Water.

  The knowledge settled into Cade's mind with crystalline clarity. Not just the concept of water, but the feeling of it—the way it moved, the way it yielded and resisted, the way it could be shaped and directed by will alone.

  Joy surged through him.

  He'd hoped for this. Wished for it. And despite everything strange and terrible about this world, it had given him exactly what he wanted.

  Let's see what I can do.

  Cade focused on his body—his hand, specifically—and tried to turn it into water.

  Something happened. A numbness spread across his skin, a loosening of the boundary between flesh and liquid. He could feel the transformation trying to take hold, his cells wanting to dissolve into their component moisture.

  But it didn't complete. The numbness faded. His hand remained stubbornly solid.

  Partial transformation, maybe? Or just not enough power at this tier.

  He tried something different. Extended his palm outward and focused on creating water in front of it—not from his body, but from nothing. From the essence itself.

  Water appeared.

  It pooled in his palm, cool and clean, then ran limply down the sides of his hand. No structure. No control. Just liquid obeying gravity, doing what liquid did.

  Not good enough.

  Cade concentrated harder. He tried to hold the water up, to give it form, to make it obey his will rather than physics. The liquid responded—sluggishly at first, then with increasing cooperation. He built it upward from his palm, layer upon layer, constructing a cylinder of water that held its shape through sheer force of intention.

  It wasn't pretty. The edges wobbled. The surface rippled with his every breath. But it was there—a column of water, maybe six inches tall, defying gravity because he told it to.

  Now let's try—

  He attempted to shoot the cylinder outward, to project it as an attack.

  It fell apart immediately. Water splashed across his hand, his arm, the ground beneath him. Whatever force had been holding it together couldn't survive the sudden acceleration.

  Okay. Projection needs work.

  Rhys and Zyrian were watching from nearby, their heads bent together, whispering in tones too low for Cade to catch. He saw them glance at him, saw something like impressed curiosity in their expressions.

  "Perhaps you should try—" Zyrian started.

  "Wait." Cade held up a hand. "Let me figure this out."

  He wanted to enjoy the discovery, wanted to figure out the rules. What worked, what didn't, and why.

  Small quantities are easier. Natural body shapes are easier.

  He focused on a single fingertip and willed it to become water.

  The transformation happened smoothly this time. His fingertip dissolved, becoming a droplet-shaped protrusion of liquid that somehow remained attached to his hand. He could feel through it—not quite normal sensation, but awareness. The water was part of him.

  So body-based transformations are more stable. Good to know.

  His mind jumped to steam. Almost all power generation on Earth came from steam in one form or another—boiling water, expanding gas, turbines spinning. If he could create steam, the applications would be—

  He had no way to generate heat. The water essence was water, not fire. Steam was out.

  But vapor, mist...

  Cade thought about the eternal overcast of the outer ring. The way moisture hung in the air, diffusing light, obscuring vision. Fog wasn't steam—it was suspended water droplets, tiny enough to float, dense enough to block sight.

  He focused on the air around him and pushed.

  Mist billowed outward from his body, dense and white and cool. It flowed in waves, expanding in every direction, obscuring his view of the corridor beyond the green safe zone. Within seconds, he was surrounded by fog thick enough to lose himself in.

  And he could sense through it.

  The mist wasn't just visual obstruction—it was an extension of himself. He could feel the corridor walls through the suspended droplets, could track Rhys and Zyrian's positions, could map the space around him with a precision that had nothing to do with sight.

  Then he realized how far the mist had extended.

  It was past the green zone. Well past. Flowing down the corridor in both directions, filling the passage with obscuring gray.

  Cade yanked it back.

  The mist rushed toward him, condensing, compressing, disappearing back into whatever reservoir of essence had produced it. Within moments, the air was clear again.

  "Was that dangerous?" he asked, turning to Rhys. "Extending the mist beyond the safe zone?"

