The halls of the Order of Balance Temple were long and winding, and every ornate corridor seemed to have ten more branches, each with rooms that Vayra couldn’t identify. She followed close behind Gheita, trying her best to keep up and not get distracted by the sights.

After a few minutes of walking, they arrived at the training garden.

They ducked out the main doorway and stepped into the sunlight. Vayra shielded her eyes from Thronehome’s star; it was late afternoon now, and the yellow light filtered through the clouds, straight into her eyes.

The entire garden complex was a field of manicured grass, cordoned off into sections by a grid of hedges. At every corner, a large tree provided the training disciples shade, and fragrant flowers provided a calming scent to the area.

“Most disciples should have an elder with them,” Elder Gheita said. “I will set you loose here, so you may choose. While you are working, I will get your quarters prepared, and we’ll send Pels up to the Gray Council.”

Pels smirked at Vayra. “Perhaps I can convince them to give us a few extra members to help us out of the Harmony, yeah? Might just be jollies, but at least they’ll be able to fight. For when we get going again.”

“Might be a while,” Vayra said. “But it’s worth a shot.”

A boardwalk ran through the gardens, passing between every training cubicle. Vayra glanced around. Most of them were occupied by a disciple and an elder. It was easy to tell which was which; aside from being much older, the Elders wore their full Order attire, while most of the hard-working disciples had cast aside their coats and cravats and shirts. They swung their swords so fast that she couldn’t decide if it was the wind she heard, or if it was just metal through the air.

They told her to find a master, but what she wanted was a guide. Someone who knew her personally, and who could recommend the best teacher for her needs.

Of course, she kept the king’s words in the back of her mind, too.

‘Or, are you just looking for an excuse to meet…him?’ Phasoné asked.

Vayra tilted her head. “Him?” she tried.

‘Him,’ Phasoné asserted. Vayra could almost feel the Goddess tilting her head upwards, motioning to someone ahead of them.

Vayra blinked a few times, then narrowed her eyes. She kept walking. When she got closer, she could make out the features of the man in the training patch ahead more clearly. Everyone had white hair, but none of them had the same rigid jaw and kind eyes as Glade.

She approached his section of the garden, then leaned against the tree beside it and watched from behind. It didn’t look like he’d seen her approach.

He swung a longsword over and over, forming complex patterns of flowing silver. Every time he set a foot down, it carried force and purpose, and every slash seemed to successfully eliminate an enemy. She imagined him cutting through hordes of bluecoats, batting aside their bayonets and cutting through their coats.

‘Oh, look at those muscles, will you?’ Phasoné teased.

“Shut up,” Vayra whispered, keeping her voice as low as she could, so she didn’t disturb him. It didn’t stop her from blushing.

‘Well, you came all this way. Are you going to keep standing there, or are you going to actually say something?’

He was busy, and she could wait until he had a moment.

‘Oh, by the Streamfather, you’re hopeless…’

At the edge of the little cubicle, an elder watched Glade, holding a sheet of parchment. He was a human as well, but he was quite old. He tapped the sheet of parchment with a quill and made a few markings on the page. Every few seconds, he would say a word in another language, a word Vayra didn’t understand. Were they sword techniques?

Finally, after a half hour, Glade stopped. His chest barely heaved, but he wiped sweat off his brow. He turned to the side to face the elder, still not looking towards her yet.

For a few moments, he spoke with the elder, who congratulated him and patted him on the shoulder. With a faint smile, he sheathed the sword, then grabbed his tunic from the edge of the garden and put it on. As he began to wind his cumberbund around his waist, the elder told him, “I believe there is someone to see you, disciple.”

“Pardon?”

The elder tilted his head towards Vayra.

Glade turned towards her slowly, keeping his gaze low—she supposed it was formal, but she didn’t understand it. “I’m back,” she said, unsure how else to introduce herself. Jokingly, she added, “But I’ll find another mission to leave on if you keep up the formalities.”

His head snapped up as soon as she began to speak. “Vayra. It is a surprise to see you here.” He cleared his throat, then said, “I mean, hello!”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Good work, Mr. Charl,” said the elder, then bowed out. “I will leave you with the Mediator, unless she needs anything from me.”

“No, thank you,” Vayra told him. As soon as he marched away, she rushed forward and caught Glade in a hug. “Good to see you’re still here.”

“Where…where would I have gone? It has only been a month? Two?”

“Glad there’s a familiar face here, that’s all.” She released him, then stepped back. “I’ve been sent back here to train.”

“Please, I—”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you to train me again,” she told him softly. “I was hoping you would be willing to introduce me to some of the elders. Maybe, you could help those who you think would be best suited to deal with…you know, me.”

‘You mean your occasional stubborn-ness?’ Phasoné muttered.

Yes. That.

Before Glade could reply, Vayra added, “Of course, as long as you aren’t busy. I…must have scared off that other elder, or…”

“That was my last assessment for the day,” he said. “Everything within the Order is rated, you see? Our skills in certain areas, our meagre progress towards using our spirits, and so on. I am close to being one of the top rated disciples.” He pulled on his black coat and tied a cravat around his neck, then said, “It has earned me some leniency with my schedule, especially since Elder Miin is heading offworld.”

