As if in answer to the somber mood, dark clouds began to gather early in the morning. As the sun finally crawled back into the sky, it was mobbed by water-heavy thunderheads. Though the precipitation had not yet begun to fall, Bette could feel it on her skin already. The air tasted like electricity and every so often, lightning flickered across the heavens.
The beasts were uneasy, eyes flickering to the sky then back to earth. Her stalwart Odameir kept himself in check, but she could feel how tense he was as they lead their group deeper into the mountains.
The scouts had returned and brought word of a decent place to cross the next river. It was still dangerous, with its swift current and icy chill, but with the help of magic and and a tethering line, they could cross safely. Unfortunately, it meant they had to seek higher elevation, and they would have to leave the sleighs behind. The mages weren’t recovered enough to allow two large sledges to cross; water-proofing their supplies and clothes would take everything they had.
Bette squeezed the reins in her hand tight, biting the inside of her cheek.
Unless they had somehow stumbled into a mana dead zone without realizing it, there was only one thing that had changed to make their mages’ recovery so slow.
Did I truly take in more mana than I thought? Surely the surrounding mana would have filled the gap by now?
The other possibility was that she was somehow still taking in far more mana than she had before the ‘dragon dream’. Try as she might, she couldn’t detect any abnormalities. It felt the same as normal. She didn’t feel like she was overflowing with energy. She didn’t think she had any more mana now than she’d had before.
But would she be able to tell, was the question?
Her mana-sensing ability was unique, but it was not reliable. There was no way to test it objectively. Modern mana studies had not yet created any instrument that could perceive mana. Lysander had, of course, begun working on one. The very fact that she could sense all mana meant there was some intrinsic factor that all mana types shared. He was very certain that if he could narrow down that intrinsic factor, he would be able to make something that worked like her senses did.
He was no biologist though, and he was wading into unknown territory. It would be years before they even had a working prototype. It was frustrating how useless she was when he began to get into higher mathematics and complex runic diagrams. She just did not know enough.
Once I graduate and am dubbed a Blade of the Empress, I have got to attend the college in which he enrolled. I want to help him more than being a guinea pig or proof of concept.
It was invitation only, but that hardly mattered. She was Drakuhl. She would make them invite her.
The crack of thunder heralded the beginning of the storm in truth. Wind whipped through the trees, threatening to strip them of their foliage, carrying the falling snow along. It felt like tiny ice daggers against her bare skin; she pulled up the collar of her coat and fastened it to the hood, leaving only her eyes free. Even that felt like too much exposure.
Windale hissed in fury, ducking into the fur of their ride. They said something, but she couldn’t make it out over the wind roaring in her ears. With wind blowing up old snow and the storm throwing down new, visibility was soon limited to a few paces in any direction. The soldiers formed a tighter unit, and the beasts seemed somewhat comforted by their surrounding brethren. They moved together, forging ahead, trusting that the scouts could find the path they’d marked.
Bette had been outside in storms before. Survival training was not neglected in her lessons—she was destined to be a military commander, so she could not afford to turn down any experience.
She dug into her self, clutching at her spirit and willing more mana into her channels. She focused on the memory of firelight, of the heat of the campfire, or a flickering candle. Closing her eyes, she called forth the memory of the fire rune, fixing it in her mind. She traced its form in her own channels, pulling and pushing at the mana within until it began to move.
She felt the change begin to take hold. The energy within her began to flow differently, spiraling through her channels and burning with energy. She pushed it out, into the air around her. The snow blowing into her cloak melted into ice cold trickles, then burned up altogether. She raised her core temperature as much as she dared, and then used the fire mana she’d produced to keep the chill from creeping back in.
She felt a bit guilty, since she was really the only person who could do this, but that didn’t stop her from taking advantage of her own hard work.
She had suffered to make her magic work. It was only right she got to use it.
Her practical lessons with Lysander had a rocky start. She understood the theory behind spell-casting, of course—intention, formation, manifestation, activation—but when she tried to put it to the test, she crashed and burned. No matter the level of the spell, from the simplest to the most complex, any active working proved to be impossible with her natural mana.
