“Why didn’t you wait for me?”

  I crack an eye and it’s filled with Aviela’s face. She’s too close and my nose fills with the sour smell of sweat.

  “I was feeling better.”

  “Better?” Her eyes widen and she steps back from me. “Better, he says? You call this better?”

  I open both eyes and roll my head to the side; the Monarch stares back at me with only dull sockets. This isn’t the first time I’ve awoken since my battle with him; twice before I rose, spitting blood and froth. Twice I’d torn into him and taken chunks of his leathery flesh and the softness of his eye. Blazing sun, I’d been ravenous. No matter the pain of my body, I’d have ripped my limbs off to get another bite before I fell asleep once more.

  This is a problem. I can’t go on predatory rampages every time I get hungry or injured. My eyes dart back to Aviela is has stepped away a little so that she can pace and rave. Has she noticed the bites or do they blend into the damage of battle?

  I groan, roll myself up, and stand on legs that are steadier than they have a right to be. Aviela stops and glares.

  “This isn’t what I meant when you were told to train, you know. This whole shingdig with the rockfall. Completely against the spirit of what I was having you do. Now we’re going to have to find another place to train and a whole new regimen.”

  “I killed him, didn’t I? Wasn’t that the point?”

  “No. Idiot. That wasn’t the point at all.” She strides up to me and presses a finger into my chest. I rock back but…she looks at my chest, then up to my eyes. She presses harder. Out of instinct, I hold my ground. She pushes again and I can see the strain in her arm and for a moment I’m filled with euphoria. I did it? I’m strong? Then she flattens her palm against my chest and shoves me with enough force that I’m back on the ground in an instant.

  “What was that for?”

  Aviela waits. She looks up to the lights and then to the ground as if expecting something. “Right. I wasn’t really expecting the architects to be angered by a shove anyway, but you never know. Pik. You shouldn’t be strong like that. You’ve only been training for a week.”

  I get back to my feet and smooth down my clothes. Blazing…they’re dirty with the gore of my kill. “I need to wash myself.” I grumble into my shirt.

  “Pik. It took me a year to harden my body, ready for my mark. This isn’t normal.”

  “Perhaps I’m precocious.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “Cocoon word. I don’t think it works anyway. Prodigy?”

  Aviela nods, everyone knew that the cocoons provided words for which we had no use, if the architects were being kind they would give the context in snippets of suggested memories.

  “You’ve become Heightened later than anyone I’ve ever heard of and you think you have some prodigious skill now that you have a taste for it?”

  “Could that not be true?”

  “Perhaps we should test the leniency of the architects some more? Maybe hasten your training once again?”

  I roll my eyes at Aviela’s suggesting eyebrows. “How about you’re a great teacher and I’m following your plan. I fought the big beast, killed it, now I’m stronger. Simple.”

  “Simple, he says. You were supposed to lose. A lot. That was the whole point of the exercise. Be beaten. Heal. Be beaten again and repeat until your body was as tough as a rock and you knew every tendon, muscle, and bone. Except now, you’ve skipped all that and you’re just stronger. What is even the point?”

  I smile; it’s a creeping thing that begins at the corners of my eyes and spreads to the lines at the edge of my mouth. “I killed him. That means you’ll take me into a dungeon and I can finally get a real weapon.”

  Aviela scrubs a hand over her face to hide her exasperation. “I did promise that, didn’t I?” She sighs. “Fine. You get washed so you don’t stink like a dead monster and we can head to the dungeon. Found one in the next segment, so you’re lucky.”

  I whoop and leap with my fist in the air. “Dungeon!”

  “Don’t get too excited. We’re using it as training. You’re going in first.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Ah… dungeon…”

  Aviela is frustrated with how long it takes me to wash; I don’t just dip into the water and come out refreshed, I meticulously scrub every piece of clothing that I have to make sure the stains are removed. After a short while she hands me a small nub of something she calls soap. It foams in the water and tastes awful, but it removes the most stubborn of the blood and gore from my clothes.

  She leads me on and away from the little cave and our hunting ground out towards the next segment and the dungeon. I’m feeling good, my body is mostly back to a strong state, all that really aches is my hand where the puckered scar stretches and pulls with my motions.

  “It’s good you want to take care of your things. That’s good practice.” Aviela speaks for the first time in miles.

  I smile as I run my fingers over the soft leather of my coat. “Thank you for my coat, I appreciate it.”

  “You really never had a coat before this?”

  “No. We had some blankets and the Heightened got better clothes. I couldn’t carry very much so I didn’t get… anything.”

  “Right… and this was that fellow’s doing? Oran?”

  I frowned and watched my feet plodding over the dirt for a while. “I don’t think he cared. It’s just the way it was.”

