None of the other passengers seemed to be looking in Hina's direction. It was afternoon, and she only had a couple of hours before they stopped for the night.

Sitting in the corner of the top of the wagon, Olivia and Kai's bodies partly shielded Hina from sight, and she turned her body away as she read from the card for ambit compression.

The instructions were straight-forward, at least in terms of the process for the base technique. Conceptually, it was more complicated, but it would allow her to shrink her ambit while increasing its strength, flexibility and density.

She could then expand it further—the increased potency would help—and then she could repeat the whole process several times. Eventually, this would allow her to progress to the next phase in ambit development—which was not specified in the card, and Hina couldn't imagine what that could be.

Not for the first time, she wished for a comprehensive guide to all of this that explained where each technique fit into the broader whole, ideally with benefits and trade-offs outlined in advance. Maybe at the academy, she could find something like that.

The card alluded to secondary techniques, ways to actually fold her ambit that would result in a greater than linear increase in potency, but it didn't go into detail. She had to assume that the basic technique would be good enough. Or, she supposed she did have someone to ask.

"...Fenne?"

"Hmm?"

"Tell me if there's anything wrong with this?" She handed over the card.

After a few moments, Olivia looked up. "Where did you—nevermind. It's fine. Relatively standard entry-level technique."

"Not going to stunt my growth?"

"It's a little old fashioned, but it shouldn't have any long-term drawbacks so far as I know."

"What about the secondary techniques it refers to? Are they better? Any downsides to not starting there?"

"Hmm. I've heard that starting with the advanced techniques might be better. Some of the older families do this. But it's... risky, especially without dedicated assistance. A mistake might damage your foundation, for what—wait, do you have instructions for any of these secondary techniques?"

"No."

"Well, problem solved then."

"You don't have access to any of these secondary techniques?"

"No. I'm still working through my entry-level technique."

"The same one?"

"Broadly similar, yes."

"And you can't—"

"No."

"Right. Okay. And you don't have any books—"

"No. Sorry, H—Lori."

"Right. Okay, then. Well, thank you for the information."

"Anytime," Olivia handed the card back. She returned her attention to the book she was reading, which Hina had never seen before—a small brown tome with a leather binding and no title. The open pages were filled with printed letters in a language that Hina didn't know.

It was a puzzle for another time. For now, Hina should focus on ambit compression.

But compression was a strange word for it. Her ambit wasn't a piece of fabric that she could fold in half, or scrunch up into a denser shape. It extended outwards from her in all directions. There was no way to fold it over like a sheet of paper. Conceptually, it didn't make sense.

And the exercise itself didn't seem to line up with that theory in any case. The card didn't want her to fold her ambit back over itself at all. In fact, it seemed to only reduce the diameter of her ambit as a side effect.

What it wanted her to do was more like—as part of the ambit expansion work she'd already done, she had moved the boundaries of her soul—her ambit—outwards, but only the boundaries. The fabric of her soul between the external boundaries and her body had been stretched, and was less dense as a result. Now she was going to force the rest of her soul to expand into that new shape. Some of it, at least.

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And part of that process would contract her ambit. But it was only a side effect.

Perfectly skillful application of this technique would result in less or even no contraction, while still allowing the soul to stretch into the new shape. But beginners were expected to contract their ambits in the process. It was not considered a problem.

In any case, because the net outcome was a stronger ambit that was typically smaller, the technique was still called ambit compression. A quirk of the terminology.

It was more than a little confusing. And thinking about the metaphysics of it made her head hurt.

But the exercise itself didn't seem too complicated. It primarily required willpower, and concentration.

And after sitting safe in the bouncing wagon for several hours since lunch, Hina had plenty of both.

She closed her eyes, and felt for the edges of her ambit. Allowing her perception to expand, she brought as much of her ambit as she could into her awareness.

And then she repeated the process again and again, until she had a faint sense of the whole of the thing. The edges of her soul, if the instructions were accurate. Tracing backwards from the parts of her ambit that she could feel, the connecting threads, Hina followed them inward. There was so much more to it than she had imagined.

Layers of shimmering fabric floating in the void, wrapped in and around herself. Only the very edges touched the world beyond. Only these extended beyond the bounds of her body.