  "Probably not." She tilted her head, considering. "As long as it's not threatening anything in the labyrinth. If you'd attacked a creature, or damaged the structure, the break would end. But passive effects like mist..." She shrugged. "Should be fine."

  Her gaze dropped to his midsection—still at attention, still refusing to acknowledge the absurdity of its timing.

  "You could use that mist to obscure yourself," she added. "Condense it around your lower body, hide what seems to embarrass you. Though it is strange, how it happens against your will like that."

  Cade stared at her.

  That was... actually brilliant.

  He got to work immediately, experimenting with the mist generation, trying to create a localized cloud that would hang around his waist and hips. The first few attempts were disasters—too thin to obscure anything, or too thick to move through, or dissipating the moment he stopped actively maintaining it.

  But gradually, he found the right balance. A ring of dense fog, concentrated around his lower body, flowing like a bell-shaped skirt from some Renaissance painting. It moved with him, obscured everything below his navel, and—most importantly—didn't require constant focused attention to maintain.

  It did, however, require energy.

  After maybe ten minutes of practice, Cade felt the drain. His tier-four body had reserves, but the mist was slowly depleting them. Hunger gnawed at his stomach—real hunger, not the background appetite he'd grown used to.

  The labyrinth responded.

  Green fruits bubbled up from the floor around him, the same bland sustenance it had provided before. Cade grabbed one and ate it quickly, feeling the energy flow back into his reserves.

  "Can I practice this?" he asked Zyrian. "Build up endurance? Or is it always going to drain me like this?"

  "Both." Zyrian settled into a seated position nearby, his expression thoughtful. "Practice refines efficiency—you'll learn to do more with less, to maintain effects without wasting energy. But raw power comes from cultivation. Higher tiers fuel stronger abilities, provide larger reserves to draw from. It's always a balance between skill and strength."

  Cade nodded, filing that away. More practice, more advancement. The usual formula.

  "Cade."

  Rhys's voice had shifted. Something in her tone was different—more serious, more deliberate. When he turned to look at her, he found her watching him with an expression he couldn't quite read.

  "I've been thinking about your... recurring issue."

  The mist around his waist flickered as his concentration wavered.

  "My tier-four advancement unlocked additional memories," Rhys continued. "Every life I've died at tier-four or below, across millennia of existence. Some of those memories are relevant to your situation."

  "Relevant how?"

  Rhys moved closer, her silver form approaching with the careful grace of someone who'd lived long enough to learn patience.

  "Size differences between Kindred can be problematic for traditional coupling," she said. "As you might imagine. Two lovers might share centuries together, only for one to die unexpectedly and respawn as a four-inch tier-zero. Suddenly they're anatomically incompatible—and possibly missing memories, depending on how many lives they shared relative to deaths."

  Cade wasn't sure where this was going, but his body apparently had ideas. The mist around his waist thickened as he fought to maintain concentration.

  "There's a method we use in such situations," Rhys continued. "Not quite as... complete as traditional coupling, but it provides similar pleasure. And the same outcome, if that's desired." She paused. "Perhaps this method could give you the release you seem to crave, without being as invasive as you might imagine."

  Cade's throat felt dry.

  "How would that work?"

  "It's rather simple. Physical contact—any physical contact—allows anima to flow between partners. Once that connection is established, one partner can stimulate themselves to climax." Rhys's tone was clinical, educational. "When one person climaxes, both partners experience it together through the anima bond. The release is shared."

  She studied him with those ancient eyes.

  "I'm curious whether this would sate your craving, or whether that's simply your persistent state now. The drive seems to intensify with each advancement. That's... unusual."

  Unusual. Such a mild word for the horror of what was happening to his body.

  "What kind of physical contact?" Cade asked, his voice rougher than he intended.

  "Really, any kind. I could touch one finger to your back, if you'd prefer. We could face away from each other—I understand you value privacy for this sort of thing." A slight smile. "You'd simply need to focus on the anima flow while you're... attending to yourself. That might not come naturally at first."

  Cade considered.

