1

"To the south, Kael, we're almost there."

"I understand. I can see it, there, in the fog."

"Do you think it's true? There is really no way to get there?"
"You should know by now- it's always true, Cecilia. Be quiet now."

The younger of the two companions, Cecilia, nodded her head solemnly as she followed the tall male through the dense trees. It was nearly impossible to navigate through the woods with no sure direction, save that of the mountain high above that was their destination. It was only thanks to Cecilia's cues that they had gotten so far, there were few others that had reached it before them. The fog hid their feet and swirled about their heads, had Cecilia been leading she would have held her hands out to avoid walking into the trees, but Kael managed to weave deftly around them. She followed the rippling of his coat in the cold air; she could just see his cap stirring gently on his head of brown hair. Her own brown hair, richly decorated with dried roses on a burgundy ribbon, tumbled about on the breeze. Kael turned to look at her, his green eyes reassuring, before they emerged at the base of the mountain.

"No one is here," Cecilia said.

"No exorcists you mean," Kael clarified.

"Yes."

"I see, well at least it looks like we don't have to climb the mountain," he pointed to wide stairs cut into the rock, "it will be a lot easier than hauling you along behind me."

Cecilia huffed at his smirk, "I would have been fine, you know."

Her first step onto the stair was heavy, as if she was being pulled down, as if she was carrying Kael up the mountain- he would have to carry her after all, - "Can you feel it? This weight?"

He nodded and continued ahead of her as she stayed frozen on that first step worrying that it would only get more unbearable as they got higher. She took another step and the weight lifted. Cecilia smiled and bounded up the steps to Kael's side. She skipped up the steps carelessly while Kael glared up at the clouds that circled the peak. All around them the fog swirled, there was no longer a forest around them, nor were there many stairs ahead of them, just mist. Cecilia glanced back, the base of the stairs was still clear- a welcoming patch of grass among the rocks.

"You can't see anything through the fog, but the base is still visible," Cecilia affirmed.

"Can you sense it, Cecilia?"

Cecilia paused on the stairs and closed her eyes, "it feels far off, further even that when we in the trees. What's happening?"

Kael didn't answer, continuing on and always watching the clouds. On and on, without rest, without any sign of reaching the top, they went. Cecilia became weary of her light-hearted skipping and resolved to trudge beside Kael. Her partner stumbled suddenly, catching himself with one hand, eyes still where the peak surely was.

"We have been climbing for nearly an hour at a steep inclination and it has not become any harder to breath," he looked away from the sky for a moment, "and we can still see where we started, as if the fog won't touch it."

"The villagers said that people would climb the mountain for days, give up, and turn back to find themselves back at the bottom."

"Can you break it?"

Cecilia glanced around for a place to rest, but Kael quickly pulled her down by the wrist, "just don't turn around again, I don't want to be back at the bottom," she nodded and kneeled down on the stair.

"It's going to be hard this way. I need your hat," Kael handed it to her.

It was a couple sizes too big and hung around her nose instead of sitting at her forehead, but she kept it on anyway. Kael stayed crouched next to her, ever the watchman, as Cecilia's vision swam in the warmth of his hat. She inhaled deeply and sank into the depths of her mind. There was a tremendous glow, though it sprouted from just a fleck of light, in her mind. She called to it, the light, willing it to grow and come nearer, but it would not listen. All around there were stairs, and Cecilia was still crouched on one, but there was no Kael in her mind, just another light. The stairs they climbed weren't the only ones; there were others all around: sideways, diagonally, underneath, inside and upside-down. The fog penetrated her mind, hiding the stairs, the route. Cecilia took off the hat and the fog was even denser around them.

"We're on the wrong stairs," she said, "but I can't see which ones we have to take. Kael, do you think you can keep the fog away with your glaive?"

He stood up and took a long black pole off his back. At the end was a blade the length of Cecilia's arm. It was ornate; carved and coloured metals gleamed. He began to spin it above his head and the fog slowly retreated. Cecilia let the cap dip low over her eyes again, and returned to the maze of stairs.

