Pirin’s routine continued for three days without interruption. The middle of his days were always the most productive—when he used the Memory Chain to harvest his memories. He balanced his time between pulling in healing knowledge from Mr. Regos and reliving his first meetings with Kalénier…

The mercenary had dragged him off of Kerstel. He and Pirin had stowed away in the hold of a ship, and made a choppy crossing back to Aerdia.

Those memories didn’t seem important, and they went by quickly—especially when he pulled on his essence, speeding them up and whisking through them faster and faster.

He needed to know about the sword, not just seeing whispers of it sheathed at Kalénier’s hip.

But, when he was scrolling through the memories of the cramped ship’s hold, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. A patch of gray feathers.

Pirin slowed the memory down, then pushed a very, very small whisper of Essence into it, rewinding a few minutes.

Then he focussed precisely on the single memory. It had nothing to do with the sword, as far as he could tell, but he figured it had something else important to tell him—and he couldn’t restrain his curiosity.

Besides, he needed to accumulate a lot more Essence for tonight, and cycling while using the Chain would help with that. He was going to form another foundation Timber.

So he let his mind seep into the experience of his past self and to see the memory first-hand. His limbs lost control, and all he could do was maintain his thoughts and look around the recreation of the past.

He stood in the cargo hold of a small smuggling ship. Kalénier had paid or threatened or convinced the crew—in whatever way a mercenary did—to take them across the strait between the island of Kerstel and the Elven Continent.

And that meant rough seas. The vessel rocked, swaying back and forth as it trundled over the water. Barrels rolled across the deck, ropes creaked, and wood groaned. A crate broke open, spilling packets of brown dust across the deck—Pirin didn’t even want to know what those were.

Kalénier sat calmly hold’s corner, a map in one hand and a candle in the other. His sword had slipped a few inches out of its sheath, and Pirin had noticed the glint, even in the memory. He had still wondered if the man was going to use it on him.

But the grey feathers. He needed to see them.

He scrambled across the hold, staying low and dodging dislodged cargo. Finally, he scrambled up a stack of crates and barrels, and arrived at the opposite end of the hold.

There was a cage here. Five gnatsnappers had been stuffed into a barred box, and only one of them had gray feathers—with a distinct tint of sparrow-brown just below.

He knew instantly: this bird was Gray.

She stood awkwardly on her leg. It had a red cross-hatch of scars and scrapes and deep injuries, as if a net had been wrapped tight around it for days on-end. No one had even tried to heal it.

Pirin knew, just from the way his memory approached Gray, that this was their first time meeting.

“I’ll help you,” he had said. “I promise. I’ll be right back.”

First, he poured some ripplemead from a barrel into his hands, then splashed it on Gray’s leg to clean the wound. She flinched and chirped, but where the rest of the gnatsnappers in the cage squawked and fluttered, Gray only stared blankly at him.

“It’s gonna be alright,” he told her. He ran back across the cargo hold, to Kalénier, and without asking, he took the man’s sword from its sheath.

Kalénier raised his elbow nonchalantly, letting Pirin take the weapon. He shrugged, then said, “Even if you tried to kill me with that, you couldn’t. I’m not concerned. But you’d better not break it—that was a gift from the Chancellor, and its name is Nynhar.”

So that was why the memory mattered…

Pirin used it to cut the tails of the woolen coat he had been wearing into bandages. Once he had a few strips, he gave the sword back. Arms full of bandages, he ran back across the hold to Gray and reached through the bars of the cell.

Once he had bandaged her leg, she hopped away to the other side of the cage, pressing herself against the bars and sheltering behind the other gnatsnappers.

The ship rocked, and Pirin tumbled off the stack of barrels. He fell backwards down the stack, and it felt like he tumbled straight out of the memory. Suddenly, needles of pain pierced his spirit.

His eyes flashed open, leaving him back in the pit, and a Shattered Palm leapt uncontrollably out of his hand, stirring up a cloud of dust and sand. He hadn’t been paying attention to his channels.

Eane-forsaken Embercore…

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

“Whoops,” he muttered, then pushed himself back up to his feet. He had landed on his back, and now, he brushed the sand off his tunic.

Before he had activated the Memory Chain, he had very little Essence in his channels. Now, though, his core felt like it was about to burst apart with all of the extra energy he had purified with the Memory Chain’s help. It was leaking out into his channels, staining his perception of his core lightning-blue.

And what better target to practice on than a crowd of weak stone wraiths that had been creeping towards him while he cycled. There were five in total—it wouldn’t be a problem, but the guards still looked on hesitantly.

The first wraith leapt at him, barely formed and barely larger than a dog. He blew it apart with a Shattered Palm—using the nearby guard’s eyes to start the technique.

