Seeking something to occupy his mind, Lucas took the time to delve into his mana system while everyone else was busy with their own routines. He was eager to get back to opening up new pathways anyway. He hadn’t yet had the chance to test the more efficient technique the Skycloak had alerted him to because of the beast attack, and wanted to see just how much of an improvement it actually yielded.

Initially cautious after the Skycloak’s warning, he relaxed when he found his mana flowing as it should. His pathways were a little sore still, but he could endure that. He started slowing the mana around the smaller pathways in both his arms, forcing the excess to flow into the smaller channels, widening them with a satisfying ache. With that in place, he moved on to the next closed pathway in the sequence, hoping to get a few open this morning. It was a good diversion, requiring focus.

They set out not long after the meal, the party packing up their things with the ease of experience while Lucas watched, barely paying attention. The Skycloak had carried his sack here for him, and all his crap was still in there. The small camp was gone in seconds, the fire quenched, and they were on their way after a brief argument over Lucas’ state which he was forced to tune back in for. He ended up convincing them he could walk on his own, at least for a while, though that involved hiding how groggy he felt, like he’d just recovered from a fever.

He couldn’t stand the idea of someone carrying him. Way too embarrassing. He’d power through it, drawing on his mana for energy if need be.

Conversation was light as they set off down the hill and into the forest. It wasn’t dense enough to get turned around easily, but Jyn took the lead of the group with his wand out, a small blue flame flickering on its tip that pointed like a compass. It didn’t seem to point North, and Jyn just smiled when Lucas asked.

Seeing an opportunity to push himself, Lucas portioned out some of his mana for messing with the surrounding trees a bit, though the majority went toward opening pathways. He wasn’t doing anything fancy, more focused on forcing physical changes through on living plants at speed than anything else. Reinforcing the strength of plants as he’d done for the grass blades was quick enough, and shaping them with his mana was simple, but he wanted to improve his ability to transform them.

The mana of the plants gave mild resistance to his efforts as usual, and he got the impression they disliked the idea of rapid change. The trees were especially ponderous, branches growing only millimetres under his mana’s attention, and he supposed it made sense. Trees experienced time on a much wider frame than people, and their life was ever a slow one. Even their mana itself was in no rush to get anywhere.

Shaping leaves was easier, as they were more subject to change, growing in the spring and summer, wilting in the autumn, and falling by winter. It still took mana, but not anywhere near as much as what growing a tree trunk would probably require. And the more he transformed a plant, the more pliant it became, as if getting used to the idea of change.

Living beings had ways they were supposed to be that were coded into their very mana, Lucas theorised, and the further one diverted from that path, the harder and/or more costly the change was to make. Changing something was an act of fundamentally editing its mana’s conception of what it was supposed to be and how it should behave, hence why it became less taxing after the first time a deviation was successful.

Lucas frowned as the thoughts passed through his head. This felt way too smart for him, making connections easier than he was used to, logical leaps appearing in his mind as if placed there. It was a little freaky. And more than a little awesome, when he allowed himself to be positive about things. Whatever the source, it felt good to expand his understanding of his magic.

He couldn’t spend too much time on any one individual plant as they were on the move, Jyn guiding them at a decent pace, but before long Lucas was able to witness his modifications with his own eyes, green leaves transitioning to orange then red in a handful of seconds. He left a spattering of red leaves slashing through the forest in his wake, and had a thought. It probably wasn’t a good idea to leave such an obvious sign of their passage, but he hardly thought the party was going to let him turn back and revert the changes he’d made.

Instead, he delved into the rudimentary mana networks of the leaves, paying close attention to what was happening as he made changes. His modifications weren’t transmutation or anything like that; in this case, he was merely working with what the plants already knew how to do, speeding up the process. Reversing it was just as simple, if a smidge more costly, and he watched how the mana shifted, activating tiny signals in the plants that presumably corresponded to the physical changes he desired.

Lucas was struck by a wave of inspiration, and decided to ride it. He’d had the idea back on the hilltop before the battle that he could potentially leave orders in plants once they were outside of his range, and he figured now was as good a time as any to try it.

Picking out a single leaf at the forward edge of his current range, he set it to turning as red as it could get. With his mana concentrated on one leaf, its colour bled away and it shrunk to half its size in just a handful of seconds as if it had long been denied sunlight, and it was easy to pick out among its verdant brethren. Now came the tricky part, and he wasn’t sure if it would work.

