Despite the dramatic moment, Gerhard didn’t leave right away, as he had to handle the constables and the restaurant owners. The sum he offered to avoid being held responsible for the damage and destruction of the small shop was more than enough to set the owners – who had fled the moment the battle began – up for life twice over, and the money he ‘donated’ to the city was even more absurd, well over ten million silver.

“An’ here I was thinking you were poor,” Salem said, wrapped in one of the blankets the emergency healers had given us.

“I am poor,” I said, then paused. “Well, I’ve got about two thousand silver, most of which comes from my scholarship. And compared to Gerhard’s donation of five million silver to the shop owners? Two thousand doesn’t seem like much now.”

“How?” Jackson asked. “You’re a Dreki. I don’t study geopolitics, but even I know the Dreki family is richer than sin. I heard a rumor that at adulthood, they’re gifted fifteen million silver!”

“Fifty, actually, but there are strings attached,” I said. “A lot of strings. And I didn’t reach adulthood as a Dreki. I ran away when I was ten.”

“Why? I kept your secret, I respect you don’t want to be a Dreki, but… Why?” Yushin asked, sounding oddly distant. “I know more about the Dreki family than most, and… You were celebrated. The rising star of the family. The one who shattered records for bloodline control, combat training, and investment management. Your mother loved you.”

Yushin was, technically speaking, mostly correct. I had done all of those things, and my mother had showered me with praise. But she hadn’t loved me.

Still, that wasn’t why I’d left.

“Have you been to the Dreki Island?” I asked. “The people are slaves in all but name. Kept in squalor and poverty. Debased of basic rights.”

Salem winced at that, touching his head.

“And our mother…”

I shook my head and closed my eyes. I could still remember the night I’d run away viscerally.

“When I was a child, most of the people we were exposed to were Dreki, or else important people children. Most. Not all. Because we had servants, and a lot of them. My siblings didn’t talk to them, but I did. When I was around six, I struck up a friendship with a servant’s daughter. My mother was always busy, only watching us at our competitions, and I always won those, but the tutors and a few of the older Dreki knew. They warned me to not befriend a peasant.”

“Oh no,” Salem said, as if he knew what was coming next. For all I knew, he did.

“When I was nine, my mother found out that her prodigal son – though I guess at the time I was called the prodigal daughter, but figuring that out was an entirely other conundrum… Anyways.”

“She was mad?” Jackson guessed.

“Not at first,” I said. “Plenty of my siblings collect humans as slaves, servants, a personalized harem, or any number of things. That’s what she thought I was doing. But I misunderstood. I thought my mother was fine with humans being our equals.”

I cringed at the memory of what came next.

“I said most of the island’s humans lived worse lives than the pigs she kept for food, and told her she must not have known, and now that she did, she could fix it. Mother thought that the servant and my friend were using me to try and stage a coup. She immolated them both in front of me, then made me… There’s no way to say it nicely. She made me assume my draconic form and eat the bodies.”

Jackson looked like he might vomit, and even Yushin, who had otherwise remained calm, looked disturbed.

“That night, I left,” I said. “I stayed in my draconic form and flew out over the ocean until I found a ship, then dove under the waters. I shifted back to human, and snuck aboard. After that, I started my life on the run, until I was in my early teens, when I got to White Sands. Remote, poor, with thin ether, and an entire region away from a city of over a hundred thousand. I settled down there, wandering from village to village.”

“Wait, okay, m’ sorry, but… draconic form?” Salem asked. “Are ya’ a dragon? Half dragon? Human with a lil bit of dragon blood?”

“Uh. Either the first or the second, depending on how you want to count it?” I said. “Actually, come to think of it, I’m not entirely sure. I might just be the first one.”

“How do ya’ not know?” Salem asked. “Did she never tell ya’?”

“Mother doesn’t tend to keep her consorts around very long, and often has children very, very quickly. She can lay about three or four children a year.”

“Is–”

“No, that’s not normal for most dragons,” I said. “Most can do one about every seven years. Not sure how mother manages it. I’d really rather not think about it, honestly? But yeah. Probably a half-dragon? Maybe a full dragon? Heck, for all I know, I might not even have a paternal half.”

