“What is your name?” Yorick Mason asks. I have learned that Mr. Mason belongs to a people called the Hartfolk. These people, all men apparently, carry with them aspects of the earth, and are all born with an essentia already bound to their souls. Mr. Mason was born with the Lava Essentia, granting his skin the appearance of molten metal, though his touch is no hotter than any other person’s. Mr. Mason shines a light from his pointer finger in front of my eyes, making me track it with my own without moving my head.
“Charlene Devardem,” I say. He moves his finger, paying attention to how my own eyes move to follow it. I find it interesting that despite the bright light being so near to my face, it doesn’t hurt my eyes at all.
“It would appear that the implementation was a success. The examination is a bit surface level, but there does not seem to be any brain trauma from the surgery.” Mr. Mason steps away and allows the light on his finger to fade back to a smoldering orange.
“Could that have happened?” I ask. My voice is still strange in my own ears, deep and full, reverberating from the sound chamber of a chest that is a lot larger than it had been a few hours ago.
“Potentially,” Mr. Mason admits. “Whenever surgery is done on the head it is a concern. If any injury had happened, your body’s transformation at the first rank likely would have healed anything serious. If not, rank three shall without a doubt.”
I don’t ask what rank the man in front of me is, fixing the tie of his suit after he slips his jacket on. If I close my left eye, my implanted eye–though even my right has changed–I can see a curtain of energy surrounding the man like a shifting second skin of yellow, lagging behind his movement’s like a ghost. I first noticed it when Arabella turned me away from the mirror in the ritual chamber, something that took her a good bit of effort to do. I could see it then, wintery white light splashing off her skin and soaking the air around her; her soul presence, I could see it.
“What are you doing?” Mr. Mason asks.
“Looking at your soul,” I say, staring at him with my right eye. “At least I think that I am.”
“You can see souls at first rank?” he asks. Mr. Mason turns and retakes the seat across from my own. We sit in what he has called “my room,” the same room that I had awoken in after having this strange magical eye implanted in my head. “Normally, that is something that is developed at second rank.”
I shrug, making a small movement with my hand in the air. “I have an ability that allows for it,” I tell him. At my gesture, a bar of black light erupts into the air in front of me. It stretches downward until it is as large as a storefront sign as it continues to hover in the air. Galea appears alongside the sign, her reptile eyes running over the words that rise to the surface.
Charlene Devardem
Human(Level 1)(Rank 1)
Emperor Conflux
Attributes
Vitality: 6
Strength: 3
Magic: 8
Defense: 4
Magic Defense: 8
Speed: 7
Recovery: 12
Perception: 6
Presence: 0
Essentia
Gold Essentia
Magic Essentia
Dragon Essentia
Emperor Conflux
He cannot see the floating sign that hovers between us. “Since reaching the first rank, Galea, the spirit in the eye you put in my head, has been able to do more things. She has shown me a…it is like a floating, transparent sign that tells me about myself. It says that I am a recovery specialist.”
“Specializing at rank one,” Mr. Mason says, more to himself than to me. “It would seem that Ms. Willian chose an interesting student.”
Among essentia magicians, there are a few who receive a power that specifically increases one of their physical attributes, making them a specialist. My brother is like that, gaining a huge increase to his strength from his Power Essentia.
“It would seem that the eye is quite an item, if it can dictate someone being a specialist,” Mr. Mason says.
“No,” I correct him. The word comes out harsher than I intend. Mr. Mason looks back at me from under raised eyebrows as I feel my face flush. “Sorry. I’m still getting used to this new voice. No, the power doesn’t come from the eye, but from one of my essentia.
Another sign pops into the air, overlapping the first.
Dragon Essentia: Dragon’s Eyes(Rank 1):
You posses the sight of dragons. This ability grants the ability to perceive magical auras and soul presences. The eyes of dragons empower a dragon’s ability to recover its magical and vital energies. Grants a small boost to the Recovery attribute and causes the Recovery attribute to be 50% more effective.
It was still odd to me that the ability read as “Dragon’s Eyes” when it looked as if only my original right eye had taken on that reptilian nature. Making another gesture, an entire list of my essentia and powers are displayed. I am still getting used to everything that Galea has told me about her new capabilities, and apparently there is still much more left to discover.
