Talia’s expression must have given away her confusion, as Torval sighed, tapping the edge of Evincrest’s letter of introduction against the desk as he considered something. Despite his obvious exhaustion, the delvemaster’s face gave away only careful pensiveness and little else.

“I see she informed you of nothing. And yet, her letter implies the two of you have some history. Typical of her, to be playing all the angles. At first, I’ll admit I thought you might be an informant of hers, despite the agreement between she and I. Hmm…perhaps that’s why she kept you in the dark,” the brown-haired man mused.

Elidé didn’t seem like the manipulative type…did she?

Talia nearly scoffed out loud at the naïve thought.

She’s a magister, has been for over two centuries. Even if she wasn’t the type, she’s had plenty of time to pick up the politician’s habit.

“Elidé is a friend of my father’s, and her recommendation was her way to help me through a tough bind,” Talia explained slowly, “other than that, she gave me the letter a day before we left, with nothing more than her well wishes.”

Torval barked out a dry laugh, and his tapping hand stilled.

“Yes, that sounds like the magister. Somehow always there at the right moment to lend a helping hand out of the goodness of her heart. Hopefully you were lucky enough that her aid didn’t come with strings for her to pull on.”

Talia frowned, thinking back to her interactions with the elf. Elidé had seemed…kind, helpful. At no point had she conveyed the impression that she expected Talia to adhere to some sort of debt. The fugitive mage was unsure if she would have accepted the ancient woman’s aid if that had been the case, if she was being honest. Nonetheless, a cynical thought niggled its way into her head.

Does she really need an agreement? All she’d have to do is threaten to have me imprisoned. She wouldn’t even need to fabricate a crime. But she wouldn’t do that…would she?

“Magister Evincrest never indicated she expected anything specific from me in return for her help. To my knowledge, she was simply helping the daughter of a friend. Though now you’ve certainly made me question my first impression of her,” Talia replied.

Torval bobbed his head, gently setting the letter back into its drawer.

“Good. Don’t get me wrong, Evincrest is one of the good ones, no doubt. But magisters don’t serve for long without pursuing multiple agendas simultaneously. As a general rule, it’s wise to remain cautious when dealing with politicians, no matter who they are.”

Talia nodded, leaning back in her chair.

A good rule to follow. But what does all that have to do with this expedition being special?

When she asked as much, Torval’s face grew serious, grimacing ever so slightly.

“Well, Evincrest’s agent or not, I would have told you anyway. At the very least, now I know I can trust you.”

Talia quirked a brow, surprised.

“Just like that? Off my word and a week of work?” she asked.

Torval responded to her raised eyebrow with two of his own, shaking his head.

“Calisto has had only praise for your dedication, Zaric liked you from the start, and now even Darkclaw is impressed. I suspect I’ll hear similarly from Lazarus when he wakes. In little more than a week, you’ve ingratiated yourself with every member of my command staff. No mean feat. That’s without even mentioning that you saved my life,” he said as he ticked off four fingers.

Talia fought a blush.

“I can’t imagine Copperpike had much good to say,” she nitpicked.

The delvemaster rolled his eyes.

“Copperpike thinks you’re here due to nepotism, but he’s got a bone to pick with nobility to begin with. He’ll come around. Or not. As long as the two of you do your jobs, I don’t care if you squabble.”

“I’m not nobility! We’re not poor, but definitely not nobility,” Talia protested, throwing up her hands.

Torval harrumphed.

“Good luck convincing him of that with a name like Angrim. But we’re getting off track.”

“Right, Evincrest’s big secret. I take it she hired you to find something specific. It must be awfully valuable, if she went to lengths to keep it under wraps.”

It wasn’t a bad guess. Reggie had sent search contracts to the Delver’s Guild on occasion. Missing parts from old artefacts, specific storage tablets and the like. Torval tilted his head left to right, leaning forward to look her in the eyes.

“Close, but the value of the item isn’t the reason for all the secrecy. Let me offer you a choice. The same one Magister Evincrest gave me. Option one is to know, with all the duty and dread that entails. Or to go on ignorant, simply treating this expedition as your first foray into the world of delvers. You’ll do your job, keep your questions to yourself, and when we get back in a year’s time, you’ll have a nice little nest egg to open your own workshop, gamble it away or whatever it is you wish to do with it.”

The man’s tone was hard as silverite. Incandescent curiosity warred with chilling apprehension in Talia’s mind.

Whatever this is, I really don’t need more to worry about right now. I’m already learning about being a delver, not to mention I really need to get a handle on my Gift. But…

“Wha—what happens if I want to know?” Talia asked.

