As he neared I gave him a grin. “Nice duds, Boss. Looking sharp.”

With a glance and faint smile, he continued past me and to the column. Placing his right hand on the surface, he murmured something too low for me to hear, then clasped both hands behind his back and turned to regard me, smiling enigmatically.

I gave him a wary look. “What’s the plan for today?”

“This is where it begins,” he said, voice rich and intense, “and this is where it ends. The Primary Initiation.”

“Okaaay,” I said, totally baffled. “And what does that mean?”

“This segment of training begins now and ends when you survive the execution of a perfect shikvihr atop the column.”

Survive?? I tipped my head back to look at the column. How the hell was I supposed to climb that thing?

I dragged my eyes from the column and back to Mzatal. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

His smile didn’t waver. “No, I am not. It is an arduous undertaking, and one that will serve you well.”

I frowned. Clearly I was missing something incredibly obvious. I hated weird challenges like this, because I always seemed to miss the really obvious thing. “Okay, lemme make sure I have this straight,” I said. “I have to climb this smooth, really high column and then do a shikvihr? I don’t even know what that is yet.”

“The shikvihr is a full pattern lay, consisting of eleven rings with eleven sigils per ring,” he explained patiently. “It is a ritual foundation that greatly enhances ability to control and focus potency. When done properly, it flows like a harmonious dance. The column will adapt to the level of your preparedness. Step back ten paces, and I will demonstrate an initiate level shikvihr.”

Yeah, I was off to a great damn start. I backed up the requisite distance.

Mzatal turned to the column and placed both palms on it, murmuring low again. As I watched, the surface of the column began to flow and change. Ridges and footholds appeared and disappeared in an undulating rhythm. He ascended with a grace to make Nureyev weep, shifting effortlessly from each protrusion to the next as they ebbed and flowed around him. Some of the ridges couldn’t have been more than an inch or two deep, yet Mzatal seemed to glide up the column like a rock climber in zero gravity.

I craned my neck back as he reached the top and began what looked like a dance, or kata. He flowed around the perimeter of the top, a hair’s-breadth from the edge at times, laying sigils in a flowing chain, with movements so beautiful it made my heart ache. With a final sweep of his hand he ignited the sigils, sending a resonant tone through the column that vibrated my teeth in an impossibly good way.

Another wave of his hand dissipated the sigils. He descended as beautifully as he’d ascended, then placed a hand on the column again. It shimmered and became dormant. He turned and beckoned for me to approach.

“This was without the distractions that accompany the final trial,” he said with a slight smile.

I suddenly felt like a fifth grader who’d been handed a calculus test. Only a few weeks ago I’d been so damn confident in my summoning abilities, yet now there was no denying there were major gaps in my knowledge base.

Throat tight, I gestured to the column. “I don’t even know how to begin, to get to…” I shook my head. “I don’t know any of this.”

“It is why we are here,” he said, exuding calm. “It is why we are training. You will know it. You will understand it intimately. You will be able to dance the shikvihr even though the world breaks apart beneath your feet. It is your foundation. It is your salvation.”

Clearly, he’d never seen me dance. “Okay, fine. What do I do first?”

“You climb,” he said, placing his hand on the column again. It shimmered and then a narrow stair spiraled around it to the top.

Nice that the column has a “kindergarten” level, I thought. “Just climb?” I asked him.

“To the top. Go.”

I gave him one last doubtful look, then started up the stairs. I fully expected them to start shifting beneath my feet, but they remained stable, though they seemed to narrow considerably the higher I climbed. I kept my back pressed against the column and took my time, and finally eased up over the edge.

A swell of potency engulfed me like an emptiness needing to be filled. I dropped to my knees, fighting the surge of panic as I realized the top of the column wasn’t solid. I knelt on a perimeter about a foot and a half wide, but in the middle was a two foot diameter…hole? I didn’t know what it was. Deep blackness radiated potency like a ravenous maw, and whatever it was, I knew I didn’t want to step on it. Or touch it. Or be anywhere near it.

Panic continued to claw at me. I squeezed my eyes shut, called up a stupid pygah, and focused on my breathing. I didn’t have to see the hole to feel it, and even shifting out of othersight didn’t do much. It still lurked there, dark and unknown, sucking at me, tugging with questing fingers.

I had no idea how long I was up there doing my impression of a treed cat, but at long last I cracked my eyes open and peered down at Mzatal.

“Can I come down now?” I called, damn near pleading.