  Aviela grunts. Our conversations are like that for some time; short questions where she probes at something worrying at the back of her mind and me taking time to contemplate an answer. She doesn’t mind it and neither do I. I appreciate her solid presence and how the she fends of the monsters with her powers. I offer to try my hand at it, itching with energy now that I feel some strength in myself, but she declines, telling me that I’ll be tested in the dungeon and not to get ahead of myself.

  We pass through a narrow passage into the next segment and emerge into a confusing mix of rolling hills with lonely trees, deep valleys with steep sides that we scramble down, and boggy marshes that swarm with small flies. I grumble after half a mile and swear another half after that.

  Aviela bounds from perch to perch and rock to rock, never letting her feet dip into boggy water. I am not so agile. Twice I step into something too deep and muddy my clothes. My mood is as foul as it can get when the architects open the ceiling and deluge us with a roiling rain that stirs the waters and drowns us as we trudge. Aviela pulls a cover from her pack and the water slicks off in fat droplets, leaving her smirking beneath.

  “I want to trade for a pack like yours.” I blink rain from my eyes and it’s futile, replaced instantly. “And a coat like that too.”

  “Oh, is the coat I got you not good enough?”

  I blush. “It’s the best coat. I just…” What? I want more? I want what she has even though I’ve had nothing? I should be grateful for her generosity and yet a smattering of rain has made me covet something I didn’t know existed until this moment. Still. I want it. I’ll be a Marked soon and I’ll ascend too; I should have a coat to protect me from rain and a pack to carry it all. That’s not too much to ask.

  “It’s okay to want things, Pik.” Aviela touches me arm and smiles. “You don’t have to feel guilty for wanting things. We’ll split what we find in the dungeon and you can trade a tribe for a bag. Then we’ll go to another dungeon and do it again, maybe you can get a coat.”

  “I want a weapon.”

  She laughs. “Of course, weapons are important too. Can’t trade for those, though, the best ones are those you find yourself.”

  “You don’t have one. All I’ve seen is your beams of light, do you have a weapon too?”

  She nods. “Every Marked has a weapon. They wouldn’t be a very good Marked if they didn’t.”

  “What’s yours then?”

  “Now that is a surprise for later. Let a lady have some secrets.”

  I groan and look to the ceiling beseechingly. “I will wither from the anticipation.”

  “Don’t. Let it buoy you to new heights, Pik. Besides, you’ll have your own soon and you’ll not care about mine.”

  I consider her words for a while as water rises until it is around our ankles in the valley. The sides are slick and the water runs freely down, carrying with it dirt and debris that nudges our limbs and gets caught against the plants in the boggy ground. We don’t need to communicate to know what we have to do.

  The climb back out of the valley is treacherous. I fall twice and am caught by Aviela before I can slide back the bottom. The ridge is worse. Not only have the architects decided to batter us with water, they have sent a howling wind that cuts through my sodden layers and leeches the warmth from my skin. Even Aviela grumbles at the cold and misery of it all.

  The moment that we see the protected overhang and shallow cave in the side of a rise in the hill, we both break into a soggy jog until we’re beneath its dry cover.

  “Blazing sun, what a miserable segment this is.” Aviela sheds her pack and shakes the worst of the water from her clothes.

  “At least it’s not an ice segment. Those were really tough.”

  “I can imagine. Especially if you’ve not got a coat either.”

  “True enough.” I eye her pack. “Do you have any wood in there?”

  “A couple of sticks.”

  “Enough to dry us out?”

  “Maybe.”

  I roll my eyes. “Please, Aviela, master of mine, may we have a scrap of fire to dry our clothes and warm our bones.”

  “Of course, my acolyte. My mini-apprentice. My little Heightened tagalong. I, your teacher, shall provide you with warmth and succor before your deadly trials.”

  “I hope it’s not that deadly.”

  Aviela’s laugh bounds around our shelter and I can’t suppress my own grin. “Maybe. Depends how much that training with the old trunked creature actually helped you. If you’re as tough as I think you are, this shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “And if I’m not?”

  “Well, then it has been nice knowing you, I’m sure the architects will treat you well in the whatever comes next.”

  “I’m filled with comfort…”

  The fire crackles jovially. The sticks are buried deep in Aviela’s cavernous pack and had been kept dry as desert sand. The warmth they throw off when aflame sinks into me and I lean over to absorb as much as I can as my clothes steam off their wetness.

  Aviela settles too. There’s not enough space to lie fully stretched and be out of the rain so we both prop ourselves up, her against her pack and me against a rock. I promise myself that I’ll have a pack and a mark soon. I’ll carry a couple of sticks and a flint and steel with me everywhere and maybe I can make someone else a fire too.

  “Thanks.” I speak into the quiet. Aviela’s breathing has been even for some time and her eyelids barely flutter.

  “You’re welcome, Pik.”