There was no colour, yet there was light.

  Shades of grey painted a massive chamber lit by colourless flame blazing in scores of iron braziers. The room seemed to be some sort of temple, with two imposing statues towering high, one in the front and the other in the back.

  The first was a representation of a man with pointed ears and flowing hair, clutching a book; he was Melakar, God of Mind and Magic.

  The other was a woman with pointed ears and gems pressed into her flesh; she was Laurahasa, Goddess of Secrets and Sorcery.

  A god of magic that was known.

  A goddess of magic that was secret.

  Guardians of sorcery and wizardry; the pair seemed to govern this chamber, looking down with watchful stone eyes.

  This chamber of no walls.

  Open to the elements on all sides, revealing the grey countryside beyond; the ceiling floated above, supported by neither columns nor braces that could be seen. On the edges of the room, dozens of shaven-headed bodies knelt, clad in robes etched with symbols.

  Each figure faced inward.

  In the chamber’s centre hovered an ancient man, floating cross-legged above the ground—backing the sun—his face was craggy and his beard was so long it touched the floor. In one hand he held a book, while in the other, he held a gem. His lips moved constantly, but the sound was muffled, as though coming from underwater.

  He nodded to a much younger man kneeling before him.

  Matthias’ eyes focused on that figure; he was lean, his naked body corded in wiry muscle. From Matthias’ position, he could only see the younger man’s back and long, pale hair.

  It seemed that Matthias was lying on the floor, looking up at him from behind.

  The younger man gripped a metal staff capped by a large, pointed crystal.

  Something about him seemed familiar, yet he was certain he had never seen him before in his entire young life. So many questions filled his mind.

  ‘Who were these people?

  Where was this place?

  Why had all the colour left the world?

  …and why couldn’t he get up?’

  He tried to move, but found himself fixed to the ground. Yet, he felt no panic, only a feeling that he was right where he was supposed to be. And so, he lay, watching the old man ask the younger man a muffled question. The young man lifted his head, responding.

  Then he took a deep breath.

  Light flared around the statues of Melakar and Laurahasa and a speck of radiance was drawn from either one. Both specks flitted like fireflies before shooting toward the young man.

  They hovered on either side of him.

  The speck from Melakar flickered, then died, while the speck from Laurahasa flared and floated around the front of the young man’s head, moving toward his mouth.

  He stopped inhaling.

  The spectators leaned forward.

  When the young man exhaled, he shuddered—his entire body convulsing—a black substances pouring from his skin, splattering on the floor before boiling and vanishing without a trace.

  The young man’s head lolled forward. He stopped moving.

  All held their breaths.

  The staff began to slip from his fingers and the ancient one grimaced, closing his eyes.

  The young man suddenly shuddered again, strength returning to his grip on the staff. The ancient man’s eyes flew open, his lips twisting in a ferocious smile while the others jumped up from their places.

  The young man raised his face, letting loose a silent howl.

  The room erupted.

  “The tower is risen!” all cried, their words clear. “He has raised the tower of Laurahasa!”

  Finally, Matthias realised what he was watching.

  An initiation into the cultivation of Divine Breath.

  An art forbidden by the gods, and—even in the high kingdom of Evalmera, Matthias’ home, where many practises were tolerated far more than in the southerly realms—most spoke of it only in whispers.

  Yet, Matthias was unafraid, he was intrigued; this was a path to power he’d been warned against. In his younger years—after failing to awaken to Life Enforcement or The Gift many times—he’d asked about Divine Breath.

  All he’d been told was that it was a dangerous power that could cost him his life and trigger the wrath of the deities, but if he’d had that power—any power—then he could have avoided…avoided…

  Avoided what?

  Wait, why was he here?

  The question seemed more urgent now.

  He struggled to move, to cry out.

  He tried raising his arm from the floor; it was difficult, like trying to lift a heavy weight off his body.

  Then slowly, he felt the limb rise.

  It came into view.

  He screamed.

  What he saw was no arm, but a tendril of utter darkness writhing in the grey. He could feel it's every movement.

  “What is this?” he shrieked. “Am I dead? Are Amon Koth’s ferrymen coming to claim me? Am I going to be judged?” He called out. “Was this Divine Breath thing a test? Did I fail?”

  As those words echoed in the silence, the chamber darkened.

  Sound fell away.

