Aylie sat on the floor inspecting Ro-ak closely. Zalia watched her, digesting the information that Ro had just told her. If Aylie was listening, she showed no sign of surprise at the explanation of her abilities. She might have even known a few of those things, having picked up on thoughts, bonds and mental communication through the abilities already.

“What did she mean by ‘your soul is different’?” Ember asked Ro.

“If I’m correct, Aylie here has seen how I truly exist. When you become ascendant, your soul is no longer confined to a mortal body. This has happened to me. My soul exists in many places now, my temples in Cormaine, here, my altar elsewhere in this world, partially around those who are my friends or venerate me. There is part of me with each of you. I am able to consolidate parts of that soul into one place to form an avatar, like you see before you now. I am also able to consolidate all of it to attain my full power, as I did during our final battle in Cormaine, Zalia. It is then that I’m most powerful, yet most vulnerable.”

A thought occurred to Zalia.

“So, if someone who was able to interact with a soul were to somehow destroy it while it was all consolidated in one place, would that potentially be a way to kill an ascendant being?”

Ro-ak said nothing, dark eyes glimmering. His silence answered her question.

It was perhaps not something that people of her rank were supposed to know, to even be thinking about. Still, it might be useful to know in their current situation, considering what they were up against.

“Well, thank you for the information. It has been pretty hard trying to help her figure out those abilities. I’m a little apprehensive about the Dreamweaver ability as well, though I understand that one perfectly well.”

“The ability to influence dreams. That will definitely level up to have connections with the astral ability.”

Thinking about it, Zalia saw the connection that Ro had seen immediately. She wasn’t entirely sure what people's dreams were, whether they were subconscious thoughts or a result of the mind's nightly cleansing process but she did know that they came from one's thoughts. Which just happened to be on the astral, or so Ro said.

Just like that, Ro had given her enough information to start predicting how Aylie’s powers would advance. Damn, she had missed the big leafy guy.

“Thanks Ro, I appreciate the information. This is going to help us more than you know.”

“It is the least I can do for you Zalia. Now, how do you wish to proceed?”

Everything came crashing back down on her at that question. Her torture, what was happening in Endaria, what they needed to get done and what had happened already.

“Nope, not today,” she said.

She didn’t push all those memories into her vault; she knew how bad of an idea that was. She did, however, push them to the back of her mind. Tomorrow.

Ember took one look at her, reading her emotions through their bond.

“We’ll go over it tomorrow. For today, maybe just accustom yourself to this world and the nature here. I’m sure it is a little different to what you’re used to,” Ember supplied.

“A good idea Ember. I will be back soon.”

Ro took to the air, the smooth and casual flight a stark difference to his struggle to stand moments earlier.

Zalia turned to Ember, feeling very overwhelmed.

“It’s a little much at the moment.”

Ember came and scooted onto the log seat next to her, squishing up close.

“I know, I’ve got you though, don’t worry.”

Zalia took one of Ember’s hands in her own and rested her head on her shoulder.

“How did you find me before I woke up?”

Ember gave a little laugh.

“Oh, well, you kind of fell from the sky.”

Zalia frowned.

“I what?”

“We were trying our best to catch up to Hildebrandt and you fell from the sky. Slowly, so you didn’t hurt yourself. You and the little starlight puppy just floated down.”

Zalia couldn’t help but laugh gently as well. She could imagine the concern and fear that Ember would have had, only for her to float down as if from the heavens with a wolf pup made of stars.

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“Was I out long?”

“Nah, you just slept the night.”

“And what about Hildebrandt, has she come back yet?”

Aylie was still looking to where Ro had flown off, the starlight puppy looking wistfully after him as well.

“She was a day or so ahead of us, she should be back by late tonight if she is going full speed to get back here.”

There was a moment of silence before Ember spoke again.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Zalia knew what she was asking about straight away. While she had told Ember and Boreal as much as she could through the bond, there was a lot they hadn’t heard yet.

“Not.. not yet. I will, and I won’t lock the memory away just… not yet.”

She felt Ember nod and she didn’t ask any further. Zalia appreciated Ember for that, more than she could know. Well, maybe she could, considering their bond.

It was an interesting thing to think about, the fact that their bond was something that was real on another plane. Part of the existence there, rather than something ethereal and inexplicable. She didn’t like the idea that it was possible for something with the right powers to interfere with a bond. Even further, she disliked the idea that it was possible to read the emotions or words passed between them. It felt like an invasion of their privacy. She would have to make sure Aylie knew not to abuse her power in that regard.

