You have entered a fated path!

  David walked the narrow path in the darkness. It stretched into infinity, illuminated by motes of light. The lights moved like dust caught in a vacuum. They glowed a strange shade of blue. Beautiful and eerie. He stayed the course, knowing it would take him to the Eternal.

  Gis was gone. Or rather, Vith masquerading as Gis. She vanished moments after he crossed Olam’s gateway. And the silence in his head was a whip to his mind. He wanted them to accuse him, chide him or yell—anything to distract him from the guilt scraping at his insides like hot steel shards.

  Mercifully, a voice came. “You can continue that path to an easy life, Lord Ruler,” Ola said. And David knew it was a sincere invitation. Not even a temptation. Perhaps that was why anger bubbled up his throat, lacing his response with venom.

  “Is this what you do, old man?” David growled. “That was the same test as before. You hang my hopes before me like some cruel entity playing with its toy?”

  “That was no temptation, Lord Ruler,” Olam responded. David turned left, where he heard the voice. Only darkness met his prying eyes. He sensed no one else walking with him either.

  “Then what would you call that? Mercy?” David scoffed. “You want to pretend you are better, kind. But you are not.”

  Careful, David, Ignis warned. David blocked the dragon. He felt thrilled by it. It was like muting an itch or forgetting a flaw. He pushed the fragments away. And in doing so, he felt the push of something else. A wall of consciousness he hadn’t felt for a long time. But even those vanished under his unrelenting force.

  And he was alone again, in body and mind.

  “No,” Olam finally responded. “It was a gift. As this is a gift, if you choose it. Say you do, and you will meet the life you want at the end of that path. There are no traps, no tricks. You wish for an easy life, Lord Ruler. Away from the weight of duty. I have put it before you.”

  David hesitated. And in that moment, his guilt grew two-fold. He whispered a curse. At Olam and at himself.

  “You still fight the same battle as the last time,” Olam said. The eternal’s voice flowed out of everywhere. It filled the darkness and then stretched along the path, following David on either side.

  And suddenly, the old man was there. Walking with him. Except, this time, he was different. David grunted, pulling away from him. He stepped off the path, and it widened to accommodate his mistake.

  “Stay the path, Lord Ruler,” Olam said, smiling. David glared at him. Motes of light gathered about him, his tall, bent frame. They lit him up, made him seem more than he was a moment ago.

  His skin was washed blue, wrinkled but celestial. His bald head shone, and his robes glowed. Long, thin fingers wrapped around what looked like an old, magic staff. Except David felt no essence from it.

  Nor from the Eternal.

  “You do not hate me,” Olam said, looking sideways at David. “You hate yourself for what you dare to wish for. It is the human in you.”

  “You mean your temptation,” David said, still glaring at the old man. Olam chuckled, shaking his head.

  “My gift is only a manifestation of your wishes, Lord Ruler. And you must not hate yourself for it. In a moment of hardship, it is easy to be strong. But at the tease of relief, even the bravest unravel. This weakness is not unique to you. Or your race.”

  Olam’s eyes were calm, but they seemed to hold the depth of oceans. He walked with David in silence for a long moment, then finally spoke again.

  “What will it be, Lord Ruler? You have seen the way to respite. You have seen what lies at the end of surrender. Will you give this up?”

  David clenched his fists, his chest heavy with the weight of guilt and heat from Jezril’s hell still fresh in his memory. He looked forward at the dark road stretching into infinity, lit only by the faint specks of blue. They drifted like pieces of fallen stars in a void.

  “There is no other choice, Olam,” David said at last, his voice hard. “We have to conquer the towers.”

  The words tasted bitter as they fell off his mouth. His lips twisted as he said them. Not because they were not genuine, but because part of him still wanted the easy way out. And he hated himself for it.

  Olam studied him quietly. There was no judgment in his face, but something else. A softness David didn’t expect. Sadness.

  Pity, Ignis hissed. The dragon sounded angry. David ignored it.

  “Do not look at me like that, old man.”

  The Eternal only sighed, the sound carrying as much weight as David carried. Then he saw that the endless stretch of the path had shifted. What was once a stretch of infinity had been cut off not far from them. A single door stood there, framed by nothing. A plain slab of wood in standing in the void.

  David drew in a sharp breath. “Another trick?”

  “No trick,” Olam said. He leaned on his staff. “This is your door. And if you cross it, Lord Ruler, then know this—there will be no second offering. No hand to lift the burden from you again. You will have chosen the Tower above all else, and I will never ask you this question again.”

  David’s hand trembled at his side. He balled it into a fist before Olam could see. “Good. I don’t want you to.”

  He strode forward. The motes parted as he went, scattering like frightened sparks before his steps. He reached the threshold of the door, its light spilling across his skin, warm but sharp. He looked once over his shoulder. Olam was still watching, still wearing that quiet sadness like a cloak.

  “Don’t pity me,” David said, his voice harsh. “I don’t need it.”

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  And then, without hesitation, he crossed, stumbling forward.

  You have been granted the protection of the Eternal of Passage!

  You have been blessed with the warmth of Olam’s hearth!

  Welcome!

  The door shut behind him with the weight of finality, like a vault sealing shut. The path was gone. The void was gone. Instead, he stood in a room so ordinary it jarred him. Smooth stone walls. A low ceiling. A hearth alive with orange flames, licking warmly at a bed of logs. The smell of burning pine filled the air, rich and comforting.

  At the center, a table. Plain oak, scarred with use. No ornamentation, no sigils, no weight of magic. Just a table.

  And Olam was already there, seated at the top end. He rested his staff across his knees and folded his hands together, watching David with those ocean-deep eyes.

