"Gods above," Prince Cyril groaned.

  The midday sun bore down on him with savage intensity. Sloping walls stretched up hundreds of feet in every direction, offering little in the way of shade.

  After a moment of disorientation, he realized he was lying in the epicenter of a mile-wide crater.

  Wincing, he propped himself up on one elbow. He hadn’t felt this terrible since the morning after his seventeenth nameday, when he had passed out less than an hour after father brought out the cactus wine and agave spirits. He imagined he could even taste the alcohol again, moist and thick against his teeth, until he touched his mouth and it came away sticky with blood.

  The sight of it disturbed him; a sense of irreality washed over him. Am I supposed to bleed? I’m--

  A human? A Titan? Two distinct spirits swirled within his being, their memories and impressions cshing. He remembered the past eighteen years of his human life, and he remembered aeons stomping around the world: heedless of the magmatic surface of early creation; unimpressed by the toxic clouds destroyed by the passage of his mighty head; stone-facedly falling through the frozen surface of a river to wander the bottom of an ocean for millennia.

  Prince Cyril, the carefree princeling of the Wandering Phoenix Tribe, and Behemoth, the primordial Titan of Earth. It wasn’t much of a battle between their spirits, truth be told--Behemoth’s existence dwarfed Cyril’s in every sense. His sliver of humanity was surrounded on all sides, like an oasis within an endless desert.

  It was, he supposed, a promising sign that his autonomy had not been completely subverted. His essence, his personality, remained, obstinate as ever, a contrarian whisper that helped ground the Titan’s apathetic nature.

  In general, there were two methods of bonding with a spirit: a mutual agreement, or possession.

  Most fools found themselves under the thrall of some mischievous imp--perhaps a djinn or even an ifrit depending on how gravely they had offended the heavens.

  These vessels usually embarrassed themselves in front of their betrothed or perhaps burned down a couple vilges before the tribes mustered enough forces to put them down. Legends told of great heroes who had stumbled upon marids, the highest level of the conventional spirits. Such people became the leaders of empires, or old monsters that roamed the world at their leisure.

  Instead of anything so mundane, Cyril had bonded with a being capable of devastating one of those empires on a whim.

  He couldn’t recall the circumstances behind their merging--only tatters remained, like the fading traces of a dream. All he knew is that he had absolutely, definitely, been stepped on by the colossus. Not the most dignified start to their retionship.

  But the Titan needed him for something. On its own, it would have continued wandering the world for all eternity--not lost, never lost, only because one couldn’t be lost unless they had an ultimate destination in mind.

  Just my luck, thought Cyril.

  He spit blood to the side and forced himself to his feet. For a moment, vertigo seized him, as he imagined himself standing thousands of meters tall, able to see the curvature of the earth from his vantage. Instead, he was standing some six feet off the ground, and in his disorientation stumbled forward like a baby taking its first steps. No earth quaked beneath his feet—his slippers disturbed a few loose pebbles. Cyril struggled for a moment to reassert his sense of self and shrug off the

  Titan's memories.

  It was, understandably, quite a bit to take in. Part of his mind rebelled against the intrusion, no matter the legendary nature of the spirit and the calming effect of its presence. He was meant to tame and bond with a respectable spirit, maybe a low-rank ifrit, and live a routine life. The massive discrepancy between Behemoth and his personal power made his soul vulnerable to its influence, though he sensed no hostile intentions. In fact, he sensed almost no intention at all from the ancient spirit.

  Most people would have considered it a divine blessing to be possessed by one of the Titans, but he couldn't help but think it was a heavy burden.

  The crater he found himself in was, of course, one of Behemoth's footprints, having broken through the stratum of sand to leave its imprint in the cracked cy beneath. Cyril tested the side of the crater with a little kick and, finding it solid enough, began his borious climb upward.

  Fortunately, no one was around to observe him cmbering up the side on all fours, careful not to slip on the veneer of sand. And, he reflected, I even have handholds!

  Behemoth's foot was jagged enough to leave an imperfect impression, the once-fwless stone exterior chipped and pockmarked from all manner of obstacles it had encountered over the years. Few materials were capable of leaving their mark on a Titan, but countless monsters and ndmarks had vented their fury on it over time—enough to erode even a mountain. Not that it mattered even if something was capable of harming Behemoth’s physical form. The humanoid figure of divine stone was merely a shell worn by the spiritual entity, allowing it to traverse the material realm.

  It took a few minutes for Cyril to ascend the crater. The unfathomable reservoir of energy inside of him was a metaphysical weight, as contrarian as Cyril himself. Tapping into the Titan’s lifeforce would have enabled him to run up the sheer face of the wall in a fraction of the time. But he refused, climbing as a mundane mortal would, unsure what the act proved but determined to see it through regardless.

