“Yes, Pirin,” Myraden said. “I will take your help.”
Initially, the offer had been relieving—until she realized that she’d have to return the favour. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to, but…how could she?
But the way Pirin spoke so earnestly, the way he admired the runes she’d carved on herself?
He truly believed that she would do a good job. And if he believed it, then she could do the same.
She looked across his body. He’d carved his markings asymmetrically, but each side was its own portrait of perfection. And he didn’t even seem to realize the quality of the runes he’d made.
With their near-perfect enhanced bodies, their motor control had become so refined that such a thing was possible, given the proper determination, conditions, and time. He’d etched a perfect fresco.
The key condition in most people came down to determination and…well, access to Ichor-ink. But even with all the resources at their disposal, some people didn’t have the ambition to get to this point.
After a few seconds of staring at his bare chest, she realized how thankful she was for the dim lighting. He wouldn’t see her face reddening.
Then she raised a hand up to her face and, realizing she’d put glowing snowstorms of Ichor-ink on her cheeks, like golden freckles of miniature runes. It was glowing, and he’d notice.
“Myra…” Pirin whispered. “It’s alright. You’re not…uh, alone.”
She glanced back up at him, and realized that he’d gone red in the face, too. At least she wasn’t the only one.
And good thing Nomad had left and the Familiars weren’t paying attention, or she’d never hear the end of it.
“Apologies,” she muttered. Her heart was pounding.
“Could you…turn around? I’ll get started whenever you’re ready, though I’d appreciate it if we could do it sooner than later.”
He held his own chisel in-place with a swirl of wind. They’d have to take turns, but as long as he didn’t push his healing too fast in that area, he should have time to pick up the chisel again and keep working.
Or, for Myraden to work.
He took the chisel from her hands and started.
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Her skin was like stone.
Truly, he had thought his own skin was tough, but hers was actually like chiselling into stone. It made sense; her body was a general purpose enhancement, versus his more precise and refined purpose.
Still, he couldn’t help but be impressed by the durability that her body provided her.
Since he didn’t know the rune scripts she had picked out, he referred to the charts. He couldn’t read them, but as she explained, they were ancient lines from a translated epic of Ískan—something about the creation of bloodhorns in their mythology, though she hadn’t explained it too deeply. Those were the scattered patches of snowflake-like rune arrangements.
But, while those alone were necessary for her power—there were no ancient southern sutras about bloodhorns—she had taken in a second set of ancient scripts from the south, speaking to the creation of silk. Those were the angular rune-lines with straight runs and sharp corners. They always passed over one of the red silk wild-treasure markings beneath her skin.
She had done such an excellent job with the carvings on her arms and front, and Pirin knew he wasn’t able to make these new carvings as thin as she had, but his edges were just as clean and his changes in direction just as sharp.
Still, having someone else’s future in your hands never got any less stressful. She’d done so well and worked so hard. Her body was built now for wielding spears, refined to such an impressive degree. Her channels were firm and cohesive, and her core blazed with untold potential.
A single misdrawn rune could ruin everything she’d done.
His face reddened at the thoughts—more than it already had been. But at least he wasn’t alone in his…embarrassment. He’d noticed her staring at him, and he knew he was staring back. She was more slender than most, with thinner hips and a smaller bust, but he didn’t really care.
But he still had a job to do. They were helping each other advance, as they always had.
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When he reached the top of her other shoulder, the process would be finished. He just had to connect the rune-lines to an empty one. It was nearly midnight, and his mind wanted to drift off, but he kept himself steady.
He etched the last rune and immediately inched away, expecting a burst of power or an advancement to begin.
Nothing happened.
His stomach sank and his heart thrummed faster than it ever had before. Had he messed up? She should be a Flare now, but she wasn’t advancing…
“Pirin,” she said, turning to face him. “It is alright. It is finished.”
“But—”
“We will not advance until our body heals and finishes processing the runebond,” Myraden said. “You did not do anything wrong. It could be hours, and it could be days.”
Pirin slumped back on his hands and exhaled. The chisel he’d suspended above his shoulder nearly fell off. “Thank the Eane, then…”
“No, thank you.” She ran a hand down her back, feeling the runes he’d carved. “As best as I can tell, they are perfect. But now it is your turn. You are sure you accept my help?”
