“Few bonds are as important as that of a lancer and their apprentice. While most only need tutoring for a year or so, a lifelong friendship is formed.”

—Scholar Suprema Zeniel Oreles in her philosophical book, Unquantifiable Truths

Zaina shook her head. “By Byzon—if you’re not gonna teach me anything, at least don’t scare me like that!”

The woman shrugged and leaned against a nearby tree, lighting up a roll of something fragrant. Her eyes had deep bags under them. Once the roll was lit, she tucked the lighter into a pocket, took a deep drag, and blew it out into the breeze through her nostrils. “Well, whatever you’re doing, keep doing it. I have to be nearby for a certain number of hours per day, and yes, they have cameras all the way out here, too. The Order is always, always, always watching—so it has to look like I’m actually training you.”

Zaina glared. “So if I don’t play along, you’ll be punished?”

“Doubtful. This is the punishment. Look, what’s it matter to you, anyway? Get back to what you were doing. If you’re gonna take away my prime lancer years, at least let me enjoy myself with some peace and quiet.”

Zaina turned away, barely able to hold back her seething anger. She returned to the vis-screen and kept going down the list of equipment.

I will be a lancer, no matter what she thinks. But the equipment won’t make me a lancer. What was it Gir said?

She thought back to the late High Lancer’s words. Something about closing my eyes and letting go. Letting the layers of my mind peel back until I find—the strands, was it? She frowned. He said I’d know when I found it.

“You ever gonna do anything that looks like training?” the woman called out lazily.

Zaina shot back, “If only I had some guidance to make sense of all this.”

The woman gave a deep, breathy sigh. Zaina shook her head in disbelief. How could anyone be so rude and hateful?

Refusing to give up, she sat down in the grass and followed Gir’s advice, closing her eyes.

Immediately the Eldritch’s face popped up, its cruel mouth open, the arms and hands within waiting to pull her inside and tear her to pieces. Zaina’s eyes shot open, and she jumped in surprise. Her heart beat uncomfortably fast, as if trying to eject from her body.

The woman was ready with another snide remark. “Bad dream?”

Zaina ignored her. There was no sense in engaging with the woman. She closed her eyes again and was instead left with red, burning anger. It wasn’t fair that she drew the short end of the stick as teachers were concerned; all because she had the mark, which wasn’t fair either—nothing was. She’d made it all this way, and now—

A bitter sigh rolled over her lips. All I can do is try again.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting the hot sensation of rage subside; it turned cold, slowing the blood in her veins, and with a few heavy sighs, she drifted away.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

This time she was back on Demelia, on a perfectly sunny day. Her family was there—Kitali was playing in the grass while her father tilled the fields. Her mother was sitting on the porch with her brother and sisters, reading aloud from a book of fantastical stories.

Zaina smiled. She wished she was with them right now. They’d accept her for who she was, and if she wasn’t going to get any help here, she may as well be back home doing the same things. She’d still be able to summon a cipher and protect her family, right? She’d summoned it once—she could teach herself to do it again.

A sinking, sorrowful pit formed in Zaina’s stomach. This wasn’t real—it was another layer of her mind. She needed to detach and let it peel back to go deeper.

“But don’t you want to stay, Zaina?”

Her entire body froze. She swiveled around, and there it was—the Eldritch. It had appeared out of nowhere. The creature was badly wounded, its skull nearly split in half and its jaw hanging open limply; it crawled through the grass, which turned yellow and withered as it passed. Black globs of steaming tar fell from the Eldritch’s tattered cloak, hissing and stinging the ground wherever it fell. Zaina’s family was frozen in place behind the struggling monstrosity, their lips stretched into contorted smiles.

The Eldritch reached a skeletal hand toward her. “You could reside in this memory forever, as I reside within you.”

Zaina recoiled for a moment, and there was a tug at the back of her neck—she was trying to wake up. Running away. Her hands clenched into shaking fists. I didn’t come all this way, survive everything I’ve survived, to run away from this imaginary freak.

The Eldrich’s hand drew closer.

“I beat you,” she said. “You’re not real—none of this is.”

The creature swiped at her heart, but its hand phased through her torso without pain or resistance. It couldn’t hurt her right now. She had more important things to focus on than this bleeding fiend.

She tried to let go, and everything around her faded away except the Eldritch. It dragged itself toward her, its ancient skull drowning amid a form draped in phantasmal shadow. By now its broken skull was inches from her face. The putrid warmth of its breath broke across her face.

“Come now, child. I have existed for eons beyond you—and will survive you by eons still. You shattered our host, but we remain. We cannot be killed by a mere mortal. The only hope for you is to become one with us.”

“Get fucked,” Zaina shot back, standing her ground. “I’m real and you’re not, so leave me alone already!” She closed her eyes and took another deep breath. The voices were growing louder.

“You will not escape us, Zaina. We are always here with you. Watching. Waiting…”

A low cacophony of screams, like a gust of wind, flowed over her body. When Zaina opened her eyes, the Eldritch was gone. She breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well,” she muttered to no one in particular, “you may not be dead, but you’re not as strong as before. Sucks to be you.”

Zaina took stock of her surroundings. The Eldritch had disappeared, leaving her suspended in darkness on every side. She twisted in every direction looking for a light—a way out—but there was none.

She sighed. Maybe I don’t have the strands in me after all.

Zaina tried to let go again, but her surroundings contorted and stretched before blurring back into place. Apparently she’d hit mind-bedrock.

Sorrow built up in her chest. She wanted to cry.

What if I don’t have it after everything? Her gaze fell to her empty palm—then beyond it. The floor was different.

It wasn’t completely overcast by the surrounding shadow. Strips of light weaved through the darkness, their blurred forms twisting and humming. She reached toward them—the floor fell out beneath her, but there was no sensation of falling; instead, her body rotated, bringing her face to face with interweaving strands of light.

Her hand dipped in, and the heat seared her skin. It was slightly painful, like an awkward hangnail on her entire hand, but she kept going, reaching in further until the light pulled her all the way in.

Pain surged through her entire body—Riiva was rewriting her at a level beyond microscopic. It was the strangest sensation she’d ever endured. It hurt, yes, but also infused her with strength and vitality. She wanted to endure the pain, to see how far into the light she could go.

The light pulled her in by her grip on the strands. Shadows crept in from the corner of her vision as the whispers buzzed in her brain. Something grabbed her back and pulled her away, back through all the layers until her eyes snapped open.