[https://i.imgur.com/VGCFMQy.png]

"I think I've got the coin memorised well enough now, Nia," Refenial said to her as they sat there full from their evening meal.

"You want to learn the next step of enchanting tonight, then?" Nia asked.

Refenial nodded enthusiastically.

"We'll need Nox then to guard us while we're away from camp." She told him.

Refenial nodded and turned to Nox. They exchanged a fast back and forth in their language, Refenial laughing at something Nox had said.

She ruthlessly suppressed the twinge of jealousy she felt, left out of the conversation once again. She understood a couple of the words they'd said but not enough to even get the gist of what they were saying.

Reffy was great to talk to, but he was only one person. She thought back fondly on her conversation with the mysterious Grandmother in the restaurant wistfully. She wanted to have an actual conversation with another adult, perhaps Nox...

She suddenly realised both Nox and Refenial were standing waiting for her.

She stood, handing her bowl and spoon to Matrill and began walking, still pretending to use her crutch, with the pair away from the camp.

As they walked, Refenial talked to her. "I've got my first rank in the music skill." He told her, his face flush with excitement.

"That means your titled magic will make you better at music?"

Refenial nodded. "I think most of the powers my title will give me are musically based, so I really need to get the hang of playing the whistle."

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but what is your title?"

"I trust you Nia." He said before pausing. "I don't think it has a direct translation, but basically, it's 'multi-coloured piper'."

Nia felt smiled at how much Refenial trusted her. She looked down at the boy, with his dark, scraggly hair, fondly as he smiled up at her. It was like having a little brother, a little brother who could talk to the Ravenous mother and kill talking monsters, but a little brother all the same.

Deciding they'd moved far enough away from the caravan, Nia gestured to them to stop. "Here will do."

Nox stood guard for monsters while Refenial listened attentively to her.

"So, if you get the coin out, we'll begin." She told him as she opened her soul's eyes. She watched the gently swirling mana, as always taken in by its otherwordly beauty, as she waited for Refenial.

She glanced across at his soul, it was strange and unlike any other she'd ever seen. It was a perfect sphere, speckled with a dusting of points of pure darkness. Occasionally she could swear that it moved slightly, perhaps the thing inside his soul that he'd mentioned.

She shivered at that thought, hoping that whatever it was, the boy at least had it under permanent control.

Refenial finished retrieving the coin, and she saw his soul's eyes open, looking across at her.

"I'm ready," Refenial said.

"Right, now we're going to make a coin that only lands on heads when it's flipped. This is a simple magic enchantment that all enchanters learn in my country. It's a simple object with a simple effect based on a simple variable."

"simple," Refenial said with a sly smile.

Nia narrowed her eyes slightly, feeling he was making fun of her but continued.

"Now, what you need to do is visualise the coin in the air as it's tossed, everything about it. The light as it shines across it, the way it moves as it spins, the sound of it moving air aside, no matter how quiet that sound might be. If you're having trouble, flip it a few times."

Refenial did so, flipping it several times, only dropping it once. "I think I've got it now." He told her.

"Good, now imagine the coin coming down, about to land on tails, but as it does so, mana making a pushing force on both sides of the coin, speeding up its spin just enough that it lands on heads.

This is the hard part. The more perfectly you visualise this, the better this will work."

Refenial stood there for a while, focusing intently on the coin. "I think I got it?"

"Good now, reach out with your soul and touch the item and imprint what you're imagining."

Refenial reached out a thin tendril of his soul to touch the coin.

"Now, wait until a mana particle touches the coin. We'll see how good your visualisation is."

She watched Refenial as he hyper-focused on the coin. She wasn't expecting much. It'd taken months of practice for the coin to even start to enchant when she'd been learning.

Several moments passed while they waited.

A small mote of mana touched against the coin blown into by the ethereal winds that mana seemed to blow on. Nia watched closely.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

It dimmed by the tiniest of perceptible amounts.

To her surprise, she felt annoyed, not happy for Reffy. She gave him a smile of encouragement she didn't feel.

"That's good. Keep trying," she said, but the words felt weirdly hollow, like she was just going through the motions of saying them.

She carried on watching and offering encouragement until night had fallen, and they'd been forced to wrap up their work.

[https://i.imgur.com/oMrGBK6.png]

Later as she lay in her tent struggling to sleep, she tossed and turned irritably and considered how she felt.

She'd come to this land to get away from the boredom and mundanity of home, to seek adventure. She'd come here to be an adventurer, to live a life of wonder and spectacle.

She'd met Reffy on that first day when he'd saved her twice in a row. He'd shown such determination on that day and every day since.

He'd squeaked away painfully on the whistle, even though he'd known that everyone had wanted him to stop.

She thought of the crooked house, the monster grabbing her leg and of Nox saving her from her failure to dodge the monster's arm. She thought of Reffy, dealing with the Ravenous Mother to get her a potion to heal her leg.

Reffy teaching her Frullian after she'd so foolishly not considered that she'd need to learn a new language in a foreign country.

Reffy, going into the house alone, Reffy on the monster's back while she lay on the ground in pain. Reffy gaining ranks in his skills.

Reffy.

Until today, she'd seen herself as the brave adventurer that was looking after the small and frightened child as she fought terrible dangers.

