“Where are you from?” Cadell asked.

“Ermad, far western reaches,” Rhys answered. “How is that going━”

“It helps, trust me. I’ll be better capable of guiding you the more I know about you. Did you have a profession?”

“Blacksmithing.”

“Level?”

“Ready for remastery.”

“Impressive.”

Rhys raised an eyebrow. “Not really,” he said. “Plenty of people have already remastered by my age,” he said.

“Blacksmithing, I’ve heard, is harder to level,” Cadell said. “More to the craft than feeding chickens.”

“I doubt I had to work as hard as farmers to get by,” Rhys noted, frowning. This guy was really rubbing him the wrong way. What was it?

“Now you’ll have to work harder than them. What did you make in your forge?”

“Horseshoes,” Rhys sighed. “Couple of kitchen knives here and there. Nothing impressive.” Yet, but then my life blew up, he thought, momentarily thinking about his mom. Glass. He’d manage to go without thinking about her during training all morning, but the moment blacksmithing and home was coming up... He hoped he could write to her, but at the same time, knew that he needed to spend every second fulfilling his end of the bargain to the king.

Oh, that was why he didn’t like Cadell. These questions were in the way.

“You’ve probably gotten plenty of injuries in your forge, correct?” Cadell asked.

“Yeah. Burns and nicks,” Rhys said. “Can we get to the magicking part of this?”

“We are getting there,” Cadell snapped. “Mana is hard to use, and can be shaped in so many ways to create varying spells. You have to differentiate what you’re healing before it starts to feel automatic. In other words,” he pointed to his head, “you have to think. You have to connect to the mana. Moreover, you have to connect to what you want the mana to do.”

“Does it help that the dean already taught me [life flame]?” Rhys asked.

“Yes, perhaps. What did he have you envision?”

“My forge.”

“Specifics.”

Rhys huffed through his nose. “He walked me through feeling the heat of my forge, focusing on my hand,” he pointed to his palm. “Then the life flame just erupted.”

“It is a process of meditation,” Cadell nodded. “That is the easiest way to learn spells, but it won’t be the fastest when you need to quickly summon mana in the heat of battle. You can spare the time for [life flame], but not for [heal].” He leaned forward. “The method I’ll teach you, though it’ll take time, will help with immediacy. Now, tell me about your family.”

Running a hand through his hair, Rhys frowned, then leaned back in his seat and crossed his bare arms━the sleeves on his temporary uniform didn’t exactly fit. “It’s just me and my mom. She’s too sick to work, and all on her own now.”

“A shame, and a distraction,” Cadell reflected Rhys’ frown. “But that’s a start. Your sick mother, what would you give to heal her?”

“Everything,” Rhys said, raising his brow. “Could a luminar heal her?” he asked, never having considered that before. There simply weren’t any available luminars. Rather, they were all off at war, but... then not even the local doctors understood his mother’s ailment.

“Depends. We can venture down that path later. Focus on the desire in the meantime. Mana is responsive to emotion. Most of the time,” Cadell said. He reached over, and lightly touched the bruise on Rhys’ left cheek. “This is your focus. Here. Close your eyes.”

“What would it take to have a luminar look at my mother?” Rhys asked.

“Probably a letter from the king, time, money, someone to transport her or the luminar. Rhys, it probably won’t happen, not unless you can convince someone important enough to happen. Now, focus.”

“Could that person be the dean?”

Cadell released an exasperated sigh. “What is your mother sick with?” he asked.

“I don’t know, neither do the doctors. She coughs a lot, sometimes wheezes. Occasionally blood, and she’s weak, constantly. She’s been that way for years,” Rhys said.

“If the doctors are baffled by it, a luminar likely can’t do any better. Rhys, some things can’t be healed,” Cadell said. He slid up his left sleeve, revealing a stub. Sure enough, his hand was gone. “Healing has limitations. True, it can bypass many mortal limitations, but some ailments aren’t curable. Perhaps with more time and knowledge, a luminar can do something. Otherwise, the best thing you can do right now is focus before my patience wears thin.”

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Frowning, Rhys said, “Understood,” and closed his eyes.

“We’re not going to try healing yet. Instead, I want you to pull raw mana by thinking about your mother, your love for her. You have the power to help her.”

“But I don’t,” Rhys said, opening his eyes. “I can’t heal her. I don’t know if I can even pay for her to eat anymore!” He curled his hands into fists.

Cadell ran a hand down his face with a groan. “You’re a pain.”

“Says the pain,” Rhys shot back, Cadell rolling his eyes.

“Fine. What did it feel like to light [life flame]?” Cadell asked.

“Warmth.”

“That’s what it feels like when you summon mana. Warm, sometimes even sore, depending. Imagine it’s a muscle, one that you’ve never used before. Can you wiggle your ears?”

“What?”

“Can you wiggle your ears?”

