“We’re so far behind,” Akari muttered in a horse voice.

  Relia had fought like a dancer out there, fighting multiple opponents, moving seamlessly from one technique to the next. Meanwhile, she and Kalden teamed up to kill one measly Novice. She’d scored several clean hits, but the guy just shrugged off her Missiles as if they were water balloons.

  Her leg still burned from the dragon’s mana, and her ribs ached from his punches. Her neck wasn’t bleeding as badly as she’d thought, but Kalden kept shooting her worried looks, and she probably had some nasty purple bruises.

  Relia had started training when she was six, and Akari was already sixteen. That put her at least a decade behind. And her true enemy was far worse than some small-town thug. Even Elend couldn’t comprehend so much power.

  “Guess it’s trial by fire,” Kalden said with a slow nod. “But we can’t keep this up forever.”

  Her thoughts exactly. They’d gotten lucky in all their previous fights, but that luck wouldn’t last. Elend had promised to start their training when they reached Espiria. That was all well and good before, but these dragons made the Martials look like playground bullies. They’d have to ramp things up.

  “We need aspects,” Akari said.

  Kalden shot her a sidelong glance. “Seems a little hasty.”

  “It’s the fastest way to close the gap.”

  He furrowed his brow, but he didn’t contradict her.

  “Think you can talk to Elend tonight?” she asked.

  “Why me?”

  “You’re better with people. We both know it.” There was a short pause while they watched Elend and Relia talking to the locals they’d saved. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  Kalden grinned at that. “You were worried about me?”

  “Hell yes.” Akari wasn’t scared to admit it, either. She’d just stabbed a guy in the back and came close to getting strangled herself. A little sentimentality felt good after that.

  “I knew you were fine,” Kalden said. “Elend and I washed up a few miles west of you, and he used some scrying technique to track you down. It didn’t take us long to find your trail from there.”

  Relia healed her wounds a few minutes later, then they returned to the Cantina with a crowd behind them. No one had spared her and Relia a second glance when they’d first arrived. Now, everyone wanted to thank them, shake their hands, or buy them drinks. Several guards even pitched in to pay for their dinner, and this immediately brightened the bartender’s mood.

  Beyond that, Akari didn’t pay much attention to the conversations. Local politics weren’t half as exciting as the plate of tacos in front of her—spicy Cadrian sausage topped with onions and cilantro. Shescarfed down three of them, then the bartender set a fresh plate in front of her.

  “Can I try a beer?” Akari asked while she had his attention.

  “Sure thing, shokita. What kind?”

  Akari glanced around with a shrug. “Whatever they’re having.” She didn’t know much about drinking, but she knew that real mana artists drank beer. Not those fruity cocktails that tasted like candy.

  The bartender placed an open bottle in front of her. It was ice-cold to the touch, with bubbles fizzing at the opening. Akari raised it to her nose, inhaling a faintly citrus scent.

  Relia snatched the bottle from her a second later.

  “Hey!” Akari protested.

  Relia passed the bottle to Arturo. “You can’t drink with a concussion.”

  “Who says I have a concussion?”

  “You hit your head on the boat.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Then you were unconscious in the water.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  Relia just nodded as if she’d expected that. “Memory loss is a sign of concussion.”

  Akari glared at her.

  “So is irritability.”

  “She’s right,” Kalden said from her left. “Alcohol can make brain damage worse. It’s smart to wait at least a week or two.”

  “Fine, whatever.” Akari had gone the first sixteen years of her life without alcohol, so it wasn’t the end of the world. Still, it sucked to be the only one without a drink.

  Kalden had a short glass filled halfway with dark brown liquid. Probably corzi, or some other fancy Gold drink. Meanwhile, Relia sipped a light blue drink with a little umbrella in it.

  “What about you?” Akari said. “You were just . . .” She almost mentioned the Martial ice chamber, then she thought better of it. “You were unconscious the other night.”

  She expected Relia to give some bullshit excuse about her Apprentice body, or her aspect. Instead, the other girl just raised the glass to her lips. “This is a virgin Sea Breeze.”