“Then I will tell you what Evincrest told me. Your world will be shaken. You will be afraid. But it will give you purpose. Courage even. You will leave this office with the knowledge that whatever happens, your work on this journey matters.”

Gods. Dramatic much?

One look at the delvemaster’s face told her he was being dead serious. Talia took a deep breath.

Fuck it.

“I hope I don’t regret this, but count me in,” she said with finality.

Torval held her gaze for a short eternity.

“Are you sure? I won’t think less of you for not wanting to concern yourself with this. Like fighting the hobgoblin, this must be of your own initiative.”

“Just tell me before I change my mind.”

“Karzgorad’s arcano-sun is dying.”

Talia stilled; bewilderment spread across her face. Then, unbidden, a laugh bubbled up from her chest.

“Is Zaric hiding in a closet somewhere? He told you about his little joke before we left, is that it? Now you figure I’m some gullible little girl, that’ll just believe anything?”

She laughed harder, looking around the room for the other officers to pop out, disappointed looks on their face once they realized that she hadn’t fallen for their dumb prank.

Torval simply held her gaze with steady sobriety.

As his silence stretched on, her laughter slowly died. Mirth traded places with dread. A desperate edge crept uninvited into the young woman’s voice.

“You can’t be serious. Tell me you’re joking,” she pleaded.

Torval’s gently shaking head was the coup-de-grace to her hopes. Talia’s thoughts ground to a halt. In her chest, her magic spiked like a living, angry worm, prodding at her insides, as if unsure if she was in danger or not.

Fuck. Wyrr’s wrinkled fucking prick up the ass of a pox-ridden slattern’s whoreson bastard.

Profanity spilled from her lips. Every foul word she’d heard from her father, her teachers, or her coworkers, all jumbled into an evil, filthy concoction of a statement that would have sprouted hairs on an elf’s chest and dropped a priest dead on the spot.

Even Talia’s most pressing concerns paled in comparison to the awful prospect of the eventual death of every sapient being in Karzgorad. The last bastion of sapient life in the Under, as far as anyone knew. Fear-fuelled anger roiled turbulently in her belly.

It’s never just the one thing, is it? You hear me gods? I couldn’t have some time to come to terms with having magic, now I have the end of the fucking world on my shoulders too.

She held back a wordless, primal, growl.

Should’ve kept my stupid mouth shut. ‘Curiosity will serve you well’ my ass, Elidé. Curiosity will send me to an early grave faster than falling into the Maw will, apparently.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Talia wanted to scream. Her pacing stopped. She’d stood without realizing it, glaring at nothing, clenched fists bleaching her knuckles in angry balls at her side. Understanding that she was letting her emotions get the best of her, she made a conscious effort to relax, letting out a few deep breaths like Orvall had showed her to when she was a child. Her heartrate slowed. The young woman let herself fall limply into her chair.

Torval’s gaze held no reproach, only sympathy and commiseration.

“I felt much the same when Evincrest approached me. If anything, you showed more restraint. The good magister lost a good bottle of mushroom wine that night. More than one, if you count the ones we drank,” he said.

“It’s a good thing I know I’m a bad drunk, or I’d be demanding a similar treatment,” Talia replied gruffly.

Torval chuckled with little true amusement.

“Whenever we get to first haven, the officers generally have a little celebration. You can indulge then.”

“Speaking of the other officers, am I the last to be let in on this? What about the crew, do they know?”

“No, the crew believe this to be an expedition like any other. And for the most part it shall be. The stakes are simply higher. As for the officers…only Calisto and Zaric know. Copperpike is too unpredictable, Darkclaw’s…religious inclinations preclude his inclusion and Lazarus, well he wouldn’t take it well I think.”

Talia’s eyebrows flew into her hair.

“Damn. You weren’t kidding when you said you were giving me your trust. That’s a short list.”

“I’m a good judge of character.”

Talia blew out a breath, analyzing the problem.

Shit. Too little information for that.

“What does our timeline look like? Did Evincrest tell you what the problem was, or what has already been tried? If we have an objective, then they must know enough to at least attempt a fix, I wager.”

“The arcano-sun has a few years, five if you’re an optimist, which Evincrest made clear in our conversation that she isn’t. As for our objective, we are the first of three expeditions to be sent out to each of the Dead Cities to seek out their arcano-sun matrix cores. If we can’t find one in time…no sun means no food, no warmth, no deterrent for the deep dwellers. No light in the Under means no life.”

Talia let out an impressed whistle as she nodded along as the delvemaster outlined the situation.

