He took his Essence and infused it with will, then ran it along his spine—along the Center-Rhun channel. As it passed by his core, he held it in place.
Then, he envisioned his core as a furnace, a blazing fire. His timbers supported it, like a log-cabin at the base of a fire, and the core itself trembled atop the logs, spilling its energy over onto the edges. The stored Essence swirled around, then bubbled up like the start of a fire. It was almost burning.
He envisioned its processes as heat, and, being so close to Wildflame, he could create wisps of Essentia.
Instead of pure blue Essence, or the aspect-bent brown–green gnatsnapper Essence, the Essentia was clear, if not a little iridescent. Once it left his mind’s eye, once he pushed it to his fingertips and poured it into his possessions, he could grab hold of them with his will.
A void always wanted to fill, and he imagined his inner world as a void.
He started with a light, tiny ink quill and practiced imbuing it with Essentia before snapping it out of existence and pulling it inside himself. Then, to take it out, he reversed the process. It still had the Essentia within it, and now, he needed to remove that power and banish it from his spiritual system.
A simple outward push, concentrating on his soul, and he drove the quill out of his inner world and back into his hand, where he left it. It popped back into existence with a flash.
Perfect.
Over the days, he tried progressively larger objects, trying to test the limits of his inner world storage.
For simple, physical, non-magical objects, he could hold two barrels’ worth. Not as much as his void pendant, but he could summon them in and out of his arms at will. Any more, and he feared his soul would burst.
But for his inner world, the more important measure was how much spiritual weight the object had. He could draw in the shards of Nynhar with ease, but when it came to the shards of Lady Neria’s control dagger, he could only store about half of it before it pressed down too heavily.
If he was going to make his plan work, he’d need to store a lot more than a simple dagger shard.
There had to be a way to improve it, and faster.
“Nomad, is there a way to strengthen my soul quickly?” Pirin asked. He still sat in the cargo hold, legs dangling off the edge of the cargo elevator, leaning against the edge of Gray’s nest. Nomad leaned against the outer wall of the cargo hold, standing on the cargo platform. His racoon-cat curled up in his arms. It let out a soft purr every few seconds.
“Your soul gains strength like a muscle,” Nomad said. “Use your will, cycle, use techniques, your soul will gain power, and your will will be stronger. But it is a process that takes many, many years. You’ve done admirably, stress-tempering your own soul with thousands of backfiring techniques, and it’s the only reason you’re using advanced Wildflame techniques right now, but I don’t reckon we can go any further without damaging your soul—or your spiritual system at large.”
“Hiding just a dagger won’t be enough to defeat Lord Three.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Alright, then, but we don’t have a suitable weapon. Even if I was going to use Lady Neria’s dagger, it doesn’t have magic techniques. It’s just a really fancy pokey shard. And, unless somehow Ivescent is in possession of a wizard-killing dagger—which I doubt—we don’t have time to hunt down a new weapon.”
Nomad sighed. “Perhaps, then, you could use a soul-fortification technique?”
Pirin raised his eyebrows. “Like the Fracturenet, but for my soul?”
“Precisely. You’d have to use it constantly while you had your heavy object in your inner world, but it is possible. But it’s a bandaid solution.”
“It’s enough.” Pirin nodded. “How?”
“For you? I have no idea. I never designed one; I never needed it, and storing objects in my inner world never seemed terribly practical. Not to mention, my aspect alignment isn’t well-suited to fortification techniques at all.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“But you know the principle?”
“I know it can be done.”
Pirin was about to hang his head and sigh, but he wasn’t out of options yet. The Memory Chain was still his. If none of his predecessors had used a soul fortification technique, then he’d be surprised.
“I’ll work on it,” Pirin said. He tucked his legs up, then prepared to activate the Chain again.
“Pirin, you do need to do other things. You can’t just train for all hours of the day.”
“What else do you suggest?” Pirin asked.
Nomad chuckled. “I’m not saying to not advance, don’t get me wrong. I’m saying you could work on other helpful elements.” He reached out and flicked the heap of leather armour beside Gray’s nest. “For example, this.”
