Clive pressed himself against the rocky outcropping, watching the ritual below. They had to be Demon King worshippers. The way they spoke of being "remade"… it was almost disturbing.

  One of them stopped mid-chant.

  His head tilted, nostrils flaring. He jerked around, like an animal trying to catch a scent on the wind.

  The chanting faltered as the others noticed.

  “Brother Malecus?”

  The man didn’t answer. He drew in another breath, tasting the air.

  Another cultist near the altar lifted their head and inhaled. "Wait."

  The circle broke apart as they all turned.

  “There’s something in the air. Do you smell it?”

  "Blood. Sweat." The man called Maleus took a step in Clive’s direction, sniffing vigorously. "Still warm."

  “Smells like a San Dioral rat.”

  Maleus's lips pulled back, revealing a toothy smile. "Brave little rat. Find him."

  Twenty heads turned in unison, all of them lifting their noses to the air. The only sound was the wind howling through the peaks and the crackling of their altar fire.

  Clive's heart kicked against his ribs. He held his breath and kept absolutely still beneath his camouflage cloak. The fabric broke up his outline, yes, but it couldn't hide his scent. And these things seemed to be searching based on that.

  They spread out. Three of them started up the path toward his position. A woman with elongated arms used them to pull herself up the rocks, covering ground faster than should have been possible.

  "Thought I saw movement here," she said.

  "Definitely close," one of them said. "Recent tracks."

  They were fifteen feet away now. Clive could see the details of their transformations up close. The grayish cast to their skin wasn't uniform. It had a pattern to it, like scales trying to form beneath the surface. One of them had growths along their spine that pushed against their robe, creating ridges of bone or cartilage.

  Clive's lungs burned. He needed to breathe, but the slightest sound, the slightest fog of breath in this cold air, would give him away.

  The woman leaned down, her face now less than three feet from where Clive crouched against the rock. Her eyes had changed too. The pupils were dilated wide, reflecting light like an animal's. She scanned the area slowly.

  Her gaze swept across the rocks. Past the snowdrift where Clive crouched. Over the irregular patches of white that made up his cloak.

  She paused.

  Her eyes tracked back. Settled on the space where he pressed against the stone.

  Clive's lungs screamed for air. His vision started to blur at the edges. But he didn't move. Didn't blink. The slightest shift, the smallest cloud of breath fogging in the cold, and those predator eyes would lock onto him.

  She leaned closer. Three feet away. Two.

  Her nostrils flared again as she drew in another breath, trying to reconcile what her nose told her with what her eyes couldn't find.

  For five seconds that felt like minutes, she stared directly at him.

  Then her companion called from below: "Anything?"

  She straightened, still looking at the spot where Clive hid. Her head tilted one last time, suspicious.

  "No," she finally said. "Nothing here."

  She turned away, dropping back down to join the others.

  Clive's chest burned. Every instinct demanded he breathe, but he forced himself to wait. Count to ten. Then twenty. Only when the woman had rejoined the circle did he allow himself the smallest exhale through his nose.

  "Must be our imagination."

  "No." Maleus's voice was certain.

  The woman turned back to look at him. "Brother, there's nothing—"

  She stopped.

  Maleus's face was changing. His nose collapsed inward. The flesh reformed. Within seconds, what remained was something distinctly canine.

  He inhaled twice.

  Then, his head snapped toward Clive's exact position.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  "There."

  Maleus moved fast. He crossed the distance in the blink of an eye and his claw-fused hands grabbed the edge of Clive's cloak, ripping it back.

  Clive was exposed.

  For a heartbeat, no one moved.

  Then Maleus smiled. "Hello, little rat."

  The woman vaulted up onto the ledge beside him. Others were already climbing to surround him.

  His hand went to his brush. "I come in peace. I only wish to make it to the summit."

  Maleus's canine nose twitched. "Peace." He laughed. "You hear that, brothers and sisters? The spy comes in peace."

  A ripple of laughter echoed through the cultists below.

  "I'm not a spy," Clive said. He was still crouched against the rock, surrounded now. Five of them on the ledge, more coming. His eyes tracked their positions. "I'm just passing through. Whatever conflict you have with San Dioral, it's not my—"

  "Nonsense." The woman cut him off. Her elongated arms flexed, and Clive realized those limbs could reach him before he could finish drawing. "You dress like them."

  Clive looked down at his clothes. Perhaps he should have gotten rid of his army attire before escaping.

  "We know your kind," another voice called from below. Male, with a rasp to it like damaged vocal cords. "Skulking. Spying. Reporting back to your masters."

  Maleus leaned closer. The transformation of his nose had left the surrounding skin raw, pink at the edges. "You think we're fools? That we don't know what you're here for? We won't allow you San Dioral scums to reach the Moon Mother."

  The Moon Mother. So they knew she was up here. He was in the right place.

  "I'm telling you," Clive said carefully. "I'm not with them. "

  "Get him."

  The woman with elongated arms lunged first.

  Clive's [Artist's Eyes] caught the movement before it happened. His [Motion Vision] painted her attack in his mind half a second before her claws reached for his throat.

