The last three months had done wonders for my growth.

The Maw had thrust me into one long, tortuous cycle of brutal evolution, an awful crucible of blood and pain, bludgeoning me to evolve far beyond my prior means. And I had. I’d grown in strength and knowledge, more than I could’ve ever imagined possible.

But that strength had been raw, borne of a desperate struggle to survive. That knowledge had been unrefined, acquired split-second whilst knee-deep in the throes of mortal combat, shoved ungainly into whatsoever synaptic slots and neural mechanisms availed themselves at the moment. I’d needed time to breathe, time to relax, time to truly internalize, to understand what it was I’d come to know.

And, over the past few months, I’d finally had that time.

I’d had days, weeks, hours and hours and hours on end. To rest, to recuperate, to meditate in absolute solitude. And surely, and surprisingly quickly, my control had grown.

Blessings, at least Minor ones, steadily became more concrete, more tangible. Less eldritch creations of the incomprehensibly divine, and more abstract paintings. Works of magnificent art which, whilst still impossible for me to re-create from nothing at all, I now found myself able to…

Accent.

Somewhat.

A flourish here, a speckle there, a deeper or a lighter hue. My experiments began slowly, tentatively, petrified as I was to once more suffer such catastrophic failure as I had in the second Floor.

But with each passing day, my confidence surged.

Within the first month alone, I managed to evolve Fang into his subsequent form, and I only grew bolder still.

Now possessed of ample area inside my soul to train, practice, and experiment to my heart’s content, I crystallized my knowledge of Blood, adding a third Word to the growing list within my soul. Then, I turned my focus to the true challenge; evolving the first Shard I’d ever copied.

Long ago, within the comforting confines of the Dappled Mare, two of my then-Blessings had presented me with a particular option. An opportunity. A choice.

Haemokinetic Enhancement offered to teach me of the power secreted away within that most vital liqueur, how I might make use of blood spilt, or damage incurred, to augment my own abilities, injuries themselves only serving to make me stronger.

Prestidigitation, by contrast, offered not one speciality, but a gamut of them. It revealed to me how I might use energy alone to produce a myriad of effects; a gust of wind, a change in temperature, a shower of sparks.

And, together, in lieu of improving upon Draconic Blood’s current strengths, they showed me how I might change its very nature.

They offered to broaden it, to expand its possibilities, to elaborate upon its essence. The path they engineered did not lead to becoming a dragon, nor gaining brute strength, but rather, focused upon the properties and characteristics of my blood itself.

They whispered to me of how each element could be molded, of how everything from the sun’s light to my own flesh could be given form, and function, and direction, and purpose.

Needless to say, this was the path I’d chosen. And, with months of time for this alone, and little else, my work had steadily begun.

Crystallizing my knowledge of Blood had made Haemokinetic Enhancement ecstatic, skyrocketing my affinity to the saved Shard, and so it was the one I chose to merge first, into my no-longer-quite-so-Brute Blessing. With hands of iron and will of patterned steel, I carved biocrystalline crevices and bore dimensional bevels into the incongruous starstuff that made up the flesh and bones of my draconic Shard.

It was bitter work. Grueling.

It was a labor of inches, a task of hours and days and weeks whiled over even the smallest, most insignificant detail. I moved, and chiseled, and reforged based on not a hint of knowledge, but empathy alone, my deep, emotional connection to Draconic Blood serving as sole lighthouse in a sea of eldritch sounds and alien vistas.

A single Shard, even one so basic as this, was itself composed of countless layers, nigh-infinite interlocking parts, all shifting and warping and phasing in and out of one another. In order to make even the slightest, most insignificant change, I had to hold a number of these parts, these layers, in place, collapse their waveforms, condense them forcibly into one sole section of reality.

The larger the change, the larger the number of parts I had to control. And with each one, the complexity of my task increased exponentially.

If the effort, and concentration requisite to hold just one layer in place was akin to hopping up and down on one foot, then the next was to tap my head in a rhythm discordant to my hopping, and the next was to recite the Common alphabet backwards and forwards ceaselessly, and the next was to move through my sword forms with a single arm all the while and the next, and the next, and on, and on, until my mind was mush and my concentration broken and all I could do was begin again.

