Pirin and Myraden ran out of the keep and sprinted through the village, dodging mortal workers and wagons and working animals. They climbed onto their Familiars and sprinted out of the network of hovels, then charged down the side of the hill. The sky was still too bright for Pirin and Gray to take flight, but the gnatsnapper could still hop along faster than he could run on his own, especially now that their Familiars had their enhanced bodies.

By the time they reached a small wetland in the low patches of the estate, the sun had half-set behind the horizon. Pirin hopped off Gray’s saddle and jumped into the water, washing off the residual detritus of the enhancement process. The water wasn’t warm, but it had been basking in the sun all day, and it wasn’t necessarily cold either. It only rose up to his hips at the deepest.

After a few seconds, Myraden, Gray, and Kythen splashed down into the water as well.

“You gathered extra of your wild treasures, right?” Pirin confirmed as he splashed water through his hair. “Enough to complete the rest of the stage and push us through it faster?”

How fast exactly is faster? asked Gray. Like…a day?

Pirin bit his lower lip. He didn’t really know.

“I did,” Myraden said. She knelt down so the water crept all the way up to her shoulders. “It is in my void pendant. You?”

“Yep!” Pirin turned and started splashing Gray to help clean her feathers. “You…uh, you wouldn’t know how long the second half of Flare will take with the help of the treasures, would you?”

If they could advance right here and now, they should. They would need all the power they could get.

“A month. Maybe two.”

Pirin’s shoulders sank. “Oh.”

“It would normally take years to integrate the enhanced body’s and power with the physical presence of your body, but the treasures are already letting us go much faster.”

“They had a lot of treasures in the keep,” Pirin said. “Why not just raise everyone to Blaze in a matter of months?”

Myraden snorted. “You cannot just pump someone full of treasures and expect it to work. There has to be something deeper. There has to be a desire to push forward and advance. The greater that desire, the better the body is able to process and rush advancements.” She held her hair out to the side and wrung it out. “Some people never make it to Blaze.”

“Why?”

“Poor foundation? Not enough timbers? Not enough of an Essence base or their Eane purification techniques were too weak to give them a constant supply of Essence. Or they could not afford wild-treasures to consume for the midpoint enhancement. Or the treasures they could find and use were too weak to carry them any higher. Or the Ichor-ink for crafting the blaze stage runebond was too expensive. Shall I go on?”

Pirin shook his head.

“The big one is not enough desire,” Myraden said. “Most weaknesses,” she said, tilting her head toward him, “can be overcome with enough will to accomplish your goal, as we are doing. But not everyone has that.”

Pirin nodded slowly.

If most wizards usually got to Flare, then he had made it up to the stage that most wizards had. He’d accomplished what he set out to do—to become normal—but that wasn’t enough.

He’d never be normal, so why bother trying?

“I’ll keep pushing,” Pirin assured her. “I’ll make it to Wildflame. I hope…though, that this means you’ll keep striving to advance, too.”

Myraden smiled. “You have my word as a Northern Sprite and a Sirdian that I will advance as high as I can. I swore an oath to Kal that I would keep pushing, and before that, I swore an oath to my father.”

“And you have my oath as king,” said Pirin. “Right now. I swear, no giving up until we reach the top.”

Pirin shook his head, hoping to dry his hair out, but Gray fluttered her wings and jumped like a bird in a birdbath, splashing him with a new tidal wave of water.

He climbed out of the little wetland and slid his mask onto his face, then activated his shroud of air around his body. The rushing wind dried him off in a matter of seconds. When he turned around, Myraden was staring at him.

“Is there something…wrong?”

“N—no, not at all.”

It wasn’t like her to stammer. “You can tell me,” he said.

Myraden deflated, opened her mouth and waited a few seconds, then said, “You just look like a real wizard, now. For once. The reforging process is subtle, but things change. You are still you, but a little…stronger.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

He glanced back over his shoulder. She had always looked like a wizard to him, but he didn’t know what it was about her that made him think that. But now, after the reforging…well, for one thing, her scars were gone.

He rubbed his cheek. Like for him, the reforging process had refined their facial features and form. They were both recognizable—Myraden’s nose and chin were still sharp, and Pirin still had high cheekbones and sharp eyes—but everything had just been tweaked slightly. More beautiful, more handsome. There was no other way of putting it.

He scratched his head, then offered a slight smile and backed away. “So…uh, Ichor-ink for the runebonds, yeah? We need to head to the palace.”

If they could get out of here before midnight, it would be perfect.

Before Pirin could take a step, a boom rolled over the hills. It was too sharp to be thunder, and a faint screech of Essence accompanied it.

Someone had just unleashed a massive arcane technique in the distance.