“Elder Miin?”

“They assigned me to him to complete my training,” Glade told her. She nodded. His old teacher, Elder Eman-Fa, had been killed a few months earlier.

After a brief stint of silence, Glade said, “In other words, yes. I would be honoured to introduce you to some of the other masters.”

Once he had fixed his uniform, turning it from a dusty, rumpled mess to a somewhat respectable-looking coat, he pointed down the boardwalk. “Most of the elders will be packing up for the day,” he said. “But if we can catch them before then, we stand a chance of introducing you.”

“Oh, and, Glade?”

“Yes?”

She bit her lip, unsure how to phrase her question. “I’d prefer it if I didn’t have to displace another disciple. That’d be…pretty damn awkward, and I’d just feel bad about it.”

‘Would you feel bad if you didn’t get the proper training and got defeated by Karmion the moment you encountered him? Dooming everyone in the galaxy?’

Vayra scowled. Well, no, she wouldn’t want that, either.

‘You’re really starting to limit our options…’

Glade began to walk along the path. As he travelled, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and said, “The good news for you is that most Elders can—and are willing—to take more than one student. You would not have to displace anyone.”

She felt a burst of sheepishness, which she pushed away and ignored. “Ah…that, uh, makes sense.”

For the rest of the afternoon, they wandered the gardens. Glade introduced her to many of the elders, and he personally suggested a few that he figured would be best at handling her abilities. Halfway through, she gathered a sheet of parchment and started scrawling their names down on it, so she didn’t forget the best candidates.

They stumbled across Elder Olrannd, who looked old but still quite spry. She talked to Vayra kindly, though she almost seemed too kind, and though her calloused hands looked like they had held a sword as long as they’d been attached to her wrist, she didn’t seem to have any immediate ideas on how to solve Vayra’s bottleneck.

Once they had briefly passed all of the elders in the garden, they headed back inside the temple. Vayra had inquired about Elder Yaryn, and so Glade took her through the hallways to the library, where Elder Yaryn supposedly spent most of his hours.

The library was an enormous hall on the opposite side of the gardens. Its walls were lined with bookshelves, which required a complex system of ledges and walkways to reach. In the center, a chandelier hung, illuminating the room with hundreds of candles. It was so high up that the dripping wax had never been cleaned properly, so it looked like an acorn-shaped stalactite.

Beneath the chandelier was a round desk, where the library’s attendants waited. Most of them read a book of some sort with the help of a lantern.

Vayra and Glade approached the desk. Glade gently rang a bell, then said, “Elder Yaryn?”

“Yes, my boy? A human elder—and truly, he was elderly—looked up from the book he was reading. “Oh, how wonderful, Mr. Charl! You have the Mediator with you. Are you showing her around the temple? I thought young Gheita was meant to be doing that.” He stood up from his chair and walked closer. Then, he whispered, “You didn’t steal the Mediator from her, did you?”

“Quite the opposite, sir,” Glade said. “She stole me away. You see, she is looking for a teacher who can help her overcome a…roadblock.”

Vayra explained her problems with Arcara movement, and the now-imposed time limit.

“That is quite the predicament, dear,” Elder Yaryn said. “Made worse by your ineffective cycling, I presume? You’ve gathered Arcara, but you haven’t pushed it where it’s needed, and now you will need an incredibly efficient technique to fix it. If you are to lay the proper groundwork in time.” He tapped the desk with his bony fingers, then, as if he was suggesting something taboo, he hissed, “You may need to create your own breathing technique.”

“That’s beyond my scope of…knowledge,” Vayra said.

“She is a Discarded,” Glade told the Elder. “She had no family to teach her a Path or a proper set of techniques.”

“That is truly a shame,” said Yaryn. “I will do my best to gather the best knowledge this library has to offer for you, Mediator, but I’m afraid the majority of my knowledge comes from books, not from practice.”

Vayra sighed, then, as Yaryn turned away, she turned to Glade. “Well…that about dries up my last lead.” She shut her eyes, remembering what the king had said about someone named Nathariel, but she wasn’t sure if she could keep pestering people for today.

Before they left for the day, however, Vayra pulled open her haversack. Among her supplies and a few other trinkets, she carried with her a book with a black cover. The word ‘Godscourge’ was written on its cover. She placed it down on the counter, then told Elder Yaryn, “I’ve had this with me for a while now, but I can’t make sense of all of it—it describes too many things I just don’t know. Would you be willing to read it and see if there’s anything that can help me, when it comes to my cycling techniques?”

“Of course, miss.” He took the book and gingerly flipped open its cover. “It’s almost…a vague Path Manual.”

“Almost,” she agreed, then stepped back.

“I will do my best.”

“We would be wise to rest,” said Glade. “Elder Eman-Fa would never have let me hunt for something as important as this with a tired mind.” He must have seen her dejected face, because he added, “He also said that, if you encountered a steep wall that you could not climb, the only way through was…to keep pushing, and hope that you eventually prevailed.”

She exhaled sharply. “Tomorrow, then. We’ll keep working at it.”