“Touching. Truly touching!”
Shiphrah’s sing-song voice cuts through the bittersweet joy of the moment. I sit up, shrugging off the temptation to tap into the array of new Skills occupying my core space, and nod at the [Metaphysical Mender]. “I’m ready if you are.”
My benefactress beams at me, her eyes crinkling up at the corners. She nudges her brother, who is still staring at Lionel with an expression of profound wonder. “Rashad? What do you think about the shape of Nuri’s core? I’m satisfied if you are.”
Rashad shakes himself out of his stupor. He peers at me, his face scrunched up with the exertion of Viewing my strange, fractured core. A tense few heartbeats pass while he considers the state of my inner world. He nods sharply. “Brimming with power. Easier to take in the entire thing now that the balance is closer to expectations. Recommend proceeding.”
“Then let’s begin.”
With those few simple words, potent emotions once again surge through me. This is it. This is the day that I recover. No more waiting, no more setbacks.
Shiphrah settles into her seat, crossing one leg over the other to get comfortable, and places her hand on my chest. She closes her eyes. A torrent of mana erupts from her, taking my breath away with its intensity when it hits me.
Tendrils of ethereal energy worm their way through me, body and soul, burrowing onward at a rate that I can barely track. Even within my own core, I have trouble comprehending the full scope of what’s happening. Boosted by the power of my Arcane Domain, my mind finally catches up to what I’m sensing: instead of healing directly, Shiphrah is fully encompassing the outer membrane of my soul—if that’s what it truly is—with a net of mana in order to create a latticework around it.
Her technique is strangely akin to imbuing, which sends a spike of fear through me for a moment. If she fundamentally remakes my core, what will happen to me? Will she change me? Who will I become? But my worry passes as I realize her efforts are only to contain and compress the semi-permeable layer holding in the vast sea of potential I still possess. Despite donating over a quarter of it to my friends, with the lion’s share going to Lionel, there’s still an enormous empty space that will only waste energy to try to heal.
Sure enough, my hunch proves correct as my healer activates the lattice, which shrinks in on its like a loose knot pulled tight. Ah. Not a lattice. A weave.
The pressure around my core presses down on everything uniformly. I brace myself, expecting it to hurt, but there’s a second working of mana overlaid across the first: Rashad’s healing Skills, keeping my physical body from falling apart while his sister does the delicate work of fixing my core and metaphysical connections.
Warmth floods me. I slow my breathing and relax, content to let the experts do their work. There’s no use worrying about what might go wrong. I’ve always been willing to bet on even the slimmest of odds. This is better than a fighting chance. I’m in the hands of the foremost expert in the nation. If she can’t do it, then it can’t be done. So I may as well simply trust her.
Tighter and tighter grows the weave as Shiphrah pulls for all she’s worth. Her deft touch amazes me as she works, reapplying a new, slightly smaller net after each weave is as tight as it gets and pulling it into place with strong, sure guidance. She repeats the process over and over again, likely bottoming out on her own mana by the time the outer membrane refuses to condense any further. It’s still vast, but I can sense the extremities all at once now, instead of feeling like I’m lost in the void of boundless space.
She withdraws her hand, pats my shoulder, and fetches the first of the glass cores we’ve brought. “Need a little top off, dear. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry about!”
I fall back into the warm dark of my inner world, drifting away in my imagination while she works to restore what I’ve lost. The space around me is a womb, precious and life-giving. I am an unborn child again, suspended not in amniotic fluid, but in pure mana, awaiting my birth.
The beautiful imagery shatters abruptly, replaced by the ugly face of fear as an all-too-familiar presence intrudes on the edges of my Domain. My head jerks to the side and my fist clenches tight.
What is Saphora doing here?
The approaching mana signature sends a jolt of fear through me. While the rational part of me knows that she works for her aunt and uncle, the timing seems too suspicious to be coincidental. I’m about to get up and warn the team that Saphora is here when an even more frightening thought brings me up short. What if we get into a fight with Saphora over what she did to Lionel, and Shiphrah refuses to finish healing me?