He shaped a trickle of his mana into the form that would command the leaf to change back to green, and then held it. It was an uncomfortable thing, to halt the flow of mana. Unnatural. He wasn’t sure how it would feel if he did it inside his own body, but it probably wouldn’t be pleasant.

The mana he’d shaped existed as a faint second layer over the leaf’s own mana, acting like a guide, an outline. He eyed the leaf as he passed beneath it, and kept watching over his shoulder all the way until it exited his range behind him.

For a moment, nothing happened, and Lucas was prepared to try a new tack. But then, as if reversing time through the seasons, its colour started lightening, from autumn orange to sunny yellow, all the way to full green. Its size changed too, which was probably down to some scientific process Lucas was unfamiliar with. He’d have to read up on it, if there was any kind of study on it in this world.

Lucas smiled to himself, feeling rather accomplished. There was no greater mood-lifter than discovering a new trick to his magic.

He kept practising as they traversed the forest, seizing the opportunity while he had so much foliage around. The prospect of returning to the overgrown city was a constant source of dread gnawing at the back of his mind, and he wanted to push his floramancy as far as it could go before he got there. Whatever malicious mana mind was infesting the plants would find him a much more dangerous opponent.

The sun progressed across the sky into afternoon, changing the angles of the columns of golden light spearing down through the canopy. It was overall a pleasant walk, all things considered, the spongy moss soft and the roots running through the ground not too hazardous for his feet—he’d have to get some better footwear than the crappy sock-boot-things he’d woven. An abundance of plant life made for good test subjects, and he was working on trying to find a way to combine elements of different plants without the connecting mana in the overgrown city to guide him when he noticed the abandoned shack.

The group had been quiet, following behind Jyn with his fire compass spell. Wick was always close to the wizard, watchful, ready to do his job as a shieldmaster. Rena stalked behind the two, bow in one hand, her keen eyes trained on their surroundings—she’d noticed Lucas’ experiments and given him a wry smile, but hadn’t commented. The Skycloak seemed content to bring up the rear, standing apart from the party.

The forest wasn’t dense, the branches high up and the floor mostly free of bushes aside from a few bramble patches here and there, so it came as quite the surprise when, between one step and the next, there was abruptly a crude wooden building nestled in a clearing nearby. Its roof had long since rotted away, and its log walls were half collapsed in on themselves, but it was undoubtedly a man-made structure.

Lucas didn’t let any hope swell in his heart. He’d found too many abandoned structures to indulge in optimism. Sure enough, Jyn made a circle with his finger and thumb and held it up to his hood around where his eye would be. He stared for a moment, then declared no heat signatures were within.

“Adept enough to craft an illusion that’s lasted for who knows how long, but couldn’t build a bigger shelter than this?” Rena asked, head tilted to one side.

“No one can be good at everything,” Wick said.

“It’s unlikely to be an illusion,” Jyn said, frowning. He held up his wand, where his compass flame was flickering. “Or, at least, not a mental technique. I’ve never heard of oneiromancy lasting more than a few months, and this shack seems years gone.”

“What would you say it is then?” Lucas asked, intrigued, wondering if he could pick anything up from this magic.

Jyn tilted his head back, and Lucas followed his gaze. The canopy above seemed to be shrouded in shadow, like a black sheet had been draped over the treetops. There was still light getting through, but there were strange fractal distortions in the air, like floating panes of glass, and the sun was shining nowhere near as strongly as it should’ve been. Yet somehow there was no change in brightness in the clearing compared to outside the spell’s area of effect.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Lumomancy,” Jyn said, sounding unsure. “Light magic. A strange art. Rare. I couldn’t guess how this was accomplished.”

They spent a few minutes exploring the area, but there wasn’t much to see. The shack had evidently been abandoned, nothing of note left behind. They found disturbances in the ground where fences and paddocks had once been, the sections reclaimed by moss, and there was a pile of animal bones around the back. Inside the collapsed shack, Lucas found faded scratches next to little notches marked on some of the wooden posts making up the house’s frame, the notches getting higher up the wood as they progressed along, and Lucas realised after a lot of squinting that they were names. Three of them, at first. Then only two on a last log.

