When the Featherflight reached the Vlarioch mountains, it still wasn’t a perfect path to the Dremfell Wall. They hadn’t sailed directly along the pass; they needed to adjust their course and head eastward.

  Every day of the journey, when Pirin wasn’t flooding the sails with wind to speed up their process, he analyzed his bottom two Inner Gates and thought long and hard about his Spirit Revelation.

  At first, he’d considered just spouting a list of goals, hoping it would work, but the revelations didn’t work like that. As Nomad had explained, “The revelations require a deep, forceful push of will to trigger. I don’t reckon you’ll be thinking about the will at this point, but it’s there. If you fail to trigger a revelation more than three times in a row, your Inner Gates will seize up, and it will take months for them to relax enough that you can try again.”

  And Pirin couldn’t do that, either. Not if he wanted to survive through the next few months.

  So, instead, he hunted for miniature signs of spiritual resonance as he meditated.

  What do I want?

  It seemed like an easy question. What did he want? Simple…simple…

  But every time he thought that, every time he tried to summarize it as simple, it failed. To help others. That was what he promised Mr. Regos. He’d do his healer’s duty and save lives, to heal.

  But that wasn’t why he left on this journey. It was a part of him, sure, and deep down he knew it. He felt it there, its effects lingering even if he’d forgotten—and restored a hollow version with the Memory Chain.

  He’d gone on this quest because Sirdia needed a strong wizard-king, and thus, it should’ve been strength he sought after.

  Again, that was only a part of the whole.

  His home, then? Was it Sirdia he wanted to save? Protect the place he’d learned to love?

  But if he wanted just that, he’d have pulled the entire army behind the Dremfell Wall and tried to weather out the siege. No, that wasn’t right either, even if that’s what Kalénier would’ve wanted him to do.

  No, Pirin wanted a combination of it all.

  On the second day, in the afternoon, as they sailed high above the sharp, snow-capped peaks of the Vlarioch range, he sat on the Featherflight’s observation platform. Wind blasted him from the side. Snowflakes fluttered down, stinging in the gale. Gray sheltered in the cargo hold, safe from the weather.

  It was there that Pirin reached a conclusion: Unity. I want unity.

  He tried it. He locked his spiritual system and Inner Gates in his mental image, and with a soft whisper, said, “I want to bring unity to the Elven Continent.” It’d stop the fighting, let them resist the Dominion, and more.

  But nothing happened. The two lower gates remained shut.

  One chance down. He considered waiting, but he knew he was close.

  And they were almost close to Dremfell Wall. They had to be. If he couldn’t achieve his revelation in time, he’d be at even more of a disadvantage against the Wildflames.

  He rubbed his fingers together, then rubbed his chin.

  It wasn’t just about unity and peace. The Dominion also wanted unity and peace, but Pirin didn’t want what the Mainland had.

  Besides, it was the Dominion that killed Mr. Regos. He couldn’t be like them.

  Something to tie it all together…

  Another bout of inspiration flowed into his mind, and without hesitation, he spoke the revelation. Not time to think about it and make it worse, or violate it somehow with indecision. “I want to improve. Both myself and the world around me. I want to be the best I can be, unrestrained, and I want to make the world around me as good as it possibly can be. I want to create, I want to build, and I want to advance.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  A chill ran down his spine. The top of the Center-Rhun channel blazed with heat, and the base, near his hips, surged with heat. A tone ran down the channel, an inaudible vibration. It hummed and shook his vertebrae.

  Ignoring the upper five Inner Gates, it passed straight down through the walls of the channel.

  But when it reached the bottom two gates, it expanded outward into the disks of energy. The arcane vibrations shattered the buildup of debris and spiritual buildup. Chunks disappeared and decayed, or faded to dust altogether. Once it faded from the channel, it didn’t reappear in his senses.

  That was the debris that had been created by his conflict of purpose willingness. He saw it now.

  But he saw clearly.

  He rose to his feet and pushed Essence through the channel. Most of the elixir’s Essence had integrated into his spirit, and now, it didn’t feel like a huge bump in spiritual strength, but it was something.

  But when he pushed it through the central channel, he didn’t have to push anywhere near as hard to make it move. At least, through the first two gates. The next still offered the same resistance as before, but there were only five of them now.

  And more efficient Essence movement would almost always mean an improvement to his techniques. Less Essence wastage. Faster Essence transfer.