Thank the High Priest, at least, that this was a mere Minor Shard. If not, I wasn’t sure that I’d be capable of affecting it, at all. I didn’t have ADMINISTRATION here to help me, not this time.

I was all alone.

But bit by bit, inch by inch, layer by herculean layer, I did it. I peeled back dimensional crystal, pierced through ethereal shroud, gripped tight the fabric of what precisely I knew not, and drew it apart that I might see what lay beneath. And that I might modulate it, if only a fraction.

Carving the slots. Bridging the gaps. Forging new connections.

Slotting saved Shards into place.

Haemokinetic Enhancement inserted easily, eagerly, positively desperate to be of use, and Prestidigitation followed just about as quickly. To my abject shock, even the two proto-Shards I’d created qualified, and so I slotted Lesser Levitation and Sensory Perception in as well. And, as I did so, I had an epiphany.

I was doing it.

I was really doing it.

I was creating my own Gestalt.

What I attempted was no normal evolution. No, not at all. Just as, perhaps, the Warrior did, though doubtless in a far, far cruder manner, I was snapping different Shards together, forming a weblike network of disparate connections between crystalline affinities to create something new.

And it was…extraordinary.

It was the collective, cumulative joy of solving an intensely confounding puzzle, and composing a blissfully captivating refrain, and completing the last in a tendon-wrenching chain of sword strikes, all as one. And when that terminal part clicked in, when that final link etherealized, when what had once been isolated now was multitude, and more efficient, and synchronized, why…

Why, there was simply nothing like it.

With each new connection, I only wanted more.

I’d managed to collect a considerable number of Blessings from both the Delvers’ train and my subsequent time spent in Talos, and so immediately began searching for which of them I might add in, as well. Domain Telekinesis, a simple Shard which allowed one psychokinetic control over a small, scaling area, was the first, and easiest to add. The others, I fully intended to follow suit.

The others.

All others.

Yes.

Soon.

I sighed, and smiled, and took a moment to appreciate how far I’d come, to bask in the satisfaction of a job well done, of a future just a fraction more tightly-secured. We’d barely a week and a half left until we reached Old Europe and, for once, I really felt ready.

My smile dimmed slightly. Only one thing remained to bother me.

ADMINISTRATION, itself.

I looked upwards, far, far upwards, up through the hundreds of feet of volcanic shale, up past the hundreds more of towering volcano, up above the ever-raging, ever-seething stormclouds where my Mover Blessing meditated, up and up and up…

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

And I saw it.

Ever so high above the ground, the sky, above even the upper-atmospheric boundary where my saved Shards rested patiently. Beyond the last dregs of the mimicked atmosphere, bordering deep space, slowly revolving about the ocean at a sedate pace and visible to me only most recently, and only in the barest glimpses…I saw it.

An object, floating, stark against the sea of black.

A palace made of black and gold.

A divine Sovereign’s lofty abode.

I narrowed my eyes at it from afar. At last, I’d found ADMINISTRATION’s physical form.

I knew it without a whisper of doubt. I’d realized the moment I first caught sight of it. I’d long wondered where my primary Blessing took shape within my soul, and now I finally knew.

Knew, but couldn’t reach it.

I’d tried venturing into the space beyond before. Tried it back in the spacious lodgings of the Dappled Mare. I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t a matter of power, alone, either. The further I traveled, the weaker my connection to my Entropic sea became and, without Entropy to call upon, the weaker I became, as well.

As it was, I’d suffocate, or freeze, or decompress far before I reached the palace.

Blessings wouldn’t help me up there. It wasn’t as if I could simply create or locate one that increased my lung capacity, or prevented me from freezing, or allowed for locomotion through the void. After all, even Shards were useless without Entropy to fuel them. No, there must have been some other way to reach it.

Then again, perhaps there wasn’t.

