Matas’s blade whispered through the stale barracks air. Short strokes. Guard. Reset. It wasn’t the kind of pattern that got instructors out of bed, but running it this early had to count for something. It was what his body remembered from moving weight across bad surfaces—keep your center low, don’t overcommit, never trust what you’re standing on further than you can jump.

  His shoulders complained in familiar ways. His legs hummed with leftover wrongness from Level 5, dull and ever-present. The big spinning and the full-body vertigo had burned out yesterday; what was left felt like he’d done two workouts with somebody else’s muscles and then forgotten to stretch.

  He ran the pattern anyway. If the system was going to keep rewriting his body, it could at least pick up a few habits that weren’t trying to kill him.

  Bootsteps scraped behind him. He cut short, pulling the blade in tight. The guard walking past never broke stride. A shoulder brushed his sword arm hard enough to jolt it, the impact just shy of a shove. No apology. No curse. No look back.

  Matas let the point fall until it kissed stone. “Morning to you too,” he muttered.

  The man’s back vanished into the dim knot of bunks and racks. The barracks carried on without him—scouts lacing boots, someone laughing at a joke too low for the words to carry, the soft clink of metal as a spear came off a peg. All the small sounds of people who knew exactly where they fit.

  He wiped his palm on his trousers, slid the shortsword into its scabbard, and felt hunger tug behind his ribs. The thought of sitting at a table while everyone talked over him like he was invisible made his teeth itch.

  Food could wait.

  Merrik’s bunk was empty when he checked. Blankets thrown in a heap like they’d been kicked off in a hurry. His usual rack slots had gaps where favorite spears had hung. Serh’s corner was cleaner—bed stripped, bow gone, the sort of absence that meant she’d known what she was doing before dawn.

  He caught the eye of a young scout tightening a strap nearby. “Merrik? Serh? You seen them?”

  The man’s gaze slid past him, like he was checking the wall for cracks. “Out,” he said finally. “Watch already turned.”

  That was it. No direction. Just enough sound to make him stop asking.

  “Right,” Matas said. “Thanks for the warm briefing.”

  The scout had already turned away.

  He thought about going back to his corner and running the pattern until his arms shook. Instead, he turned toward the tunnel that led up. If no one wanted to talk to him in here, maybe the mountain would at least be honest about wanting him dead.

  * * *

  The climb from the barracks level into Samhal’s spine never got easier, but it stayed predictable—stone underfoot worn smooth by generations, bad mortar joints pinging his eye whether he wanted them to or not. The air thinned and cooled, sharpening into something that tasted like smoke and cold iron.

  At the first junction, the quartermaster’s post sat like a knot in the hallway. Yesterday she’d barked at Merrik about missing straps and let a thin joke slip when Serh glared a kid away from the bow rack. Today, when Matas stepped into her shadow, she just stared.

  Her eyes tracked from his boots to the wolf pelt on his shoulders, to the sword at his hip, to the slit pupil that still hadn’t gone back to normal. No greeting. No offer of bowl or bread. The silence stretched long enough to count as an answer.

  He shifted weight off his bad leg. “Guess we’re both busy,” he said under his breath, and moved on.

  Kids with buckets trotted down the next corridor, water sloshing. One of them slowed when she saw him, pupils widening as she took in the fur and the eyes. A murmur from the man herding them forward—a word he couldn’t quite catch, clipped and flat—and every small face snapped away.

  In the wider hall that served as a mess, three scouts hunched over bowls of thin broth. A joke landed just as he stepped through the arch; one man barked a laugh that bounced off stone. The sound died when they saw him. Spoons kept moving. Eyes didn’t.

  One muttered something with the same shape and weight as snake, consonants bitten off. The others gave it that strained, too-quiet amusement people got when they thought they were being subtle.

  Matas kept walking. This wasn’t Illinois, where even the worst foreman would at least swear at you when you were in the way. This was a mountain that had swallowed a town, and the town had decided talking to the void-marked stranger was just one more risk it didn’t need.

  An archway opened onto a narrow interior balcony, and he stopped there. From this angle, he got a slice of Samhal—carved platforms stitched together by stairs, smoke from cookfires drifting in thin threads, people moving along worn paths with the unthinking rhythm that came from doing the same work in the same order for years. It all looked very load-bearing. Every motion braced against someone else’s.

  He didn’t see a place where anything like him slotted in.

  “Not built for you,” he told the stone rail. “Got it.”

  He pushed off, following the slope of the tunnels until the air sharpened further and the noise of indoor life thinned. Closer to the outer door, the sounds changed—less chatter, more the solid clack of spear hafts and the low grind of a gate being checked.

  * * *

  Outside, the cut path clung to the slope in a series of grudging turns, each chiseled section surrendering as little as possible to human feet. Snow clung in dirty ridges where the sun didn’t quite reach. Below, the world fell away into a tangle of dark green and rock. Above, gray sky pressed close.

