When Judgment Learned to Kneel

Ten acolytes began the journey from Esmeltaran.

Eleven, if I counted myself.

We left the main road almost immediately, because apparently paved roads were too merciful for Master Windwalker’s delicate fucking sensibilities. The cart and horse were sold before we reached the edge of town, the coin turned into provisions, rope, oilcloth, dried meat, hard bread, and enough miserable necessities to make everyone’s packs bite into their shoulders before midday.

No one complained.

Not openly.

Windwalker made sure of that.

He stood at the head of the trail while Esmeltaran shrank behind us, the lake wind tugging at the loose folds of his robes, his staff planted in the dirt like he expected the mountain itself to bow.

“If you fall behind,” he said, voice crisp enough to cut, “you will be lashed until every other acolyte is satisfied with your punishment.”

A few of the younger ones stiffened.

Vo did not.

Brenn’s jaw tightened. Aric looked like he wanted to say something and had enough sense, for once, to swallow it. Olyra clutched her books closer to her chest, as if paper could protect her from a whip.

I stared at Windwalker and felt the first familiar heat of contempt settle behind my ribs.

He continued.

“No one will help you on this journey. Your fellow acolytes are not your friends. They are your competition. Even those who came only to retrieve provisions for the monastery will be measured, tested, and judged.”

His gaze moved over us one by one.

Then it landed on me.

“Remember that before you mistake companionship for weakness.”

For the first few days, everything went as normally as it could among people raised to think suffering was a curriculum.

They trained at dawn. They trained during breaks. They fought at night when exhaustion made them sloppy and mean. A few tried stealing provisions to make the road easier, though after I had broken a boat with Vo Torwynn’s back, most of them decided my pack was not worth the attempt.

Which was smart of them.

For three nights, we crossed open plains beneath a sky too wide for comfort. Then Windwalker led us away from any sensible route and toward a trail hidden between boulders and twisted mountain trees. The entrance was so well concealed that a caravan could have passed ten feet from it and seen nothing but stone, roots, and shadow.

By midday, we reached the first crest of the Cloud Peaks.

The wind hit us like a living thing.

It tore at cloaks, shoved breath back into throats, and made every step feel negotiated. By sunset, the temperature had dropped hard enough that most of the new acolytes were shivering inside their travel wraps. The four who had made this climb before managed better. Not well. Better.

Almost no one slept.

The campfire died twice before midnight, strangled by wind and smoke. The acolytes huddled against rock and one another, too proud or too afraid to admit the mountain was already chewing on them.

They had known the climb would be difficult.

They had not understood what they were choosing.

For me, the cold was bearable. Flying in human form had taught me worse. But the wind interested me. It did not move naturally. Not entirely. It cut through the pass with a deliberate cruelty, shaped by the mountain itself or by hands that had known how to make stone sing against intruders.

Had Seraphine and Ilyon carved the peaks this way?

Had they made the sanctuary difficult to reach on purpose?

Maybe.

But that sat wrong with the dream I remembered. Their faith had been meant to spread. To heal. To endure. Not hide behind a climb designed to break the unworthy before they even saw the gate.

Another question for when I arrived.

Assuming I arrived without blood on my hands from some hungry idiot deciding my provisions looked easier to take than the mountain.

That night, I caught three of them watching my pack too closely.

I did not bother pretending not to notice.

“If you want my shit,” I said, loud enough for the camp to hear, “be ready to die for it. If hunger is making you wonder whether you can take me, you can’t. Don’t try.”

That startled a few of them.

Others still looked determined, though I saw nerves work down their throats as they swallowed. Pride is a stupid thing. Hunger makes it stupider.

Windwalker had different plans.

As the path grew steeper, he began sprinkling challenges through the climb. Little tests. Little cruelties. A missing ration here. A whispered promise there. Food for whoever proved strength. A weapon offered to someone who had no business holding steel. He never openly ordered them to attack me.

He did not have to.

He just made it profitable.

Two days later, he finally gave them enough encouragement.

The moon hid behind clouds that night, and we made camp in a narrow shelf of stone where the wind whipped so violently that any fire we tried to light would have filled our lungs with smoke before it warmed our hands. We slept in near-total darkness.

The acolytes were accustomed to it.

That raised another ugly question.

What the fuck had happened to my friends’ sanctuary?

The first two crept close enough that I could hear the careful shift of their boots against stone.

I thought they were the attack.

They were a distraction.

A rope snapped around my legs.

Three others pulled at once, yanking me away from my pack. The two nearest lunged with daggers.

One blade punched into the left side of my chest.

Deep.

A lung punctured with a cold, wet certainty.

The other attacker came down at my throat. Young man. Barely twenty, if that. Wide eyes. Hands shaking. I did not think about it.

I reversed the knife in his grip as he fell.

The blade lodged under his jaw and drove up through his throat.

His life went out fast.

The second attacker, a young woman around the same age, froze long enough to understand what had just happened. Then she screamed.

The camp woke up.

I drove one bloody hand into her mouth and grabbed hard, dragging her down toward me as she struggled. My other arm locked around her head.

A quick twisting motion.

A crack.

Her body went loose.

The three with the rope panicked and pulled harder, trying to drag me toward the cliff edge. I saw the shape of it then. The other end is tied to a boulder. One good heave, and I would go over.

I had seen massacres built from worse plans and better execution.

Blood filled my mouth. Breathing hurts like hell. I ripped the dagger from my chest, cut the rope, rolled backward, and kicked free of the slack before coming up in a low stance.

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Knife in hand.