“I don’t know an arcanist alive that can fix a broken matrix core. Those’re Ancient era arcanics. From what I’ve read, we don’t even know most of the metals they’re made off. If the one in the arcano-sun is giving out…well shit. No wonder Evincrest kept it under wraps. The panic alone…”

“Exactly. We can only hope that when we arrive in Karzurkul, we can survive the climb up to the city’s dead sun, and find an intact matrix waiting for us,” he said, leaning down and unlocking the bottom drawer of his desk with a runed combination lock.

He handed her a thick tome boldly titled An Exploration on the Mechanics of Arcano-Suns. The cover reminded her of the books that the magister had procured for her, smooth, new leather, with a glue binding and crisp parchment.

“Had Ikkel been here, I would have asked him to decrypt the jargon in there for me. Hopefully you’ll be able to make sense of it instead.”

So that’s why it was so important that he have an arcanist.

Talia flipped through the dense book, catching glimpses of arcane formulae and rune array diagrams within. The font was tiny and the arcanistry complex, but the threat of existential doom helped her push away the usual despair that accompanied such a task.

It would be a tough read, and if it held any clue as to how to fix matrix cores, well then there’d be no need for the current conversation. The young arcanist guessed that its usefulness would prove itself when it came to removing the ancient, half ton piece of inscrutable arcanic runework from Karzurkul’s dark sun.

If it even still existed.

“I have questions,” she said.

Torval grinned and resettled himself in his chair.

“Calisto said you would. I don’t have all the answers, but I’ll tell you what I can.”

“So, to start…”

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By the time she had asked every question her mind could scrounge up, almost an hour had passed, and Talia was exhausted. Unfortunately, there was no time to rest. Not yet. The arcano-sun problem, while dire, would wait until they arrived at Karzurkul. Her Gift, on the other hand…

Time to skim through some magic books. Otherwise, the next dangerous situation that arises may just be the end of my secret.

The young woman was more certain than ever that she needed to inform at least the delvemaster of her Gift. It wouldn’t do to repay his trust with more secrets after all. The only question was when.

No matter. The right moment will present itself eventually. If I haven’t told him by the end of the month, I’ll just rip off the bandage, consequences be damned.

Despite knowing that setting a deadline for herself meant that she’d almost certainly push the issue until the very last moment, Talia put the thought out her mind as she climbed into the officers’ wagon.

Copperpike and Calisto had still been in wagon one when Talia had left, and she doubted Zaric or Lazarus would be awake, so that gave her a good stretch of time to take the plunge.

Ensuring that her curtain was pulled tight, the young mage turned on the lightstone and sat crosslegged on the covers in her underclothes, pulling the bundle of books from the cupboard in the headboard. Talia unwrapped the blank covered tomes from a spare tunic, laying them out before her and flipping to the title page of each one.

The first was a slim volume with a wordy title of A Treatise on Magic, Arcanistry, Mages, their Origins, Capabilities and Limitations written by the pompously named Kasias Purlovius Thane III.

Never heard of him. Must be in the forbidden section of the library. Like all the other books on magic, come to think of it.

The second was much thicker, proclaiming itself to be Magecraft for the Newly Awakened, with a list of authors that spilled onto the second page, nearly all of them titled as mages. The book claimed to be an instruction manual for those who had just discovered their gift, mostly likely to be accompanied by actual instruction, but hey, beggars weren’t choosers. Talia would take whatever she got at this point.

I just need to learn how to control it, not actually use it.

The last title of the three sent a shiver down her spine.

Either the author was lost to time, or most likely, didn’t want his name on the piece. Not surprising, considering the book was simply titled Mage-Madness. Talia shut that one firmly and stacked it with Thane III’s Treatise, shoving both back into the cupboard.

That’s enough existential dread for one day thank you very much.

Talia settled herself comfortably into her bed and turned to the preface of Magic for the Newly Awakened.

Greetings and welcome, aspirant. If you are reading these words, then congratulations are in order, for you have joined the group of illustrious few who may deign to call themselves mages. Within these pages, and under the guidance of your master, you will take your first steps journey towards mastering the fundamental rules of our reality, learn how to bend them, and eventually, how to break them. This volume is intended for any and all type of mage, no matter the initial category of your power, a topic which we will discuss in Chapter 2.

To begin, Chapter 1 will provide a refresher on natural laws, for those who may have failed to grasp the fundamentals from their more traditional schooling. Chapter 2 will give an overview of the forms magic takes in mages, as well as the basics of mana. Chapter 3…

----------------------------------------

After a good four hours, Talia closed the book, bleary eyed. The information it contained had been surprisingly digestible. Most texts on arcanistry were more complex by an order of magnitude.