Bright lines tangled together in the dark of her being, which had a density—a weight to it, especially towards the center—the intensity fading away with distance. The shape of it was almost familiar, tickling something in the back of her mind. It was hard to focus on, Hina could feel her attention threatening to slip away, as if she was dreaming.

She had to focus, she was here for a reason. While she held the complex, twisted shape of her ambit within her perception, she gathered her will. Remembering the feeling of flexibility that her ambit had held when she expanded it, Hina visualised what she wanted. The end goal.

And then with a practiced flex of will, Hina guided her ambit—her soul—into alignment with that image.

And Hina expanded.

The twisting curling lines of her inner being stretched outwards, the weight in the center of her soul diminishing ever so slightly. The shift cascaded through the whole of her being, a thrill of power reverberating through her.

For a long time, she sat there, breathing deeply with her eyes closed while the wagon bounced along the road towards Modmin. While she adjusted to the feeling of the change.

And Hina felt changed, in some fundamental way. Like there was more to her now.

She put two fingers to her forehead. She could feel that her ambit extended to the edge of her first finger and no further, but it was more tangible too. She could almost feel the weight of it with her fingers. Almost.

Hina breathed deep and a smile spread across her face.

* * *

Now that she had some time, seven or eight days away from Modmin, Hina wanted to be more intentional about her practice. She'd been putting in time here and there, wherever she had it, but the focus had been on whatever she felt like at the time, and that had meant that some important things were being neglected. Or at least not given enough focus as they deserved.

Ambit development was feeling like a much bigger deal than she'd expected. The feeling of expanding her sense of being had been something else—a hint of power on a level beyond anything she'd experienced. It felt important. Like she needed to do a lot more of that. Like maybe it would help with other things, like the sigils.

That first experience of the Lesser Sigil of Guidance had been terrifying, how it had brushed aside her attempts to assert her will without even trying, and refused to be dismissed. The sense of inner strength she was feeling now felt like the beginning of a solution.

She wasn't ready yet. The sigil was her best bet for keeping herself and Kai safe in the wild—the best weapon she'd found so far—but she wasn't ready to face it again yet. But she felt like she would be, if she continued.

So first priority: more ambit expansion and compression, at least one more cycle, maybe two or three. She could devote time to that every morning and afternoon for the rest of the journey, and she would.

Secondly, she needed to continue to work on cycling in an intentional way. Her well had steadily increased in size since she'd started—especially after the encounter with the huld, but surely there were other ways to improve. Maybe it was just a matter of being consistent. Or maybe it was a matter of spending more power and replacing it. Hina would need to experiment to figure out what worked best.

Or she should ask Olivia. Yes, she should start with that. Olivia may not be willing to tell her, but she might give some hints.

Hina put that on her mental to-do list.

Third, Hina needed to be intentional about practicing the workings that she'd learned. She had been using them, but not putting in enough effort to improve with the ones that weren't immediately useful.

Like the light working—she had a sense that if she didn't actively practice that one, she wouldn't be able to recall the pattern with enough precision to use it next time she needed to. The copy of the pattern in her memory felt like it was degrading, like some of the details had faded—maybe she could reconstruct it, but it would only get harder with time.

She checked the others mentally, one by one. The barrier was okay—she'd been using that nearly every day and the three patterns sprang into her minds eye with ease. But she supposed that now that they were travelling with others, she would need to be intentional about practicing it.

And the Lesser Sigil of Guidance—

The sigil popped, fully formed, into the center of her minds eye at the thought, tendrils writhing around the edges. Strange geometry twisting in a way that hurt her head to look at. Amplifying her headache.

Hina frantically pushed it away, turning the force of her will to dismissing the sign, before it could activate and use her like a puppet. Before it left her as a burnt out husk, lying on the ground. The other passengers would wonder why she'd suddenly collapsed. The—

The sigil faded.

The roaring in Hina's head subsided. She was okay. It—it hadn't overpowered her? She was still herself. She was still in control.

She breathed in, her eyes on the horizon, the countryside passing by unnoticed. She breathed out.

She was okay.