Exhaustion clung to me like early autumn burrs. One step after the other; breathe. Two months and little progress—I was as far from my goal as I was from any future at all.

  The artifact I’d stolen from the family vault weighed heavy in my pocket.

  I should be ashamed of myself.

  No right-minded cultivator would ever consider the plan I’d made. A backup, just in case—one that I knew from the outset I’d resort to. Something truly forbidden. And it was the only choice I had left: give up everything I stand for, or die and lose it anyway. My heart thudded in my chest, my feet felt like lead, and sweat ran down my back despite the chill air.

  I wasn’t sure if it was the cold, but I was certain if I stopped running I’d find some reason to turn back.

  Overhead, birds chirped in the trees, oblivious. The stream below me ran bright and clear over smooth-worn rocks, while minnows played in the dappled shadows. Some other time I’d have found refuge in the mountain’s tranquility, but not now. Quietude was something I no longer deserved.

  I moved from one flat rock to another, barely able to make each jump with the weight of my pack on my back and the dull ache in my legs. Well-fitted shoes scraped rough whispers on the stone and a dark gray robe of fine silk billowed behind me.

  An heir with so little potential that I might as well have never tried to cultivate. Any other duke would have disinherited me, but my father valued strength of will just as much as he valued power. And in that, my younger brother was worthless. Blessed with undeserved potential, he’d never applied himself to anything, training or statecraft.

  And why would he? Elder brother was oh so talented. Elder brother had balanced the duchy’s budget, had all the support he needed to become the next Duke Graystone. Elder brother never let a single weakness show.

  I stopped in the shade of a large tree, panting. Ahead of me, the hillside steepened and the faint trail started to switchback, lost in the rocks and bushes, only visible by the ancient stone waymarkers that once held candles. Light on the way to a meditation chamber turned eternal prison.

  Tightening my ponytail, I swept my hair over my shoulder and dropped my pack on a spot of flat ground. Pulling out the canteen, I leaned against the tree, knowing that if I took the time to sit all the way down and rest, I wouldn’t make it by nightfall.

  “Isolation training? But you haven’t even reached First Ring yet!”

  My brother’s whiny voice echoed in my head, pushing away my other thoughts before settling next to the pit in my stomach.

  If I couldn’t reach First Ring; if I couldn’t use an external vitae technique by the time my isolation training was over in a single month, I’d seal my fate. Disinherited sons didn’t tend to live long—even more so if they previously had support. Everyone in the duchy wanted me to be the heir; some because I was weak, but most because I wasn’t an imbecile.

  I looked up the hill that suddenly seemed like an impossible obstacle. Even if this worked, would it be enough? Would I be found out and bring shame to my family—or worse?

  I clenched the half-empty canteen hard enough to dent it.

  Damn it all.

  The sky above was a clear blue, poking through leaves tinted orange with the start of autumn. From up the ancient mountain a chill breeze blew and I shivered despite myself.

  “What use is there in worrying?” an annoying memory said in my mind.

  Heaving myself up, wiping off my robe, and pointedly ignoring that I’d gone against my own wisdom and sat down, I trudged back to the stream to refill my canteen.

  “Potential or no, you’d make a great duke!”

  Not my brother this time. Celestials above, I could almost hear her voice. Gritting my teeth, I turned the canteen’s cap a little harder than was necessary and jogged back to my pack.

  Shouldering it, I tried not to think about her. About how mad my self-proclaimed “best and only friend” would feel if she knew what I was going to do. Even if she’d unintentionally given me the idea.

  Rocks and leaves crunched as I broke into a jog, tagging each waystone like it was a race. She’d always win them, or come close, back at the sect. Then she’d cheer me on and slap me on the back at the end, offering empty words and asking if I could help her with our more technical lessons. Worst of all, she’d been a surprisingly good listener whenever I could get her to shut up.

  Her voice kept echoing, asking the same sorts of questions again and again and again. Hey this, hey that, hey, hey—

  “Hey! Slow down!”

  Wait.

  No.

  Nonono. No it couldn’t be.

  I grabbed the next waystone and swung around it, facing back down the hillside. Near the bottom, by where the trees started to shrink and thin, a terribly familiar figure was running straight up the mountain.