Blood down my front.

Rage in my teeth.

“I’ll flay you all,” I spat.

The words came out red.

Windwalker’s voice cut through the dark.

“I think that is enough from all of you.”

He stood beside the two bodies I had made, smiling.

Smiling.

“I think you should tend to your injury, Caelen. I will deal with these troublemakers.”

I wanted to gut him right there.

The smugness on his face told me everything. This had been arranged. Encouraged. Watched. Not as a failure or tragedy.

But entertainment.

Then he made it worse.

He looked down at the dead acolytes with no more concern than a man inspecting spoiled fruit. With a lazy movement of his staff, he pushed their bodies off the cliff.

Just like that.

Trash over the edge.

I swore then that I would kill him someday.

Not that night.

But someday.

I threw the dagger into the ground. The blade buried itself in cracked stone.

The moon finally broke through the clouds.

The few acolytes who could see in the dark got a clear look at me. My concentration had slipped. The glamour peeled back enough for my eyes to show—blue, draconic, bright with power I had no interest in explaining.

Horror moved through them.

One fell backward.

Good.

I pushed past the camp, grabbed my pack, and sent a pulse of healing through the wound in my chest. Flesh knit. Lung sealed. Pain remained, but pain was old company.

I sat against the rock wall and forced my breathing even.

A moment later, Olyra approached.

She held out a roll of bandage.

“You might need this.”

I took it and tucked it into my pack.

“Thanks,” I said. “Already healed it. But don’t worry, I’ll keep this for when you attack me.”

She laughed and dropped beside me.

The sound felt wrong at first. Too easy. Too casual after blood and bodies. But everyone in this place had learned strange ways to survive, so I played along.

When her laughter faded, she tilted her head.

“No. I don’t think Master Windwalker could convince me to meet my grave early.”

Smart girl.

Then she looked at me more closely.

“If you don’t mind me asking, where did you learn that?”

The question caught me off guard.

After what they had seen, I expected fear. Silence. Maybe worship, if they were especially stupid. Not curiosity.

I almost envied it.

I leaned my head back against the stone and looked up at the narrow strip of stars above the pass.

“You probably won’t believe me,” I said, “but I fought in the Elturelian wars against Tiamat when she walked Faerûn.”

Olyra stared.

Then her jaw dropped.

Then she turned away and tried, badly, not to laugh.

“I’m sorry,” she said between breaths. “That would make you over three thousand years old.”

So it had been that long.

Interesting.

“And I’m pretty sure,” she continued, wiping at the corner of one eye, “not even elves live that long without divine intervention or some mystic druid shit. Master Jorren keeps preaching that we should read more about old rites and rituals so ours are just as practiced as theirs.”

I side-eyed her.

Then decided to make the conversation useful.

“I’m sure you’re amazing at it,” I said. “Or the books are wrong. You do seem to have the most sense out of anyone here.”

That softened her.

Only a little.

She looked down at her hands, playing with her fingers for a moment before glancing back at me.

“Do you actually believe that?”

I did not let the pause grow large enough for doubt.

“I think you’re probably the only decent one in this batch,” I said. “Maybe you’ll even do something good eventually.”

I did not look directly at her, but I caught her expression from the corner of my eye.

A brief smile.

Then calculation.

Mortals.

Humans especially.

She turned toward me, rising onto her knees, and slid half a foot closer. My glamour still had not fully settled, so she could see my eyes as they truly were. Blue. Draconic. Wrong enough to warn anyone with sense.

Olyra only looked fascinated.

Bewildered, maybe.

Then she kissed me.

It was sudden. Warm. A little reckless. Her tongue pressed briefly into my mouth before she pulled back, biting her lower lip like she had just tested the edge of a blade and liked the blood.

She leaned to my ear.

“This is just a taste of what you can experience when you get into the monastery.”

Her left hand balled into a fist and tapped lightly against the place where my chest wound had been.

“You better make it there. We only have six more days of the climb.”

I blinked.

The glamour finally slid back over my eyes.

I smiled, careful and confident.

“I’m sure I will. Be prepared.”

She stood, took a few steps away, and disappeared into the dark.

A whisper brushed through my mind.

I will.

I took a slow breath and closed my eyes.

Sleep came quicker than it should have.

When I woke up, I was alone.

A small piece of parchment lay beside me.

My pack was half-empty.

I unfolded the note.

Sorry, but you were too easy not to steal from. My offer still stands if you make it, feral eyes.

P.S. Good luck finding the monastery. Windwalker left you and the others. We drugged you all in your sleep.

For a long moment, I just stared at the words.

Then I laughed.

Quietly.

What a fucking joke this had become.

I grabbed my pack, stood, and rounded the corner.

The rest of the new acolytes were waking in confusion, groggy, cold, and robbed of any illusion that this journey was guided by fairness. Several searched their own provisions. Others checked weapons Windwalker had apparently left behind on purpose.

Of course he had.

This was not abandonment.

This was another test.

Or an ambush.

Possibly both.

Windwalker had the look of a man who would enjoy either.

“They left us,” I said. “So get up and make the climb on your own.”

Fear struck a few of them visibly. Some froze. Some began counting supplies with shaking hands. A couple looked toward the trail as if the mountain might take pity and show them a gentler way.

It would not.

I adjusted my half-empty pack and looked up toward the hidden path.

One of us would probably kill another before this was over. Maybe I would be the one doing it. Maybe Windwalker had arranged something worse ahead just to see who crawled through.

I said the word aloud, though no one seemed to catch it.

“Bastard.”