She could draw the mana forth easily enough. She could form the glyphs in her mind and push her mana to fill the right forms. But when it came to activation, every spell fizzled and died. It didn’t seem to matter how perfectly she handled the previous steps, or how much mana she poured into the spell.
Surely, if she could sense element-aligned mana, she had to be able to manipulate it in some way. She started from that premise. She started with wind, reasoning that she’d already manipulated the wind and might have a feel for it already.
She snorted. How naive she had been.
Using the brute force of her mana and her soul’s configuration to carve her will into the world was very different from aligning mana and using that for elemental magic. Her mana just wasn’t meant to work with elemental spells. It was like trying to fit a square peg into a circular hole.
While Lysander went to the drawing board, trying to construct new spells that she could use, Bette decided to get creative.
In reality, what Bette had done at six was more akin to the operation of a runic sequence than a spell.
In runic magic, an element was used to define the intention and manifestation of the intended effect. Most runic sequences relied on elemental keystones to hold the structure of the whole sequence together. Simple sequences were often made of the elemental keystone and a few defining glyphs. Although any mage could activate a runic sequence, it was thought that the runes still drew in mana aligned to the element to which they were keyed.
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So she experimented. For weeks, she spent hours creating simple power storage runes—what she had taken to calling mana-batteries in her head. Once a storage rune was fully powered, it would release all the energy at once upon deactivation, transforming the power into the associated element. Water produced water, fire produced fire, etc.
When she focused on the way runes affected the mana around them, though, she found that it was not just their aligned mana being pulled in. She discovered that the runic sequence did not actually need to use the aligned-mana at all to power itself. It was more efficient if it did, especially for larger workings, but not necessary.
So then she made one rune for each element, and then created a duplicate set as a control. For the control group, she had Lysander activate them. For her experimental set, she activated them herself. She had to make sure that her magic had no odd effect on the way the rune worked.
When there was no appreciable difference in result, she tried the experiment again. This time, she fed her runes with only her mana, pushing her power into them until they could hold no more. When they began to glow to symbolize that the process was completed, she compared the output to another control group that had fed only on surrounding mana.
Again, there didn’t seem to be a difference.
Her mana, despite failing to power an elemental spell, could still be converted into elemental mana.
The question then became: how did she convert mana like the runic sequence did?
The answer to that was: through a lot of trial and error. She forced her body to absorb mana from a source and then kept her circulation from refining it. She allowed the natured mana to course through her and she focused on the way it felt. Which led to discovering what a normal mana surge did to unprotected channels, and then to a lot of yelling and Simun’s disappointed face hovering over her why she slipped in and out of consciousness.
Then she got up and tried again.
And again.
Simun deserved so much for his faithful attendance. Not only did he not quit and leave, he healed her every time she came back with the same stupid injury and the intention to do it again.
She’d have burn scars all over her arms if not for him.
It hurt. It took years.
But eventually, she got it to work. Once she understood what the natural mana felt like, she found that she could force her own mana to take on that feeling by molding it within her spirit. As it passed into the physical realm, it took the full form of aligned-mana, which she could then channel into a spell.
It wasn’t quick by any means. The benefit of casting spells over building runic arrays was usually speed, so her need to convert mana and then shape it into a spell made the whole effort almost pointless.
Almost, she thought, breathing out a burst of heated air to warm her numb face. Almost.
It took the next two days and the better part of a third before they hear the sound of rushing water again. By that time, the storm had blown itself out, and they were no longer fighting the very wind for every step, but exhaustion lingered.
Bette was decent with geography, so she was mostly sure this river was the Aiguë. It would be the last major obstacle they would have to cross, but beyond it lay rocky, steep mountainsides that all but dropped off into the roaring beast that was the Great Rapids and then the Drakend Falls.
They would travel through the mountains until Drakuhl territory gave way to Eurythion, then cross the calmer waters of the Serene Lake and its accompanying Road—which was apparently the name of the large, placid body that the Falls poured into, and the river that meandered towards the sea from there.
“We should rest a bit before we cross,” Durand mused, looking over his drooping company. “We will have to haul our supplies ourselves from here on out, so we need as much strength as we can muster.”
