For the six months that followed, Seth and his brothers surrendered their free Sunday to the teachings of Ivan. Not only did he teach them about cores, he taught them of reia and its different kinds. One conception Seth found he’d been entirely wrong about was in the affinity the soul fragments gave its bearers.

According to Ivan, it did not give them an affinity for the elements. He taught them that everything had reia in them. The elements Seth thought soul fragments gave affinities for were no more than microcosms of the truth of it all. There was reia in the elements, but there was also reia in plants, reia in wood, reia in reality itself. There was something called force reia, a reia of physical influence, of which Ivan claimed he had an affinity. There was reia even in certain concepts. Destruction had reia, though he had never come across one who possessed an affinity in it. And in this way, the list went on. If a person could think of it, there was a very high possibility it had reia.

During the week they would return to punishing their bodies instead of their minds. They polished their skills at the hands of their instructors, sparring each other and often times the instructors themselves. Igor reminded them how long they still had to go to master the sword despite how much they had improved. Domitia taught them that even with closed eyes he could beat them as a collective with a hand behind his back.

Clint had them hunting larger game now, guiding them in the true art of hunting as mages. Guiding them to subdue reia beasts that posed actual threats while still in the realm of bloodforged, still below Iron. His signs grew more intricate and quicker so that he rarely ever spoke during his lessons. While they all did their best, struggling to follow, Timi seemed a bird in the sky, conversing and following as if the man used speech.

Reverend Oscar began teaching them to fight with two knives. He showed them how those not ambidextrous did it. One knife, he used for attack, while the other was often held back in defense. In the beginning it was difficult. It threw off their coordination so that they got more cuts than they ever had since switching from wooden knives to real knives. But time was the master of all, and they improved, some more than others.

At the hands of Reverend Kyle, their healer, who Seth had come to realize was still nameless to his mates, they continued to learn of poisons and cures. But now he taught them the basic principles of elixirs and potions. They learned what to look out for when creating potions of any kind, how to tell when the reia concentration in a potion was too large or too little by sight or taste. How to identify poisons crafted and hidden and how to avoid them. His class was a lesson in memorization.

Emriss lessons were the only ones truly different. Satisfied with their assembly speed, she had them doing target practice. It evolved as her trainings of the bow had. They learned to shoot stationery targets before she moved them to moving targets, the sound of gunshots a constant and deafening ring the entire days of her lessons till they found themselves plagued by the same ringing even in the deep of the night, a phantom from the task of the day. It tested them all the way. And, apparently, their speed of learning tested her, too. Often times it led her to expletives that the outside world would’ve considered quite unlady-like.

“Grip the trigger, shit stains!” she scolded them. “It’s a gun not an infant.”

“You have to stand against the recoil. Stop letting it throw you around like some disease addled addict.”

“By Faust’s old age! Oluwatimilehin! You have to reload faster than that. The time you take between reloads is as long and confused as your name. Two babies could kill you without batting an eye by the time you’re done. Hurry it up!”

She always had a curse or an insult up her sleeves. Her repertoire proved nigh endless.

Forlorn was returned to them closer to the sixth month of Ivan’s lessons. The boy wore no cast to indicate his injury, returning to them one cold afternoon, fully clad in his grey cassock. However, evidence of his wound reared its head in his gait. His confident strides remained confident but were now less of strides. As much as he tried to conceal it, there was a limp in his steps and an occasional frown on his face that accompanied it. But above all, Seth noted the promise always in his eyes each time they turned towards Jason. Suffice to say, he did nothing of note even by their last lesson with Ivan.

“… So, ask yourselves this,” Ivan was saying on what was his last lecture with them, “if your evolution is marked by your final skill, a convergence, if you will, of the skills you already have, what would you want yours to be? And how best do you believe you will be able to command it?”

Barnabas was the first to answer. His hand shot up like a civilized child in a civilized class. “Teleportation,” he answered.

“Don’t you already do that?” Fin asked.

Barnabas shook his head, smiling. “I blink. There’s a difference.”

Fin conceded the point with a nod, but it was clear he did not understand.

Ivan had a smile on his face through their exchange, jovial as an adult who thought himself still a child. “And what are your skills again, Barnabas?”

“Blink.”

“Which allows you cover short distance, moving through space only to points you can see.”

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“Shadow step.”

“Which allows you do the same but through shadows.”

“Night vision.”

“I see no need to explain that. What else?”

“Dark armor.”

Ivan’s head tilted to the side, forcing Barnabas to explain.

“I can call on shadows to make an armor, but it’s not a very strong one.”

“Not yet,” Ivan assured him. “As you evolve, it’ll get strong enough to stop most attacks.”

“Yeah.” Barnabas looked down. “I just wish I didn’t need to have shadows around me to use it. It really limits things.”

“Well, nothing is perfect.” He turned his attention from their brother, silencing his attempt to continue. “Who else would like to share? Forlorn?”

Forlorn did not meet the Reverend’s gaze, and he did not answer. Whatever his skills were, he was determined to keep them close to his chest.

“Well, no matter.” Ivan clasped his hands behind him as was his usual habit and walked around them, white cassock reflecting the light of the dying sun as dusk descended. “Once your skills reach a convergence, you will thread on the authority of Iron. To do this, you all will need to continue using your skills—all of them.”

