I gasped as I plunged back into my body and shuddered as weakness flooded me. My legs shook and burned so badly I couldn’t stand, and I plopped ungracefully onto my ass as my knees gave out. My back twitched and throbbed, feeling like it was on the verge of spasming, and my arms trembled as I tried to prop myself up. My head spun and pounded, and I tasted coppery blood in my mouth. I fought to stay erect, but my arms wouldn’t hold me up, and I slumped back onto the ground on my back, staring up at the sky. The spirit lights shone serenely above me, no longer writhing and twisting, but their placidity did nothing to calm my sudden panic.

Before I could ask Sara what happened, Aeld appeared above me, his face grave. “Lie still, Freyd,” he said in a concerned voice. “I’ll do what I can to heal you.”

His hand rested on my shoulder, and I felt waves of gentle healing energy roll out of him through my body. The throbbing in my head dulled to a gentle pounding, and the trembling and burning in my limbs eased, but the weakness filling them didn’t pass immediately. As the healing flowed over me, I turned my thoughts inward.

“Sara, what’s wrong with me? Was I poisoned or something?”

“No, John, nothing like that. This is the backlash of using the high spirit’s energy to empower yourself.”

“Backlash? I thought I had a minute before I started hurting myself.”

“You did, but that fight lasted quite a bit longer than a minute, John. You severely overtaxed your body. You’ve got torn muscles, strained tendons, microfractures in your arms and legs, and damage to your nervous and circulatory systems. However, that’s not the real issue.”

“What is, then?” I asked with a mental sigh.

“That empowerment spell doesn’t actually empower your body, John,” she explained. “It can’t; spiritual energy doesn’t work that way. Instead, it strengthens your spirit and its connections to your body, basically letting you get more out of your body with the same amount of energy and effort. That high spirit’s energy, though, is a lot denser and more potent than the energy of the jagadla the spell was meant to use—or your own energy, for that matter. Using it was like dumping a river’s worth of water into a dry streambed. The water gets there, but a lot gets washed away in the process.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, your spirit wasn’t quite dense and strong enough to contain the flow of energy. Maintaining the spell damaged your spirit a little bit each second. When you went into spiritual combat and drew on the high spirit’s energy to match that elder spirit, it exacerbated the damage. Right now, your spirit is badly injured, which is why you feel so weak.”

“Is there any way to heal it?” I asked with rising alarm. I knew that spiritual damage healed on its own, but according to Sara, it usually happened very slowly.

“You’re right, John, it does happen slowly. You can speed it up by keeping Draining Aura active—the extra power coming in will heal your spirit a little bit at a time—but you’re still probably looking at weeks to months. There might be a way to accelerate that process, but it’ll probably use up a lot of the energy you took from that elder spirit.”

Her words reminded me that I had notifications blinking in my vision, and I quickly pulled them up to examine them.

You have 16,108 XP that needs to be assigned.

This XP can be assigned to the following Professions:

Inquisitor (5,133 Max), Undtharvis, Spearman, Undkrager, Warrior

If this XP is not assigned within 24 hours, it will be randomly assigned.

Spirit Melding: You have Partially Melded an Elder Spirit!

Class F Elder Spirit

Spiritual Power: 164

Benefits: All Physical Stats +1

“I didn’t get an ability with that spirit?” I asked, noting the difference between this notification and most of my Spirit Melding ones immediately.

“You didn’t meld the entire spirit, John. You just took a lot of its energy. Aeld pulled the spirit’s consciousness, so to speak, out of combat before you could absorb it, and that’s the part that gives you abilities.”

I felt a surge of irritation at that; I wasn’t sure why Aeld had interfered in my battle, but I planned to ask him. I pushed that aside; it didn’t really matter at the moment.

“So, I can heal myself, but I’ll have to use up that energy? I assume I’ll lose the stat boosts at the same time?”

“It’s likely, yes. There might still be a small amount of energy left, but not enough for me to empower all your physical stats.”

I sighed mentally. As weak as I felt, I didn’t really have much choice. “Okay, so how do we do it?”

“It’s a modification of your self-healing spell, more or less. Instead of targeting your body, it taps the elder spirit’s energy to heal yours.”

“Wait, couldn’t I do that with any of my spirits? I could probably lose a couple of those land spirits without being too upset.”

