I followed the caravan for a while, playing a few more songs before we parted. The feeling of making music, of seeing them smile, made it so that I all but danced back to the camp. Bors was grinning. He didn’t even ask me to spar. I offered anyway, which coaxed an even wider smile from the man.

This was a simple sparring session, lacking the underlying current of frustration our other bouts had held. The man felt distracted, pensive almost, not something I’d come to expect from the blunt Knight.

“A penny for your thoughts, Bors, you seem not yourself,” I asked as we sat down to cook for the evening. The caravan had traded some beef with us, which was a welcome change from our gamey fare.

“I envy you, Taliesin, for having something you enjoy outside of battle.” The man sat, pulling up the earth beneath him to form a chair. “I am here because I tend to find trouble. When I grow bored, I seek a fight to entertain myself. When I’m angry, I fight to let off steam; when I’m sad, I fight to lift my spirits. I wish I had something else that so occupied me, something I could embrace as you do your music.”

“Are there no hobbies, crafts, or pursuits you enjoy?” I asked the big man. He was hardly alone among cultivators, many being focused solely on fighting and improving themselves through fighting. If anything, I was the odd one for being so diverse in my attentions.

“I have to be stronger. I feel like doing something that doesn’t make me stronger is akin to retreating. So, no, I have nothing else. Well, I used to have my fellow Knights but—” he gestured around him at the lack of companions and then his shoulders slumped.

“I am in a different situation. I am not sure what I want. Well, that’s not true. I know I wish to make music, but that is an action, not the end goal.”

“Do you not have something you’re aiming for? Do you not wish to master the Fae courts? I thought you didn’t like Divine Cultivators? Do you not aim to challenge them?” Bors seemed shocked that I lacked a clear goal. It wasn’t an unfair assumption to think I had some guiding principle. Cultivation was strengthened by purpose. Concepts, the defining power of Iron Rank, all but demanded something that reflected your underlying ambition.

My only real ambition had been to escape. Now I was out, I wanted to live for myself, to play music. I had a goal to see my darling Sephie again, the one person I’d actually liked during my incarceration. That was a long-term plan. In our last set of coded messages, she’d all but warned me she was going to be going into hiding for some time. Considering she was as adept as I at sneaking under the noses of the powerful, it meant that it might be years till I found her.

“I’m still working out what I want. I know what I’ll do. I will happily take down any Divine Cultivator I can, and I will sing and dance. Do I want to commit everything to hunt down my enemy? No. Equally, do I want to be the most celebrated bard in all the land? No. I wish to be me. To be Taliesin. If I don’t take time to be myself, how can I hope to even work out what I want?” I mused that as we prepped dinner. I was good at tending the fire; I didn’t permit the smoke to smother me.

“That’s helpful. Do you reckon that’s why I’ve been stuck here? To work out who I am?”

“I mean, I can’t tell you that for certain, but that sounds like something the Knights I knew might pull.” I was often irked by my instructors, who always seemed to delight in finding the most roundabout methods to achieve the simplest of things.

If you want me to think about myself, just tell me. Don’t give me something mind-numbing to do and expect me not to spend the time thinking about alchemy or something else worthwhile.

“Hm, something for me.” Bors remained quiet for the rest of the meal. After dinner, he settled down and pulled out something I’d not seen before. It was an Illuminated Text. From the amount of gold and work that had gone into it, I could sense it was a manual of rare power, holding some technique that would be the pride of any Order who found it.

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His brows were knitted, and I could see his lips moving along with the words. Bors often played the oaf, but he was smarter than he pretended to be. He also held up a chunk of rock in his other hand and kept turning to stare at it.

“Anything I can help with?”

“Depends. Do you know what ‘prithee and thus one must avail thyself of humour of the striations and earthly histories most sublime’ means? Because it sounds like a load of bollocks to me.”

“Ah, you don’t know the rule?”

“What rule?”

“Almost anyone who commissions an Illuminated Text also has to find the most complicated way to say anything. It’s like part of the job.”

“So, I’m not going crazy? I thought for a moment I was actually as dumb as people say.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, the scowl I’d come to know as a sign he was struggling with the events that led to his temporary exile.

"Look, can I help? I know all that stuff about texts, but I swear on my honour I'm not an earth cultivator."

"No offence, I don't need an oath to know you're not an earth cultivator." He flopped back and passed the book over.

"How so?" I took a moment to appreciate the beautiful binding. The outer cover was in polished silver, detailed with gold, and the face was set with slices of crystals. Their strange formations reminded me of the rings of a tree.

"Your dance earlier is one example; you're like a leaf on the wind. If I didn't know you were smoke and ash, I'd assume you were wind. I am stone; I am immovable until I become unstoppable." The last part felt like a mantra, and even just him saying it made the glamour in the crystals hum.

"Small word of advice—you may want to avoid so casually sharing your intent with others." That was what took you to Iron. You had to understand your gifts; it often formed a sentence or concept about stating who you were, and what your power was. It was also meant to be something you only shared with your closest allies.

"Well, my night is just going fantastic. First, I can barely read the technique I'm meant to know by the time they get back. Now, I'm sharing my inner truths. Also, don't worry, that wasn't the whole thing, but don't spread it around." With each word his scowl was only intensifying.

"Let me help. I'm a pretty trustworthy guy, you know. Besides, I'm good with this kind of writing; this is a bardic way of thinking." I got a grunt back.

The manual was thick, with some illustrations of movements, but the actual amount of text was limited. Reading it over the first time made me question if the author wanted anyone to ever actually learn it. The second read-through went a bit easier. The technique seemed to have something to do with firing bits of rock.

I had been a right bookworm before now, so I felt I could unjumble some of the terms. I was no earth cultivator, so even what I did glean from it was confusing. It was only some alchemical knowledge and natural philosophy about crystals that allowed me to piece together anything.

Crystals? I shut the book and stared at the cover, the slices of crystal catching the light. Fiddling with the cover, I found to my surprise that the circular crystals came out, akin to a stained glass mural. I held it up to the firelight.

I had some ideas as to what it was trying to say, but just dumping them on my companion would only undermine him further. I needed to give him the tools to find the answer himself. I nudged his foot to get his attention.

"Two things. First, striations mean the layers in the rock. There are some who believe these are formed over great periods of time, layer upon layer." At those words, Bors exploded upwards, fury written over his face. He picked up the rock from earlier and hurled it into the woods.

I heard a tree collapse as he stomped away from me. I curled in on myself, worrying I’d said something to offend. A roar of frustration followed, and Bors stamped back.

"That mouldy old coot! I know all about the layering thing, it’s what happens in rock, no doubt. Striation is a ten-gold word for a copper concept. I thought it was something special and mystical. Stupid bloody word for it. My master just called it 'layers.' Weeks I've been at this."

"Other thing—this pops out, and doesn't the fire look pretty through it." I offered him the crystal pane.

"Thanks, Taliesin. This really helps." He sat back, still huffing his frustration, and began to examine the pane. "Why’d he have to make it a puzzle? We're both earth cultivators—this isn't how we think."

"Maybe he was trying to get you to think differently."

"I hate that you're probably right. I should've started hanging around bards earlier. Arty and Gan were all about meditating on the inner meaning—no bloody use if the words don't make sense."

"Oh, you don't know the half of it. Striations are not the worst. Want to guess what percolation means?" A moment of mute silence. "It means to be filtered."

"What utter bastard thought that one up?" Bors was back in good cheer. We spent a companionable evening exploring the daftest words I could scrounge up, while he kept looking through the crystals, and I could sense little bursts of earth glamour and some other form of glamour I didn't recognise from him.