  The st quarter of the climb was the most difficult, since a yer of sand had trickled down to coat the surface. Not a few times he had slid back before catching hold of a crevice. Two steps forward, one step back.

  Finally, He hauled himself over the lip of the crater and sat on the level ground, panting. Damn, he was out of shape. He regretted neglecting any physical training beyond the standard martial training all members of his tribe received. His mother had often called it indolence, but Cyril wasn't on the path of a warrior. Was it zy for a bcksmith not to practice the harp?

  Sighing, he wiped his bloody mouth on the sleeve of his tunic. All of his clothing, including his slippers, were made from an enchanted material that remained spotless. Not even sand could infiltrate his garments--after all, it would be improper for a prince to have sand lodged between his toes.

  “What a day,” he muttered to himself.

  Most impressive of all, his body had survived the ordeal of being crushed beneath a mountain’s worth of foot. At least his clothes had not been shredded, sparing him the indignity of being hounded by maniacal women once he returned to his tribe.

  He gnced up at the sky. Not long before the sun would begin to drift back beneath the horizon. Already fres of pink and peach and vender painted the heavens with the promise of dusk.

  How long have I been out here? And, more importantly, where am I?

  The st thing he remembered was being home, in his feather bed, sleep weighing down his eyelids as he struggled to read one more page of his new favorite romance tome. The city-dwellers failed at much, with their inscrutable, rooted ways of life, but he begrudgingly admitted they could spin a good yarn.

  So, he had lost at least one day. Behemoth offered no help in determining the passage of time. It wasn't that it was so ancient that years became seconds. It simply paid no attention, existing in the moment with the nirvanic crity of an imbecile.

  In response to the thought, something shifted inside of him. A sharp pain in his lower dantian, like he had eaten spoiled meat. Apologies.

  The Titan didn't deign to respond.

  Cyril hauled himself to his feet. Supposedly, one in tune with the desert could recognize their location from subtle differences in the ndmarks. All he saw were endless dunes and jagged sandstone outcroppings. And, far off in the distance, the edges of another crater from Behemoth’s preceding step. As expected, the crater he had emerged from was the st sign of its passage.

  Cyril rubbed a finger against the side of his nose and shrugged. Even he knew a few Cantrips to help him survive and navigate through his birthnd. Not to mention the desert of borrowed power stretching his core beyond human limits.

  That was one of the benefits of having bonded with Behemoth. The size of his natural core had already brushed against the upper limits of human potential, even if he hadn't always been the best at controlling it. His current reservoir absolutely dwarfed what it used to be.

  That, however, was only the beginning.

  Closing his eyes, Cyril read the surface yer of his soul. The compact, elegant runes of the divine nguage greeted him:

  Prince Cyril, Vessel of BehemothEarly Condensation Stage

  Dominions:

  Sun, Second Sphere 245/1000Knowledge, Second Sphere 352/1000Earth, First Sphere 0/100Gravity, First Sphere 0/100Mass, First Sphere 0/100

  Cantrips:

  FlickerMind ScrollPressureReinforce

  Early Condensation Stage was the lowest realm of cultivation. Despite the advantages of his birth, Cyril’s parents had an absurd theory where one should wait until they bonded with a spirit before they began to advance their soul. This, supposedly, maximized the harmony between partners.

  This would have been much less annoying if they had allowed Cyril or any of his siblings to bond with a spirit before their twentieth birth year. In tribes like the Runewardens, five year olds ran about with the powers of minor djinns. Though given the nature of Cyril’s family, perhaps it was for the best that they learned to control their tempers before becoming little godlings.

  Fortunately, he had been born with some spiritual affinities.

  Each Dominion represented an element or concept he could manifest in some way. As one ascended the Spheres, up until the divine Ninth, their understanding of these affinities improved, granting access to new techniques and abilities.

  The Dominion of the Sun was a matrilineal bloodline affinity passed down from his great ancestor, who was rumored to have a connection to the Phoenix, one of the other World Titans. Manifesting Knowledge as a secondary affinity would have him hailed as a prodigy in most families.

  Unfortunately, his elder sister Elys had three, and hair red as fme, unlike his own dark features. She was one of heaven’s chosen, her birth heralded by the stars, while he was merely one of the world’s favored. He may have harbored a few insecurities over that.

  Grinding up both of his innate Dominions to the Second Sphere had been an arduous process. Cultivation was, ultimately, a form of internal alchemy, where one learned to concentrate and refine their qi to advance it to the next qualitative realm. Without the benefit of a bonded spirit and only the rare treasure gifted to him, he had been forced to summon countless Flickers and read quite a number of books in order to fuel his ascension.

  Now, his horizons had expanded.

  The Dominions of Earth, Gravity, and Mass originated from Behemoth, along with the Pressure and Reinforce Cantrips. Not a bad haul, especially since it only scratched the surface of the Titan’s true abilities. In time he would grow into a more suitable vessel, better able to express the more esoteric nature of his little guest.

