“You’re doing it wrong. Again.”

Eva kept from growling, but the scowl at Kiara was as open as she could make it. Meanwhile, the ageless maiden looked just as annoyed at this whole endeavor, reaching out to wave away at something as if trying to shoo off a fly.

“You’re pushing your energy around like you’re trying to carve the air with it. Stop that.”

“It’s the better method for spells and rituals,” Eva hissed.

“If your energy were compatible with that of metal,” Kiara retorted.

“Blood is compatible with metal.”

“Only in the mildest of senses, and only to a mistress of the craft. Not a month-old leech!” Kiara’s brows kept lowering the further the argument went, until she finally let out a growl. “Observe.”

Presenting an open palm, she summoned a series of glowing purple dots, each barely a mote of light. Their numbers swelled until it was a miniature hive contained within the palm of her hand, each speck dancing with its own erratic movements.

“This is what I mean by ‘flow’.”

Upon her command, the light began to move with purpose, turning into a swirling whirlpool. Their movements became smooth, spiraling down on the outer shell before being sucked into the inner vortex, spiraling up, and being spat out to repeat the cycle.

“Do your best to imitate this.”

Next to Kiara, Embla’s eyes opened ever so slightly in surprise.

Eva could understand why the Malumari was so surprised. The display of lights had emerged out of the simplest of illumination spells, yet the complexity of its movements revealed a level of fine control the likes of which Eva had only ever read. From a Succubus no less, a breed that had no specialization in illusions. It left the Vampire with begrudging respect for the ageless maiden.

“Stop gawking and focus,” Kiara dismissed the lights as she closed her hand. “Until you find a way to control your powers, you’ll remain a hazard to Rick and this expedition.”

It was hard to respect someone when they were being this annoying. Eva knew Kiara was right, but loathed the condescending tone all the same.

“She’s right.” Embla shifted where she sat, shackles clinking as she glanced at them both. “If I were in charge of this expedition, I would’ve left you behind. As it stands, any champion with decent senses would be able to detect you from half a day’s run.”

Kiara gave the prisoner a glance, an odd look crossing her features before they were replaced by a sly smile. “Help her learn.”

“Why?”

“You wouldn’t want the Pinielf knowing we’re on our way, now would you?” She cocked a smirk, making a gesture at the Malumari. “Besides, you are clearly familiar with the process of training through disruption.”

Embla stiffened. “How do you know that?”

“You handle your energy like you’re afraid someone will knock it from your grip,” Kiara shrugged. “You only see that paranoia from someone trained by a disruptor.”

“Contrary to how you handle it? Reaching out to touch everything?” Embla scoffed back.

“I’m a touchy kind of gal.” She cackled, shaking her head and glancing over her shoulder in the direction of the camp proper. For a moment, she kept quiet, her gaze hardening as she focused on something only she could see. “I will test you come morning.”

Eva frowned. “You’re not my mentor.”

“You are right, I am not your mentor.” The Succubus turned to her, golden eyes shining in the dimness of the forest. There was a cruel edge to her smile. Slowly, she shifted her form, membranous black wings spreading behind her, horns emerging from her blue hair. “But if you ever feel like you’re losing yourself to your empathic powers, my door will remain open.”

“Vampires don’t have empathic… and she’s gone.” Eva glowered, watching Kiara take to the air and rise past the trees above. “I hope a feral Angel takes a shot at her,” she added under her breath, rubbing her temples and sighing loudly.

“They’re all dead.”

Embla’s distant voice reminded her the prisoner was still there. The Malumari hadn’t moved from the spot, watching up into the treeline where Kiara had disappeared to. The maiden’s charcoal skin almost blended with the umbra of the forest, while her chalk-white hair made her nearly glow.

“Dead?”

“To cause the rush, infecting the feral Angels and Neigix was the quickest way to have it spread.” The shackles clinked, her fists tightening. “The plant eventually kills the host, at least that was what she told us of how it worked.”

“Let’s just get this done.” Eva shook her head at the thought of the Seraph. It wasn’t something she wanted to be reminded of, that feeling of overwhelming uselessness…

She kept her gaze on the cloudy sky above. “Cast a spell.”

The dejected aloofness of the maiden’s demeanor prickled Eva, her jaw set firmly in place as she summoned forth her power to prepare the illumination spell. The energy was invisible to her eyes, but she could feel it as she stretched it upwards through the tips of her fingers. The volumetric web-like pattern was drawn, and she began to pulse her power into it, injecting a bit of power into the various nodes where the web patterns connected and reached out.

