Volsung’s evening light filtered through the porthole of Lucian’s cabin. If they weren’t close to the Academy by now, they would be soon.

  He showered and went to the bridge, where he found Khairu at the helm, steering manually, with Emma standing beside her. An island rose in the distance, high above this gray northern sea.

  “Transcend Mount,” Khairu said. “We should make landfall within the hour.”

  Transcend Mount was tall and sheer. Most of it was gray, though its lower reaches were dense with green forest. The eastern sun had dipped below its flat top, upon which stood shadowy buildings and towers. The rocky beach below contained a single wooden dock.

  Lightsail plowed ahead on a starboard tack, making steady progress. On the western horizon, the first stars and planets appeared in the darkening sky. The air was chilly; though it was summer, they were in the north now, just a Volsung day’s hard sailing from the wall of the ice cap.

  Lucian watched as they drew into a narrow inlet, which would provide some shelter from passing storms. As they moored, the ship rested in the island’s shadow on its western face. It was even colder here, the evening wind almost chilly enough to bite. Lucian had never been to such a remote place in his entire life. Aside from the few buildings hundreds of meters above them, most of which were obscured from view, there was no sign of civilization.

  They left the boat tied to the dock, and it rolled in the surf as they approached the gray, rocky beach. A narrow trail carved into the cliff led up the mountainside.

  They made their way up in silence, surrounded by trees that were a strange mixture of local and Terran. Like any sufficiently Earth-like world, Volsung’s biosphere had become mixed over the decades, a reality of interplanetary colonization. Pines and aspen intermixed with local trees with thin white trunks and hanging vines, while chortles and clicks emanated from the stringy undergrowth. Over the water, Lucian spied several dozen glowing globules, the color of cyan, floating over the darkening surface of the ocean, having the appearance of airborne jellyfish.

  Those creatures, whatever they were, were more than enough of a reminder that this wasn’t Earth anymore.

  By the time they were halfway up, Lucian was short of breath, while Emma was gasping. It would be days yet before he was over his grav-lag. But if he was hurting, Emma was suffering. She huffed and puffed from beside him, but never called for a break. Khairu set a fast pace and didn’t seem worried about leaving either of them behind. Emma laid down her pride and allowed Lucian to carry her pack once they were halfway up.

  They continued without pause until they were nearly there. That was when Khairu seemed to tense up.

  “What is it?” Emma asked after a few deep breaths.

  Khairu hesitated, looking toward the water, seeming to note something Lucian wasn’t experienced enough to see. “Another storm. This one will be bad.”

  Lucian looked in the same direction as Khairu, but the western sky was completely clear.

  “Will it be as bad as yesterday?” Emma asked.

  “Worse. At this latitude, the storms blow something fierce. We must hurry.”

  The trail only got steeper the higher they went, becoming stairs toward the top. Looking at the shoreline hundreds of meters below, more of those floating globes were glowing in the gathering gloom. There must have been hundreds of them by now. Perhaps they were the precursor to the storm. Even if Lucian wanted to ask about them, he was too short of breath.

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  After another agonizing ten minutes, the trail leveled off after a final switchback. Emma stopped, her jaw dropping at the sight of the Volsung Academy.

  The Academy hulked before them, at least fifty meters tall and four times that wide, taking up the majority of the high plateau. Four high towers rose from its four corners, while two more, taller than the others, rose from the middle. Its gargantuan mass seemed to be carved from the black granite making up most of the island, weather-beaten and worn from the planet’s constant storms. Intricate colonnades surrounded the complex on multiple tiers, Lucian counting three, though there might have been more.

  This place was a veritable fortress. How had it been built? By whom? It looked far older than two centuries, the approximate length of time humans had settled Volsung, though its apparent age could have been the effect of erosion.

  Lucian realized the truth: The Academy hadn’t been built. It had been excavated. That explained the mountain’s flat top, as if it had been chiseled away. The question was, had this construction been here before the coming of people, or had people carved it out in its entirety?

  Lucian had little time to ponder these questions. Here at the flat top of the island, the wind blew hard and cold, and the eastern sky was a dark and threatening mass. Flashes of lightning illuminated the Academy’s decrepit exterior, lending it a menacing air.

  Khairu was running now, and despite his exhaustion, Lucian ran too. The first cold drops of rain fell right as they reached the open threshold, as icy blasts of wind gusted from the north and east.

  After a month of travel, they had finally made it safely to the Volsung Academy, inside its yawning entrance, which seemed to swallow them whole.

  But now that they were here, the real test would soon come. Lucian’s heart pounded at the mere idea that within minutes, he could be face-to-face with the Transcends, who held his and Emma’s fate in their hands.

  The Academy opened into a large antechamber, circular with a high dome supported by dozens of immense pillars. Lucian guessed the cavernous space might be a hundred paces across. Outside those pillars, dozens of torches blazed, and a large central brazier cast light and warmth. Despite all the fires, it was insufficient to conquer the darkness and cold. Shadows danced along the walls, and a sense of heaviness pervaded all. Three corridors branched off from this antechamber, all cloaked in shadow, each leading deeper into the complex. The stonework below was worn smooth, without so much as a speck of dust.

  The dreary atmosphere was only amplified by the torrents of rain pounding down outside. Cold gusts swept inward, carrying with them freezing rain.

  “Follow me,” Khairu said with a swirl of her gray cloak.

  She led them deeper within, standing for a moment by the central brazier to warm and dry herself. Emma and Lucian followed her example. The two shared a nervous glance. The silence seemed too heavy to break.

  After another minute, Khairu led them on without a word. Lucian returned Emma’s pack when she gestured to have it back.

  They passed no one as they ventured deeper into the Academy. From its size, Lucian had expected hundreds of mages to be housed here. But it felt as if they were the only ones.

  “Where is everyone?” Emma asked, her voice tremulous and echoing off the thick stone walls.

  “Night meditations,” Khairu said.

  At last, Khairu brought them into another chamber, not as big as the entry hall, but still large in its own right. It was lit by various sconces and braziers blazing with flames. Shadows danced along the walls. A long row of stone seats, eight in all, lined the far wall. They were like thrones, but each was the same size and at the same level. There were two torches on each side of those seats, none of which were lit.

  There the three of them stood and waited. For how long, Lucian didn’t know. He was hungry and cold, and could only stop himself from shivering through sheer force of will.

  Minutes dragged on in silence. Then an hour. Lucian’s thoughts raced all the while. He had plenty of time to wonder whether all this was a huge mistake. He could hear the wind of the storm wailing outside. That the storm’s sound could reach this deep inside the Academy was a testament to its violence.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, footsteps sounded from outside the chamber. Three figures in colored robes—Blue, Gray, and White—floated through the open archway like ghosts, entering this inner sanctum with gravitas. Those in the gray and blue robes were elderly men, each with wrinkled and wizened faces. The blue-robed one had dark skin and close-cropped hair, while the man in gray had snowy white hair and a narrow, sorrowful expression. Lucian thought his pallor seemed sickly, and his posture was stooped.

  The last person, dressed in resplendent white robes, was a wiry old woman. She had narrow shoulders, a bony frame, and a sharp nose set in a wrinkled face. A long, white braid fell over her shoulder.

  When those dark eyes found Lucian’s, seeming to know him to the core, his skin went cold with recognition. It couldn’t be . . .

  But it was so. She was none other than Vera.