  The offer was strange. Everything about it was strange—the casual discussion of sexual mechanics, the clinical approach to something so intimate, the tiny silver woman proposing to help him achieve orgasm through mystical finger contact.

  But he was desperate.

  The drive clawing at him was unbearable. It had been building since his first advancement, intensifying with each tier-up, and now at tier-four it was a constant screaming demand that made concentration difficult and clear thinking nearly impossible.

  If this worked—if he could finally find release—maybe he could think straight again.

  "Fine," he said. "But we face away from each other. And it's just one finger on my back. Nothing more."

  "Agreed."

  Cade moved to the edge of the green zone, settling into a seated position—one leg bent in front of him, one extended to the side. He faced away from Rhys and Zyrian, toward the corridor wall, his mist skirt dissipating as he let his concentration shift.

  Small footsteps approached behind him. Then a single point of pressure against his back—Rhys's finger, touching the center of his spine.

  He glanced back.

  Zyrian was watching with undisguised interest, his rust-red form positioned for a clear view.

  "Look away," Cade said.

  "Nope." Zyrian smiled. "Not missing this. For science."

  Cade sighed heavily.

  He scooted toward the corner of the break zone, positioning himself so that the only things in front of him were the corridor wall and the space outside the green area. No angle for Zyrian to exploit without getting inappropriately close. He also started projecting the mist from himself, obscuring the view between him and Zyrian.

  "Better," he muttered.

  Now came the hard part.

  Rhys was pushing her anima toward him—he could feel it, a gentle pressure against his back, seeking entry. But he couldn't seem to connect with it. The sensation was too diffuse, too hard to locate.

  "I'm having trouble," he admitted. "I can feel you pushing, but I can't... grasp it."

  "The back has fewer nerves," Rhys observed. "Try focusing on the point of contact. Push your anima outward to meet mine."

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  She shifted her hand, cupping his left shoulder instead of touching his spine. The contact was more substantial now, easier to locate.

  Cade focused.

  He pushed his anima toward the point of contact, trying to create a stream that would meet Rhys's incoming flow. It was like trying to thread a needle with his mind—the energies kept sliding past each other, failing to connect.

  But gradually, with patience, he found the alignment.

  The connection clicked into place.

  It felt... really good. Not directly sexual, but it definitely was amping him up even more. Like an intimate massage reaching muscles he hadn't known were tense. Energy flowing between them, circulating, creating something larger than either individual stream.

  "You feel that?" Rhys asked.

  "Yes."

  "Good. Now—" She paused. "You agree that I take the feminine role here? In this coupling?"

  Cade frowned, confused by the formality. "Sure. I definitely don't want it any other way. Though I don't see why it matters, with just your hand on my shoulder."

  "It matters." Her voice carried weight. "Proceed whenever you are ready?"

  Something in her tone made him hesitate—a hint of anticipation that seemed out of proportion to the clinical arrangement they'd agreed upon. But the urges were overwhelming any capacity for careful analysis.

  He turned his attention downward.

  His hand found himself, and the sensation was electric. After days—weeks—of denied release, after the failed attempt in the water, after the mounting pressure of each advancement, the simple act of touching himself sent pleasure radiating through his entire body.

  He climaxed almost immediately.

  The orgasm was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. Not just intense—impossibly intense, a full-body convulsion of pleasure that seemed to originate from his core and radiate outward in waves. His seed spilled out across the stone floor ahead of him, more than he'd ever produced, more than seemed physically possible— and the mist dissipated, his focus on it completely diverted.

  And it kept coming.

  Jet after jet, the orgasm sustaining itself far longer than any he'd had on Earth. Thirty seconds. Forty-five. A full minute of continuous release, his body emptying itself of whatever had been building since he arrived in this world.

  Somewhere behind him, someone was moaning.

  He couldn't focus on it. Couldn't process anything beyond the overwhelming sensation consuming him. The anima connection had broken at some point—he felt Rhys's hand slip from his shoulder—but the orgasm continued regardless.

