Cold pressed against him and slid under his wolf coat. The rock beneath him held the night’s chill. It bit through his trousers and into his knees as he knelt. Frost filmed the stone around him, melting where his palm rested.

  The lake below lay flat and gray. Mist drifted low across the surface. Wind came off the water in steady pulls and tugged at his hair.

  With his right hand Rem pushed the control sphere for his timeline up and slightly to the right.

  The line split two ways. Left rewound him. Right carried him forward. At center, the sphere locked him in place—no hunger, no thirst, no breath. No change.

  He flexed his fingers. They moved stiffly.

  That stasis had kept him alive through challenge four. It had also kept him weak. No strength gained. No speed gained.

  If he wanted the Body Foundation Pill to matter, his body had to move through time.

  Rook hopped across the rock, talons scraping stone. He tilted his head, black eyes sharp.

  “Leave soon?” he squawked. He’d asked to join the hike and hadn’t stopped pacing since.

  “Today. Later.” Rem planted his left hand on the etched line beside the sphere, holding it steady. With his other hand he lifted the pill bottle. A pebble-sized sphere clicked against the glass. Dull. Ordinary.

  He swallowed it dry.

  For a few breaths, nothing.

  Wind moved across the lake. A ripple crossed the surface and flattened. Water touched the shore below in slow strokes.

  “Hand on rock. Why?” Rook stepped closer, peering at the controls.

  Rem let his essence sense spread.

  The world tightened into detail. Grain in the stone. Hairline fractures under his palm. Cold currents moving over the lake. Then he turned inward.

  “Need my body to age if I’m going to get anything out of this pill, Rook.”

  A pulse rolled through his stomach. Warm. Deep. It pushed outward, slower than leveling. Thicker.

  “Now let me focus.”

  Inside, the pill broke apart. Its essence streamed toward the tangled mass between his heart and navel. The knot answered with a single throb. Tendrils drove outward.

  They followed the largest channels first. At each split they divided again. And again. Thinning. Spreading.

  His jaw tightened. His breath shortened without his consent.

  Heat moved with the essence. Not sharp. Heavy. It traveled through his ribs and down his spine.

  When a strand reached bone it did not turn aside. It pressed in. Slipped through. Spread. Sank deeper.

  Sweat gathered at his temples despite the wind. It ran past his ear and struck the stone.

  The last of the pill dissolved. Its essence fed the knot at his center, pushing more tendrils outward.

  Rib by rib, the strands took hold. His spine followed. Collarbone. Arms. Legs.

  Heat rose through marrow and joint.

  His teeth ground together. His fingers dug into the rock. Frost around his palm vanished, water threading through the cracks beneath his hand.

  His tendons tightened. His back bowed without meaning to. Breath stalled high in his chest.

  His body burned.

  The ring of pane had burned him before. That heat struck skin first. It drove him back from it.

  This heat began where he had no guard. It filled the roots of his teeth. It pressed behind his eyes. It spread outward from bone into muscle and skin. There was nowhere to pull away from.

  Essence packed into the lattice of his bones. It forced into every gap. Tightened. Compacted.

  Refining.

  Wind slid over him again, cold against sweat-soaked skin. Steam lifted from his shoulders and tore away.

  Heat climbed higher.

  He tore his heavy coat open and shrugged out of it, letting it fall beside him on the rock. The fabric hit stiff with frost. His left hand never left the line. Fingers locked around the control sphere. He did not let it drift.

  The warmth traveled up his spine. Vertebra by vertebra. Into his neck.

  His jaw locked. His vision wavered.

  The heat reached his skull and kept going.

  It filled the space behind his eyes.

  His ears rang.

  The lake blurred.

  His grip slipped.

  For a heartbeat he forced his fingers closed again around the sphere, knuckles whitening, breath breaking in his throat.

  Then the pressure crowded out thought.

  His fingers opened.

  His shoulder struck stone. His body tipped sideways and slid across the frost.