Charlene Devardem
Human(Level 1)(Rank 1)
Emperor Conflux
Gold Essentia(Rank 1): Disenchantment
By touching a dead monster, you are able to break down their residual essence into component parts and solidify their magical residue into physical objects.
Gold: this ability also produces an amount of coin commensurate with the power of the monster.
Magic Essentia: Dragonfire Bolt(Rank 1):
Fire a bolt of dragonfire at a target, dealing fire damage and potentially setting it aflame. Dragonfire is a native ability of all dragons and its aspects take on the properties of the user’s native mana affixes.
Dragon Essentia: Dragon’s Eyes(Rank 1):
You posses the sight of dragons. This ability grants the ability to perceive magical auras and soul presences. The eyes of dragons empower a dragon’s ability to recover its magical and vital energies. Grants a small boost to the Recovery attribute and causes the Recovery attribute to be 50% more effective.
Emperor Conflux: Emperor's Prerogative(Rank 1):
A true emperor is unbound by the limitations of the world, and as such, the emperor is not bound by any mana affix affinities, capable of pursuing any magical paths they might choose. Provides a small boost to the understanding and attunement of different mana affixes.
I read the page a few more times. I still haven’t tried out any of the abilities that I gained with first rank, the physical changes have been more than enough to occupy my mind. I try to concentrate on the descriptions, but while I trust they are accurate–everything Galea has shown me so far has been–I don’t understand them.
“Have you heard of the Emperor’s Conflux before Mr. Mason?” I ask as he starts putting away the equipment he had brought along with him.
He pauses. “No, though my Castinian is not the greatest. There are thousands of confluxes, millions maybe, and everywhere calls them something different.”
“I had never really thought of that,” I said. “What language is your first one?”
“My people have our own language,” he tells me. “It is called Heebo. I doubt you will ever hear of anyone else using it. We are quite far from anywhere where someone might.”
“I’ve never thought about traveling before,” I tell him. “We are less than twenty miles from where I was born and grew up. Ms. Willian seems like a woman who has been all over. Though she didn’t say it out right, I knew I would be leaving once I signed that contract and where we could be going could be anywhere. I’m…excited. It doesn’t feel like I’m excited enough though. I don’t even know what might be out there that I should be excited to find, but I hope that I do find out.”
“It is an interesting place,” Mr. Mason says. He stands and makes his way to the door.
“You know where we will be going?” I ask, hopping to my feet.
He turns as he opens the door. “I’ve been there before, long ago.”
“What’s it like?” I ask.
He chews on the words for a moment before speaking them. “Harsh and beautiful. If you can take the time to actually enjoy it, its one of the best places you will ever find. Just remember that it isn’t your friend and you will be alright.”
Before I can ask what he means by that, Mr. Mason exits the room and closes the door behind himself. I stay a while longer in the room. A small pouch of coin sits against the wall next to the pack I brought the day before. Arabella gave it to me; she told me to buy whatever I needed to travel with. None of my clothes fit anymore. The blue silk blouse and skirt I have on were lent by Arabella. I count the coin again as I make my way to the door, miscellaneous silver and bronze coins stamped with foreign words I can't read. The bag is heavy, the first advance of the stipend I am supposed to get, worth two ounces of gold.
I feel strange when I step out into the sunlit street in front of the manor house. My sandals clap against the loose cobblestones of the manor's drive. For an instant, it feels as if nothing in the world has changed, and I know it hasn't; I am the one who changed. Then the world washes in.
The air tastes of dirt, dry and oppressive. I feel my tongue sticking to my teeth as the air feels like it sucks all the moisture out if me. My eyes dart around, looking from the splitting rainbows cast off of the expensive glass of the nearby homes or their polished adornments. The grass buzzes, vibrating in and out at me as if it were breathing, and I realize a second later that my eyes are being drawn to individual insects jumping and scurrying amidst the blades of grass.
Black signs begin popping into the air all over the world: Afigian Grass, Grasshopper, Granite, Aluminum Silicate, Bronze, Iron-rich gravel, Cedar, Spruce, Tulips, Lavender, Limestone, Tabby Cat, Bluejay, Aspen Pine, Reflective silica glass, Dober Grass, Rosebush, Shears, Hadi Beetle, Minor Swoopbill
“Stop,” I tell Galea. Keeping my eyes closed, I stumble to a bench set on the side of the street. Heat radiates on my face and I feel sweat beading my brow. The sun shines warmly but the chill in the air across the back of my neck makes me shiver.