“Sadly, no,” she laughed softly. “Those spirits still have a tiny bit of consciousness attached to them, and you’d run the risk of that tainting your spirit. I’m not 100% sure what that would do, but it would probably turn into a sort of spiritual infection. The energy from the elder spirit is mostly clean, so the chances of it affecting you are infinitesimal.”

“Maybe I should do that more often, then,” I mused. “Stop before fully melding a spirit, I mean. I could build up a store of energy if I need to do something like this.”

“You certainly could, John. There’s a downside to it, too, though. When you draw power from your other spirits, they immediately begin restoring themselves. The energy you took from the elder spirit is damaged and incomplete since you only took part of it, but it’s not trying to heal. I think that without that consciousness, it can’t absorb more power to replenish itself. Once you use it, it’s gone.”

While Aeld healed my body, I focused on the pattern that Sara showed me and began to trickle energy very slowly into it. Apparently, going too fast could end up doing more damage; I couldn’t force my spirit to heal, but I could give it the energy it needed to do so.

“There,” the shaman said after a minute or so. “I’ve done all I can. Can you sit up, Freyd?”

I gently pushed myself into a sitting position. My arms still trembled a bit, but they could at least support me. My head swam briefly, but it settled quickly, and I took a deep breath. My skull no longer throbbed, and my muscles had stopped burning, but my body still ached, and I still felt far too weak.

“Can you tell me what happened?” the letharvis asked, his gaze shifting away from me over my shoulder. I turned my head slowly to look behind me and saw Fifa, once again dressed in her robe, standing ten feet away or so. I expected to feel a surge of lust when I looked at her, considering how close she was, but fortunately, my exhausted body didn’t respond to her in the slightest.

“The same thing that happened at my valskab,” the woman said grimly. “The spirit lights went crazy, the local spirits broke free of the valskab’s control and attacked us, and I lost contact with everyone inside the valskab. Did the same happen inside?”

“I’m—uncertain. I lost communication the same way you did. Until it’s back, I can only tell you what I saw myself.” He looked back at the stone dome we’d been given to sleep in. “The spirits guarding our shelter animated the walls, ceiling, and air and attacked. They caught us by surprise…” He took a deep breath. “Ossur’s spirit has departed, I’m afraid.”

The woman turned away for a moment, her head hung low, and I recalled that Ossur was one of her guards. When she turned back, her eyes were bright, but her face was calm. “His spirit travels free of this world,” she intoned almost mechanically. “May it find rest at last.”

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“May it be so,” Aeld replied just as stoically.

“And may it rest in the embrace of the Great Spirits,” Kadonsel added in a soft voice.

Aeld looked down at me. “You were attacked by an elder spirit.” His words were a statement, not a question, but I answered him anyway.

“I didn’t know that at first,” I told him. “I just thought it was a land spirit until it left the pool I’d been in and took the shape of some kind of animal.”

“A munskvarn,” Fifa supplied. “I’m assuming that’s what the elder spirit was in life.” She sat down heavily on the ground, rubbing her face with her hands.

“It wouldn’t listen to you?” Aeld pressed.

“It refused to even acknowledge me,” she snorted. “I stilled the lesser spirits, but it ignored me completely.” She looked at me. “Did it talk to you?”

“Not until I’d almost finished melding it.” I flashed an annoyed glance at Aeld. “Why did you stop me, by the way?”

“Because the valskab needs their elder spirit, Freyd,” the letharvis sighed. He leaned back, his face thoughtful, before he spoke. “I think I told you once that every valskab was built around an elder spirit. Well, there’s a reason for that.”

“Aeld!” Fifa hissed sharply.

“What?” he snorted. “Are you going to tell me that it’s a secret of the valskabs? That it’s not for outsiders to know?” He pointed at me. “Freyd just saved your life, Fifa. He might have saved dozens of lives; we both know that if that elder spirit had gotten loose in the valskab, it would have taken most of the letharvisa inside to subdue it again. I think that he’s earned the right to understand why I interfered with the path he’s chosen, don’t you?”

She grumbled but lowered her head and looked away, and he turned back to me.

“Something you have to understand about elder spirits, Freyd, is that they aren’t just more powerful beast spirits—any more than high spirits are just powerful land spirits. The spirits of most living things move on when they die, but some of them don’t want to do so, and they attempt to remain in this world. For a spirit to exist in this world, though, it has to be bound to something—spirits of the land are bound to a single force or element, while close spirits bind themselves to powerful emotions.

