Tala and Kedva stood outside of Kit, waiting for Kedva to drain fully of magical power.

Even after their rather slow walk back to Kit’s door, it took another long minute before they were both satisfied.

Finally, Kedva nodded, and Tala’s threefold vision confirmed her drained state.

Kedva was mundane again.

They ran through the tests, recording the baseline for her. That way they could see if her improvement was linear, multiplicative, or some other manner of enhancement.

As to the results, they showed that Kedva was fit enough, but not exceptional in any regard.

Even so, Tala could see hints at the girl's natural magical pathways, which Tala had forged on her behalf.

They were there, ready to be filled.

Kedva grimaced, sucking on the needle prick on her finger. “This isn’t healing at all.”

“Yeah. It’s rusting terrible to be without magic after you’ve had it.”

The younger woman gave Tala a long look. “You’ve just become my drug dealer, haven’t you?”

Tala barked a single, loud laugh, before covering her mouth. “You know… that is true, from a certain point of view.”

Kedva grinned in return. “There is a bit more truth in it than I’d prefer, yeah. Even so, I know it’s not exactly right.”

Kit’s door closed, and Tala put on a mock stern face. “No fix for you today.”

Kedva’s eyebrow twitched.

Tala chuckled, and Kit’s door reopened. “I’m just joking. You’re hooked, go right in.”

The girl hesitated for just a moment before breathing out and shaking her head, giving a wry smile. Then, she stepped through, and Tala watched the process.

It was like a physical impact, and Kedva staggered.

Tala watched power rush into Kedva, and felt her own gate gain a bit greater draw through it.

With an afterthought, Tala created a void-channel to relieve the strain.

A moment later it leveled out.

Regardless, it hadn’t taken much. After all, Kedva couldn’t actually hold that much power.

The girl glanced back to Tala and smiled. “All fixed up. I’ll go get some work done.”

Tala huffed a single laugh. “Enjoy.”

The material from the cell that Kit had subsumed had been unloaded in the Alefast Archon Compound, where it was being itemized.

Tala and her unit would each receive a small cut of the proceeds, once the value was properly calculated.

Even so, Tala was most happy about the extra dimensionality that she’d gained.

It had been a rather roomy cell, and Tala had been a bit afraid that adding that on would dilute the power within Kit.

Well, to be fair, she hadn’t actually considered that until after the fact, then she’d been afraid until she’d checked in with Master Simon.

As it turned out, when adding the cell’s dimensionality to Kit, the resonance with her soul caused the new space to mirror her current sanctum’s saturation and composition.

On the material side, the atmospheric composition of the cell altered to perfectly match that found within her sanctum.

On the magical side, the power levels stabilized to match.

At that time, it had been a bit lower than completely full, leaving Tala with a much larger space to refill.

Thankfully, it had only been a marginal percentage lower than the current maximum, but Master Simon still estimated that it would take a few months to top off the sanctum now, assuming that Tala’s own magical density didn’t continue to increase.

As her own increased, the level to which Kit could be filled increased, and her ability to fill the sanctum was vastly below the rate at which her own density was expanding, as slow as that was.

As a result, Tala was planning on using void-channels to accelerate the filling when she was feeling better.

The small pulse that she’d used in order to replace Kedva’s power draw was little enough that Tala had felt it was fine.

But this was rather irrelevant to her for the moment. After all, she had a lot to do.

She was meeting up with Master Tai in just a few hours, and she wanted to check on Rane before then.

It was a rather quick trip through the city to the Gredial compound, and she only had to engage with a few people who recognized her along the way. Only one recognition was a boon to her speed, as the guards recognized Tala at the gates to the Gredial compound and waved her inside. From there, she made her way to the main house and up through the floors and winding hallways to reach Rane’s room.

She knocked, and Rane responded almost immediately. “Come. I’m decent.”

He sounded better today. She pushed open the door, already smiling. “Hey, Rane. Only ‘decent,’ eh? Well, I suppose that’s better than you have been on some days.”

“Tala?” He smiled her way. “Come in, come in.”

He was sitting in a chair beside a large window. In front of him was a small table with a chair opposite.

As she came in, he cleared some dishes from the surface, setting them on a tray to one side before pulling out a tafl board. “Do you have time?”

Her smile grew. “Sure.”