Pirin nodded. “I wouldn’t have anyone else’s.”
“Then turn around, vejgum.”
“Yes, yes.” He shifted around and perched on his knees, readying himself for the final portion of the advancement.
While he waited, he briefly searched the Memory Chain for any mention of the word vejgum. It was Íshkaben, and she had probably taught him what it meant in the past.
A brief memory flashed through his mind. Vejgum means ‘dork’, or something like it, she had said. But…in a lighthearted way.
He smiled, and swiftly returned to the present.
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In three hours, the process was done. Neither of them advanced immediately, and it was late at night. In a matter of minutes, as soon as they stopped consciously cycling, they fell asleep in the center of the cargo hold, their runebonds still glowing.
When they woke up, the sun had already made it a quarter of its way through its arc.
Pirin only woke up because of Nomad’s thumping footsteps against the cargo hold floor. “Rise and shine, you two!” he said. “We’re almost there.”
“Almost there?” Pirin craned his head up, rubbing his eyes. Before he’d fallen asleep, he’d pulled his shirt back on, but he hadn’t buttoned it up—until now, that is. “We…couldn’t have slept a little longer?”
Myraden yawned and stretched her arms up. Both of their skin had healed over the tattoos, witht eh help of their enhanced bodies, leaving faint glowing golden lines just beneath their skin. “No more sleep?” She sat up slowly. She’d wrapped a strip of fabric around her chest a couple times before falling asleep, but she reached for her tattered gambeson and pulled it on overtop.
“Unless you don’t want to see the Stormwall in its full glory for the first time?” Nomad said.
Pirin bolted upright immediately and leapt to his feet. Gray fluttered up to her feet as well, and she chirped a soft tune. Göttrur clung to Gray’s saddle, but after a few seconds, he scampered over and up onto Pirin’s shoulder.
You better not be looking at the Stormwall without me, Gray said. I wanna see it too!
Pirin glanced at Nomad, then at Myraden. “We’ll meet you guys up top.”
He hopped onto Gray’s saddle, and they jumped between the gap in the cargo platform and the envelope. With a few quick flutters, Gray carried them up to the top.
Pirin wanted to sense a massive difference in his channels and Essence quality, but he doubted he would until his core advanced.
And there was only one way to make that happen: to keep cycling Essence.
He and Gray landed on the upper platform of the Featherflight beside Myraden and Nomad. Ahead, covering the southern horizon as far as Pirin could see, was a wall of boiling grey clouds. They moved and rolled like a living beast, but they remained in a set of invisible bounds. Lighting flashed inside it, illuminating the shadows and underside for a few seconds before darkening again.
Pirin had no way to gauge scale, except by how misty and pale the distance made it look. By his best estimate, it was a hundred miles tall—higher than any of the other free-roaming clouds around and higher than any bird or airship could fly.
The seas below it were choppy and rough, and waves swelled a few hundred feet in the air. A ship might make it under a short distance, but after a few hours, the wind and waves would tear it to shreds like a sheet of parchment.
Nothing went from the northern hemisphere to the south, or vise-versa.
“What is it?” Pirin asked.
Well, it was the Stormwall. He knew that much. But nothing else about it made sense.
“Look at it with your spiritual sight,” Nomad said. “This is not the weather of the world, but rather, a creation of the wizards of eras long past.”
Pirin squinted slightly and tensed the flesh around his eyes, drawing on his spiritual sight. The clouds rippled with Eane auras, almost like each one was harnessing a Reign over weather and clouds. What was invisible to the naked eye now shone clear: a golden net held the wall in-place.
“How…?” Pirin asked. “How does it still function?”
“The labyrinths,” Nomad said. “I wasn’t sure at first, but now I think I understand. The Essence reactors, while they still function, create enough Reign to maintain the Stormwall. When they stop functioning, like the ruin on Dulfer’s Reach, they stop fuelling the wall. As the years pass, their influence grows weaker, and the storms grow less and less intense. Soon, they will all fail, and the Stormwall will collapse.”
Pirin gulped. “They were keeping something out, weren’t they?”
“Indeed they were.”
Pirin wanted to ask, but they had more pressing concerns.
A patch of orange torchlight glimmered under the stormwall, sitting just above the ocean. It shone through the sheets of rain and mist.
Lady Neria’s facility.