Except nothing happened.

Trying to sustain the spell at a criticality point for a prolonged period of time proved impossible. Her energy unraveled, the structure collapsed, there was such little energy within the spell it didn’t even surge out, merely dissipating into the night air.

“You did something.” Eva threw the accusation at Embla.

The maiden just shrugged.

The annoying part wasn’t that her spell had been tampered with, but that she hadn’t been able to detect the interference. It wasn’t as if anything was out of place; the nodes and structure were intact. In a way, it reminded her of how Kiara could seemingly slip past someone’s defenses without the target realizing it.

It would’ve made sense that Embla could disrupt her in this way if she weren’t focused, but…

The second attempt failed, despite her moving her energy more carefully this time.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The third failed as well, also without noticing any disruptions.

She changed her strategy, weaving her power once more. This time she made sure to do so wrongly, but in a way that kept the structure. Yet as she did, the spell abruptly reached criticality, lighting up and compressing itself until a small orb of white light emerged from the area it once occupied.

“You weren’t disrupting me,” Eva declared. “You were nudging my energy to flow into the wrong places.”

Embla stiffened, eyes widening. “You’re familiar with the deeper foundational theory of spellcasting.”

“Of course,” she nodded, puffing up.

“Yet you have no practice on it. You were human. A well-educated human on a subject with no direct use.” Her lips thinned, leaning forward with a glare. “You’re a noble.”

The Malumari had not moved from where she sat, yet Eva felt like she ought to put distance between them. Her eyes flickered down to the metal shackles that contained the prisoner, and at the four Orc guards that had abruptly tensed. But she was distinctly aware it would be a losing proposition.

If violence broke out, her only hope would be to run.

Eva pushed through the anxiousness. “Maidens are not nobility,” she declared as firmly as she could.

“The kingdom would put your head on a pike.” The statement lacked any sympathy, yet it held an edge of curiosity to it.

It was a proper question, but one she’d made a choice on already. “If they try, then they will learn the same lesson you have.”

“And what lesson is that?”

Eva stood tall, raising her chin. “Going against the Lord of Sinco is as foolish as attacking a Dragoness in her den.”

Letting out a bark of laughter, Embla shook her head. “I would compare him to a Tunnelweaver, not a Dragoness.”

“A maiden whose silk and poisons render intruders defenseless against their traps… I guess it might fit,” she muttered. “How do you know of them? They are exceedingly rare, not of these lands. They’re more prevalent further east, well past the blue mountains.”

“My mother would wrap a sash of Tunnelweaver silk around my neck whenever I was to train. I know not how she got her hands on it.” She let out a wistful sigh, turning to look back at the sky. “Would you betray your kingdom if the Lord of Sinco asked it of you?”

Now it was Eva’s turn to gaze up into the cloudy sky. It was no simple question, yet it too was something she’d spent ample time pondering. “It is easier to see it as the kingdom having betrayed me. After all, to them, my former self is dead.”

“But you don’t see it that way.”

She nodded. “Though its people rightfully fear my presence, being at Rick’s side since the moment the curse fell on me has kept the kingdom’s sting from reaching me. Still, even if they chose to make an exception for me in their laws, I would not waver.”

“Why?”

The question held more emotion to it than Eva had seen in her expression throughout the whole day. To which she just shrugged. “Rick chose me, and I have chosen him in turn.”

“It’s not a goal, or an idea. He’s a human, he’s fallible, he might one day change.” Her voice strained, fists tightening. “You’re his property, to be tossed once you stop being convenient.”

Eva laughed at the claim, as if she had been anything but baggage and a risk. “I would not find it wrong for him to do it,” she said. Even now, there was too much for her to catch up on before she could claim to be pulling her weight properly. “And were I to find fault in that, I would have done something about it.”

“But you’re not free!” She jolted to her feet, glaring down at the Vampire, power lashing outwards in every direction.

Eva did not move, the Malumari’s fight with Urtha flashed across her mind, and how little hope there was to be had in a confrontation. Eva’s shoulders shook as she immediately lowered her gaze to the ground, hands impotently clenching at either side. “And were you? Free, I mean.” She muttered, throwing the jab back with a wavering voice. “Free to leave the cause you were raised to fight for, free to go elsewhere and seek a peaceful life.”