“I’ll call us some food for the game.”

She sat and chatted with him as they played.

Food arrived shortly thereafter, and she dug in with abandon while the game and talking continued.

It had been a week since Rane’s first session, and he seemed to be mostly back to his old self.

Even so, there was a haunted quality to his eyes and his actions were still a bit more hesitant.

He also was a bit slower to laugh, and he didn’t meet her gaze quite as readily.

To her knowledge, he hadn’t done any form of exercise or training in the past week either, which was understandable, but also one of the greatest departures from his usual behavior.

Still, it did make sense. He’d just gone through something rather traumatic.

I’m glad that he’s already familiar with Master Nadro. It’s probably worth mentioning him even so, when the opportunity presents itself.

She won their game of tafl rather handily, showing that Rane wasn’t fully mentally recovered yet.

Tala was used to their games being a much harder fought result, and she usually lost as often as she won when they were both at their best.

Rane obviously knew that he’d not given her that challenging of a game. “I’m sorry, Tala.”

She shrugged. “It’s fine. I didn’t really come for the game.”

“I know, but I still hoped to do better than…”—he gestured at the board—“well, better than that.”

She grinned. “It was a little disappointing, but it’s fine. We got to talk.”

“Ahh, yes, you got to hear about my riveting time last night.” He gave her a long look. “Are you going to tell me what happened to you, yet? I know that it happened at a cell, and you’ve been eating like you’re refilling your reserves.”

She waved him off snatching another pastry from the nearby plate. “You don’t need anything added to your plate.”

He huffed a laugh. “Well, after you ate all that they brought, I sort of do?”

She looked at the serving tray and noticed that there was only one left. “How many were there?”

“Probably a dozen or so.”

“Ahh… fair, I suppose.”

“Regardless, Tala, what I don’t need is to be worrying about my friend without knowing what’s going on. I know it has to be serious if you're off-duty for the time being.”

She gave him a long look, then nodded. “Alright. A murder-eye—a resident of the Doman-Imithe which may be the remnant of a broken Sovereign—decided to try and take a bite out of me, or something like that. I objected, but my defenses backfired, cutting me in half on an existential level.” Tala shrugged. “Mistress Vanga helped me heal, supplying my magics with resources that I lacked because I was cut in half, losing most of my reserves. Unfortunately, she couldn’t directly refill my reserves once more. Beside that, I am simply trying to reacquaint my existence with having a lower half again.”

Stolen novel; please report.

Rane rocked backward, “Rust, Tala. You can’t tell me something like that. Don’t you know that I’m still recovering, here?”

Tala felt herself twitch in confusion.

Then, he chuckled. “Yeah, I was trying to lighten the mood… Not the greatest attempt.”

She huffed, shaking her head. “Yeah, not the greatest.”

“So… is that actually what happened?”

“In summary? Yes.”

He shook his head. “Well, you certainly know how to find new and dangerous things, don’t you?”

“Yeah, this was supposedly a safe cell, too.”

He grunted at that. “It’s always when you feel the safest…”

His eyes flicked to her, then down to the table in front of him.

She saw him hunch in on himself a bit.

Tala leaned forward, reaching one hand forward. “I am incredibly sorry that I couldn’t warn you.”

He waved off her concerns but still took her hand and squeezed it, “Thank you, but I understand the need. I’ll do the same when I know someone who is about to Refine.” He shuddered. “It still was awful.”

“You aren’t wrong.”

They sat for a moment, just enjoying the silence of each other’s company.

After a long moment, Tala remembered her upcoming appointment, letting go of his hand and leaning back. “Oh! I met a fun Mage Hunter today. He tried to capture Kedva because he thought that she was an arcane.”

Rane blinked at Tala a few times. “What now?”

“Well, it’s sort of understandable if you’ve never seen an arcane, but he really should have checked city records first… though, in the case of a real arcane, that would be a foolish delay to say the least. All in all, he probably did the best that he could have. He even kept things nonlethal which is especially impressive. No one was hurt, and he uses void and kinetic magic, so I’m going to meet up with him to see if I can pick up some insights.”

His eyes narrowed. “He?”

Tala blinked a few times, trying to understand the question.

Before she responded, Rane’s expression changed once again. He grinned widely and chuckled, “Nevermind. I was mainly joking. That sounds like quite the encounter.”

