I realized I'd attuned determination later that night. It was the first accidental attunement I'd had in years, which some part of me found darkly amusing—even when I wasn't actively trying to pull ahead of Lucet, luck still handed me yet another attunement on a silver platter.

After a bit of thought, it was pretty clear how it'd happened, too. I'd done everything I could to keep Lucet determined on our hellish slog of a journey through the Redlands at war, and conversely, I'd shattered the determination of Iola's goons back at the Silent Academy when I was protecting Freio. And up until now, the same drive that had led me to constantly be better had kept my legs moving and my mind ticking, even through the horrors and deaths I'd absorbed from soul fragments over and over and over again.

But apparently, this was one time too many. Because when I closed my eyes and searched my soul, there was not a single shard of determination left in me.

Just memories of senseless deaths, with no promise that we wouldn't find the same when we finally reached Jiaola.

I'm not entirely sure if closing my eyes and lying down counted as sleeping, but it was in the same general shape and it tricked my brain into thinking I could keep going, so I eventually hauled myself out of bed. It was a shame—it really was quite comfortable compared to the campsites I was used to.

Sansen was still sleeping off the battle that had taken place in his soulspace, which I didn't blame him for. He was old, after all. Probably going to die soon. Might as well flirt with death before making a committment.

I clenched my jaw, trying to shake off the thoughts. Focusing on the world around me, instead of the whispers in my head. The faded wooden floor, the musky sweat-smell in the air, the quiet rush of unnatural wind... the physical reality around me may not have been great, but it was leagues better than letting the voices in my head have free reign over my mind.

Lucet. Lucet always made the voices fade a little. Maybe... maybe I could find her.

She wasn't in bed, of course. I didn't even have to close my eyes to find her—concentrating on my soulsight showed me that she was standing outside, still chipping off shards of sorrow from the ever-growing mountain of it within her soul. With the thirteen attunements I now held, her soul was a riot of emotions—salt, plastic, glass, oil, quartz, all rattling and flowing in their own curious paths, and all separate, simply passing through each other without interacting whenever Lucet pushed salt out of her soul. I supposed it made sense that without an attunement to any other emotions, Lucet couldn't affect them—if different emotions could physically interact with each other in one's soul, there'd be a spew of random effects with every spell as the caster accidentally shoved their other emotions out.

Lucet must have sensed me approaching, because she slowed in her casting. Wide swathes of frozen earth bore testament to the fruits of her labor—she was getting used to the amplification of frost magic that the massive rift overhead provided. When she turned to me, her eyes were reddened from lack of sleep.

"Don't tire yourself out," I said. "We need you."

"I couldn't sleep," Lucet said. "I figured I might as well do something useful."

Well, I couldn't blame her—that was the exact same logic that had sent me out last night digging for soul shards. But I was nothing if not a quick learner. "Sometimes, the most useful thing you can do is get a good night's rest," I said. "Not... not that I even managed that."

"Cienne, I appreciate you trying to help, but telling me that the most useful thing I can do is do nothing isn't exactly what I need to hear right now," Lucet snapped.

I winced. There wasn't really any point in saying that I didn't mean it that way. It didn't matter what I'd intended right now.

It mattered what she heard.

"You're not useless, Lucet," I pleaded. "You saved my life back at the Silent Peaks—the nurse said I would've died if you hadn't flash-cooled my injuries. And again when we were fighting Iola—if you didn't route us through the Plane of Elemental Frost, that eldritch abomination would have gotten us killed or worse."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"I didn't say I was always useless," Lucet said, clenching her fists. "That's the worst part. I used to be powerful. I used to be helpful. But now?" She gestured at me. "There isn't even a word for a mage who has as many schools of magic as you do. Don't pretend that I'm worth something because I can use salt. You can use salt, and quartz, and glass, and oil, and you've probably somehow picked up even more attunements when I wasn't looking. Sansen can see the future, Meloai doesn't need to eat or sleep, but me?" Lucet gestured at herself, oil and quartz rattling in her soul, and I wished so badly I could tell her how to unlock those powers for herself. But unless she had an attunement to the relevant emotions—passion for oil, determination for quartz—the resources in her soul would be useless to her.

