He looked at me, calm and kind. "So, you gotta remember, while I know my way around a Griid-suit, I've only actually been through one Choosing." He smiled self-deprecatingly, and I laughed a little uncomfortably.

"Well, where do we even start..." he mused.

I looked at him, eyes burning with a mixture of desperation and determination, and blurted, "When I was in the helmet, it said I was only a level 8..."

His eyes widened slightly. "No, you got that wrong. You mean you were a level 0.8, that's an oh with a dot, then the eight."

I shook my head, confused, trying to remember. "No, I would have seen that. It said 8."

He shook his head, a little condescendingly, a little considering. "Kid, if the suit chooses you, then you'll start at level 1. The level measures your affinity with the Griid, with the kind of mind meld you gotta do with the suit, with the Prophet. Before the Choosing is finished, you get a fractional level that measures your natural affinity for the mind meld—how well your brain kinda talks to the Prophet. I guess. Hell, that's priest bullshit, I dunno what I'm talking about."

Trying to remember, I mumbled, "I guess I could have been a 0.8..."

Morningstar nodded. "If you were, then that's fair shooting, kid. I don't wanna go rolling around like I buy all my own hype, but I started out as 0.9, and that's the highest I've ever heard of."

"They laughed at me when I told them my level," I said, feeling the sting of the mockery again.

Morningstar smiled. "Well, if they have a sense of what the levels are, they either thought you were lying with the eight or probably thought you were lying with the 0.8 too. By them, you mean the stuck-up brats you're competing against?"

I nodded slowly, unsure of how to respond. Morningstar himself came from a line of Griidlords stretching back centuries.

He saw my reaction and smiled. "House Morningstar has been around since before a lot of today's cities even had Towers. But we weren't born to it. My ancestors won their title the same way you're trying to, by winning their suits in Choosings. We take a different view to some of the entitlement that goes around the old cities like Boston, if you don't mind my saying so."

"Not at all," I breathed.

Morningstar looked at me. Again, like Batlazar, he gave me the impression that he was really seeing me. He said, “Your Daddy says you weren’t well as a child.”

I looked away. Morningstar was a hero, I didn’t want to talk about my sickly youth.

He seemed to understand this, his tone was gentle. He said, “Hey, you’re big and strapping now. I don’t mean to stir up bad memories, but it’s relevant. You weren’t well enough to train until you were thirteen?”

I nodded, and said, “Yeah.. thereabouts.

He narrowed his eyes, “And what could keep a lad bound to a bed for his whole childhood, but leave no trace in his teens? I mean it, you look as big and strong as any noble’s son.”

I said, “I don’t know. I saw a lot of doctors. A lot of them. They were always examining my head, looking at my eyes. Father won’t talk about it. He says I should count myself blessed by the Oracle that my malady faded. I think… I think there was a sickness in my brain.”

Morningstar continued to look at me for another few moments. There was silence. Then he spoke again.

"So it's you on your own against eleven other brats that were born in castles and had people training them to become Swords since before they could walk."

"I... I... think so. I know several of them are, anyway."

"In Boston, you better believe they all are. Other places do Choosings differently, but in Boston, they expect their suits to be worn by nobles. Your daddy must have spent an Orb's fortune getting you in."

"It's important to him..." I said, my voice trailing off.

Morningstar looked at me sharply, surprising me with his next question. "And is it important to you?"

"Of course it is... I guess... well, I never really thought about it..."

Morningstar smiled. "A suit is a hard thing to wear. I know it's got its perks, but it comes with a lot of responsibility, a lot of hardship, especially for the Sword. You'll kill other Griidlords, or they'll kill you. Your city will depend on you for Orbs, Flows, Order. And if you're good enough to survive the fighting, you'll live long to see generations of your family live and die." I could see a strange reticence in his eyes as he said this last.

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Then he shook his head, staring at me intently. "Well, I told your daddy I'd give you some pointers, so here's the best I got for you, but I dunno how much different it will be from what you probably already heard."

I waited, doubting him. I'd had tutors, well-paid tutors, but no one like Lord Morningstar.

He said, "How did you feel when you were in the suit? Find it awkward?"

"Did I? Everything I did was so exaggerated. Every move was bigger, even when I tried to just move slowly. It was like I couldn't keep my balance, and then when I'd try to shift my balance, I'd just toss myself about."

Morningstar nodded. "And your trainers told you what you should do."

