Dear Mamie Alda,

I'm writing this letter to let you know Emma and I are still alive. There are reasons because of which I cannot tell you where we are living right now.

One of those reasons is that I want you to be safe. I want you to stop putting yourself through the trouble of searching for us. I want you to settle down and rest. Whether or not we are together, I want you to be happy.

Yes, I saw you that day in Diamond Veil. And yes, I was the one who brought the note and the gold to you.

Nothing can make me happier than knowing that you are alive. I hope reading these words brings you some peace as well. I know it brought me more than enough peace to finally speak to you, even if I'm not facing you while I do it.

I just want you to know that this won't be for long. Soon, everything will be how it was before. I hope you can be patient till then.

One more thing before I conclude this letter. Please don't interrogate Lieutenant Nicolas about our location. He knows where we are. And he can bring us your letters if you want to write any, but I've told him to not tell you where we are currently living.

He is a good man and you can trust him but please don't pressure him into giving you information about us. I can't emphasise enough how important it is for your own safety.

Just believe in me for this once, mamie.

Until we meet again.

Your grandson,

Lyam Laurent.

###

“You think it will be enough to convince her?” Aveline asked as she took another slice of bread and spread some butter over it. They were back at her cottage in the woods, breaking their fast at the dining table.

Lyam shook his head as he scooped up a spoonful of chopped berries into his mouth. “No, she is going to think of it as some kind of conspiracy the enforcers or the Crown came up with,” he said. “She probably thinks Emma and I are dead and buried somewhere in Eisdel.”

Aveline knit her eyebrows but kept chewing on her bread.

“There is one good thing that will come from sending her the letter though,” Lyam said, raising a finger, “I said the lieutenant can bring any letters that she would like to send me. So the chances are she will probably ask me a very personal question that only I would know the answer to and ask Nicolas to bring a reply to it. Only then will she be convinced.”

Aveline swallowed her mouthful of bread. “She sounds like a tough customer but I think that is what a grandmother would do in a situation like this.” She shrugged.

“That makes me curious,” Lyam leaned back in his chair. “If you don't mind me asking, do you…have a family somewhere?”

Even though Aveline's face was still, there was a brief flicker of emotion in her green eyes. “I know the woman who gave birth to me. I don't know who was the man she lay with to conceive me. And as far as I can tell, I don't think she had any other offspring besides me.”

Lyam looked at her before straightening up in his chair. “Do you ever feel like meeting your mother?” he asked in a gentle voice.

“No,” Aveline said and looked at the wall, “I don't think of her as my mother. I would've known more than her name and face to actually call her my mother. And since she is just a name and face, I don't think I'm very curious to see her.”

“Did she…” Lyam trailed off. He had a feeling he was swimming into dangerous waters. “Did she…sell you off to the shapecrafters?”

Aveline looked at him, holding him with her green gaze. He was convinced she was a moment away from reaching out and smacking him across the face. But instead she laughed.

It wasn't a small chuckle or a scoff. But an actual hearty laugh. Lyam was confused but also amused. This was the first time he was seeing Aveline react like this.

After a minute of nothing but laughter, she wiped a single tear from the corner of her eye. “Shapecrafters won't buy a child to train her even if that child was dressed in gold from head to toe.” She let out a sigh. After a pause she said, “No, she never sold me to anyone. I just decided to run away.”

“I was curious about one more thing,” Lyam said, “If you had a chance, would you free your own soul from the shapecrafting powers?”

“No.”

Lyam paused. There hadn't even been a hint of a hesitation, nor an explanation following her answer. The boy tensed as he watched her. He got a feeling he had teased more than a few sensitive discussions for a single meal. So he went quiet. And when they were done eating, he took the dishes in the back to wash them.

Lieutenant Nicolas arrived in the forest sometime in the afternoon. Aveline teleported him and his steed to her cottage. Lyam was waiting for them on the steps to the front door. He waved at the enforcer as he was mounting off his horse.

“A quaint little place you have here,” the lieutenant said.

Aveline just gave a polite nod of thanks before saying, “No one was trailing you on your way out of Eisdel, I hope.”

The old man reassured her that no one was. Lyam was swaying back and forth as he looked up at Nicolas with a restrained eagerness. The man gave a small smile and pulled out an envelope from a pouch on his saddle. “Your mamie has sent a reply,” he said.

Aveline took the envelope before Lyam could reach for it. The boy frowned at her, pouting.

