Myraden approached him, then walked a circle around him, as if checking for injuries.
“I’m fine, Myraden,” Pirin said. “Besides, I have an overprotective gnatsnapper to look over me!” He looked at Gray, then gently nudged her. She let out a soft chirp, but he hadn’t been pushing the words to her with the proper intent—she didn’t understand what he had said.
“I remember a time when you could not handle a single wraith,” she said softly. “But you do not.”
“I’m sure I used to be…uh, quite the mess when it came to fighting…”
“You were almost eaten by a scrap wraith, once,” she said assertively.
“A month and a half ago, I fought two scrap wraiths and destroyed them both,” Pirin told her. “Myraden, I’m not as weak as I once was.”
“You are still an Embercore. You will always be weaker.”
Pirin shut his eyes for a few seconds, then sighed. “Maybe.” He tightened his throat, then shook his head. “But I’m not gonna stop trying—and I’m not gonna let you pass up on your sleep because of a few stone wraiths. I can handle more than I used to be able to.”
Her lips curled upwards into a faint smile, but she wiped it from her face quickly. “I am not tired anymore. We should keep moving.”
“I’d be grouchy if I woke up like that, but you seem more grouchy than usual,” Pirin muttered.
They walked in silence for a few more hours, only stopping halfway for a silent breakfast. After another hour, Pirin finally said, “Alright, Myraden, I don’t like not talking like this. It’s…uh, it’s awkward. You helped me, and you want me to succeed. But why?”
“The Dominion took my life from me.” She put her hand on her coiled up spear, then stroked the fabric with her thumb. “Sirdia gave it back to me. Sirdia cannot fall, and you are the key to that.”
“I don’t know what happened to you, or any of that,” he whispered. “But I’m doing my best at this job. I’ve already gotten more powerful than anyone thought I could, and I’m not going to stop. But I’d appreciate it if there was one person who saw me as…more than a broken core and twisted channels. Myraden…I need friends.”
Myraden turned around and began to walk backwards. She opened her mouth, as if about to argue with him, but she shut it again. “You have gotten stronger,” she remarked, “and not just in magic power.”
“I just want to be something…more.”
They walked in silence for another few minutes, with nothing more than the light of Myraden’s Tundra Veins to guide them. The tunnel sloped downwards, and Pirin figured they had reached sea-level. According to the map, and his best judgement, they were nearing the edge of the island.
A deep rumble had been echoing through the tunnels for the past few hours, and it had gotten more humid. At first, Pirin had thought it was a distant monster, racing to attack and eat them.
But it was repetitive. Crashing, then receding—waves washing up on the shore. It meant Pirin had plotted their course properly, at least.
Finally, Myraden said, “Pirin, we will find the Reign gems, and we will get you a teacher. You can continue your progress.”
“To use the gems…I need to understand Reign, right? How?”
“You need to understand the intent and purpose of a sword. Where it fits in the world, and what its purpose is. Then, you will have some arcane authority over the weapon.” Again, she ran her hand along the unwound shaft of her spear. “It takes time to develop connections to a weapon. That is why few wizards will ever start to feel Reign so early.”
“But Nomad wants something special.” Pirin ran his fingers along the hilt of his sword. “Aside from being ‘special’ somehow, what does Reign actually do? Will I get to use magic sword techniques, too?”
“It will not put you on a sword Path,” Myraden said. “But it will make your sword…more powerful. Stronger swipes, sharper cuts. Cleaner cuts. A wooden sword can cut through entire walls in the hands of a wizard-wielder who has cultivated a reign, where a sword-master with a steel blade and no Reign will fail to even make a scratch.”
Pirin stopped rubbing the hilt of his sword. He had to admit: Reign sounded incredibly useful.
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Myraden continued, “If you want to start feeling the Reign, you must have a closer, deeper bond with your weapon. A sword you crafted by hand, or one you grew up with from birth. Perhaps a weapon gifted by a loved one, or…” She looked pointedly at his hip, and the hilt of his sword. “Or a weapon gifted by a mentor.”
“But I can’t remember any of that. I’ve only seen flashes of…well, a man, but he wasn’t like other men I’ve seen. He had vibrant purple eyes.”
“A scarling,” Myraden said. “They are men, yes, but from the Scar of Reyldaren. They are mercenaries—usually.”
“You knew him? The man with purple eyes?”
“Of course I knew him,” she said quickly.
“Can you tell me about him?”
