“What was your Familiar Insight?” Pirin asked Myraden as he hauled a cask of elixir over to their open void pendants. She had left a glob of manifested bloodhorn Essence on the runes, and it kept the diamond-shaped rift in space open even when she wasn’t holding it.

“ ‘Kythen, you are my Familiar,’ ” she said.

Pirin blinked. “That’s…it?”

“It will be different for everyone. The Insight is the meaning of your Reyad bond—or more appropriately, what it means to you. One cannot comprehend the Eane if they cannot comprehend themselves.” Myraden shut off the spigot abruptly. Another keg was full. Pirin placed his current keg as gently as he could in the void pendant, then ran back and took the nex barrel from her.

“You…don’t have to explain if you don’t want to,” Pirin said, noting the reluctance on her face. “I’ll figure it out.”

For a few seconds, he thought she’d take him up on the offer and stay quiet, but then she said, “It mattered because I never wanted Kythen.”

Pirin raised his eyebrows.

“I wanted a hawk, like my father,” she said. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “But I did not have a choice in the matter. I was in Dominion territory when I came of age. I was out on a mission, running errands for Kal and Sirdia, and a bloodhorn was the animal I formed a Reyad with. There were no hawks in sight.”

Pirin nodded slowly. “I’m sorry.”

“Do not be. My revelation…was acceptance. Kythen is my Familiar, and he is a good friend. He is a strong ally, and I must walk the Path of the Bloodhorn, now.”

Pirin nodded. While she filled the next keg, he ran over to the wall closest to Gray. Even though she was outside, and through a thick wooden wall, Pirin could feel her presence through their bond.

As long as he could remember—which wasn’t saying much—he had wanted a Reyad bond. When he set out on this quest, he had set out with the full expectation that Gray would be his Familiar.

“What ties you together?” Myraden asked, as if prompting.

I started this quest with a bird’s brain, Gray said. I didn’t have intelligence. I didn’t have a choice in the matter, really, but I’ve always been with you. Well…for a large part of my memories before forming a Reyad, you’ve been there.

Pirin nodded. They had met on Pirin’s first ocean crossing, according to the Memory Chain, and he had earned her trust by bandaging her leg. As far as he could tell, they’d been together ever since. Before forming a Reyad was even a twinking prospect in the back of Pirin’s mind, Gray had been effectively his Familiar.

But he hadn’t accepted that.

“Kythen reports a party of three wizards heading up from the shore,” Myraden said. “They must have noticed something was wrong. They are five minutes away.”

Pirin shut his eyes. He didn’t have time to meditate on the trigger. He needed the Insight now.

He might have always treated Gray like a Familiar, but that wasn’t the point. He hadn’t accepted his bond. He hadn’t accepted that his magic could ever be stable, that he could ever advance higher than a weak Kindling disgrace.

“I can advance,” he whispered.

Nothing. He wasn’t sure what it would feel like if he did find the right insight, but that couldn’t have been it.

“I can…form a Reyad?”

A faint surge of Essence swirled in his core. His Essence shivered and trembled around his channels, but it wasn’t strong enough.

Look deeper, Gray said.

“You know what it is?”

Nope! But it sounded like the right thing to say…

Well, it probably wasn’t wrong. Just Gray didn’t know that. What was the base of that instinct—that voice in the back of his mind telling him, ‘Don’t try, give up, you’ll always be nothing’?

And from there, it was simple.

He clenched his fists. “I can be powerful.”

His core pulsed like he’d just set off an alchemical bomb in its center. Blasts of energy shot out to his limbs, but he reigned them back under control. He’d just loosened his bond with Gray—which seemed counterproductive, but Nomad had instructed him on exactly what to do. He reached out for the invisible tendril tying him and Gray together with his will and pulled it into his chest.

The channels that touched the surface of his chest were traditionally where his Reyad joined with his body, but not anymore. He drew it inward to his core.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

His core wanted to bind the strands of the bond, and he let it. He tied the invisible thread of the Reyad around the burning ball of embers in his gut and fastened it, locking in the bond between him and Gray.

Nothing about his Reyad felt fragile or temporary anymore. Gray was there, and she wasn’t going anywhere until one of them died.

He pushed a wave of Essence through the Arcane knots, searing them and binding them to his core. At first, they felt like a lump beneath his skin—even if they had no volume or mass—but they melted into his core, condensing the bond.

A blast of sheer force rocked off Pirin like thunder, signalling a completed advancement. He fell onto his back, panting, then snatched up the gossamer shirt and wiped his forehead off.

What’s that? Gray asked. Ah, you did it!

“Did…what?”

Take off the mask.

Still laying on his back, Pirin pulled the umberstone mask off his face. Immediately, the gnatsnapper Essence in his channels flooded back to his core, waiting, and he knew for certain that his wind-based techniques wouldn’t work.

The Reyad bond dimmed, and his connection with Gray weakened. His channels destabilized.