Nowhere did it say, or had it been demonstrated, that my primary Blessing was compelled to play fair. Far from it. Sovereign was cruel, vindictive, and arrogant. One rule held it sway, one alone, and right now it was the only thing keeping my body my own

ADMINISTRATION hadn’t spoken to me since the Trial. Since it took advantage of my error, my momentary weakness, taking forcible command. Ever since then, it hadn’t said a word.

And that worried me.

Not that I wanted to speak or interact with it, particularly. Not that I wasn’t glad to be rid of its grating voice. The overwhelming songs of countless Blessed that used to plague me whilst in public were now no longer a concern, and I was grateful for that. I truly was. For all its gifts and powers, I hated ADMINISTRATION, and I’d just as soon be rid of it.

But this silence, it…troubled me.

My primary Blessing was no plotter. No planner. No subversive soul. But so much time to its own devices, with no way for me to monitor it externally…it couldn’t be a good thing.

I had to find some way to reach it.

Not today.

I lowered my eyes, let out the tense breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding, and returned to reality. Space shivered for a split second, the transition all but seamless by now, and then I was greeted by the very much material spray of a far vaster ocean than my own.

The hiss of crashing waves. The snap of rippling sails. The shouting of deckhands as they went about their work.

I heard it all.

I didn’t open my eyes. I furrowed them. I clenched my fists upon the railing, feeling the sun-baked wood buckle underneath my fingers. I focused on my many whirling emotions, bringing them to the forefront for once, feeding them, making them grow strong.

The frustration I felt at the impossible task set before me. The anxiety of entering a world I still didn’t understand. The pain that plagued me from a town I’d failed, a father that abandoned me, a mother I’d never see again. Seething frustration. Biting Pain. Suffocating doubt.

I bade them flow through me, and I through them, united in the song.

I grit my teeth.

And I let my soul sing.

Raw Entropy screamed outwards from my soul, thick and torrid and under my absolute control.

Pleasure receptors all across my brain lit up like a Solstice tree, bringing stinging tears to my eyes, tearing my breath from me as multiple Blessings activated in distinct, interconnected, tightly-regulated sequence, flaring semi-autonomously, shivering exultantly under the influence of my sovereign will.

Countless ethereal fingers of Domain Telekinesis, augmented by Prestidigitation, finely-articulated via a minutely-Accelerated, Sensory Perceptive mind permeated the space around my person in an awesome wave. A small subsection of them, less than ten percent, pierced their way into my tissue, hammering miniscule fractures into my bones and ripping micro-tears into my muscle fibers, the damage plenty small enough to be healed nigh-instantaneously by Draconic Blood, whilst still sufficiently activating Haemokinetic Enhancement, driving my strength, and control, and alertness, and euphoria to ever-more soaring heights.

Shards galvanized and Shards rectracted, dimming and fluorescing at breakneck speeds, sharing in my ecstasy to stretch their limbs and flex their muscles to the very limits of my ability. It wasn’t stopping. I could do this all day. I could do this forever.

Heal and break, break and heal, better and better, stronger and stronger.

I felt as a God unborn.

I opened my eyes, and could scarcely contain the power raging behind them. My sea had whipped itself into a frenzy, my burgeoning Gestalt howled with raucous joy.

I reached out with mighty ethereal palms, gripping the Pewter Gauntess’s oh-so-fragile-seeming confines tight, feeling each groaning plank and creaking timbre, and held it in my grasp.

I knew, down to my very soul, with an absolute certainty, that I could tear it apart.

I could unmake this vessel with a gesture, or a whisper. I could drag it down below. I could raise it up and fly us, all of us, the rest of our way in moments. It was the power I’d caught glimpse of so long ago, when I’d given myself fully to the song, let it run roughshod through my veins.

Except, it was fully realized, now.

The Entropy draw was miniscule. My Shards worked flawlessly in tandem. I could keep this up for hours.

I let out a low and keening moan, my Blessings lamenting alongside me, exhaled a shaky breath, and released.

My sea calmed.

My song relaxed. My many steadfast Shards spun gently down. The ship I stood upon let out a tense, groaning breath, and all was normal once again.

The ritual was over.

I did this every day, now.

Every day, at least once. A spin-up of my current most potent sequence, the highest mental load and heaviest Entropic draw I could presently stomach. Every day. That, when the time came to exercise it in practice, I might be ready. Every day.

