“Any progress?”

The grim look on Alarion’s face as the young man stood and walked toward the nearby tents was answer enough.

It had been nine days. Nine days of grinding against a seemingly infinite plateau.

They had made progress in the first few days. Alarion had steadily improved when it came to keeping the flame lit. What had started with seconds became minutes, which became hours. So long as he held his concentration, Alarion was certain he could keep the flame lit indefinitely.

The problem was lighting it to begin with.

Pain was still the only method to draw out his magic. Try as he might, Alarion could not bridge the gap between sustaining his innate magic and calling it forth of his own volition. He couldn’t even hurt himself to provoke the same response, though not for lack of trying.

The best he’d been able to manage had been to ever so briefly flicker it into being, like striking a spark without ever truly lighting a flame.

So his days went. Hour after hour of raw impact and magical theory that blended together in the most unpleasant of ways. While he did not recall the worst of the abuse once each [Void Arena] collapsed, the general sense stuck with him. Magic lessons were tedious and painful, and Alarion wanted them to be over.

A few hours to eat and eight hours to rest were all the solace allotted to him. Time was precious, but even sleep did not come easily to him these nights. He twisted and turned. He fell into a half sleep filled with recriminations and ghosts.

Sad to see the genius child turn out to be somewhat of a dud.

She never lied about it.

I expected better.

Your fault.

Broken.

Protect your sisters, Alarion.

Alarion.

“-wake up.”

“Wha-?” The boy asked dumbly, as he rolled onto his side to see the indistinct shape of Sierra kneeling over him.

“You were screaming.” She gently removed her hand from his shoulder and leaned back onto her heels. “I am sorry.”

“No,” he shook his head as he pushed up to a sitting position beneath a heap of blankets. “I am sorry I woke you.”

“I was not sleeping.” Sierra confessed. Alarion squinted against the darkness and realized that she was fully dressed despite the late hour. “I could not. I was going to go for a walk.”

“Ah.”

“You should come with me.”

“It is late.” Alarion protested. “Or early.”

“Are you going to go right back to sleep? No? Then come with me.”

She did not wait for his response as she left the tent. The words were still an invitation, not an order, but they were spoken with such conviction that Alarion had no choice but to abide.

Sierra was waiting for him by the edge of the camp as he emerged from his tent some minutes later, still rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Where are we going?”

She gestured to a narrow break in the peaks that surrounded them. It was dark and jagged, not so much a path as a fracture in the valley’s side. “This leads further up. You will like it.”

Alarion was unconvinced.

They had to turn sideways to navigate the thinnest parts of the slim passage, but fortunately it opened up considerably after only a few minutes. The ground beneath his sandals was rocky and jagged, fraught with narrow ‘steps’ as they advanced further up the mountainside. At its worst it was something between an uphill hike and an actual climb, forcing Alarion to hold onto the stone walls for balance at they neared its end.

Then all at once it opened before them to the peak of the mountain. Of the island as a whole, actually.

Soft moss cushioned their footsteps as they reached their destination. Fifteen feet across, the mountaintop was green and comfortable, with no sharp edges in sight save for the spiked back of a single ‘seat’ of stone at the far end. The chair, or throne, had clearly been carved out of the stone peak by human hands in some bygone age, its seat and arms rounded off through use or natural erosion.

“I discovered this on our second night here.” Sierra explained. “Or, discovered maybe is not the right word. I am sure others knew it was here, but I found it all the same. I have been meaning to show you but…”

But you’ve been angry for days. But you’ve been failing your training. But I wanted to keep it to myself. Frustrated as he was, every iteration of her unspoken words was negative in his mind. Which of course, reflected on his face.

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“…I did not want to distract you,” Sierra finished after some thought. “And then I did not know how to ask.”

He looked to the sea, unwilling to meet her eyes. Lazy waves lapped at the shore so far below them that only a dull white noise reached his ears.

“I do understand, you know.”

Alarion gave a half glance over his shoulder, his expression grim.

“Not exactly the same,” Sierra quickly conceded with a hint of exasperation. “But the expectations. The pressure. I do understand.”

“You do not.” He answered flatly.

“Alarion. I am sixteen,” she stretched the word to draw his attention to it. “I was thirteen when I was inducted. Two years fighting fiends. Half a year serving Dar Elzmir, of all people? You think I do not understand pressure?”

Sullen silence was his only response.

“Our society is… paradoxical,” she continued when it was clear Alarion had nothing to say. “Every Vitrian is weighed down with obligation and ambition. We are taught to reach for power, skill and prestige above everything. We are also taught that we owe what we are to the Empire, that there is a duty for each of us that goes beyond simple induction. I wanted to be a musician. The best musician. But a high aptitude and a powerful family means that more is expected of me. I have to be an artillery mage. An equerry. When my induction is finished, I will be expected to work toward lobbying, or public office. A numbered seat, eventually.”

Her words had piqued Alarion’s interest and drawn his eyes away from the ocean, despite his foul mood.