“So which one is your true form?” Yushin asked. “Human or dragon?”

I glanced at her, pursing my lips. She should know the answer to that question. Was she acting, in order to pretend that she didn’t have a demonic bloodline?

“Both? Neither? They’re both equally ‘real’ for me. I’m not putting on a mask, I’m still just me,” I said. “But I much prefer my human one. It took a lot of effort to shape it to match me.”

I sniffed in irritation.

“By the way? The ideas that dragons can just freely shapeshift? Total nonsense. Well, not total nonsense, but it’s not just as simple as snapping your fingers, and it’s limited to just being able to take on a humanoid form. How human you can get depends on your skill with bloodline manipulation, and changing it is a slow process, something that takes years of methodical effort. I wish I could just shapeshift.”

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“For what it’s worth, I had no idea you were born a girl,” Jackson said, clasping a hand on my shoulder and smiling broadly. “You hid it well.”

I withered a bit on the inside when he said it that way. He didn’t mean it in a degrading or demeaning way, but it still didn’t feel great.

“You could try life enforcement,” Yushin said. “It can be used to strengthen a bloodline, or purge it entirely. And its advancement makes you closer to your true self.”

“I do not recommend it,” Shé Rui said as he picked his way through the broken furniture and glass to join us at the temporary medical station. “Each type of power that you take into your soul alters and intersects with all others, but the interactions are not all built the same. Life enforcement is a bad choice for you.”

“Why is that a bad thing? Wouldn’t empowering my bloodline be a good thing?” I asked curiously.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of my family, but I needed to grow my power if I wanted to beat Gerhard. The suffering life enforcement required would be worth my eventual freedom.

“Time,” Shé Rui said. “There is a reason that most pursue a single path to power. The ambitious might take two, perhaps three if they’re especially synergistic. But attempting to split your effort between life enforcement, training your bloodline, affinity training, and standard spellcraft? That is foolish, even if the synergy between life enforcement and bloodlines is well documented.”

He paused, then shook his head, apparently deciding he had more to say.

“Magyk favors the young. You have limited years to train. If you feel you absolutely must take a new system of magic into your soul, it must combine well with your spellcraft and bloodline, else your spirit will become unbalanced. If you do insist on this course, I recommend a static boost, rather than one that must be grown with its own pool. Certain sacrificial arts destroy the ability to form an energy pool to grant a boon of great, but static, power… Even then, be careful. Poor synergy is worse than none at all, and you already have two very disparate elements.”

I considered his words for a second, then nodded in agreement, but one thing was holding me back. I drummed my fingers on the table.

“You talked about synergies. I know there are spells that interact with bloodlines too. In my grimoire, there were a few extra spells. When I got it, I ignored them, because I didn’t think I’d be able to use my bloodline. I’d be keeping it wrapped in the enshroud spell, after all. But I can use one of them now. The third circle spell, bloodline spellcraft. There’s also a fourth circle one I might be able to manage before the battle, I don’t remember its name.”

I gave Yushin a quick glance, and she subtly nodded, causing me to feel like a prick. I had gotten so caught up in annoyance when I’d gotten my grimoire that I’d not even thought about Yushin being able to use it.

“What does it do?” Jackson asked curiously.

“No clue, I didn’t read through it,” I said. “But probably either converts my dragonfire to ether, or amplifies my fire spells with dragonfire?”

“Ah’ still cannae believe I’ve been sleepin’ in the same apartment as a bloody dragon,” Salem muttered under his breath. “An’ here I was thinkin’ I’d be the one freakin’ people out.”

“For what it is worth, I would rather face Gerhard again than face a fully trained psychic with a mind magic affinity,” Shé Rui said.

“Not exactly reassurin’,” Salem grumbled.

“One important question I have… Can I even realistically fight Gerhard with spellcraft?” I asked. “I’ve watched members of my family run through an entire river of arcane missiles, walk through fire, and punch through a wall of ice. There are spells to do a million or more different tasks, but in that flexibility, it loses power. Maybe I’d be better off just training my affinity and bloodline.”

