Ranvir sniffed and tapped his fingers against the thin blanket. He looked around the empty room, trying to find anything to distract or entertain himself. But there was nothing. Especially not after they’d moved Frija to a room closer to Elpir. That… that nearly killed him.

He tried listening to the kids playing some sort of game on the field, but the yelling, squealing, splashing, and occasional screaming did not make for stunning commentary. So he flipped the duvet around a few times, turning it to the colder side. Not that such a thing really existed with the average temperature.

It usually ranged from ‘slightly too warm’, then all the way to ‘too warm to live in,’ with such lovely stops on the way as ‘so moist I feel like I’m drowning’ and ‘so dry I want somebody to drown me.’ The season, Rafting, took most of the water out of the air and funneled it into the web of waterways that covered the ground, but occasionally there would be breaks. The water temporarily stilled, partly dissipating, partly falling to the ground.

Ranvir adjusted his covers again. The blankets were too thin, too light. There wasn’t enough heft in them to properly cover him, even if they obscured the view fine enough. He hated how it felt despite knowing he wouldn’t be able to use the heavier covers he was used to.

He looked to the books on the bedside table, all of which he’d already read multiple times. One of them was an introductory book to Fiyan grammar. It was so incredibly boring and long winded Ranvir would’ve thrown it out of the window if he could.

Alongside the boring book of boorishness, Ranvir had a few children’s books ranging from as of yet unread to the ones that Frija really liked, with a few Vasso’d picked as well. It turned out that Ione’s library wasn’t entirely come upon on her own. They had developed even more fascinating and involved book printing techniques than in Vednar, but even she couldn’t afford to buy so many books as to fill the entire room with shelves and stock them all.

Ione was part of a library chain, running from Crotenus to Legea, with a few smaller towns surrounding the bigger cities, like Eriene. The idea that anyone could just read whatever books were available wasn’t foreign to Ranvir. They’d had a similar tradition back home, though their village only shared internally and there were maybe a dozen books in total. Instead of the multiple hundreds if not thousands of books, Ione’s library chain shared.

Ranvir sighed as he flicked over the last book he’d gathered. It was an advice book for getting started with Amanaris. It seemed a little rudimentary to him. Much of the advice in the books boiled down to not trusting any cheats or shortcuts that strangers offer you. There were three entire chapters on signs to look out for if an exercise or a drug would actually be effective.

There were a few pages on picking elements which interested Ranvir. He’d read a little about Amanaris seeming to allow for personal preference over mandatory powers. The idea excited him if for no other reason than that he didn’t relish getting stuck with a random power no one knew anything about again.

And he was definitely going to try his hand at Amanaris, right after he’d re-established his old powers. It would be that long before he could begin working on that, Kasos had said. Just a few more months and his Fundament should be ready.

Ranvir got goosebumps thinking about the time after he’d welded together his Fundament into something stable enough to sustain him. The storm-winds suddenly quieting as if he’d somehow found shelter from the rush on the flat plane of stone. The way the clouds seemed to retract slightly, no longer intruding on his space.

Then from above, a purple light had shone through the clouds. His tether-space had finally been torn down. An orb Ranvir hadn’t initially recognized as an egg descended into view, glowing with the purple matter that made up its construction. As it had come closer, he’d seen the faintest vein of discoloration, slowly shifting from red, to orange, to yellow, and then back again.

The stones had shifted, creating a design at the center outlined in wavering purple lines that were never quite washed away, the border flickering, fading, and shoved about, but it always returned. His Concept branded onto the core of his soul.

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His tether-senses, what Kasos called soul-sight, was supposedly meant to come back within a couple weeks which should signal that he could safely return to the Fundament, though he couldn’t yet begin building a new container for his tethered powers until even later than that.

Ranvir picked the book up and started shifting through it, letting the pages slip by without really reading any of them. He paused on a page describing how to choose Abilities. Abilities were one of the cornerstone of Amanaris. To Ranvir’s mind they sounded like attuned techniques, which if true, was amazing as most Braced had somewhere between three and five Abilities, rather than the tethered’s one.

