The next morning, Pirin awoke with a start. His back was cramped and everything ached—he’d been sleeping in an awkward position. He sat up, groaning, and stretched his limbs out.

Gray still tucked into the corner of the attic, sleeping calmly. He didn’t have his mask on, nor a temporary Reyad, so he couldn’t communicate with her. But for now, he shouldn’t need to. Myraden slept in her hammock, and her Familiar curled up at its base. Kythen, its name was Kythen. Pirin stared at the snoring beast. What sort of Path did it provide? What techniques did it give Myraden?

Pirin had only seen her use her Bloodline Talent so far, and it had cut through the soldiers like they were paper. What could she do with her Familiar’s strength?

And she wasn’t terribly powerful, either…

What would a true wizard be capable of?

He shook his head, then stood up. He’d find out soon enough, if he could just get out of this Eane-forsaken port.

After a few more seconds, he stood up and shook out his legs, then walked over to the back door of the attic and stepped out onto the small balcony outside. The sun rose over the city, filtering through the haze in thin beams. The wind blew through the streets, ruffling his hair and—

His hair. A knife of fright stabbed through him. He pulled his hood up as quickly as he could.

But the alleys below were deserted, except for a feral cat and some swirling debris. No one saw. To sooth his pounding heart, he climbed up onto the thatched roof of the attic and turned so he could see the harbour.

Ships sailed in and out of berths, or waited at long piers. A few military vessels, with their sleek wooden hulls and boxy superstructures, waited offshore. Only one patrolled. It sailed from one end of the harbour to the other, then turned back.

“Making the most of your last few days in this land?”

Pirin whipped around, his heart suddenly pounding again. But it was just Myraden, climbing up onto the roof. She wore only her gray cloak and sleeveless gambeson, and she carried a thin metal rod. Its tip glowed red-hot.

“I…uh, yeah.” Pirin turned forwards again.

“It will be the last bit of true calm you get in a long while.”

She crawled along the thatched roof, then settled down on the very peak of the roof, just in the corner of his vision. Pirin was about to turn his attention back to the harbour when she pulled her cloak back from her arm.

Yesterday, he’d noticed a single cut. Now, her arm was entirely coated in scarlet blood.

“Are you—”

“I am fine. It was just a shallow cut.”

Pirin cleared his throat. “It doesn’t look that way. I can get bandages, or I can—”

“It is fine,” she insisted. “It is normal. Most wizards’ blood is thin and does not clot. If we so much as slice ourselves on parchment, it bleeds for weeks. When we reach the Flare stage and enhance our bodies, it is no longer an issue, but until then…”

Pirin shook his head and groaned. “You should have dealt with it last night! It could have gotten infected, and that’s still a lot of blood to—”

Before he could finish, she took the red-hot tip of the metal rod and pressed it against the shallow cut. She gritted her teeth together for a moment, then hissed something in her language, which sounded like a long curse but Pirin didn’t truly understand it.

“What are you doing?” Pirin exclaimed. “Oh, by the Eane, if you leave it in too long, you’re going to give yourself scars and do more damage!” It took all of his strength not to clutch his hair.

“Now that is the Pirin I remember.” Myraden shrugged, then shook her arm. “You taught me that, you know.”

“If I did, I certainly didn’t tell you to leave it in for that long, nor to do it with a dirty, rusty fire iron. And outside, like this? It’s—”

“I do not want the attic to smell like burnt flesh and blood.” She shook the rod off, cooling it in the wind, then turned to face him.

“Should’ve done that last night,” Pirin added.

“I was tired, and it could wait.”

After a few seconds, Pirin scrunched his eyebrows, and said, “I don’t bleed like that.”

“You are an Embercore.”

Well, at least there was one good thing about a damaged spirit. He chuckled softly, then asked, “So…what’re we gonna do while we wait? We have three days, and we’ve got some preparations to make. I’m gonna train.”

Pirin spent the rest of the morning practicing. He started with his sword—drawing it and running through a few patterns. Myraden donned her armour again. As she put it on, she asked, “How good are you at fighting, then?”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“What do you mean?”

“Have you taught yourself any magical techniques to fight with?”

“I know a…Shattered Palm, I supposed it’s called,” he said. Without his mask and Reyad, it was an easy enough technique to unleash into the empty air.

“And if you are wearing your mask?”

Pirin shook his head. “Nothing. Well, not nothing. It’s good for the Whisper Hitch. But if I can’t make the base technique destabilize, then I can’t use the Shattered Palm.”

“Then you will need to learn something for when you do have the Reyad.” Once she had fastened the single vambrace to her left arm, she pointed at his haversack. “The Path manual. It talks about a basic fist strike, bolstered by the wind.”

Pirin winced, realizing that she had rummaged through his haversack while he was asleep—how else could she have read the book? “I never had a Reyad to try it with when I was learning. Well, I still don’t, but…oh, you know what I mean. I can make gnatsnapper Essence, now. I will learn it.”

He reached into his haversack and pulled out the sparrow Path manual. He flipped through it until he reached a creased page—where he found the first description of a technique.

