“You were alone out there… you weren’t living with some hermit and training were you?” Alice flicks through the book, her eyes darting back and forth.

“I was taught how to survive by a Wolven,” I explain. “He was nice, and he helped me to learn healing magic, but he had to return to his pack after a while.”

“A wolven? Healing does not come naturally to them; it must’ve been quite intelligent.” Her hair waves about as she shakes her head. “You spoke with it?”

“He wasn’t interested in talking,” I shrug, staring at the vaguely familiar characters scrawled in the book. “He nudged me sometimes, bit me sometimes, and growled at me if I was doing something bad.”

“Ah, well… that’s good?” Alice asks, her expression confused and all twisted up. Wolven don’t make faces like that, them and the bears are good at snarling, their teeth make it much meaner than when I do it, but they don’t really smile. Not that they showed me, at least.

“These pages show us a summary of your basic skills and strengths,” Alice explains, running her fingers over the script. I can sound out a few of the words, but most of them I don’t understand.

“There are ratings from F to S with some uncommon exceptions,” she explains. “The ‘F’ grading means you are completely unable to do something, for example, a blind man would rank F in vision or a baby would rank an F in running. You might be able to learn how to do something later on and move from F to E, most babies learn to run after they’ve grown for instance. This is the first step in training an ability.”

While trying to read the book, Alice is making an effort to keep a distance from me. She seems uncomfortable leaning over to get a good look at the pages between us without touching me. If she’s having trouble reading, she should just get closer.

I slide over and move the open book between us so that she can read it more easily. She pats me on the head the way Theo does before continuing.

“A rank of ‘S’ earns a person the title of master.”

“S is the limit?”

“Yes, but also no.” She says, scrunching her lips, “You see rank D is what we call the first wall, most people with a little training can reach that point in most skills and magics, and if you keep it up you can pretty confidently reach rank C. The second wall, rank B, takes some dedicated work over many years but still, most people can achieve it.

“The third wall, at rank A, will grant you the title of Expert. Most ordinary people can only ever reach this point with lifelong dedication to a single ability. It takes many long years of focus and hard work to get to this point.

“Rank S is what we call the final wall, this is where one earns the title of Master and it can only be achieved by talented people dedicating themselves to their craft. Exceeding rank S is called scaling the final wall, and is extraordinarily rare even among the few Masters around.”

“I should note that some races do have affinities that separate their upper limits.” She continues, “As an elf, for example, your final wall and limit in magical skills will be rank SS, sometimes called S2, a step above even the human masters.”

“Where’s Syr?” I ask curiously, gazing across the book filled with complex words.

“How much of this can you read?”

“The letters and numbers.” The rest is made up of long words that I’ve never gotten to learn.

“Well, this is your æther vein grading.” She points to the top of the page. “This describes how well your body can use æther, and how long until your æther channels burn out.”

“Rank B-? 121?” I read aloud.

“Yes, as a pureblood elf you’ve overcome your first two walls, a B- at your age is extraordinary but you still have a long way to go before becoming a master. The 121 is your number of common æther channels, they can be used for any magic that you know how to use, whereas dedicated æther channels can only be used for their specific magic.

“See your body strengthening at B- with 68 dedicated channels, your healing at C+ with 49, and your… your necromancy is a little odd.” She hesitates here. “Rank D+ with 152 channels. You’ve used it frequently, but you aren’t very good with it.”

I haven’t been able to use it very much to make new friends, but I need to use it all the time to keep them. I guess that only really helps me grow more of these magic veins, and it doesn’t really help me as much with learning how to use the magic.

“How much do you know of dedicated æther streams?”

I can only shrug vaguely, I know I was taught about these things before, but I never paid much attention.

“Æther is converted into magic by moving through æther streams, also called channels or veins. Dedicated æther streams are those that are tuned to a certain form of magic and can only channel that magic. What effect do you think that might have?”

“I can only use so much of each magic?” I ask.

“Correct,” she nods. “Have you ever felt that you’re nearly burnt out of healing, yet you can still manage to use your body strengthening magic just fine?”

“I guess so.” There are times when it feels easier to do one magic compared to another, but I never put that much thought into it. If I need more magic, I can just force myself and make it work.

“Sword skills?” I ask her, looking over the pages for any other high rankings.

This book agrees with me, I’m pretty awesome.

“Ah,” She sounds a little hesitant, pointing out a row reading rank E-. “I’m not sure this particular ranking is reading right for you. If you truly fight similar to the Adamant style like Theo says, then I doubt this will be accurate.” She explains gently patting my head while flicking through the pages.

