The system notified him he had already completed his class quest when he checked his status to confirm he had indeed reached level ten and progressed his path. A path that many thought ended at level nine.

  Malek panicked. He’d not prepared for this to happen so suddenly. Well, he’d been trying for the last forty-seven years, but still he wasn’t ready. He didn’t have time to analyse what had just happened. He didn’t have his seal either. He didn’t even know where he’d put it. The last he could remember was removing it from his soulbound items in a drink-fuelled rant about ten years ago, believing he’d be stuck here forever. He’d even tried to advance his path along a different route, but deep down he always believed his path was possible, and it seemed the system knew he did and wouldn’t let him leave his chosen course.

  Malek didn’t have much time. It had something to do with this newcomer, who’d helped himself to his clothes, made himself at home, and somehow managed to stabilise a mana construct without external energy. Okay, it was only for a fraction of a moment, but it had happened.

  “What was your name again?” Malek said as he looked for his seal.

  “Tyler Vane,” the young man responded.

  It was in his library. He remembered now. He’d put it in a book. Fairytales of Old. He’d done it out of irony, thinking he was so clever. He turned to head towards his small library that had kept him company for all these years, and the tent around him — his experiments and the young man — faded out of existence, as the world shimmered and a large stone room appeared around him.

  The Hall of the Unending Accord rose before him in the same pale stone it had always been. A broad semicircle of stepped seating facing a raised central dais. The banners were different — newer, cleaner — but the bones of the place were unchanged. It still smelled of incense, ink, and polished stone. It still hummed faintly with warded mana, layered so thickly into the walls that it felt like standing inside a held breath.

  He appeared towards the back of the room; the same place he had walked to and accepted the Intertwining Roads quest. He had been so confident, so young.

  Forty-seven years ago, the hall had been filled for him. People cheering him on; someone of his position had never entered the path. They had all felt something special. They all believed in him.

  Hundreds had stood, cheered, spoken his name with reverence. He was the youngest Curator of the Unending Accord, the only son of two A-Ranks. They had not been there — his parents believed he was wasting his life walking down that path, as they would say. Still, it had been a joyous occasion.

  The hall was full now. Briefly, Malek thought it was for him — but how would anyone know he would be returning right now? They all faced forward as someone spoke to the crowd. Malek leant against the wall, the umbra dustcap still lingering in his system, and listened for a moment. Best to wait for the right moment to announce my return.

  “…confirmed activity,” a sharp voice was saying. “Not echoes. Not residue. Actual sightings.”

  Malek paused.

  “The Verge is a myth,” another replied. “We have reports from quest takers, but are they really verified?”

  “These are verified,” the first insisted. “Three independent pathwalkers. All described the same thing.”

  Malek moved further in, the crowd swallowing him whole. Robes brushed his sleeves. He passed between rows of officials, scholars, path-adjudicators. Younger faces, mostly. New sigils. New colours.

  “…humanoid figures,” someone said.

  “Impossible,” snapped a woman in silver-threaded black. “These are just stories — probably a recruiting tool for some zealot faction.”

  Malek felt a strange pull in his chest. The Verge. He had heard stories of it — a place locked from the multiverse, from the system. Now it had shown itself. The timing was very suspicious, he thought.

  He reached the outer ring of the hall, standing beneath the tiers of seating. No one looked down. No one felt the shift in the room. The Unending Accord debated fate and danger while one of its ghosts stood among them.

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  He’d wait. Let someone notice that one of their Curators had returned.

  And someone did.

  A young clerk near the lower steps, hunched over a slate, frowned. His eyes flicked up, then down again. Then up, slower this time.

  His mouth opened slightly, a goofy look on his face, and for a moment Malek wasn’t sure if the young lad had the nerve to say anything with all these people around — until—

  “By the—” he shouted.

  The clerk’s outburst stopped the conversation dead. All heads turned toward him, like a ripple passing through the chamber, attention shifting, irritated, waiting for an apology.

  The clerk swallowed. “That’s… that’s not possible.”

  Malek knew this was the moment he had been waiting for. When all eyes would be on him. He wouldn’t need to shout, wave his hand, say I am here, I’m back. No — he just stepped forward into the light.

  A hush fell over the crowd, voices dying mid-sentence. A chair scraped across the floor. Someone laughed once, sharply, then stopped.