“Lila, Ven, and Hoss,” he read, struck by a mild bout of melancholy, wondering what kind of lives these kids had lived out in this forest. It was a small place for three children and, presumably, at least one adult. Even if the tallest scratch was barely to his navel. When he looked back, he found the others staring at him.

“What language is that?” Rena asked.

Lucas flushed, his eyes snapping back to the childish scrawls. The script was made up of blocky squares filled with sequences of dots, but he’d read it as easily as English without thinking. “I don’t know its name,” he said.

Thankfully, they took that as a good enough answer.

The Skycloak found a small, curved stone that had been hidden beneath a layer of moss, and spent some time clearing it up while the others watched on. There was more writing on its face, two lines of square characters, and the Skycloak looked at him expectantly.

Lucas cleared his throat. “It says, ‘Here lies Lila, our beautiful girl. Our heart is always with you, no matter how far you go.’”

At that, without a word to one another, the party started rummaging through their belongings. They each withdrew something clenched in their right fist, which they held to their heart for a moment as they bowed their heads. Then, one by one, they placed their objects down at set positions, drawing a line between their offering and the previous object to be laid. It formed three sides of a pentagon. The Skycloak had set down a pearly white gem, Rena a blunt arrowhead, Wick a dull brown coin, and Jyn a glass bead that glowed with inner firelight.

Lucas copied them, not knowing the significance of this ritual but not wanting to stand out for his unfamiliarity with the custom. There wasn’t much to offer in his sack, so instead he used his magic to fashion a thin twig into the vague shape of a heart without snapping it, then held it to his chest for a moment. Jamie roused, blinking blearily and yawning, but Lucas hushed him back to sleep. Lucas didn’t know if the others had said a silent prayer at this part, but he felt it was appropriate.

I hope you’ve found joy in whatever came next for you, Lila.

He laid the heart-shaped stick down at the final corner of the pentagon, drawing in the last two lines himself with his finger to surround the gravestone.

On a whim born from morbid curiosity, he switched the ‘channel’ of his mana sense for the first time since he’d escaped the overgrown city and let it seep down into the ground. The outline of a small form appeared in his mind’s eye. He spent a moment studying it, though it made him feel a little ill. There was no obvious sign of trauma or damage on the small form. No breakages in the bones. He allowed himself to believe that she’d died peacefully, of natural causes.

There was no more talk after that small impromptu ceremony, and they left the shack in a solemn mood. Part of Lucas wanted to study the light magic that had stopped them seeing the shack until they were right beside it, but he left it be. He liked the idea of that remnant of the people who lived there remaining for centuries, even after any other sign of them was lost to time. He had no idea if it’d last that long, but it was a comforting thought.

Lucas continued his mana experiments during the rest of their journey through the forest, focusing on leaving commands behind him. It was challenging and fascinating work; he had to delve into the genetic memory of the plants’ mana to get an idea of what they were naturally predisposed to doing, since it was much easier to coax them along paths they were spiritually familiar with. Getting them to behave unnaturally was a much harder task without his mana there to force the issue, and he hadn’t figured it out by the time the trees thinned and they emerged from the forest.

Another patchwork quilt of rolling fields stretched out ahead of them, long grass swaying in the wind and forming green-blue waves. Already familiar with the frustration of traversing long grass, Lucas reached out with his mana and took control of a few clumps in their way, commanding them to bend aside. The grass lazily parted, forming a path.

His floramancy had gone uncommented on in the forest, but, unfortunately, Rena seemed intrigued by his efforts, crouching by the flattened greenery. She contemplated it with a blank expression for a moment, then walked on a few paces, looking around at the narrow path he’d made. Just when Lucas thought she wasn’t going to comment on it, she glanced at him over her shoulder.

“I’m not sure I quite believed your story about slaying a beast with a stick until I saw your, ah, skill with my own eyes,” she said, looking him up and down like his body held great secrets—which it actually kind of did, he realised.

“It is unbelievable,” he admitted absently, unsure what else to say. Most of his awareness was still on his mana within and without, and he was kind of hoping she’d leave him alone so he could keep up his practice. Rena kept staring though, and he felt compelled to give a longer answer. “To tell the truth, I’m as surprised about it as you are. My ability with a stick… Let’s just say it didn’t come from combat training.”

“So how did you get so good with a stick, then? I’ve heard of kids stick fighting, but usually they move on to a sword if they have the knack for swinging things about.”

