Pup barely reached the height of the tavern's bar stools. He climbed one anyway, sat, and let his boots dangle far above the floor. He came to the great dragon-skull tavern for one reason. Somewhere at the top of the Dragon's Spire waited a crown that could make a small man legendary and tall. Pup wanted it more than he wanted to admit. He wanted to stand eye to eye with the huge beastly men he loved, instead of shouting up at their chests. The trouble was simple. The Spire's climb killed men twice his size. Pup could not make it alone. He needed a guide, and no guide wanted the burden of someone so small. He had asked three already tonight. Each looked down, laughed, and turned away. His tiny head barely cleared the tankards on the bar. Pup slid a coin forward and tried again with the barkeep. "I need someone strong. Someone headed toward the mountain." The room quieted. Boots the size of shields crossed the floor behind him. Pup turned on his stool and looked up. A wolf man stood over him, three times his size, gray fur bristling at the shoulders. Bone charms hung across a chest broad as a door. His yellow eyes studied Pup without a trace of the mockery Pup expected. "You're the small one asking about the Spire," the wolf said. His voice rumbled low. "I'm Fenrir Ironpaw. I've made that climb twice." Pup braced for the laugh. It never came. Instead Fenrir leaned an elbow on the bar and looked at him steadily. "Why does a man your size want that mountain?" Fenrir asked. Pup did not flinch. "There's a crown at the top. It grows whoever wears it. I mean to wear it." He held the wolf's gaze. "I know I can't climb it alone. I'm asking you to carry the parts I can't do myself." Fenrir was silent a long moment. The other patrons watched. Pup's heart hammered, but he kept his chin high. "Most men lie about why they climb," Fenrir said. "You didn't." He set his tankard down. "The Spire eats the proud. It might still eat us both. You understand that?" "I understand," Pup said. Fenrir stuck out one massive hand. It could have swallowed Pup's whole arm. "Then we have a deal." Pup gripped two of the wolf's fingers and shook hard. The charms on Fenrir's chest clinked. A few patrons muttered; one raised a mug. Fenrir lifted Pup down from the stool and set him on his feet like he weighed nothing. "Come. The mountain's a long walk, and the first stretch is best done before dark." He pushed open the tavern door. Warm light spilled onto the road. Pup stepped through it beside the wolf, his short legs already working to keep pace. The crown was no longer a dream he whispered to strangers. It had a road now, and a guide walking it with him.

The road to the mountain ended at a waterfall. Two curtains of water parted around a glowing tunnel in the rock. Fenrir pointed a claw at the light. "That's the way through the Spire's base," he said. "The climb starts inside." Pup craned his neck up at the falls, then hurried after the wolf into the tunnel. Inside, blue gems glowed along the cavern walls. Pink and orange flowers grew between the crystals. Pup reached up to touch one. Then something moved in the dark ahead. A slime man rose from the floor. He was broad as a boulder and blue as deep water. A necklace of iron spikes ringed his thick neck. He fixed small angry eyes on Pup and charged, arms wide, faster than his bulk should allow. Fenrir stepped between them. He caught the slime man's charge with both arms and held. The two giants strained. The wolf's paws sank into the slime's chest but did not let go. "Back," Fenrir growled. "We're only passing through." The slime man shoved once more, then stopped. His arms dropped. Over Fenrir's shoulder, his eyes found Pup again. This time they widened. Pup ducked under Fenrir's elbow and held up both hands. "Nobody has to fight," he said. "We just want to climb the Spire. There's a crown at the top. I mean to wear it and grow tall." The slime man stared down at him. Pup barely reached his knee. Blue color rushed to the slime's cheeks. He looked away, then back, like he could not help it. "You," he said, in a heavy, rolling voice, "are very small." His scowl melted. "And very cute." Pup blinked. Fenrir lowered his arms slowly and watched. "I am Gorbov," the slime man said. He knelt to bring his huge face level with Pup's. "I guard this tunnel. Nobody I like has ever come through it." He pressed a heavy hand flat to his own chest. "I like you." "Then don't stop us," Pup said. "Help us instead." Gorbov's whole face brightened. "The upper path is cruel. Ice. Falling stone. You would slip and die at the third ledge." He looked at Pup's short legs and frowned with worry. "But I know every crack in this mountain. I will carry you past the worst of it." Fenrir studied the slime man, then gave a short nod. "Two of us is better than one for the high climb," he said. "If you can keep up." Gorbov stood. His bulk filled the tunnel. "I never tire," he said. He looked down at Pup and softened again. "And I have a reason to reach the top now." Pup felt heat in his own face. He turned toward the glowing passage before the giants could see it. "Then we go up," he said. Three of them started the climb. Behind Pup walked a wolf and a smitten slime, and ahead rose the dark throat of the Spire.