  His breath came in measured pulls. Not easy, not failing. The fresh bruises from gnawers layered over wolf bites and void aches to make a low, steady background complaint.

  The patrol had already formed up.

  The thick-necked hunter in the middle—Gerath, from a shouted name in the tunnel—rested his spear across one shoulder like it didn’t weigh anything. A lean bowman paced upslope, scanning. Another man brought up the rear, quiet and narrow-eyed. Matas had been eased toward the front like extra cargo.

  “Good view from there, huh?” Gerath called. “Let the mighty snake take the lead today, eh?”

  On the surface, it had the cadence of a friendly jab. It wasn’t the name that bothered him. It was the way Gerath tested it in his hearing, waiting to see if he’d snap. Like a foreman trying out shitbird on a new hire to see how far he could push.

  “Mighty,” Matas said. “Sure. That’s me.”

  He turned his attention back to the stone.

  The path ahead narrowed to a ridge barely wide enough for two boots side by side. To the left, the slope fell away in a long sheet of broken rock. To the right, the mountain shouldered over them, a wall of stone undercut in a way that made his palms itch. Fine cracks feathered up through that overhang like spiderwebs under paint.

  Every instinct from a lifetime of bad roofs bristled.

  “That line’s no good,” he said, nodding at the narrow stretch. “Overhang’s already cracked. If it goes, it drops everything right onto the path.”

  Gerath snorted. “We’ve walked this ridge since before you fell out of your sky, Snake. Feet forward.”

  Matas planted his boot on the first section, testing. Stone shifted under his sole—just a whisper, a dry crumble of grit—but the sound rode straight up his spine. On a Chicago job, this was the point where he’d flag the line, reroute the crew, drag out braces before an inspector’s nightmare turned into an ER visit.

  Here, there was no tape, no cones, no second crew. Just him and a place that didn’t care whether he liked its load paths or not.

  Gerath’s presence closed in behind him—heat and weight and the faint smell of old sweat and oil. “Move,” the hunter said, lower now, closer to his ear. “Storm doesn’t wait because the snake thinks the stone is scary.”

  The ridge felt wrong from the first step. Grit rolled under his boots in slow motion. The wall on his right leaned in just enough to cut the sky down to a tight band. His body wanted three points of contact and a safety line. It had none of those.

  He took another step.

  Gerath’s hand landed between his shoulders. It could have been steadying. It could have been a correction. It nudged his center of gravity a shade closer to the slope’s long, hungry yawn.

  “Easy,” Matas said. “One at a time.”

  “Afraid of a little edge, Snake?” Gerath’s breath warmed the back of his neck. “Thought the void taught you to fly.”

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  The ridge pinched another half handspan. Somewhere deep in the rock, something gave a dry, tired sigh.

  The grit under his lead foot went from resting to moving. His boot slid sideways, heel scraping for purchase and finding none. His body tried to lean back toward the wall, to bring his weight in. Gerath’s hand shoved at the same instant—harder this time, not guiding but pushing.

  For a heartbeat, everything balanced on nothing.

  Then the world flipped.

  The first impact knocked the air out of him and most of the sense with it. He hit on his right side, shoulder and hip slamming stone. The ridge vanished above. The world narrowed to a gray smear and motion as his body started to slide. Scree and broken rock went with him in a grinding wave.

  Instinct shoved his arms wide, fingers clawing for anything that might hold. Jagged stone tore skin from his palms. His sword hammered against his thigh, scabbard taking the worst of it.

  Ahead, a darker mass of rock started to move with him—a boulder deciding, slowly and then all at once, that it too wanted to see what was at the bottom.

  He didn’t think. Thinking was for when you weren’t already falling.

  He twisted, boots searching, shoulder driving into the slope. When his heels finally bit on a jut of buried stone, his body dropped into a stance all on its own—knees bent, back set, feet braced like a crosspiece in a wall.

  Brace.

  The word from last night’s log flashed through his head, and his body answered; every muscle from calves to jaw locked at once in a single, brutal contraction.

  The sliding boulder slammed into his shoulder with the kind of force that should have rolled him like trash. The impact hit a wall that wasn’t entirely his. For half a heartbeat, the motion stopped too cleanly, like something had thrown a breaker. Pain came in on a delay, a deep, ripping ache through joints and tendons and all the little structures that kept him upright.

  Then the boulder sagged, settling into the slope with a sulky grind. Scree trickled around his legs in a slower, more honest flow.

  His stance disintegrated. His legs went to water; his thighs shook uncontrollably. His lungs couldn’t decide whether they were allowed to work. The edges of his vision pulsed black, as if the mountain had flicked the lights and was thinking about turning them off again.