“Why?” Fin asked. “Because I don’t think it’s about mastery.”

Ivan gave him an acknowledging smile. “It is not. You all have most likely mastered your skills already. At least the ones you enjoy using. No. It’s about something else. For those of you that have been paying attention, while you have a core capable of producing reia, it is quite incomplete, uncontrollable. Which means your command over it is null. However, to evolve, it needs to push out reia through your entire body, carving out what is called your reia channels. Only when they have been carved out throughout your entire bodies will you be able to claim completion of one half of the process.

“I’m actually fairly certain all of you have your reia channels properly carved out. Now all you have to do is fill them. The question now is how this core you cannot control has succeeded in carving out your reia channels. That much is simple. Each time you use a skill, your core is forced to expel reia, channeling it through a path, it’s the only control you have over your reia. Because there was none in the beginning, your skills were harder to use. Therefore, the more reia channels carved out, the easier your skills are to use.”

“Then what happens now that we have complete channels?” Jason asked. “What’s the next step?”

“Now they need to be strong.” Ivan completed a second orbit around them. “Has any of you ever built a house; or at least watched one get built?”

Seth had seen his fair share of houses being built, had watched a few of its processes. But he could say nothing on the subject. Since his arrival at the seminary, he had not seen such a thing, and he was playing the part of a child with amnesia, no matter how incomplete. So he held his silence and listened.

When no hands came up, not even Forlorn every one suspected should’ve seen at least one, considering he was royalty, even if a failed one, Ivan continued. “Well, once a house is raised, it is made of blocks, held together with cement. That is its base form, a skeleton of itself, if you will. That is where your reia channels are. Just as a house can but should not be lived in at that point, you all should not try to evolve at this point. Because while it will be possible, you will not last as a soul mage like that. At some point it will crumble under the weight of your reia as it grows.”

Fin raised a questioning hand and Ivan acknowledged it. “So what’s the next step?” he asked.

“The next step is strengthening your channels as a house is strengthened. You constantly run reia through them. You use your skills, and use your skills, and use your skills. First, it will clean out the channels, purify them. Then it will permeate them, leaking reia into all facets of your body, purifying that, too. A convergence is the final stage of purification, complete or not. It is when you force your body to solidify its union with your core; with your reia.” He stopped walking now, standing quietly off to the left of them. “The enforced union creates a powerful skill. All the skills you hold now are gifts of the soul fragments you have absorbed. But as strong as they are, they are not truly your own. This final skill, however, the one that is birthed from your evolution, is well and truly yours. It is the creation of body and soul, and will bind the others to you. It will be the most powerful in your arsenal, and most soul magi have been known to use it only when they seek to end fights. Although,” he mused, “there have been times when a convergent skill seems useless on its own but serves to boost the other skills.” He paused, then waved a dismissive hand as if batting aside a fly. “Regardless, the seminary will help you with all that. That’s why you will have a month dedicated to your evolution. This month will also be a test. Those who do not evolve to Iron within it will have failed.”

“So they will what? Have to repeat a class?” This from Forlorn. It came out as a snide remark that held Ivan’s attention. He was calling the seminary’s bluff.

“The ginger haired fool.” Ivan sighed. “Do you know your father has another child? Like all his other children, this one, too, isn’t ginger. And she’s a child of your mother. So it begs the question: why are you the only ginger?”

Forlorn grit his teeth in anger. His remark had born adverse effect. Perhaps there had been no intended effect to begin with. But Ivan was definitely making something out of it.

The Reverend shook his head, solemn. “Forlorn…” he said. “Unlikely to succeed or be fulfilled.”

Forlorn charged Ivan before his words touched their ears, face twisted in rage. With his limp he was not as fast as he once was. But no one believed it would’ve made a difference. He was simply a boy not yet Iron, charging a Baron. The result would’ve been the same, regardless.

He charged himself into Ivan’s outstretched arm, and the Reverend snatched him by the neck, lifting him off the floor without strain.

“You’ve been an annoying bore since joining the seminary,” he said with a frown. “Even the Evangelist that brought you hadn’t wanted to. He’d developed a soft spot for your mother’s predicament and had taken you only to help. Yet, here you are, surviving, causing a ruckus. Becoming a nuisance.” He scoffed. “The last time you had the gall to joke in my class; to ask if there was height reia since there was reia for almost anything imaginable.” He lowered the boy, but did not release his hold, and pulled him to the edge of the class, “For your sake, I hope there is flight reia, and that you have an affinity for it.”

He raised one leg up and stepped forward like a baseball player. And with an unbecoming might, he flung Forlorn out. Their brother shot from his grip like a ball from a baseball pitcher. In the blink of an eye, he was gone.

Ivan turned to them, dusting his hands. “I hope he makes it to the lake.”

Igor’s words floated in Seth’s mind in a moment and his minds bawled over in laugher. “…I have seen him throw students from his class for far less than that level of inaccuracy.”

One of his minds seemed particularly amused while Seth and his brothers simply stared, stunned to petrification.

I guess he wasn’t exaggerating, it laughed.