Cedar put the pressure on Jace like nothing before. Every week of practice, the old warrior increased pace, hoping to build the reflexes into Jace’s soul, so that he acted on instinct rather than trying to think his actions through.

“Jeez, old man, let up a little.” Jace could feel his limbs and hands becoming tired. He had to be active in regulating his mana now so the old silver fox wouldn’t exhaust him as quick.

“Not until I’ve landed a proper hit on you.” Cedar said with glee. He was enjoying this too much, putting Jace on a constant back foot. Jace knew the warrior was holding back. Just dancing Jace on the razor edge of success and failure. Then Cedar swept his wooden sword at Jace’s legs. Jace fell back and landed on his tail with a loud yelp, dropping the training stave along the stone platform’s floor. And a tap on the head. “Done.”

All Jace could do was a groan in pain. “My spine…” He rolled and rubbed his poor behind and tail.

“You can walk it off, pup.” The old warrior sat down on the stone platform. Jace didn’t want to impair his ability to walk, being rather attached to his ability to walk. “That’ll be enough for today.”

The sun crested the mountain range that shaded the valley where the deep weald lay. Stone cooled and the air smelt of green and dew. The wind slowed as it blew over the curtain walls of the fort.

Jace groaned once more and sat up on his side. “What not going to push me all the way to exhaustion this time, Cedar?”

“Despite your keen improvement.” Cedar was weary to explain. “We aren’t getting any further. The best I can do is reinforce the reflexes you’re currently training. Once you grow some muscles, pup, I can get into the harder techniques.” The old fox pulled out his smoking pipe and lit the packed pipe weed. “Besides, there are other things we need to work on.”

Jace tilted his head in question. “Oh? What else?”

“It’s a brutal and bloody world out there, Jace…” The old fox took a deep puff and blew out an O ring of smoke. “Sandal can’t shelter you from it forever.”

Cedar had a point… The old fox talked much about the more light-hearted situations he had gotten into and less about the fights, the duels and bloody battles. His hazel eyes had the gaze of someone who had seen too much. Jace wanted to ask Cedar why he stopped adventuring. From what little knowledge he gleaned, Therians can live for centuries if they were careful. “What made you finally give up the sword?”

“Winddancer? Or are you talking about me giving up the wandering swordsman’s life?” Cedar clarified. Jace nodded to the latter. “I guess the answer won’t be obvious to you. There are really only two ways the life of an adventurer ends Ashwood.” Cedar tilted himself up to look at the orange to blue scaled sky. “You either die on the road, killed by other people, or have some sickness. Or”

“Or?” dysentery was apparently a rather common issue Jace had read. He hoped he never had to experience that.

“Or you get wise enough to realise you’re slowing down. If I was still fighting fit, pup. Why would I be here?” Cedar finished, leaving it at that.

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Jace was excited today. Evaliena took him up to the top of the keep, a place he wasn’t allowed to enter until now.

“Now Jace, my workshop is a very special and dangerous place.” Evaliena explained as she undid the workings of the locks that held the heavy metal door shut. Now he was really excited. His tail was beating side to side uncontrollably. What wonders does this workshop hold? He could practically smell the mana emanating from behind the door. Now that was the chemical smell. He didn’t think his nose would survive this. “I advise dulling your sense of smell, pup.”

Jace did as advised. Altering his senses, both normal and arcane, came relatively naturally to him. It scared him a little how easy it was.

Evaliena opened the door. The smell was overwhelming even to his dulled sense of smell. The dimly lit room smelled distinctly like a freshly cleaned school lab. Having not passed the threshold yet, he could see many pieces of glassware and glowing crystals on finely built shelves. “Well, go in.” Evaliena bade Jace to enter the workshop.

Jace walked in. He spun to look around. He expected a set of apparatus bubbling away. There was just the soft padding against tiles. And a not so inconsiderable amount of dust hanging in the air. He heard the characteristic clink of Evaliena’s fingers. That soft breeze flowing through and clearing up the dust and stagnate chemical smells. The sheets that covered tables pulled away, neatly folding up in stacks, revealing stacks of cast iron holders.

Jace looked at Evaliena. “That has to be the first spell you teach me,” he begged.

Evaliena gave Jace a soft smile as she walked to the centre of the room. “When you earn it. It’s an incredibly complex piece.”

“Show me!” Jace demanded as he bounced in place.

Evaliena shrugged. “I warned you then.” She held her hands out and a construct of squiggly silver lines built up in an orb between her hands. Jace recognised many of the runes that built up the structure, and many he hadn’t memorised.

Jace looked in awe at the spell construct, then it vanished. His voice faltered. “I guess I have a fair way to go, huh?”

“You’ll get there.” Evaliena put her hand reassuringly on Jace’s shoulder. “Because you are being trained by me.” She stood straight, placing her hand on her hip. “Now welcome to my workshop. You’re allowed in here now.” She gestured around to the shelves and tables.

“I don’t know.” Jace spoke uneasily. Much of this equipment in the room looked very expensive. “This stuff looks fragile…”

“Well. Before I start teaching you stoichiometry,” Evaliena explained candidly. What a word, he wondered, what that meant. “I’m going to teach you how to set all this stuff up safely. So you don’t blow up my workshop.” Evaliena pointed her hand to the tall wardrobe off in the corner next to the door. “In there, is gloves, boots, smocks and aprons. We are not conducting any alchemy without those.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Why? With cleaning spells like yours, we wouldn’t need to worry about stains… ooh…” Jace’s face palmed as he completed the sentence.