Slowly, carefully, I open an eye. The world hasn't changed, but it might as well have. Everything is alien, yet awfully familiar. My new eyes see an array of colors that were invisible before. Just in the Afigian grass that comprises most of the front lawns in this urban neighborhood, I count thirty-six different kinds of green. I am enraptured by the bending rainbows of color shining off of every metallic surface. I stare at the field of color, wishing for the first time in my life that I knew how to paint, its the only thing that could do the world justice.
I don't know how long I spend on the bench in front of Arabella Willian's house just looking at the world with new eyes. I finally get ahold of myself when I realize that I have been staring at the sun for some minutes, inspecting the shifting corona of color that peels off of it. Looking at the sun no longer hurts my eyes. It's beautiful.
I put off doing what I know I have to do by first going to find new clothing. The seamstresses in Westgrove are fantastic, but none work with material as exotic as the silk lent to me by Arabella. With the coin that I have been given I am able to spend more than I should on the adventuring clothing that I need to replace, sticking to pieces dyed vibrant reds and purples. I also purchase a new pack, twice as large as my old one, and barely feel the weight of it as I pack it with various necessities like tin cups, waterskins, mess kits, and two new pairs of fine boots.
I am at a loss for what else to burn the rest of my coin on. I've never been a real adventurer before, but I know that they spend most of their coin on enchanted items to help with the trade. I've never had to think about that kind of thing before, and unfortunately, I know where I need to go next.
The inn is easy enough to find. My feet remember the steps of cobblestone leading back to it better than my head does. I realize that I’m mumbling as I step up to the door, the practice conversation running through my head spilling out. A woman leaving the inn, offering me a strange look, brings me back to myself. Like most of the buildings in Westgrove, The Bumble Inn has taken a serious beating from the wind and rain over the years, and its cedar door is speckled with water stains and chipping from hail. A black sign appears in my vision as I push it open, ringing the bell above the door, that tells me the inn was built sixteen to seventeen years ago.
Halford sits just inside the inn’s dining nook, brass plate clicking as he cuts apart the eggs on his plate with a knife. He looks up at me as the bell above my head rings out its last chime. There is an immediate recognition in his eyes, but his face gives nothing away. There is a light of silver and crimson that seeps off his skin, the same color as his soul that he showed us in the forest before he trapped it in his soul cage. The aura bleeds to pure crimson, exploding off his skin for a fraction of a second, before it calms and returns to a loose mist emanating about him.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“So that’s where you were,” he says. Halford pushes the plate of eggs and steak away and sits back in his chair. “Bali was worried sick about you.”
“I know,” I say. My voice doesn’t sound sincere to my own ears, harsh, clipped. Halford raises an eyebrow at me as I approach his table and take a seat. “I know,” I say again, better.
His eyes linger on my own as he cocks his head to the side, inspecting me. “The first rank did a lot for you,” he says. “You look just like mom.”
“What!” As I ask the question, I hear it. That harsh and deep sound that carries with it an absolute confidence and the most stubborn self-righteousness imaginable. My voice does sound just like hers. “I do not,” I say.
He squints at me. “Maybe not,” he says with a shrug. “Your freckles’r gone now. You definitely don’t have her eyes anymore. But you two are almost the same height now, you both have a build like a work foreman, I can see it. I like your hair better, sunrise colors, like hers used to be. Looks like you went and grew up last night.”
“Something like that,” I say.
“This is Arabella Willian’s doing,” he says, not a question. “I wish you just waited a few more weeks. This could have happened in Vale, with everyone there.”
“I took an opportunity,” I say, crossing my arms and leaning back in my own seat. “I would think out of anyone that you would understand something like that.”
“Is this about the Snake Essentia?” he asks. “I bought it back yesterday. You could have still had it if you really wanted it.”
“It’s not about that,” I say. Some part of me knows that isn’t wholly true. “I told you that I wanted to become an essentia magician, like you. The opportunity of a lifetime fell into my lap. It would have been foolish to refuse.”
“So, what did you trade away for this opportunity?” he asks.
“Nothing all that important,” I say. “Arabella Willian sees something special in me, in exchange for essentia, resources, and the best training in the world, all she asked of me was that her guild has first askers’ right on me joining an adventuring guild and that if I make the cut, I compete in a tournament for them.”
“What tournament is this?”
