A few days later, Silver opened the rift again to see how the two of us were handling everything—or whether we had died.
He entered the Furnace with his arms crossed and stopped atop the same mountain from which he had thrown us into the abyss.
He stood like a statue of silver atop the immense basalt formation, eyes half-lidded as he watched the Furnace of Judgment breathe its fury below.
The heat was so dense that it warped the horizon, making the entire world look like an unbearable, burning mirage.
He searched the bottom of the abyss for us and found nothing. Only a few tracks—one leading left, the other right.
"Good. They're alive."
Then he felt it.
A pillar of golden flame tore across the Furnace's horizon, surging hundreds of meters upward and piercing the ceiling of ash with controlled violence.
Silver raised one eyebrow slightly, interest finally cracking through his mask of apathy.
The fire devoured the surrounding rock in a destructive frenzy while wind spiraled around the flames in perfect coils, feeding some tongues of fire while smothering others.
The currents controlled the temperature, the direction, even the way each spark rose toward the sky.
A few seconds later, another anomaly spread across the opposite side of the ravine.
Fragments of volcanic rock began breaking away from the slopes.
First a few small stones, then dozens, until hundreds of pieces of basalt rose into the air and remained suspended.
Silver narrowed his eyes as he studied the space around them.
There was something strange about it.
Something nostalgic.
There was no perceptible increase in gravity.
The atmosphere wasn't heavy. None of the crushing pressure that usually announced the presence of Vangor's fourth son was there.
The stones had simply forgotten how to fall.
One drifted slowly toward Silver and stopped directly in front of him.
He extended two long fingers and pressed against its rough surface.
The rock didn't move a millimeter.
He applied a little more physical strength—enough to dent steel.
Nothing.
The stone remained perfectly still in the air, anchored to an invisible rule that space itself now obeyed.
An almost imperceptible smile touched the corner of Silver's mouth.
"Hmmm."
That was all he allowed himself before lowering his hand.
The thick black smoke slowly began to part, revealing two silhouettes.
Suki emerged first.
He came from the path on the left, dragging his feet slightly across the volcanic stone, his body drenched in sweat and smeared with soot.
Parts of his clothes had burned to ash, and tiny embers still drifted from his forearms while several red-and-gold markings from his Transformation pulsed faintly beneath his skin.
But what drew the eye was his expression.
There was none of the euphoric light of someone who had just survived a trial.
No arrogant smile from someone who had awakened a new power.
He looked exhausted.
Not the kind of exhaustion that lived in the muscles.
Something much deeper.
Something rooted in the foundations of the soul itself.
From the other side, Tsukumo stepped through the heat haze.
His long dreadlocks swayed rhythmically down his back, several loose strands plastered to his face by sweat.
His clothes were torn and coated in gray dust, exposing a few fresh cuts, but his posture remained straight.
Unshaken.
Small stones floated gently around his boots, following every step without him even glancing at them.
Suki stopped.
Tsukumo did the same.
They now stood facing one another directly in front of Silver.
For several long seconds, they stared through the shimmering heat.
The silence between them was dense, heavy with everything they had seen and faced within their own minds.
Suki lowered his eyes toward the pebbles hovering near the ground, then looked back at his friend.
"Did you do it?"
Suki's voice was hoarse, scraped raw by smoke.
"I'm alive, aren't I?" Tsukumo replied calmly before lowering his golden eyes toward the small flames still playing, contained and flawless, between Suki's fingers.
"And you?"
Suki raised his right hand.
A living flame bloomed in the center of his palm.
At once, currents of wind coiled around the fire like an invisible serpent, caging the flame and holding it perfectly stable.
He watched his own fire, feeling the heat obey instead of threaten.
"Yeah. I did."
Suki murmured the words, and the flame dissolved into thin smoke.
They closed the last few steps between them without any grand celebration.
They simply raised their ash-covered fists and bumped them together.
Tap.
A short strike.
Enough to tell each other they were alive.
Enough to say the worst of it was over.
Silver clasped his hands behind his back.
Both of them turned their attention toward the Silver God.
He studied Suki for a moment, tracing both the new scars and the old ones.
Then he looked toward Tsukumo, noticing the unfamiliar lightness orbiting the warrior.
Silver turned his back on them, his cloak shifting in the Furnace's scorching wind.
"Good," the god declared.
"Let's go home."
He tore open the fabric of space, opening the rift back to Lavinsk.