“So, you don’t need to pout.”

I’m not pouting.

I know I’m awesome at it, I don’t need some book to tell me so.

“Right here,” she says, showing a part of the book near the end. The same spot where she found necromancy. “Unique sword style: Rank D”

“That’s it?” I ask.

“Think of it this way, if you’re this good at this E rank, how powerful will you be when you’re A rank?” Alice whispers into my ear, her words stirring the mists in my mind as I dream of what I’ll be like in the future.

“I’ll keep training,” I say, nodding firmly.

We spend some more time flicking through the pages but it’s much less exciting.

Where are the rest of the big numbers? I look through everything, but other than what she’s pointed out I can’t find anything else that is greater than rank E.

With her help, I can sort of make out the important parts, and it makes me feel a bit better, but I still thought I was stronger than this.

Æther Vein Grading: B-

Common veins: 121

Strengthening: B-

Dedicated veins: 68

-Enhance muscular strength.

-Enhance the resilience of your skin.

-Temporarily harden parts of your body, a broken leg will stay straight, and fingernails will refuse to bend.

-New magics available at rank A

Healing: C+

Dedicated veins: 49

-Heal physical injuries in yourself and others.

-New magics available at rank B

Necromancy: D+

Dedicated veins: 152

-Raise the dead as servants.

-Maintain undead servants.

-Draw upon the memories of the dead you have raised.

-New magics available at rank B

Fire: E+ Rank

Dedicated veins: 24

-Summon flames and fire at your will.

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-New magics available at rank D

Unique Sword Style: D Rank

-Use a heavy weapon, light armour, and enhanced strength to rapidly move around the battlefield while striking with great force.

-Heavy charge: charge in a straight line at a foe. Ending in a slash, thrust, or downward slam.

-Pivot: swing your heavy weapon while jumping to pull yourself closer to a foe, or further away from them.

-Find a trainer, or experiment, to learn new attacks.

“New magics? Do I need to get a higher rank to get new magic?” I trace a finger along the line in the book.

“That’s backwards,” she shakes her head. “It’s more that you’ll be considered a higher rank when you can cast these new magics. Try not to focus on that, train the magic that you have, and the new aspects of your magic will come to you in time.”

We silently sit with each other, scrawling through the details inscribed in this magic book.

“Say…” She interrupts my search, “Do you really want to work as a mercenary? You’d be spending a lot of your life fighting monsters.”

“Syr likes Adeleya, and the others aren’t bad people. So Syr wants to spend time with them, all of us together.” I say firmly, “And… Is there any other choice?”

“Well…” She thinks for a few moments. “I’m not exactly living it rich, but I make a decent living here. If you wanted, you could live with me. I could teach you to read and write, I’d love to have an apprentice working here with me. You’d still meet with Adeleya and everyone when they come by.”

Everyone wants me. I must be pretty awesome.

The elvish couple wanted me to stay with them, Alice wants to take care of me, and of course, there is Adeleya. I’m the luckiest orphan I’ve ever known. I don’t know any other orphans… Do the dead kids from my old village count?

I can’t restrain a smile as I pull in close for a hug. I have no clue what sort of work she wants me to do, but it makes me happy just to hear the offer.

“Staying with Adeleya is better… but, what would it be like here?”

“Well, there’s a lot to do here. We manage the different quests that mercs take out, ensure proper payment upon return, distribute and sell off the goods that are returned, and take care of buying various odds and ends that the guild needs to stay running. There’s a restaurant and bar on the ground floor that always needs tending. We deal with confidential information and ensure that proper records are kept for jobs completed and individual mercenary histories, sharing it with their companies and the larger guild bases.”

My head’s spinning, even when I sort of understand what she’s saying, I don’t know what she means by it. The only part I understand is the restaurant, that has to do with food, right?

“Syr doesn’t really get it.”

“That’s fine.” She leans in close, hugging me, “Also with your healing skill and æther grading, you could make for a decent healer. We often have people coming back here with injuries that would put them out of work for a long while if they don’t get healed with magic.”

“Healing is important.” I nod firmly. There are many times I’ve learned how important it is. My leg was broken fighting the crimson-streaked bear and healing kept me fighting. There was the time I broke my arm falling down the side of the mountain. The time I had most of my arm bitten to pieces by a black cat.

“Syr, there is one more topic we must discuss,” Alice says, looking down at me a little more strictly now than before. “You use necromancy magic?”

“Yep,” I nod. Since Theo’s already told her, I should trust her too. “Or, no. That’s what Syr is supposed to say, isn’t it?”