“It was, yeah.”

-He was faking jealousy, Tala.-

Oh… yeah, I’m going to ignore that.

-Sure, that policy can’t possibly backfire.-

“So, void and kinetic?”

Tala smiled and dove into the retelling.

Rane asked some clarifying questions, but mostly listened, as she used the story to also update him on how Kedva’s progress was coming and related things like that.

When she got to the end, they lapsed back into silence for a brief moment.

Then, Rane nodded as if to himself, “Apprentice.”

“What?”

“She should be ‘Apprentice Kedva,’ until she masters her ability to the point that calling her ‘Mistress’ doesn’t oversell her abilities.” He gave a mischievous grin. “Or you could call her ‘Daughter’ Kedva, and really lean into the ‘rebirth’ aspect.”

Tala scrunched her face. “Yeah… Let’s go with ‘Apprentice.’ I suppose that ‘Master’ Nadro set the precedent for what capable gateless should be called.”

“Yeah. Let’s not mess with him.”

She smiled. “I can see it now, ‘Tala, let’s discuss why you felt the need to distance yourself from the established human nomenclature? What is it about the established terms that made you wish to avoid them?’”

Rane chuckled. “Would he really?”

“...No. He’d probably just smile and say something like, ‘Fascinating. Are you willing to tell me more?’”

They both grinned at that.

“I should get going, though.” Tala sighed, pushing herself to stand.

Rane frowned, seeming to consider.

“Rane? Is everything okay?”

“Well, the Healers advised that I should get out more, but I haven’t managed to actually do it.” He sighed. “I’m struggling a bit, and I know I shouldn’t be. I feel like I’m… I feel like I’m lesser after the first session.”

She nodded. “It’s an awful feeling. I had a lot of help. Lyn was there for me, even when she didn’t know exactly what I was going through. It’s perfectly normal to get assistance through this.” After a moment she smiled. “You could speak with Master Nadro. He helped me a lot too.”

“That could be good, yeah.”

“But Rane?”

“Yeah?” He looked up with obviously fragile hope.

“It will pass.”

“Really?” He gave a weak smile.

She smiled reassuringly in response. “Yes. It will. This is like picking up a heavier sword and feeling incompetent because it’s harder to wield.”

He smiled at that. “Yeah, Master Grediv would switch out my training swords and not tell me. As an early teen, I didn’t understand well enough to tell the difference until later. I just felt like I wasn’t learning well.”

“That’s… kind of awful?”

Rane shook his head. “Yes and no. He wasn’t malicious about it, and he continually encouraged me to improve. The end results speak for themselves.” He grinned roguishly. “If I do say so myself.”

Tala laughed. “So, no longer just decent, eh?”

He shrugged, not otherwise responding.

“Well, I suppose so. Your skill with a sword is superb. Now that you’re closer to Refined, your magic will be catching up as well.” She hesitated for a moment. “Do you want to come with me? To see if you can pick up anything from Master Tai?”

“Ahh, so he does have a name.” Rane winked. “You know what? I think I’d like that. Thank you for the invitation.”

Tala offered him a hand to help him up. “Let’s go.”

As they walked through the city toward her meeting place with Master Tai—which was just Artia’s shop so they could go into Kit—Tala found herself analyzing Rane with her threefold sight.

There was an odd quality, that she could only interpret as him being cleaner or clearer than before… somehow. It was as if she’d been looking at him through a dirty window for years, and now someone had taken one good swipe across it.

The window was still filthy, but it was cleaner. Even so, somehow it almost looked dirtier in some ways because of the change.

This analogy is getting away from me.

-Yeah…-

Regardless, he seemed to be slowly adjusting to the difference, even as esoteric as that difference was.

He still moved more slowly and deliberately than he had before, but it wasn’t quite as noticeable as a week earlier.

Rane broke their companionable silence as they walked, “So, we never finished discussing the crazy ‘doomsday’ vault you discovered in that cell.”

Tala nodded. “Yeah, it was really odd. Initial tallies show that it had a significant amount of wealth. The way the city cycle is lining up, we’ll have two new cities added over the next hundred years or so, and these resources will actually help make that process smoother and less taxing than usual.”

Rane grunted. “That’s good. So… why do you seem troubled?”

She sighed. “Well, they put so much wealth and value into a cell and just… sent it off into the future.”

