Kael Wildborn stood on the treehouse deck and stared at Voidspire's black peak. He wanted that summit. No mortal had ever ruled it, and he meant to be the first. But the mountain was a stranger to him. He had never climbed its lower slopes. He had no map, no path, no way past the tangled forests at its feet. He knew the goal. He did not know the first step. Walnut climbed the rope ladder in his little silver boots. He carried two bowls of fruit and smiled that easy smile. "You've been up here since dawn," he said. "You forgot to eat." Kael took a bowl but did not eat. Walnut was his protege, the boy he had trained since he was small. He was also the person Kael most wanted beside him now. That made the next words harder. "I'm leaving," Kael said. "For the peak." Walnut set his bowl down. His grey eyes went bright and fierce. "Then I'm going too." "No." Kael took his shoulder. "Someone has to lead the village. You know these people. They trust you. If I take you, who feeds them? Who settles their fights? The treehouse falls apart." "You always said we do the hard things together." Walnut's voice cracked. "Now you leave me behind at a house." Kael pulled him close. "Running a village is the hard thing. Any fool can climb a rock. Only you can hold this home for me." Walnut pressed his face to Kael's chest. He was quiet a long moment. Then he stepped back and wiped his eyes. "Fine. But you can't even find the mountain path. You'll wander in circles and die." He was right. Kael had no route. That was the whole problem. A low rumble came from below the branches. Green scales caught the light. A dragon rose on slow wings and landed on the deck, claws gripping the wood. Its luminous eyes fixed on Kael. Walnut grinned through his tears. "I sent for him last night," Walnut said. "I knew you'd try to leave me. So I found you something better than me. He was born on those slopes. He knows every path through the lower forests." The dragon dipped his head. "The boy is clever," he said. "I can guide you past the roots of Voidspire. Beyond that, no creature has gone. Beyond that, you climb alone." Kael looked at the beast, then at Walnut. His route to the mountain stood before him at last. His guide had come. His path was found. He clasped Walnut's hand hard. "Hold the home. I'll come back a king." Walnut nodded, jaw tight. "You'd better." Kael climbed onto the dragon's back. The wings spread wide. The treehouse dropped away below them. Ahead, the black peak waited, and now a road led toward it. The wandering was over. The climb had begun.

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.

Kael's fingers dug into the rock. The ledge crumbled where the flowers had been, and his grip slipped one knuckle at a time. Below him the drop fell away into gray air. He pressed his cheek to the stone and breathed. His feet had a crack. His hands had almost nothing. He would not last long. He searched the wall for a new hold. Nothing. The wind pushed at his back like a hand trying to peel him off. His right hand slid. He caught himself, but he felt the last of his strength drain into the cold. Then he heard beating wings. Not the dragon that had left him. Something smaller, quicker. He turned his head and saw a young rider cut over the ridge on a strange beast. The creature had a horn like a spear and scaled wings. On its back sat Walnut, dark hair whipping, silver boots braced hard in the stirrups. Kael's grip failed. He dropped. He fell only a breath before something caught his wrist. Walnut had swung low and seized him. The boy's arm shook with the weight, but he did not let go. The winged mount held steady beneath him. "Pull," Walnut said. One word. He hauled, and Kael got a knee onto the beast's flank, then rolled up behind him. The creature climbed away from the cliff and hung in the wind. Kael gripped the boy's shoulder. "I told you to stay. You have a village to lead." "The village can wait," Walnut said. He did not turn around. "You couldn't." Kael looked at the mount under them. Its scales shifted color as it breathed. "Another dragon?" "No. It goes where dragons can't." Walnut steered it along the cliff face, past the dead flowers, past the high stone. "I felt the wraith turn on you. Same way I feel a current. So I came." Kael said nothing for a moment. He had left this boy behind to keep him safe. Now the boy had his hand on the reins, and Kael was the one who had needed saving. The mount carried them upward. The ledge that had trapped Kael fell away below. Ahead the peak rose sharp against the sky, and Kael saw, faint on the summit, the shape of a throne and a serpent coiled at its base. "She's up there," Kael said. "The witch. The throne is already hers." "Then we take it back," Walnut said. Kael's arm tightened around the boy. He had wanted to climb this mountain alone. That plan was dead on the ledge behind them. He had a mount now that ignored the mountain's rules, and a rider who would not obey him. The cliff no longer held him. The witch did not know he was coming with wings of his own.