The first hour was a lesson in how the body could break and still be forced to move. A lesson written in fire along Xeno's nerves.
He climbed with a slowness that felt like a confession of weakness. Every shift of his weight sent fresh jolts of pain through his shoulders. His fingers, once so strong, were now raw and bloody. The tips were shredded from clawing at seams no wider than a berry thorn, the nails cracked and torn. Each time he wedged them into the stone, a bright, hot agony lanced up his arms. The immense strength in his back and shoulders, the very thing that made him a danger in his old life, was now a burning fatigue that threatened to buckle at any moment.
Just one more pull. For him. Just one more.
His mind was a single, focused point of will, holding back the screaming of his muscles. He could feel the rough weave of the rope grinding into the raw flesh of his palms, rubbing it away with every upward shift. It felt like holding a burning branch. Beneath him, Othniel was a small, still figure, his face upturned, holding the rope with a grim determination that seemed to be the only thing keeping his own exhausted body upright. The old hunter's arms trembled with the strain, his seasoned muscles pushed far beyond their limits.
The sun was a merciless eye, baking the black stone until it seared the skin of Xeno's chest and back. But where his body touched the cliff, the volcanic glass leeched all warmth, leaving a deep, aching cold in his bones. He was trapped between the forge and the ice.
Then the wall offered its first true betrayal. An overhang. A bald, sweeping curve of rock, slick with some mineral dampness, that blocked the way forward. There were no handholds. No cracks. Just an impossible, smooth stone belly.
No. No, not here.
He hung there, his legs dangling uselessly, his full, dense weight pulling down on the rope. He felt the anchor—a spike of Iron Wood he'd driven into a crack—shift with a tiny, sickening scrape. His power, his great, clumsy gift, was now a liability. It was going to tear them both from the wall.
For a breath, despair washed over him, colder than the stone. But the memory of the silent camp, of his father's face as he picked up that child's toy, flooded him with a desperate, clean anger.
Not him. I will not fail him.
He stopped trying to cling like a lighter man might. He pressed his whole torso against the stone, his torn skin scraping against the rough surface. He found a shallow depression his mass could fill. He drove his hip forward, a brutal, ungainly movement. His legs swung out into the void, then pendulumed back. At the peak of the swing, he released one bloody hand and slapped it onto the overhang's lip. The stone ground into his fresh wounds, and a strangled cry was torn from his throat. But he held. With a final, gut-wrenching heave that felt like his muscles were tearing from the bone, he hauled his body over the edge.
He collapsed on the ledge, gasping, his side a bloody ruin, his hands shaking so badly he could barely make a fist. He had conquered the wall's denial, but the cost was written plainly on his body.
Without pause, he pushed through the pain and set the next anchor, his blood making the Iron Wood spike slick. He secured the rope with the Wanderer's Embrace. "Set!" he yelled, his voice a raw scrape. "Come!"
The wait was agony. He watched the rope tremble, each twitch a testament to his father's struggle below. When Othniel finally dragged himself onto the ledge, he did not stand. He lay on his back for a long moment, his chest heaving, his face grey with exhaustion. When he sat up, Xeno saw the deep tremors in his father's hands and the way he favored his right leg, an old injury screaming in protest.
"Good, lad," Othniel rasped, but the words were breathless. His eyes, however, held a fierce, bright pride. "We live... to climb another ledge."
They repeated the brutal cycle. Five more times. Each ledge was a fresh torment. Xeno's world shrank to the next handhold, the next anchor, the next wave of pain. His fingers were now numb clubs, the bleeding slowed to a sticky ooze. His back felt like a single, solid knot of fire. Othniel's movements grew slower, more deliberate, his breathing a ragged whistle. He was running on a hunter's cunning alone, his physical strength utterly spent.
Finally, Xeno dragged his broken body over the final lip and onto the true plateau. He did not so much stand as simply stop moving, collapsing onto the flat stone. He stared at the sky, his lungs hauling in the thin, cool air, his entire being a symphony of pain.
He turned and hauled the rope, his raw palms screaming in fresh protest, until Othniel's head appeared. His father's climb to the top was a slow, painful crawl. When he finally stood beside Xeno, he leaned heavily on his son's shoulder for a moment, his body trembling with the last dregs of his strength.
"You did not fight the stone, Xeno," Othniel said, his voice thin but clear. "You asked it to hold us, and it did."
They were safe. The Spine was behind them.
Xeno forced himself to stand, his legs feeling like water. He looked out, and the sight made him forget his pain for a single, breathtaking moment.
The World Above the Scar was a vision of impossible life. Lush forests, silver rivers, endless green. It was too much.
Then the shadow fell over them. A colossal raptor circled high above, its wings blocking the sun. Its gaze, though distant, was a physical weight. This new world was not a sanctuary. It was another kind of trial.
Othniel's hand, calloused and trembling with fatigue, rested on Xeno's bloody shoulder. The touch was a mix of ownership, awe, and warning.
"This is where we begin," he murmured. "We must become quieter than shadows."
The vast world waited, beautiful and full of teeth.