  When it finally ended, Cade sat there gasping, staring at the truly absurd quantity of fluid he'd deposited on the corridor floor. At least a cup of it. Maybe more.

  What the fuck was that?

  He turned around.

  Rhys was on the floor, writhing, her tail extended and twitching, her face split by a wide smile of obvious pleasure. Her body arched and twisted, small sounds escaping her throat, clearly experiencing her own extended climax triggered by their connection.

  Zyrian stood over her, watching with eager fascination.

  "Is she okay?" Cade asked, alarmed.

  "More than okay," Zyrian said without looking away. "Just... experiencing the aftermath. Her body has more work to do in the feminine side, especially given you didn’t directly contribute."

  Rhys's writhing continued—longer than Cade's own climax had lasted. Two minutes. Three. Her body curved and spasmed, the pleasure apparently refusing to end.

  Then something else began.

  Cade's eyes went to her lower body—larger now at two and a half feet, the details impossible to ignore. He saw what he'd been avoiding looking at since they met: the penis, yes, but also a well-formed vagina beneath the testicles. No other opening. Just those two configurations of flesh, both present, both functional.

  Something was emerging from the vagina.

  Blue and gray, rounded, glistening with moisture. It pushed outward slowly, Rhys's body convulsing with each increment of progress. The orgasm seemed to intensify as the object emerged, her vocalizations shifting from pleasure to something approaching ecstasy.

  The object dropped free.

  An egg.

  It was the slightly larger than a chicken egg, its shell swirled with blue and gray patterns that reminded Cade uncomfortably of his own coloring. It lay on the green floor between Rhys's legs, wet and warm and very much real.

  "What the fuck?"

  The words exploded out of him before he could stop them.

  Zyrian moved immediately, dropping to his knees beside the egg. His finger jabbed into the top, cracking the shell, and he scooped out a handful of blue-grey yolk. The substance went directly into his mouth.

  Pure joy spread across his face.

  "What—how—why—"

  Cade's brain couldn't form complete sentences. Couldn't process what he was seeing. The woman he'd just had some kind of mystical orgasm connection with had laid an egg, and his traveling companion was eating it raw, and none of this made any sense.

  Rhys was still experiencing aftershocks, her body twitching with residual pleasure, that blissful smile refusing to fade. Her penis and testicles were visibly smaller than they'd been before—not gone, but diminished, as if producing the egg had consumed some of their mass.

  "Eggs," Zyrian said between mouthfuls, "are the best-tasting thing in this world. Some of them, at higher tiers, can be better than an orgasm. Different, but comparable." He scooped out more yolk. "We were curious what kind of egg you could help produce, given your... uniqueness."

  He glanced at Rhys, still lost in pleasure.

  "I've never seen a tier-four orgasm this intense, though. Almost makes me tempted to try you out myself."

  Cade recoiled.

  The urges were gone. Completely, blessedly gone—his body finally sated after weeks of mounting desperation. And with the clarity came horror at what he'd just done, confusion at the outcome, and absolutely no interest in repeating the experience with Zyrian.

  "I'm—no. That's not—no."

  Zyrian shrugged, unbothered by the rejection, and returned his attention to the egg.

  Rhys stirred, finally coming down from whatever plateau she'd been riding. Her eyes opened, focusing on Cade with an expression of genuine gratitude.

  "That was..." She took a breath, steadying herself. "That was remarkable. Thank you."

  "You didn't tell me about the egg."

  "I didn't know there would be one. Not for certain." She pushed herself up to a seated position, wincing slightly. "All Kindred are born functional for either gender, but our physiques carry forward between lives. How we choose to act impacts our anatomy over time." She touched her diminished genitals with something like satisfaction. "You've helped me progress toward what I'm meant to be."

  Cade stared at her.

  "Why didn't you have Zyrian help you? Wouldn't that have been easier?"