That wasn't really true, though, was it? Every step of the way, she'd failed. Every step of the way, Reffy got stronger while she stayed the same.

Perhaps it was Reffy who was the brave adventurer and her the small and frightened child, she thought to herself bitterly.

He kept on growing and a frightening pace, all she had. The only way in which she could out-compete him was in enchanting, and today he had, in a few short moments, shown himself more able in that too.

[https://i.imgur.com/oMrGBK6.png]

The thoughts churned and spun in her mind, and before she knew it, day had come, and she sat sleepily once more in the coach.

Soon that day passed, and once again, she left the camp and guided Refenial in enchanting. She smiled and laughed with him, complimented him on his surprising progress for only a single day and said everything she knew she should say to him, but every word tasted like bitter ash in her mouth as she spoke them. Every smile a cracked mask.

Again she lay in her tent tossing and turning, tormented by her realisation of weakness.

The next day came, and the cycle repeated.

Then the next.

Then the next.

Two weeks passed, two weeks of the taste of ash and cracked false smiles.

Two weeks of Refenial making rapid progress in his enchanting. Two weeks of Refenial mastering what had taken her a year.

Nia heard someone speak and looked across. Refenial stood there in the evening light, coin in hand.

"Are you alright, Nia?" The boy said, slowly lowering his hand with the coin as he looked up at her.

"Yes." She said bluntly but, after a moment, relented as his concern didn't waver. "I've just not been sleeping well."

Refenial nodded in understanding, "I can get to sleep, but I always wake with a shock. It's the same dream every night. Is it the same for you?"

Nia forced a smile. "Not exactly. I'm fine. Didn't you say the caravan would be going to a city tomorrow? Getting out and seeing the world would be nice."

Refenial nodded. "Stonehaven, apparently, it's the last big stop until the capital. It'll feel strange. I've started to get used to living in the trade caravan."

Nia found herself lost in thoughts again.

Refenial cleared his throat to get her attention, and she looked over.

"Do you think I've enchanted this enough to work?" Refenial asked, holding up the coin.

Nia nodded, feeling sad at his success and much sadder for feeling that way about his success.

"So what do I do now?"

Nia blinked a few times, trying to focus her tired mind on the present before she responded. "Right. Now you need to focus your mental image onto the coin while you start to flip it. If it works, then it will come down as heads every time.

Refenial stepped back, pausing for a brief moment before he flipped the coin high into the air. He caught it deftly as it was coming down and slapped it onto the back of his hand.

He stood there momentarily, the coin still hidden under his hand, then slowly peeked under his hand before looking over in amazement and showing the coin. "It's heads."

"Do it a few times to make sure it's not just luck," She told him.

He did it a dozen more times each time the coin landed on heads. He started showing Nox, who was standing there on guard.

Nox said something to him, and they both laughed.

Refenial spoke to her, "He said he's never going to gamble with either of us."

Nia once more donned her cracked mask of a smile as she joined Refenial in celebrating his success.

[https://i.imgur.com/oMrGBK6.png]

The next day came, but the cycle was broken, at least for the moment.

It was mid-morning as the trade caravan stopped outside of Stonehaven.

She stood, taking the steps carefully as she climbed out of the coach, already tripping this morning in her tiredness as she'd boarded.

The area outside of the city was a heaving mass of people, so much so that she wondered if the city had only one gate.

The walls themselves were huge curtains of seamless stone that rivalled the tallest buildings she'd ever seen.

The gates were huge, too, easily able to accommodate the two rows of carts heading in either direction and the throngs of people passing through.

Despite their size, a long line of wagons and coaches trailed away from the city.

The trade caravan had parked up in a small corner of a large cobbled piece of land just outside the walls. Numerous other coaches, wagons, carts and all manner of animal-drawn vehicles also sat across this wide lot. There were even a few stalls set out on the back of wagons with men and women trading and arguing in the crisp spring air.

She looked around the throngs of people for familiar faces. The other passengers were all standing together, with Matrill, Nox, and Refenial included.

She walked over to Reffy, "I'm going to go explore the city."

"Are you sure you don't want to come with me and Nox? He's been here before and said he'd give us a tour." Reffy offered with a smile.

"No. I think I need to clear my head for a bit."

"Ok, but take care, Nia."

"Shouldn't I be the one saying that to you?" She forced a chuckle.

Refenial smiled.

They said their goodbyes, and Nia began walking into the city. It took a few moments to pass through the dark arch of the gate, slowed by the crowd. Even in it's depth, the wall felt colossal, easily twenty feet deep, maybe more.

She avoided taking any particular path or seeking out any particular goal. For one day, she wanted to be lost in the unknown, set free from the burdens of who she was and, more importantly, who she wasn't.

It only took her a few minutes of walking down the odd alleyways and twisting streets of the town to find her goal of becoming lost.

She wondered for a while, taking everything in, from the strange foreign architecture to the bustle of the streets.

Soon she found herself walking down a quiet alleyway between buildings that looked run down and maybe abandoned. As she did, she heard a woman's voice speaking softly, reciting poetry, poetry in her language, the language of Drokon.

Curious, she followed the sound.

[https://i.imgur.com/3vZaHAB.png]