It was a basic Assault technique, for manipulating an external element and attacking with it. He had to push gnatsnapper Essence along his arm, through his channels, as fast as he could. Even inside his body, the gnatsnapper Essence had a subtle influence over the wind, like most bird Essences. If he moved it quickly, he might be able to add an extra blast of air to his punches.

But without Gray, he couldn’t use gnatsnapper Essence. For a few minutes, he held his Essence near his core, relaxing his channels. Then he put on his mask, fed the runes, and integrated the Ichor into his blood. After a moment of deep-rooted pain and golden light, he had a temporary bond with Gray.

During the process, he had fallen to his knees. He looked across at Gray, and asked, “You can hear me, yeah?”

I hear you, Pirin.

“Wonderful.”

For a few minutes, while Myraden finished donning her armour, Pirin practiced the technique—which the Path manual called Winged Fist. As he punched, he cycled his Essence through his arm. The gnatsnapper Essence moved freely, cycling through his hand and wrist. It felt like an invisible feather brushed down his arm, and a small puff of air leapt out of his fist.

Not good enough.

He imagined he was punching something. It didn’t help.

He imagined he was trying to reach as far forward as he could, trying to grab something just out of reach. It didn’t help, either.

“Think of it like you are flinging something off your hand,” Myraden said. “That helped me learn my Talent.”

Pirin nodded. Then, he tried, “Are you sure you can’t teach—”

“I am certain. You are a king; your station is befitting of a proper teacher.”

He kept practicing, imagining he was trying to flick a glove off his wrist. The puffs of air rippled around his arm faster, guided by gnatsnapper Essence. Finally, he forced out a puff strong enough to shake the wall in front of him.

After a few puffs, he had to take a break to make more gnatsnapper Essence using Gray’s core.

At noon, after Pirin had practiced the Winged Fist enough to make his arms sore, they headed outside.

If they were going to travel across the ocean, they would need rations. The cheap passenger liners wouldn’t serve any food, not to humans nor to their animals.

And Pirin and Myraden were stowing away. There was no guarantee of finding food to steal. They had to prepare.

Pirin and Myraden walked inland, weaving through dark alleys and crowded cobblestone streets with their Familiars. Pirin had kept his mask on.

“Do you have to form a Reyad every time you want to use a proper technique?” Myraden asked as they walked.

Pirin nodded.

“That sounds painful.”

“It is,” Pirin said. “But…I’ve got some ways to lessen the blow, now.”

They walked until they reached a market. Rickety wooden stalls sprawled out all across a small smokey plaza, crammed into any crevice they could fit into. Vendors and customers haggled, and wagons trundled through. Some vendors even stacked their stalls higher, forming a second level with a network of wooden walkways running from seller to seller.

Nobody sold fancy or exotic wares here. It was purely utilitarian. Pirin found jerky at one table, and jars of nut paste at another. For Kythen, they found cubes of compact hay, and for Gray, long sticks of compressed birdseed. Everything needed to be dense so Pirin could carry it in his haversack.

Myraden paid everyone with Aerdian silver—which she claimed to have stolen from the convoys she destroyed. They bought as much as the vendors would let them in a single day, and as much stock as the vendors carried. It wasn’t as much as Pirin could fit in his haversack, though. They’d have to come back another day.

The next two days, the schedule remained exactly the same. Practicing the Winged Fist in the morning, and in the afternoon, searching the markets for compact travelling rations. Even on the third day, on New Years’ Eve, the market was packed.

On the last day, they lingered in the market until evening, and even later, until twilight faded and the sky was completely dark. As Pirin stuffed the last rations they bought into his haversack, Myraden said, “There will be fireworks at moons-high. It will make for an excellent distraction.”

“Fireworks?”

“New Years’ Eve,” she said. “The Season Cycle repeats for another year.”

“Yes, but…fireworks?”

“Rune-powered alchemical bombs, truly. I do not have my alchemy books anymore, but I could have shown you how it worked if I did.”

Pirin snorted. “I guess that’ll make a good distraction, yeah. When does it start?”

“In a half-hour.”

Instead of returning to the attic, they climbed up to the second level of the market, then crept to the edge of a walkway. Through the buildings, Pirin still had a distant view of the harbour. Lantern-lit ships sloshed up and down, and business hadn’t slowed down there, either. He specifically eyed the civilian docks on the east side of the bay, where a whole slew of non-military and non-cargo ships waited in berths.

“There is a small overseas passenger liner in berth four.” Myraden said, pointing down to the wharf. A wooden ship, maybe seventy paces long, rested in one of the berths along the cobblestone seawall. It had a smooth hull and a low superstructure marked with glowing windows. In its center, two thick masts rose up high above the passenger compartments, burdened with triangular sails.

“That’s the one?” Pirin asked. “How far can it get us?”

“They will make it to the Half-Crossing Archipelago to restock, then continue on to the Mainland.” She tugged on her one shoulder pauldron, tightening it. “There will be less guards on a smaller ship.”

“When does—”

A loud clatter cut Pirin off. He whirled around, just in time to see a cascade of kegs tumbling across the walkway. A frazzled, panting silhouette of a man leapt through it, pointing his finger. “There they are! That’s them! The elf with a gray gnatsnapper!”