Eyes on me, he nodded. Getting back onto the narrow stairs was the hardest part of the climb, but I managed to crab my way down. By the time I reached the ground I was drenched with sweat.

Scrubbing at my face, I trudged back to Mzatal. Look at me, I couldn’t even stand on the top. Trust me to flunk kindergarten.

Yet when I looked into his face, he was smiling. “Many do not make the climb,” he told me. “Some who make the climb cannot step onto the top. It is a start. Your body re bels more than your mind.”

My spirits lifted a fraction of a smidge. “You mean I didn’t fail?” I had a hard time believing that I managed to get through something others couldn’t, especially as fucked up as I currently was.

He shook his head. “You did not fail, and it was indeed a trial, its outcome determining the course of your training.”

I snorted. “You needed this to find out I don’t know shit?”

His mouth twitched. “That I already knew. I needed to know something more of your heart and your mettle.” He looked up toward the column. “The void can consume the resolve of even the most stalwart.” He returned his attention to me. “And now we train your body.”

He stepped into a wide stance—one arm stiff to the side, wrist flexed, and the other straight out in front, palm forward—and beckoned for me to copy it. I did so, though a thousand times klutzier. From there he led me through a kung-fu-tai-chi-yoga type of routine that left me sweating and shaking. At first everything in me screamed that it sucked—it was exercise, after all—but it was so freeing that by the time we were done, I was almost sorry it was over. Almost.

I felt the grove activate as we finished. “Someone’s coming.”

Mzatal went still. “It will be Seretis. He is early.” He straightened, adjusted his tunic. He wasn’t sweating or even breathing hard, the bastard. Luckily, I was doing enough for both of us.

Though I’d never actually met Seretis, I remembered the lord’s quick smile as he’d passed me on the way to deal with the anomaly at Rhyzkahl’s palace; seen a glimpse of his character as manifest in the residence he shared with Rayst. And Michael Moran had certainly spoken highly of him after our snowball fight. “Why is he here?”

“He asked to meet with me concerning a matter raised at the conclave.” He looked past me, down the steep, rocky slope that dropped from the far side of the column. “Do you see the pile of bricks at the bottom of the hill?”

I peered that way and saw a stack of dark basalt bricks about twenty-five yards away. “Yeah.”

“While I am gone you will move ten of those bricks from the pile to the base of the column.”

I blinked in astonishment and almost asked him if he was fucking kidding, but managed to hold it back. He wasn’t. Not one little bit.

“Sure thing, Boss.” I scowled and picked my way down the hill while he turned toward the grove. Yeah, and I intended to sing “It’s a Small World” in my head the next time his mind-reading-ass was trying to concentrate.

The bricks weighed probably about ten pounds each, which wouldn’t have been too bad to carry over flat terrain. But the hill had a slope of about forty-five degrees, and ranged from rubble to thigh high “steps,” which meant that this particular exercise suuuuuuucked.

Gestamar landed by the column as I reached the top of the hill. “Heya, Gestamar,” I said breathlessly.

He rumbled in what I suspected was amusement. “Greetings, Kara Gillian.”

As much as I liked Gestamar, I didn’t want to waste breath with casual conversation. He simply continued to watch while I lugged brick after brick. The uneven footing and the climb over the big shelves made the whole thing one big pain in the ass. By the ninth brick my muscles were pure jelly. I was so going to hurt tomorrow.

“A long bath in the hot pool will serve you well tonight,” Gestamar said, rumbling louder, and this time I knew damn well he was laughing.

“Yeah, thanks, darlin’,” I panted as I headed back down the damn hill.

I stepped down from a boulder onto gravel, lost my footing and landed on my ass, though I caught myself before sliding. That would have left some ugly road rash. Still gonna have a bruise, I grumbled silently as my posterior protested. I grabbed the last brick and slogged my way back up the damn hill, but when I reached the top, Seretis leaned casually against the column where Gestamar had been. Yep, still totally looked like he belonged on a Spanish-language soap opera. He watched me, smiling, as I staggered past him. Lord or not, I wasn’t about to stop when I was so close to being done.

I stacked the brick with the others, then sat heavily and lay back in the grass, breathing hard. I turned my head to peer at him. “Hi, I’m Kara Gillian. Figure you already know that though, right?”

He smiled broadly. “I know it of certainty now. I am Seretis,” he said, voice light and damn near cheery. “It is a true pleasure to meet you, Kara Gillian, as delightfully sweaty as you are in this moment.”