The next morning, Pirin sat cross-legged on the Featherflight’s upper platform, hands in his lap, and staring off into the distance. They still sailed over hilly fields and patches of trees, but almost anywhere Pirin looked, there was a sign of civilization. Whether it was a road or an old well, a tiny village, or even another airship blowing across the sky, the Dominion had left their mark.

Gray let out a soft chirp, then fluttered down and landed on the platform behind him. She nearly knocked over the repeating crossbow.

“Good morning,” he said, though he didn’t have his Reyad active, so Gray wouldn’t understand.

Nomad emerged from the hatch a few seconds later, strands of messy hair falling over his eyes and into his face. “Alright, then. We need a new technique for you. Be warned: I don’t have the solution to using the technique with just an Embercore and no Reyad, but we have all day to experiment.”

Pirin asked, “Can you teach me the basic fortification technique that you used? The one that took pure Essence? And then we can go from there?”

“That sounds like a plan.”

Nomad spent the next ten minutes drawing a diagram on a slip of parchment. It was a pattern for pushing Essence.

It didn’t remind Pirin of any of the animal Paths he knew, and it didn’t even remind him of an animal at all. The Essence just…existed, swirling and jumping to the outermost channels of the body.

“There’s a special way to move the Essence in the channel,” Nomad said. “You have to will it out into the flesh around it, strengthening and empowering your muscles. This technique is an old family secret called the Cleansing Vortex Robe. By using aspect-less Essence, it helps deflect and dispel techniques while strengthening your body.”

Pirin tried. He used the diagram that Nomad had given him and cycled the Essence in the precise way the diagram depicted, sending it out into his limbs and keeping it in the outermost channels. He only had pure-aspect Essence in his body, so it should have been more than effective enough.

But nothing happened. After a few seconds of rigorous cycling, his Essence rebelled, sending spikes of pain racing down his arms and searing his core. He vented the unstable Essence with a Shattered Palm.

Nomad held out his arm and swished it through the pulse of Essence that Pirin let off, instantly scattering the Shattered Palm before it could do any damage. “Your Shattered Palm is getting powerful, now. Be careful.”

“Sorry,” Pirin whispered. “It’ll take a few tries to even get it to…hold. Embercore things.”

“I understand,” Nomad said. “Just make sure you’re moving the Essence in a vortex-like pattern through the channels. It’ll make it easier to visualize pushing the Essence out to the muscles, and the movements will feel infinitely more natural.”

Pirin tried five more times before he got lucky, and his Embercore let him hold onto it long enough. Pale blue Essence poured out into his muscles and skin, and filaments twisted into his muscles, illuminating a network of fibres. He directed it to his arm and clenched his fist as tight as he could. It pulsed through his channels, swirling through each like a miniature vortex.

When it reached his right arm, he exhaled and expanded the technique until it reached his skin.

His muscles, emboldened by the new power, moved faster, and his fingers crushed the air with a boom.

“That will take some getting used to,” Pirin said, turning around and trying to stretch his arm back. It moved faster than he intended, the Essence making his muscles twitch faster and stronger than ever before. He nearly tore his arm out of its socket.

But luck only lasted so long. The technique destabilized as soon as Pirin turned around. The Essence stopped flowing as smoothly. First, the technique tingled, then popped and buzzed, then blazed like his arm was burning from the inside-out.

“Bring it back into your channels,” Nomad instructed. “Quickly, before you lose control of it and blow your whole arm apart.”

Pirin shut his eyes and clenched his teeth, then pulled on the Essence and dragged it back into his channels. As he pulled it back in, the Essence fragmented into even smaller strands, and for a moment, the technique glowed even brighter.

Then he pulled it all back into his channels.

But he couldn’t control it any longer, and he vented it out with another Shattered Palm—this time, aiming off into the distance. His foundation Timbers quaked, and vibrations ran down his arm. The expelled Essence took the appearance of an enormous transparent blue hand in the air, and it sailed ten feet forward before dispersing.

Gray squawked and fluttered up into the air a few feet, and Pirin fell to his knees, shaking his arms out and panting. Beads of sweat ran down his forehead and dripped onto the deck below.

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“That was new,” Nomad muttered. “But there you have it. You used the Cleansing Vortex Robe, in part. It is a full-body fortification technique when used at its peak—hence the ‘robe’—so a single arm…well, it’s a good first step.”

Pirin dipped his head. “Thank you, sir, but luck isn’t good enough.” He took a step back, and Gray landed beside him. “I don’t want to win just because I got lucky and my technique just happened to work.”