And every day, I got better at it.

But, for today at least, I was done.

Done with practice, and done with retrospection.

So I sighed, intook one final, hearty breath of fresh and outside air, and shook my shoulders, and cracked my neck. And I plodded past the myriad cabin boys and sallow boatswains all darting this way, and that, all tending to the many needs and niceties of the Gauntess.

And I made my way below deck, to where my companions did reside.

I strode confidently down stairs and lithely passed by empty hammocks, the crews’ quarters deserted, for the most part, at this time of day. I interacted with them precious little, to be honest. Most were mundanes, after all, and thus demonstrated the disconcerting anxiety I’d now become accustomed to receiving from my no-longer-fellow man.

They acted as if I was a caged animal, a wild beast clothed in the habit of a gentleman, as if I might, at any moment, see fit to snap and devour them whole, or perhaps simply sentence them to a meaningless flogging.

I didn’t blame them.

I tried to avoid them as much as I possibly could, in the hopes such a policy of non-interaction might, at least, lessen the stress present in their lives.

Aside from the mundies, and the Gauntess’ captain, there were only two others present on the galleon, save for us. They were Blessed, most likely, but I didn’t know for sure, as I’d seen neither hide nor hair of them since our journey’s inception. And, if they weren’t eager to meet me, then neither was I to reciprocate.

I was more than happy to keep the company of friends, alone. And, of course, to train.

Finally, I happened upon the lodgings of my now far more agnostic companion. The muted murmur of muffled conversation emanated indistinctly from just the other side. Raising a knuckle to the thick, hardy doorframe, I paused, and sighed, but only for a moment, before rapping once, twice, upon the door. And, upon receiving invitation, swept it open.

To behold my two companions.

“–know, that he’ll–ah, Taiven!” Glare broke off discussion to glance my way, treating me to a mild, yet quite authentic smile.

His demeanor warmed me.

Though not nearly so sunny as when first we’d met, and much lacking in those put-upon airs and faux-gaudy pretenses he’d so freely prior exercised, it was improved considerably from the faithless nigh-nihilism that plagued him during our passage through the World Titan.

Months of respite and quiet contemplation had done the Immolator ample good, and though he’d not recapitulated (and perhaps, never would) that stalwart faith I’d seen before, the softer, more genuine disposition that replaced it made me all the more hopeful for his future.

“We were just talking about you, actually,” he explained, nodding lightly Alyss’s way. Who, by contrast, looked happier than I’d ever seen her before.

She was positively shining.

The time spent away from her family, and safe from Knossos’s wretched depths had seen a wonderful effect on the young Nycta heir, and now, as we drew further and further from her homeland with each passing day, her brilliance only grew.

Each time we spoke she was sharper, livelier, more energetic. Despite the many trials lain in wait for us overseas, Alyss seemed only energized. She and Caleb had almost switched roles in that, and now she shone ironically more lustrous than the Immolator sat beside her.

I smiled broadly at her. I couldn’t help it.

“Yes, we were discu–why, what’s all that about?” She asked, pointing quizzically at the smirk spread across my face, Caleb sharing in her confusion.

“Oh, nothing,” I readily replied, taking a seat on the rather graceless bedspread and nevertheless releasing a light, contented sigh. “Nothing at all. Just–”

I glanced between the both of them, staring curiously back at me. Here they were, all alone, two Aristocrats of the most exceptional pedigree, discussing nothing more than how best they might protect me. Little old me.

Fully intent on divining how we might, together, slay the literal, actual Warrior.

I grinned, again.

“Just…uh, happy. I guess,” I shrugged, chuckling slightly. “Happy, mmm…to be here. I suppose.”

Caleb frowned at me perplexedly, still confused. Alyss raised her eyebrows.

“Oh,” she hummed. “Well. Well, then.” She scratched the back of her head.

“Um, where was I?” She asked.

“His Blessing,” Caleb prompted.

“Right. Your Blessing,” she exclaimed. “Yes, yes. Yes, we were just discussing…just discussing what might be done about it.”