  "Many reasons." Rhys began cleaning herself, her movements practical rather than self-conscious. "There hasn't been time. We aren't particularly attracted to each other. We're together out of shared curiosity about you, not romantic connection. Though it was tempting sometimes, just so you would stop looking at me with such disgust."

  Cade flinched.

  He hadn't realized his discomfort was so obvious. And he hadn't meant it as disgust—not of her, not of who she was. The size difference just felt wrong to him. The idea of being sexual with someone barely two feet tall made his skin crawl regardless of their gender presentation.

  But he couldn't explain that without making things worse.

  "Here."

  Zyrian held out the egg—half-eaten now, the shell cracked and dripping. Rhys snatched it from him before Cade could respond, scooped out a handful of yolk, and extended her palm toward him.

  "Try it."

  Cade took the offered substance. It was warm in his hand, the texture somewhere between custard and raw egg yolk. He looked at it, looked at where it had come from, and felt his stomach turn.

  But Rhys and Zyrian were both watching expectantly.

  He took a bite.

  The flavor hit him like a wave.

  Rich. Moist. Cool. Complex in ways he couldn't begin to describe. Like the best cake he'd ever eaten, combined with the satisfaction of a perfect meal, elevated to something almost transcendent. His body responded before his mind caught up—he was chewing, swallowing, savoring, wanting more.

  "Good, right?" Zyrian was grinning.

  "That's..." Cade swallowed. "That's incredible."

  "I think the richness comes from your essences," Zyrian mused, watching Rhys scoop out the remaining yolk for herself. "Water and Oath, combined with whatever Rhys brings to the mixture. Eggs reflect the combined nature of both partners, though flavor is heavily influenced by essence types and Rhys has none yet."

  He eyed Cade's larger frame with obvious calculation.

  "I kind of wish you had taken the feminine role. The egg may have been much larger, given your size. We could have enjoyed so much more. Those flavors, and you were only indirectly involved. It could be so much better."

  Cade felt his face heat. "That's not—I don't—"

  "Relax. Just an observation." Zyrian turned away, "Though if you ever change your mind, the offer stands."

  Cade had never been less likely to change his mind about anything. The idea that his body was capable of such a thing—that somewhere inside him were the biological mechanisms to produce an egg if the right conditions were met—made his skin crawl. He'd accepted a lot of strangeness since arriving in this world. Respawning. Essence types. Mystical orgasm connections.

  But laying an egg was where he drew the line.

  "We should move on," he said, desperate to change the subject.

  Zyrian licked his fingers clean of the remaining yolk, the gesture interrupting whatever response he'd been preparing. "One more thing first," he said between licks. "I think I saw you turn part of your body into water earlier. During your experimentation."

  Cade nodded warily. "My fingertip."

  "Good. That's transmutation—not your strongest affinity, but workable with practice." Zyrian finished cleaning his fingers and stood, his rust-red form suddenly all business. "You should learn to use it defensively. Transform the part of your body that's about to be hit, use the water to absorb and redirect the impact."

  "Is that possible?"

  "At higher tiers, water essence users can become nearly immune to physical attacks. Their bodies flow around weapons, reform after impacts, treat solid matter as an inconvenience rather than a threat." Zyrian moved toward the corridor wall, examining the stone. "You're not there yet. But you might be able to manage enough to reduce damage."

  He found a section of wall with loose stone and began breaking off chunks—fist-sized rocks that would hurt if they connected but probably wouldn't cause serious injury.

  "Let me throw these at you," he said, hefting a stone experimentally. "Focus on transforming the impact point into water just before contact. Then push back with the water, solidify it again. The goal is to cushion the blow."

  "You want to throw rocks at me."

  "For training purposes, yes."

  "And this will help?"

  "If you master it, you could save yourself considerable pain. Think about the fire people—their flames would pass through water with minimal damage. The beetles might have torn your cheek, but if that cheek had been water at the moment of contact..." Zyrian shrugged. "The octopuses and your toes might still have been problematic. Teeth and suction work differently than blunt force. But for most attacks? This technique could be invaluable."