“I can be all of those things, and still have my own ambition. I cast my magic through song. I set aside time to play as often as I can. I argue, scrap and steal to find time for my own goals, as well as what is expected of me. And that makes me worry about you.” Sierra’s eyes met his and held them firm. “Your obligation is plain to see, but what of your ambition? What do you want, Alarion?”

“I-” Alarion began on instinct, only to halt as he realized the answer was not on the tip of his tongue as he expected. He considered the question more thoroughly, then answered. “I want to be stronger.”

Sierra shook her head. “That is a means, Alarion. Not an end. You want to be stronger to do what?”

He scowled in that way a person only did when they knew they were wrong, but weren’t quite ready to admit it. “That is not enough?”

“Elena wants you to be stronger to protect her investment. ZEKE because your strength would reflect well on his teaching methods,” she explained. “Or because they have come to care about you, if I am being less cynical. Wanting to be strong, even if only to please them or to protect yourself is an obligation, not an aspiration. Put differently, in three years your induction will be finished. Then what do you want to do?”

Alarion opened his mouth once again to reply, then stopped. No answer was forthcoming, and even the ones that swam in his mind did not feel right. Perhaps he could find what remained of his family. If anything still remained. But would they even recognize him? Would they forgive him? If they did, then what? Would they just go home? To a home that was no longer there?

He could be adopted by Elena as she had hinted, but to what purpose? To be their weapon? Was he to be nothing more than some tool in a Vitrian political game? Intrinsically, he understood the difference between his goals and Sierra’s. She longed to make music not as a means at all, but as an end unto itself.

And that was something he lacked.

“It is alright not to know right now.” Sierra’s tone was gentle and reassuring as she took a seat on the stone carved chair. “Just… keep it in mind. This will pass. Your training, your induction. All of this will be gone in a few years, and you will still have a lifetime ahead of you to decide where and what you want to be.”

“You brought me up here to tell me that?”

She scoffed. “Mothers, no. It is far too early to plan ahead. Back in the hidden city, you said you had never heard music before.”

“Not since I was very little.”

“Path may have been a bit too… explosive for you to enjoy. Dawn is coming. Let me play something to clear your mind. Start the day off right. Kotone, my instrument, if you please.”

There was a soft pop as the bizarre creature appeared, just barely able to hold the oversized instrument. Its wings flapped desperately until Sierra took it, then it bobbed happily in the air. “Yes Miss! Yes Miss!”

Alarion eyed the instrument with mild concern. He’d seen first hand the destruction she could reap with it, especially in an area with compressed magic such as the Stone Isle. In the end he settled for a seat slightly off to her left, which drew a slight chuckle from the girl’s lips.

It was as out of the ‘line of fire’ as he could get.

“Nothing magical. I promise. Just me,” she said with a smile.

Sierra took her time preparing. She manipulated knobs on the top of the instrument, then stroked her bow across it and repeated the process over and over again until she was finally satisfied. Then she shouldered the cello and cleared space at her feet, adjusting her posture and seating until she was well and truly comfortable.

Only then did she begin to play.

The first melody started with a series of high notes that grew in intensity then dropped away to nothing. When she resumed, the tones were sorrowful, longing and distant. It made Alarion think of home, of Ashadi festivals and fall harvests. She played for close to half an hour, the vibration of her strings ringing in his ears, echoing off over the peaks beneath them and across the ocean below that.

Every so often he’d look up at Sierra, and every time he saw the same content expression. She was happy in a way he had never been. Each time, he felt a pang of envy, but it was hard to remain negative when faced with such positivity. Instead he sank into the music once again. He listened and lingered.

There was something in the vibration. A familiar feeling he could not put his finger on.

Her music picked up in intensity, and Alarion felt as though he could hear the intention behind it. It was an uplifting sensation, with lyrics to a song he did not know on the very tip of his tongue. She played with the same vibrancy and energy as she had when she dispatched the Soulless, but without the tones of anger and violence behind it.

And he felt that same vibration, stronger now. As close to his mind as the music was to his ears. An on and off.

A flickering.

On instinct, Alarion let his eyes fall shut and focused on the vibration of her strings and the skin on his back. He focused on pain that wasn’t there, and he pushed. And just as before, the magic in him leaped at his touch. It surged out, the same way it did unconsciously when he was struck, then dispersed in an instant when it found no threat to meet it. Too quick for him to grasp onto it. Too quick to hold it in place.

Sierra played on into a third number. This one full of long, lamenting, vibrating notes. He focused on that vibration, that on and off again and he pushed again. On and off. On and off. On and off.

Each time his magic sprung from him it lingered just a fraction of a moment longer, until it was no longer flickering in individual sparks but vibrating in the air around him as part of her music. The urge to snatch it, to concentrate and claim his victory filled Alarion, but instead he redoubled his efforts and focused on her music. She was nearing the end, and he wanted to hear how it finished.

Despite what she’d claimed, there was something magical in the air as dawn broke over the Stone Isle.