  Akari furrowed her brow. She had no idea what that meant, but she wasn’t about to advertise that.

  “Alcohol doesn’t do much for me,” Relia explained. “I trained my body to heal poisons on its own. That’s useful most days, but it takes a lot of effort to get buzzed. Kinda defeats the purpose, you know?”

  Akari caught the bartender’s eye and gestured a thumb at Relia. “Guess I’ll try one of those virgin princess drinks.”

  “Speaking of biology,” Kalden said, “can someone please explain these half-dragons?”

  “Master-level dragons can shapeshift,” Arturo said from farther down the bar.

  “Sure,” Kalden replied. “But these weren’t Masters. Did dragons and humans actually . . .” he made a vague gesture with one hand.

  “Oh yeah,” Arturo chuckled into his beer bottle. “There was this dragon a few centuries back who—”

  “That’s just a myth,” Relia cut in. “Dragon DNA’s not compatible with humans. Take it from a healer.” She turned back to Kalden. “Two dragons mated while in half-human form. The mother stayed that way until she gave birth.”

  “Even that’s just a theory,” Arturo said. “No one knows what the dragons did behind closed doors.”

  “Still makes way more sense than your promiscuous dragon myth.”

  Relia and Arturo continued bickering about the half-dragons, but Akari couldn’t hear them over the loud music. Instead, she leaned over to Kalden. “How come we never learned about these in school?” Mrs. Hansen had a whole unit on dragons last semester, so these should have come up at least once.

  “Think about it,” Kalden said as he sipped his corzi. “Only the Masters can shapeshift. No one back home knew about the Master realm.”