All the while, Saphora marches down the steps. She’s not alone, either. Based on the feel of barely-restrained potency radiating off the others, they’re highly competent, and they outnumber us. I’m considering my options, wondering if I can ambush them by seizing control of all the mana remaining in the glass cores we brought and flooding the hallway with violence and sharpness, shredding them apart before they can attack.
To my surprise, her presence stops halfway down the stairway. There’s no resonating sense of violence to match my instincts. Instead of coming closer, she leads her team laterally, into one of the rooms above us. They take up residence several floors up from the operating room.
Fears aside, Saphora stops there. After a panicked few moments of inaction, wondering what her play might be, I shove the distraction away. I’ll have to deal with her later. For now, it’s time to finally heal up. I can’t risk failure because of fear, or the possibility that an enemy might try to attack. If it comes to it, then my team will have to ward her off. They’re still powerful, even after donating Skills to me.
Mind made up, I return my attention to the mana knitting my insides together. I’m barely conscious of my physical body, but at some point, I’m vaguely aware of hot, salty tears coursing down my face. It’s the second—third?—time today that I’ve cried, which seems like an embarrassing new record.
A strong hand slips into mine, squeezing in comfort. Someone else grips my opposite shoulder, and soft murmurs of encouragement surround me like a warm blanket. I take a deep breath and let go of the fear and suspicion and shame of the past. I’ve placed myself in their hands, quite literally. Now it’s time to trust them to do their jobs.
The process lasts another hour. Shiphrah pauses only briefly to swap glass cores twice. With all the extra mana available, she doesn’t have to be content with half-measures. She goes over my channels in exacting detail, completely dedicated to not only healing my channels, but strengthening and reinforcing them as she goes. Thanks to her diligence, not a single hairline crack is untouched. It’s neither quick nor pleasant, but after all the pain I’ve endured over the last few years, I’m willing to take any measure of torment in order to restore my arcane body.
The metaphysical mending is thorough and intense, sweeping over me again and again, each time filling in a little more and supplying what’s lacking. Strengthening me by degrees, the process repeats in what feels like an endless loop.
Endless, yet inevitable. No one can stop me from recovering. Once my channels feel more robust, I tentatively draw in a small amount of mana from the world around me, exulting at the lack of pain. It’s easier than ever before to harvest the mana while we’re so close to the scarred-over Rift below the research base, but I force myself to go slowly. The last thing I want to do is rupture my core again while Shiphrah is only halfway through the process.
Yet with every pass, I sense how much stronger the inner lining of my core has become. To my shock, it feels enormous—a cavernous expanse that far exceeds my memory of the small and limited mana pool that I used to own. I suspect the reason it takes Shiphrah so long to finish restoring my core is that my Capacity has vaulted forward to an absurd degree, likely thanks to channeling an entire Rift and then draining an Iridium-rank beast core while in Natan.
Even siphoning off a huge amount of potential isn’t enough to use up all the remaining energy in my inner world. With a flex of my will, I sweep [Arcane Domain: My Eyes Shall Pierce the Veil] over my team, checking if I can gauge their latent potential. I’ve never tried doing this before, since I usually rely on some manner of Viewing to see their Skills, not the amorphous energy surrounding their crystallized core space. Comparing the amount of unconverted potential leaves me blown away by just how much larger my inner world has grown.
Lionel has the most potential now, thanks to my repayment for his princely gift. Even so, I estimate that I still have four to five times as much as him after compressing the outer membrane of my inner world to better match my core. The pressure coming off my friend feels strong, as though he’s firmly into the middle realms of the First Threshold. If that’s the case, then where am I?