  He shut his eyes and prepared a Shattered Palm, then launched it over the edge of the observation platform.

  His Essence destabilized in one second rather than two, and with greater flow, he could either pour more Essence outward, making the area of effect broader, or he could concentrate it, improving the range and immediate harm to a designated target.

  He tried launching a few, experimenting with different ways he could manipulate the Essence flow, either expanding the palm strike or concentrating it.

  On the fifth strike, though, as he watched the Essence fade away into the sky and concentrated directly on it, his gaze drifted off into the distance.

  A cloud of dust rolled up from the ground.

  He stopped cycling and let his channels rest, then ran to the edge of the platform. The dust was rising from a broad valley in the distance—almost at the horizon.

  Without reforging his body, Pirin wouldn’t have been able to make out the details of the landscape around it, but now? He picked out an enormous valley pass splitting the Vlarioch range in half. Smooth slopes bore green pines, and at its very bottom was a bed of rock and gravel. A river ran through the center, but in late fall, the river barely trickled through.

  The Dremfell Pass.

  Pirin spun around and ran to the hatch, then descended through the ship to the gondola. “Alyus?” he asked.

  “Yeah, Elfy?”

  “We’re almost there. You see that dust?”

  The ostal captain nodded. “Indeed. Is it a problem?”

  “It’s an army. And I don’t think they’re Sirdians.”

  Alyus grimaced, then turned to one of the Sirdian soldiers. “Never been to Dremfell before. Where should I land?”

  “There are platforms high up on the valley walls,” said the soldier. “You’ll see them when you arrive. We can moor the ship there.”

  Pirin ran to the front of the gondola and leaned closer to the curved bank of windows at the front. He watched the cloud of dust—kicked up by an advancing army—and tapped on the glass. The edges of the distant valley pass peeled away, revealing the wall. It appeared similar to Pirin’s memories, except there was only a light dusting of snow on the ground from a previous day.

  The wall itself was still as raggedy and ruined as he’d seen it in the Memory Chain, with damaged, crumbling sections and cobblestone patches, wood scaffolding holding up the backs of towers, and raised, tacked-on catapult platforms. Blue banners fluttered on the towers or hung on standards, and silver-armoured Sirdian elves filled the ramparts, holding bows and spears.

  Beyond the wall, though, was a small city to support the soldiers of the wall. Hastily-built half-timber houses stood in an organized grid, and packed mud streets with wagon ruts ran between them.

  Today, there were no wagons—only weavelings in their golden armour, packed together on the ground. They wielded tower shields and spears, ready to fight off invaders who breached the wall.

  “Skell, Ebb?” Pirin asked, calling to the two Weaveling middle-marshals who stood near the back of the gondola. “I need you to go to the ground and reassure your brothers. We’re here to help, and I’ll hold off the wizards as best as I can. If we can break their army here, then we won’t have to worry about an invasion of Sirdia.” He turned to Alyus. “Keep the sails open, if you can.”

  “Are you expecting a retreat?” Alyus asked.

  “He is wiser to,” Nomad stated. “I don’t reckon our defense will last, regardless of the Sirdians’ confidence.”

  “Speaking of which,” Pirin said. “Nomad, I need you to stay aboard the Featherflight. It’ll be too dangerous down there, and I still need your instruction. For the greater good, I need you to stay out of harm’s way.”

  “Of course,” Nomad said. “I’m not under any illusion that I can sway the outcome of this battle. But, at your stage, neither should you be.”

  Pirin grimaced. “I have to try. We can’t give up.” As he spoke, a squadron of black specks emerged from the cloud of dust. Dominion Rockwings. For the moment, they only circled about, protecting the army below, but some carried bombs. They were going to attack the wall with explosives too.

  The ground of the pass seethed with white and green—Dominion foot soldiers. Their conscripts marched at the head of the army, pushing siege towers and carrying shields. Behind them marched heavily-armoured ostal in reserve.

  “Alyus, can you take us around the back of the wall and keep well away from that army?” Pirin asked, leaning closer to the glass and willing the airship to fly faster.

  But he didn’t need to will it. He could force it.

  “I’ll get us around the back, Elfy, but it’s up to you to keep the wind at our stern.”

  Pirin nodded, then said, “I’ll get Gray. Give me one moment.”