  The body foundation pill did little. That was his conclusion.

  Rem walked.

  Grass brushed his calves. The ground rose and dipped under his boots, soft in the low stretches, firmer where stone pushed up through the soil. Sun bore down on the back of his neck. Sweat gathered under his collar and tracked down his spine.

  Rook flew ahead at first, easy and loose. Tex cut across the sky above them, then vanished into the trees and returned again, restless.

  Rem flexed his fingers as he walked. He reached with his essence and let it settle. His bones held a faint brightness. Tendons too. A little denser. A little tighter.

  No change in strength. No shift in balance. His pack still pressed into his shoulders. The hill still took his breath.

  He stepped over a fallen trunk, bark breaking under his palm.

  They climbed higher. The trees thinned. Wind moved more freely across the slope.

  “Steel and glass that tower into the sky,” Rem replied, pushing through a low stand of branches. Leaves scraped his arms. “People live in them. Grow food in them. We build ships. Leave one planet. Build on others.”

  Rook and Tex dropped down ahead of him. They landed hard, claws ticking against stone.

  “Tex see. Want,” Tex said, hopping once toward Rem.

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  Rem snorted. “It’s not all that great.”

  He crested the ridge.

  The land opened wide. Grasslands rolled outward, green and thick. Yellow flowers scattered across the hills. Tall clusters of trees stood against the blue sky. No walls. No roads. Just wind and distance.

  He stood there a moment, breathing.

  “This is good for birds,” he said. “No predators. Food everywhere. On Earth you’d be in cages. Studied. Cut open.”

  Tex ruffled his feathers, then launched without warning. He rose fast, circled once, and flew off toward the far hills.

  Rook stayed.

  Rem started down the slope. Gravel shifted under his boots. He leaned back and picked his steps.

  Maybe. If he learned how to use it right. If he didn’t screw something up.

  “If here good,” Rook called from behind him, “why Rem go back?”

  Rem glanced over his shoulder.

  Rook wasn’t flying. He walked the slope, wings half-open for balance, claws scraping against stone as he kept pace with Rem’s knee.

  Rem let out a breath that broke into a laugh. It felt dry.

  He pictured staying. Sleeping under open sky. Waking with the sun. No screens. No messages waiting. Just wind and birds and the next hill.

  “On Earth,” he said, stepping around a thorn bush, “we do challenges to grow stronger. You remember wanting to live longer?”

  Rook hopped closer. Too close. His shoulder brushed Rem’s boot.

  “If you complete challenges there, you can extend your life.”

  Rook went quiet. No clicking. No chatter. Just walking.

  “This place is one of those challenges,” Rem continued. “Everyone comes here to grow. But once you’ve grown all you can, you have to leave to keep growing. I’ve stayed longer than most. I need to go back.”

  “Rem come back,” Tex’s voice drifted faintly from somewhere high and far off.

  “Yeah,” Rem said. “I come back.”

  Rook stopped walking.

  “Rem go,” he said.

  Rem stepped. Gravel slid under his boot.

  “Not come back,” Rook finished.

  His voice came out rough. He beat his wings once, hard. Dust lifted from the stone. He hopped in front of Rem and spread both wings wide, blocking the narrow path for a breath.

  Rem halted.

  Wind pressed against them both.

  “That’s true,” Rem said quietly. “One day I won’t.”

  Rook folded his wings slowly but didn’t move aside right away. He stared up at Rem’s face. His feathers lay tight against his body.

  They resumed walking.

  The forest disappeared behind them. Grass thinned to patches between white stone. Low hills rose ahead, bare and bright under the sun. The arches waited somewhere beyond them. A day. Maybe two.

  Tex did not return.

  Rook stayed at Rem’s side.

  After a while, he lifted into the air, circled once above Rem’s head, then dropped back down and landed beside him again.

  “What here,” Rook asked.

  Rem kept walking.

  “What here when not come back?”

  The wind pushed at his chest. Sweat cooled along his ribs. He could hear his breath. The scrape of boot on rock. The small tick of Rook’s claws keeping time beside him.

