Theodorus blinked up at a canopy of silver leaves. He turned his head to the left and the right, and finally spotted Afi sitting at a fire close by.

“Where am I? Where is Sylvia?”

“Near Nyberg. Right there”, Afi responded, pointing among the trees.

Theodorus felt over his stomach and side. Bandages covered his wounds and he could feel bulges of moss and sap underneath. “At this point I will have to offer Sylvia an oath”, he chuckled.

“Maybe you should”, Afi said sharply.

Sitting up carefully, Theodorus surveyed his surroundings. He was in an old forest. The trees stood dense and the ground was covered in roots and dried moss. He leaned back against the tree he had been sleeping under and realised it was silverwood. He ran a hand over the bark, greeting the ancient being. Afi was roasting roots over a small fire and Sylvia was picking berries a little further into the thicket. Maher was relaxing with Rise and Natta. It was an idyllic spot. One had to work hard to be in a bad mood here.

“Afi, may I ask why you hate me?”

Afi finally looked up. “I do not hate you.”

“But?”, Theodorus prompted.

Afi shrugged. “You are no good for her.”

“No good or not good enough?”, Theodorus challenged.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Do you have children?”, Theodorus prodded.

“That is none of your business”, Afi grumbled.

Theodorus nodded. “Got it. Sorry to be such a thorn in your side.”

Afi clicked his tongue.

Theodorus looked up, inspecting the silverwood tree. It was definitively very old. It was strong, too, despite the drought. In fact, it seemed to be feeding its surroundings. The moss closest to it was thicker and had yet to dry out completely. The roots had to run deep to find enough nourishment for such a feat of magic. To one side, where the roots balled up over a number of blackstones, there were even some nettles growing.

Relaxing again, Theodorus noticed a few dozen blackstones at his side. Most of them were ordinary round pieces, a fist or a half in size, but others were shaped like bolts and arrowheads. Against the trunk of another tree leaned a disk of blackstone, thin as a toothpick, with two leather handles attached to it.

“Feeling better?”, Sylvia asked.

Theodorus looked up to see her easing her way between the bushes on bare feet. She had more going for her than nimble hands. She ought to be great with daggers or a piece of cord. “Not dead at least. Thank you”, he jested.

“You are welcome. The wound was not that deep, though. Your wire armour saved you, not me.”

“Where is Bothilder? He brought me here, right?”

“Yea. I sent him to check that the letter has reached Brofäste. He told us what happened. You killed the hollow?”

Theodorus nodded. “I did. Though, her death may not stop them. They really are after Oskar.” He sighed and closed his eyes. “I just hope we get to Gramr before Master hears about this and sends an amended contract. That is the only hope.”

Afi frowned deeply. He eyed Theodorus with apprehension.

“It should not be long”, Sylvia encouraged. “Yri and the others are en route to Guldhamn by now. They will arrive at the harbour and travel up the Ader by boat. We will join them outside Anderjärn.”

Picking a few potatoes and a turnip from the fire, Sylvia added them to a bowl of bitterleaf and sprinkled a handful of berries on top. “Eat. You need to recover quickly. We leave tomorrow.”

Accepting the food, Theodorus chewed slowly. He had no idea how long he had been out, so he elected to be careful with his stomach. He was quite used to bitterleaf, and he had no complaints about a simple roasted potato, but usually it would be served with a dash of salt at least. The turnip and berries offered some reprieve from the monochrome flavours.

Sylvia settled into a comfortable dip among the roots and picked up a piece of blackstone. She brought a wooden knife to it and began carving.

Theodorus crooked his head. “How did you learn that?”

“Someone showed me”, Sylvia shrugged.

“You had a teacher? Someone taught you magic outside the Scholarship of the Crown?”

“Not exactly. I got a little instruction in channelling. The rest, I got from reading books and experimenting. Aimo taught me a bit of carving.”

Theodorus went quiet again. He watched Sylvia work for a long while before finding his next question. “What is the deal with the disk? A shield?”

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“Yea.”

“And what is your plan with the projectiles?”

“Blackstone is a very hard material.”

“I know, but why bother with all this?”

Sylvia hesitated. To say she was trying to kill a demon sounded absurd, did it not? Maybe not to Theodorus. Or maybe especially to him. She did not want to lie to him, but there was more than one use she could present as an answer. She chose to go with the same explanation she gave Oskar. “It is a strong new weapon. We cannot use catapults at Storhjärd, so they will expect us to rely on ladders and foot soldiers.”

“Which is why we will do the opposite”, Theodorus concluded. He took a bolt and stabbed it into a nearby rock, breaking the rock in two.

“Exactly”, Sylvia nodded.

Sylvia added another arrowhead to the pile and then paused. She met Theodorus’s gaze. “I get that it is interesting, but you really do have a tendency to stare. It is a little distracting.”

“Sorry”, Theodorus said flatly. “It is not your work I am fascinated with, though”, he admitted.

“What then? And do not say my beautiful face. You will have to be a little more original than that.”

Theodorus laughed. “No. Your face is rather average.”

Sylvia threw a piece of blackstone at him and he flinched. Rubbing his arm, Theodorus grinned.

“What then?”, Sylvia asked.

Theodorus glanced over at Afi and shrugged.

“Afi”, Sylvia called. “Look for some more blackstone, will you?”

Afi huffed, but grabbed a bag and ambled away.