Nomad sighed and rubbed his chin. “Aye, if we’re playing kingmaker, we can’t just…count on a one-in-six chance of things going our way.”

“When I pulled the Essence back into my channels…it changed,” Pirin said. “It fractured into even tinier strands, and—”

“I saw, Pirin,” Nomad said.

“You…did?”

“I perceived it with my spiritual senses.”

“...Oh.” Pirin paused and tried to think of how he’d suggest his next plan. “It felt even stronger than the Vortex…”

“Unstable techniques will always feel stronger,” Nomad said. “But it’s only temporary—which is why your Shattered Palm works so well. A fortification technique has to last for a longer period of time.”

“What if I made it last?” Pirin asked. “See…lemme try again, and—”

Nomad took a step back, and Gray inched to the edge of the platform, spreading her wings and preparing to take flight.

“What?”

“Just being cautious,” Nomad said.

Pirin shook his head, then tried again. He pushed the Essence in the right pattern, then drove it out to his arm. He pushed it out into his muscles and skin as fast as he could, lighting up his arm with power. To ensure that the Essence destabilized when he wanted it to, he made his breaths choppy and fast.

Then he drew it back toward his channels. It separated into thin strands, bending around his muscle fibres and sending blazing pain all throughout his spirit. Tiny pricks of pain stabbed his channels and core.

He could find a way to minimize the strain later. For now, he gritted his teeth and pushed the fractured strands back out into his arm.

It spread up into his shoulder, then across his chest and to his other arm. He let it, continually pushing and pulling the fractured strands through his muscles and imbuing them with power. They slipped around his muscle fibres and flesh, and left no physical damage. At least, as far as he could tell—there was no bruising.

With a snap-hiss, the technique erupted around his entire body. A blue glow shone all around him.

“Be careful, Pirin,” Nomad warned. “Can you pull it back in and deactivate it?”

Pirin tightened his fists. His fingers flashed through the air, snapping against his palms with a boom. “I’m—”

He cut himself off. The technique even enhanced his voice box, and what would have been a normal statement came out of his mouth as a yell. He imagined himself whispering, and said, “I’m still in control.”

“Good. Take a single step. The Vortex Robe has been finetuned for speed, but whatever you’ve done has speed and raw strength.”

Pirin tried to step to the other side of the platform. With just his normal body, it would have taken a few paces. He expected something similar.

With a single push of his foot, he launched himself to the other side of the platform. The air bent around him with a boom, and he fell heavily on his knees. It wasn’t as fast as he could move if he had his Reyad with Gray, using the wind, but everything about this new technique was stronger. When he planted his foot down, the boards trembled beneath him, and a few of them splintered.

The one right beneath his foot broke.

He lost his balance and tumbled off the platform, blue aura blazing around him and motes of Essence tumbling in the air. He slid down the side of the Featherflight’s envelope, then plummeted off into empty air.

He probably screamed, but the air was moving too fast, and he couldn’t hear himself. There was no time to activate his Reyad. The ground rushed up to meet him. He spread his arms wide and stretched out his legs, slowing his fall.

Gray screeched, then dove off the platform.

Three miles to the ground. Then two…

Gray was gaining on him.

One mile…

She swooped below him and spread her wings, but Pirin still had his modified fortification technique active, and if he made a wrong move, he might crush her. He grabbed the saddle’s stirrup instead.

The technique was unstable. It had no control, and Pirin couldn’t use it. Not to mention, the spiritual strain had grown so great that it felt like ethereal knives were stabbing through his channels. He clenched his teeth together.

He had a bunch of Essence threads pushing and pulling, in and out through his muscles, in a constant state of destabilization—like a spinning top that never fell over.

But he could do better.

Gray fluttered hard and fast, but the technique was powerful, and he had been falling fast—plus, clutching one of the saddle’s stirrups pulled her off-balance. They had fallen to a half-mile above the ground.

Pirin wove the fractured strands of Essence into a net of blue energy, pushing and pulling through his muscles and imbuing them with unstable Essence. The Essence itself might have been unstable, but now he could choose where it went. You could always trust unstable Essence to be unstable.

No luck involved.

He hauled himself up to Gray’s saddle, fine motor control restored, and slipped his legs around the saddle’s sides.

But he couldn’t maintain the technique forever. His Timbers were trembling, and he risked inflicting permanent spiritual damage to himself. He pushed the fractured net to the very edge of his skin, then let it bleed to the surface. Then, all across his body, he vented the unstable Essence in a continuous aura. A sphere of blue sparks erupted around him, then faded away into the wind behind them.

Gray climbed and chirped happily. Pirin raised an arm and cheered.

They’d just created a new technique.