, I feel cold at the loss. My conscious carries forward, following the lingering trace of her guide, but the further I move, the colder I feel. It isn’t related to temperature at all, more like I’m losing a part of myself the further I move. It is nothing if not concerning, but I push forward regardless, trusting in Yalun’s direction.

I float through the void. A glance down to where my arms should be reveals nothing. My body is gone, and an attempt at moving my flames shows them missing, too. It’s not black, like the Void Fog, nor is it white or any other colour. This space feels like the definition of nothing.

Am I already beyond the point of no return? If I tried, I wouldn’t be able to return to my body. If I turn back, I will be lost forever. I suffocate the fear before it can take grasp over my mind. My mind is everything I am in this realm. Anything that might stray my thoughts will spiral me until I’m lost forever.

My mind is an impenetrable fortress. My gaze sticks where Yalun pointed me, and I allow myself to carry forward for what feels like days, weeks or months. I float endlessly, but my mind doesn’t wander — I don’t let it — trusting that Yalun never sent me astray.

The chilly emptiness only grows with time, but eventually, my search pays off. I feel something. A warmth unprecedented in this cold, empty realm. Still, I see nothing, but I can feel where it is coming from. My path changes, I move through nothing, travelling off course from Yalun’s guide. Momentarily, I hesitate to leave the direction she gave me as I know the moment I do, I’ll never find it again, but the flow of heat that fills my chest washes away any doubts.

There isn’t anything to identify the speed I’m moving — for all I know, I’m not even moving — but it feels like I’m moving faster now that I know where to go. In only a few minutes, my confidence is rewarded. A burning white fire appears in the distance. Small at first, it rapidly grows to cover everything in sight. The blaze is identical to my own flames: same heat, same colour. Really, the only thing that’s different is how endless it is.

My mind stops right before the endless wall of fire. I don’t hesitate; I can’t. My arm reaches out to touch the inferno, which shouldn’t work as I don’t have any arms, but before I realise, a stream of fire is flowing from the wall into a small ball that finally gives me form. Apparently, just the intent to touch is enough.

The flowing flame is irresistible. I reach further and the blaze rushes along the connection with an unbeatable euphoric feeling. The energy rushes through my mind, changing it and enhancing my very core with each instant I remain connected.

I tear my metaphoric arm from the inferno, suppressing the intense urge to throw my entire body through. No wonder this is dangerous. The short time I was connected was the most addicting feeling I’ve ever felt.

I look down at myself. My body consists of a small ball of white flames no larger than a fist, and yet, it is too much. It feels like my body is ready to burst out from within despite not having my normal form.

The thought to move away from the unending wall of flame is enough to send me rocketing back through this realm of nothing. I fly away with speed that makes my initial journey seem more like the crawl of a snail compared to the dive of a falcon. The blazing inferno rushes away from me. In an instant, I’m back to where I started. I don’t know how I know, I just do.

I’m back to the start, and yet the blaze is now still visible. The fire I took barely a handful from now takes up half of this realm, while also seeming impossibly small in the distance.

As much as I’d love to inspect the oddity of what I’m seeing, my eyes snap open and that world is gone, replaced with the one I’ve lived all my life.

I’m back, and yet my body is gone. Everywhere I look is nothing but a burning inferno. The first dozen metres are a white fire, but beyond that, yellow flames cover everything for kilometres.

“No, Solvei, you’re taking too much.” Yalun’s panicked voice carries through the blaze. “Come back!”

She’s leaning over something on the stone we were seated. I idly note she’s putting in quite the effort to stabilise the inferno directly around her. She unfortunately doesn’t have anywhere near the capacity to do so for the entire conflagration, but it is enough to stop the ground directly beneath her melting away.

I feel detached, like my being is gone, and yet I still feel like a pressure is trying to claw its way out of me. This new fire within me wants to do anything it can to build inward and explode. I can do nothing as the entirety of my energy flows out into the world, burning away anything it can, and yet as soon as it reaches the maximum of its reach, it pulls to my core, compressing into a singularity.

I look down at Yalun, who’s still leaning over something. Arms flop out the sides of her embrace, covered in the cloth. Cloth lined with merminea fur that looks far too similar to my snowsuit. Looking closer, not only is she grasping my outfit, but my body is inside it.

It’s hard to imagine, but as I look down from this formless blaze, there my body lay, unresponsive.

How is this possible? Have I not truly come back from that realm of nothing but dangerously tempting fire? Am I dead?

I call out to Yalun, but my voice doesn’t come.

In the arms of my teacher, my body collapses. An arm shatters into wisps, joining the inferno, followed by all other limbs. Soon, the rest of my body dissolves into fire and nothing remains besides my snowsuit.

Yalun screams, scrambling across the ground as if she’ll find me there. “I’m sorry. I knew you weren’t ready. I never should have considered this. Never should have pushed you. I’m sorry.”

I yell at her, trying to stop her blaming herself, trying to tell her I’m still here, but again, no sound reaches her. No sound besides the roar of burning flames. Yalun collapses over my snowsuit. Any attempt she’d been making at holding back the blaze fizzles out as she sobs and mumbles apologies into the ground.

The sight of her breaking down jabs at me. I want to do nothing but comfort her and tell her everything is alright, it was hardly her fault, but I can’t speak right now. I may very well be dead and only sticking around because I’ve yet to have my funeral pyre, but considering I can still feel my fire burning, this isn’t the time to give up.

Yalun told me what would happen if I couldn’t handle the increase to my binding. The explosion that would result would be devastating. Knowing, and actually feeling it happen are so far apart in comprehension. I can feel my flames gearing up to crash down on a single point, where I can only imagine it will explode outward, killing anything around.

So why is Yalun staying here? I’m already doomed, so she should be flying down the alps as fast as her wings can take her. She said it herself: with the amount of energy I have hidden away, this blast will not be small. If she doesn’t leave…

Why won’t she leave?

I spread my focus through the inferno, feeling Kiko fighting off a dozen creatures down below that might as well be moths to the flame. He’s given up on hiding his capacity. His control infects every part of my unrestrained firestorm, but even he cannot stop the energy from concentrating.

My focus closes in on the core singularity where the flames seem to compress to a greater degree than I thought possible. If I can get this to disperse without exploding, then I can deal with all the other energy burning along the mountain later.

I force my will upon it, demanding that my flames stop going against my control. Hardly do I expect such action to work.

But it does.

The singularity formed of impossibly dense fire disperses with a blast only strong enough to bathe the mountainside with incandescent flame, which it already was. Of course, the rest of the gathered flames contain the vast majority of my energy, which still tries to gather into hyper compression, but with some encouragement, the process can complete in far smaller explosions than what it probably would have without my control.

Still, each blast has enough strength to flatten the beasts Kiko faces.

Strangely, while the gathered flames don’t exactly resist my will, there is a resistance I’ve never felt before. At least, it’s there until they explode. Afterwards, it’s like the flames have been ignited anew. The inferno controls easier and feels closer than I ever could have imagined.

In a few minutes, the blast is under control. Nobody is going to die because I took too much from the stream.

But I’m still without a body.