Fiona led Kiera and her friends down a stairwell into the raw stone interior of the spire. Below the city they found natural caverns, dark rock marbled with glowing blue and green ethersteel. In some places they found funny cone-shaped rock formations hanging from the roof. In other places they found buildings carved directly into the stone. Finally the quartet arrived at a chamber that was so large that it contained an entire promenade filled with shops and restaurants, buildings that were not cut from stone, but constructed of other materials. Women in fashionable clothing roamed the streets or sipped cherry wine on the balconies overhead.

"Why are there men in the spire?" Sasha asked.

It took Kiera a few moments to see the men for herself. She only saw a few of them inside the restaurants, carrying dirty dishes and sweeping floors.

"All of the men are thralls," Fiona said. "Reyndell created thousands of thralls. He tasked them with cleaning. After he died his thralls went right on cleaning. Even after several centuries they still dart about, cleaning toilets and doing dishes."

"I suppose I could tolerate a few men like that," Sasha said.

"Are they in pain?" Kiera asked.

"Not quite," Fiona said. "What they find easy and comfortable has been modified, dictated, forced upon them."

"So they think cleaning is easy?" Sasha asked.

"Let me give you an example. Most people always use the same hand for writing. Imagine one day you wake up and discover that you can no longer write with your preferred hand. However, you also discover that it's easy to write with your other hand. So, you start doing that instead, and after a little while you don't think about it anymore. That's what happened to the thralls. They were given a specific skill and focus and now they gravitate towards doing that because it's easy for them. A thrall is a witch that has been compelled with such a focus. This compulsion is permanent, and generally causes the thrall to lose most or all emotions. Nobody alive today is powerful enough to create thralls. The men here are all left over from the war."

"That's terrible!" Kiera said. She looked out at the men going about their business. They seemed happy.

"It's obviously very unethical. Reyndell was very cruel. He even turned his own children into thralls."

"Like the Bloodraker," Lucia said. "My grandma always told me that she would leave me outside for the Bloodraker if I didn't eat my vegetables. I was terrified of the Bloodraker until my mother informed me that the Elder Saint killed the creature centuries ago."

Kiera glanced uneasily at Fiona. The witch simply shook her head in a subtle way. "I have no idea where the scary stories came from," she said.

"What I don't understand is why?" Sasha said. "Why did the Charlatan King make so many thralls? Are they that much better than regular servants? I happen to like my servants. If I'm having a bad day and I want to blow off some steam, I can always assert my dominance to make myself feel better."

"There is a reason they called him the Charlatan King," Fiona replied. "You see, when the witchstone was first discovered, it was moving toward its perihelion and people were frightened. Nobody knew what to do about it. Renna wanted to exterminate the male half of the population every time the witchstone got close."

"A pragmatic woman," Sasha said.

"Reyndell was the more powerful witch," Fiona continued. "Obviously he didn't like the idea, and the two witches fought each other bitterly for decades. Reyndell wanted to turn everyone into thralls, not just witches. In his vision of the world, all males would become thralls, while the entire female half of the population would remain at his disposal to create new offspring."

"The oldest of male fantasies," Sasha observed.

"Either way, when Reyndell died, most of the thralls grew old and died. The witches that had been transformed into thralls lingered, using their power to remain young forever, and therefore fulfill their tasks forever."

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"What happens," Kiera began, "when a thrall is given a focus that directly contradicts their innermost beliefs?"

"Such a subtle question," Fiona said with a grin. "The soul cannot suffer inner contradictions. A cruel fate awaits such people. A life of eternal shame and self-loathing. Isolation."

"Is it possible to heal a thrall?" Kiera asked hopefully.

"Reyndell did not seem to think so."

They came upon a set of gently-sloping stairs leading to an ancient stone building. It shared strong similarities with the two banks she had encountered in her life, the first being in Cloudsea and the second being in Grael Nydia. The oculomancers at the door were covering their eyes.

"Fiona!" one of the oculomancers snapped. "Why did you bring her here?"

"I am taking her to the aura maiden to remove her aura," Fiona announced. "By the order of the Elder Saint, she is to become my apprentice."

