Fire is the great cleanse.

~Belenus the Sun God

The ground was black, charred from fire. Even the sky was hazy, and it reduced visibility to roughly thirty meters. Burned husks of trees littered the slope, but any other representation of life did not exist. Not even creatures were moving about in the ash-covered ground.

Crow stood up and tried to brush himself off, only to realize that was an exercise in futility. The more he tried, the blacker his clothes became, which might not be a bad thing as he wouldn’t stand out so much against the soot-covered land. His eyes roamed across the entire terrain, looking at things that could represent landmarks, and he knew he’d never been here before.

The last thing he remembered was Mara cradling his face, and in that distorted vision, he somehow felt Acco was there too. Acco was the reason he was questioning his own memory because he did not know why that moron would be there. Either way, neither of them was nearby. He could see his own footprints, and his trail was nearly impossible to hide in this type of landscape, so he didn’t bother.

After an hour of walking, he pulled a shirt out of his Vortex Pin and ripped it up to create a mask. The ash was making it harder and harder to breathe. Hours later, he finally stopped walking and sat down to cultivate. The environment barely changed the entire day, and he could only sigh as he recounted the number of hills he scaled, hoping to see something different.

Cultivating, he made one important discovery—the mana was at least fifty percent more abundant here. If it wasn’t for the fire mana around him, he felt the mana was also purer. The black flames inside him flared up in excitement, and within his third chakra, he felt his personal Night Flame glowing a little brighter.

The following day, he scraped the charred parts off a nearby tree and found the striations in the wood to have a unique patterning. The contrast between the lights and darks was also interesting, so he spent hours chopping trees down and putting them into his Vortex Pin. His curiosity about the various wood types came from his Soul Carving. He figured out early on that different trees all had unique properties that affected the carving’s aura.

During his lumberjacking, a tattoo of a gear appeared on the back of Crow’s hand. He didn’t notice it until he finished and used a little water to clean the soot off his hands. In the center of the gear was the number fifty-eight, and Crow spent at least an hour observing it. One tooth had a notch, so Crow knew the gear really was rotating and that it wasn’t an illusion. Under his breath, he counted out the time and realized it rotated every fifteen minutes.

It wasn’t the movement of the gear tattoo or the changing number that left him speechless. It was the clanking sound in his mind that occurred every time the gear rotated. Every fifteen minutes, the sound invaded his thoughts. It was a soft sound, so it didn’t start him or drive him toward madness.

“What the hell is this thing?” He muttered to himself. After some time, he realized the time aspect was a countdown. It didn’t have any urgency to it, only that it was counting down toward something. It was one of those situations that Crow just shrugged and put it to the back of his mind. He was definitely curious but lacked information and had no way to get it, for now. Half a day later, he could mostly tune the sound out.

The sun had already passed its zenith, and its light was shining directly into Crow’s eyes. He didn’t know where to go, so he went west and used the sun to guide him. It was during this time that he stumbled over a log buried beneath this ash. Traveling through the charred wasteland was exhausting, so he took a few moments to rest before climbing back to his feet. He turned to retrieve the log because it was an effortless gain.

“Yah!” Crow yelled and stumbled back. It was a corpse, and because he disturbed it, foam spewed from its now open mouth. There were gouges on the man’s throat that looked self-inflicted, and specs of blood filled the whites of the man’s eyes. Crow was sure the man died of asphyxiation, but something shredded the man’s clothes, and dark bloodstains were hard to miss.

It was after he pulled the black cloth taut that he realized he might be in trouble. It was a black and silver tabard. He saw the same one in his vision but was too far away to see the coat of arms. The silver gear stitched into the tabard looked precisely like the one on the back of his hand.

“Shit,” Crow muttered and spun when he sensed someone approaching.

Another guard, one armed with a spear pointed at Crow’s heart, approached. He wore the same tabard as the dead man, and Crow activated his Source and form the crude pattern needed to create his shitty version of a fireball. It was times like these that Crow wished he’d taken the time to learn a proper spell.

“Keeps your hands away from your body.” Crow did as he was told. He didn’t need his hands near his body to form the spell, but he’d have to bring them together to launch the attack.

“I didn’t kill him,” Crow said, hoping to reason with the man. He pointed at his footprints. “See, my trail is still fresh. I walked from that direction and tripped over him.”

The guard’s spear didn’t waver, but he looked in the direction Crow had traveled.

“See? And no other prints are leading to this location—well… except for yours. He was here before the ash fell.”

“Who are you?”

“Oh, good, you can understand me. My name is Crow, son of Maddox. May I ask where I am?”

“You don’t know?” The guard’s neatly trimmed beard couldn’t hide his skeptical look. It was a look that left Crow feeling uneasy.