  Whispers began to filter through the crowd as Malek looked on at the people now staring at him. He held a breath in, finding it harder than he should. He didn’t want to embarrass himself now.

  “That looks like—”

  “No, he’s dead.”

  “Unresolved, wasn’t he?”

  “Marked lost.”

  A tall man at the dais rose slowly. His robes were deep indigo, stitched with gold sigils denoting senior authority. Serathiel Vaun — he was the last person Malek had spoken to before he left, one of his strongest supporters.

  “Who are you?” he asked calmly.

  Malek inclined his head. “Malek of House Krest.”

  The name hit the room like a dropped glass.

  “That’s…” someone began.

  “Impossible,” said another.

  Serathiel raised a hand, keeping his gaze on Malek. The hall quieted at his gesture.

  “Malek Krest entered the Intertwining Paths forty-seven years ago,” Serathiel said evenly. “He did not return. He was recorded as unresolved. Presumed lost.”

  Malek met his gaze. “I returned.”

  A murmur spread. Excitement flared, brief and bright.

  “Returned?”

  “From the Paths?”

  “That can’t—”

  Serathiel’s eyes sharpened. He looked at Malek for a long while, eventually nodding his head slowly and taking a step forward as he brought his hands together.

  “I was here when Malek accepted his quest. He was a good man and would never deter from the path. If it is true you are he, then you must have done what none have done before and progressed on the path of the Unending Accord.”

  Malek answered truthfully. “I remember you, Serathiel. You seem to have done well for yourself in my absence. I guess Master Senath never caught you pilfering his good wine. But I am Malek Krest — yes, older, yes, still a member of the Unending Accord, and yes, I have advanced on my path.”

  The reaction was instant, as if a starting gun had been fired. Voices overlapped. Chairs shifted. A dozen people stood at once.

  “That’s impossible.”

  “It’s really him.”

  “The path is static.”

  “It always has been.”

  Malek stood there, trying not to sway as the last effects of his overindulgence wore off. For a heartbeat, something like joy flickered through the hall. Vindication. Hope.

  Then Serathiel spoke again, his voice still cold and controlled, his eyes never leaving Malek.

  “Present your seal.”

  Again, Serathiel’s words cut through the hall like a knife, everyone falling silent.

  Malek did not move.

  “Your medallion,” Serathiel clarified. “Your mark of authority within the Unending Accord.”

  Silence stretched.

  Malek looked down at his chest. “I no longer carry it,” he said. “Timing was not great, and it was left behind.”

  There was a hush in the crowd as Malek swayed slightly. The young clerk stepped forward and sniffed the air.

  “Is that Umbra dustcap I smell?”

  A few people turned from Malek without even thinking. A few took a step back, while one even held their nose.

  Serathiel sighed, and a wry smile spread across his face as he turned and walked back to his seat.

  “An old man appears, claims a miracle, and cannot even produce his seal,” he said. “We are in the middle of a critical discussion. We do not have time for theatrics from a hyped-up old duster.”

  Malek tried to speak, but the words didn’t come. He swayed again.

  “Guards, take him. Take this imposter. I will not have some duster impersonate a hero of the Unending Accord, a personal friend of mine. Get him sober. I will want to speak with him later.”

  Two guards moved through the crowd towards Malek with ease, each grabbing an arm and walking him steadily out of the great hall. Malek did not resist. He had not expected this to play out quite like this.

  His head spun, more from his intoxication than the events. The last thing he heard as he left the room was Serathiel’s voice, loud and confident, just as it had been all those years ago.

  “We will continue our deliberations.”

  Later — much later — Serathiel stood in a quiet chamber overlooking the city. Another figure waited there, robed in ash-grey, face hidden.

  “Was that really him?” the figure asked.

  Serathiel stared out over the lights. “I’m not certain. He was wearing that polished armour he liked to wear, although it had seen better days.”

  “He looked like Malek. Older, but are we not all?”

  “Even if it was him,” the figure said, “he’s irrelevant now.”

  Serathiel was silent for a moment.

  “Yet if he has advanced along the path, then he is dangerous — very. He alone would hold the secret we have all been searching for, for years.”

  The other figure hesitated. “Has he said much else?”

  Serathiel turned. “He has devices he’s developed over the years. It may take a few days to get a clear story. But he did mention a name.”

  “Who?”

  “Tyler Vane.”