Pirin raised his eyebrows. “Did you have ideas? I was going to see if I could find any tools within the Northvel cellars, and that way, I could at least give the armour a slight enhancement.”
“Do you know how magical items and artifacts work?” Nomad asked.
“...Runes?”
“Yes, and rune-circles. The central rune-circle of an item determines its purpose and use, most often. Recall how Lady Neria’s dagger had a circle around the Essence emitting gem?”
“Yeah.”
“It was a simple runic circle,” said Nomad. “But quite effective at causing painful resonance for the weavelings.” He raised a finger. “Or Myraden’s armour. It has multiple functions, each controlled by a separate rune circle. These are called charges.”
“So I need to put a charge on the armour to give it an arcane effect?”
“Exactly. The material, the Essence-soaked leather, is perfect for transmitting power and activating Charges at a high-level, but without a proper Charge, you won’t accomplish anything. You can cover it in runes, and you may achieve a basic effect—like that of your mask—with rune-lines, but until you have a proper reciprocating Charge, with runes that can feed Essence in a circle, your armour will remain basic.”
“I don’t suppose I could just carve one into the leather right now?” Pirin flexed his fingers. They were still a little weak from the injury Lord Three had delivered to his arm, but he could etch leather steadily if he needed to.
“No,” said Nomad. “I have sutras on me, but no Charges.”
“They get…used?”
“There are templates,” Nomad said. “which achieve certain effects. You might find some of those in Northvel. Upon using a Charge template, it imprints the rune-circle onto the object, at the destruction of the template itself.”
Pirin nodded. “What can I do to prepare, then?” He lifted up the cuirass, then turned it around and held it up to the rune-shielded candle. There were no runes on the armour yet. Maybe Mransil II had intended for there to be, but clearly, he’d never gotten around to it before his passing.
He’d just left a blank canvas.
Though, looking at it, it wasn’t exactly blank. The leather had ridges and rumples, not to mention ornaments and decorative engravings.
But, on the back panel, there was a simple plane of flat leather. It was probably intended for carving, but time had given it ridges, and veins ran across it from where it soaked in elixir. They’d created stains of faint, glowing blue on the panel, and the leather bulged beneath each pocket.
When Pirin touched them, they threatened to pop and burst.
He pursed his lips, then leaned back. “I’ll scrape the panel smooth, and draw the Essence veins out into different parts of the armour, so that way, we can carve it more easily. I can carve it.”
“Good observation,” Nomad said. He approached and tapped the shoulder pauldron. “Each one will need a separate Charge, and you’ll need to find a place to put it on each separate piece of armour.”
“I’ll get to work, then,” Pirin said.
~ ~ ~
On the third day of the Count Ellyar’s ocean crossing, a messenger bird arrived for Myraden.
She caught the steppehawk and voraciously tore into the pouch, hoping for any sort of hint of how Pirin was faring, but instead found a message from Chancellor Ivescent.
He’d kept track of Myraden’s runic resonance, clearly.
My Lady, it began, Pirin has captured the city of Vel Aerdeil, but he is travelling north to quell the Dominion invasion. I fear we are running short on time, and if we are to provide assistance, we’ll need to move faster. I’ve arranged our army into horsemen and infantry, for I expect only the horsemen will reach Northvel in time.
There are Aerdians. There are some who might fight for their king, but they are gathering around the city, awaiting a sign.
We need the throne to bloom.
- Ivescent
She grimaced, then, walking across the control deck of the gondola, showed the letter to Marshal The?mir.
“Ivescent couldn’t muster the armies together even if the throne blooms,” The?mir grumbled. “He’s a weak-spined coward who knows nothing of military leadership—only self-destructive politics.”
Myraden bit her lip, then offered a shrug. “What can be done?”
“Ivescent is right on one account: we can only count on cavalry and birds to reach Northvel in time. I doubt Ivescent’s army has enough to even hold the city, let alone charge the Dominion lines and break whatever siege we’re facing. We’ll need to muster the Aerdian horsemen, too.” The?mir grimaced. “Let’s hope your friend can convince the throne to bloom in time.”