  He rode it out on his knees, fingers dug into stone, breath sawing in and out. The mailbox flag in the corner of his sight kept up its lazy four-count. No log. Whatever that had been, the system did not feel like explaining.

  “Great,” he croaked. “Love surprises.”

  When he finally dragged his head up, the ridge was a thin, far line against the sky. Tiny shapes moved near the spot where he’d gone over. Someone leaned out, shouted. The words tore apart in the wind before they reached him.

  “I’m fine!” he yelled. “Just taking the scenic route!”

  If the mountain carried that, it didn’t bother returning an echo.

  Up on the ridge, figures argued—gestures sharp and pointless at this distance. No rope came down. No line of human bodies edging their way to him. After a while, the patrol turned and continued along the original path, hands and spears small against the stone.

  He stared until his eyes burned.

  “Okay,” he said softly. “Just me and the ground. Again.”

  Inventory, then. Right shoulder a bruise away from mutiny. Ribs in the definitely-pissed range. Left knee complaining every time he flexed it. Hands scraped raw. Nothing felt broken in the structural sense. Everything felt broken in the this-is-going-to-suck-tomorrow sense.

  The shelf he’d ended up on was barely more than a wrinkle in the slope. Below, the world kept dropping. Above, the path he’d fallen from might as well have been stapled to another planet. Straight down was a bad joke; straight up would be a longer version of the same joke with worse consequences.

  He looked sideways instead. The slopes’ lines told a story if you knew how to read them—where water ran in heavy rains, where old slides had scoured clean tongues, where stone was holding and where it was only pretending. He traced a possible route slanting up and across toward a shoulder of rock that jutted like a step to a higher shelf.

  “Sideways, then,” he said.

  He wiped blood on his trousers, set his hands to the rock, and started moving.

  The first few steps were lies. The slope feigned good behavior, letting his boots bite just enough. Then it reminded him who was in charge. A handhold that looked solid sheared away under his weight. He dropped half a body length before his right hand found a new edge and his bad wrist took the full load.

  Pain flared bright and electric up his arm, waking an old grinding ache in all the places that had hated ladders even back home.

  “Still here,” he hissed through his teeth. “Still attached.”

  He hung there a second, ribs pressed to cold stone, breath short and shallow. When the buzz behind his eyes eased off a fraction, he eased weight back under his boots and kept going.

  The shoulder of rock loomed closer, but the last stretch reared nearly vertical. A narrow crack ran down its face, just wide enough to take steel.

  He drew the shortsword with his good hand, set the point into the crack, and drove it in with a short, vicious punch—the way you’d set a nail in stubborn lumber. The blade bit deeper than he expected. He tested it. The sword held.

  He put everything into that pull—legs, shoulders, a twist through the hips that would’ve made a physical therapist write a report. For a heartbeat, his body lagged behind his intent, motion stuttering before catching and surging forward with weight that didn’t quite feel like his alone. Stone around the blade chipped as he came up; the hilt wrenched in his grip hard enough to make his elbow scream.

  He got over the lip. That part mattered.

  He rolled onto the shoulder, his whole body one long complaint. The sword tore free with a jerk, leaving a fresh scar in the crack. He lay there for a few breaths, staring at the narrow strip of sky, feeling every pulse in his wrist.

  “Congratulations,” he told the clouds. “New and exciting ways to hate myself.”

  The shelf above sloped gently up and right, roughly toward where he thought the higher paths curved back toward Samhal. Sideways, then up. Again.

  Anger bubbled up, bright and stupid.

  Weighted Strike.

  He drove his right fist into the nearest protruding chunk of stone—a dumb impulse he recognized from a dozen jobs, taking it out on something that didn’t hit back. The impact came half a beat late and twice as deep. Stone under his fist cracked with a sharp pop; a fist-sized chip broke free and skittered downslope. Pain followed on a delay, white-hot, punching through the bones of his hand into his forearm.

  Whatever Weighted Strike did, it sent the bill straight to his joints.

  He stared at the broken stone, then at his swelling hand. “Great job,” he told himself. “Win one fight with gravity, punch the wall for your trouble.”

  He flexed his fingers. They moved, even if each bend promised new regrets. He turned his face upslope and started picking his way along the shelf, following the lines where the stone still looked like it was trying.

  He wasn’t sure how long he’d been at it when a voice drifted down from ahead and above.

  “If you’re trying to die slow,” it said, clean and unhurried, “you’re on a good line. For fast, take three more steps.”

  Matas froze.

  The slope ahead dipped toward a pale scar where old slides had chewed a tongue of rubble. It looked passable from here. Now that someone had pointed it out, he saw the way the stone above it arched, a fresh crack tracing a neat little smile across its face.

  He looked up.