“Something called the Trial of Body and Soul.” Though Ms. Willian had never told me it directly, I remembered it from the contract I signed. Thinking back on that, I realize that I remember the entire document perfectly. Perhaps that is a quirk of reaching rank one.
“I’ve never heard of it,” Halford says.
“Neither have I,” I admit.
“I assume by training, you mean that you agreed to be taken away from here and put under some kind of guild regimen.”
“Something like that,” I say.
“Something like that, or exactly that?”
“You had it right,” I say. I try to keep my face serious, there is nothing light in Halford’s appearance. In fact, I feel like I can see agitation in the silver-red light that covers his skin.
“How long?”
“Three years,” I say.
Halford chews on the words like cud. He looses a long breath through his nose and stares at the ceiling for a while.
I leave him to it. It is easy enough to distract myself by looking about the room. My new eyes pick out details that I could never have hoped to spot before. When I want to, I can concentrate on an object, and a sign will appear above it, giving me a few more details that seem impossible to know. I look back at Halford who is visibly trying to keep himself calm.
Halford Devardem(Rank Two)
Avatar Conflux
I recognize immediately what an incredible advantage there could be in being able to know what another magical practitioner’s conflux is at a glance. Thanks to Halford’s bragging, I know that basically every person with the Avatar Conflux is a powerhouse in close distance fighting. Being able to tell if someone is an attribute specialist at a glance and what attribute it is will be extremely helpful I’m sure.
“What essentia?” he finally asks.
“I’m sorry?”
“I hope that you at least got a good set. If you were willing to sign away years of your life to this woman, then I won’t be able to sleep easy if I find out that you were taken advantage of. You’re an adult Charlene, you get to decide what you do with your own life, but if I find out that woman took advantage of you, I will march in there myself and make her understand that I won’t stand for it.”
“Halford, she’s a fourth ranker,” I say.
“You think that would stop me.” The smirk he shows me lets me know that he’s serious, but also helps to take some of the tension out of the air. I can’t help but bark a laugh.
“Don’t think you would believe what they were if I told you. Not that I’m thinking I should. Apparently, in proper society, it’s awfully rude to ask someone what their essentia are.”
Halford looks around the inn. “Does this look like the kind of place for proper society to you? Plus, I’m your brother.”
“You are,” I agree. “Ms. Willian isn’t cheap. She let me pick whatever I wanted from her shelves of essentia. The woman must have grown up in a palace. You wouldn’t believe how many she had. Certainly enough to buy a few palaces if she didn’t already have one.”
“You’re starting down a long road,” Halford interrupts. “Cut to it.”
“Fine. Out of all the choices that I had, I chose Magic and Dragon.”
“Magic and Dragon,” he repeats. Halford lets out a long whistle. “Corinth has magic as one of his. Its pretty useful from what I’ve heard. I’ve heard about Dragon, rare, frighteningly so. I can’t imagine that it would give you weak abilities. What’s the conflux?”
“Emperor,” I say. “As it turns out, Gold, Magic, and Dragon make Emperor. Something to write down in the books.”
His eyebrows rise at me telling him the conflux. “An Emperor Conflux, now that is quite something.” I watch as his mind spins over the information. He scoots his seat back and stands. “Alright, come on.”
“Where are we going?” I ask, standing myself.
“Just a little bit out of the city. I need to see what abilities you got with my own eyes. I’m not going to let my baby sister set out on whatever adventure she dropped herself into without at least somewhat of a handle on what it is she can do now.”
I follow Halford out of the inn and then out of Westgrove. The town doesn’t so much end as become a rolling hillside of farming and ranch houses. Halford starts to jog as we leave the city, and to my own surprise, I find that I can keep up with him as he picks up the pace. He continues to run faster until I start falling behind, and by the time that I need to stop to catch my breath, several miles of tall grass and hillside have flown by. I look back along the way we came, but Westgrove is far out of sight by now.
Panting, hands on my knees, I watch my brother turn and wipe the sweat from his brow as he moseys on back to me. He pulls me up straight and escorts me off the road to a patch of forgotten grass not too far away. As we walk, the tall blades of grass are shorn away by the force of his soul presence ahead of us, and unlike before, I can see the soul aura shifting to form blades of color that cut through the grass.
Halford clears an open area for us to stand in. “This should do,” he says.