There was a general sigh of relief from the soldiers, and from Windale, who looked like they would fall asleep in the saddle if the cold didn’t bother them so.
They set up the camp properly, of course, but without the alacrity they had previously. The mages were exempted from duties and were instead meditating, attempting to recover what they could for the crossing.
She decided to try and help them.
“Pardon my intrusion,” she said, approaching their spot beside the fire.
The man, Castor, jerked like she had startled him from sleep—and maybe she had. He looked a little bewildered and bleary-eyed.
Persha schooled her expression into that of a disinterested noble quickly, but Bette caught the way her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“What can we lowly soldiers do for you, your Highness?” Persha asked, maintaining a steady gaze.
Bette tightened her fists behind her back.
“I was curious to know if you were aware of the cause of the delay in your recuperation, Lady Farwest.”
The woman blinked, the only hint of surprise to escape her. She didn’t think Bette would remember their names?
Well, it wasn’t like she remembered all of the soldiers names. So maybe that was fair.
“I beg your pardon, your Highness,” Castor spoke up, sounding as tired as he looked. “To be inadequate in the company of the Duke and the Princess both is… shameful.”
She tilted her head slightly, staring first at him, then the noblewoman beside him.
“Sir, Lady, this is not a dressing down, and it would hardly be appropriate if it was since I am not your commander,” she said. Better to be blunt with soldiers, she thought. “I am approaching you in curiosity as a fellow mage. What has affected you may affect me.”
Castor seemed to wake up a little at her directness, and Persha’s shoulders relaxed an infinitesimal amount.
“Forgive my impertinence, your Highness,” Persha said, looking close to contrite. “I had forgotten you are also a mage. The Duke is not, and we work with him most often.”
“A bit silly since you look so much like your Royal mother,” Castor chuckled. “And she’s a mage. But I’m glad that you’re a lot more like your father!”
Then, he seemed to realize that may have sounded insulting to the Duchess, he hurried to correct himself.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with the Duchess! If you were more like her that’d be fine! I just meant that, the Duke is less… intimidating! I thought you’d be more… intense.”
Persha broke eye contact with Bette to stare at her companion.
“Do you need a hand, Castor?”
“Huh? With what, Persh?”
“To bury yourself in that hole you’re digging.”
Castor wilted under her glare.
“Forgive him, your Highness, he was dropped on his head as a baby.”
“Hey!”
Bette smiled. “You are good friends. That’s nice.”
They both looked at her, dumbstruck.
The moment dragged.
Bette cleared her throat. “The cause, then?”
They glanced at each other.
“Honestly, we aren’t sure, your Highness. It’s like… like being at a high altitude and trying to catch my breath. Just can’t seem to get a lungful.”
That did match her theory that she was the cause, but it didn’t tell her which scenario was more likely.
“Is it possible to share mana directly with someone?” She inquired. “It’s just that I have a lot to spare, but I’m not trained enough to be of any use here.”
“I’m… not sure, actually,” Castor said, looking thoughtful.
“I have seen it done, but I can’t imagine it would be comfortable for either giver or recipient,” Persha commented. “It could scorch their channels if they overload, and that’s only if they’re compatible enough to even use the other’s mana.”
“Are you a water mage, my Lady?”
Bette grit her teeth. She hadn’t considered the incompatibility aspect. She was not technically a water mage, but then again, she was not technically not one either.
“Perhaps if it’s just a little at a time, we can check if we do any damage before continuing?”
“I’m close to full, your Highness,” Persha rushed to say, “but Castor is the one who’s really suffering.”
“Traitor,” he hissed, in what was clearly meant to be audible to only his companion.
She pretended not to have heard.
Bette felt a little bad for pressing them into service, but this was for the good of the group. If she could help them recover, it would be that much easier to reach Eurythion in one piece.
Persha vacated her spot quickly, offering the seat to the Princess and then retreating while Castor glared mulishly at her back. Bette took the proffered place, trying to exude confidence and poise to reassure him.
She wasn’t sure if it was working, judging by the queasy look on his face.