"Wait, what did you just say?" Ren asked, his purple eyes narrowing as he stared at Seol-ah as though she'd just announced a national tragedy.
Seol-ah, whose golden eyes held all the mercy and compromise of a particularly unforgiving glacier, simply pointed one elegant finger toward the imposing hill that loomed ahead of us like a disgruntled titan.
"Climb," she repeated, with the serene certainty of someone who knows they won't be the one doing the climbing. "No mana allowed."
The hill—though 'hill' was rather like calling a shark a 'swimming thing with teeth'—thrust upward with jagged determination. Its surface was a hostile collection of sharp rocks, precarious handholds, and the occasional patch of vegetation that looked as though it had made a terrible real estate decision and was now committed to making the best of it.
I tilted my head back, surveying what would be our playground for the day.