  Cade considered.

  His body had taken a beating since entering the labyrinth. Burns, bites, amputations. Each advancement healed the damage, but that didn't make the experience of receiving it any more pleasant. If he could learn to reduce incoming harm...

  "Fine," he said. "Throw rocks at me."

  Zyrian's smile was entirely too eager.

  The first rock hit Cade square in the chest.

  He'd tried to transform. He really had. But the timing was wrong—he'd started the shift too late, and the stone connected with solid flesh rather than yielding water.

  "Ow."

  "Again," Zyrian said, already hefting another rock. "Faster this time. You need to anticipate the impact, not react to it."

  The second rock hit his shoulder. The third his stomach. The fourth his thigh.

  "You're not even trying," Zyrian observed.

  "I am trying. It's harder than it looks."

  "Then try harder."

  The fifth rock was aimed at his face. Cade flinched, throwing up his arms to block—

  And felt his forearm go soft.

  The stone passed through a section of suddenly liquid flesh, momentum absorbed by the yielding water, then pushed back as Cade instinctively solidified the area. The rock bounced away with significantly less force than it had arrived with.

  "Better," Zyrian said. "Again."

  They practiced for what felt like an hour, focusing on the torso and limbs. Cade's progress was slow but measurable. The transformation became easier to trigger—not automatic, not reliable, but accessible.

  "Now let's try something more precise," Zyrian said, picking up a smaller stone. "Your hands. Turn your palm and fingers into water and let the rock pass through completely."

  "Pass through?"

  "If you can master this, you can catch weapons mid-strike. Let a blade or spear enter your hand, then solidify around it. Trap it. Disarm your opponent without taking damage."

  Cade extended his hand, palm facing Zyrian. "Okay. Throw it."

  The stone came fast. Cade focused on his palm, tried to trigger the transformation—

  The rock smacked into solid flesh and bounced off.

  "Ow. That's a lot of nerves in the hand."

  "Again."

  The second attempt was better. His palm went soft, but his fingers stayed solid, and the rock caught awkwardly between the two states.

  "You're thinking of your hand as one unit," Zyrian observed. "It's not. Palm, fingers, each knuckle—they can all transform independently. Try again."

  Cade focused on the individual components. Palm. Fingers. Each one a separate piece that could become water.

  The third rock passed cleanly through his liquid hand and out the other side, splashing into the wall behind him.

  "Good. Now the hard part—solidify the water around it mid-passage. Trap it."

  This took longer. The timing was brutal—transform to let the rock enter, then solidify fast enough to catch it before it exited. Cade failed a dozen times, the stones either bouncing off solid flesh or passing through completely.

  But eventually, he got it. A rock entered his liquid palm, and he clamped down, the water hardening around the stone, holding it suspended in the center of his hand.

  "Excellent," Zyrian said, genuine approval in his voice. "Now imagine that's a spear aimed at your chest. You catch it, trap it, and suddenly your opponent is disarmed and you have a weapon."

  Cade extracted the rock from his re-solidified hand, turning the implications over in his mind. Defensive transmutation was one thing. But this—this was offensive. A way to turn an enemy's attack into his own advantage.

  "One more thing," Zyrian said. "Your tail."

  Cade blinked. "My tail?"

  "You've been neglecting it in combat, which we discussed. But for this technique, it might actually be your strongest option." Zyrian gestured for Cade to extend the appendage. "Try transforming it to water."

  Cade let his tail unfurl from its resting position along his spine. He focused on it, tried to trigger the same transformation he'd been practicing with his hands and torso—

  The tail went liquid almost instantly.

  The ease of it startled him. His chest had been difficult. His arms, challenging. His hands, precise and demanding. But the tail just... shifted. One moment solid flesh, the next a rope of suspended water, still connected to his body but flowing and yielding.

  "Interesting," Zyrian murmured, circling to examine the liquid appendage. "Much faster than your other transformations."