Not that she expected Aylie to do so, she just knew from her years in the other world that power had a way of influencing people.

Resting comfortably beside Ember, Zalia decided to feel out the new limits of Healing Presence. The base healing was definitely increased, perhaps by a half between Bronze nineteen and Silver one. Each level gave a little bit of a boost but the jump across ranks was quite significant. All in all, while she couldn’t measure accurately, she would say it had doubled in potency from Bronze one while the increase in power from Iron one to Bronze one would have been half as much of an increase. If she were to assign a numerical value to its power at each level with Tin one being one, Iron one would have been three, Bronze one would be seven and Silver one would be fifteen.

The bigger part of the power increase was the actual effect of the Silver ability. Stretching her senses, she couldn’t reach the outer limits of what the ability affected. It could go for kilometres.

If her other abilities followed a similar curve in strength, it was no wonder the jump in power between Bronze and Silver was so great, the difference between Silver and Gold even further. That scale would go on until Ascendant, the rank at which things worked much differently. Hildebrandt was probably stronger than Nateysta in raw power, yet the fact that he was almost impossible to permanently kill changed things a lot. He also had an aura strength that Hildebrandt would not be able to match unless she reached Ascendant as well.

Thinking of Ascendants, she now had a little star puppy Ascendant to deal with. How the hell did she raise an Ascendant?

Did it… need to eat? Level up? Did it need daily prayer?

Maybe she should ask Ro about that as well, he might know.

“You know what I need to do?”

“What’s that?” Ember whispered.

Zalia lifted her head and looked at her beautiful partner.

“Gardening.”

“Gardening?”

“Yeah, come on.”

She stood up and pulled Ember up along with her. Her vault door opened, and two vines covered in leaves and pastel-coloured flowers grew into a large oval doorway. Gentle light came through the portal that appeared in the arch and she pulled Ember into the vault with her.

At the back, Zalia kept a small collection of all her different herbs, at least one of each so she didn’t lose any. The half circle space had a workbench lining the outer wall that was covered in various dried, crushed, cut and whole herbs.

She walked to the little garden area with Ember and knelt down on the dirt. After a moment's hesitation, Ember sat down on the dirt with her too. Rather than use any of her many powers to easily harvest and prepare herbs, she simply started pruning with her hands. It was easy enough to snap off pieces of the herbs, Any damage to the plant healed by the ever-present healing of the vault so she wasn’t worried.

Ember looked a little uncertain, so Zalia started teaching her what she was doing. She had been somewhat of a herbalist before she had ever gotten magic, yet hadn’t really done traditional gardening and herbing since then.

She started by teaching Ember which sprigs to take and which to leave. Some of the more woody old growth wouldn’t do well, since it was the main piece of the plant. The newer green growth that was still soft and sprouting many leaves were the ones she took. She didn’t take all of them though, leaving some for each plant. That way the remaining new growth would benefit from the extra space and nutrients from the plant, leading to a healthier plant.

Once they had gathered a few good handfuls of herb sprigs, they went to a bench and worked together, taking the leaves off. Sometimes it was better to pull them off one by one and other times it was better to run their hands down the length of the stem, opposite to its direction of growth. Once they had a pile of nicely sorted leaves, Zalia had to stop Ember from throwing away the remaining stems.

There were many uses for stems of herbs and Zalia taught Ember a few of them. Some of the nicer-smelling herbs, she wound together to form wreaths. Some of them she hung about the vault, the gentle, woody smell of herbs further spreading through the already earthy-smelling space. Others could still be used in her ritual magic, though requiring some further refinement with the use of Preparation.

Usually, if she wanted to dry the leaves it would be better to hang them up while on the stem in a sunny spot. With Preparation she didn’t need to do that and as they didn’t have anywhere to hang them up that they’d be staying, she didn’t bother. It made her want a home for them, so she could show Ember that step too.

She used her stone manipulation powers to create a mortar and pestle. With that, she was able to crush them.

With the herbs not being dried, many of them turned into a sort of paste. Surprisingly, they became something she hadn’t actually created before using Preparation.

Snow-leaf Ointment (Potent) - Bronze rank.

Will heal burns when applied.

It wasn’t really useful to her at all. It wasn’t powerful and was entirely overtaken by Healing Presence. Somehow though, the simple joy of creating something new with Ember brought her a calm, contented happiness.