As the soldiers in training took their seats, I put the Cardinal out of my mind and called Nasq over to me. He walked over proudly, chin held high, to stand just behind me on my right. Nida moved to mirror Nasq, but I frowned at her and shook my head. The tigerkin woman shot me a look of deep dissatisfaction. She took a seat in the front line, glaring daggers at Nasq, causing my frown to deepen. I’d have to handle whatever fanatic urge was growing in her soon. I wanted loyal soldiers, not a guard dog.
When they had all settled, I began my first attempt at a lecture. While I’d given many speeches, both motivational and punitive, teaching basic theory was not something I’d ever believed I would be doing. Sure, I'd occasionally given advice or provided proper training to my knights through an instructor, but stepping in those shoes personally?
I paced before them for a moment, racking my brain for everything I knew about basic heart ring formation that the lowest peasant would need to learn to advance.
At last, I squared my shoulders and turned sharply toward my silent and patient warriors. “Before I begin, remember this. You were all given the chance to run and leave my service. If you are here, if you have chosen to stay, then you know what kind of person I am and you wish to follow me. Now is the time for you to show your loyalty to me. Now is the time to show me your faith. If you do, you shall be rewarded with power unfathomable to those in Cael and Lysoria.”
With that, I jumped right in without further preamble. “Whatever you have been taught about heart energy, forget it. It was wrong, incorrect information provided to you by those far less intelligent and powerful than I. Erase it all from your mind. Right now. Start from the beginning with an open and empty mind, just as you may be forced to do in your heart.” I half expected some objection or whispers in response to my words; the words of what could only appear to be a child. To the benefit of the warriors, not a sound escaped the silence of my pause. I couldn’t help the slight upturn of my lips into a small smile. Very good. There was yet hope. “Heart energy is broken up into two main categories: long range and close combat. The two are, mostly, inseparable until you achieve a Silver core. Sometimes a high-tier bronze core if you’re talented enough.” I looked at them all with a taunting, challenging smirk as they cast glances around at each other. “Heart energy, at its core, is your ability to create power within yourself by mastering the intricacies of your body and your ability to properly circulate the power of your heart. You take the energy of life your existence gives with each heartbeat and compound on it. You move it through your body, or just through your heart for those without a core, along a circular path until that circle is tightened and intrinsic, creating a heart ring. Heart rings are the foundation that each core level is built upon, and become increasingly difficult to create with each core level because the density of energy in your heart and body grows exponentially, as does the strength of your heart. It is not some wild, chaotic energy that you have to force into a circular shape over and over again. Heart rings have a use. A core has a use. Based on what I said, can anyone tell me what they think would happen to someone who continually created heart rings without developing a core to strengthen and protect the heart?”
No one stepped forward immediately, but I didn’t frown. Oh, no. I scoffed and sneered at them. I was about to begin insulting their intelligence in an attempt to motivate them, but I didn’t need to.
“Will their heart be damaged?” one of the nonparagons called out, and I immediately pointed a finger at him.
“Yes. More than damaged. It will be crumpled under the pressure, pushed on all sides until it is flattened and destroyed.”
“My lady…” came a quiet voice, and I shifted my expression to take in the voice’s owner. A lithe woman with pointed ears and a crooked nose, the left side of her lip permanently twisted upward from a massive scar that traced from under her jaw through her left eyebrow. Like Nida, she was built like a wild animal, muscles tensed with the promise of speed and power. “It’s not that I don’t believe you, but I was there when you fought the King’s son-in-law. He had many heart rings and no core. How did he live?”
I nodded and took hold of a shining steel sword that had at some point the night before been tossed to the ground and stuck it into the ground with a quick, violent motion. “Because their heart rings are pathetic and weak. Taught by idiots and performed by the undisciplined.” Many still wore confused expressions, so I changed tactics. “Does anyone here have a heart ring?” Nearly every hand shot into the air. I pointed toward one at random, and a man, perhaps in his mid-thirties or forties, stood. “Show me.”
The man visibly gulped under the pressure of my gaze, but he did as he was bid. A dull yellow-white light radiated around him like an aura, coalescing in moments into two heart rings permeating the same dull light. He looked at his heart rings sheepishly, a mixture of pride in his eyes and fear at what I might say.
“Now sit down,” I instructed, and the man obeyed. The illusion of his rings faded away just as quickly as he’d summoned them. “Not the worst I’ve ever seen, but in time, you will all have heart rings much stronger. Denser. More powerful. Like mine.” Before I finished my last words, I summoned the illusion of my core and heart rings much as the man had done, but the result was magnitudes more awe-inspiring. Where his rings had been a dull whitish-yellow, mine blazed with the silver fire of my Core to an almost blinding extent. Since I’d come to Graedon, I’d formed six rings in total. Three to reach the bronze tier, and three to reach silver. All six bloomed like sunflowers in a crescent arc around me, their power and light pulsing to the beat of my real heart. Then I cut the flow of energy and they vanished. “But, for many of you who already have heart rings, you will have to start over and destroy what you already have so I can rebuild your base entirely. Every single one of you will start from zero. Every morning I will push your physical body to its limits, and then shove it further. Every afternoon I, or someone I assign, will guide you in your ring and core creation. And every evening, you will all fight until I tell you to stop. If you are here now, you have no choice in the matter. You will do it. I do not tolerate failure or incompetence.”