The statement knocked the wind out of Embla’s anger. “Yes, of course I…” She hesitated. “I chose to fight for our existence.”

“And you put your cause in the hands of a monster.” With a shaky breath, Eva raised her eyes to meet the other maiden’s own. “And you lost anyway.”

Embla turned away in shame and impotence.

“I did.” Sitting back down, the maiden’s head hung heavy from her shoulders. “I did.” She repeated, biting her lip, eyes staring at nothing, unfocused as they bore into the ground underneath her.

For a minute she stayed this way, ignoring the slightly nervous Orcs as they watched the two maidens warily.

“We should get this over with,” Embla said. “She’s wrong, you know, Kiara.”

“About what?”

“Your control.” She shook her head slightly. “Blood energy is made primarily with a core of shadow and magic. Vampires often lean into the darkness aspect, which lends itself towards the flowing form of energy control. This is what makes it easier for them to hide their presence, such as when casting a ritual in the midst of a battle.”

Eva was reminded of the Vampire who’d cast the massive ritual during the assault on the tribe. The sensation of the spell had been so overwhelming that even she had felt it. Did this mean the Vampire had been using an alternate form of control, or was it just that the ritual had that much power in it?

“How do you…? How do you know this?”

Embla shook her head. “My mother was alive during the purges.”

Eva’s brow creased. “The purges were nearly a hundred years ago, and Warlocks are many things, but ageless is not one of them.”

“She dabbled in many things.” Embla sighed. “And she held many secrets.”

“And one of them is about different forms of energy control Vampires had.” Eva’s voice was thick with skepticism, staring flatly at the maiden. “Seems more likely she was in contact with the Vampire councils and learned a thing or two through this.”

“Perhaps,” the reply came with a hastily dismissive tone. “What matters is that the Succubus didn’t inform you of an option she should’ve been aware of. Most likely it was because she thought you shouldn’t know of the possibility to begin with.”

“No, what matters is that I need to learn how to control my energy.” It was true that Kiara’s ability to be right was annoying, and that her lack of a comment regarding the alternative was suspect. But there would be plenty of time to deal with her ploys, and Eva could not trust the prisoner’s intentions. “Tell me what the other form is.”

Embla leaned forward, using her digit to draw on the dirt. “The other common form is through coalescence and release. If the first method is to trap the energy in a torrent, then the second is to contain it within a shell.”

“Just contain it?” Eva asked. “Magic energy’s flexibility should allow for more than just that.”

“It does, but that would depend on what you do within the shell you form. It is akin to creating a small ritual, one you shrink down until it is invariably unleashed.” Embla presented her palms to show a light the size of her fist, one that changed color from white to blue as it slowly shrunk in size.

The image presented to her sparked a thought, one that became a cascade.

Clenching firmly on the idea, Eva shot to her feet.

She reached for the palm of her hand, using her sharp nail to skewer through the skin. The pain was barely felt, only the drumming of her heart pushing the concept in her mind further. She pulled at her blood as if holding it with an invisible hand, the red liquid thick with her energy.

Eva’s mind turned back to that perfect night, to that moment where she and Rick lay tangled in each other’s limbs, unable and unwilling to move, exhausted but not asleep. He’d been mumbling, muttering, speaking in soft soothing words explaining a scene that now bubbled to the front of her thoughts vividly.

A cloud of dust suspended in blackness, so massive it began to attract itself, ever more slowly shrinking as it began to accelerate inwards. She rushed to form the structure for the illumination spell, keeping the blood flowing. This time they were not pillars of a building, or pipes through which water flowed, instead, the lines and patterns of the spell were a moment frozen in time. A singular point of pure coincidence between the dust cloud and its inevitable collapse into itself, one where the pattern the particles held was that of the matrix.

And as soon as she’d weaved the shape into existence, it became a fight to sustain its shape, her blood pulsating as it greedily tried to destroy her creation. Eva held fast, just barely long enough for her power to surge through the structure.

Criticality followed, the matrix surging as it collapsed into itself once more, this time directly into the dimly glowing globule of blood.

The glow became a brilliant scarlet light, blinding in its intensity as it bathed the forest with a ruby flash of intensity that lasted all of two seconds. Eva’s breath hitched in her throat, looking at the spot where the light had once been and now was nothing but darkness.

Slowly her gaze turned back up, to the clouds. But in her mind she was looking past them, at the stars that twinkled above.

A half smile formed on her lips.

“I can work with this.”