'There has to be a way to tell the right way from all the others,' Cecilia thought.

Instead of trying route after route, looking for something unusual, she listened. She listened hard, mind's eyes closed so there were no stairs at all. Even the hard stone stairs under her knees were gone.

"It's there," she pointed to Kael's right.

There was nothing to distinguish the rock face from any other, so Kael watched as she passed him to touch the rocks, "I guess there isn't really a way to get there. I don't know if there is really an end to this mountain, but this, the rocks are different here."

Kael picked one up and smashed it, for a second the insides shone faintly. He glanced around at the rocks, as if one of them was an answer to their question- where is the summit?

He watched Cecilia who was dancing her fingertips over the stones, "How do we get there then, wherever it is..."

She stepped back and touched the rocks with her foot and they disappeared. She grinned and stepped out onto the rocky ledge. All around her the rocks disappeared and flattened to reveal new stairs that gleamed momentarily. They didn't lead straight up, but the clouds looked closer at the end anyway.

She smiled at Kael, "A leap of faith kind of idea?"

He nodded and they followed the new set of stairs into the clouds. Now they could no longer see the base where they had started- they were finally truly climbing. Sure of their path, they climbed faster again and breathing became more difficult. Soon they were nearly dragging their stomachs along the jagged edges of the stairs. The heaviness from the first step seemed to have returned some.

"Oh ho! You found the way up, you did!" A gleeful voice chuckled.

"Cecilia!"

"I know!" she shouted back.

Kael had his glaive out, pointed at a rather odd creature. Half coiled spring, half human shape, but mostly glinting steel, it bounced up the stairs behind them. Its hard spring shattered the rocks and the stairs crumbled beneath it. There was no longer a way down the way they had come.

"I couldn't climb the stairs you know," it cackled, "had to wait for someone clever to bring it down, but now I know there are more ways down, it's easy!

Kael stood his ground, facing down the mountain for the first time, "Cecilia get to the top. I'll take care of this."

She nodded and attempted a dash up the mountain, hiking the skirt of her dress up, but fell and landed on her chin. She could not go so quickly in the thin air. She crawled up the rough stairs as fast as she could, her palms catching on the stone edges and bits of rubble. The monster had not looked all that threatening, nor had it sounded so, but Cecilia knew the horrors that a demon could unleash.

The steps were getting cold. The top was near, probably encased in snow at this height. Cecilia shivered, but didn't stop to raise the hood of her cloak to keep her warm. The wind was harsher too, what had been a chilled breeze had turned into an iced force to tear her off the mountain. It was not such a bad thing that she was crawling now, to keep herself closer to the ground. The stairs began to level out and Cecilia tried to stand despite the wind. Her face was numb from the stinging shards soaring through the air. She grabbed her hood and tugged it down over her entire face. The glittering light was right in front of her now- a blinding beacon at the peak of the mountain.

In the darkness of her mind Cecilia imagined reaching out to it. Golden ribbons erupted from her chest painlessly and danced in the stillness towards the light. They wrapped themselves tenderly around the fragment of light and slowly the blizzard calmed as her heart reached the light. She sighed and released her hood to blow back off her head. On a small pedestal was a gold ball of light. She quickly snatched it, holding it close to herself before stowing it in a small pouch around her thigh under her dress.

Turning back to face down the mountain and taking a step, she held her breath and opened her eyes. She was not at the bottom.

"Thank goodness," Cecilia sighed.

She hurried down the steps, going down was far easier than going up; she was tired of crawling like a beast- it was hard in a dress. There, Kael was still fighting the demon. The fog still swirled around them; it was hard to see them. A shadow loomed behind the demon, a dark form in the fog.

"Kael!" he was on his knees, "Kael!"

She crouched next to him. His shoulder was slick with blood, his coat stained red at the chest. Both hands clutched the pole of his glaive to pull himself up, but one foot lay twisted and useless on the stair.