  Not bothering with the switchbacks, she—in the same patchwork robe she’d worn to the entrance exam—was sprinting at me right up the cliffside and shouting “Hey!” repeatedly.

  “How?” I shouted back before turning to run up the slope. A few steps in, I gave up. Even without the pack, she was First Ring; she’d catch up to me no matter what.

  She didn’t slow down, but her genuine smile under red eyes caught me off guard. Every step she took, another few strands of coiled lavender hair sprung free of a hastily-done bun, and her face was flush under a sheen of sweat.

  Just how long has she been running?

  “Slate!” she shouted, again. “I thought… I wouldn’t…” Pulling to a stop next to me, she hunched over, hands on her knees, and took a few deep breaths, clearly circulating her vitae. “Whew! What a run! Didn’t… didn’t think I’d catch you in time.”

  My blood ran cold. Does she know my plan? How—I hadn’t told a soul!

  “Azalea! How did you find me!?”

  “W-water first.” She reached for my canteen, but I snatched it away.

  “Water when you explain how in the world you got here,” I hissed. “And how you even knew where I was!”

  “I asked… asked around.” Azalea stood up and let out another sigh, wiping her forehead in an unbecoming way. “Didn’t even know I could get tired like this anymore! Anyway, water now?”

  “You asked around?” I swung the canteen on its strap and hit her; she didn’t flinch and the canteen gained another dent. “What kind of useless answer is that? I need to know what you know and how you know it, now! And address me by my title!”

  “Wow, you really must be… No wait, I get it! Don’t take it out on the canteen!” She held up her hands in surrender, then rubbed the back of her head. Apparently that was the last straw for her hair as it all came undone in a puff of sweaty strands that hung almost to her waist. Already, they were pulling back up into a familiar mass of drills.

  She looked down, then laughed. I hit her with the canteen again.

  “Alright, alright!” She tapped a fist against her head. “Hard as a rock I know. But, listen, this rock’s good at keeping secrets I promise and—”

  “Tell me. Now. Or I will find a way to throw you off this mountain and out of this duchy I swear on my family name.”

  “Right. Yeah. So I heard you saying isolation training.”

  “You were eavesdropping when my family’s carriage picked me up from the sect.”

  “Yep!”

  “And you followed me here.”

  “Well I took breaks to eat and stuff and I slept once or twice, but yeah. It’s not like the Graystone Estate is a secret or anything.”

  “It’s not, but our isolation training ground is. Particularly this mountain and its history!” I jabbed a finger into her shoulder and it was like jabbing a brick, but I hid the wince of pain. “You shouldn’t even be able to be here!”

  “Would you believe me if I said I asked?”

  “No!” I raised my hand and found it empty.

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  Azalea took the prized water flask and downed it in one drag, finishing with a burp. “It took me two months to get the right mountain, you know.”

  I scowled at her. “You’re an uncouth barbarian of a peasant.”

  “Thanks!” She handed the flask back to me.

  “Give me one reason I shouldn’t march you back down the mountain and give you to my family.”

  Azalea smirked. “You can’t make me.”

  I tensed and threw the hidden needles I had in my sleeve. They sailed through empty air and clattered harmlessly on rocks. Something tapped my shoulder and I whirled at the sound of a giggle. No pain, cycle vitae, no poison.

  So where…

  She popped up in front of me, holding my needles. “Couldn’t find one of them,” she said.

  “So you’re here to mock me now, too? Out of my way.” I slapped her hand, scattering the needles, and started to jog up the trail, flaskless.

  Forcing my eyes shut would keep away the tears. Redness was from the cold wind and nothing else. An easy excuse, a confident lie.

  I felt hollow inside, and I barely heard Azalea whisper something behind me. It wasn’t long before her footsteps settled next to mine, but I didn’t look over at her.

  “Look, I’m sorry, okay Lord Slate!” Oh, so now she was being formal.

  “Drop the ‘lord.’”

  “But you said—”

  “Drop it! You’re just mocking me more.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Yes. You. Are!” I wheeled on her, eyes blurry. “You said the same damn thing to me, that it doesn’t matter if the person meant it or not, that if someone talked down to me then… then…” I didn’t finish and took off in a dead sprint, heart pounding.

  The cave was close. I just had to make it inside, where the ancient wards were stronger. Unless she was some long lost half-sister, she’d never be able to make it inside, not even if she was Fifth Ring.