“The spirit of a living creature, though, can’t do that. It can’t bind itself to land or emotions. It needs living things to hold it in place. A beast spirit that wishes to remain in this world has to find others of its kind that it can bind with, so it seeks out as large a group of its kindred as it can find and connects to them. It draws energy from all the members of its pack, and it gains more intelligence and awareness as its bond with the group deepens. Eventually, that intelligence spreads out into the animals, and they gain the ability to communicate with one another, to reason, and to understand. A pack led by an elder spirit is a terrible danger to anything it considers prey or a threat to it.”

“The pack members gain the ability to communicate?” I echoed, my eyes narrowing as I understood. “Sort of the way that valskabs can?”

“You understand. Yes, precisely. Every valskab is built around an elder spirit because only an elder spirit has the ability to grant those bound to it the power of silent communication and understanding. After the betrayals of the Oikithikiim, our people realized that trust was a luxury we couldn’t afford. We taught ourselves how to find elder spirits, liberate them from their packs, and bind them to ourselves, linking us all together through the spirit. Originally, each valskab linked only to its own members, but now, the Peace of the Haelendi links us all.”

“What, exactly, is this Peace?” I pushed.

The shaman immediately looked uncomfortable. “That, Freyd, I’m not willing to share, I’m sorry. If the rashi allow it, I’ll explain when we meet them, but it’s simply not my secret to give.”

“The point, Freyd,” Fifa cut in, “is that had you claimed that spirit completely, you would have shattered Valskab Yitrivorth and cut all of its members off from the rest of the people. They’d have had to go find another elder spirit, and there simply aren’t any unless you travel to the edges of the Haelendi—which is what they’d have had to do.”

“That might have been a good thing to mention before I started fighting the thing,” I pointed out.

“No one can fight an elder spirit, Freyd!” she snapped. “They have terrible powers, and they’re too strong for any single letharvis to bind. I thought you were throwing your life away foolishly, not that you would be a threat to the spirit!”

“I’d like to know how you were,” Aeld said quietly. “What I saw when I arrived, Freyd—it shouldn’t have been possible. I’ve heard of powerful and talented letharvisa having their spirits shattered by an elder spirit. I’ve even seen one overcome a group of letharvisa, forcibly binding them into its pack. How did you defeat it?”

I snorted in amusement. “You know what?” I replied with a trace of bitterness. “You’ve got your secrets, Aeld. I’ve got mine. If you want to know them, you’ll have to trade for them. Tell me about the Peace of the Haelendi—and the Great Bargain—and I’ll tell you how I defeated the elder spirit.”

The shaman looked at me with a mildly disappointed expression for a few seconds, but I simply returned his gaze with a stony one of my own. I needed to know more about the Peace of the Haelendi. I had a feeling it was connected to what was happening—I even had a wild guess as to how it was formed—but I had to know for sure. I hoped that the lure of learning how I’d gotten strong enough to beat the elder spirit would be enough to draw out more information. Sadly, that hope was misplaced.

“I’m sorry, Freyd,” he finally said. “I can’t trade what isn’t mine, and this isn’t the High Reaches, where I can speak for the rashi. You’ll have to ask them.” He rose to his feet and looked down at me. “Whatever you did, I can tell from your weakness that you didn’t escape the battle unscathed. You should rest and try to heal whatever damage your spirit took.” He turned and walked away toward the valskab’s entrance.

I grunted and pushed myself up to my feet, rising slowly and wearily. My legs still shook slightly beneath me, but they at least held my weight as I walked very carefully back toward the valskab. I stopped, though, as a hand touched my arm.

“Freyd.” I turned back to look at Fifa, whose expression held a mixture of regret, embarrassment, and irritation. I stepped back away from her as my battered body began to respond to her touch, and she quickly lowered her hand.

“I—thank you,” she finally said a moment later. “As Aeld said, you saved my life.” She turned away from me and looked at the pool, which was now a muddy, frothing mess rather than an inviting, steamy bath. “I also owe you another apology.”

“For what?” I asked warily, not wanting to go through another argument with her.