The thought pings about in my mind, growing with urgency. Excitement builds as I consider the implications. Could I make a push for the Second Threshold soon? The sudden desire is too strong, too tantalizing for me to consider for long, and I shove the thought unceremoniously from my mind. I won’t let myself get my hopes up until the job is done. No use getting greedy.
As Shiphrah moves on from repairing the lining of my soul space to the core itself, weaving new and stronger layers into the walls, I increase my rate of absorption. What was once a trickle turns into a raging river, and then an overwhelming flood. Still my core is not sated. More and more mana gushes into me, gloriously pain-free, and my mana pool drinks it all in without complaint. I’m not even a quarter of the way filled up by the time that Shiphrah finishes her work.
And it’s truly finished. My core and channels gleam in my sight, fully restored. Not one crack or crevice remains. The entire interconnected system is pristine, shining like stained glass with the sunlight pouring through the windows. Images of polished chrome at my brother’s workshop when he gets fancy at the forge come to mind; everything is bright and clean and built for strength. I can’t look away, but I don’t want to leave my friends in the dark any longer.
Triumphant, I rise up out of my soul space, although it takes all my willpower to break away from my inner world now that it’s repaired. I let out a shout of victory, making trails of hot and cold dance around the room without needing my glass pseudo cores to power the Skill. My [Greater Heat Manipulation] is running off my internal mana again, powered by my core itself for the first time in well over a year.
I leap up from the bed, despite Rashad’s shout of caution, and pump my fist into the air. “I’m back! I’m back!”
Avelina pulls me into a hug, squeezing so hard that I can barely breath, but I don’t care. All I can think is that I’m not a cripple. I don’t even care about my hand anymore. I can animate glass if I need a replacement hand. And who knows? Maybe Lionel will grow strong enough to heal me someday.
While my friends whoop and holler, celebrating with me, I keep harvesting mana. My restored core keeps filling, pushing far past any Capacity I’ve ever dreamed possible. I barely notice the mana costs to activate my Skills. Switching over to my [Arcane Domain] barely changes things; I have more mana than I truly know what to do with right now.
So I keep drawing in more and more mana, marveling at how smoothly I can harvest the world’s energy. It’s effortless in a way that I’ve never experienced, spiraling into my new, expanded channels as though it belongs. Yet no matter how quickly I pull mana in, my core still doesn’t fill up. I’ve yet to hit the halfway mark, although it’s getting close.
All the while, I submit to being poked and prodded by Rashad and Shiphrah, who are as stunned as I am. In fact, they look even more shocked, as though what just happened breaks all the known rules. And, come to think of it, maybe it does. People don’t usually heal from an injury to their internal world like this, at least not without severe drawbacks.
They definitely aren’t supposed to increase capabilities or Capacity. But the truth is right in front of them, undeniable and in their faces.
“How much mana do you have?” Rashad breaths out in awe.
His excitement is mirrored by Rakesh and Melina, who are writing notes and whispering back and forth with an urgency I’ve rarely seen before. My scholarly friends are going to have a field day with my recovery. I suppose I shouldn’t begrudge them; documenting everything that’s happened could propel Rakesh’s career forward, pushing him into the national consciousness.
“How?” Rashad demands, though it doesn’t seem that he expects me to know the answer. “Boy, if you aren’t in the Second Threshold, I’ll eat my hat.”
“You don’t have a hat,” Avelina points out helpfully. She tilts her head, looking at Rashad as though she’s imagining him with a hat on, and nods. “I’ll bet it’s a good look on you.”
Melina stops writing notes. She flips her pen over and taps the back of it on the paper, deep in thought. When she lifts her chin, she speaks with absolute certainty. “You can’t have secretly advanced, Nuri. We would have noticed the surge of power. The Second Threshold is not like the First. Remember when you broke through back home? Everyone noticed. We all ran over to see what was happening. The Second? From what Rakesh’s been researching, not only is the Second Threshold significantly more intense than the First, but it’s also a qualitative difference to your mana, not simply a matter of quantity.”