Amanaris apparently didn’t make it as simple as just picking what you wanted to do, however. According to the book, you’d have to develop the Ability yourself with a minor help from their Absolute Ability—often simply called Absolute—which allowed them some measure of control over the element. The book wasn’t very clear on whether you could choose to be a generator or a manipulator, but from the general tone around Absolute they didn’t seem to think highly of it either way.

They combined different Abilities together, then used their Absolute to adjust the outcome in favor of their goal. Their example featured the basic stone throw Ability, combining two such Abilities into one and creating an Ability that threw multiple stones.

To Ranvir it all sounded pretty simple, but they suggested looking into books detailing different Abilities and pre-made combinations as apparently there were some higher difficulty issues behind the scenes. He was a little disappointed that the book didn’t speak about these issues, but he was holding a beginner’s book, so maybe he shouldn’t be.

Next it talked about statistics, which seemed ridiculous to Ranvir’s mind. It detailed how he could power up specific attributes about himself. Make him stronger, faster, reaction speed, as well as somehow control how he handled the power—mana, he reminded himself—that was available to him.

Ranvir had mostly put that aside, as he couldn’t really believe it. Partially it seemed unbelievable that someone could just tell some mana that they wanted to become stronger and they did, but then again he’d seen Master Ayvir cross ground in seconds what would’ve taken Ranvir minutes. It could just be a similar application of the Discipline of Body, applied directly.

Ranvir really wished he’d gotten a more in-depth book, but that too he had to wait for. There were a few available directly in Crotenus or Legea that might be useful and he could have within a few simple days, but the ones that Ione, and by extension Kasos, suggested were on a waiting list.

When he’d asked about it, she’d explained that at worst the books would instill poor expectations in him and make him believe lies—or even worse, outdated theories—on what they knew about Amanaris. She’d insisted that it was worth it for him to wait.

Ranvir sighed and idly folded over a bit of the cloth on the blanket as he drifted on the winds of time, though time felt more like a dune at the moment. Nothing to read, nothing to do, nothing to see, nothing to create.

Ranvir gently tapped his fingers together, waiting for something to happen. He’d become really great at focusing on a task over the last few months. It had aided him incredibly both in sustaining his tether-space for as long as possible and when reforging his Fundament.

Now, however, it was making every second pass like the slow beat of a drum. He rocked his head back and forth to the slow beat of his fingers touching tips. Just a few more hours until Kasos would be over. He was supposed to be starting physical exercises today, which from Ranvir’s current state probably meant leaning forwards and back. Maybe something to work the legs.

He was just happy that his condition was no longer deteriorating. Ranvir chewed loudly on air as he glanced around the dark room. Outside, he heard a big splash followed by silence instead of yelling and screaming.

Really happy that he wasn’t getting worse. That was all he was feeling. He reached for the window to move the shutters out of the way, but couldn’t get at them because of the angle.

Yep, only happiness. The shouting and crying still hadn’t begun, but he heard the worried whispers, followed by a door opening and closing quickly. Soon he heard Elpir’s voice. Quiet, stern, and in charge. She never yelled at the kids, but they always seemed to respect her. They always knew that they could come to her if they were in trouble and she would always protect them. That much was clear in their body language around her.

From what Ranvir’d seen over the last couple of months he’d spent at the orphanage, Elpir had a better grasp on the kids than any of the parents he’d seen back home had. Maybe with exception of Old Oak. The old woman had maybe fourteen or fifteen kids and nearly ten times that many grandkids. She was an incredibly daft hand at handling kids, seeming to understand them in and out.

To the point that most new parents often came to her before their own parents when asking for help. He wondered if Elpir would one day become like that to Eriene. Through the window, he heard the game continue as someone sloshed through the Rafting to get back inside.

Ranvir idly toyed with his blanket.