“Something’s happening!” he hissed.

Nomad is fighting? Gray asked.

“No idea. But whatever it is, we need to get to the palace before they tear this place apart.”

image [https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f3a882_5e221995337243e6a7d4250b55d3aeea~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_280,h_232,al_c,lg_1,q_85,enc_auto/embercore%20sigil.png]

Lady Neria jumped to her feet and stared directly at Lord One. There was no time to waste. He had brought the Red Hand here. If he intended to lay a trap and align himself with the Hand, then Neria needed to win, and she needed to do it fast.

No time for mercy. She couldn’t even offer it.

“Kill him,” she commanded Three. “Kill him, now.”

“With pleasure, my lady,” said Three. He tilted his head side to side, popping his neck, then threw one arm to the side, spreading his cloak and revealing a bare chest covered in glowing gold tattoos and emerald-green knots—a mark earned from a perfect bodily enhancement.

His eyes lit up with a pale green light. He flicked the clasp of his cloak, and it rolled off his shoulders like water rolling off a rock.

Previously clinging to his back, his Familiar crawled up to his shoulder.

It was a bat. Its eyes glowed green to match his, and it had massive ears.

That and that was where his Blazemark came from: His arms had sinewy, wing-like gauntlets clinging to his flesh, and his fingers had long black claws attached to their tips.

He stomped, taking a fighting stance, and the ground trembled. The green knots beneath his skin trembled.

Lady Neria steepled her fingers and grinned. She was about to witness a true demonstration of the Path of Beryl-blood. His bat Familiar gave him immaculate control over blood, and his family’s Bloodline Talent tainted their abilities with a life aura.

Three leapt forward in a flash, moving too fast for her eyes to track. The two wizards exchanged ten blows in a matter of seconds.

Then Lord One flew back across the room and out of the tent with such force that the gale ripped the shroud of the tent off them. Lord One threw his arms down and blasted outward with enough high-grade Essence to rip the tarp to shreds.

Three’s claws had torn straight through Lord One’s armour and left a gash across his chest. Red blood dripped to the ground, and Three clenched his fist. The droplets of blood raced toward him. His bat Familiar inhaled them.

Lord One ripped a veil off his spirit at the same time as Three, and immediately, their spiritual pressures blasted out, scouring the ground and weighing down on everyone around. A few mortals likely dropped dead, though Neria didn’t see them. The other lesser wizards in the encampment ran outside, their Timbers protecting them for the moment.

Neria expected to feel some pressure, something weighing her down and trying to rip her mortal body apart and kill her. But One’s pressure broke in a wedge around her. Three was shielding her—as he should have if he wanted his elixirs. A blast of wind and horse-Essence blasted out from Lord One, but Three broke the technique before it hit her. Green liquid seeped out of his pores, and the knots beneath his skin pulsed. It had the sheen of blood.

Lord One backed up until he stood side-by-side with a pure white horse—his own Familiar. “I did not invite the Red Hand.”

Lady Neria tilted her head. “I need you out of the way. Pledge your allegiance right now, swear a pact on your soul that you will join me and fight the Emperor, and you may live.”

“I will not join you without further considera—”

“Kill him.”

image [https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f3a882_5e221995337243e6a7d4250b55d3aeea~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_280,h_232,al_c,lg_1,q_85,enc_auto/embercore%20sigil.png]

Nomad hadn’t expected it to go sour so quickly. When the tent’s tarp ripped off, he backed away, then slithered off into the shadows of the tent city.

But he couldn’t deny that it worked.

He looked at his Familiar and shrugged. “I don’t reckon he’ll be bothering Pirin and Myraden while he’s contending with our batty friend.”

Not at all.

“Then our job here is done.”

Not quite.

Nomad sighed. There was still the matter of the Red Hand. If left to his own devices, the Red Hand and his seafolk disciple would cause problems for Pirin. They would cause problems for everyone.

“You want me to deal with them?”

Either you deal with them now, or you deal with them later, his Familiar said. Or you leave a problem for your new disciples to clean up.

Nomad rubbed his forehead. Another technique boomed out in front of him. Lord Three unleashed an enormous punch, and an outline of a bat encased his arm—ten times wider, and made entirely of green blood.

Nomad cracked his knuckles. “You’re sure we can’t stay and fight one of these guys?”

You think you can take on Lord One or Lord Three? They’ve had years of powerful family resources under their belt, and we’ve been wandering around in the wilderness.

His Familiar was right, even if he didn’t want to admit it. The only way to win, to set things right, was to train a pair of wizards who could do it for him.

At the moment, the best he could do was stop the Red Hand from interfering.

“Fine,” said Nomad. “I’ll face him. But if it goes poorly, it's your fault.”