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I half meant that as a threat, but many seemed to adopt looks of determination like I’d said something motivational. Instead of clarifying, I let them believe what they wanted. If it helped develop their power faster to believe I was motivating them rather than promising them failure only led to death, so be it.
“The trick to it,” I continued, “is when you are meditating and attempting to cultivate your heart energy, don’t focus immediately on forming it into a ring. Just work on it. You won’t have access to your meridian pathways yet, but just move it around your heart. Again and again. Strengthen it as much as you can. Familiarize yourself with the power and embed it perfectly into your heart. A heart ring should never be forced—when you have cultivated enough energy within your heart, the ring will shape itself. In a few minutes, you will all take the time to attempt this in-depth cultivation while I go around and break your already created heart rings.”
It wasn’t a request or an offer and they all knew it. If they were here, they were mine. They had accepted becoming mine by staying. There had been many chances to leave, most of which I’d explicitly provided. Now… now it was too late.
That was the risk they had taken when deciding to follow the overpowered twelve-year-old girl. I looked around and many of the freed slaves, not so much the Paragons, wore looks of terror and despair. But in all those faces, I recognized the ember of determination. Of confidence that they would not regret their decision.
If they could stay true to that and create a core, I knew I would have quite the loyal militia at my call.
However, there were always those who did not have the willpower to accept the unknown. I wondered briefly what I would do with any that refused to allow me to break their rings. Perhaps I’d break them anyway. Time would tell.
“Nasq,” I said, splitting my gaze from the ignorant lot before us to face the so-called Primal Sorcerer. Casually sitting down to the level of my warriors, I leaned back and caught my weight with my arms behind me. Rather than craning my head up at Nasq, I closed my eyes and enjoyed the heat of the sun tickling my face. “Explain magic. From the beginning.”
Nasq cleared his throat and I could all but hear the nervous sweat and finger-twitching in his trembling voice when he finally spoke. “Um, w-w-where do I start?”
“Start with what it is,” I responded, eyes still closed.
“Oh...okay.” He cleared his throat again and when he spoke, he sounded slightly less nervous. “Magic is, fundamentally, the ability to draw external, natural energy into ourselves. Where heart energy is about creating a personal form of energy within your heart, the ability to wield magic comes from the ability to draw in and wield the universal energy created by the world itself.” Nasq coughed and cleared his throat again. The repetition was causing my eyebrow to twitch and he hurried along. “The, um, the first step in using magic is creating a magic reserve.”
“Is that the same thing as a magic core?” I asked.
I could hear the whoosh of Nasq’s black hair as he shook his head, but with my eyes still closed I supposed the sorcerer wasn’t sure that I was able to tell and said, “No, my lady. A magic reserve is similar to a heart. The magic core is what is built around the reserve to strengthen and grow it.”
At that, I opened my eyes. It explained, in a way, why the city lord’s elite warrior had screamed so profoundly when I’d removed her magic core.
"Why would someone prefer practicing one over the other?" I asked.
Nasq paused for a moment, clearly thinking over the question quite thoroughly. "Though my studies did not go over this in-depth, I believe heart energy creates a better foundation within yourself. It allows one to grow based on their individual talents and strengths, whereas magic is based on your inherent affinity with different elements of the world."
“Can you practice both at the same time?” I pressed, now meeting his standing gaze.
“I… I do not know my quee—my lady. I never made it that far in my studies before being captured.”
“Hmmm,” I muttered, closing my eyes again. “Tell me about those studies.”
“Yes, Lady Lilliana. Before I was captured by the Sealrite slavers, I was a second year at the Lysorian University of Magic, Everglade.”
“I don’t sense a magic core in you.” The words were meant in pure curiosity, but I could nearly feel the shame radiate off Nasq.
“Before I became a Paragon, I knew theory. I would read magic theory day in and day out. But the magic itself… it never wanted me. I could never even create a reserve,” he responded, his voice as small as a child’s. Then it grew louder and I felt a thump vibrate the ground by my legs. When I opened my eyes to look, Nasq was kneeling and his eyes glowered with unbridled pride, burying his pride deep in memories. “It is by your grace, My Queen, that I have found strength in magic and become a true Sorcerer, stronger than even the Everglade mages.”
“Interesting. Becoming a Paragon allows you to wield magic without a core?”
Nasq cocked his head toward me, his face scrunching in abject confusion. “Of course, my Queen. Paragons cannot form cores. Our power stems from only your Desire System. We do not need to rely on a heart or magic core to draw or create energy when the system provides it all for us. It's one of the first messages I received as a Paragon. We all thought you knew."
Wait. What? The Desire System made Paragons exempt from the laws of magic and energy?