“Correct on all accounts,” Shiphrah says. She pats Melina and Rakesh on the shoulders, a favorite move from her. “You and your friend sound unusually well informed. What’s happening here is certainly not normal! Not normal at all. The mana density I encountered within your friend’s core space was not what I expected. If he hasn’t broken through yet, then he’s right on the cusp.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Shiphrah’s words echo in my mind, catching me off guard. I’d dreamed of advancing, but it was an idle thought. A far off hope. Or so I thought.
“Am I really on the cusp?” I ask, dubious. “Shouldn’t that require another decade or so of work? There’s got to be some mistake.”
“I have no idea how it’s possible,” Shiphrah admits. “The sheer amount of mana that you would have had to wield to advance your Skills—it boggles the mind that you would have been able to do that at your age even with a healthy core. Without one? Impossible. Impossible!”
“Nuri. The beast core,” Melina says. She bites her lip, her eyes darting side to side while she considers the possibilities. If I know her, she’s running rough calculations, though with more accuracy than I can apart from pen and paper. “I think you’ve probably compressed untold years of mana use into the last few months, given all the, ah, adventures we’ve had.”
“The problem is still potency,” Shiphrah interjects. “You’re unbalanced. You need to rank up the rest of your many new Skills if you want to advance. And that is no easy task given their size and complexity. From what Rashad says, the base level strength of your Skills is unprecedented. ‘Dizzying’ was the word he kept repeating yesterday when we were game-planning for this session, and that’s before you stuffed yourself full of other Skills like a glutton. I hope you don’t expect that this will be a common occurrence.”
I nod, considering her words, and slip back into my chair. “I certainly do not. I’ll never receive a gift this precious again.” I break off, my throat tightening up as I shoot a grateful look toward Lionel, who’s sprawled in a cozy chair in the corner and grinning at me smugly.
“Sound advice about ranking up. I think I know exactly which Skill to focus on once I’ve filled my core. But I’m still not at maximum Capacity yet, even with the mana density down here. I want to push forward a little longer before I begin experimenting.”
“Careful, Nuri,” Mikko cautions.
Shiphrah shrugs helplessly. “He’s good to go. Against all my better judgment, I have to admit that he’s in better metaphysical shape than most of us will ever be. I’ve outdone myself. Truly outdone myself!”
She beams at all of us, not the least bit abashed by her bragging. I can’t exactly hold it against her; she’s pulled off an unprecedented act—a miracle, quite honestly. She should be proud of herself.
I glance around the room, ignoring the squeak of the seat beneath me, casting my gaze at the plain, unadorned walls and the cluttered desk. I ignore the papers; Rakesh would never forgive me if I turned them all into glass. Instead, my attention settles on a haphazard stack of plates, some still crusted over with yesterday’s peach pastries. Apparently, Saphora’s slacking in her cleanup duties.
Someone’s gotta take care of that.
I bound across the room in a single leap, pick up the dishes, absently noting that one of the plates has a chip in it, and flex my mana. My mana. Not borrowed from an external glass reservoir. Not pressed into service by leveraging my Domain against the ambient mana of the world around me. No, this mana is all mine, harvested and naturalized in my own core.
[Vitrification] transmutes the stack.
Ignoring Shiphrah’s cries of surprise and mild outrage—perhaps she was more attached to the plates than I realized, despite their chipped and faded appearance—I marshal the might of my Domain, pouring as much mana into it as I desire. The Skill responds more eagerly than I’ve felt before. Falling back on my memory of Lady Evershed’s telekinesis Skill, I crudely replicate Melina’s [Object Manipulation] by changing my Domain’s grip on reality.
My mana reserves dip about a few percent, as near as I can tell. A laugh burbles up from deep within my chest. Using my Domain this way only once used to take the majority of the mana bound up within my original glass pseudo cores. Even after creating the upgraded cores, I still couldn’t change the effects of gravity at will. I’d drain myself dry within a few tries, which limited my ability to empower my punches or anchor myself against blows with my Domain.
