Myraden rode on Kythen’s back while they trotted along. She leaned forward, holding onto Kythen’s mane and letting the bounce of his feet relax her. They followed the road along the bay, travelling north from Ostaloth. The days grew shorter and colder, and now, she noticed the chill, even if it wasn’t unpleasant.

  The previous evening, when she and the Hand had stopped to rest, they’d made a campfire, and she melted the elixir gels back into liquid, then steamed them until they’d lost enough volume to fit in a single tube. It was a powerful, thick syrup now, with enough power to illuminate her Inner Gates.

  She didn’t have time to illuminate them while sitting, but for the time being, Kythen could carry her as they travelled. That way, she didn’t have to think about walking and cycling elixir at the same time.

  Now, early in the morning after a night spent condensing the elixir, she held up a single tube of cool liquid to her lips and downed it.

  The Hand glanced cautiously over his shoulder at her, but said nothing. Myraden shut her eyes and whispered to Kythen in íshkaben, “Follow him, unless he strays far from the road. Then you can leave him.”

  Still don’t trust him? Kythen asked.

  “You do?”

  “I do have a slight inkling of what you’re saying,” the Hand grumbled.

  “You speak íshkaben?” She scowled.

  “I picked up a few phrases here and there.”

  It was a well-guarded language. Most sprites believed it could only be taught to another by a loved one—whether through family, brotherly comradery, or love.

  “Your father taught me, when I fought alongside him.”

  Brotherly comradery, then.

  “And look where that got him,” Myraden muttered.

  “Drink your elixir, and if you still feel like talking about it, then we can.”

  She narrowed her eyes, but he was right. She pressed the tube up to her mouth and downed it all in a single breath. It had started to congeal again, and it was almost like drinking pure bacon grease. She shuddered and gagged, but held it down—even as a slimy chunk slipped down her throat, reminding her of raw fish.

  She clenched her eyes, purging the sensation, then pushed the Essence to the base of the Center-Rhun channel.

  Over the years, she had developed strong elixir control. Being from a wizard’s family—a cursebearing lord of ískan—they’d known she’d have magic ever since she was born. Although she didn’t have a bond with an animal yet, she could still manipulate pure Essence and partially operate Lejavüdkue. She just wasn’t able to form a stable technique until she’d bonded with Kythen.

  With her practice, she was inevitably better at Essence manipulation than Pirin. She effortlessly guided her Essence up to her spine, pooled it at the base, then launched it upward, illuminating the entire channel and its seven gates and locking them in her mind’s eye. Even when the Essence passed through her mind, reaching her soul at the top of her head, she recalled the gates, their positions, and how they’d looked with Essence in them.

  Cracked, charred walls, like ember-y wood, lodged before each gate, restricting its flow.

  Her stomach dropped. Each gate had so much char and buildup that only a pinprick of Essence could flow through each. She hoped maybe pushing so much Essence through would’ve opened them, dislodging the charred material, but it didn’t budge. Only the resonance caused by the revelations would allow that.

  It was a wonder any Essence flowed through her channels at all.

  She opened her eyes.

  “So?” the Hand asked. “Quite a lot of buildup, I assume.”

  “Yes.”

  “Figured.”

  “Oh, you did?”

  “Of course I did,” he grumbled. “Since I was born, I have studied to kill wizards—to even the odds between us and mortals. I have studied every manuscript in the imperial library about Essence cultivation and your abilities. I know exactly how to train your kind, and I know how to fight them. But more importantly, I know where you struggle and fail. You, Myraden Leursyn, have issues you need to work out. When you see yourself clearly, you will clear your channels, but such buildup is a result of your own faults.”

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  She winced, then slid off Kythen’s back and staggered along on her own two feet. The liquid of the elixir still sloshed in her stomach, and its spiritual energy sloshed in her core. But still, she approached. “What do you know about me? I barely spoke to you last time you tried training me.”

  “I don’t need to know everything about you to understand why you’d hit a roadblock in your advancement. I can see it. There are people of a certain type, angry at the world, angry at everyone, without a place to direct it. You are one of them.”

  She exhaled irritatedly, then walked along in silence.

  Over the past few days since escaping Ostaloth, she’d changed back into her sleeveless gambeson and fastened her armour back on, but she’d kept the remains of the dress in her void pendant.

  It was still valuable, and as a base for further enhancements, it wasn’t horrible. If she could refine it into a more suitable, combat-focussed form, she’d use it. She didn’t need the heat of the gambeson, nor its padding.