  Light greys turned dim.

  Dim greys turned black.

  Once again, he was in utter darkness.

  ‘I have to get out,’ he thought. ‘I must…I must go! Way of Stone! Way of Stone!’

  Clenching his teeth, he clawed at the darkness, gripping an unseen vine or tendril. He pulled himself up, rising.

  Up, he went, up, up, up, until light grew above him.

  He awakened.

  Up on the top of the cliff, Kari, Petric and Siegfried stared down at Matthias’ unmoving body as fire spread through the brush.

  “Oh by the netherworld, I think he’s dead…” Siegfried muttered. “Kari, you killed him.”

  Kari had gone chalk white, his jaw tight and his eyes like saucers.

  Petric trembled.

  “We have to go,” Siegfried finally whispered. “Doesn’t matter how much his father hated him, murder is murder. We’ll be drawn and quartered!”

  “If Lady Beggahasta doesn’t crush us first.” Kari backed away from the cliff. “Come on! We’ll take the long way back; the gamrungs will be hungry and one might take his body before it’s even done cooling!” His eyes searched the skies. “Once we get far from here, we can get our stories straight. If the corpse is gone—”

  Kari paused.

  Petric continued trembling.

  Siegfried had not moved.

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  “Come on, you fools! Run!” Kari snapped.

  Together, the three ran through the woods.

  Below, in the trees at the bottom of the cliff, a large, yellow eye opened.

  Its pupil focused on the fallen body.

  Matthias awoke at the bottom of the forested bluff, his head splitting and blood running from the back of his head, nose and mouth.

  In a body that didn’t fit quite right.

  He slowly sat up, his ribs screaming and his muscles shrieking from the fall. He had fallen, hadn’t he? A glance up the side of the cliff confirmed that he had—nearby trees with snapped branches had slowed his fall—but his memory was vague, drowned by the ringing in his ears.

  Memories of running through the woods, of thorns and flames and a sinking feeling when he’d toppled over the cliff’s edge…those were clear. He remembered his name, his family, his sister and brother, home.

  He remembered his mother.

  He remembered what would be waiting for him in the Wolfwood.

  The problem was that he remembered too much.

  There were other images in his mind; all vague, like they were obscured in shadow. Cities of stone and glass towers. People he was sure he’d never met before. Words in a tongue that made no sense to him.

  Memories—or dreams, perhaps—crammed into his skull until it was near bursting like overripe fruit. Then there was a temple with no walls. The Divine Breath ceremony. Had that all been a dream? It was more vivid than any dream he’d ever dreamt before. And what about that climb through the dark?

  He looked up.

  How had he survived such a fall? He was almost sure he’d…well, he’d…

  His head throbbed more, thinking about it. His ears were ringing.

  He knew he was badly hurt.

  “I have to get home.” He gripped his aching midriff and struggled to rise to his feet. Blood dripped on the ground, mixing with the pounding rain. The downpour was growing harder, washing red with the mud.

  He swayed as he found his feet and looked up at the cliff.

  He should be dead.

  “No way I can get back up there,” he hissed, spitting blood, looking around.

  He knew of a path to the west that lead to a narrow road up the mountain, but he didn’t know if he could reach it, as badly hurt as he was.

  “Doesn’t matter.” He bared his teeth. Kari’s laughter echoed in his mind. As did Petric’s sneer and Siegfried’s blustering. “There’s no way I’m letting those three send me to the afterworld, no matter how many ferrymen Amon Koth sends for me.”

  He began moving, limping, trembling, thinking of his family.

  As he staggered forward, his thoughts returned to the cliff. He should have been a bloody smear on the ground.

  “Did someone catch me?” he whispered, searching his memories.

  As he’d fallen, he’d reached for something to grab hold of, anything, but it was an appendage of utter darkness that had touched the cliff instead of his hand.

  …just like the one in his dream.

  He stopped in his tracks, swaying.

  His gaze fell on his shadow, a strange thought burned in his mind.

  He raised his right hand, as much as it hurt to do it.

  His shadow mirrored his movement.

  He raised his left hand.

  His shadow mirrored the movement.

  Something felt odd; like he was feeling his shadow moving in line with his body.