  He dropped low, letting her momentum carry her past. His sword came up as she stumbled, catching her across the back of the knees. She went down hard on the icy rock.

  Maleus came next, those claw-fused hands reaching. But he was overconfident, committed to the attack too early. Clive sidestepped, brought his sword around in a tight arc that opened a line across Maleus's ribs.

  The cultist hissed but didn't fall. The wound was shallow. That grayish skin was tougher than it looked.

  Two more scrambled up onto the ledge. They were strong, yes, but the narrow space worked against them. They couldn't surround him properly. Couldn't use their numbers.

  And they fought like brawlers. Like people who'd been given power but never learned to use it properly.

  Clive's blade work was precise. A thrust to keep one back, a slash that opened another's shoulder.

  One of them tried to bull-rush him, relying on enhanced strength. Clive simply wasn't there when the cultist arrived, and the momentum carried them over the edge of the ledge. The scream lasted three seconds before it cut off with a distant crack.

  "He's just one man!" Maleus roared, pressing his hand against his bleeding ribs. "Overwhelm him!"

  They tried. Four of them rushed together this time, and Clive pulled his brush.

  His palette appeared in his free hand. Red and blue. He mixed them quickly, painting streaks of bolts in the air.

  [Paint: Purple Lightning III]

  Purple energy exploded outward. The cultists were blown back, two of them tumbling off the ledge entirely, one slamming into the rock face hard enough to leave a crack.

  Maleus stared at him. "You are dangerous.”

  "I’m not a threat," Clive said. “Just let me through.”

  Below, the remaining cultists had stopped their advance. They watched from the lower shelf, wary now. Five of their number were down. Two dead from the fall, three injured badly enough they weren't getting up.

  The woman with elongated arms pushed herself to her feet, blood streaming from her knees. "We need to regroup. He's—"

  "No." Maleus's voice was hard. "No San Dioral reaches the summit. After all the Demon King has given us, we cannot disappoint him now."

  But he didn't move forward. None of them did.

  They'd learned what Clive could do. And fifteen against one suddenly didn't seem like odds they wanted anymore.

  Clive kept his sword leveled, his brush ready. His heart hammered in his chest, and every breath was work at this altitude. But he showed none of it.

  "I'm going to the summit," he said quietly. "You can try to stop me again. Or you can let me pass."

  Maleus spat blood onto the snow. "We cannot allow that." He matched Clive’s gaze. "It was the Demon King's blessing that saved us when the plague came. When our flesh rotted, when the fever burned, when San Dioral abandoned us to die—he answered. He remade us. Gave us strength where we had none."

  The woman with elongated arms nodded, pressing her hand against her bleeding knees. "We were dying. All of us. The Moon Mother's gift is what kept us alive."

  "We will protect his legacy," Maleus said, raising his claw-fused hands. "No matter the cost."

  Clive's grip tightened on his brush. "Then you leave me no choice."

  He stepped forward, brush already moving to his palette—

  The world went dark.

  The daylight vanished, swallowed by the shadows.

  The moon rose, hanging in the sky where the sun had been moments before. And from that moon, beams of light descended, cutting through the darkness like spotlights, illuminating the cultists, the altar, Clive himself.

  The cultists dropped to their knees. All of them, even Maleus with his bleeding ribs. Their heads bowed, their transformed faces pressed toward the snow.

  "Moon Mother," they whispered in unison. "Moon Mother, we are yours."

  And then she spoke.

  "You're here, Clive."

  His sword lowered. He couldn't help it. That voice was still hers.

  "I'm here for you."

  The moonbeams shifted, forming something like a figure in the air before him. Translucent. Beautiful. And so sad it hurt to look at.

  "Don't hurt them, Clive." The figure gestured toward the kneeling cultists. "They're not bad people. They were sick. Dying. They just wanted to survive."

  The cultists remained kneeling, trembling. Whether from cold or reverence, Clive couldn't tell.

  "Then let me pass," he said.

  The figure was silent for a long moment. The moonbeams dimmed slightly.

  "I'll see you at the top." Her voice was fading now, withdrawing. "Come alone, Clive. Just you. Please."

  "Jill—"

  But the darkness lifted as suddenly as it had fallen. Sunlight crashed back onto the mountain, making Clive squint against the glare. The moon was gone. The beams of light vanished.

  The cultists slowly raised their heads, blinking in confusion. Maleus touched his face as if checking that he was still real.

  Clive stood among them, sword still in hand, brush still ready. But the fight had gone out of all of them.

  "She spoke to you," the woman with elongated arms said softly. "The Moon Mother knows you."

  Clive didn't answer.

  "Go," Maleus said finally. He stepped aside, gesturing up the mountain path. "She's asked for you. We won't interfere."

  The others parted, creating a path through their circle.

  Clive walked through them slowly, watching for treachery. But they only watched him pass, their expressions unreadable behind their transformations.

  When he'd cleared their camp, when he was a hundred yards up the path, Azura's voice touched his mind: What just happened?

  The moon does not judge what it illuminates. It simply shows what has always been there, waiting in the dark to be understood.

  — The Book of the Moon, 13:4