The two women thankfully allowed them all to pass. Even the interior of the bank was similar to the one Kiera had visited in Grael Nydia. The rugs on the floor and the banners hanging from the ceiling were all white instead of blue. Instead of featuring the silver-white wolf of House Varelion, they instead featured the likeness of a winged reptile, sewn in purple thread. Two women stood in the center of the chamber, but only one of them was an oculomancer.

"There's our maiden," Fiona said.

"How do you know?" Kiera asked.

"I can see her aura," Fiona said. "Her aura is the size of a small country so she is kind of easy to keep track of."

"So why do we need her?"

"I'm not actually powerful enough to take your aura from you," Fiona said. "Or, more specifically, you are quite a bit stronger than me, so I actually cannot take an aura from you. You would need to transfer it to me, and there is no way I am waiting around for you to practice how to do that."

"I agree," Sasha said. "The faster we can get rid of that thing, the better. I feel naked without ethermancy."

"Wait!" Lucia said. "If she is stronger than you, then how the hell did you give her the aura in the first place?"

"I gave it to her in the few weeks between when we discovered that she was transforming into a witch, and when she actually did transform into a witch. Now, be silent."

As they approached the two women in the center of the room, Kiera saw that same horrified look in the eyes of the oculomancer. "Fiona, have you gone mad?" the woman asked.

"I am not going to repeat myself to every gawking imbecile ," Fiona replied. "I want you to remove her aura."

"This creature? Are you sure you want to remove that aura? It seems to be helping keep her contained."

"Yes," Fiona said. "The Elder Saint knows all about her. I have been given total freedom with this one. So stop asking questions and get on with it."

"How do we know she won't just kill both of us after we remove it?"

"Just ask her," Fiona snapped. "Or have you forgotten that you are an oculomancer?"

The oculomancer looked trapped for a moment, unable to muster a response. "Fine," she finally said. "Heritor Kiera, if I remove your aura, then do you intend to cause us harm?"

"Of course not!" Kiera said. "I'm a healer. I would never want to harm anyone ever."

"Do you intend to steal the spirit-ether from this aura maiden if we remove your aura?"

"I don't know what that means," Kiera admitted. "But to answer your question, no. I do not intend to do anything like that. If you happen to need healing, then I would be happy to provide it. Otherwise, I do not have any specific intent."

"See?" Fiona said. "Just do as I have asked."

"There is enough spirit-ether in her aura to reach the eighty-first harmonic," the oculomancer said, pointing to Kiera. "The spirit-ether is organized into a standard spherical aura. Maiden, you are now going to blank out and remove all spirit-ether from this individual. You are to store this spirit-ether."

"I store spirit-ether," the maiden announced in a voice devoid of emotion. She placed her hand on Kiera's chest.

"Hey!" Kiera protested. This woman is a thrall!

"Relax," Fiona commanded. "Let her do her job."

After a few moments Kiera suddenly felt an enormous weight crushing down on her from all directions, like she had swam down into very deep water. She fell to one knee and gasped. "Fiona?" she asked. "What is happening to me?"

"You are probably feeling dream-ether for the first time," Fiona said. "You will get used to it after a few days. Just sleep on it. Oh, and do not reach out and try to claim it."

Kiera was struggling not to fall on her face from the weight of the stuff.

"Off we go ladies," Fiona said. She turned and marched away. Kiera staggered drunkenly through the bank in an attempt to keep up.

Sasha was positively beaming. "I can feel ether again!" she said happily. "Lucia, can you feel it?"

"I can!" Lucia agreed.

"Are you girls going to head back to Nydia and prepare for that little war of yours?" Fiona asked.

"Actually I think I would like to spend a few days here," Sasha said. "Maybe explore the spire for a little bit. Is that alright?"

"Certainly," Fiona said. "I'll arrange to have a suite allocated for you two. Also, there is a nice cavern on the south side of the spire where you can find an indoor saltwater pool with a sandy beach. I highly recommend it."

"I wouldn't mind going to the beach," Lucia said.

"Naked?" Kiera asked dryly.

"Of course naked!" Sasha said. "You will join us too, won't you Kiera?"