  The last of the trees gave way to grasses and late season wildflowers, and the chill from the wind settled into the very air. My heart felt like it’d burst, my vitae like it was about spent, but I finally saw the entrance.

  For now, it looked like nothing more than another part of the mountain, sandwiched between two glaciers that fed a wide, shallow tarn, but I had the key. Truthfully, this wasn’t the isolation training ground. Not anymore. This mountain sat alone, abandoned, warded off from the outside world for centuries.

  All this for a single prison cell.

  An iron grip encircled my hand right as I reached the edge of the tarn. Pitching forward from the sudden force, I caught my reflection in the lake: pale skin, dark hair, and a too-stern jaw marred by red, puffy eyes and a line of snot running from one nostril.

  And then I was pulled back into a warm embrace.

  “I’m sorry! I really am!” Azalea wailed. “Please, I can’t… I know you’re about to do something crazy and I know you need to reconsider. Please, Slate!”

  “How!” I wrestled, trying unsuccessfully to get free. “How do you know this?”

  “Because I know you need to get stronger and this dumb world didn’t give you enough potential to do it the normal way!”

  I stopped. “I… I never told you that. The only people who know are my family—even Shale’s kept it a secret.”

  Azalea pulled us down to the grass, facing the lake and glaciers. Little red and purple wildflowers crowded around our legs.

  “I…” Azalea hiccupped, and I looked over to see her crying. “I tried so hard and I don’t even… No sorry, this isn’t about me I just… Wow, I’m a total wreck aren’t I?”

  I didn’t know what to say to that so I kept quiet. My hand held in her iron grip was warm.

  We sat like this for some time before Azalea’s sniffles slowed and she spoke up, voice raw. “You’re still here.”

  “Yeah. I can’t get out of your grip.”

  She shook her head. “No, you could’ve hit me with a paralysis needle. It’d make me let go, and I was pretty out of it.”

  She was right. I could’ve. But I hadn’t and I couldn’t figure out why. My own head was a mess.

  “Listen.” Another deep breath. “Whoo boy, didn’t think I’d ever get this far, uhhh. Ignore that I guess. Look… look.” Another another deep breath. “Okay, so you might not be able to reach First Ring, what happens then?”

  “Father disowns me. Mother argues that I should advise my brother and wins. My brother or one of his allies kills me within one, maybe two years,” I answered, surprising myself with my honesty. “And then the duchy falls into ruin because Shale is an idiot who can barely handle his own power.”

  Azalea swallowed heavily. “Right. I… that makes sense. I should’ve known that.”

  “No you shouldn’t have!” I looked over at her, but looked away and back to the sky as soon as our eyes met. “Really, this is all…” I took a page out of her book and continued with a softer voice, “Fucked. This is all fucked. There’s no way out—I’m not strong enough to join a sect and I’m too risky to leave alive if I break ties with my family and run. Unless I get stronger, I will die.”

  “There’s got to be a way then, some elixir or rare herb that could unlock your—”

  “Potential?” I hissed. “What potential? I’m a dud. A fluke. The biggest mistake the celestials have cursed my family with in seventeen generations. I’ve pored over a thousand years of theory and myths. Unless I can convince the head of a sect, or one of the ascended celestials themself comes down and fixes me, there’s nothing I can do.”

  I clenched my other hand into a fist so hard the nails broke skin. “Nothing but this. This is the only way.”

  “What if you lose yourself?”

  “I’m not even going to ask you how you made that guess. I’m tired, Azalea. I’ve got a useless”—the word came out with more spite than even I intended—“body. I’ve got the weight of a duchy crushing me, and the only way to survive is to fix it. If I can’t do divine cultivation…”

  I let the words hang, waiting for Azalea’s reaction. Waiting for her to yell at me or throw me into the pond or snap my neck like I deserved.

  Instead, she whispered softly. “Then you do demonic cultivation. I guessed as much, yeah.”

  What?

  She kept going into the silence of the mountain and gave my hand a sudden squeeze. “That makes sense. Just… you should do this like you do your divine cultivation. Method and theory and planning and intelligence, just… this isn’t like you.”

  “I… that’s it? You do know what I mean, right? Abandoning my humanity piece by piece?”