The smell of the cut grass is pungent in the air, and I can feel the prickle of sweat across my skin. Despite that, I don’t feel tired anymore, a few seconds to catch my breath was all I seem to have needed.
“What is that you want me to do?” I ask.
“Seeing if you could put up a decent run for a few miles was one thing," he says. “I know you’re not one to put off a little hard work, but seeing it first hand was reassuring.”
“Thanks.”
“Now,” he continues, “show me your essentia abilities. We don’t have a monster for your gold ability, but I already know that one now don’t I.”
“You think we needed to leave town for me to show you my abilities?”
“Only if they are good ones.” His broad smile sets me at ease as he relaxes his hands behind his head. “Now, go on.”
I arch my back, getting a good crack, and think over the abilities that I have gotten. “Can’t show you the dragon one,” I say. “Well, that’s not really true.” I point to my eye. “Eye of the Dragon. Gives me the ability to see magical auras.”
Halford stares into my right eye. “You managed to get your hands on a Dragon Essentia, and it gave you a passive ability.” He shakes his head. “That’s terrible.”
“Says you,” I say. “It made me a Recovery specialist, same way you’re a strength specialist.”
He chuckles and puts his hands up in surrender. “Didn’t think I was touching a nerve.”
“Just a light insult is all, huh.”
“Exactly.” He laughs again as I shoot a glare his way. “I hope the other two aren’t passive abilities too. I’ll feel bad dragging you all the way out here.”
“No,” I say. It is the first time that I’ve ever done so, but the magic inside of me feels instinctual in the same way that the ability I received from the Gold Essentia was. It feels as if I touch to some deep core inside of me as I draw upon the power granted by my Magic Essentia. When I let the ability go I feel something deep inside myself moving, like huge cogs shaking off the rust of disuse and clunking into place. The first signifier is the heat licking my fingertips not a fraction of a second before fire springs to life over my hand. The fire sticks to my skin like water even as it licks the air with long tongues of orange; there is no red or yellow in the flames.
Magic Essentia: Dragonfire Bolt(Rank 1):
Fire a bolt of dragonfire at a target, dealing fire damage and potentially setting it aflame. Dragonfire is a native ability of all dragons and its aspects take on the properties of the user’s native mana affixes.
“And what is that?” Halford asks, leaning close to my burning hand, completely unafraid of the flames.
A small part of me feared that the flames would burn me too, but only a small part. As far as I have seen, nobody’s powers hurt themselves. The flames feel warm on my skin, like I am holding a pot of boiling water, hot but not dangerous.
“This is dragonfire apparently,” I tell him. I wave my hand back and forth, listening to the fire cut the air as I move.
“So you are a candle now,” Halford says with a grin.
To shut him up, I point at a patch of grass and will the fire to leap forward at it. The fire behaves, shooting away as fast as an arrow toward the patch of grass. I feel the vacancy of mana leave me the second the fire slips from my grasp. The fire hits the grass and splashes like water, the flames spreading out to burn the dry grass around where it hit.
“Charlie!” Halford yells as he jumps forward and starts stomping out the patch of burning grass before it can spread too far. It only takes him a few seconds to conquer the fire before it starts getting out of hand, but I notice that the fire is more stubborn than it ought to be.
When Halford glares at me I can’t help but look away. I have to admit, that was a really stupid thing to do. The ability even states that it will set things on fire so I don’t know what drove me to fire it at the grass. I feel a slump in my shoulders that doesn’t come from the embarrassment, though that is certainly a part of it. The mana lost from the bolt is more than I have ever experienced before.
Galea appears in front of me. “I can track that if you like,” she says.
“Track what?” I mentally ask her.
Instead of answering, Galea waves her clawed hand and I see more strange magic interpose itself over my usual vision. Three long, differently colored, lines appear in the top left of my vision, and wherever I turn my eyes, I find that they are always there, though they don’t seem to obscure my ability to see at all. The top line is red and labeled at its start, “Healing Points 60/60”. The second line is the longest of the three and is a brilliant cerulean blue, “Mana Points 70/80”. The final, not very long, line is a deep emerald color, “Stamina 23/50”. As I watched the bars, bewildered, I see the green line of stamina grow just a bit longer: “Stamina 24/50.”
“What is this?” I ask Galea.
The tiny serpent swims up in my visions and plucks one of the bars with a claw, causing it to vibrate. “These are representations of your vital energy. It’s pretty interesting isn’t it, Mistress. I quantified the energies and will track them for you.”