“That’s… well, yes. Do you know why exactly you need to be careful about this?” She asks, her expression cold.

“People don’t like it. They might want to hurt Syr if they know,” I tell her. I don’t get why, but from what everyone’s said, people around here really don’t like necromancy.

“Well, yes.” Alice closes the book. “There is a reason for that. Many reasons in fact, but first, may I ask you how you learned the magic? Did some stranger teach it to you?” Her eyes go wide suddenly and she continues more intensely, “Did the wolven teach you?

“How did I learn it?” Sylph flitters into my mind, that little blue bird from long ago.

“Syr just sort of put æther into a little bird, and the magic answered me. Then practice, lots of practice.” I tell her, but she stays quiet, staring down at me like mom would when I lied to her.

“A gods intervention, maybe…” she whispers, “In any case, it’s not the sort of magic that you should be using.”

“Why not? I can hide it.”

She stares down at me, her mouth hanging open a while before she decides to speak.

“Have you heard anything of the Great Lich, from the end of the last age?”

“No…”

“Well, centuries ago a talented necromancer built an army of the dead, and to cut the story short, he hurt a lot of people. Even to this day, he’s remembered as a terrible villain.”

“Syr won’t do that,” I tell her. “You should only hurt people that really deserve it, like bandits.”

“It doesn’t matter. People will still hate you for it. I’m worried what people would do if they learned of your magic. Necromancy is supposed to be gone…” Her eyes quiver back and forth. “If it’s to stop a tragedy, there are people who wouldn’t hesitate to kill you, and anyone else around you who could have learned from you.”

“Adeleya and the others would get hurt, too?”

Not again.

“They might. So, you need to give up this magic.”

I need to get strong enough to stop them from getting hurt.

I nod and she lets out a small sigh, smiling and patting my head.

She talks with me about this and that for a while, but there are only so many things to talk about. We consider what I could do here, and what sort of life I could have, among other things. In the end, I’m still not convinced of anything that keeps me away from Adeleya. Alice’s hugs are nice, the same as Evelyn’s and Mary’s, but hugging Adeleya makes me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside.

“The problem is that elves don’t consider you grown just yet,” Alice says, “As far as I can tell you’re as mature as a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old human, a young adult really, if a bit behind in your lessons. The elves don’t see it the same. They won’t accept you as a free adult for another decade, especially if you can’t give them your accurate age.”

“They won’t let me?” I ask.

“It’s a cultural thing…” Alice says, her expression all weird. “It’s very important that no elvish child is abandoned, and… well you’re still technically a child, to the elves at least.”

“Syr is not a child.” I shake my head, saying it properly. “I am not a child. I am strong and I lived on my own without any parents to look after me.”

Alice is quiet as she meets my eyes, there’s something she’s not saying.

A distant, dull shouting fills the silence between us, more desperate than what I heard when I first came here. Alice replaces the special book, walking to the door, she glances at me for a moment.

A loud pounding on the door interrupts her before she can say anything.

Her expression hardens as she opens the door, “What is it?”

“We’ve got an issue!” A young woman stands there, her eyes wide and hair dishevelled, “Daniel came in a moment ago, he- he needs healing right now. I’ve sent someone out for the expert healer, but I’m not sure we have the time to wait.”

“I’ll be right there.” Alice nods turning to address me, “I know it’s sudden, but could I ask for your help with this? My healing magic may not be enough.”

I nod, following her.

I need to prove to everyone that I’m strong enough and skilled enough to be a part of Adeleya’s pack. Then I need to grow strong enough to protect them all, even if everyone tries to kill us.

The tangy smell of spilt blood spreads through the ground floor, overwhelming the pleasant scents of food from the kitchens. The shouting has died away except for the few people running about covered in blood, shouting to their friend laid out on a table.

“Bring him to the back room,” Alice orders and the mercs around the man quickly do as asked, taking over from his panicking friends.

A pale figure follows them, carrying the boy’s arm separately. That’s not good, but I’ve been hurt nearly as bad, so it should be fine. Probably. Maybe.

“Quickly now,” Alice rushes them, stepping up to the pale young man being laid out on a clean, wooden table. “Step back.”

She pulls me to her side and has the others retreat. The boy seems close to dead, pale as can be and cold to the touch. Alice puts the boy’s arm up against the stump it’d been torn from, she grips so hard that her fingers sink into the bloody flesh, and she chants.

Her words are quick and senseless, the meaning coming through in musical flow. A jolting, energetic aria that carves a new reality into existence, denying the unpleasant truth that we see before us.