  Akari mulled that over as she sipped her virgin princess drink. Of course it wasn’t enough to erase their knowledge of the higher ranks. How many other facts came along for the ride? What else didn’t they know about this world?

  ~~~

  Half an hour later, they met up with Elend at a quieter table in the cantina.

  “Did you call Irina?” Relia asked as she sat down in a wooden chair.

  “Who’s Irina?” Akari asked.

  “My wife.” Elend rubbed at his temple. “I tried, but the Dragonlord blocks international calls.”

  Akari frowned. “What about the internet?”

  “Same problem. Not that you’ll find a computer in this town.”

  “But they can’t block the dark web,” she said. The Espirians had invented the dark web for this exact purpose—communication behind enemy lines. Then again, maybe she shouldn’t be so confident, considering the other lies she’d learned in school.

  Elend scratched the gray stubble on his chin. “The problem is, I don’t know who to contact. It’s not like Irina’s sitting around in some shady chat room.”

  “Doesn’t matter who we contact,” she said. “You’re rich, right?”

  “I’m well-off,” Elend corrected, as if there were a difference. The Golds back home said the exact same thing.

  “Right.” Akari leaned forward. “So you post In a dark web chat room. Say there’s a reward to anyone who gets a message to Irina. Payment on delivery.”

  “Arturo’s from Koreldon,” Relia cut in. “And he just graduated from KU last year. He might know someone back home who can help us.”

  Elend fixed her with a knowing look. “I trust you’ve been keeping our secrets close, lass?”

  “Of course,” Relia said with a hint of annoyance. “I stuck with the story.”

  “Aye, but the lad won’t believe that story if he’s smart. No one here will. Fighting alongside him was one thing, but let’s not get too cozy.”

  “Don’t worry.” She rolled her eyes. “He thinks my dad’s a big scary Artisan.”

  “If only things were that simple.” Elend rubbed at his wrists. He’d hidden the cuffs and collar behind dream mana Constructs, but the problem remained.

  Akari glanced around the room. The music still blasted on the radio, and no one looked close enough to overhear them. Still, couldn’t sound artists eavesdrop at long range?

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Elend must have noticed her unease. “Don’t worry, lass. I’ve got a sound suppressor around our table. They won’t hear anything but muffled voices.”

  Talek. Was there anything dream mana couldn’t do? It probably controlled people’s perception of sound rather than the sound waves themselves. Either way, this seemed like a good aspect to learn.

  “Arturo’s an Unmarked,” Relia said. “So—”

  “Unmarked?” Kalden interrupted.

  Relia glanced at Elend. “He can explain it better than me.”

  “Right.” Elend took a long swallow of his beer. “Creta has two political factions—Liberta and Unida. The first favors freedom, and the other promotes unity between humans and dragons. The Grevandi are an extremist group inside Unida who ride around enforcing state propaganda.” He took another drink. “The Unmarked are another extremist group who fight back.”

  “And the Unmarked have territory in all the big cities,” Relia said. “Arturo knows the leaders in Tureko. I’m sure they have computers with internet access.”

  “I suppose there’s no harm in asking,” Elend said.

  “Great!” Relia clapped her hands together. “I’ll go get him.”

  “Alright,” Kalden said after she left. “And what’s with the marks?”

  Akari had been wondering the same thing. They’d mentioned political factions, but this felt more like a civil war.

  Elend pulled a napkin from the middle of the round wooden table, flattening it out in front of himself. Then he began doodling with his index finger, forming ink out of thin air. More dream mana shenanigans?

  He held up his sketch a minute later. It looked like the same mark the Grevandi had tattooed on their foreheads. “I’ll spare you all the details, but this is a roju sigil. It suppresses passive mana flow and lets high-energy bursts through. Basically, it’s the opposite of most mana walls.”

  “And they put these sigils on their palms and foreheads,” Kalden mused. “That stops mana leakage without hurting their techniques.”

  “Correct,” Elend said.

  Akari’s frown deepened. “But what’s the point?” She knew people leaked mana from their bodies—especially people who weren’t trained to veil their souls. But wasn’t that amount too small to matter? You needed Silver Sight just to see it.

  “There’s a debate in the scientific community,” Elend said. “One side thinks ambient mana attracts mana storms, and they’ve gained a lot of traction in recent years.”

  “Wait,” Kalden said. “I thought chaos-based mana was attracted to order?”

  “Aye,” Elend said. “That’s the other side of the debate. They think storms move toward cities, regardless of their ambient mana levels. Things are normally civilized, except when a bad storm sweeps through. People lose loved ones, while others are afraid. That leads to violence.” He gestured around the room. “Especially in countries like this, with incompetent leaders.”

  Akari strained to listen over the music. “So . . . which side is right?”

  “No one knows. But they’re not fighting over science. They’re fighting over freedom and safety. Unida wants to enforce the marks, and Liberta wants a choice.” He held out his hands in a show of balance. “Debates are important, but when one side tries to silence the other . . .” He formed two fists and slammed them together. “Things get messy.”

  Akari swallowed as she processed that. So the Dragonlord made these marks mandatory, and he didn’t allow any opposing viewpoints. She thought they’d escaped all that bullshit when she’d left the Martials behind.

  Clearly, the outside world had problems of its own.

  Elend leaned back in his chair, draining the rest of his glass. “Most of the world is better, but it’s good to see nations like this one. It reminds us just how fragile freedom can be.” He rubbed at the invisible cuffs again.

  “Might be a stupid question,” Akari said. “But can’t we just break your thumbs, slip off the cuffs, and have Relia heal them?” She could accept that the cuffs were indestructible, but people escaped from handcuffs all the time. It shouldn’t be that hard.

  Elend gave her a weary smile, then turned to Kalden. “Pass me your dagger, lad.”

  Kalden unsheathed his father’s black and gold blade, passing it across the table without comment.

  Elend stretched out his hand on the table and jammed the blade into the center of his palm. Akari winced, but nothing happened. The blade hadn’t even broken the outer layer of skin.

  “I still have a Grandmaster’s body,” Elend explained. “The cuffs don’t change that.”

  Akari blinked “So you can’t break your own bones?”

  “How does surgery work?” Kalden asked.

  Elend passed him back the dagger. “I could hurt myself if it weren’t for the cuffs. I could also do it with the right weapon, but I doubt we’ll find those outside the Dragonlord’s personal armory.”

  Relia came back with Arturo a few minutes later, and they hashed out a plan. Tomorrow morning, Arturo would drive Elend to San Talek. The Unmarked had a base there with internet access, so they could try to contact Irina, or Arturo’s parents. It didn’t actually matter who answered first.

  Once the Espirian military knew they were here, they could send an airship to retrieve them.