  When this challenge ended, the system would reclaim the essence. Everything gathered here would be pulled back under its control.

  Would the birds vanish?

  Would the hills empty?

  Would he ever be able to come back?

  He swallowed.

  “I don’t know, Rook.”

  Rook didn’t answer.

  He walked closer instead, so close his wing brushed Rem’s leg with each step.

  They moved that way for a long time.

  “I don’t know,” Rem said again.

  Two nights in the cold. He still felt it in his joints. He’d slept wrapped tight in his direwolf skin tent, breath trapped inside the fur, frost crusting along the seams by morning. He’d woken stiff, fingers numb, and climbed the last hill with his shoulders tight against the wind.

  Then he’d seen it.

  The arch stood alone on the platform.

  Up close, the stone was smooth, shaped with intent. A brow ridge. A narrow line where a mouth would be. The hollows where eyes should sit opened through to the empty air behind it. No carvings. No markings. Just the shape.

  Not a face with no eyes. A mask.

  Rem stepped forward. The stone under his boots felt colder than the ground below the hill, as if it held the night longer.

  He passed beneath it.

  Rook followed at once, talons striking the platform in quick, sharp clicks that echoed in the open space.

  The words filled Rem’s sight.

  You have discovered the entrance to a path. Walking a path requires adherence to an ideal or principle but often provides benefits. There are no limits to the number of paths you walk, but not all are compatible.

  You have discovered The Path of Styx.

  One who walks the Path of Styx cannot truthfully declare: I am honest.

  While upon the Path of Styx, you gain the skill Detect Deception.

  Detect DeceptionYou sense when another intends to deceive you. This sense sharpens as you progress along the path.

  Would you like to walk the Path of Styx?

  Rook exploded into motion.

  He snapped his wings wide, feathers cracking in the wind, then slammed them back against his sides. He hopped sideways, then forward, then struck the stone again with his claws.

  “What is?” he asked, voice sharp.

  “Not sure,” Rem said. He rubbed his thumb along his jaw, feeling the scrape of stubble. “It’s a path. Others must offer different ones.”

  Rook paced in a tight circle around his boots. His head jerked from side to side. He let out a low, rough sound in his throat, not quite a squawk, not quite a croak.

  Rem exhaled through his nose.

  That meant visiting each marker. Each hill. Each stretch of wind-scoured ground.

  “This one gives a skill to detect deception,” he said. “But requires you to be deceptive.”

  Rook barked out a short cry.

  “Seems odd,” Rem continued, squinting toward the next distant rise. “A path that demands dishonesty giving you the means to catch it.”

  Rook hopped closer and pecked once at the stone near Rem’s boot, then hopped back again, feathers ruffling in the steady wind.

  Rem crouched and pulled his journal from his satchel. The leather felt stiff from the cold. He braced the book against his thigh to keep the pages from flapping. The ink dragged slow across the page.

  Rook did not settle.

  He shifted from foot to foot. He snapped his wings half open, then shut. He leaned in close to the page, then jerked back, then turned his head up toward the sky as if expecting something to drop out of it.

  Rem finished the entry and slid the journal away. He flipped to his map and reviewed it.

  Detect Deception was good.

  Very good.

  But to dedicate himself to being dishonest. No. It wasn’t worth that.

  He folded the map.

  “What now?” Rook cawed.

  “Now we go to the next one,” Rem said. He stood, snapped his journal shut, and slung the satchel over his shoulder. “And the one after that until we know them all.”

  “Then what?”

  Rook hopped directly in front of him, blocking his step. He shifted left, then right, head low, eyes fixed on Rem’s face.

  “Then we decide.”

  “Rem leave? Not come back?”

  The words came out tight. Fast.

  Rook’s wings lifted again, not fully, just enough to show the white at the base of the feathers. He hopped back, then forward again, claws scraping stone.

  He let out a string of harsh raven sounds, louder than before.