  A chair shimmered into being on Olam’s left. It scraped against the floor as if it had always been there. Olam gestured with one long hand. “Sit.”

  David hesitated, his instincts screaming caution. But he stepped forward anyway. The chair was surprisingly soft, its legs creaking faintly as he settled into it. The fire crackled. The warmth pressed against his skin, peeling away the chill of the void.

  The silence stretched. David opened his mouth, but Olam spoke first.

  “So,” the Eternal said. His voice carried no mockery, only quiet curiosity. “You want the path to Balek’s Tower’s core.”

  David froze. The words pierced him like a blade. He sat straighter, frowning. “How do you—”

  “Do not be shocked,” Olam said gently, almost amused. “It is not a secret to me. Few who walk the Towers truly desire anything else. Power, vengeance, release. The path to the core is always the heart of it. You are no different, Lord Ruler.”

  David scowled, shaking his head. “You make it sound like I’m just another pawn chasing the same thing everyone else does.”

  Olam tilted his head. His eyes gleamed in the firelight. “And are you not?”

  David’s jaw clenched. He wanted to deny it. To shout. To insist he was different—that his path was righteous, necessary. That he was no ordinary challenger clawing through worlds for selfish ends. But the words caught in his throat. Because some part of him knew the Eternal was right.

  David’s lips curled, a dozen retorts fighting to spill free, but instead he cut through Olam’s measured calm with a sudden question.

  “My siblings. My friends. Where are they? What are you doing to them?”

  For the first time, Olam chuckled. The sound was dry but not cruel, like leaves stirred by a faint breeze.

  “They are all walking their own paths, Lord Ruler. Just as you are. They have been given the gifts they wish for.”

  David’s pulse hammered. “Alone?

  Olam inclined his head. “Alone. Because this choice cannot be shared. You must each decide for yourselves. Would you impose your will on them, as you fear Balek would impose his on you?”

  David’s mouth opened, then shut. He wanted to say yes. He wanted to protect them. But Olam’s eyes bored into him, deep with meaning.

  “I…” He swallowed hard, then nodded.

  The Eternal’s faint smile returned. “So you see.”

  David sat back, his fists loosening on the table. A knot in his chest loosened too, though only slightly

  “Fine,” he muttered. “They’ll choose. But what about the core? You said you could show me the way to the core. Show me.”

  Olam tilted his head, studying him as if amused by his impatience.

  “I could,” he said. “But I won’t.”

  David shot upright in his chair. “What?”

  “Wait,” Olam said, lifting a long finger. His voice was gentle, but it carried the weight of a command. “And listen.”

  The fire popped in the hearth, sparks leaping against the stone. The warmth pressed heavier, almost suffocating.

  “We Eternals are impartial entities,” Olam continued. “We do not distinguish good from evil, nor light from shadow. Such values are fleeting, bound to the perspective of mortals and gods alike. We are older than that. We are not judges.”

  David frowned. “Then what are you?”

  “Servants. Witnesses,” Olam said softly. “We stand apart, but when beseeched, we answer. We do not cater to good or bad. We help where we are asked. We are obligated to all. As long as the request is reasonable, we must it.”

  David leaned forward, tension prickling under his skin. “What does that mean?”

  “It means, Lord Ruler, that before you came to my door…” Olam’s gaze flicked to the flames, as though the truth itself lived within the fire. “Balek came. He asked. And I—”

  David’s breath caught. “You what?”

  Olam’s staff rose from his knees. The wood was gnarled and old, yet when he extended it, power thrummed through the room, throbbing. He tapped the floor once. A ripple spread outward, bending reality like water disturbed by a stone.

  Beside the hearth, the stone wall shivered. It cracked, essence spilling off it. And from the fissure, a door tore into place. This was different from the one before. It creaked with the weight of the power behind it. David stared at it, willing whatever it was to stay there, hidden, even though he knew it wouldn’t.

  The aura that poured out as the door opened was suffocating, ominous, and familiar.

  “No…” David whispered.

  Balek stepped through, wearing a man’s flesh. The body was human, tall and broad, wrapped in a plain tunic that clung to muscle. The face, though—David’s heart lurched. He knew the man. The familiarity scraped at him.

  “David,” Balek said in a voice that was both the man’s and not. “Or would you prefer Lord Ruler?”

  David staggered back in his chair, fury and horror crashing together inside him. He turned on Olam. “You brought him here?”

  Olam did not flinch. He merely lowered his staff, letting it rest once more against his knees. His expression was unreadable, as though he were both present and far away. “He asked. I answered.”

  Another chair formed into existence to Olam’s right. Its wood was darker, heavier, carved for a god.

  Balek strode forward without hesitation, each step leaving a faint black smear across the stone floor that vanished a heartbeat later. He sat, settling into the chair with the ease of a king upon his throne. He leaned back, one arm draping casually over the rest, and grinned mockingly at David.

  David shook with rage and hatred, the kind he hadn’t experienced before.

  The devil itself, Ignis said.

  “No,” Aza said, chuckling. “Balek is much too young for that title. David, focus on what you came here for.”

  It took great effort for him to do that, but he finally pulled himself together and sat down again. But he didn’t take his eyes off the man. He couldn’t remember where he knew the body Balek had possessed, but he knew the tower god had done it to shake him up.

  “And he succeeded,” Vith mocked.

  “Shut up, Vith,” Aza hissed. For the first time, David sensed a genuine revulsion to Vith from the other fragment.

  Between them, Olam sat serenely, the fire crackling at his side.

  “Shall we begin?” Olam asked. David looked from Eternal to god, unsure of what was expected of him.