Relia loomed over her patient’s bed, fingers splayed, shaking with the force of her technique. Angelic mana surged through her like a storm, cleansing every cell in her body. The rush sent shivers down her spine—colder than winter frost and sharper than a blade.

  But for all its power, it refused to leave her channels.

  “You’re still thinking like a mana artist,” her father said from a few paces behind her. “You see barriers where none exist.”

  As if he could do better. Relia wouldn’t be standing here if that were the case.

  “Feel his channels and his soul. It’s all a part of you.”

  Healing herself with Moonfire had been easy; Relia just cycled the Angelic mana like a Cloak, and things worked themselves out from there. This hadn’t happened overnight, but her progress had been steady over the past few weeks, with dozens of small victories along the way.

  She’d started training in the Ethereal, sampling different poisons and letting the mana cleanse her cells. From there, she’d moved on to simple cuts and bruises, followed by more serious wounds—the sort of wounds that would have killed her without her aspect.

  But healing someone else with Moonfire? That was like asking water to flow uphill. Life mana could take on many forms, but Moonfire was always a Cloak technique. If she tried to form a Construct, she got Moonshard, like the shields she’d used against Valeria Zantano. If she tried to form a Missile, she got a blast of violent, unstructured power.

  You could, in theory, extend your Cloak to another person—even multiple people. But those were the skills of Masters, not mere Artisans like her.

  Her father circled the bed, his dress shoes clicking against the hard vinyl floor of the hospital room. Raindrops rolled down the glass windows behind him, turning the skyline to a blur of hazy lights.

  He reached out and grabbed the unconscious man’s wrist. Then, with surprising gentleness, he lifted the pale arm a few inches off the bed. “You see this hand? This is yours. Don’t push the mana. Cycle it.”

  “I’m trying,” Relia said through gritted teeth. Sweat ran down her temples despite the room’s chill. How had her grandmother learned this technique alone, with no manuals or teachers to guide her? She hadn’t even been a mana artist, much less a Master.

  Then again, Lyraina had decades to refine her techniques. Elise couldn’t wait that long.

  Fortunately, their backup plan was already in motion. The Honor Guard had begun capturing Artisan-level mana beasts from the Hollows, and her father used those to expand Relia’s soul.

  At this rate, she could reach the Master realm by the year’s end.

  Relia still had her revelation to contend with, but she wasn’t worried about that part. She’d already spoken the words and felt the resonance in her soul. Everything would be fine once she reached the mana threshold.

  “You’re still trying to force it,” her father said. “You can’t force a technique like this.”

  Relia slumped her shoulders in defeat. “What else am I supposed to do?”

  He kept talking about connections and boundaries, but Relia couldn’t bring herself to listen. He’d never done this technique himself, and he probably never would. His ideas were just theories, and theory could only take you so far in the world of mana arts.

  Eventually, Relia stopped cycling her Moonfire and let her hands collapse on the bed. Her patient was deep in a coma, so she wasn’t worried about disturbing him.

  “Why are we here?” She glanced around the room with its beeping monitors and sterile surfaces. But she pointedly avoided looking at the man’s family who sat huddled in one corner. “You knew I wasn’t ready for this.”

  “Angelic mana can’t be forced,” he said for the tenth time that day. “It needs a purpose to guide it. An intense emotion.”

  “Is that why you failed?” she retorted.

  “No,” he said in a calm voice. “I know exactly who I am and what I want. But this technique is too complicated for a mortal to learn from scratch. Even a Mystic.”

  “You want me to feel something again? Then send me back to the Darklights.” Relia hadn’t just lost her friends when they’d been separated. She’d lost a part of herself that day—the person she became when they were together. Alone in the Palace Prime, she felt like an actress forced to play a role. A role she’d never wanted or asked for.

  “I can still heal Elise,” she continued. “We can all get what we want.” She looked up at him, searching for any sign of compassion or understanding in his eyes.

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  Her father’s face was an impassive mask. Either he didn’t believe her, or he didn’t care.

  Relia rubbed at the metal cuffs on her wrist. Unlike impedium, which stopped the flow of all mana, these cuffs blocked Relia’s specific aspect. In other words, they forced her to rely on the Moonfire rather than using her life mana.

  “I’m done with these,” she told her father.

  His gaze fell to her fidgeting hands. “Why?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “You need to stop relying on your aspect,” he said with a quick shake of his head. “The Redeemers of Aeondom had nothing but their Moonfire to keep them alive. That conflict and desperation forced them to grow.”

  “What about him?” Relia glanced down at the unconscious man between them, and the heart monitor seemed to beep even louder in the brief silence. “What if he dies?”

  “What about all your future patients? What happens to them when your aspect isn’t enough?”

  For the first time in several minutes, Relia glanced at the man’s family on the nearby sofa. Her father had set up a sound suppressor to give them privacy, but they could still see each other through the dome of transparent mana.