“It was kind of them. Incredibly altruistic.”

“It was, but…” She shook her head. “I don’t understand the mindset.”

“The altruism?”

“No.” She chuckled. “What were they so afraid of? They clearly had spare resources, or they couldn’t or wouldn’t have been able to sequester all that they did. But they also seemed to think that resources would be useful in the future, so, where did they come from? Were they just laying around unused?”

“That confusion makes sense, yeah. I suppose they could have taken it from others when it was needed by them, though?”

“I hope not. But, that’s what I’m thinking. Did they hurt their own chances to send the materials into the distant future?”

“They clearly did alright, regardless.”

“Well, yeah, that’s the other issue. What if they had used their resources to better their situation? Wouldn’t that have helped us be even better off, now?”

Rane nodded, his stride firming up as he turned his attention fully to their conversation. “That is the balance, I would guess. A society must invest in the future, and they must invest in the present. Without a future, the present hardly matters, and without a present, the future is empty. A crude example is that we can’t sacrifice a thousand people now to save one hundred in the future. We also can’t willfully sacrifice even one in the present for a chance that we might save uncounted in the future, not if we wish to remain moral.”

“What about murderers?”

“Stopping a murderer isn’t about a ‘chance’ of saving people in the future. It’s a sure thing. Even if that person wouldn’t kill again, letting it be known that murders aren’t punished will cause more to happen.”

“Well, I think we’re getting off of the point, but I also think I understand what you’re getting at. Still, if they had these resources to spare, why were they so concerned?”

He shrugged. “We may never know. Most such cells don’t make mention of what they feared.” He chuckled. “I suppose they assume that we future-folk will either already know, or their fear didn’t come to pass, so why burden us with the unfounded apoco-phobia from the past?”

“Apoco-phobia. Unreasonable fear of apocalypses?”

“Well, I do suppose it’s reasonable to fear apocalypses, so maybe an unreasonable fear that there will be an apocalypse in the near future?”

“That makes sense, I suppose.” She found herself frowning, however. “So, we can’t be so obsessed with the future that we sacrifice the present?”

Rane nodded. “I suppose that’s a reasonable thing to take from this.”

“Like Master Grediv and his wife.”

He hesitated, glancing her way. “Yeah. I suppose so.”

“From what he said, he was so upset with her for taking from their future, that he lost out on some of his ‘present’ with her. He also seems grateful that he didn’t let that ruin all the time that they had.”

“Yeah…” He sighed, his steps becoming slower, more considered once again. “Master Grediv came and saw me this morning.”

“Oh? How was that?”

Rane shrugged. “I’m pretty frustrated with him, even if I understand… even if I’d probably do the same.”

“Yeah…”

“But that’s not why I brought it up. He told me about reaching Paragon.”

“Oh?” That drew Tala’s full focus. “Care to share?”

Rane gave her a knowing smile. “He said that he took the final step when he fully accepted her mortality and loved her anyway.”

That felt like a punch to the gut for Tala. She remembered Master Grediv’s protectiveness of Rane, along with his harsh words outside of Rane’s room the evening after Rane’s first Refining session. Fear does strange things to us all. I wonder if he’s feeling echoes of what he felt with his wife.

-Yeah, I think that’s pretty clearly the case.-

I’d have expected a Paragon to be more level headed, especially around something that he had to come to terms with in order to advance.

-Even if you understand something and accept it, that doesn’t mean that you are happy to go through it again.-

…I hadn’t thought of it like that.

Rane huffed out a self-deprecating laugh. “I really don’t want to be your stepping-stone to Paragon, Tala.”

She tilted her head to one side, regarding him. “No offense, Rane, but you’d make an awful wife.”

He tripped, barely catching himself as his eyes went wide.

Tala suppressed her smile as she continued. “I’d be a worse husband, though, so I suppose we’re in similar boats.”

“Tala, that’s not what I meant. I—”

“I know, Rane.” She cut him off, giving a gentle smile. “Your mortality won’t be what propels me to Paragon. You won’t be stuck as a mortal, and even if you are, you’d still have a very long life ahead of you. You aren’t getting rid of me any time soon, regardless.”

He huffed another laugh, a smile growing on his lips this time. “Thank you.”

She nudged his upper arm with her shoulder. “Any time.”