  “You’re losing your mind, Matthias,” he said, thinking back to the dream. The sun had been in front of the young man with the pale hair, which meant that on the floor behind him would have been—

  “—his shadow. I was inside his shadow,” Matthias whispered, his flesh goosepimpling. “It’s like that was the weight on me when I tried to raise my arm.”

  His eyes focused on his shadow again.

  “…what if?” He tried to remember the exact nature of that strange weight when he was raising his arm in the dream, tying it to the feeling of his shadow moving beneath him now.

  “It’s going to fail just like when you tried The Gift. You’re mad,” he whispered, even as he concentrated. “You must be—”

  His eyes grew wide.

  The shadow twisted and he felt every ripple as it turned dead black. Churning, the darkness began bulging and boiling, something began rising from its centre.

  A tentacle, no thicker than his wrist.

  His jaw fell open; he could feel the tendril wriggle just as naturally as he could feel his own arm. Both curiosity and horror raced through him; curiosity won out. Transfixed, he watched it continue growing until it was at eye level with his body.

  “What in the name of every god, goddess, or demon?” he cried. Gingerly, he reached out, jabbing the tendril with a fingernail. “Ouch!”

  He’d felt that both in his finger and in the tentacle, as if he’d poked his skin.

  “You hit your head. You did. You’re imagining things. This can’t be happening.” He continued staring at the tendril. Slowly, he moved it to the left. Then, to the right. It swished through the air; moving the appendage was no more difficult than moving his own limbs.

  A shudder went through him, worry mounting. Briefly, he thought about taking a closer look.

  The thought was in his mind for just a heartbeat.

  The tendril whipped toward his face like a spasming limb.

  His scream echoed off the cliff as he recoiled, stumbling. The shadow-tendril faded like smoke.

  Matthias flopped on the ground, grunting as the impact ripped through him, the fall saving him.

  Claws slashed where he’d been standing, and a rumbling cry pierced his ears. He screamed as a massive shape swooped down, coming to a clumsy landing half a dozen paces away.

  Matthias froze in horror as the thing righted itself, his gaze slowly climbing its form.

  A fierce-looking bird stood there, towering half again the height of a grown man.

  Shaking the rain from its black wings, it turned a featherless head—its skin the colour of bleached bone—and fixed the injured boy with a golden eye.

  “A gamrung,” Matthias whispered.

  The scavenger turned, bobbing its head; its enormous, serrated beak parting. Inside its mouth, twin tongues lashed—coated with thin spines—both ready to pull marrow from bones after its beak crushed them.

  Matthias crawled backward.

  The creature’s talons dug into the muck as it stared down—its head slightly turned, keeping its eye fixed on him—it stalked forward.

  He knew of these gamrungs; titanic carrion-birds that once feasted on dead beasts in the Wolfwood, they had thrived outside that deadly forest after the raising of the Gods’ Shield Mountains. Now they scavenged mammoths and the corpses of other creatures, though they weren’t averse to finishing smaller prey that was already greatly wounded.

  And Matthias?

  Matthias was greatly wounded.

  ‘What did mother tell you about them?’ his mind raced. He drew his dagger, holding it before him with a shaking hand. ‘It won’t bother you if you’re not an easy meal.’

  Filling his aching lungs, Matthias screamed, pounding on the mud.

  The gamrung paused.

  Then screamed and lunged.

  Matthias shrieked, scrambling back, swinging wildly with his dagger.

  It connected with nothing.

  The boy fell as the gamrung’s beak snapped mere finger lengths away from him. Fear coursed through him, dulling the pain of his wounds as he hit the ground.

  The gamrung raised a foot.

  Matthias yelped, rolling to the right.

  The talon smashed the mud where he’d just been. Its mouth snapped as he rolled and struck out with his dagger. Steel caught the edge of the bird’s beak, scratching it, but the impact knocked the blade from his hand.

  “No!” he cried, trying to scrabble away.

  The gamrung’s enormous foot came down on his leg.

  Bone strained.

  Matthias screamed.

  The bird loomed above him, beak parting, spiked tongues wriggling.

  His eyes fell on those wriggling tongues.

  Wriggling…

  A desperate idea struck him.

  Clenching his teeth, he could feel his shadow writhing beneath him.

  He could feel the tendril forming, slithering through the mud.

  He focused on the gamrung’s enormous eye.

  The bird’s beak came down.