As her magic flows through into the arm, she turns to me breaking from her chant, “Add your æther if you can.” She quickly returns her focus to the task ahead of her.

The flesh of his arm is so torn up, and there isn’t much blood leaking from him anymore. Can I really make a difference?

Are you sure you want me to do this? I’ve never healed anyone else before, I’ve only cast on myself.

The sight of the boy’s pale face quiets my questions before I can open my mouth. I shake the strange thoughts from my head and rest my hands on his broken body. I channel my æther into him, but the moment it’s gone from my body, I lose most of my control over it.

By keeping up the pressure I can get it moving into the boy, and when it joins with Alice’s magic it starts to work properly again. Her magic pulls at the power that I supply it, and diffuses into the wound, summoning new flesh and bone to reconnect the boy’s arm.

Watching closely, I can feel parts of the spell where she’s not using as much æther as she should be and I fill them in for her. When the power passes through, she manages to weave the energy into her magic, fixing the wounded limb.

Unlike when I heal my own injuries, the æther sheds as I try to send it into his body, wasting at least half of what I offer to the magic.

Is this okay? Isn’t he getting paler?

“That’s the way,” Alice nods to me. “Keep it up, put in as much æther as you can, we just need to keep his flesh from dying until the expert healer gets here.”

He still looks dead…

I shake the thought away and I double my investment into the magic, if only half of my energy reaches him then I’ll use twice as much. Alice easily takes control of it, and the boy’s arm is already looking better, but he’s still just a body. If I reach out, I might even be able to turn him into one of my friends.

Alice sees it, too.

She sneers like a wolven with its meal stolen by a fox.

“Rattler poison?” She asks, getting a nod from the pale woman. “…not good.”

Something changes a moment later, the magic just seems to stop working, like we’re trying to heal a stone. It can’t attach to his body anymore.

Alice reacts faster than I do, slamming her fingers down on the boy’s exposed chest, her fingers cutting into his body.

“Focus on his heart,” she orders.

I nod, strengthening my fingers and pressing them into his chest near his heart. It is perfectly still and unbeating.

“Rattler poison is very difficult to heal,” Alice explains as she increases the flow of æther, “It resists magic, and it shuts down the heart… Give us everything you’ve got.”

“Where’s the healer?!” A bloodied merc cries, but no one has an answer.

“Everything…?” I whisper.

He isn’t dead yet.

Not quite.

His æther flow is probably still pumping through his body, it just needs a kick to help clear away the poison. If this poison resists magic, then you just need to use so much magic that it gets washed away in the flood.

I pause to breathe deep, dig my sharpened fingernails deeper into his body so that they won’t come loose, and prepare my mind for the inferno.

I don’t want to do this.

It’s going to hurt.

I’ll be alone in the darkness again.

I’ll be burning in the fires of the abyss.

But they’ll respect me. If I do this, they’ll accept me as one of their own. I’ll have a home here.

I bite down hard, my heart trembling. It’s not enough. I can’t face the fire again. This time it’s not my fight. This time I don’t have to.

The pale-faced young man stares blankly at the ceiling above, and for a moment, I hear my mom singing to me and my dad making some dumb joke about the harvest.

He shouldn’t have to die. Someone will miss him. Someone will remember this day for the rest of their lives, the same way that I remember the day my home burned.

“I can do this…” I say, but my vision is already blurred by tears. Alice is saying something but it’s not important.

The healer isn’t here. I’m the only one who can do something.

“Alice, control our magic.”

I don’t let her reply.

Confirming my connection with the boy, I force out a strong current of æther, spreading fire through my veins until they collapse, and then I keep pushing. The pressure of the æther flooding through me keeps the channels open, feeding the magic that will save the boy.

I arch my back and clench my teeth, but I know I’m still screaming. My fingers are hooked under the boy’s ribs just to keep me from letting go. I can’t let go.

I can’t let him die. This has to mean something.

Alice is talking, but I can’t hear her anymore, it’s just meaningless sound. She’s still controlling the magic that’s born from my suffering so that I don’t have to. I just press as much æther into him as I can while the world is slowly torn away from me.

My vision dulls, so I close my eyes. I don’t need to see. I don’t need to hear. I don’t need to feel. I just need to be a channel more æther.

The rushing inferno of power tears through me, incinerating me, just as when I fought those desperate battles in the past.

This time, it’s not my life that I’m saving.

This time it’s simpler; it’s more proper.

I ignore all the distractions and focus on the one thing I need to do.

The boy convulses under me, but I don’t care, I just keep pressing the æther on. I keep the magic alive using my body as fuel until, blind and numb, I sink into the darkness.