The Chain

They made twenty-seven again. Then twenty-eight. Twenty-nine.

Jake didn't remember most of it. The launches blurred into pain and light and the feeling of stone under his feet and then air and then stone again. His ribs told him things he ignored. His left arm hung and he launched with his right, the light at his feet doing most of the work, his body running on whatever was left after the fall.

Vauren stayed close. Closer than he'd been for the whole climb — launching immediately after Jake instead of waiting, landing near him, watching him stand before moving to the next column. He didn't say anything about it. He just did it.

Thirty.

The thirtieth platform was small. Room for the column, a flat area of stone, the grooves worn almost invisible. The wind was steady up here, cold, constant. Below them the world fell away in every direction — platforms scattered down through the sky, the cloud layer a white floor impossibly far below, the curve of it visible at the edges. The base platform was gone. The lower platforms were specks. Everything they'd climbed looked like it had happened to different people.

Jake sat on the stone. His ribs wouldn't let him breathe fully. The light at his feet was a flicker. Vauren stood beside him, facing upward.

One more.

The thirty-first platform was visible above them. Close. The closest any platform had been to the one below it — maybe fifty meters up, the stone pale against the deep blue sky. Jake could see the edge of it, the grooves, a flat surface. Nothing built on it. Just stone and sky.

"That's it," Jake said.

"Yes."

"One more launch."

Vauren assessed him. The ribs, the arm, the blood dried on the side of his head.

"Can you make it?" Vauren asked.

Jake faced the platform. Fifty meters. The shortest launch they'd done in days. His feet were warm. The light was faint but it was there.

"Yeah," he said. "I can make it."

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He stood up. It took a moment. Vauren didn't help him, which was the right call — Jake needed to stand on his own or he couldn't launch on his own.

They climbed the column together, side by side, the grooves wide enough for both of them. At the top the sky was enormous. The blue was deeper up here, darker, the stars visible even with the sun still above the horizon. The wind pushed at them from every direction.

Jake took one last look down. The chain of platforms going down and down and down, each one a place they'd been, a launch they'd made, a landing they'd survived. The base platform somewhere far below, the town, the arrival point, the wall of marks. Torek's railing. The food stall. The woman who'd said sit.

He turned to Vauren. Vauren was already watching him.

"Together?" Jake said.

"Together."

They launched.

The arc was short. The air held them for a moment — both of them in the sky, the light at Jake's feet and the water across Vauren's skin, the deep blue of the sky above and the white of the clouds below. Jake's feet corrected once, a small push. Vauren's body curved beside him, the water adjusting.

They landed on the thirty-first platform three meters apart. Jake's landing sent pain through his ribs and he went to one knee. Vauren landed softly, the water absorbing everything, and turned to Jake immediately.

Jake waved him off. Got up. Stood.

The top.

The view was the whole world.

Every platform below them, scattered down through the sky in a pattern that only made sense from up here — the larger ones lower, the smaller ones higher, the columns connecting them like a spine going down into the clouds. The cloud layer stretched to every horizon, white and still, and beyond it the curve of the world itself. The sun was low, the light coming in sideways, catching the platforms and turning them gold. The base platform was invisible. The town, the market, the arrival point — all of it somewhere down there, too far to see, too real to forget.

Jake stood at the edge.

He'd been climbing for weeks. He'd broken his ribs, wrecked his arm, fallen three platforms onto stone. He'd eaten food from a stranger's grill, slept with the sky above him, learned to fly — more or less. The kid who'd walked out of a forest with burnt arms and a bad leg was standing on top of a world.

The portal was at the platform's center. Jake could feel it before he saw it — the same pull he'd felt at the end of the forest, the air changing, a presence. He turned and it was there. Open. Waiting.

Vauren came to stand beside him. The way he had at the end of the forest. The way he did now.

They faced each other. The wind moved between them. Vauren's green hair was longer than it had been when they'd arrived, pushed sideways across his face. His left arm hung at his side but the hand was open, the fingers loose. The blue in his skin was even and deep.

"Vauren," Jake said.

"Yes."

Jake thought about what to say.

"More than adequate," he said.

Vauren held his gaze. His expression shifted — brief, unguarded. He held Jake's gaze for a long moment, the wind pushing at both of them.

"Yes," Vauren said. "You as well."

Jake turned to the portal. Link three. Whatever came next. His ribs ached. His arm hung. His feet were bare and warm on the stone. Somewhere out there his father was climbing too.

He stepped through. Vauren beside him.