What kind of question is this? Rhys thought, shaking his head.

Cadell wiggled his ears. Up. Down. Forward and back, even. What? “How did you do that?”

“Muscles,” Cadell said, placing a hand on his head. “There are muscles in your scalp that you’ve never used before. Mana is like this. My job is to teach you how to access your mana muscle, and then to cast spells with it. We first need to touch the mana. Close your eyes.”

Furrowing his brow, Rhys closed his eyes, somewhat hung up on the ear thing. He thought hard about how to wiggle his ears, even bringing a hand up to one of them just to see if he could do it. Nothing. If he couldn’t even wiggle his ears, how did Cadell think he’d touch his mana without the meditation the dean used?

“Think about your mother again. Even if you can’t heal her, you can comfort her. Does she smile when you spend time with her?”

“Yeah,” Rhys nodded, seeing his mother in her rocking chair. Despite her illness, she didn’t look old at all, and she wasn’t old, just tired. She knitted. He always thought of her knitting when she was in the chair, selling what she could when she could. Her works sold particularly well in the winter.

“Make the connection. You can share something with her. It’s inside you, waiting. Reach deep, and touch it.”

Uh, what? Rhys thought. He internally reached for... something? Nah, nope, that just left him making a constipated expression. There wasn’t anything there. “Yeah, that didn’t work.”

“I can see that. Or rather, I don’t see any mana,” Cadell said dryly. “Are you even trying?”

“Now you’re arguing.”

“Bah!”

Rhys opened his eyes. “So, meditation now?” he asked. “Or maybe a better explanation?”

Cadell huffed, then scooted his chair uncomfortably close. He jabbed Rhys in the center of his chest with a bony finger. “Your mana comes from here. This is your center. It’s theorized, since emotions are felt here, that that’s why they have such a big influence on mana. It’ll be easier to pull mana with a warm or hot emotion. Alternatively, meditation touches it as well. So, focus. Feel something, then imagine that feeling escaping you.”

“So you chose something like love?” Rhys asked, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s a safe emotion.”

“What about frustration?” Rhys asked. “Or anger? I got plenty to be glassing mad with right now, and you’re at the top of the list! Not to mention, my face,” he pointed at himself, “feels like it’s on fire!”

“Then fix it,” Cadell huffed.

Rhys sneered, a heat pouring through his form as he felt something burst from his chest. Violet strands danced over his form, reaching down his arms, then sparking off of him. Cadell backed away, toppling his chair in his rush. The sparks landed where he’d been, small flames erupting on the wooden floor, to which Rhys finally backed away.

“Glassit! Focus on those flames, Rhys. If you don’t put them out quickly, they’ll eat anything they touch,” Cadell said.

“Great, how do I...?” Oh glassit, Ignore Cadell, he told himself, frowning. He took a deep breath, imagining his forge, embers. Yes, he saw the final embers, going out after a long day of work, the cool breeze refreshing against his skin, and... the flames slowly shrank, easing away in response to the mental image. Then they went out, leaving a few small holes in the wooden floor.

“That was remarkably fast. I didn’t even have to walk you through anything,” Cadell said, raising his brow. “What did you do?”

“What the dean told me to do after I lit [death flame] for the first time,” Rhys said. “Meditation, you called it? But...” There was something more that time. Something just seemed to click. He could feel the heat, the mana, touch it like Cadell had said. When the flames went out, the heat died with it, though he didn’t feel as if he’d been actively feeding mana to the flames. More that they were still connected to him. A sixth sense, so to speak.

“I think I’m getting the hang of dark mana,” Rhys said, slowly sitting back down. Cadell did the same. Does light mana feel different? he wondered.

“So it seems. It’s possible one of your divinities comes to you easier than the other. Anything’s possible at this point, it seems.”

“Then I’ll figure out a way to heal my mother,” Rhys decided, somewhat surprised with himself. A seasoned luminar told him it was impossible, but remembering that he had two divinities made the impossible possible. That resolve tickled his chest, and he paused, focusing on that tickle. “How do I use an emotion to pull on mana?”

“Expression. Like crying, or smiling, but instead, it comes out in something else.”

“You literally make no sense.”

Cadell huffed. “Just release your emotion. You did it with [death flame] a moment ago,” he said. “Imagine if you could make your emotion tangible.”

Tangible, Rhys thought, brushing that tickle his chest. It moved, inching to his shoulders. Heal mom, he thought, feeling him stretch to grasp the elusive tickle, which slowly warmed. A different warmth, soft and gentle, and not nearly as volatile as dark mana. It was different. It was harder to access, and Rhys knew why━he didn’t identify with it. However, he wasn’t sure why he didn’t identify with an energy that to him, felt like protection, safety, and healing.

Because I failed, he realized, grimacing as the tickle vanished, the warmth getting squashed.

“Glass,” he said. “I get the feeling I’m not going to be healing today.”