Now? The world seems to sing around me as I effortlessly float over the glass remains of the dinner plates. [Greater Heat Manipulation] works its magic, making the glass soft and pliable in my hand. I consider for a moment whether or not I want to manually work the glass into the animal I have in mind. Why not experiment a bit?
I step back, using only my [Arcane Domain] to both uphold and reshape the glass to my liking. All the while. my [Greater Heat Manipulation] keeps the gather at the right temperature. I push myself beyond limits I never even realized I’d imposed on myself, exploring what happens when I gradually heat up only one part of the glass while cooling another. With this kind of finer heat manipulation, I have greater control than ever before.
Inspired by Rakesh’s paper companions, I create a bird. Effortlessly, my mana and intent work in concert, shaping wings and beak and fluffy underbelly all at the same time. As soon as my mind conceives of an idea, my will makes it reality. I don’t craft a songbird, however. That’s our [Secretarial Researcher]’s department. Instead, a falcon emerges. The fastest of all birds, a true prince among creatures, capable of diving more quickly than anything else can move. Mundane as it is, it’s still incredibly swift. Few mana-awakened monsters can match its capabilities until the higher tiers.
More and more mana rushes out of me as I inflate the glass, turning it with my Domain. I draw out delicate feathers one by one. I copy the feather structure I see in my mind, tiny lines and veins, and push myself to get each individual feather right. Freed from the constraint of cumbersome tools, I don’t need to rely on a general pattern that approximates the right look from a distance. I call on my memories of my old Skill, the sacrificed [Architect of Unseen Worlds], to more closely examine what I’m doing and to correct each imperfection. It’s less like making something and more like impressing my imagination on the world around me.
Caught up in the excitement of what I’m doing, I barely realize until after it’s done that I’ve leaned on my emerging understanding of innovation while I work. I’m still not confident that I can imbue the higher-order concept into a piece just yet, since I’ve only imbibed a few cups of the precious tea, but my comprehension is improving by leaps and bounds. I’m getting a sense of how I can incorporate it in the future.
Letting my mind wander down desultory paths, I continue to create. Trusting that I’ll arrive at the right place as long as I’m under the half-light of inspiration cast by my emergency perception of innovation, I pull the falcon closer. My senses sweep over it, and I fix stray details I don’t like. The bird’s beak becomes more hooked, suitable for tearing flesh. The talons shrink slightly, trading size for razor sharpness.
To my shock, I succeed in imbuing only that section of the sculpture materializing in front of me. That gives me new ideas, and I push onward, adding unbreakable to the entire creature. It doesn’t overlay the talons—I still can’t seem to get dual-layers of imbuing to take at once; it’s fundamentally changing the nature of the creation, after all, and I don’t have the knack for it like my mentor in the capital city—but the rest of the animal is more than it was before. Transformed by the imbuement.
As my sculpture takes its final shape, I activate [Glass Animation], my newest and least developed Skill. Overloading it with as much mana as I can push into the structure, I forge the deepest connection with the falcon that I can, filling it with my memories of watchfulness and my deep distrust for Saphora.
I’m not sure if it will work. Perhaps the falcon will simply move when commanded, like my first attempt at an animated creature. Or maybe it will exhibit slight self-awareness, like Yuuni, able to coil around a person and become an armband until redeployed.
But if I’m right, then this new animal will be keyed into Saphora’s mana signature, able to keep watching as long as it’s got mana to power its search.
My eyes widen and I suck in a sharp breath. “Mel! How much is left in the last set of your glass cores? We didn’t use it all, right?”
“Maybe half,” Melina answers. She grins, catching on right away, and levitates the string of cores, which looks almost like an enormous pearl necklace, over toward the falcon.