Cecilia's breath escaped, "Kael, Kael what happened?"

"Cecilia," he croaked, "there's two. There are two demons. You have to run. Open another path of stairs."

"Not without you."

The shadow behind the spring demon emerged. A giant winged insect with the still screaming face of a man in its forehead hung heavily in the air. Its endless legs twitched spastically and its antennae tested the winds. Algae green armour covered its body; it seemed unharmed. Even the simple coil demon didn't look so bad off. What had happened?

Cecilia blinked forcefully and began to whisper to herself, "Demon Eyes: Numb Skin."

She heaved Kael up, kicked the stone cliff beside them and began to walk down the mountainside, Kael half-hoisted over her shoulder. Behind them, she could hear the demons shouting and crashing through the rocks. Cecilia tripped over Kael's useless foot and heard his cry as they both toppled. She clung tightly to him as their backs struck stair after stair, unable to stop.

'At least…at least it is faster this way,' she bit her tongue as another stone step smarted her side, 'Kael, please be okay.'

Flung into the open space, they split apart and though the tumbling over and over stopped, the aching didn't. Bruised and swollen, Cecilia pulled herself towards her friend. Through one eye she could see the shaky rise and fall of his chest. She stretched out to touch him gently.

"I'm sorry, Kael," she said grimly.

She closed her eyes, hands hovering over his crippled body, "Open Blood: Seal," a thin layer of skin formed over Kael's wounds, "at least the bleeding is stopped." She turned to look at his mangled right foot, hanging limply, twisted to the side impossibly, "but I can't do anything for this. All Eyes: Numb Skin."

In the trees she hunted for sticks, snapping off various smaller branches off them to make straight, short rods of them. She took an armful back to the base of the mountain where she left her partner. His breathing was easier. She kneeled at his feet and gently held his foot, turning it slowly back into its normal position. Kael hissed.

"You're awake? Are you okay?"

He laughed weakly, "Fine, really."

"I covered your wounds," he glanced down at his chest and his eyes narrowed, "I'm just making a splint for your foot. What happened to you?"

"Demons are breathless," Cecilia looked up from his foot, confused, "the air, you remember? It was hard to breathe, hard to stand. They had no problem fighting me, but I couldn't do anything," he smirked, "I've never failed to kill a demon before."

He was used to worried lines in her forehead as she bent over him, "You haven't been hurt so badly since then…"

He smiled, "Sorry."

Cecilia shook her head, "No, I'm sorry. I should have helped you before running off. We'll stay here for the night," she settled his foot back on the ground.

"No," he sat up quickly and winced, "I can make it to town."

"I've already set it up," Kael frowned and looked at her eyes, fierce yet tired, "Sleep. We'll move on when you're healed."

Sometimes she could be as much the leader as he was, though Kael preferred not to give her the chance. Whatever demon appeared he always fought hard and he always won, so she wouldn't have to do this.

'If you keep fighting so hard you'll die, you know?' she had said when he had first met her.

'I have to...protect…'

She had watched over him then too. Not since then had she needed to, he hadn't let her. If only he could have fought through his weak breath. Instead of sleeping, Kael lay awake, critically minding himself, as she sat beside him quietly. She knew he was beating himself up as badly as the demon had done, but she couldn't do anything about it this time.

"Hey Kael, there is an exorcist in the village."

He huffed, "Well, he won't find anything when he gets here will he? Are you going to give it to him?"

"Yes, we'll go to the village together," she looked down at him, "when you're ready."

He hated that she waited for him, "I'm supposed to be stronger than this."

"Don't be stupid. What would you need me for then?" she was smiling, but it didn't reach her eyes.

"You know I'm not using you, Cecilia."

"Man's Eyes: White Wall."

"Don't-"he was asleep.

"You know I don't like to have to do that to you. The quicker you heal though, the sooner you can stop hurting yourself for this."