  A figure sat on a higher outcrop, one knee drawn up, an arm draped over it. Their clothes were a patchwork of leather and cloth—some pieces in the same muted tones as Samhal’s hunters, others older, sun-bleached, shaped to a different body first. A bow rested beside them, unstrung. A knife handle peeked over one shoulder.

  For a second, when their eyes met, something about the stranger’s gaze snagged. The irises looked wrong—dark, like fresh bruises, ringed in deeper purple that seemed to seep outward, tiny shadows trailing from the corners as if the color was trying to leak into the air.

  He blinked. The effect was gone.

  “Noted,” he said. “Slow death’s already booked today.”

  The stranger’s mouth ticked. Not a smile. Not not one.

  “Stone there is tired,” they said, nodding toward the slide-scar. “It will take you all the way down if you insist.” They pointed instead to a line of knobby protrusions angling up toward their perch. “Here is better. Holds enough weight, if you don’t pretend it loves you.”

  “Never had that problem,” Matas said.

  He followed the indicated path, moving more by muscle memory than faith. The stranger watched him come, offering small corrections when his boot drifted toward a deceptive patch—a tilt of chin here, a brief point with the knife there. They never reached down to haul him. They just showed him where the mountain grudgingly tolerated his existence.

  By the time he hauled himself onto the outcrop, his shoulders burned and his hands had left red smears on the stone.

  Up close, the stranger was leaner than he’d expected, all wire and weather-carved lines. Their gear was well-used but tidy; nothing dangled loose. They smelled of leather, smoke, and the thin, metallic tang of someone who spent more nights under open sky than under a roof.

  “Thanks,” Matas said. “Didn’t love my options.”

  “Options are thin up here.” Their accent bent Kharuul-Teth different than Serh’s or Merrik’s—flatter, the edges worn off. The meaning landed without the dub’s icepick behind his eye. “You are the snake.”

  He grimaced. “Apparently.”

  “They like to name what they do not understand,” the stranger said. “Makes them feel finished.” They glanced downslope. “Word reached the ledges that the void sent them a new toy. Red-eyed. Loud stone around him.”

  “You from Samhal?” he asked.

  “Once.” The word sat flat on their tongue. “I know their tools. Their paths. Not their rumors.” A shrug. “Rumors are for people who still sleep under the same roof.”

  Exile, then. Self-imposed or otherwise.

  “You another outsider they conscripted?” Matas asked. “Or do they just treat everybody with interesting eyes like a bad ladder?”

  “If I were you,” they said, “I would not ask too loudly which pieces on the board came from where. Samhal does not enjoy puzzles that change the picture.”

  They jerked their chin toward the slope above. “Come. There is a safer way back toward your hole in the stone.”

  “Generous,” he said. “Any chance that way includes my friends?”

  “Friends.” They tasted the word. “Two who walk like hunters and do not flinch when the void looks back?”

  “Those would be them.”

  “They were not on Gerath’s line today,” the stranger said. “He takes the ones who do not ask about cracks.”

  They set off along the new route, the stranger leading by a few paces, calling out the worst traps before Matas blundered into them. As they moved, he glanced sideways once, catching a slice of their profile against the gray sky. For a heartbeat, the air around their eyes darkened again—purple edging into shadow, like dried blood pressed under glass.

  Then they turned, and it was gone.

  “Name?” he asked, because somebody in this world should have one he hadn’t learned from a mail log.

  The stranger considered, then shook their head. “Names are for under a roof,” they said. “On the slopes, we have places and mistakes.”

  They eyed him, assessing. “Today, you are both.”

  They trudged on toward Samhal anyway. The path back took them along a ledge that ran above the tunnel mouth, and from that height Matas could see the gate where the patrol would return. Gerath’s group was already visible—specks moving in single file, unhurried, as if nothing unusual had happened on the ridge that morning.

  The stranger stopped at the point where the path split—one fork dropping toward the tunnel, the other continuing along the open slope.

  “This is where I leave you,” they said.

  Matas looked at the fork, then back at them. “Will I see you again?”

  The stranger didn’t answer that. Instead, they said: “The stone under Samhal hums at night. You have heard it.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve heard it.”

  “Next time it hums,” they said, “put your hand on the floor. Not your ear. Your hand. And pay attention to which direction the weight is moving.”

  Before Matas could ask why, they turned and walked the other fork, footsteps soundless on the stone. Within a dozen paces, the slope swallowed them—not hiding them, exactly, but folding them into the gray and brown until it was hard to say where the stranger ended and the mountain began.

  He stood there a moment longer, the wind cutting through his torn clothes, blood drying on his hands.

  Put your hand on the floor. Pay attention to which direction the weight is moving.

  He knew what moving weight felt like. He’d built a career on it. And whatever was underneath Samhal, it wasn’t resting.