“Thanks!” I say, practically vibrating with excitement. I latch onto the cores with a flourish of my Domain, marveling that I still have mana for this costly maneuver left despite not starting with a full core. I twist the string into a series of small loops, just large enough to create a crown for my falcon. Merging the glass takes little effort, since the top of the bird is still hot.
I float it all over toward Melina. “Could you anneal this for me? I’d like to take him home with us today.”
A heavy sigh fills the room. I turn to see Shiphrah sink back into her seat. Melancholy seems to make the lines etched into her face a little deeper and more shadowed than they were moments earlier. “Those were my grandmother’s dishes.”
“Ah. Sorry. [Vitrification] is a one-way trip,” I say with a half-shrug. My face flushes. “Got caught up in the excitement. I’ll be happy to make you new ones, even if they’re not as, uh, emotionally valuable. If you’d like, I can imbue the next set so that they always keep your food warm!”
“Youth. How hasty. How hasty,” Shiphrah says simply. She goes back to shaking her head slowly. Her fingers pick at a stray stitch in the upholstery on her chair, and she doesn’t say anything further even when her brother asks her a question.
“I really am sorry,” I say to Rashad, feeling my face heat up. “I just got carried away, and I thought the dishes were a more acceptable target than your research notes.”
“Our . . . notes?” Rashad echoes, a faint question unspoken in his words. He glances at the desk, walks over to the dog-eared stack, and thumbs through the papers. A moment later, he palms his forehead, joining his sister in sighing dramatically.
“These are just lists of where Shiphrah wants to eat next. She likes trying out a different restaurant each evening. Losing these would have been more acceptable.”
“They would not!” Shiphrah shoots back, finally getting up from her slumped spot. She bustles over to the desk and swipes up the papers, depositing them into a satchel at her side.
“Still, I am terribly sorry,” I say, trying to dispel the awkwardness in the air. “Could I make a little companion for you in addition to the dishes? I know I can’t truly make it up to you, but I’m not sure how else to show my sincerity.”
“Your glass creatures can move on their own!” Rashad exclaims, walking closer to the falcon and peering at the way it’s turning its head and taking in the room. Its talons flex open in the air, closing over nothing like it’s trying to perch on a branch.
I nod and walk over to show off what the falcon can do, making it flap its wings and open its beak in a silent scream. “Yes. I can also add a few imbuements, or use a few simple runes to create a ward. Fire is my speciality, thanks to Ava’s influence, not to mention her donated Skill, but I’m sure we can find another if that’s more suitable. I really do feel terrible about this.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Rashad says. “You’ve walked past our family’s summer house and grounds on your way here. We probably have a dozen more sets just like that inside the house. Somewhere. I don’t exactly keep track, since we’re only here a few months out of the year.”
“I’ll take a cat,” Shiphrah says. Her voice sounds more vibrant again. She skips up to the desk, her movements lively once more. “Yes, a cat! With a tail that sticks up in the air. Oh! And curls twice in cute little ringlets. No shedding fur, no annoying little hairballs to clean up, no risk of a hidden litter of kittens. The perfect pet!”
I chuckle at the shift in her attitude. “I’d be happy to oblige, but I’ll need material to transform into glass. I can’t summon any on command anymore.”
Rashad scoffs. “Anymore? Ah, right. You said that you destroyed your previous Skills. It boggles the mind. Who are you, young man? I’ve never seen anyone wield glass the way you do. I guess you’re a natural rulebreaker, though, eh? Intriguing!”
His sister flutters a hand in his direction. “Rashad, stop pestering poor Nuri! Bring him down to the basement and let him pick a rock.”
“There’s a basement? I thought we were on the lowest level,” Avelina says. Her eyes dart around, and she twists her finger into Yuuni’s coils. “Mind if I stay here? I’m tired of dark places, to be honest.”
“No more live Rifts. I promise, Ava. Uh, you wanna come, Mikko? If I’m right, there used to be a Rift below us. I could use the company.”