  ~~~

  Later that night, they all headed upstairs and checked out their hotel rooms. Akari shared with Relia, while Kalden and Elend slept next door. The room itself looked as old as the bar, with creaking wooden floors and dark plaster walls. An old chandelier hung from the ceiling, and a fancy stone archway led out to the balcony. The curtains hung wide open, giving them a clear view of the town’s skyline.

  She and Relia each took a quick shower, then they washed their clothes in the bathtub. With that done, Akari headed for the door between the hotel rooms. It hung open part way, and she peeked inside to see Elend sitting shirtless on the nearest bed.

  Kalden sat on the opposite bed in the same cross-legged pose, almost like he was trying to imitate the Grandmaster.

  Akari pushed the door open and cleared her throat.

  Elend opened one eye and grinned at her. “Come to say goodnight to Kalden? I can step out if you’d like some privacy.”

  In a rare show of diplomacy, she resisted the urge to flip him off. “Came to see you, actually.”

  “Ah,” Elend said. “You want me to expedite your training.”

  Akari nodded, but she found her gaze falling to Elend’s bare stomach. Talek. Old people weren’t supposed to be that ripped.

  Elend chuckled, then he shot a burst of mana from his hand, forming a transparent sound suppressor around them. He conjured another technique around his upper body, forming a black t-shirt. “Say no more, lass. I said I’d teach you lucid dreaming, and there’s no reason we can’t start tonight.”

  Akari drew in a deep breath. “That dragon almost killed us today. Dreams and memories won’t keep us alive.”

  “Combat training might be a better investment,” Kalden agreed. “At least while we’re trapped here.”

  Akari gave an eager nod. “A Construct would have been nice today.”

  “I can’t teach you Constructs overnight,” Elend told them. “These things take months to learn.”

  Akari turned to face Relia who’d just stepped into the room. The other girl only had one pair of clothes, so she wore a plush white bathrobe. “That’s what you said about Missiles, right?”

  Relia glanced back and forth uncertainly. “Wait—what are we talking about?”

  Elend just fixed Akari with a look. “Don’t get cocky, lass.”

  “Cocky students don’t ask for help in the first place,” she countered.

  “I’ve been a professor for twenty years,” Elend said. “But please, tell me more about cocky students.”

  “Fine.” Akari crossed her arms and held his gaze. “But Kalden and I learn faster. That’s just a fact.”

  “You make a fair point, but it also proves mine. You mastered Missiles quickly because you’d already learned them. Will Constructs be the same way?” He shrugged. “We don’t know. It depends on how old you were before you lost your memories. You could have been fifteen, or five.”

  “My mom died on the island,” Akari said. “I was thirteen when that happened.”

  Elend hummed in consideration. “You’re absolutely sure about that?”

  “It’s the clearest memory I’ve got. Everything before it is fuzzy though.”

  Relia gaped at her in wide-eyed wonder. “You don’t remember being a kid?”

  “Not really,” Akari said. “Just bits and pieces.”

  The other girl stared at her as if she’d grown a second nose. Even Kalden looked surprised. It had never seemed like a big deal to Akari, though. You couldn’t miss what you never had in the first place.

  “I remember playing with my friends.” Kalden furrowed his brow in thought. “I was definitely a kid then—probably nine or ten. ”

  “But what about the Archipelago?” Elend asked him. “Are those memories tied to a specific place?”

  “I think so.” Kalden frowned, revealing his own uncertainty. “What are the odds that I had the same friends before?”

  “Aye,” Elend said. “That’s the question, isn’t it? Your Archipelago had over a quarter-million prisoners. I doubt you were all chosen at random.”

  Talek, he was right. Their enemy hadn’t just brought individuals to the island. He’d transported entire families. Why not extend that to friends? But where were the boundaries? Had Akari’s family actually done something to end up there, or were they just unlucky?

  Elend waved a dismissive hand. “Speculation will only get us so far. Better to unlock your memories first.”