“It’s common for Wands to walk strange avenues,” the Skycloak said from behind Lucas. This was the first time he’d heard her speak since just after their meal this morning.

“Hitting things with a stick is far from the most unusual use of magic I’ve seen in my time,” Jyn said with the quiet tone of a man anticipating a headache. He shook his wand, and the blue flame flickered out. “I once met a man who specialised in the magic of fingernails and claws. I believe he called his art unguimancy.”

Rena shot a mock glare at Jyn’s back, then huffed. “Well yes, but that discipline, weird as it may be, wasn’t societally shunned like floramancy.”

“Superstition,” Jyn said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“She’s not wrong,” Wick said mildly, looking at something behind Lucas, presumably the Skycloak. “I remain surprised you haven’t had more objections, Swordmaiden.”

The group had come to a stop, and Lucas took a step to the side so he had everyone in view. Hopefully someone would explain why his magic was apparently offensive without him having to ask.

“That I possess an uncommon belief in one aspect of the Order’s creed does not mean I believe them all,” she said. She was scanning the fields ahead, eyes shrewd. “I tolerate a floramancer because we can make use of one. Besides, it is not illegal.”

“Pragmatic,” Jyn said with a note of approval.

“Hypocritical,” Rena said with the opposite.

“Admirable,” Wick said with a wide grin. “I’ve always thought the stigma around floramancy was nonsense, not least because they’re so rare! There’s a Dread General who wields dark fire, but do we shun pyromancers? No!’

Jyn glanced at him, lips thinned, but said nothing.

“There’s more to it than that, Wick,” Rena said.

“Is there? Ask a common man why he distrusts magical crops and he’ll tell the story of the Thorny Fields, I'd wager.”

“But that’s not the reason the Order mistrusts floramancy,” Rena said. She cocked her head like a bird, shooting a look at the Skycloak. “Surely a Skycloak who still awaits the arrival of Lucas Brown would hate floramancy more than any other?”

For the first time Lucas had seen, the Skycloak gave Rena her attention. “There are many reasons Pentaburgh fell, the corrupted plants just one among them. If I were to despise floramancers for their failure, I would have to condemn the geomancers for the walls falling, the biomancers for the plague spreading, the hydromancers for the water spoiling, and every other Wand whose duties went unfulfilled.”

“You’re deflecting,” Rena said. “None of those other disciplines have been cursed by a demon. None of the others still linger as a problem to this day. Floramancy is the very obstacle that prevents you believers from awaiting his arrival by the site of the summoning!”

Lucas’ eyes went wide. Cursed? “What do you mean cursed?”

“It’s nonsense,” Jyn said. “Floramancy was always a dangerous magic, just as all life-shaping disciplines are. Accidents happen. It’s not possible for an entire branch of magic to be corrupted by an outside force, not even by the Demon Lord himself. Magic comes from within. It’s personal.”

“Around fifty years ago, arguably the most important city in Mornlunn was overtaken by a murderous demon that lives in the mana of plants,” Rena said. “And ever since then, floramancers have brought with them similar calamity and disaster. Even if it’s not cursed, the practice of plant magic was condemned by the Order. By Lady Claire herself. There must have been a reason.” She glanced at Lucas. “You seem a decent sort, Ser Rian, and I don’t care one way or the other about your magic after the things I’ve seen Wandmasters do in my time. There are disciplines out there far worse than one that’s supposedly cursed, and I’ll be the last to heed an Order edict. I’m just curious how our Skycloak justifies it to herself.”

The Skycloak’s eyes were suddenly sharp as blades, fixed on Rena. One of her fists clenched, and for a moment Lucas felt a premonition, an instinct rising up and giving him warning. Something deadly gathered in the air, and he was sure violence was going to erupt at any moment. He tensed.

But then the Skycloak closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, they were once more placid as a still lake, tranquil as the moon. After a moment of calmly staring Rena down, she looked away, dismissing the Bowmaiden. “Let us continue,” she said. “We have much ground to cover.”

An awkward silence settled on the group as they moved on through Lucas’ path in the grass. Ahead, Rena looked shaken. Wick looked uncomfortable. Jyn looked back at his wand as if nothing had happened.

Lucas, meanwhile, was piecing things together, and not at all liking the picture that was forming.