  “Rook dead?”

  The wind gusted hard across the platform, flattening the grass below the hill.

  Rem felt his jaw tighten.

  “I don’t know, Rook,” he said. The answer sat heavy in his mouth. “Maybe.”

  Rook squawked once, sharp and loud, then drove himself into the air.

  His wings beat hard against the wind. He climbed, circled, climbed again. The sound of him cut through the open land.

  Rem adjusted the strap of his satchel and set off toward the next marker.

  He watched Rook wheel overhead as he hiked. The light shifted. Shadows stretched longer between the low shrubs. The air cooled fast once the sun dipped.

  Stone and dry grass underfoot. A slope ahead. Rook kept circling above him. Other ravens crossed the sky in loose lines, from time to time. Rook did not land. He stayed over Rem, turning tight circles.

  Rem stepped over a fallen log—

  His toe struck it.

  He pitched forward and caught himself on his palm. Dirt ground into his skin. He pushed up, jaw tight, and stepped over properly.

  He had cleared worse.

  He took six more steps.

  His heel caught again.

  This time his trouser leg held him. The fabric pulled tight around his calf and jerked him sideways. He stumbled and had to windmill his arms to keep from falling.

  He looked down.

  The hem dragged across the ground.

  He stood still.

  The wind moved through the grass around his knees.

  His belt sat loose at his hips. The leather hung slack. His satchel thumped against his thigh — lower than it should.

  He lifted his hands.

  The sleeves covered more of them than before.

  He shoved the fabric back.

  His fingers looked shorter.

  He spread them wide. Flexed. Watched.

  The knuckles smoothed. The tendons along the back of his hand softened and sank.

  His breath shortened.

  The satchel slid again. It struck his shin.

  He grabbed at the strap. It slipped off his shoulder and dropped, hitting the ground with a dull thud.

  His boots felt wrong.

  Loose.

  He stepped out of one and stared at it. His foot filled barely half the space. He set his foot beside it.

  The boot was too long by the length of his thumb.

  His trousers slipped.

  They dropped straight down and pooled at his ankles.

  He jerked one leg free, then the other, stumbling out of them. The wind pressed cold against his bare skin.

  He held his hands up again.

  They shrank as he watched.

  Not all at once. The fingers drew inward. The nails narrowed. His wrist tightened.

  His heart slammed against his ribs.

  “Rook!” he shouted.

  The word came out thinner than it should have. Higher.

  He swallowed and tried again. “Rook!”

  It broke in the middle.

  Rook dropped to a branch above him, claws biting into bark.

  “Rem stay,” he called. “Rook live.”

  Rem shook his head. The movement felt unsteady.

  “If I get too young—” His voice cracked into something small. “I’ll die, Rook. Then you’ll die.”

  His shirt slid off one shoulder. His collarbone sharpened, then smoothed as his frame narrowed. The ground felt closer. His center of balance shifted downward. He staggered and fell to his knees.

  They hit hard.

  His thighs looked thinner already. His arms shorter.

  The ring on his finger tightened, then eased, shrinking with him.

  He willed essence into it and the window appeared, hovering before him.

  Rem grabbed his satchel and heaved it through, then took a step back before diving through.

  The landing knocked the air from his chest. He slammed into a shelf. Objects crashed down around him. Something struck his back. Another hit his shoulder.

  Heat flared across his whole body. He bit down and tasted blood.

  He caught the edge of the shelf with both hands. His fingers barely wrapped around it.

  He forced the window shut.

  It snapped closed.

  The heat vanished.

  He dropped to the floor.

  His legs stuck out in front of him. Short. Bare. His feet small and round.

  He pushed himself upright and nearly toppled over.

  He was not even a meter tall.

  The voice in his head felt older than the body he wore.

  He crawled to two empty crates and dragged them across the floor. The wood scraped loud in the room. His arms shook from the effort.

  He stacked one. Then the other.

  He hauled himself up and pressed his small palm to the glyph plate.