  At first gnce, there seemed to be an unfortunate ck of synergy between his old Dominions and the new ones. An obvious overp was by no means required, but the higher Spheres could fuse into specialized domains. The ruler of the Stormwind Isles had a rather self-expnatory set of powers that permitted his continent to float in the upper threshold of the atmosphere, sparing his people from the vast majority of camities earthbound civilizations faced by necessity.

  The thought summoned one of Behemoth’s memories: the top of his head scraping along the foundations of the Stormwind Isle, inflicting a meteor rain of dislodged bedrock onto the nd below. Cyril winced.

  Hands on his hips, he observed the ethereal palette of the sky for a moment before kicking up a spray of sand. Was the desert itself not a combination of the Sun and Earth? Did the gods not excim that all things under creation, even diametric realities like Heaven and the Earth, existed in retion to one another?

  Satisfied, the prince chose a direction and began walking. North, judging from the position of the sun. Though he had not trained as a navigator, he had received the same basic education as every other youth in his tribe. Once the night stars poputed the heavens, he should be able to find his way back home. Or, at least, head toward their approximate location.

  There was a chance he was moving in the completely wrong direction, but his people were nomadic by nature. An hour or two of wandering about the desert would not make much of a difference in the long run, though he was somewhat concerned his family may be searching for him. Still, it was nice to stretch his legs. Climbing the crater alone had soothed much of the ache in his muscles from being stepped on.

  Also, he admitted to himself, he was curious to test his new Dominions. As long as he had not wandered too far from the tribe, the area was retively safe. He would not have risked it before--especially alone--but simply Reinforcing his body with Behemoth's borrowed qi would make him all but impervious to any monsters in the vicinity.

  And if not, it would be more productive to scout his opposition opposed to sitting around like a mb waiting for the sughter.

  Cyril stirred his core to life, sending trickles of qi throughout his body. He cycled through the Cantrips as he walked along at a leisurely pace.

  Sun qi swirled up the spiritual channels in his right hand. A pale fme ignited across his outstretched palm, eerie shadows dancing in its presence. Flicker.

  A current of blue-green Knowledge qi followed close behind. The fme was repced with a papyrus scroll that unfurled above his head. Mind Scroll.

  Cyril knew, without looking, it was an itemized list of his favorite romance series, random titles crossed out; it was difficult to complete it in chronological order so far from the Great Cities, even with his family’s resources and connections.

  The next two did not come to him so naturally. He focused on the runes inscribed onto his soul, bringing their descriptions to the forefront:

  Reinforce - concentrate qi onto a specific part of the body to imbue it with enhanced durability.

  Pressure - concentrate qi into an external locus to apply kinetic force.

  Not exactly the most enlightening of descriptions, but having reached the Second Sphere of Knowledge granted him a far more useful instruction than the basic notation from the First. Beneath each overview was a visual guide on how to best circute his qi in order to cast the associated Cantrip.

  In the modern world of written Knowledge, both skills were considered fairly useless since the information on basic Cantrips could be purchased for a pittance. They were merely optimized patterns for cycling one’s qi to achieve a desired result. Flicker was the universally common technique for summoning a basic fme, for instance.

  For a young man lost in the desert with a new set of abilities, it was a gift from the gods. He could have eventually reached a suboptimal result through his own experiments, but receiving Reinforce and Pressure spared him a great deal of trouble in the meantime.

  Smiling to himself, Cyril stretched out one hand and circuted qi through the channels leading down his arm. Pressure required a sophisticated expression of control, rotational force turning around and upon itself in a counter-rhythm. It took several minutes until his internal energy settled into the proper pattern.

  A pilr of sand bsted into the air six feet in front of him. He resisted the urge to leap in celebration, especially when the sand rained down and buried itself in his shaggy hair. Sputtering, he wiped his mouth clean with the back of his hand. His eyes twinkling with triumph.

  As he continued along, he cast the Cantrip off to the side and slightly behind him, reducing the amount of applied qi to spare himself from another geyser of sand. Small plumes rose from the ndscape periodically.

  “Alright,” he muttered to himself after a few more minutes, satisfied he had the hang of it.

  Of course, applying it in combat would be far more difficult than savaging some helpless sand dunes. He would train more in the future. For now, he wanted to make sure he could summon Reinforce on command. Not many desert threats would be capable of piercing through a defensive technique like that. A far cry from Behemoth’s colossal might, but it was a start.

  Then the ground beneath Cyril’s feet trembled, wiping the smile from his face.

  He knew that sensation. Every citizen of the desert did.

  Frantically, he gnced around the area. There--a burgeoning tunnel of sand, as wide as a full-grown man, forty paces behind him. He groaned as his worst fear was confirmed.

  Sandwyrm.