Turning to Theodorus, Sylvia raised her eyebrows in question.

“It is your aura.”

“Aura?”, Sylvia wondered.

“Yes, your magic. Not the one you are using to cast. The magic that reacts to you.”

Sylvia frowned in confusion.

Theodorus scratched his head. “How do I explain this? Where I am from, we do not have wizards. We—”

“Mages”, Sylvia corrected.

“Pardon?”

“Mainlanders call it witchcraft and wizardry, and it is not an endearing term.”

“Mages then. The point is, when I was little, all I knew about were shamans. They are in contact with Gaia in a way most of us are not. All souls are interacting with Gaia all of the time, but most of us are not aware of it. Even fewer of us are able to control this interaction and perform feats of magic the way you do. But whether we realise it or not, it is always there. That interaction is visible to a shaman. It is the aura.”

“What does it look like?”, Sylvia wondered.

“Usually, not like much. Your aura, however, is beautiful. It is fascinating.”

“That does not answer my question. I mean what is it? A liquid, a smoke? What colour is it?”

“It is none of those. It is more like”—Theodorus looked around himself, searching for something to compare it to—“light. Aura is more like light. You are a lantern of magic.”

Sylvia burst into laughter. “A magic lantern? That sounds distracting indeed. No wonder you keep staring at me.”

Theodorus blushed a little. “I just mean that it radiates”, he defended.

“And what colour of light am I?”, Sylvia inquired amused.

“Brown-ish. I think it is because your soul is brown.”

Sylvia leaned forward, eyes fixed on him. “How do you know? It is the eye colour, right?”

Theodorus nodded. “Speaking of eyes. What happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your eyes have dimmed significantly”, Theodorus pointed out. “There is some clouding.”

Sylvia sighed. “There is, huh? Dammit.”

“What happened?”, Theodorus asked again.

“Do not mind it”, Sylvia evaded. “Have you ever seen soul with your naked eye?”, she asked instead.

“I have”, Theodorus nodded. “Master used to extract it. Sometimes he needed help holding a new subject down.”

Leaning back against the tree, Sylvia averted her eyes. “I am sorry I asked.”

Theodorus shook his head. He rubbed his arm again and then picked up the blackstone that Sylvia had tossed his way. He reached over to his clothes and pulled a dagger from under his cloak. He focused and began to work the stone into an arrowhead. “To be honest, it feels good to be able to say these things out loud. The only one who knows about me besides you is Oskar, and he, while smart in his own way, does not understand these things. He has no idea how strong his soul is, or how incredibly foolish it was to keep me alive. I guess I should be glad he is so ignorant.”

“I had no idea you could cast.”

“I cannot”, Theodorus responded.

“What exactly are you doing right now, then?”

An amused smile spread over Theodorus’s lips. “I do not push magic out. I take it in. The benefit of not having a soul, or barely having a soul, is that magic from outside of you is not hindered as much.”

“Hindered?”, Sylvia repeated.

“You know how you can feel someone’s presence in your soul when you are close enough?”

Sylvia nodded.

“It is because your souls interact, because you give and take some tiny amount of magic. I do not give. I only take. I can also choose not to take. That makes me practically invisible. It is rare to find someone who relies more on their other senses, rather than on their soul. Even if someone has you in their visual field, they would not think to look if they cannot feel you.”

“Which is why hollows make great assassins”, Sylvia concluded.

“One of the reasons.”

“I still do not understand how you can cut blackstone”, Sylvia prodded.

Theodorus held out his hand for the whispered knife, and Sylvia gave it to him. Holding it up demonstratively, Theodorus took a measured breath and the shimmer travelled from the tip of the blade down to his hand. Then it returned, shooting back up along the wood. Turning the tool over in his hand, he gave it back, with his fingers on the edge as though the knife were actually sharp.

“Intent is applied in the moment the magic interacts with you”, Sylvia realised.

Nodding, Theodorus got back to work.

Sylvia watched him carve. “You learn fast”, she commented.

“Just like you”, Theodorus smirked. “I am afraid I have to actually see something to learn it, though. I cannot read my way to it.”

“It is easier to learn from text”, Sylvia said.

“How does that work?”, Theodorus asked. “Do you see it before you when you read it?”

Sylvia shook her head. “No. It is more like I experience it. After reading something, it is as though I was there. I experienced it. At least if the book is original, if the person who wrote the words understood them. Copies by scribes do not work.”

“Why is that?”, Theodorus asked.

“I am not sure. It is just not genuine. It is not real when it is a copy. I guess I experience the text as it was written. I do not interpret it myself.” Sylvia paused and slimmed her eyes. “How did you even know that I learn well from text?”

Theodorus shrugged innocently.

“You are a tiny bit creepy at times”, Sylvia teased.

Theodorus chuckled and tossed the finished arrowhead onto the pile.

Sylvia eyed him for a long moment. She glanced at the blackstone weapons. Enchanting them all was going to be taxing, and the effect was still dubious. Perhaps she could administer a more precise strike. “Do you reckon you could make use of an enchanted item if I show you how?”

“Probably. Why?”, Theodorus asked.

Sylvia handed him a larger stone. “Make a dagger. You will need it.”

“Will I?”

“Yes. And after that, I could use your help with the rest. Do not worry about Afi. Affinity will not shock him. I doubt he will make the connection based on that alone. You can always say that I taught you.”

“Technically, you did”, Theodorus smiled.