The path narrowed on the icy slope. Pup marched ahead of his two guides, chin high. Behind him walked Fenrir, the gray wolf man who had climbed the Spire twice and agreed to lead him up. Beside Fenrir came Gorbov, the blue slime who guarded the tunnel below and had joined the climb for reasons he kept blushing about. Pup did not hear the two giants murmur behind him. "Look how he holds his little head up," Gorbov whispered. His voice tried to be quiet and failed. "So brave. So handsome." Fenrir huffed a laugh through his snout. "He walks like a king twice his size." His yellow eyes stayed soft on the small man ahead. "Keep your voice down. He'll hear you." "Let him." Gorbov pressed a wide hand to his chest. "I would tell him myself if my mouth worked right." Pup stopped short. Ahead of his boots the ice broke open into a deep ravine. He could not see the bottom. Cold air rose from it. His short legs would never clear that gap. He turned back to the giants, and for once his proud face cracked with worry. "We can't go around," Fenrir said. He crouched at the edge and measured it with his eyes. "But we don't have to." Gorbov moved first. He backed up three steps, then ran and leapt. His huge blue body sailed over the ravine and landed hard on the far side. The ice cracked but held. He spread his thick arms wide and grinned at Pup across the gap. "Now you," he called. "I will catch you. I promise." Pup looked down into the dark ravine, then up at Gorbov's open arms. His stomach twisted. He was thirty years old and small, and he had trusted these two with everything else. He set his jaw and nodded. Fenrir knelt behind him. "Trust me," the wolf said. He wrapped both strong arms around Pup and lifted him off the ice. "On three." He counted low. Then he threw. Pup flew. Wind tore at his mohawk. The ravine passed beneath him in a blur of blue-white ice. Then Gorbov's arms closed around him, firm and cool, and stopped his flight cold. Gorbov held him a beat longer than he needed to. Blue color rushed into the slime man's cheeks. His small eyes went shy. "Got you," he said softly, close to Pup's tiny head. "Safe." "You can put me down now," Pup said. His own face burned. Gorbov set him gently on solid ice. Fenrir leapt the gap and landed beside them with a grunt. Pup stood on the far side and looked up the slope. Higher above them, the path turned to sheer black rock. Ice gave way to something worse. He had crossed the ravine, but the true climb had only just begun.

The sheer black rock ended at last. Pup climbed onto a flat ledge and saw the temple. Black obsidian rose above him, coated in ice, lit by golden fire. Fenrir and Gorbov came up behind, breathing hard. Two huge iron doors stood at the top, wet with frost. Fenrir set his paws on them. Gorbov pushed beside him. The doors groaned open. Inside, the crown waited on a pillar. It was black leather and bone, curled with pale ram horns. Pup's chest tightened. He had climbed all this way for that. Then he saw the king. The king filled the far end of the hall. He was enormous, gray-sand skin over huge shoulders, a white sheet pulled tight across his chest. Where his face should be there was only a black void, with purple-green tendrils hanging below it. Pup knew him. This was Dale, the guardian who had shown himself at the smithy and let Pup call him a man. Now a golden crown sat crooked on his sheeted head. Dale looked at Pup. Pup's cheeks went hot. The void tilted, and somehow Pup knew Dale was blushing too. "You climbed it," Dale said. He lifted the horned crown off its pillar with one huge hand. He held it out. "Take it. It makes you tall." Pup stepped closer. His tiny head barely reached the giant's belt. "I want to be a suitor," Dale said. Plain, flat, done. "With them." Gorbov made a wounded sound. Fenrir's ears flattened. Two men who had carried Pup up a mountain, and now a third stood in their way. Pup looked at all three giants. His hands shook, but his chin stayed high. "Then I have terms," he said. "Before I put on the crown, before I grow, I want one kiss. From each of you. Fenrir. Gorbov. And you." He pointed at Dale. "After that, I choose my true love." No one moved. Then Gorbov knelt first. He cupped Pup's small face in his cool blue hands and kissed his forehead, gentle, shaking. "I have wanted to since the ravine," he whispered. Fenrir came next. The wolf lowered his snout and pressed a rough, warm kiss to Pup's cheek. "You walk like a king," he said. "You should kiss like one." Dale bent last. The void came close. The tendrils brushed Pup's jaw, cool and soft. Where a mouth should be, Pup felt only a faint press, and a strange calm, like standing at a door between two worlds. Pup stepped back. Three giants watched him, and the horned crown sat in Dale's open palm. He had earned it. He had three men who wanted him. But he could not choose. Not yet. "I need to think," Pup said. His voice cracked. "All three of you. Give me the night." None of them argued. The crown stayed unworn. Pup was still small, and now he had a harder climb than any rock.