By the time we finally reached Lavinsk, the second sun had almost completely sunk behind the mountain range, painting the clouds in shades of lilac and orange.
After the Furnace's suffocating red brutality, the cool Lavinsk evening felt like a balm.
The scent of damp grass and the cold wind cutting across my skin felt almost offensively good.
All I could think about was a shower, a plate of food, and about fifteen hours of absolute isolation without anyone saying my name.
The front door flew open before we had even landed in the courtyard.
Kânia stopped in the doorway.
Her eyes moved quickly—first over Silver, who was perfectly untouched, then to Tsukumo, who looked like he'd been rolled down a mountain, and finally settled on me.
Relief crossed her face for half a second before worry replaced it.
"You two are—"
"Alive," I cut in, running a hand through my ash-covered hair.
She pressed her lips together, wearing the stern expression of someone who didn't appreciate sarcasm while her heart was still racing.
"I can see that, Suki."
Tsukumo headed for the door, his footsteps quiet despite his size.
"Good evening, Lady Kânia," he said, pausing briefly beside her.
"Tsukumo, it isn't even properly dark yet."
He blinked slowly, expression unchanged.
"It has been dark for a long time from where I'm standing."
Then he went inside, dragging his exhaustion down the hallway with him.
Kânia watched until he disappeared around the corner.
When she looked back at me, the sternness had vanished, leaving behind only the genuine concern she was trying to hide.
"Was it really that bad?"
I opened my mouth to say no.
That everything was fine.
That I was Suki and could take whatever was thrown at me.
I stopped.
I remembered the portal.
The sound of Ruitan collapsing inside my head.
The feeling of my own muscles giving out.
I looked toward the hallway where Tsukumo had disappeared and slowly exhaled.
"No," I answered.
Tsukumo stopped halfway down the corridor.
He didn't turn around, but his voice came back low and clear, finishing the thought for me.
"It was worse."
Kânia fell completely silent, her hands dropping loosely to her sides.
Silver passed between us with his folded cloak slung over one shoulder.
He lightly touched Kânia's arm.
"Leave them alone tonight."
She took a hesitant step back.
"Silver... they need—"
"Later," he cut in, his tone gentle but leaving no room for argument.
"You know how the Furnace works."
Kânia only nodded.
Silver entered the house, and I followed without saying another word.
Trying to sleep was pathetic.
No matter how exhausted I was or how desperately my body wanted rest, I couldn't do it.
I kept my eyes closed for hours, listening to the nighttime life of Lavinsk.
I rolled to the left and stared at the wall.
Turned to the right and faced the door.
Lay on my back, staring at the ceiling.
Rolled onto my stomach and buried my face in the pillow.
The room was perfectly dark.
The temperature was comfortable.
The silence was absolute.
Too silent.
Every time I closed my eyes, sparks danced through the darkness.
Heat crawled back across the nape of my neck.
I'd blink hard, open my eyes, breathe deeply, and try again.
But the instant my eyelids met, I was there again.
The portal.
The crushing pressure against my lungs.
Those two blurred, untouchable figures looking down at me while the world shattered.
"Little brother..." I murmured.
And Laura...
Laura disappearing in front of me again.
And again.
And again.
My eyes snapped open, cold sweat plastering my shirt to my chest.
"Shit."
I sat on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on my knees as I rubbed my face with both hands.
Then I tied back my hair, which had fallen completely over my face and down past my shoulders.
My entire body screamed for rest.
My muscles throbbed with exhaustion, but my mind remained trapped in an endless loop of adrenaline and failure.
I grabbed the dark coat lying over the chair and slipped quietly outside.
When I pushed open the front door and stepped onto the damp grass of the garden, I realized I wasn't the only ghost wandering through the night.
I looked up.
Tsukumo sat on the edge of the roof, his legs hanging over the side, his gaze lost somewhere beyond the mountains.
We stared at each other in silence.
"Can't sleep?" I asked, my voice cutting through the night.
"No."
"Me neither."
A few more seconds dragged by with nothing but leaves rustling in the wind.
He looked back toward the distant horizon, where the larger moon was beginning to rise.
"Ocean?" he suggested.
"Ocean."
He slid from the roof and landed beside me without making a sound.
Kânia stood at her bedroom window, wrapped in a shawl, narrowing her eyes as she tried to make us out through the darkness.
She was worried.
But she knew she had to let us go.