Then again, arcanistry required a borderline brilliant grasp of mathematics, geometry, old dwarvish and a host of other more esoteric concepts. Magic it seemed, functioned solely off of mental direction and visualization.

The roiling ball of mana she’d felt in her chest was what the guidebook called her ‘Core’ and was where the mana her body pulled from the atmosphere was stored. The instructors had claimed that it could be grown with repeated use, strengthening and expanding as she pulled in more mana and held it within herself long enough.

Hopefully it’s not as painful as they claimed, but knowing my luck…

The book went into further detail about various different exercises a mage could practice to increase their casting speed, their mana capacity, resilience to mana burn and much more. However, the part that had interested Talia lay in chapter four.

It detailed the process for detaching her magic from her emotional state. If she understood correctly, all mages had to undergo this process, as the awakening required the unawakened to experience strong emotion of some kind to kickstart their Gift’s protective instinct.

The issue, apparently, was that until the Gifted managed to separate emotion from magic, their power would be stunted, relying on anger, fear and panic or in some cases, euphoria to be used to its fullest. The mage would be constantly battling against their own power when they didn’t necessarily want to use it. Such as in a heated argument with a lover or parent, when a carriage sped past them at high speeds, or even if they simply tripped.

The process of untethering, as the tome called it, could be furthered in multiple ways. One of which she had inadvertently stumbled on during the battle against the goblins. Suppressing her magic while under imminent mortal danger was listed as one of the most effective methods.

Talia had never thought she would lament not having a readily available source of fatal risk, but then again, she’d never really considered the possibility that she’d become a mage either.

There were other methods, but they were supposedly slower.

The first one that was moderately feasible for her situation was almost entirely internal, consisting of entering a meditative state and attempting to relive her awakening, while keeping tight control of her Core. However, it was less reliable, requiring a deep enough trance before it even began to work.

Not ideal, but if push comes to shove…

The second was more practical but carried a higher risk of discovery. The premise was that Talia would empty and refill her Core repeatedly, by pushing out and pulling in the least amount of mana possible, without manifesting any kind of magical effect. The book claimed that doing enough ‘cycles’ would slowly build up a mage’s control—which the instructors called ‘Will’— over their mana, like building a muscle.

The key was to forbid her magic from manifesting as the kinetic force it seemed to favour, simply expelling inert, harmless mana back into the atmosphere. This applied doubly to Talia’s situation, as any overt magic risked discovery.

The advantage of the second method was that it doubled as a Core strengthening exercise, meaning she’d be digging two tunnels with one pickaxe.

I’m not sure I should really want to strengthen my Core though…

Talia avoided looking back to where Mage-Madness sat hidden in the headboard. Though she had doubts and healthy caution aplenty, she couldn’t deny a certain level of excitement and curiosity. The thought that she could become powerful enough to rival the most dangerous beasts of the Under, simply through an exercise of practice and will. It was… enticing.

Pushing the insidious thought from her mind, Talia decided on the second method, having no desire to relive her awakening any time soon. Not on a gamble at least.

She sat up straight, legs crossed, and palms set on her knees face up.

The book said to ‘squeeze’ at the core like a leather waterskin, guiding the mana through your arms and out into your palms slowly.

Focusing her mind, she did just that, clenching her abdomen and grasping at the coiled potency sitting in her chest like a pool of cooling magma with a metaphysical grasp. Gently, ‘she squeezed’.

Nothing happened.

The aspirant mage kept at it for what felt like hours, but was probably only fifteen minutes, before deciding to change tacks and try some of the different imagery the book outlined in concise, easily digestible language.

Spinning it like a dynamo. Nothing.

Compression and expansion. Nothing.

Coaxing it like a flame. Nope.

Nothing the book suggested seemed to work, but she didn’t let herself get discouraged, treating it like a puzzle. And like a puzzle, it consumed her, demanding her full attention until finally, after flicking through a dozen of the mental exercises, she got a response.

So, you’re like a spool of thread huh? Picky fucker. What’s the difference between this and the dynamo exercise?

The sluggishly unspooling Core, of course, did not respond.

Then Talia ran into the next stumbling block.

At the rate she was going, it would take hours for her Core to drain.

Now I know why they said it was the most labour intensive of all the exercises.

The young mage pushed for as long as she could, until her mind felt like a sword held to long to the grinding stone: dull, sparking and smoking.

With an exhausted tap at the lighstone above her, she collapsed onto the bed, not even bothering to get under the soft blankets.

This is going to suck.