  "It feels different," Cade said, experimentally rippling the water-tail. "Less resistance. Like it wants to change."

  Maybe because I have less history with it, he thought. His arms, his hands, his chest—he'd spent twenty-six years on Earth thinking of those as solid. Immutable. Flesh and bone that followed predictable rules. But the tail was new. Barely a month old. His mind hadn't built up decades of assumptions about what it should be, how it should behave, what it could and couldn't do.

  The rest of his body carried Earth's expectations. The tail was purely this world.

  "Try catching a rock with it," Zyrian said, already reaching for another stone.

  The throw came fast. Cade whipped his water-tail toward it, let the stone enter the liquid mass, and solidified.

  The rock stopped dead, trapped in the middle of his tail.

  "First try," Zyrian said, something like respect in his voice. "That's... impressive."

  Cade extracted the stone and let his tail return to its solid state. The appendage settled back along his spine, but he was acutely aware of it now in a way he hadn't been before. Not just a climbing aid or exercise tool. A weapon. A shield. Something that could flow and harden and catch attacks that would cripple his other limbs.

  "Practice with all of them," Zyrian advised. "The tail is easiest, but you can't always position it where you need it. Sometimes you'll have to catch a blade with your palm or absorb an impact with your chest. Versatility matters."

  They continued for another hour, alternating between different body parts, different attack angles, different timing challenges. Cade's progress was uneven—the tail remained his most reliable transformation, with hands second and torso a distant third—but he was improving across the board.

  The water form wasn't complete. He couldn't turn his entire body liquid—not yet, maybe not ever at this tier. But he could soften specific areas, create pockets of yielding flesh that absorbed blows and pushed back. And he could catch projectiles, trap weapons, turn attacks into opportunities.

  "You're getting it," Zyrian said, lowering his arm after maybe the hundredth throw. "Not perfect, but functional. With practice, you might be able to do this reflexively."

  "How long does that take?"

  "Depends on the person. Some essence users master defensive transmutation in weeks. Others take years." Zyrian shrugged. "You seem to learn quickly. Perhaps another benefit of your... unusual nature."

  Cade rubbed his chest, where the first few impacts had left dull aches. The later throws had been easier—not because Zyrian was going softer, but because Cade was getting better.

  Small victories.

  Green fruits bubbled up from the floor around them—the labyrinth responding to their extended stay, providing sustenance for their efforts. Cade grabbed one and bit into it, the bland taste barely registering after the transcendent experience of the egg.

  "Speaking of food," Zyrian said, eyeing the green fruits with obvious disappointment, "we could have another egg to spice up the meal. If someone were willing to—"

  "We're moving on," Cade said firmly.

  "The technique could use more refinement. Another few hours of practice would—"

  "We're moving on."

  "But the egg—"

  "Zyrian."

  Rhys, who had been watching the training session with patient disinterest, stirred from her meditative pose. "He's right. We've rested long enough. It's better to find the end of the corridor and finish this place to unlock the exit before we spend so much time idle."

  Zyrian sighed, the sound carrying genuine regret. "Fine. But if we find another break zone, I'm requesting a second coupling. That egg was extraordinary."

  "Noted and ignored," Cade said.

  He moved toward the edge of the green zone, his mist-skirt reforming around his waist. The safe area had been generous—time to recover, time to advance, time to discover things about his new body that he'd rather not have discovered. But it couldn't last forever.

  Nothing in this world seemed to last forever.

  Cade took the first step beyond the green boundary.

  The change was instantaneous.

  The green band vanished—not fading, not receding, just gone, as if it had never existed. The floor beneath where they'd rested was the same silver stone as the rest of the corridor, unmarked by any sign of the sanctuary they'd just left.

  And from somewhere behind them, around the bends they'd traveled, the grinding resumed.

  Not ramping up. Not building from silence to sound. Just there, suddenly present, as loud and immediate as it had been before the break. The corridor was still being consumed, still rolling up toward them.

  "Back to running," Rhys said, already moving.

  They ran.