For a second, he dared to hope that he’d solved his problem, and that he could just be a normal wizard. It wouldn’t be.

But such a thing would never be possible, and really…he didn’t want that anymore. Not when his Shattered Palm was more powerful than ever, and he had learned to control the Fracturenet.

He expected the faint trail of the bond to crumble and diminish any second, but it didn’t. When he looked at it through his spiritual sight, it remained, passing through the wall and reaching out to Gray, but it was much dimmer than Myraden’s.

Still, while it may not have sorted out his channels or fixed his Embercore, it was permanent.

For good measure, he tried using a Winged Punch. Nothing happened. He still had two halves. He jumped up to his feet, then threw out a Shattered Palm, and it worked as well as it had before—if not better. His Essence was a stage purer, a stage stronger, and it destabilized easier.

“Are you done?” Myraden asked. “We need to leave, and now. We have one minute before they reach the storeroom.”

“I…advanced,” Pirin breathed. “It’s…there. It’s not going away.” He blinked twice, then three times. “I have a Reyad...” Moisture brimmed at the edge of his eyes. He didn’t resist. A tear streaked down his cheek. “I have a Reyad!”

“Not to interrupt,” Myraden said, walking closer. She had deactivated both void pendants, and she pressed one into Pirin’s hands. He fastened it around his neck. “But we need to move.”

“Sorry.” Pirin wiped his eyes.

I’m proud of you, even if she isn’t! Gray chimed inside his head.

“Thanks,” Pirin whispered. He didn’t have to use as much intent to send the word across to Gray—

Wait. She had spoken to him without his mask on.

His eyes widened, but Myraden was right. He didn’t have time to bask in the joy. He slipped his mask back onto his face and fuelled the runes.

Before the advancement, forming the Reyad would have still knocked the wind out of his lungs, and the spiritual weight of the process would have made him want to collapse to his knees. But he only felt a warm buzz in his channels as the ichor integrated smoothly into his blood, and a pleasant weight pushed down on his shoulders, like a greatcloak or heavy blanket.

Pirin snatched up his sword and sprinted with Myraden out into the street of the small coastal settlement. Three Aremir family wizards marched up the shore with horse Familiars trotting behind them.

“Kythen says all three of them are Flares,” Myraden said.

They weren’t from the main branch of the Family, and even if they were powerful, Pirin doubted they had as strong of a foundation or as vast of an arsenal as he and Myraden did. But he had gathered everything they needed. The void pendant hung around his neck with three times the weight it should have—it was almost all full with the elixir they needed.

Kythen and Gray ran out into the street and met Pirin and Myraden. Myraden swung up onto Kythen’s back, and Pirin climbed into Gray’s saddle. When he leaned closer, he could almost feel the soul and core of the dragon spirit pulsing within her now. When the wind blew through her feathers, it had a reptilian hiss.

A whiff of anxiety and restlessness rose up from Gray. Pirin caught it clearly through their bond. She wanted to fly.

“We’ll fly,” Pirin said. “It’s dark, and we’ll blend into the sky.” That way, they could keep watch over everything.

The Aremir wizards had made it up to the main street of the village. They shouted something and mounted their horses, then drew their swords.

“Where are we heading next?” Pirin asked.

Myraden held Nomad’s map out in front of herself. “Just go west! Up the shore, and follow me!”

She shouted something in Íshkaben, and Kythen sprinted off down the main street of the village. Pirin clicked his tongue and tightened his legs against Gray’s flanks. She ran down the main street of the village, picking up speed until wind rustled around them. Pulling back on her nape, Pirin urged them into the sky.

Gray rolled with glee as she shot up into the sky. He clung on, knowing exactly what she was going to do and how she was going to do it. When they were a hundred feet off the ground, they slalomed through the sky, moving in perfect synchronization with each other. Pirin leaned and Gray tucked her wings, and they turned.

Pirin let out a cheer and raised a fist to the sky, letting his stomach rise into his chest and enjoying the feeling.

But they had another job to do. Next, they had to find the wild treasures, and Myraden was leading the way.

She rode Kythen across the fields of the Aremir estate, not following a trail or road of any kind. Kythen’s legs glowed red; she used the Tundra Veins to enhance his speed and strength—and it was the only thing keeping her ahead of the three Aremir wizards. After a few minutes, she ducked into a small valley. Kythen pranced through a wetland, pushing aside reeds and watergrass, then jumped over a gully.

The Aremir horses couldn’t match Kythen’s agility and climbing ability, and they fell behind. When Myraden deactivated the Tundra Veins, she disappeared into the night. Pirin could only track her because he kept watch of Kythen’s pale white fur from above.

Pirin pulled Gray a few wingbeats higher to survey the land ahead. Torchlight sprawled across land in a sheltered moor up ahead. A few hundred tents spread out in grass, and at the very rim, another passenger airship had parked.

Someone very important had come to visit.

And the wild-treasure repository was on the opposite side of the camp.