We left Stonehorn in silence.
No wagons followed.
No wheels.
Only steps.
Everything we carried was redistributed.
Mule packs. Porters. Shoulder weight.
The mountain did not wait for adjustment.
Dragon’s Stair begins where the road forgets it was ever a road.
It is not marked.
Not clearly.
Only remembered by those who know where not to fall.
The first step is almost easy to miss.
Then there is no choice but forward.
The path is stone.
But not separate from the mountain anymore.
It feels… grown rather than built.
As if the cliff accepted it long ago and simply stopped rejecting its presence.
The ascent takes days.
Seven, I am told.
Without meaningful rest.
Rest is risk here.
Wind, cold, and time do not pause kindly.
We move.
We stop only when forced.
The air changes almost immediately.
Not colder.
Less.
As if something is being removed rather than added.
Breath becomes noticeable.
Then necessary.
Then uncertain.
The sound of the world narrows.
Wind dominates everything.
Even thought.
At times, I cannot hear my own steps.
Only the mountain responding to them.
Below us, the land disappears quickly.
The Azure Heart becomes a distant blue fragment.
Too large to feel real from here.
At times, it vanishes completely behind moving fog.
Then returns again, smaller.
Further away.
As if it is deciding whether it was ever there.
The stair itself is uneven.
Wide in places.
Barely enough in others.
In some sections, the path clings to nothing but vertical stone.
No barrier.
No forgiveness.
Only intention.
Carved runes remain along the edges.
Naga-like forms.
Skeletal impressions of something once precise.
Now softened by time and ice.
Our guide walks ahead.
Ironbeard.
Dragonkin.
Large.
Covered in minimal gear.
Sistered with stone more than cloth.
He speaks rarely.
But when he does, it is not for comfort.
“I am not paid to die with you,” he said once.
“Only to make sure you do not die foolishly.”
No one laughed.
It was not meant for that.
The others follow his pace without question.
Veteran hunters. Porters.
Bodies built for terrain that refuses softness.
Even they feel the climb.
Just differently.
Ryn maintains control of her movement.
Not ease.
Control.
Her breath shortens over time, but her pace does not break.
The caravan master shows no visible change.
As if the mountain is simply another route already memorized.
Elias writes whenever we stop.
More frequently now.
But slower.
His hand shakes slightly when the wind increases.
He does not mention it.
I do not ask.
I find myself observing less of him and more of the space between us.
There is less of it now.
The mountain does not allow distance.
Only arrangement.
Somewhere on the fourth day, the silence changes.
Not breaking.
But deepening.
Even the hunters speak less.
On the sixth, we walk through cloud rather than above it.
Everything becomes white without becoming bright.
Sound returns differently.
Muted.
Then delayed.
By the seventh day, there is no sense of direction left except upward.
And even that feels like assumption.
When we finally reach the end of the stair, I do not notice it immediately.
Only that the path no longer demands the same negotiation.
We have arrived somewhere that no longer resists us in the same way.
I realize then that I have not been thinking of returning for some time.
Not because I have forgotten.
But because the idea no longer fits where I am standing.
From here, the world below is not gone.
It is simply no longer the measure.
And for the first time since leaving the desert,
I understand why people speak of the mountain as if it is not climbed.
But entered
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