Then the two of us launched into the sky.
The Sacred Ocean lay far beyond Lavinsk's cities, within an isolated and ancient territory.
It was one of the few places in the world where even the loudest gods chose to lower their voices.
During the day, the water was an almost frighteningly deep blue.
But at night, the ocean came alive.
Silver bioluminescent currents wound beneath the surface while slow waves broke against cliffs of white stone, leaving luminous trails that took several seconds to fade.
It glowed so brightly that it looked as though another universe existed beneath the water.
The ocean reflected the vastness above so perfectly that, when we looked toward the horizon, it became impossible to tell where the water ended and the night sky began.
Stars above us.
Stars beneath our feet.
We landed at the end of a narrow tongue of stone covered in crystallized salt, stretching dozens of meters out over the glowing waters.
I sat first, crossing my legs and pulling the zipper of my coat up to my neck against the salty wind.
Tsukumo sat beside me.
Neither of us spoke.
We let the rhythm of the place take over.
A wave rose silently, struck the base of the rock beneath us in a burst of glowing foam, then withdrew.
Another followed.
The silence we shared there didn't carry the suffocating weight of the house.
It was simply necessary.
The sound of the world healing wounds words couldn't reach.
Tsukumo leaned to one side, picked up a smooth round stone, and began rolling it between his long, calloused fingers.
After several minutes of watching the luminous dance of the water, I finally broke the silence.
"Did you see anyone in there?" I asked without looking at him.
His hand stopped immediately.
He didn't pretend not to understand.
Didn't ask what I meant.
Somehow, both of us understood that the Path of the Spirit didn't only test power.
It tested ghosts.
"My mother."
I turned toward him.
Tsukumo kept his eyes fixed on the rhythmic waves.
"Victoria? You haven't told me much about her."
He gave a slow nod.
The stone slipped from his fingers, but instead of falling, stopped a few centimeters above his palm and floated there.
"She showed me that I've spent a very long time using my own power the wrong way," he said, his voice carrying a serenity I'd never heard from him before.
I frowned, intrigued.
Tsukumo was a prodigy even among Vangor's children.
If there was one thing he wasn't known for, it was using power inefficiently.
"Wrong how?"
"My father taught me that controlling something meant being strong enough to crush it," he explained, bringing the tip of his index finger close to the floating stone.
It didn't even tremble.
"If I put the weight of a mountain on you, you can't move. That's how the Domain of Strength works."
"But my mother... my mother thought differently."
"How?"
He turned his wrist toward me, offering the floating stone.
"Try to take it."
I looked from his hand to his serious expression.
"It's a rock, Tsukumo."
"I can see that it's a rock, Suki. Take it."
I rolled my eyes, raised my right hand, and reached for it.
Or tried to.
The moment my fingers approached, my hand stopped.
I froze, confused.
I forced my fingers forward.
Nothing happened.
There was no invisible wall.
None of the gravitational pressure that normally tried to crush me against the ground.
There was no weight in the air at all.
I simply couldn't move my arm through the space he had marked.
I applied more strength, allowing a little heat to flare through my arm, only to hit an absolute conceptual barrier.
"What the hell is this?" I muttered, pulling my hand back.
A faint smile appeared on his lips.
"Exactly."
I examined the space surrounding the stone.
There was no distortion in the air.
No sign of the colossal aura he usually displayed.
"I can't feel your gravity."
"Because it isn't heavy," he answered.
"Then why can't I move my damn hand?"
Tsukumo relaxed, the smile gradually leaving his face.
"Because I'm not pushing you. I'm simply telling space that movement isn't allowed."
He fully opened his hand.
The spatial lock vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
My arm moved freely again, and I grabbed the stone.
I stared at the cold rock, trying to process the absurd concept he'd just demonstrated.
It was subtle.
Infinitely more terrifying than brute-force crushing.
"That's much worse than your old gravity," I concluded, looking at him.
"Much worse," he agreed.
"Cool."
"Thank you."
I tossed the stone into the Sacred Ocean.
Plop.
The water glowed where it sank.
We fell quiet again, each lost in our own thoughts while the night wind tousled his hair and carried the scent of salt toward us.
"Did she say anything else?" I asked, curiosity mixed with a certain reluctance to intrude on a painful memory.
Tsukumo took longer this time.
He blinked slowly as he watched a distant wave.
"She said it wouldn't be the last time we saw each other."