“Charlene,” my brother calls to me, and I realize that I have been standing in the middle of the clearing in the grass staring into nothing.
“Sorry,” I tell him, deciding to the put the strange colored lines out of my mind for the moment. “I was talking to the invisible friend that lives in my head.”
“Is that one of your skills?” he asks, all seriousness on his face.
“No,” I tell him.
Halford shrugs and looks back at the scorched spot of grass. “Fire is a pretty temperamental damage type,” he tells me. “It makes a certain kind of sense.”
“How’s that?”
“I’ll tell you when you show me the rest of your abilities,” he says. Halford steps back and motions for me to continue the demonstration.
“I don’t have any more abilities,” I say. “Not any that I can actively use.”
“Explain that to me.”
I take a few minutes to explain to Halford what all of my abilities are, which is pretty easy, as I can simply read them off of the descriptions. Halford listens to my explanation without interruption, nodding as I make it to the end of the explanation.
“Having two passive abilities at rank one is odd, but not unheard of,” he tells me. “Mostly, it will mean that what you do is going to be highly specialized. From the sounds of your abilities, you will likely be specialized in dealing magical damage from a distance. It is hard to peg a specialization from the first rank, but sometimes you can just tell. That conflux skill is interesting. I don’t know too much about magical affixes, they aren’t usually important until much later on, but the thought of you being unrestricted in the ones you can develop is impressive. I don't think that even I can appreciate how impressive exactly.” Halford turns to look back at me and starts laughing. The man laughs so hard that he needs to brace his hands on his knees to stop from falling over.
“What’s so funny?”
“It makes such complete sense,” he says between his laughs. “A mage whose only ability is to deal damage with fire. You are just like Corinth.” He pulls himself together, wiping a tear from his eye. A few chuckles still shake him periodically. “It must be some kind of defect of our family.”
“You’re saying that I am defective.” I glare at him. I conjure another gout of dragonfire in my hand and wave is threateningly in his direction as I watch the line marking my mana drop from 70 to 60. Halford is not the least bit concerned with my threat.
“Only defective in the same way that I am. I traded in expensive essentia so that I could hand pick ones that would make me an essentia swordsman. I am only ever going to be as powerful as I am skilled with a sword. You had your choice of essentia yourself from the sounds of it, and you ended up with a magical bolt ability, just about the most basic and common of abilities you can get. Then, your conflux decided to grant you an affix effecting ability which will be extremely difficult to master and will either be useless or incredibly powerful. That is just as reliant on skill as the blade. Not to mention Corinth.”
“You’re saying that this ability is worthless unless I am highly skilled with it?” I ask. I wave my hand and the fire vanishes, almost as if it sinks back into my skin, and I watch the blue line of mana extend again to 70.
“Fire is a tricky thing to use in combat,” Halford says, taking a lecturing tone. “It is great against some enemies, but completely useless against others. It is also one of the most common magical affixes, and you will meet a lot of mages that use fire as their main source of damage. That said, I don’t know how different dragonfire is from normal fire, so I might be digging for catfish in the wrong hole, but I think that emperor conflux is made so that you can change the affix of that fire into something else. If you master that, likely you can become a mage that never has to worry about a monster resisting their flames. If you fail to do so, you will become just another common fire mage. It looks like your powers are going to be completely reliant on your skill and the time you dedicate.”
I take a second to chew on his words. Halford, for all that he looks like just another meat head, has been thinking about adventuring and essentia for his whole life, and I would trust his advice on things like this over anyone else’s. “You said that Corinth had this high-skill thing too.”
“Corinth is a magic specialist that only has one element. Like you, his Magic Essentia grants him skills with fire. Fire is all that he can do though. He has killed dragons…as a fire magician. How hard do you think it is to kill a dragon with fire?”
“Hard?” I guess.
“Incredibly hard.” Halford looks back at me, and I think I spot pride in his eyes. “It sounds like you are on a good path.”
“Thanks.”
Halford twirls his hand, conjuring an obscenely long blade and spinning it as if it weighed nothing. “Come on then,” he says. “You aren’t going to improve much with your one weapon if you simply point it at the grass. Give your big brother a few shots.”
I smile back at him as I call dragonfire to spread over my fingers once again. “I’ll give you all that I can.”