  “What about aspects?” Akari asked. Elend had piqued her interest, but she wasn’t letting him steer the boat that easily. What if the Grevandi came back tomorrow? Her pure Missiles had been useless today, and aspected mana seemed like the fastest way to get stronger. Agent Frostblade had only been a Gold, but his Missiles could break through bullet-proof glass. Along with . . . other things she’d rather forget.

  “You’ve seen my videos, lass. You can’t rush these things.”

  Akari shrugged. “Hardly feels like rushing when I’m ten years behind.”

  He shook his head. “You’ll need to train hard to catch up, but mana arts is a marathon, and today is just one day in the grand scheme of things. If you’re too eager to destroy things, you’ll be the one who gets destroyed.”

  Great, more fortune-cookie wisdom that wouldn’t help her win her next fight. But Akari wouldn’t prove him right by acting more impatient. Instead, she took several deep breaths, choosing her next words with care. “I just want to take the first step. That’s all.” She turned to Kalden for support, but he seemed content just to listen. He did that a lot, come to think of it—always listening, but never fighting a battle he couldn’t win.

  “I’d rather see you take the right step,” Elend countered. “Don’t forget that I knew your parents. I trust they did their research and found an aspect that suited you. We might just find it if we unlock your memories.”

  Akari swallowed. “What if I already know the answer?”

  “Patience, lass. I suspect your other dreams were mostly your imagination—how you saw yourselves rather than how you were. That’s the nature of dreams.” He glanced back and forth between them. “Until now, you’ve only had vague impressions of your old lives and techniques. I can help you relive your actual memories. They’ll be as clear to you as this moment. You’ll feel your body performing more advanced mana arts, and you can carry those techniques to the real world. Trust me—this is your best chance for growth and survival.”

  Akari felt goosebumps creep up her arms, and she couldn’t help but nod along. “Okay. When do we start?’

  Elend smiled. “Right now.” He explained the process over the next few minutes. Apparently, he would forge a dream mana Construct in their brains, and things would just . . . work themselves out from there.

  “So let me get this straight,” Kalden said. “You’re going to stick dream mana in our heads, and that guarantees our dreams will be actual memories?”

  “Guarantees?” Elend replied. “No, that’s too strong a word. My mana will put you in a trance while you sleep. This will make your brain act in specific ways—recreating memories and suppressing the imagination. But it’s not flawless. And like any trance, it’s possible to break.’

  “But how does a simple Construct do so much?” he asked.

  Elend raised a finger. “I never said it was simple, lad. Apprentices and Artisans focus on improving their bodies, while Masters improve their minds. You three need your bodies to shape mana, but I’ve spent decades internalizing those movements. Now, all it takes is a thought.”

  He demonstrated this by releasing several tiny Missiles from his fingers, which promptly orbited his still body. Masters can even weave specific intentions with their techniques. This part is critical for dream mana”

  “Can non-Masters do that?" Akari gestured to Relia who’d taken a seat in the nearby chair. “She can heal people or kill them with the same aspect.”

  “Aye,” Elend agreed. “That’s a crude version of intention.”

  Kalden asked another truckload of questions after that. As usual, he could never move on with a subject until he understood every detail. She’d never had a class with him at Elegan High, but he’d probably been that way in school, too.

  Akari was less concerned about the details at this point. She’d probably forget it all once she reached Master, then she’d have to learn it again.

  Elend finished his lessons around ten o’clock, and they all struggled to stay awake at that point. Even Elend looked tired, and he hadn’t slept once these past few days. Clearly, even Grandmasters needed some sleep.

  She and Relia returned to their own room while Elend put the dream Construct in Kalden’s head. Apparently, this technique would put them to sleep on contact, so they’d have to get comfortable beforehand.

  Akari crawled under the blankets, rested her head on the pillow, and set her glasses on the nearby nightstand.

  Elend joined them in the room a few minutes later. “All set, lass?”

  She nodded, and he hovered his right hand several inches above her face.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “This won’t hurt a bit.” Violet mana flashed between his fingers. He pressed his palm to her forehead, and the world went black.