Starsinger

Dryfalls Cliff

The lush greenery had begun to fade as thick brown shrubs and spindly saplings rose to take its place. The ground beneath Aaron's feet moved up and down like waves on the ocean.

They had avoided the trails, striking through the forest itself with only the compass and the position of the stars to reassure them they were headed in the right direction. Aaron trusted the stars more than the compass. Some magic may sway the iron needle, but surely no earthly power can unsettle the gods.

Jace had them marching long days, rising before the sun and travelling deep into the twilight, racing their potential pursuers. At night they lit no fires. Every cracking branch was the mercenaries catching up to them, and every day was another day closer to Rhea's Teeth.

Each night as they marched they watched the sun sink into blackness, devoured by the mountains' soaring peaks. They started seeing glittering shafts of geodes thrusting up from the ground, as high as Aaron's waist. Shrines from the Old World, Delia explained, where traveling luminaries and Faithful passerby once lit prayer fires to seek the gods blessings on their journeys. Raelyn brushed the loose soil off the smooth, flat top of an amethyst. The moss held on stubbornly, its tiny threaded roots burrowed into the stone.

Aaron was used to seeing Old World crystal architecture in the city, ancient spires rising from a patchwork of buildings, strange shimmering shapes contorted over fountains in open plazas. The palace itself was made the same way, grown from the earth by a lost power. In the Wistful Wood, the geode shrines seemed out of place, covered in moss and lichen, forgotten remnants of a distant past.

The Teeth had been a living place once. Whole tribes would journey into the mountains to drink from the three sacred lakes that formed where the gods Helos, Lumos and Volos fell and brought life to the world. When the gods were angry with their children, Rhea's Teeth would spit fire high into the air, raining down hot ash on the penitent starborn.

But the Teeth had lain dormant ever since the Division. Are we pleasing the gods, then? Or have they given up caring? Now if folks went into the Teeth, the Teeth seemed to spit them back out. If they were lucky.

Jace wasn't counting on luck. Since the moment they'd decided to go west, he'd been spending long hours plotting and scratching diagrams into the dirt. He started sending Sapphire out on scouting missions for days at a time, searching for possible routes into the mountains. They were still three days from the Teeth when she finally returned with good news. An old trail, buried under several hundred years worth of rockslides, but with a few usable switchbacks near the base.

"Dryfalls Cliff. A few leagues north of our current trajectory." Jace leaned over the map, his impromptu team gathered around. He scratched a charcoal mark over the pass. It would be a steep climb once they reached the last usable part of the trail, but still better than the other possibilities Jace had already rejected. "It's not ideal. But we have an approach."

That night he cornered Aaron while he was fetching firewood and told him he would be leading them over the cliff.

"I climb trees, Jace," Aaron protested. "Trees and watchtowers and yes, sometimes rockface, but nothing like this."

"It's just rock, Aaron. Taller, scarier, but still rock. We can't spend days searching for an open pass that may not even exist while the mercenaries catch up with us. They've got all the horses and hounds they need to track us. We need to disappear into thin air." Jace squared off with his friend. "We can do this. You can do this."

Aaron felt a knot tightening in his chest. "Fine."

"Say it."

"I can do it."