  “Do you want to destroy the Duchy of Graystone?”

  “No, of course not! I’ll just…”

  I looked up and she was staring right at me with her red eyes misted with tears. Why? “See?”

  “I… well, I’ll keep my brother from inheriting. Then, if I just don’t cultivate more, I’ll be strong enough with good allies and I can adopt a candidate from amongst my advisors as an heir so I don’t sully the bloodline.”

  “Right. And what about the temptation to get even more power?”

  “I’ll resist it,” I said with more confidence than I felt.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think it’s a bad thing to want more power.”

  “What?”

  Azalea shrugged. “It’s the way this world works, right? All the strongest divine cultivators got there because they took every chance to get more power, and they look down on demonic cultivators because they chose a different way.”

  “Azalea, demonic cultivators eat people. Well, if they turn into demons they do.”

  She nodded. “Yep. There are probably enough bad people worth eating, though.”

  “What are you saying?” Now it was my turn to be horrified. “You’re not… you haven’t…”

  “Nope! Divine through and through, I swear on my sister’s innocence.” She stood up and stretched. “All I’m saying is that, whatever it is you’re planning, don’t underestimate it. Don’t throw all your precautions to the wind just because this is your last chance before you die to bullshit politics, y’know?”

  I tried to stand up after her and my legs were so shaky, I needed to lean against her for support. “Would you… still think of me as the same if I did something like demonic cultivation?” I couldn’t use the “friend” word; it tasted like ash in my mouth.

  “Yeah, I’d still be your friend! If you were still you, anyway.”

  I blinked. “...Thanks.”

  “No problem!” She gave me a hearty slap on the back and I tumbled face-first into the lake.

  By the time she’d fished me out and I’d gotten dry, the two of us had started a fire and my bedroll was laid out. We didn’t talk much, she ate an entire day’s worth of rations—because of course she did—and soon enough the sun had truly set far down by the mountain’s base, leaving only the last vestiges of twilight.

  It wouldn’t do for a prison to face the sunrise, now would it?

  “Good luck tonight,” Azalea said softly once the last light had faded.

  “You can’t follow me,” I replied firmly, forcing myself not to glance over at the prison’s location. I didn’t even bother asking how she knew it would be tonight.

  She just shrugged. “I figured as much. You’ve gotta do this yourself and all that.” With a yawn, she laid down—on my bedroll—and looked up at the stars, sweeping up her lavender drills so they splayed out on the grass behind her head. “I’m rooting for you, remember that.”

  “Why?” My question was soft, easily lost on the wind. A tone that should never come out of my mouth.

  “Don’t need a reason.” Cracking one eye open, she met my gaze. “At least lie down a minute, will ya? I’m a fast, heavy sleeper, so you’ll… hmmm… get your chance soon.”

  I stood with my heart thudding loudly in my chest until Azalea’s snoring beat it out, then snuck off toward the edge of the small lake. Hours ago, I’d washed the last of the tears and snot from my face, and my heart was calm in my chest as I took out the key from my pocket.

  I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe someone is okay with me doing this.

  The key wasn’t key-like at all. Rather, it was the crest of our family, carved delicately out of stone. Blood-red marks crisscrossed it, like a sealing technique in miniature. In the last wisps of twilight, they seemed to glow.

  Normally, someone would use a water walking technique to approach the door to the prison and activate the key. I was just thankful that it didn’t require something beyond my capability—just my bloodline and a touch of vitae. Wet robes and freezing cold were a small price to pay. Thankfully, the lake was shallow enough that I made it with only a single dip above the waist.

  Cycling vitae to keep from shivering, I held the key aloft as true night fell. When I pushed vitae toward my hand, a cold numbness spread and it was taken up by the key. The marks glowed brighter, then dulled as the rock wall before me shimmered and faded to reveal a cramped-looking cave entrance.

  No grand door, just angry-looking runes and a powerful feeling of dread.

  Taking the first step was hard, the second harder, like pushing through a barrier. And then I was through. Behind me, the rock reappeared, translucent like painted glass. With only the light of the stars, I could just make out a dark lump where Azalea was. Doubt assailed me, and I almost turned back.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, surprising myself.

  The sound echoed down the dark, twisting passageway, and I heard a stirring from within.

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