As useless as she thought she was.

I stopped walking and turned to Lucet. The gently falling snow formed a haze around us, and it was as if we were the only two people in the world. "I can touch more magics than you, that's true," I said. "But that doesn't mean you're useless. You're smart, and determined, and kind, and you're a hundred times better with salt than I'll ever be, because you've worked hard on your specialty for every day of your life."

"..." Lucet closed her eyes, swallowing, and I felt the quartz-determination in her soul shift, the rivers of oil-fury slowing into a smoother passion. And it hurt so much to see that she could be determined and passionate and still tearing herself apart, because she was determined and passionate about tearing herself apart. And I wished so badly that I could tilt her head up and get her to have hope in the future again. That I could spark that fire in her soul. That I could spark... spark...

Sparks.

I didn't have an attunement to hope. I couldn't pluck flame from my soul and gift it to hers.

But what I did have to work with was determination. Quartz.

And when two pieces of quartz were struck together, they made a spark.

Acting on instinct, I asked, "Can I put my hand to your heart?"

She blinked. "What?"

"There's... something I want to try." I bit my lip. "I don't know if it'll work, but... I just... I just want you to know that you're not useless, and that I care about you so, so much. And... maybe there's a way for me to show you that."

Lucet tilted her head, her messy brown hair sliding away from her eyes.

Then she nodded, taking my hand and placing it over her heart.

I closed my eyes, focusing on my soulsight. If I was casting a normal spell, I would have reached into my own soul, accessing the many materials stored within—but I was trying something different.

I focused my will and touched Lucet's soul instead, picking up two pieces of quartz-determination. Like any two different emotions did, they simply phased through everything around them—the sorrowful salt, the shameful glass... and the oil of passion.

"I know what it's like," I whispered. "To be overshadowed. To be inadequate. To never be enough. Not for the people around you, but for the voices in your head."

And as I spoke, I struck the two crystals of quartz against each other.

Clack.

"My first attunement wasn't to sorrow, or to determination, or even to shame. I didn't wield salt or quartz or glass." My fingers clenched, just a little bit, and Lucet laid her hand on mine. "When I first learned magic, I was a witch of self-hatred."

Sparks flew in Lucet's soul, but... something was missing. The sparks and the oil slipped right through each other, like drawings on two layered sheets of paper.

Clack.

"So trust me when I tell you that I understand. That I know what it's like when even praise of your abilities feels like salt on an open wound, that if the people around you think you are beautiful and brilliant and good that it is simply because you've tricked them somehow, and that they'll hate you even more for it when they realize how useless you really are. I get it." I pressed my forehead against her chest, feeling her heartbeat sync with mine. "And I get how determined you have to be to keep going anyway."

I was attuned to both determination and passion. Why not use both of them at once? Why not combine them? I had done so before with passion and sorrow and self-hatred, on pure instinct.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

"And I love you, Lucet," I whispered. "Truly. I do. So please... see yourself how I see you. And trust me. Trust me that I'm right about you."

I struck the two quartz crystals against each other in Lucet's soul one last time, letting out a fountain of sparks, and something in my soul rotated.

And the sparks touched the oil, and her soul caught alight. Determination and passion fused, creating a beautiful, brilliant, ethereal fire, a magic that I could not see or touch or hear except when I closed my eyes and opened my mind—but wasn't that where all the most powerful magics lived, anyways?

I opened my eyes, letting my soulsight fade as I returned to mundane reality, and even though her soul was hidden from me, the fires of hope danced bright in her eyes as she gave me a wavering, growing smile.

And the flames in her soul kept the darkness at bay as the two of us embraced in the storm.