Morning came, and Pup still had no answer. He sat on the cold obsidian floor. Three giants waited by the walls of the frost temple. Fenrir, the wolf who had thrown him across the ravine. Gorbov, the blue slime who had caught him. Dale, the void-faced guardian who kept the door between the living and the dead. Each one watched Pup with quiet hope. Each one wanted to be his true love. Pup wanted all three, and that was the problem. "I can't pick," Pup said. His voice was small in the huge hall. "I climbed the whole mountain and I still can't pick." Gorbov's shoulders sank. Fenrir's ears fell flat. Dale said nothing, but his tendrils drooped low. Pup stood up. He looked at the horned crown on its pillar. Black leather, pale ram horns, waiting. It was made to make him tall. Big enough, maybe, to stop feeling so small next to men like these. He walked to the pillar. He lifted the crown with both hands. It was heavier than it looked. "Wait," Gorbov said. "You choose first. Then the crown." "No," Pup said. "I choose now." He set the crown on his head. Heat rushed through him. His bones stretched. His feet pushed against the floor and kept pushing. The pillar shrank below him. The walls dropped away. Gorbov backed up. Fenrir's head tipped up, then up more. Pup grew past the wolf's shoulders, past his eyes, past the top of his ears. He did not stop there. He grew past Dale, the tallest of the three. The void looked up at him now. Pup kept rising until his mohawk nearly brushed the temple ceiling. He was twice their size. The three giants stood below him like children. Pup looked down at his own huge hands. Then he looked at the three small men. He laughed, and the sound filled the whole hall. "I know now," Pup said. He knelt. His knees boomed on the stone. "I couldn't pick because I didn't have to. Look at me. There's plenty of me now. Enough for all three of you." Fenrir's tail began to wag. Gorbov's frown cracked into a grin. Dale stepped forward first. "You're sure," Dale said. Flat, plain. "I'm sure," Pup said. "All of you. If you'll have me." Gorbov climbed into Pup's palm. Fenrir pressed against his arm. Dale leaned into his chest. Pup wrapped all three men up together. They fit inside his arms with room to spare. They laughed, and Pup laughed with them. They lay down on the cold floor, tangled together, warm despite the frost. Pup rested his huge cheek against the pile of them. Four of them, breathing slow. They slept. Pup had his crown. He had his size. He had three men who loved him. This seemed to be the perfect ending

The four of them came down the mountain and reached the dragon-skull tavern by dusk. Warm lights hung under the great bone jaw. Pup ducked to fit through the door. Then he tried to sit and knocked over a table. His crown scraped the ceiling beams. Everyone stared. Pup looked down at himself and remembered the problem. His old black and blue armor was gone. It never would have fit his new frame anyway. He wore only a loincloth, and half the tavern was watching. "I need clothes," Pup said. His voice boomed off the walls. "Anything. A tent, maybe." Fenrir laughed and searched a merchant's crates by the door. Gorbov held up a wool blanket that looked like a napkin against Pup's chest. Dale said nothing but pulled a hanging banner off the wall and offered it. None of it was close to big enough. Pup crossed the room, hunched and grabbing at scraps, and bumped hard into a huge man near the bar. The man did not stumble. He was tall and broad, with a short horned skull for a head and a black and red leather jacket hanging open over a chest that was half muscle, half bare bone. Chains looped his red jeans. He looked at Pup without any face to read. "Sorry," Pup said. "I'm still learning this size." "Malachar," the man said. Short and plain. "You wear a crown. So do I, in a way. Mine I can't take off." He tapped the horned skull. "A curse. I have kids at home. I want them to see my face again." Pup softened. "That's a good reason to be looking for something." "You're the biggest thing I've seen in years," Malachar said. He stepped closer. "And you look like you'd rather be smaller." Before Pup could answer, Malachar reached up, pulled Pup down by the shoulders, and kissed him. It was slow and sure. Pup froze, then leaned in. Heat rushed through his bones, the same heat as the crown, but backward. His frame began to shrink. His shoulders drew in. His feet lifted off the floor as he shortened. Malachar held the kiss the whole way down, one hand behind Pup's head, until Pup stood at his normal height again. Thirty years old, mohawk, tiny head tipped back. The loincloth now hung loose on a small man. Malachar let go. "There. You fit your clothes now." He almost sounded sorry. Pup's three partners rushed over, huge and worried. Pup touched his own chest, small again, and felt the crown still snug on his head. It had not fallen off. "It's still working," Pup said, staring at his hands. "But his kiss undid it." He looked up at Malachar's skull. "The crown changes size. Maybe it can break curses too." Malachar went very still. "Say that again."