  Whenever they stopped to rest, she used her spearhead to cut it into a more desirable shape—removing the baggy sleeves until it was more of a sleeveless turtleneck, cutting down the skirt and layering the fabric into a longer waist cape that could flow behind her trousers. She made sure not to cut any of the smoky mesh, except at the very tip, so she could vent Essence through it if needed.

  But she couldn’t work on it while moving. It stayed tucked away in her void pendant, safely hidden.

  They walked for another week, travelling as far north as they could. Myraden’s supplies, which she’d filled up in Ulan-Ost, were holding steady, but they wouldn’t find any place to resupply in ískan. It was a frozen tundra, and the major cities were gone.

  On the eighth night of travelling, they stopped at the edge of a pine forest. It ended at a lip of stone, giving way to fields of rock, sod, and hardy grasses—and nothing else. The road was slippery with sea-spray and light snowfall.

  As best Myraden could tell, they were about as far north as Northvel, just on the other side of the world. Light snow dusted the ground and made the tree branches heavy, but so close to the coast, it was still warmer and wetter than inland.

  She sat down on a slick rock and let her legs dangle, then looked ahead beyond the edge of the forest, and beyond the rocky plains. Hills climbed up and down along the coast, with lines of gray stone intersecting the grassy layers. A waterfall trickled down the side of a slope, then poured into the ocean with a plume of spray.

  A bank of fog obscured much of the land north of the hills, but from her vantage on the tree-covered ridge, she could see slightly farther than usual. The shore curved westward with a sharp angle, and perhaps even angled slightly south again.

  They were getting close to the Skuvey Strait—the narrowest point of sea between ískan and the rest of the Mainland. By the end of the day, they’d arrive.

  The Hand rubbed his forehead, then sat on a rock beside her. He rubbed his knee and groaned, then tossed his head back and stared up at the sky. His breath condensed into steam and plumed into a column high above.

  “Hand?” she asked.

  “Yes?” He kept staring up. The sky was gray and cloudy; there was nothing to see.

  “How did my father receive his fatal wound?”

  “You already know, don’t you?”

  “I saw his death. I do not know what caused it.”

  “He was a Flare, and a late-stage one. But eventually, the Dominion sent wizards to quell our uprising. They overwhelmed him, and delivered such a wound that he could no longer keep fighting. One wizard, a Blaze, struck his spirit with a rare technique, breaking his channels and preventing his body’s enhanced healing.”

  Myraden shuddered.

  “I told him to return to ískan. I realized what happened and what would happen. I told him to save what he could, to ride to ískan ahead of the Dominion’s messengers and evacuate what sprites he could. I do not know what happened afterward; I turned myself in, and the Emperor made me pledge fealty. In return, he would spare Seisse the same fate as ískan.”

  “He returned to our village shortly before the Burning began,” Myraden said. “Harmkvord. He ordered us to climb aboard the fishing boats and sail for Sirdia. He lived until we arrived, though his condition worsened. A few days after he petitioned Chancellor Ivescent to allow the surviving sprites into Sirdia, he died.”

  She narrowed her eyes, then swung her legs around the edge of the rock, so she faced the Hand. “Why didn’t the Emperor make you commit to a soul contract?”

  “Mortals can’t make soul contracts. It wouldn’t have worked.” He blew a puff of air out his nose. “Only reason I can help you right now.” He tapped the hilt of his sword. “Do you think I’m going to betray you?”

  “I was worried that you might not have a choice.”

  “There is little I can say to sway you, then.” He shrugged. “If you and your beast don’t trust me, I can’t convince you easily. But you’re the one who sought me out, and I agreed to train you.” He slid off his rock, then stepped closer. “What do you want? If you can’t answer that, you’ll never pass your spirit revelation.”

  “Revenge. I cannot deny it.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “The wizard who delivered the fatal wound to your father is dead. I killed him.”

  Myraden scowled. “Not against him. Against the Dominion. I want to destroy it.”

  “A noble goal, for sure, but for non-noble reasons. If you bring down the Dominion with revenge as your only goal, you’ll wind up hollow and empty.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Let us see, then. I will speak the revelation.” She shut her eyes, concentrated on the lit Inner Gate, and whispered, “I want revenge for my father, my destroyed childhood, and my ruined life.”

  Nothing. Not even a tingle of resonance along her spine.

  Her face flushed, and when she opened her eyes, she looked down. “How can that be untrue?”

  “It means what you want has changed, and it’s up to you to find out what it has become. You don’t want to destroy the Dominion for revenge—you want to destroy it for some other end. Discover that, and accept it.”

  She clenched her teeth and pressed her tongue into the roof of her mouth. “I will think. But we should keep moving. I would like to be in ískan by the end of the day.”