Orson didn’t think so.
Light flashed in his eyes as he opened the Ancient Sage’s Eye. Sure enough, he picked up a trail. Fine white motes sifted down with the moonlight like a cloud of fireflies, drifting and shivering in the wind.
Those specks of white godlight circled the air around him, as if he were something to be studied or feared. Wherever his gaze landed, the motes unraveled and vanished.
His face darkened. The feel was identical to when Riley unfolded her own field. This floating white shimmer was just another face of divine rules.
Calls himself Solitary...
Orson’s mouth quirked. This godly remnant had mistaken him for the Godslayer, the one and only Blaze King.
He ignored the rules’ prying and sank back into meditation.
At first light he accompanied Darulunina and the kids to stock up. They were buzzing, swearing they would spend eight or ten years training on the mountain, swearing they’d come back a tier higher and punt rebel heads like balls.
Outside the city, Sunforge adventurers embraced their families and lined up by the thousands, pouring into the shadow of the Sacred Mountain.
"I wonder how many will make it back. May the Fire God look after us."
Estrella’s tone had that learned nobility to it. Royals were taught more than commoners. The mountain could transform a person, yes, but the cost was paid in blood, climbing over other bodies step by step.
Each heavenly tier had uneven resources. The best zones offered far more than the dregs, and the best zones were always occupied. You either paid tribute or took them by force.
For a thousand years the Sunforge trials had followed one iron rule.
Only the strongest stood at the top. The weak became steps.
Cold mist pooled beneath the snows. Thousands of guards in beast-skin cloaks ringed the sanctum, and at a distance ninety-nine sanctified pools glowed in neat rows. Crowds of boys and girls gathered at the edges.
This was the start of their ascent. It might be their end.
Only those who awakened at least two combat shifts would be permitted onto the mountain. A single-shift adventurer would be shut out of power for life.
And there were many such unfortunates.
Anyone who hit three shifts was one in ten thousand. Darulubus was the great exception.
"Fate decides, but you do the work!" Nuhachit shouted, fists clenched.
Darulunina drew long breaths. The young woman had grown into herself, life force rising and falling in waves. Orson caught himself staring.
"I’m so nervous. Husband, say something nice!"
Three seconds later she cracked, bouncing on her toes and strangling his arm.
Orson gave a helpless smile, grabbing both her and Nuhachit by the head. "Changing classes doesn’t make you strong by itself."
"But if I can’t awaken a second shape, how do we get up there? They’re blocking the path," Nuhachit said, wilting.
"Walk through," Orson said.
"Walk through? What does that even mean?"
The boy scratched his scalp. The Wolf Empire twins sucked in a breath. Was he really planning to break the rules and force it?
It wasn’t unheard of. A few times, four-shift fighters had tried to storm the mountain and drag their heirs upward with them. It had never ended well. Everyone else turned on them and drove them out. Resources were finite. Every extra body squeezed the others’ odds of survival.
"Out of my way, brats. Move."
The barked order cut through their thoughts.
"It’s them again," Nuhachit snarled, eyes red.
A knot of bruisers shoved ten unawakened youths toward one of the pools. The boys and girls went pale. Stripped and shoved, they were tossed in.
The green pool began to boil. Threads of ruleforce speared down into each child.
"Noah, two-shift. Pass."
"Kai, two-shift. Pass."
"Iron, no shift. Kill him."
A rebel bellowed the sentence. The boy had barely hauled himself out before a blade took his head.
Screams tore through the mists.
"Rot in hell," Darulunina spat, eyes red.
The guards stood by like statues. Slaughter here was routine. Besides, they had been bought.
"The strong should shelter the weak. That is the mark of a world in its prime," Estrella said through her teeth, righteous as ever.
"Enough. Stop this now."
She surged forward to intervene.
"You think you’re the chosen child of some prophecy?"
"Shut it, whelps of the Wolf."
Men and women in jeweled circlets laughed softly. Royals from the other four nations. And one of them carried godblood too.
"Half-and-half freak," the godblood youth sneered, long-limbed and reed-thin. His face could have passed for human. "Without your pet elites to hide behind, who do you think you are?"
The Wolf escort broke into a run, only to be cut off by the sanctum’s own soldiers. The captain pulled his men tight, wary of starting a war.
"Samuel," Caelum said under his breath. "Earth Kingdom. Usurper."
Then with quiet contempt: "A walking joke. He murdered his own father for the crown."
Orson’s brows lifted. Vicious, then. The older king had sworn to fight the rebels and die on his feet. Samuel had colluded with the Godmaster, staged a capture, lured his father out of the deep vault, then delivered the knife himself.
Samuel smirked at the twins. "A few toys from offworld and you think you can throw your weight around here? If you set foot on that path, I’ll teach you what death looks like."
"Firevenom, is it? I heard those proud berserkers got wiped out."
He let his gaze drift over Orson and his group. Laughter went up around him.
Darulunina froze, then went scarlet with rage and lunged.
He caught her, heart sinking. His grim guess had been right. Darulubus had seen it coming. He had sent the young away to preserve a spark.
"Why? He insulted my people!"
"You are the next war leader," she snapped, wrenching free. Bloodshot eyes burned into his. "Why should I swallow this?"
He read it in her gaze. She understood. She just didn’t want to.
"I could erase them with a gesture," Orson said quietly. "But it should be your hands. All of yours."
He swept a look over the Firevenom youths. "If you want the world to fear you, stain your hands with your enemies’ blood. Borrowed strength will never carry you to the summit."
Silence. Then the words hit home.
Fireborn did not fear death. If their elders had fallen, the honor of the tribe was theirs to bear.
"I swear I’ll take your head," Darulunina told Samuel, voice low and full of hate.
The mist curled as the Firevenom youths shed their cloaks and stepped into the sanctified pool.
Sometimes the world is merciless.
The water roared. Ruleforce poured down, and each youth’s aura shifted.
"Tri-Shift. I did it. I’m going to be the strongest Firevenom has ever seen. I’m not a waste," Nuhachit cried, half-laughing, half-sobbing.
"Tri-Shift, from Firevenom?"
The Wolf twins and Samuel both stared. The tribe wasn’t well-known, but those who knew, knew. Their real fighters were monsters.
"Never saw it coming. That idiot hid deep," the others gasped, crowding in to clap Nuhachit on the back. They were genuinely happy for him.
Of the fourteen, nine awakened two shifts. One hit three. By any measure it was a staggering ratio.
"This can’t be. It isn’t real. It isn’t..."
Darulunina stared at her hands, throat working. Through the mist she glanced up at Orson, desperate.
Then the next wave of candidates pushed past, knocking her under. She went under like a drowning girl in a flood.
She couldn’t accept it. She didn’t even earn the right to climb. The tribe’s honor would pass her by...