  A woman in her mid-thirties sat at the center of the sofa, and her blond hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed in several days. A young boy sat beside her, clutching a worn stuffed animal to his chest like a lifeline. His older sister sat perfectly still, her eyes never leaving her father’s face.

  “No.” Relia clenched her hands into fists. “I’m sick of your preaching and excuses. Healing him feels right. Does anything else matter?”

  “That’s good enough for Artisans,” he said. “But Masters need to look at the bigger picture. I don’t agree with Elend Darklight’s dishonesty, but I do agree with his training methods. He made you learn the techniques you needed, not the ones you wanted.”

  “Elend didn’t destroy half a city,” she said in a dark whisper.

  “You trusted him.” Her father’s tone was a perfect echo of her own. “But did he truly deserve that trust?”

  Relia Cloaked her arms, slipping her fingers between her skin and the cold metal of her cuffs. The impedium snapped like brittle glass in her grip, clattering to the hard vinyl floor. Then she pressed a hand to the man’s chest and pushed out her life mana. This wasn’t Moonfire, but that didn’t matter. She would still succeed where the doctors had failed.

  Green and gold mist gathered between her fingers and sank into her patient. The energy flowed like water down a drain, seeping into damaged tissues and broken vessels.

  Her father remained silent, but she could feel his disapproving gaze.

  Relia ignored him, concentrating on the damaged heart beneath her palm. The organ struggled with its rhythm, but the problem was clear in her mind’s eye: a blockage, starving vital tissues of blood and oxygen.

  “I train to do what’s right,” she whispered as she worked. That was her revelation, and the words echoed in her soul like a drumbeat, powerful and true. She would advance to Master and use that power to save her sister. She didn’t need to sacrifice anyone along the way.

  Her life mana swirled around the damaged area, dissolving the blockage piece by piece. This was familiar territory, the sort of healing she’d done for the past six years.

  The monitors steadied as her patient’s heart regained its former strength, then a rush of color returned to his pale face. His wife noticed first, rising from the sofa with trembling hands pressed to her mouth. The children followed her gaze, and a glimmer of hope dawned in their eyes.

  “Elise will need more than this,” her father said with his back to the family. “You know it’s true You’re only delaying your own growth.” His tone sent a shiver down her spine, even colder than her failed technique from a few minutes before.

  Her patient’s eyes fluttered open, and Ashur lowered his Construct around the bed. The man’s family rushed in, tears mingling with their laughter.

  Her father changed before her eyes, the cold facade melting away to reveal a perfect politician with his easy smiles and kind words. His hand rested briefly on the young boy’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort that seemed almost genuine. As if he hadn’t been ready to sacrifice this man a few seconds before.

  Relia’s doubt gathered like storm clouds at the edges of her mind, but she ignored them for now. This was a victory; this was what she’d trained for her entire life. She’d healed her own condition, and now she could finally share her power the way it was meant to be used.

  The man’s wife stepped toward Relia, grasping both her hands in hers. “Angels bless you, Lady Moonfire.”

  Relia forced herself to smile back. A year ago, she never would have been allowed to work in a hospital like this. But that was before. Back when she was Relia Dawnfire, the death artist.

  Today, the world knew her as Lady Moonfire, the prime minister’s daughter. Everyone magically forgot about her aspect overnight, and her very presence was a gift from the Angels.

  ~~~

  “Elend didn’t lie to the world,” Relia told her father once they were back in the Palace Prime. “He didn’t sacrifice innocent people for his goals.”

  “No?” Space warped behind Ashur as he closed the portal to the hospital. “What about Elise?”

  Relia’s breath caught as she remembered her sister lying in that cold metal container. “That wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know what would happen.”

  Ashur leaned against his wooden desk, spreading his arms to either side. “He recruited her to help the rest of you advance. To force you to take soulshine, and to build Akari Zeller’s moral character. It paid off tremendously. He allied himself with the Solidors, and got three Aeons of his own. Three of the world’s most powerful people, absolutely loyal to him.”

  “He put her in danger,” Relia agreed in a tight voice. “But you pulled the trigger.”

  Her father didn’t acknowledge that, but he also refused to meet her eyes for several seconds. A muscle tensed in his jaw—possibly the first real emotion he’d shown all night. “Did Elend ever tell you about Glimmer?”

  “What?” Relia blinked at the change of topic. Glim wasn’t much of a secret, but few people knew her by name.

  “She can move freely through the world,” Ashur said. “She can make illusions like any other Grandmaster dream artist. But she can only appear in mirrors. Strange, isn’t it?”

  Relia kept her mouth shut. Her father might be fishing for information, trying to learn Elend’s weaknesses.

  But yes . . . it was strange. Relia had asked them about this restriction countless times over the years, but their answers had always been vague and half-hearted. Elend claimed it was some leftover quirk from their childhood, but that didn’t make any sense. Glim could make illusions of anything, but not herself.

  Ashur nodded, and space warped around them once again. “I think it’s time you see who the Darklights really are.”

  Web of Secrets Book 1 is now available for ebook, paperback, and Kindle Unlimited:

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