But eventually, he would need a strategy to launch the Shattered Palm without first relying on his Bloodline Talent techniques—which, in turn, relied on having a direct line of sight with another person or creature.

All except for the Memory Chain.

In the past, the Chain had caused him to blast out a Shattered Palm, too, but it took much longer to destabilize. The Chain required less cycling and was closer to his core, and though his Embercore seemed more than willing to get in his way, it wasn’t anywhere near as volatile as the Whisper Hitch.

But if he made the Essence flow faster and used the Memory Chain with a stronger flow of Essence, it might just work.

A wraith charged at his leg, biting at it with stoney teeth, and Pirin kicked it away before it could do any damage. Then, he circled around to the edge of the pit, as far from the guards as he could get.

There couldn’t even be a hint of a safety net.

He kept his eyes open, but still flooded the Memory Chain with a touch of Essence. His mind split in two ways—keeping track of his real surroundings and paying attention to glimpses of the past.

Larger, broader actions were always more unstable. The more he tried to do, the more chances there were of it failing. He then ripped his Essence away from the Chain as fast as he could.

As predicted, the Essence destabilized. He pushed it out to his palm, then blasted it into the nearest wraith, tearing it to shreds.

Two down.

He tried again, moving his Essence in and out of the Chain even faster and more violently. His Essence only rebelled after a second try. The first time, there hadn’t been enough Essence flow.

After that, he launched two more, with various degrees of success.

That was five Shattered Palms in a row, though. He didn’t know if he was just building up a tolerance to spiritual pain, or if it was getting easier, or maybe a bit of both. But after the fifth, his arm barely wanted to move. His spirit was still tied to his body; the Eane and its purified Essence was still life energy, and without it, all things wouldn’t be alive. His arm included.

He shook his hand out, then settled into another cycling trance to rest himself and recover the Essence he had just lost—

No, not lost. Used.

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]

When the sun set and the rest of the prisoners returned to the pit, Pirin helped tend to their wounds again, applying his improved knowledge of herbs, concoctions, and of healing. He and Saha’i worked together to splint arms and set dislocated bones.

“You would have made a fine healer,” Saha’i told Pirin. “If only you had a Familiar whose Path gave you healing magic.”

It was impossible to keep everyone from learning he was a wizard. But Pirin hadn’t told them the full tale—only that he had abandoned a life as a healer to pursue magic, which was close enough to the truth.

“Or a healing Bloodline,” Pirin said.

“Aye, but Bloodlines are even rarer than wizards…” The man wrung out a rag, then threw it over his shoulder and pulled another one out of his pouch. “Come along.”

They walked out of the cell they had just been tending to, then moved to the cell on the right. One of the prisoners’ entire left side of his face had been shredded—by the looks of it, a rustler had tried to gnaw on him.

As Pirin and Saha’i bandaged the side of the man’s head, the bars behind Pirin rattled.

Pirin whirled around, raising his hands into a fighting stance.

“Elfy! Oh, Eane-foresake it! You weren’t supposed to get caught! Now who’s gonna spring us outta here?”

Immediately, Pirin’s heart sank. Alyus held the bars, looking into the cell with an upset expression glued to his face. Brealtod stood a few steps behind him as well. Both of them wore their plain tunics and trousers, but all their armour and weapons were missing. Aside from a bruise on Alyus’ forehead, Pirin couldn’t identify any other wounds.

“Don’t worry,” Pirin said, turning back to his self-assigned duties with Saha’i. “It’s…mostly under control. I still have a week or so, by my best guesses. Just lay low and don’t cause any trouble. And keep yourselves safe in the labyrinth, alright?”

“How’d they get you, then, elfy?” Alyus asked.

“Their wizard trapped us.”

“You and Antlers?”

“Her too. She’s up there somewhere.” Pirin pointed towards the lip of the pit with his thumb, and then out the very distant cave tunnel exit. “How’d they…uh, catch you?”

“Yesterday evening, Brealtod and I were just out, minding our own business—”

Brealtod hissed something softly.

“Alright, sure, we were out looking for some trees to chop for firewood. Not much difference; it wasn’t much trouble, unless you’re a tree. Then a few of these Saltspray folks jumped us.” Alyus put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “We fought a few of them off, but they’re rabid about people going too high up on the slopes.”

“So they didn’t find the Featherflight?” Pirin asked.

“Not from what I can see.”

“How close were the repairs to being done?”

“We just need to stitch up one last gasbag and get more lifting gas in the ship,” Alyus said. “Then we’re good to fly again.”

Pirin nodded. “Then there isn’t much to worry about. We’ll still get out of here fine.”

“You…want to be trapped, elfy?”

“I have a plan.”