“At least you corrected yourself. I don’t have to waste materials and components on healing and poison cleansing spells or potions if we don’t get hurt in the first place.” She rocked her hip into Jace’s side. “Now I’m going to show you how to put those properly on.”

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As almost on cue. Just as Jace was about to sleep. He could hear the four talking around the keep’s hearth down stairs. Cedar was leading the conversation again.

“He’s progressing quickly, Sandal.”

“His innate control is wonderful, I admit. But.”

“But?”

“I can tell he’s going to be a handful.”

Can Evaliena really be so sure?

“Why don’t either one of you take him outside again?” “He clearly needs to get out.”

“Good excuse to get him bloodied now?”

Jace didn’t like where this was leading.

“Are you two sure you didn’t come from the sire?”

“If anything, he needs to learn how to hunt. I can only teach him so much since…”

“With Sandal hogging him all day.”

“Burr!”

Jace constantly heard of Cedar hammering on about this to Evaliena. He gets the point, but it makes him sick to his stomach…

“What? He’s not being allowed to be a child.”

There was silence for a while. Jace could imagine Burr being stared at by both her seniors.

“Why not take him on a trip to the clans?”

“He would get torn apart.”

“Agreed.”

“Burr, you’re not getting he’s not exactly a child in mind, despite his antics.”

Is the difference between him and their culture really that bad?

“That settles it then… I’m taking him hunting. You’re not going to argue Sandal.”

“Fine, fine I give. I was hoping we could wait until—”

“He hit’s second milestone? Sandal, apart from Baysil, everyone else here is a century or more old.”

Jace didn’t mind being surrounded by so many wise people.

He let out a sigh and ignored the conversation. Sleep came easily, and the days turned to weeks to months.

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Today’s the big day, for Jace, at least. There was no gathering, no party, no celebration this time. More than a full year had passed Jace by in this world. A year of study, busy work and learning about a hostile world that was backwards compared to his old life. But at the same time; interesting, unique and just different… not having much interaction with the outside world. Except, for the few times Evaliena took Jace out to different towns to purchase supplies.

“Why are we all the way out here?” Jace casually asked as he wiped his muzzle. They had just farstepped from the keep to a random clearing in the mountain range. The air was foggy, moist. He looked around, seeing clouds roll over the range and the forest. Knowing they had just finished all the Basal Runes., he could recite and write every single one of the first set perfectly on paper. What was he forgetting?

Evaliena put her hand on Jace’s shoulder. “You don’t remember? Has it been that long?” She mused. “We’re out here so you can practise expressing your mana.”

“Oh.” Jace’s expression lit up. He suspected this wouldn’t be as easy manipulating the mana that was already coursing through his body. “Then why are we all the way out here?”

“Oh, that’s simple.” Evaliena raised her other hand. “The flare of a new mage’s expression can be a bit destructive.” She explained gingerly. “Also, I don’t want to give away the position of our home, too.”

Jace looked away at the ground. “So you don’t want me putting a hole in one of the walls and you don’t want me breaking the spell shrouding the keep?”

“Oh, the enchantment would survive.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Rather, I don’t want unnecessary attention drawn to us. Now I’m going to show you how I express my mana, then you’re going to attempt to do the same.” Then she walked ten paces in front of Jace and stood relaxed.

“That easy?”

Evaliena gave a thoughtful look to Jace. “I never said it was easy… my children and previous apprentices took weeks for them to start properly expressing mana.”

Jace rolled his eyes. “Well, that’s reassuring, huh?”

“Now watch me.” The yellow gold aura around Evaliena concentrated, turning into a vein-like system that stretched its way from core to head to the tips of her fingers and toes. “Expressing mana is the key to spell craft. Without it, you can’t create spell constructs.” Jace watched as mana circulated around Evaliena’s network of yellow gold veins. She held a hand up, giving a clear view of it against the backdrop of the valley.

“How are you doing that?” his mouth agape as he kept watching as a small ball of silvery mana formed from above Evaliena’s open palm.

“I assume you mean channels for my Feina? I’m pretty sure you’ve noticed your own, too.” She dissipated the ball and started over. “Pay attention to what I’m trying to show you. Jace.” “Or we may be doing this practice for months.” The vixen warned. “Now come on, hands out. You don’t need to form a sphere like I’m doing. Just express your own mana.”

Jace held his hands out before him. He quickly inspected his arms with his sight. Those ever present silver lines; that stretched across his body like Evaliena’s yellow gold ones. “Am I accidentally showing these off?”

“Well, I don’t see it if you’re asking.” Evaliena replied, doing the technique again. Jace just had to take it on faith for now. Maybe he could ask one of the others back at the Keep about it. He tried imagining pumping his mana through his fingertips.

Failure.

Upon.

Failure.

Upon.

Exhaustion. Jace had laid out on the ground, depleted of any strength he could muster. The flame on his bracelet is little more than an ember. Evaliena stood over him with a look of indifference. “I had hopes. But this will just be like all the others I’ve seen.” Jace could only look up at the sky, panting shallowly.

“Do you remember yours?” he panted between breaths.

“Yes, however, you’re not in the state to be asking.” She picked Jace up.