“Absolutely,” Yushin said. “Magda, first among the Erudites, has killed many powerful beings, including the father of the Divine King, using nothing but spellcraft.”

“Yes, but that’s…”

I let out a frustrated sigh.

“I’ve seen graduates of the academy, fifth circle mages, lose a fight against Claire, who’s only two generations higher than Gerhard. She’s not that different in power.”

“Would you like to be let in on a secret of the powerful?” Shé Rui said, and everyone, including Yushin, leaned in. “I will exclude the Three-Corpse disease for this, but…”

He trailed off when everyone but Yushin looked confused.

“Ah, yes. Apologies, my Ceyish is not as good as it could be. You call it the Creep, I believe.”

“Ah, yeah,” Jackson said, nodding. “We learned about that in class.”

“Yes. Excluding those who fall victim to the… Creep… and thus compress their power through dark methods? Hmm. To use an example that will connect with each of you, take the Erudites. During their yearly contests, Magda, Fuyuko, and Henry have all swapped places between the top three. On rare occasions, Fuyuko or Henry has fallen to fourth. Yet none of the three has ever fallen below the rank of Fourth. Why? They are all ninth circle mages, are they not? Indeed, several of the lesser Erudites have powerful affinities, and ninth circle magic.”

“Do the top three all have absurdly massive ether pools or something?” I asked.

“No,” Yushin said. “Not notably, at least.”

“As you advance, the amount of power you have slowly becomes less consequential than the application of power,” Shé Rui said. “When you are a first circle spellcaster, the gap in power between you and a third circle caster is enormous. But a sixth circle mage defeating a seventh? A seventh defeating a ninth? Or in this case, a fourth circle mage who is also possessed of a powerful bloodline defeating Gerhard? It is possible.”

As I listened to Shé Rui, I wondered if this was part of what Applied Mage Combat had been trying to teach us about. Professor Alydia had defeated fourth circle mages with powerful affinities, all while restricting her power to first circle via nothing but the proper application of power.

“I’ve heard somethin’ similar from t’ Elder Fae ma’ worked for, but I was told to not worry ‘bout it till I was fifth circle,” Salem said. “Said somethin’ boutta glass a’ mediocre wine bein better than a drop of vintage.”

“Conventional wisdom says similar things among most power systems,” Shé Rui said. “I was told to not worry about compressing power until I had formed a perpetual core within myself. Many with bloodlines are not taught to compress them until they have a large quantity to work with. A poor quality sword is more deadly than a strong fingernail, but a mountain of mediocre swords is not more useful than a single, well-enchanted, spirit-awoken blade. Not when there is only one person using it.”

I narrowed my eyes. I’d said almost the exact same things to Yushin.

“Learning where, when, and how to apply the force of your spells and hit harder, more effectively?” Shé Rui said. “It is typically not bothered with among mages until and unless they take a post fighting demons in the wastes. But I insisted that Yushin take Applied Mage Combat, because that sort of lesson is important to her long term growth. The mages who your family has run exhibition matches against had not learned to master the shaping of their ether pools, to know when to pour more or less ether into a spell, or to focus and refine their spells for combat.”

“Are you saying Gerhard doesn’t know how to compress and apply his power?” I asked, somewhat incredulously. “If he didn’t, then surely you would have been able to beat him thoroughly, instead of only barely managing it.”

“He knows,” Shé Rui said. “My intent was to not say he does not. Merely illustrate that the power gap between a high circle mage and a powerful bloodline like Gerhard’s or Claire’s is not so wide as you seem to think. You cannot win easily. I am not confident you can win at all. The gulf is too great. Train, but do not let it overcome you. You need to rely on the last trick of the powerful.”

Everyone leaned in and Shé Rui smiled.

“Trickery. You are a wizard, but he thinks of you as a dragon. Use your magic to surprise him. Stab him from an angle he does not expect.”

“I see,” I said. I was quiet for a long moment after that, until Jackson clasped my shoulder.

“I believe in you.”

Surprisingly, that did make me feel a bit better.