"Yeah, they told me the suit exaggerates everything I do. It's so strong that it magnifies my movements. I must be smooth like water, gentle like a breeze, just make faint echoes of the real movements I want, but it's not so easy when you're actually in it."

He shook his head, chuckling. "I guess that probably works for a lot of folks, but I don't think that's quite right." He downed his whiskey and stared into the fire. "This might sound strange or stupid, and I don't mean to go correcting those high-priced trainers your daddy got for you, but that's not how I've found it."

I waited, breath bated.

"The suit doesn't give a shit about your movements. The thing is so strong, your body has almost nothing to do with it."

I frowned. "But when I'd moved, it moved."

"Folks'll tell you that you just need to think and the suit will move on its own, that its muscles are doing all the work and you're big lump of grey matter is the engine that drives the whole show. I think... I think that has something to do with it. All that smooth as water, pissing into the wind business, that's a line you'll hear from many Griidlords. That's a business of shutting the mind down a little bit. They do that to distract the mind from actively trying to control the suit. But I've clashed swords with Griidlords like that too and, well, I'm still here."

He smiled wickedly. The wickedness had a charm to it.

He said, "It's more symbiotic than that. It's more holistic. When I move, I move my arm. But I'm feeling the suit. I'm feeling these wonderful metal muscles contract exactly the same as my real muscles. Stonger men in the flesh make stronger Griidords, swifter men make swifter Griidlords. When I get exhausted, the suit gets exhausted. When I get hurt, the suit gets hurt. When adrenaline makes me feel like I can move a mountain, the suit maybe really can!"

"So I should be trying to move my arm? Or I shouldn't be?," I asked, still confused.

"Again, kid, the details are priest business. I don't really know the workings. All I know is that when I do this"—he raised the hand with the crystal tumbler in it, rotating the delicate glass between armored fingers strong enough to crush a man's skull with nearly no effort—"when I do this, I'm not thinking about moving my fingers any more than you would be. I'm not willing the suit to move, I'm not forcing it to react to the movement of my body. We're all moving together, flesh, metal, all obeying the same neurons.."

I looked, transfixed, at the armored hand. At any other time, I would be mesmerized at the chance to be so close to a Griidsuit, but in that moment, I needed to seize the opportunity. I had to understand, to absorb every word he was saying, and hope that it would make the difference in the next round of the Choosing.

He said, "I remember the menus used to be a problem."

"You mean all the words in your way when you're trying to see?" I replied. I heard the kitchen door open and my father talking to the cooks as he stood in the open doorway.

"Yes, the HUD," Morningstar explained. "It defaults to too much information. When you get a quiet moment with the helm on, concentrate on trying to remove the messages, or concentrate on viewing your progression. It will help you see better, obviously, but it's also practice at that mind meld. You might even find the distraction is good for you."

"Progression?" I asked.

"Just keep asking to see your progression," he said. "If you can get your thoughts across properly, then the system will display how the connection is forming between you and the system. We all connect differently to the system, based on our makeup, our talents. Like how one person can be gifted with language, another for music, another for math. The same is true for our connection with the suit. It measures your progress by category. I can't promise the categories are all the same, but in my HUD I can look up to see my rating in cut, beam, close-range sword affinity and energy shots, shield, power—that would be a measure of the force you can generate—and agility. They'll all be at zeroes to start with, but if you can get even one of them to go up a point, then that might give you an advantage against the other kids."

My father approached, saying, "Well, Morningstar, how goes the schooling? Have you made a Griidlord of him yet?"

Morningstar laughed and said, "Who knows, Sempronius, maybe we have."

"One more thing, Lord, if I may," I said, my curiosity piqued.

Morningstar waved a hand dismissively. "Cut that 'Lord' shit out anyway. But yeah, kid, what is it?"

"What about the voice in the helm?" I asked.

A look of utter recognition and marvel flashed on his face before he masked it, glancing comically at my father. "Voices, Sempronius? Are you sure you aren't working the boy too hard?"

They both laughed, but Morningstar glanced at me again, the look full of consideration. "Well, I'll be damned," he said softly, his eyes narrowing slightly as if piecing something together.

My father poured himself another drink and handed a glass to Morningstar. "Don't let him worry you too much. The Choosing is a trial, and it gets in your head. But if there's one thing I know, it's that you'll get through it, Tiberius."

"Thank you, Father," I said, trying to keep the unease out of my voice. The voices in the helm had unsettled me deeply, but seeing Morningstar's reaction was even more disconcerting.