I turned my body toward him, confusion written across my face.
"Tsukumo... isn't she dead?"
"I know."
"Then..."
"I know."
He released a long sigh and rested both forearms on his knees.
"That's the part that's been bothering me ever since I left."
I studied his profile, the way his golden eyes seemed to search for answers among the stars reflected on the sea.
I decided to return some of the trust he'd just given me.
"My mother has appeared inside my head before too," I commented casually.
His neck practically snapped as he turned toward me.
His eyes narrowed.
"What?"
"A long time ago. During training with Silver, before the Elixe Competition."
"You never told me."
I shrugged, breaking a shard of crystallized salt from the stone beneath us.
"You never asked."
He stared at me, his expression hovering somewhere between disbelief and disapproval.
"Suki."
"What?"
"You're terrible at telling people important things."
I let out an awkward breath of laughter through my nose.
"I know. I need to work on that."
Tsukumo rubbed a hand across his forehead.
"It's impressive."
"Thank you."
"That wasn't a compliment."
I smirked, but the lightness disappeared far too quickly.
Another wave crashed against the limestone wall below us, misting our boots with spray.
He wasn't going to let me escape the subject.
And deep down, I wanted to talk.
"And you?" he asked, his voice softer as he returned to the serious tone.
"I mean... what haunted you in there?"
I pressed my lips together.
The memory alone made my stomach drop.
I stared down at my own palms.
"The dragon was there," I answered, my chest tightening just from mentioning it.
Tsukumo's body seemed to stiffen.
"That dragon? The one from your village?"
"The same one."
Cold wind hissed through the gaps in the stone.
I closed my hands, remembering that ancient voice echoing through the abyss of my mind.
"It followed me through the entire path, crawling through the shadows."
"Doing what? Did you fight it?"
"Talking," I replied flatly.
Tsukumo blinked, surprised.
"Doesn't sound pleasant."
"You have no idea," I growled, shaking my head.
I looked back toward the vast, dark, glowing ocean.
"It showed me my village. My father. My mother. My childhood friends."
"I went through every coffin I'd left behind."
My nails dug into my palms.
The memory of those old flames still burned, but differently now.
"And then?" Tsukumo asked.
"It didn't work. Not the way it wanted."
Tsukumo frowned, studying my posture.
"No?"
I shook my head and released the breath I'd been holding.
"I missed them, obviously. But it didn't... it didn't break me the way it used to."
The waves continued rolling in, their steady rhythm becoming the background to the dissection of my own soul.
I kept going, the words coming in a necessary stream.
"Then it threw the Elixe Competition back in my face. Made me see Sallys again. Kimiko. Kaichin."
"Then came Sillys. The Queen. Lucas. Silver. Kânia."
I paused for a moment and glanced sideways at him.
"You."
Tsukumo remained perfectly still, listening without interruption.
I drew a deep breath, feeling my throat tighten as I approached the real wound.
"And Ruitan, of course."
Understanding settled into his golden eyes, wiping away the last trace of ease.
He knew exactly what that name meant to me.
"Well, I wasn't going to show up for no reason."
"Yeah."
My fists tightened again.
The sound of the ocean seemed to dull beneath the echoes of that day carved into my skull.
"It made me watch everything again. Worse than that. It put me back inside it," I murmured through clenched teeth.
Tsukumo didn't ask what happened next.
He didn't need to.
He had been there that day.
"Laura," he whispered.
I swallowed against the knot rising in my throat.
"Laura."
"Except this time, it was different," I admitted, raising my right hand and opening my fingers.
A small orange-red flame bloomed.
Immediately, I took hold of the wind currents along the shore and guided them around the fire, feeding its base and stabilizing its tip.
"I wasn't that scared, weak kid from three years ago anymore. I had this."
"I had Silver's training. Experience. Everything I've gained up until now."
I closed my fingers tightly, extinguishing the flame at once.
My jaw locked as the bitter taste of helplessness filled my mouth.
"And even then... those two damn figures at the portal still put me on the ground like an animal."
Tsukumo looked toward the horizon.
He understood the frustration of insufficient strength better than anyone.
"Did you try to get back up?"
I laughed without a trace of humor.
A dry, almost desperate sound.
"Until my bones started cracking and my body gave out completely."
Silence settled again.
The water filled the space we'd left empty.
"And did you get up?" he insisted.
I turned toward him, surprised that he kept focusing on that detail.