“I could.” She looked forward again. “But that would do you no good. You can be told about your old sword instructor, but that will not develop the connection you need. You need to use the Memory Chain and relive your training.”
It was a project for the evenings, then. “Thank you, Myraden,” he said.
“You are welcome.” She increased her pace. “You can call me Myra, if it pleases you.”
“Do you want me to?”
“It is what my friends called me.”
“Alright, then!” Pirin couldn’t help but smile a little. “But then, if you’re my friend, I need you to treat me like one, too—not like some fragile vase that will crack at the slightest touch. Deal?”
She hesitated for a moment, then held out her hand. “Deal.”
Pirin grabbed her hand and shook it.
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Whenever the Red Hand found a group of Saltspray workers and temple-delvers, he delivered commands to them: they were to join in the search.
To make the convincing easier, he had ordered Lady Clase to write him a note and seal it with her sigil. When he presented the note to the temple-delvers, they obeyed immediately and set to searching the caverns.
They worked with fanatical loyalty that the Hand wished would come from Dominion soldiers. They dropped even the golden trinkets and rune-line-covered objects that they had recovered, and jumped to action—even if they were non-wizards with no spiritual sense whatsoever. It’d take teams of them to kill a single wraith.
Khara had said the same thing once—on the second or third day (it was hard to tell how long they had been down in the tunnels, and the Hand didn’t particularly care).
“If the bulk of the Dominion’s armies weren’t foreign conscripts, they might fight harder,” the Hand had replied. “They only fight because the Dominion will raze their homelands if they don’t.”
In the past three hours, the Hand had found three groups of Saltspray temple-delving teams (and had dodged a stampede of Rustlers).
This fourth team, like the others, snapped to attention immediately—and, like the others, they didn’t recognize the Hand. He and Khara didn’t wear Saltspray attire, that much was certain.
The delving team, fifteen warriors strong, all raised their fists, preparing to fight. One even carried a staff with complex, unfueled rune-lines running down its haft. Khara raised her arms, and her boar snorted angrily.
The Hand could kill them all. There was no doubt in his mind. But why waste such a valuable resource?
In an exasperated, monotone voice, he said, “No, I’m not here to steal your treasures.” He held out the note with Lady Clase’s seal. His other hand hovered just above the hilt of his sword, ready to draw at any moment. “You have orders from your Lady, but you will also take orders from me—as per her command. Am I clear?”
One man, an older Saltspray who carried the staff, stepped forward and inspected the note. He rubbed his forehead, then stepped back. His fingers tightened his staff.
“Oh, I wouldn’t even consider fighting,” the Hand said. In an instant, he drew his sword, cleaving the Saltspray’s staff in half. Whatever effect the rune-lines gave the weapon—if it had even been a weapon in the first place—would be destroyed. “Do any of you know who I am?” He raised his gloved hand, letting the red leather shimmer in the torchlight.
This would be a harder convincing job than the other groups.
The older man with the staff—now in two halves—backed away. “You are the Red Hand…”
“Ah, so there are some of you on this backwards spit of rock who have heard of me!” The Hand stepped forwards, matching the man’s pace. “You have a vermin problem. And not just the Rustlers—the royalty kind of vermin. If you find a black-haired elf in these tunnels, you are to bring him to the surface. If I am not there, you must alert me at once. Do you understand?”
“I understand, honoured Hand. But…sir, the note, it says he’s a wizard.”
The rest of the Saltsprays also backed away, turning their gazes to the ground. Even out here, most had a concept of respect and disrespect. Questioning orders? If the older Saltspray had been facing a wizard, he would not have lived long.
“I am not a wizard,” said the Hand, both to assure them that they wouldn’t be slaughtered for a slight disrespect, and… “And I have killed many, many wizards.” He brought his fingers further down the hilt of his sword, along the bark texture of the hilt. Beneath the bark-like wrapping, there were ten small lumps—one for each wizard he had killed in the service of the Emperor.
He turned the blade towards the Saltspray warriors, its impossibly-sharp cutting edge glistening in the torchlight.
Sharper than a steel sword ought to be naturally.
The Hand flicked his wrist downwards, cleaving so quickly that the air whooshed around the blade, swirling out to the sides in a wedge, as if the air itself had been sliced. Then, he tucked it back into its sheath.
“Do your duties,” he commanded them. “My disciple and I are delving deeper. We will not likely see anyone from your Sect in days. If we flush the black-haired elf out, do not let him escape.”