“I came out here intending…” She stopped and looked back at me. “I came out here knowing that you were here, Freyd, and what effect we would have on one another. I did it deliberately, hoping that you would—that we would…” She fell silent, but I didn’t exactly need her to explain further.

“Why?”

“Because…” She took a deep breath. “Because I hate feeling out of control. I hate feeling like—like this.” She turned back to me. “Yorsteina, my mentor in Valskab Flothmathur, warned me not to go on this trip. She told me that being so close to males for so long would be a problem. I should have listened. I didn’t think that it would be like this.” She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.

I frowned as a thought occurred to me. “You’ve never experienced it before?” I asked.

“No. This is my first kyroska. I’ve been through my fertile cycles before, obviously, and the urges there are easy to ignore. I thought that kyroska would be the same, just stronger.” She shivered again. “It’s not. It’s like…”

“Like you’re dying of thirst, and there’s water just out of your reach?” I chuckled.

“Exactly. It’s not a desire; it’s a need.” Her voice lowered as she spoke. “Even now, after what just happened, being here, near you—close to you…” She took a deep, shuddering breath, and I felt another wave of lust roll over my body—a body which was, fortunately, too tired and battered to respond fully.

“Maybe we should just avoid one another for a while, then,” I suggested, taking another step back from her.

“Am—am I that unappealing, Freyd?” she asked in a small voice. “Are you that unattracted to me?”

“It has nothing to do with that, Fifa. It’s a complication, one neither of us needs. When this is done, you’ll go back to your valskab, and I’ll continue on my own path.”

“So?” She took another step closer to me. “I’m not asking you to join my path, Freyd. I’m not asking you to become part of a valskab, or to turn aside from your path. I’m just asking for one time—one simple thing.” She put her hands on her robe as if to pull it off, and I took several staggering steps away from her.

“I’m going back inside,” I told her, firmly ignoring the way my body screamed at me to take her up on her offer despite how I felt. “I’ll see if Aeld can arrange for somewhere separate for me to sleep tonight. I think that until your kyroska passes, it’s best that we stay away from one another as much as possible.”

She blinked, then let go of her robe and took several steps back. “I—I think you’re right,” she finally said. “I never got to bathe. I’ll go do that now, while you…” She looked at me, her gaze growing hungry, then turned quickly away. “Good night, Freyd.”

“Good night, Fifa.” I walked back slowly to the valskab, concentrating on the healing pattern Sara had given me. My mind welcomed the distraction, as part of me kept picturing the woman’s nude body before, and the way she’d offered herself to me. I knew that the urge I felt was chemical, nothing more, but I still ached to join her in her bath and satiate both our urges. I also knew, though, that I’d hate myself for doing it after—and maybe during. I wasn’t exactly attracted to the woman, after all.

“You know, John, technically, I could probably fix that,” Sara suggested.

“What?” I asked hopefully. “You can make me stop feeling this?”

“I’m actually doing everything I can on that front already,” she said regretfully. “You’re right that it’s a biochemical process, but it’s also a powerful one. It seems that Menskallin males have a very limited reproductive drive unless they’re in the presence of a fertile female, and then it goes into overdrive. This kyroska is even worse: your entire endocrine system basically devotes itself to the concept of reproduction when Fifa’s around you. I’m mitigating it as much as I can, but I can’t turn it off, I’m afraid.”

“Then what can you fix?”

“Your not being attracted to her. It seems that’s mostly a visual issue—maybe a tactile one, as well—and I do have the ability to affect those senses to some extent if it helps you. I could adjust your visual image of Fifa until it’s more appealing, for example.”

“No, thanks,” I said quickly, cutting off the mental image that popped into my head of Fifa being no longer furry and inhuman looking. “I’d still know, and I’m not sure how I’d feel about myself the morning after.”

“Are you certain? You’ve never had an issue with doing this with women on other worlds before.”

“They looked human—or close enough to it. Fifa doesn’t. She looks more like what I think of as an animal. I’m just—yeah, I can’t do that, sorry.”

“In that case, then I think separation probably is the best solution. Her condition seems to get worse the longer she’s near you, and it affects you more strongly the closer you are to her, as well. Hopefully, a few days of separation will allow it to pass.”

I hoped the same thing, but I wasn’t exactly optimistic. Nothing else had really been going all that well for me so far in this world. I didn’t expect that to change anytime soon.