Did I trespass someplace I shouldn’t have? Crow wondered before speaking out loud. “I really don’t. One moment I was leaving a small town in the middle of nowhere. I woke up somewhere in this charred forest. What happened here?”

“You really don’t know? Do you have a token?”

Crow sighed, feeling that the man before him might be an idiot.

“Just tell me what the fuck is happening? I’ve said it several times. I don’t know how I got here, nor where here is, nor what is happening. Just—” Crow stopped talking and took a deep breath. “Sorry, please explain it to me from the beginning.”

“Fine, but you need to carry that corpse, and we’ll walk while I tell you.”

“Okay, but can you stop pointing the spear at me? I don’t want to hurt you.” Crow shook his hand, which now had a black fireball that was hard to look at without feeling eye strain. The guard was so shocked that he stumbled back. It was impossible to ignore the intense heat.

The guard brought his spear back and rested it on his shoulder, so Crow dispersed his fireball.

“I’m Caed, and the dead guy is Mave,” Caed then waved his hand around the dead forest. “This used to be called the Weeping Widows, but I’m not sure why. This entire realm is not very large, and it’d take about a month to walk the entire perimeter.”

“Is this still in Tur Briste?”

“Yes, but you might not have heard of this place. They call it the Clockwork’s Judgement.”

“That doesn’t sound like a realm name. That sounds like a…”

“Trial? That’s why I asked about your token.”

“I really don’t have one—son of a bitch. Have you seen anyone else here besides me?”

“Well, if the trial is opening, there are going to be many people here like you. However, I have seen no other strangers. Then again, Angus sent me out to look for Mave about four days ago. People like you usually show up at Pineknot, a city that exists on both sides of the portal.”

“A portal? How often does it open?”

“Not sure. It isn’t something we control. However, we know when it’s close because the Clocktower in town activates. When that happens, we know the portal will open within five years. The Clocktower exists in both realms, so people in the tower should know too.”

Crow carefully thought over everything he knew. Between Torcail’s arrival, the Hex Vodun, his vision, and all the things he actively tried to avoid. The things that had happened to him were enough to drive a normal person crazy.

“Double hell,” he muttered. Sensing the inescapable hand of chaos sending him on jaunts to mess with the status quo. Although he had intended to go to Pineknot, there was still a month’s worth of travel. Judging by the way things were, he’d have missed this event in normal circumstances. Even when he tried to avoid creating chaos, it appeared chaos wasn’t having any of it. “Can I leave through this portal?”

“Not until the trial is over, at least not without a token. Those tokens will save your life if you are in a dire situation here. Without one, you have to wait to be expelled.”

“Wouldn’t that expel you too?”

“Nope.” Caed pointed at his tabard. “I’m a member of the Clockwork Sect. We have our methods of resisting the expulsion. Regardless, we need to get back to Pineknot immediately. I’m convinced a beast burned this forest down, and if we don’t get behind walls, soon we might end up on the wrong side of beast tide.”

Crow nodded, and they picked up their pace.

“Oh,” Caed said and snapped his fingers. “The Clocktower is the trial. Supposedly, if you reach a certain point in the trial, you can leave.”

“There is no way I can participate in the trial. I don’t even have a Shield—I’d get slaughtered.”

“You misunderstand,” Caed explained. “No one with a Shield can enter this place. The reason outsiders rush toward this trial is the opportunity provided within. Not only are there rare goods, but you’ll have a chance of gaining your Shield. It’ll differ from the others.”

“Different how?” Crow finally felt he was beginning to understand.

“I don’t know. That’s just been the long-standing rumor.”

It had to be a Deviant Shield. They were rare, and Crow suspected he might develop one without this trial. Between the curse, the Night Fire, and various other things that have happened to him, it’d surprise him more if he didn’t develop one.

A Shield’s standard shape was like a heater shield and usually the size of the cultivator’s palm. Etched into the Shield was a symbol that represented a people or cultivation. Druids of the Oak had the image of an oak tree as their symbol. Minor deviances occurred in the symbol, but major deviances could change the entire shape of the Shield. Crow’s father once told him he ran into a man whose Shield was shaped like a buckler, so it was round.

Crow did not know if there were any benefits to such a thing. Most texts had little to no information about Deviant Shields. The only passage he found was one sentence mentioning resistances. The symbol reflected affinity and resistances, but Crow didn’t rely on that information. Since each nation appeared to have its own emblems and leanings, so it was probably true. It would imply that the Shield augmented the cultivator’s natural affinities.

The only thing he couldn’t use logical reasoning on was the Shield’s shape.

“Okay, last question. What is this?” Crow showed Caed the back of his hand.

“A backhand?” Caed ducked nervously as if expecting to get backhanded. Crow’s jaw dropped open, shocked into silence.