"I did. In the end, yeah."
Tsukumo nodded, firm and decisive.
"Then the test worked."
I frowned, not understanding what he was getting at.
"What?"
"The Spirit test. It worked."
I shook my head, irritated.
He wasn't getting the point.
"That's not what I'm talking about, Tsukumo. I got beaten. I lost again."
"I know."
He leaned forward, picked up another pebble from the white gravel, and rolled it between his fingertips.
"You're sitting there thinking you spent the last three years tearing yourself apart to get stronger, and now you're terrified that it still might not be enough. Right?"
He had struck the exposed nerve.
I lowered my head.
"Right."
He looked at me.
"Then we get even stronger."
I exhaled through my nose, shaking my head at my friend's unyielding, military logic.
"You make it sound simple. Pick up a bigger sword and try again."
"It isn't," he shot back.
"Nothing we've done until now has been simple, Suki. We've bled for every step forward. But that's exactly what we've always done."
"We fall, and we find a way back up."
The stone in his hand began to rise slowly, a quiet demonstration of that very progress.
I watched it float against the backdrop of the silver ocean.
The cold fear was still there.
"You need to be strong enough on the day you find Laura."
The words remained suspended between us.
I lowered my eyes toward my scarred hands.
Three years.
Maybe that was the heart of my agony.
Three long years spent drowning in private hells, and I wasn't even an inch closer to knowing where she was being held.
"I'm going to find her," I said, the words coming out more like a whispered vow to myself.
"I know."
"No, Tsukumo."
I raised my eyes and locked them on the calm face of my brother-in-arms.
"I'm going to find her."
He didn't blink.
He held my feverish stare, reading the desperation and determination woven together inside me, then gave a small nod.
"Then we're going to find her."
I didn't correct the "we."
There was no need.
There was no loneliness on that road, no matter how terrible it became.
At that moment, a much larger wave slammed against the cliff beneath our platform.
A cloud of luminous droplets burst into the air, about to rain down on our heads, but Tsukumo simply raised his right hand.
The droplets stopped.
Hundreds of tiny spheres of silver water hung suspended a handspan from our faces.
Not one trembled or burst beneath pressure.
His spatial control was absolute and delicate, turning the ocean spray into a floating shower of stars.
I stared at the sight.
Each droplet caught and reflected the lights of the sea and the stars above.
I extended my hand into the space between them and summoned a small living flame in my palm.
The freezing ocean wind whipped across the platform, immediately trying to tear the fire away.
Instinctively, I reached into my heightened senses of Wind.
I felt every microscopic shift in pressure.
Every current crossing the open air.
Instead of fighting the gust and raising walls of brute heat, I made room.
I let the wind in.
The flame leaned gracefully, twisted along with the current, and settled into a perfectly stable burn in the middle of the gale.
Tsukumo turned his wrist.
Hundreds of luminous droplets began orbiting peacefully and majestically around my tiny fire.
It was an impossible ecosystem contained in the space between us.
None of the elements tried to destroy the others.
There was no collision.
Only quiet, rhythmic coexistence.
We watched the small wonder spin beneath Lavinsk's night sky.
It was almost funny when I stopped to think about it.
We had spent our entire lives being forged to kill, destroy, shatter armor, and survive literal hells.
And there we were, two trained monsters, using the peak of our elemental mastery to make little drops of water spin around a flame.
"Don't tell anyone I made something pretty."
I laughed softly.
"I'm telling Taro tomorrow morning."
"I'll break every bone in your body."
"You'll have to catch me first."
Suddenly, a familiar chill brushed against the outer limits of my perception.
An ancient aura.
Extremely powerful.
Almost perfectly concealed several kilometers away.
I closed my eyes and caught the divine signature.
"Is he spying on us from that cliff?" I asked, relaxing my shoulders.
Tsukumo didn't even bother turning his head to check.
"Probably."
"Old bastard."
"He heard you."
"I know he did. Hope he got offended."
As though answering on cue, the immense presence on the other side of the island withdrew and vanished from my senses.
I smiled openly.
A genuine smile I hadn't felt in days.
Tsukumo did the same.
I closed my hand, and the flame vanished.
He relaxed his fingers, allowing the constellation of water droplets to fall harmlessly onto the ground and disappear among the salt-covered stone.
"Soon, I'll reach you, Laura," I said, extending a hand toward the sky and closing my fist.
It was only the beginning of the next path.