What are souls? No matter what world you’re from, that is a question you’ve heard at least once in your life. A question to which no one has ever managed to find an answer.

Scientists will say that souls don’t exist because we cannot prove in any way that they do. The Church will say that they’re a gift from God and that they represent who we are. Poets and writers alike will say that souls are reflected in people’s eyes, for one can always understand others just by looking attentively enough at them.

But, in the end, there are no conclusive answers.

Or so Isse thought.

“Today I will begin to teach you the basics of actual Soul Magic, the ‘forbidden’,” Grandmother did little air quotes with one hand, “art that allows one to observe and reshape people, not just the world around you.”

She motions at the white clearing around her.

“First, though, answer this, Issekina: what is a soul?”

The little arachne and the much older one in her head both stopped to analyze the question, trying to understand if Grandmother was for real or if she was joking. In the end, they decided on the former.

Then they drew a blank. Because none of them knew the answer: Isse was raised by a typical christian family, and while apparently gods existed in this world, the ideas they spread were much more different from the ones in her home. As for Siidi, she’d been raised a warrior. She understood magic as much as she understood mathematics. Which is to say, she only knew the basics.

Grandmother stared at them both (yes, even Siidi, somehow, felt observed) for an entire minute, waiting.

When she was certain none of them knew the answer, she spoke: “In my first lesson, I told you that mana permeates the world. It is everywhere. That also means that it exists inside people’s bodies.”

She stared pointedly at Isse, expecting a question or some probably wrong theory.

As always, she was right.

“Does it mean that souls are mana inside people?”

Grandmother shook her head, the shadow of a smile on her face: “No, Issekina. If that were the case, [Mages] like us would die if they exhausted their mana.

“No. The soul is nothing more than a paltry attempt of our bodies to copy the world around us. A poor replica of the things one can see with Mana Sight.

“Souls are bound to their bodies and take that form, at the same time creating pathways, veins you could say, that let the mana circulate inside.”

Isse raised her hand. Grandmother stopped and nodded her way.

“Does that mean the world has veins?” she asked. It was a disquieting concept and she really didn’t want to think about it, but that childish and curious part of her that had made a comeback after she and Siidi had ‘made peace’ and ‘become one’, as Grandmother so eloquently put it, demanded that she ask.

“Yes. They are called Ley Lines. They form around places where large amounts of mana are used, so usually near great cities. Or battlefields. Or magical academies.”

Wait, asked Siidi, wouldn’t that mean that our enemies could find us just by looking at the Ley Line over our forest?

Isse’s blood froze in her veins. She’d lived long enough as an arachne to accept that, if someone ever saw her, she’d be killed on sight and with great prejudice. She’d lost too many nights on that thought not to.

“Siidi would like to ask if we’re safe. There’s lots of arachne in this forest, right? Couldn’t the other species find us by using the ley line?”

Grandmother looked at them for a moment, then shook her head: “We are safe, little ones. The forest itself was created with magic and consumes it regularly, creating a natural ley line. And, if that wasn’t enough, I have a Skill that hides our possible signature: [Hide Mana Dispersion].”

What she didn’t say, however, which was also the main reason why they were safe, was this: And there’s not that many of us. Only a few hundred arachne. Not enough to cause the creation of a ley line.

Some of the adults knew this. They knew they were the last arachne in the world, the last clan left alive. If they died, their race would go with them.

Yet they smiled. Because there was no reason to tell this to the children, to scare them even more. Their lives wouldn’t be easy anyway, so let them have a fun and memorable youth.

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“Now, and this is very important Issekina: Soul Magic does not truly alter the actual souls of mortals. Our magic touches the mana contained inside the soul and, using it, changes and reshapes it to our own will.

“The gods and their churches, they do not understand our craft. They don’t even truly know how to do normal magic,” as she said that last part, Grandmother’s voice became icy cold.

“They could see the effects of our magic, but they couldn’t understand it. So they branded it as something monstrous, to be forbidden.”

She chuckled darkly: “Well, not that we ever showed them what our magic could do to help.