“You'll have enough time to read it after your training,” she said sternly. “Nicolas is here to help you refine your control on life dust. You'll get the letter after you are done with today's session.”

The boy groaned but nodded eventually. Aveline was right. Nicolas didn't just have to train him, he also had to get back to Eisdel before people started raising questions about his absence. Keeping his connection with them a secret was essential to the safety of all of them.

Lyam looked at Nicolas. “Shall we begin?” he asked.

The enforcer was looking up at the canopy of trees surrounding them. “We can but I suggest we go someplace with fewer trees. It can be dangerous to test the boy’s powers out here.”

Now Aveline grinned. “I think I know just the place for it.”

She teleported the three of them by the shore of a lake. A dozen and a half trees had been felled on the ground. Nicolas gaped at the sight. “Fahn's scythe! What happened here?” he cursed.

Lyam's face was turning red. He threw a subtle glare at Aveline from the corner of his eye and she just responded with another grin before turning to Nicolas. “This is what happens when Lyam fights a dust mutant,” she said.

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“Mind you, this was the corpse eagle's doing. Not mine,” the boy said, “if you remember the bird likes to play with its prey.”

“Never mind,” Nicolas said before the two could banter any further. “This place might be a mess but it will do.” He looked up at the clear sky, shading his eyes with his palm.

He gestured at the boy to follow him towards the lake. Aveline stepped back to sit down on a tree stump as she watched them.

“Your friend told me you have been using a certain skill to climb up the Chimera tiers,” Nicolas said as he picked up a stone the size of a potato. “I, personally, haven't heard of such a method. But it's none of my concern how you stumbled upon this bit of knowledge. I'll still say that you have an interesting set of skills. Not something I usually see in a marksman.”

Lyam nodded with a modest look. “Thank you.”

“Don’t be flattered,” Nicolas said. “Your fighting style is still atrocious.”

“I see.” The boy pursed his lips.

“The marksmen that I fought alongside in the Great Cleansing tended to be more graceful and precise with how they used their skills, but then again their skills were also a lot more orthodox compared to yours.” Nicolas picked up a tree branch that was slightly bigger than his arm. He showed Lyam the stone he had picked up a minute ago. “I want you to shoot this before it falls into the lake.” He flung it up into the sky.

Lyam was quick to react. He blasted the stone with [syphon burst]. Life dust blew it in a hundred pieces before it could crash into the lake.

Nicolas asked him how many dust points he had spent in the attack.

“Fifty,” Lyam said.

Nicolas nodded. Then tossed the branch into the air and told Lyam to shoot it. The boy used [syphon burst] again. The enforcer asked him the same question.

Lyam said, “I had to use fifty dust points.”

Nicolas looked him in the eye. “Do you see the problem now?”

Lyam was puzzled.

Nicolas looked back at the lake as he started to speak. “A stone and piece of wood–completely different materials of different size and shapes–but the amount of dust you are burning to shoot them is the same.”

“But I'm still shooting them,” Lyam said.

“What if instead of a stone, you were facing an elephant? And what if it was a grasshopper instead of a branch? If you had to fire a single blow at each to take them down, it would mean that you are putting the same energy in squashing a bug that you are using to take down a literal elephant. Does that sound like a sane use of life dust?”

Now Lyam looked out at the lake as well, “So, how do I control its flow?"

"Focus," Nicolas said.

Lyam pursed his lips. "Easier said than done."

"I'm talking about the Focus stat, nimrod," Nicolas said with a groan. "What do you think Focus stat tells you about yourself?"

Lyam stopped himself before he could give an answer. He was certain whatever meaning he associated with "focus" probably wasn't what it meant in the world of dust wielding so, he just shook his head and said, "I don't think I know."

Lieutenant Nicolas, surprisingly, just nodded in understanding rather than calling him a nimrod again. "Broken down to the simplest terms, Focus tells you how good you are at manifesting life dust through your skills. When you use your syphon burst attack, how does your life dust manifest?"

Lyam hesitated before saying, "Just...a beam of power."

"And what if I told you that you could decide to manifest dust in a different shape rather than just a beam?" Nicolas grinned.

"That's possible?"

"If you raise your Focus, yes." The old man nodded. "Once you are able to manipulate the shape of your dust, you'll learn to use your attacks like a real dust wielder instead of just a toddler with a loose cannon."

Lyam purse his lips again but gave a solemn nod.