Rashad and Shiphrah exchange glances again. Meaning crackles between them, even if I can decipher it. The siblings both seem uncomfortable, but I don’t want to assume anything. At last, Shiphrah clicks her tongue. “Rashad, just take him. There’s no sense hiding secrets from a perceptive young man like that.”
Rakesh and Melina want to join us for notes. Naturally. Avelina and Lionel are content to sit this one out. The four of us make our way through a side door, following Rashad. He leads us down a rickety staircase that clearly sees little maintenance, if the flecks of rust are any indication, and into a cramped cave. The stairway creaks ominously under our boots as we descend, but it holds until we reach the bedrock in the basement.
Sweeping the basement region with my Domain reveals that it’s not much larger than it seems. There’s a strange, swirling scar on the ground that reminds me vaguely of a runic array, but I can’t parse the meaning. It must be an ancient technique to seal over a Rift, but it’s unlike any I’ve seen before. The mana density is even higher than it was upstairs, which helps me refill my core more quickly.
“Mind if I stay down here for a few hours? Regeneration is easier than it will be outside, and I’ll have plentiful material to transmute if I need more glass. I’ll bring up the animated cat once Mel is done with the annealing process. Oh, and ask your sister if she prefers a smaller companion, or if a full, life-size cat is acceptable.”
Rashad lets out a dry little laugh. He shakes his head in defeat. “Knowing Shiphrah, the larger the better. She was obsessed with adopting a leopard on our last trip. I barely talked her out of it, and that was only because our guide got bitten by one on our last day.”
Rashad laces his fingers together over his belly, his eyes darting around nervously. “Your animals don’t bite, do they?”
“I don’t think so, but I don’t offer refunds. If they develop bad habits, that’s all on you,” I say with a cheeky grin.
“Wonderful. Shiphrah spoils every pet she’s ever had. Well, you have my thanks. Seeing my sister so happy is a rare prospect these days. You’ve been wonderful for her.”
“It’s the least I can do. She’s done so much for me,” I say, feeling awkward at the praise. I’m the one who received priceless treatment.
“We’d like you to come back, if you’re willing,” Rashad says. “If we can understand how you kept your arcane body from deteriorating, then we might be able to help other people in the future. It’s a rare predicament, but an even rarer solution. You might be the key to success!”
“Of course! I’ll do anything I can to help. But if I may ask, how did Shiphrah even develop Skills like this if it doesn’t usually work?”
Rashad shrugs. “Same as any other [Healer]. Just because some wounds require more than a simple [Healing Touch] to cure doesn’t mean that the Skill is useless—or that the injuries are incurable. Preserving life is always worth the effort, even if the patient never regains full use of Skills.”
I stroke my beard, considering his words. “Fair enough. I’m still amazed that she gained enough understanding of healing and the way the metaphysical world works to successfully earn a related Skill. That’s a story I’d like to hear, if she’s willing to share.”
Rashad hesitates. “I’ll see what we can arrange, Nuri. She’s a little strange about telling that to strangers. It’s, well, it’s deeply personal.”
“Another time then. Let me get started on that cat,” I say, not wanting to push. I owe the two of them more than I can ever repay; I have no desire to sour that relationship, even if they’re related to that snake, Saphora.
The reminder of who’s waiting above us brings me up cold. In my excitement over using my Skills in unfettered creation, I’d nearly forgotten the threat. I smile weakly at Rashad, who seems to sense my hesitation. He ascends the derelict stairway, leaving us alone in the dark.
I thread heat through several stones in the walls around us, melting them down until they glow like lava. In the ominous, flickering light, I get to work on the cat. I only give the creative process a portion of my attention, however. Far more pressing is the need to come up with a plan for how I’m going to handle Saphora—without putting my team in danger.
They’ve sacrificed so much on my behalf. It’s only fair that I take a turn and shoulder the load for them. After all, I’m now the strongest on the team. And with great strength comes even greater responsibility. I won’t let her hurt them anymore.