  The tendril whipped from his shadow, striking the creature, hitting its eye with a heavy crack. The creature’s screech rang out. It reared back, taking the weight off his leg.

  Snarling, Matthias whipped the tentacle after it, but the appendage could only go so far, now stretched to its limit, it stopped at the length of his body.

  The scavenger shook its head, blinking its injured eye, backing away.

  Matthias growled, forcing himself to his feet. His strength was ebbing; even if he drove the gamrung away, it could make a meal of him once he collapsed.

  …unless he gave it a strong reason to stay away.

  His eyes searched the mud, finding his dagger.

  Concentrating, he wrapped the tendril of shadow around the blade’s hilt.

  With a beast-like growl, he lurched forward.

  The gamrung was recovering, rising to its full height. Its black feathers puffed up as it spread its wings, making itself appear as big as it could. Golden eyes and a serrated beak opened wide; it screeched.

  Matthias howled back, lunging forward, spreading his arms, keeping its attention on him…

  …and not the tentacle whipping toward it from the side.

  The dagger glinted in its grip, mud dripping, driving upward.

  Too late the bird glimpsed it; the golden eye focused on the tip as the blade plunged through the pupil.

  The scavenger shrieked, its wings splashing mud everywhere. One caught Matthias on his side, sending him sprawling to the ground, driving the breath from him.

  He rolled onto his back, wheezing as the gamrung fled, screeching away through the rain with his dagger embedded in its eye. Matthias watched it disappear over the tree line.

  “And…don’t...you come back,” he panted, lying there—rain washing blood and mud from his battered form—squinting up at the sky. His legs and arms were splayed; even the tendril of darkness drooped at his side.

  He watched it, his mind reeling.

  “This isn’t Life Enforcement, or The Gift…” he whispered. “So…what is…”

  He froze, eyes growing wide.

  With a surge of panicked energy, he pulled his clothing away, remembering that one could become rune-marked at random, often in battle. It was a rare thing, but it did happen: his brother had been marked as an infant, so what if…

  Matthias examined every inch of skin he could.

  Nothing.

  No runes.

  Relief ran through him.

  “Thank the gods,” he whispered, his thoughts growing vague and sluggish. He laid back in the mud, thinking about the tentacle of shadow. “Then...what is it?” A single thought struck him. “The dream. The dream was about awakening to Divine Breath. That could be it, maybe.”

  Divine Breath: stealing the residual energies of the deities left from when they walked the world, taking them, fusing them with one’s own life essence. Taking power by going against the gods’ will.

  “The forbidden pillar of power…” he whispered. “One that could be met with divine tribulation. Deific wrath.”

  In the distance, thunder cracked.

  The sky burned with a flash of lightning.

  Yet, he was not afraid.

  A smile took his lips as he summoned the last of his strength; once again, the tendril rose from his shadow and he moved it as easily as he would his own arm.

  Like it had always been there.

  “This…this is power.” His grin widened. “I-I finally have power! I don’t care where it comes from! With it, I might survive the Wolfwood! I can win back my honour!”

  Delirious laughter rolled from his lips as the tendril dissipated once more.

  He shook himself like a wet beast.

  “Calm down. Way of Stone. Be the Stone. You have to learn about this shadow-thing, but you have to get home first.”

  His eyelids fluttered.

  “But for now…maybe rest. Just for a little bit.”

  His eyes closed.

  Darkness consumed him.

  At the top of the cliff, fire battled rain, hungry to spread through the bush. Still under Petric’s command, it would burn the entire thicket before it died.

  A pair of light footsteps signalled someone approaching.

  From the woods, a figure emerged, hooded and cloaked. A hint of silver gleamed beneath its cowl.

  The figure glanced at the fire, speaking a single word.

  “Stop.”

  The fire obeyed.

  In a breath, the flames died, leaving no embers in the blackened brush. The figure peered at the brush for a moment.

  “As you were,” it said.

  Power surged as the bushes shuddered beneath the command. Plant life began to heal. Ash washed away. Blackened stems turned green. Leaves grew back.

  In heartbeats, it was as though fire had never touched the brush.

  Turning away, the figure kept walking, eyes to the ground, following a trail of muddy footprints leading to the cliff.

  Finally, it arrived at the edge, peering over the side.

  A pair of grey eyes fixed on the still form of Matthias below.

  “There you are.”

  Alrighty, cya in chapter 4!

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