“This is the reason why we spent the last week training your [Mana Sight], Issekina. To practice Soul Magic in all of its glory, one must learn to truly see the inside of one’s soul.”

And that, indeed, is what they’d done for the past week: Grandmother had been training Isse, teaching her to focus her [Mana Sight] on the finer details of that grand, colorful, web that she could see.

She wasn’t a master yet, but inside Grandmother’s clearing she could activate her Skill without being overloaded with information, falling to the ground and possibly begin drooling as if she’d just had a seizure. Outside… well, she still had lots of work to do.

“Now, child, activate the Skill.”

She did.

The world around her was filled with strings, from the trees’ rainbows to the colorful improbabilities of her sisters and, somewhere, mother.

That, too, had confused her when she’d first thought about it. Arachne didn’t do mothers. They raised the spiderlings communally. For them it was all about being sisters, part of one great family, where the elders held the most power. When Siidi had first told her this, Isse had thought it weird. Now though, she thought it made only sense for a species as… fertile and promiscuous as arachne. Apparently they tended to become very horny as they grew up, or so Siidi remembered.

Gods, Isse was not ready for puberty 2.0.

Anyways: mostly, around her, she could see white threads binding everything touched by Grandmother regularly. It was as if the color slowly infected and drained all other colors around it, asserting dominance on everything, even the strings of the world’s soul.

That was, incidentally, the main reason why she had managed to train so fast her [Mana Sight].

“Good. Now, do as I taught you: isolate the strings you don’t need and Look. Choose a single string, and concentrate on it.”

She did. First, she removed the trees’ strings, bleaching her sight into the white of Grandmother’s aura.

Then she began the laborious process of picking them out one by one, slowly trying to concentrate on a single filament.

But, before she could do that, Grandmother spoke: “Concentrate on a thread bound to me, Issekina. Whichever it is doesn’t matter, but you will need to find a connection to be able to access one’s soul.”

Isse stopped right where she was, losing her concentration and staring at Grandmother.

She deactivated her [Mana Sight].

“You want me to do… stuff to your soul?”

“Obviously. How else would you learn?”

Both Isse and Siidi’s jaws nearly disarticulated and hit the ground.

“What the fuck?”

Grandmother raised an eyebrow, very unimpressed: “Where did you learn that word?”

Isse froze in place. She began babbling excuses under the elder’s wrathful gaze, trying and utterly failing to explain that she’d learned her cuss words back on Earth and that it wasn’t really her fault nor Makira’s and please don’t be angry.

“Calm down spiderling, I know. I was just pulling your legs.

“Anyways, that is what my mentor did with me. She let me learn soul magic on her soul, make mistakes on it and make wonderful creations out of it. I can restore my soul, worry not child.

“And anyways, this first lesson will be to teach you about visualizing the soul. Not altering it.”

She set to work.

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When Isse woke up, she could only remember one thing clearly, embedded in the forefront of her mind like a nail in a piece of wood, like a symbol imprinted with fire on a cow’s flank.

It was so vivid she might as well be seeing it right now.

An impression that left nothing to the imagination.

She remembered snow.

No, that was wrong.

She didn’t remember it.

She knew snow.

She knew the cold. She knew its sweetness. She knew the bitterness of the death it could bring. She knew the joy it brought to children and adults alike. She knew what it represented, what it had lost and sacrificed and what it had been given, freely and not so much.

She knew what was lost and remembered only on those cold winter nights.

And also she didn’t. Because how could a mind as simple as hers even hope to comprehend that beauty, that complexity, all that knowledge.

Grandmother’s face appeared over her.

“You have done well, Issekina. I told Makira you can get yourself the frog you wanted.”

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That night, when she fell asleep, holding to her chest her new, bright orange, frog friend (EEEEEEEEEE!!!!!), whose name, after an entire hour of debate with Siidi, was Marquis Du Fly the First, no titles because he had to earn them, the System spoke to her:

[Soul Mage Level 9!]

[Skill - Comprehend Soul: Minor Obtained!]

[Skill - Summon Snowball Obtained!]

[Pet Owner Level 1!]

[Skill - Perceive Hunger: Pet Obtained!]