“Yes,” Madda said. “One of the few Ascended Masters that didn’t need to become an Apostate to find her soul and start the path of a Grandmaster.”
“But Kysandra has always been exceptional at finding hidden things,” Padda said.
“So, I might reach Master, but never be able to advance to Grandmaster,” Ruwen said.
Padda nodded. “If this happens, you would not be alone. There are many reasons the path of Grandmaster is unattainable. Not finding your soul is just one.”
“What does the stone do again, exactly?” Ruwen asked.
“It transports a part of you to Mount Sorrow,” Madda said. “There you will compete with everyone else who wishes to advance in our Clan. Your time is limited, but you can extend it by eating fruit found on the mountain. When your time expires, you return here. If you haven’t reached the summit, you can not advance.”
“Reaching the top of Mount Sorrow is challenging but proves your worth to the Clan,” Padda said. “Doing so grants you the opportunity to test for Master.”
Madda leaned forward. “Our Founders roam Mount Sorrow, watching. They look for those that embody their style. When you reach the top, if your destiny is to become a Grandmaster in our Clan, a Founder will make themselves known to you.” Madda looked at her husband. “Do we need to start making that plural?”
Padda smiled. “You just can not resist.”
“What, can’t a mother be proud?”
“Proud of what?” Ruwen asked.
Madda faced Ruwen. “I am a Viper Grandmaster and that old man is a Bamboo Grandmaster. For the millennia our Clan has existed, Adepts climbing Mount Sorrow have only found an empty summit or one Founder. Recently, an Adept found two waiting. It is an immense honor.”
Madda grinned, her joy spilling out of her, and even Padda gave a small smile.
“Sift,” Ruwen said.
Madda nodded. “We prayed he would just make it to the top. That is an achievement all its own. Never did we think he would find both the Bamboo and Viper Founders there. It is unprecedented.”
“He never mentioned it,” Ruwen said.
“I know,” Madda said. “He doesn’t care. All he wanted to talk about was how good the red sorrow fruit tasted. All that boy thinks about is food.”
Ruwen smiled. “Yeah, he only cared about the food benefits after finally becoming Blapy’s Favorite. He—”
“Blapy traveled to your world?” Madda asked in a quiet voice.
Ruwen’s body automatically relaxed, preparing for violence. Madda’s tone had been even, but years of training had triggered his sense of danger. He only managed a nod.
Madda faced her husband. “I thought she would never go back.”
Padda nodded at Madda and then looked at Ruwen. “Interesting.”
Ruwen had little desire to start this trial, but he really didn’t want to start discussing Blapy, Sift, and everything he’d been through. “What do I need to do?”
“Touch the stone,” Padda said.
Without hesitating, Ruwen grabbed the touchstone.
Chapter 28
The library disappeared, and Ruwen felt ten seconds of freezing darkness before his vision returned. His shirt and pants were now cotton, both colored a dirty white, and his left wrist no longer had his Void Band. Just like in the Spirit Realm, his interface had disappeared, and even more concerning, he couldn’t feel his Core.
Ruwen stood in front of a fountain. A ten-foot statue of a bare-chested woman stood proudly in the center. The black statue had lost its head and water bubbled out of the stump, filling a small pool at its feet. The headless statue held an immense bow, drawn tight, the moment of release perfectly captured. A quiver of stone arrows hung from her back.
The fountain lay in the center of a large building, which only had three walls and a partial ceiling remaining. Pews ringed the statue, and Ruwen wondered if this might be an abandoned temple.
Many of the surrounding buildings looked ready to collapse, the marble filthy from years of dust. A few hundred feet away, the ruined city ended, and a forest of bamboo began. In the distance, a mountain erupted from the forest floor. Covered in bamboo, only the top of the mountain looked bare.
Rami? Ruwen asked.
Silence.
For a moment, Ruwen flashed back two months. He had felt alone and a little scared like this sitting at his parent’s table, waiting to start his walk to the temple and his Ascendancy.
Laughter made Ruwen turn, and he found two dark-skinned women fifty feet away and striding toward him. They wore the same dirty white cotton clothes Ruwen did, and a light breeze tugged at their shirts. He had advanced enough with his Step training to recognize others’ abilities almost instantly. And these women made his skin prickle in fear.
The Scarecrow Aspect kept him in the second meditative state all the time, but here the aspect didn’t work. Ruwen sank into a level two meditative state on his own, and the fear became a distant warning. As much progress as he’d made with the Steps, he recognized how far he needed to go. Compared to Madda and Padda, Sift and Ruwen moved like…Ruwen imagined how Lylan would phrase it, “pregnant apahas.”
Madda and Padda’s movements reminded Ruwen of a soft breeze or a slow mountain brook. The women that moved toward him felt as if an entire ocean had stilled. A dead calm of epic proportion.
As they approached, Ruwen bowed deeply and held it, waiting for them to speak. Regardless of who these women were, the time they’d invested in their training deserved his full respect.
“Rise, traveler, I am Mist,” Mist said. “This is my sister, Thorn. What are you called?”
Ruwen stood and kept his body relaxed. He knew he had little chance of defending against an attack, but that didn’t mean he needed to make it easy. “My name is Ruwen Starfield.”
Now that the women were closer, Ruwen could see they were almost twins. The only difference between them, was their eyes. Mist’s pupils were brown like a tree trunk, and Thorn’s were a light brown, almost golden, and they reminded Ruwen of Sift’s eyes.
Locking gazes with Thorn,