Nicolas then settled down on the ground, crossing legs and gesturing the boy to do the same. "There's an exercise that we are taught in our training, specifically for honing the Focus stat," he said. "It's called the Focus Trident. There are three steps to use it properly. First step is visualization--associate a clear image with life dust. The reason you keep burning the same amount of dust points whenever you fire a single syphon burst is because you are visualising just the skill and what it will do to the target. You need to focus on how you manifest the skill."

"Make a clear picture, understood," Lyam said.

"Don't just say that, do it," Nicolas said, "For now I'll let you use the easiest way to visualize--think of your life dust as water. Imagine a river flowing out of your heart and into your arms."

Lyam closed his eyes and imagined a stream of water, coursing within him, pure and blue and powerful.

"Keep the river flowing just like that and also focus on what I'm saying," Nicolas said. "Second step is manifestation. This is a trickier step. Because, here you have to come very close to using your skill. But you don't use it."

Lyam frowned. "What?"

"Don't be puzzled or you'll stop the flow of river," Nicolas gently scolded.

Lyam reinforced the picture of his life dust as a river. The lieutenant kept talking.

"Imagine that river is now meeting with a dam. It's still flowing but it's accumulating more force so it can start flowing once again. Stronger and more potent," Nicolas said.

Lyam had a slight difficulty on creating that image. He pictured the dam as one of his skills, in this case, [syphon burst]. His palms crackled with their energy, on the verge of releasing the dust. He had to make fists to stop their flow.

"Concentrate," Nicolas said, "you are only bringing the river to a dam. You aren't opening the dam yet. If the dam breaks then it means it was just a weak barrier, out of your control. You are the one who controls the dam. You are the one who makes it strong. Don't let the river break it down."

Lyam was feeling agitated, the dust in his hands kept threatening to burst. He had to let it go but he couldn't, not yet. He clenched fists tighter. His hands were heating up now. If he held back any longer he would end up melting his bones under his flesh. But he had to hold back. He made the dam stronger and kept the river flowing.

"Final step is emission. This is where you open the dam. This is where you regulate the amount of water you are going to release," Nicolas said and rose to his feet. He grabbed another stone roughly the same size as the previous one. "Now open the dam." He tossed the stone into the air.

Lyam fired [syphon burst] at the stone. The change was obvious. Instead of blowing the stone to fine particles, his attack had broken it to smaller but solid pieces. Besides that, perspiration dotted his forehead and his hands felt scorched.

Nicolas grinned at the boy and asked. "Now, how many dust points did you use?"

Lyam checked the system and his eyes went wide. "Forty five," he said, his voice barely a whisper of amazement. Then he frowned and picked up one of the pieces of the shattered stone. "But, the attack seems weaker now. Without that exercise, I would've obliterated this stone."

Nicolas' eyes glinted and his grin turned into a more genuine and enthusiastic smile. "Why do you think that happened?"

Lyam took a pause to think. Then he said, "Was it because...I was focusing on how I launch an attack rather than how I land it?"

"That's right!" Nicolas clapped the boy's shoulder, almost knocking him into the lake.

Lyam winced at the blow, rubbing his shoulder. "Isn't that a bit counterproductive? What's the point of saving dust points if my attack is going to be blunt?"

The old man laughed. "My, oh my, quite the pupil you are. Asking all the right questions."

Lyam was still puzzled but couldn't help feeling a spark of joy in himself.

The old man looked at him and said, "The answer to your question is the Prowess stat."

"Oh?"

The old man looked out at the lake again. "Yes, Focus tells you how good you are at using the your life dust. Prowess tells you how potent your life dust is when you use it on a person or a thing. Balancing the two helps you use your skill to it's fullest potential. And after that..."

Lyam cocked his head. "After that?"

The old man sighed, the wrinkles on his face seemed to deepen with the action. "After that, you'll learn just how dangerous you've become."

###

Lyam wanted to learn more about how Prowess worked and how he was meant to raise it higher. But Nicolas cut him off and kept explaining the depths of Focus. They performed the Focus Trident several times. Then he wrapped up the lesson by saying, "We'll learn about all your stats soon. But Focus is the key to them all."

Aveline rose from the tree stump she was sitting on when she saw them stepping away from the lake. Lyam rushed up to her and watched her with eager eyes, hopping from one foot to the other. The shapecrafter grinned and pulled out Mamie's letter that Nicolas had brought him.

He hastily opened it and looked inside. He was surprised to find that there was only a single sentence written in Mamie's firm, blocky hand:

If you are really my Lyam, then tell me what your father said before he left to fight in the war seven years ago?