Kael Wildborn's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The dragon set Kael down where the forest thinned and the rock began. Above them, the higher slopes rose gray and broken. Wind screamed off the ledges. The dragon folded his wings and did not step forward. "This is my end," he said. "The lower paths I know. The high stone belongs to another. I cannot carry you past here." Kael looked up the cliffs. His guide had brought him to a wall he could not cross alone. He searched for a route anyway. A ledge cut sideways along the slope. He tested it with one foot. Loose stone slid and fell a long way before it struck. He needed a handhold, a rope, anything. Then he saw the flowers. A cluster of giant pink sunflowers grew from a crack in the rock. Their green stems curled outward like arms, and small hands wiggled at the ends. One arm reached toward Kael and waved. He stepped closer. The stems were thick and strong. If they gripped his wrist, they could hold his weight along the ledge. Kael reached for the nearest arm. The flowers went still. The pink petals darkened. Cold poured down the slope, and the light bled out of the air. A serpent slid over the ridge above. It was huge, its scales black and green. On its back sat a figure of bone in a hooded cloak. Her skull tilted as she looked down at him. Behind her drifted a second shape, a hooded thing of pure black, its eyes glowing like blue fire in an empty face. "Turn back," the skeleton witch said. Her voice was flat and hard. "The summit is mine. I have said so. No one else climbs." "I mean to rule that throne," Kael said. "Many meant to." She lifted one bone hand. "They stayed on the mountain." The void-eyed wraith glided down the rock toward the flowers. Where its shadow touched the stems, the arms curled up and shriveled. The hands stopped moving. The pink turned to ash. Kael's handhold, his only path along the ledge, crumbled to nothing before he could grip it. He lunged and caught one dying stem. It snapped in his fist. He slid, struck the ledge, and clawed at bare rock. His feet found a crack and held. He looked up, chest heaving. The witch watched him hang there. "You climb well," she said. "It will not matter." The serpent turned. She rode back over the ridge, and the wraith followed, and the cold went with them. Kael pulled himself onto the ledge and lay still. The dragon called from below, but could not reach him. His guide was gone. The flowers that would have carried him were dead. And now he knew the truth the mountain had hidden. Someone already claimed the summit, and she had sent that thing to stop him. He was alone on the high stone, and he was not alone at all.