Chapter 111: THE WATCHERS

Two days of climbing took them beyond the grove and deeper into fire-country. The golden motes thickened with every mile.

The fringe-towns sat on its edge, rich and nervous, with people always watching the slopes.

The last town before the slopes was called Cinderfall.

Aiden couldn’t tell whether it was a good omen or someone’s joke. He didn’t ask.

He reached Cinderfall before noon. Harvesters crowded the streets, leading pack beasts loaded with crates and barrels.

People harvested up here: sulphur, fire-glass, and the lower saps. Not Magma Sap, but enough to sell to a forge-city.

Harvesting up here paid triple.

I understand why when a third of the men who went up never came down.

Everyone in Cinderfall knew the risk. They took the harvesting job anyway.

Aiden found a harvest-broker among the workers and paid him enough to buy a meal for an answer.

"Magma Sap. Asking for a friend who wants to die rich."

The broker laughed. It was short and ugly. He’d heard that joke before, and he’d buried some of the men who’d made it.

"Sap’s up past the third shelf." He pointed up the mountain. "The slopes climb in shelves. Nobody harvests the third. Nobody reaches the second without a charm, a prayer, and a fast friend."

Then he looked past Aiden at Cinder, folded enormous and glowing in the street. He stopped laughing.

"That beast might get you to the first shelf." He pointed at Cinder. "Past the watchers, maybe. If they let it through."

"The watchers?"

"You’ll know them when you see them. Everybody does." He tapped two fingers under his own eyes. "Once they see you, you’ll know whether you can keep climbing."

"And if they decide I can’t?"

"They don’t chase. They don’t have to. Anything that needs chasing up here is already dead. It just doesn’t know yet." The broker pushed Aiden’s silver coin back across the table. "That one’s free. Don’t go up."

"You seem like you’ve had a hard enough life," the broker said, "without ending it on a mountain that won’t even bother eating you properly."

Aiden took the coin back.

I stopped having a choice a while ago. Up is the only direction I’ve got left.

They went up at first light, because the broker said the watchers watched the dark best.

The first shelf was nothing like the land below.

The ground went black and glassy, burning through his boots. Steam threaded out of cracks that glowed orange at the bottom.

The motes were so thick that they blurred his vision. He had to squint through the golden haze.

Cinder loved it.

She walked with her head up. Her golden coat glowed brighter against the black glass, and orange light beneath her fur grew stronger with every step.

The mountain’s feeding her faster than she can burn it. She couldn’t hide her heat now even if I asked.

She’s the brightest thing on this slope, and she looks like she was made for this place.

I can’t take that off her.

Then Nyx went still against his ribs.

Not the rigid, frozen stillness it had shown around the Frost Wolf. This was different. Flat. Small. Careful.

You’re not afraid. Not even Percival’s griffin scared you when you were a month old. So... are you going quiet because something enormous is close?

Aiden looked up the slope.

His new sight had not lied about them.

They stood on an outcrop above. His new sight had not lied about them. They burned like coals in a hearth already full of embers, so dense they hurt to look at.

Three of them.

They had the shape of lizards, but nothing else about them looked familiar. Long and low. Heat-shimmer rolled off their plates. Each one was bigger than Cinder.

Each one had the kind of stillness only very old and very dangerous things achieved.

The watchers. The broker was right. I’d know them when I saw them.

Six slow eyes turned down the slope. They found him. Then Cinder. Then Miasma, the cat, and even Nyx.

Then they kept looking.

They’re not deciding whether we’re a threat. They already know we’re not.

They’re deciding whether we’re worth bothering with at all.

Aiden stood very still and let himself be assessed.

Can’t fight that. Can’t outrun something that can kill me without even standing up. That’s what the broker meant.

So I stand here and let it look. And hope it finds me interesting. Or uninteresting. I don’t even know what they’re assessing.

Beside him, Cinder did not lower her head.

His heart stuttered.

Nyx had gone flat, scared of other beasts for the first time in her life.

Miasma had dropped low on his shoulder with her spines down. Not afraid. Polite on the surface, but throwing narrow-eyed glares at the watchers.

Cinder lifted her head.

Light came up through her coat. She fixed her eyes on the six ancient beasts and held their gaze.

He understood her. The watchers did too. She was telling them: I know what you are. I am going to be more. I am climbing toward you, not away.

You’re Tier Two. Whatever they are, they’re bigger, older, and meaner than you.

And you’re looking at them like that’s what Tier Three looks like.

If you’re right, that’s three Tier Three beasts. Any one of them can turn a nobody into a C-ranked tamer known across the country.

The sentinels held Cinder’s look for a long moment.

Then the largest one moved.

It turned, slow, heat rolling off its plates.

It climbed. Up toward the second shelf. Then the third. Then whatever sat in the middle of the fire-country.

It was over the ridge before Aiden let his breath go.

The other two stayed exactly where they were.

One leaves a post, and the others hold it. I’ve watched that happen at the gates.

It’s not chasing us off. It’s reporting something up.

Somewhere above them, something was about to hear that a small fire was climbing toward the bigger ones, with a man following behind.

We’ve been on this mountain for an hour.

And whatever’s higher up is about to hear we’re here.

"Well," Aiden said, to Cinder and the two watchers who had not moved. "So much for going up quietly."

Cinder did not take her eyes off the ridge where the third one had gone.

She was not worried about it.

She was watching the road it had taken.