‘What happened out here?’ Dev asked.

  ‘You did.’ Justin answered. ‘Do you realize that you are unable to be contacted when you are doing that? And we almost can’t focus on anything without being overwhelmed by your will.’

  Meanwhile, Elluvian was talking, trying to defuse the situation, saying, “It wasn’t meant to disturb you. I was practicing my axiom.”

  Dev didn’t think he was very convincing, especially as he still sounded off balance from the bombardment of Sisu.

  ‘Let me take it,’ he said, snatching the reins from him.

  The leader from yesterday was talking, saying, “—would love to believe you. But why would you be here, following us and displaying aggression if you don’t want trouble?”

  “Look, what would it take to prove it to you? I can promise not to do it again. I didn’t mean for it to be interpreted as an attack. And I promise I didn’t follow you, I just realized that I should probably get off the island when you seemed so eager, especially since I didn’t have a suitable affinity.”

  Dev quickly shut his mouth, realizing that he was rambling.

  “I suppose that will do,” the leader said after a short hesitation, sighing. “What are we even doing, fighting and getting defensive in a trial?”

  “I know,” Dev answered. “I’ve been having a hard time, I keep getting separated from groups that I join.”

  “You know where other groups are?” The guy asked. “My name’s Preston, by the way.”

  “Dev, but I think I mentioned that yesterday. Yeah, I know a couple of other groups.”

  “Do you have anything for water?” Preston asked eagerly.

  “Not really. I know there was a group around a waterfall in the mountains, and there’s the archipelago island, but I’m not sure if that’s helpful.”

  “It’s more of a lead that I had before. Where is the archipelago.”

  Looking to the sky, Dev answered. “It’ll probably pass by in about 28 hours, if I remember correctly.”

  “What about fire?” one of their spectators, a raven-haired girl, asked.

  “That’s where I'm trying to go right now. The next island should be a desert, it has a good group with a good fire heritage in it.”

  “Mind if we join you?” she asked, indicating herself and two boys. “We were looking for a fire heritage.”

  “Sure,” Dev answered. “What’s your name?”

  ‘Don’t just concede!’ Elluvian’s voice sounded out in his mind. ‘We can get some food out of them!’

  ‘Good point.’

  “—and I’m Terra.” The girl said, finishing her introduction.

  ‘Did anyone catch the other two’s names?’ Dev asked real quick in his head.

  “Nice to meet you, Terra. Not to be rude, but do y’all have some proper food?” Dev asked. “I haven’t eaten properly in days.”

  His stomach punctuated the statement with a loud growl.

  “You haven’t eaten any of the fruit on the trees?” Terra asked him, seeming surprised.

  “No, I was worried it might be poisonous.”

  “Yeah,” Preston said, shooting Terra a sidelong glance, “A couple of people back in the camp have been puking their guts up all night because of that.”

  Dev hesitated, then accepted when his stomach growled again. “Might as well, if you know what’s safe.”

  He followed the group back to their camp, finding a circle of tents, with three people sitting in the center, looking green.

  ‘Damn, do not envy them.’ Justin said. ‘That does not look like a pleasant feeling.’

  When they got there, Preston handed him a bundle of fruit, which included the same red fruits Tae had asked about earlier.

  Dev frowned as he realized that Tae had been silent since he’d returned. Preston, misinterpreting that, said, “These are all safe, I’ve had every one.”

  Schooling his expression, Dev nodded. “Thanks.”

  He walked over to sit at the base of one of the trees, then sounded out in his mind, ‘Tae. Are you there?’

  Silence.

  ‘I think he was hit hard by your axiom,’ Elluvian said.

  ‘I… I’m fine.’ Tae said breathlessly.

  ‘Are you sure? We can stop if it’s affecting you that bad.’

  ‘No!’ Tae shouted. ‘It worked! I can feel my soul now.’

  ‘It worked?!’ Both Elluvian and Justin shouted simultaneously.

  ‘You doubted me?’ Dev said in a faux hurt tone, before continuing normally. ‘Yeah, I didn’t expect it to work so easily either. What happened?’

  ‘Well, your axiom was shaking me with every pulse, leaving me discombobulated, but then you released a double pulse repeatedly. That’s what originally helped me feel it, but then it felt like you rolled over me repeatedly with a boulder.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Dev apologized. ‘What’s your soul like?’

  ‘It’s a runic library,’ Tae said.

  ‘What?’ Justin asked.

  ‘A rune library. You know, a repository of known runes. In the empire, we had some really big ones, called the Rune Libraries of Alanesh, which took up entire moons!’

  ‘Wow. I don’t think there’s anything like that around here.’

  ‘Say… do you think we could also communicate in there?’ Tae asked.

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  ‘Chat rooms?’ Justin asked. ‘Really?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Dev said, returning to his spiritual space.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ he called out.

  When nobody answered, he tried again. ‘Can you hear me?’

  For his third try, Dev went to the same spot as he had felt the disruption before. ‘Can you hear me?’

  When he again received no answer, Dev returned to the surface. ‘Did you hear any of that?’ Dev asked.

  ‘I don’t think he’s out yet.’ Elluvian said.

  ‘I am now. Were you not able to hear me?’

  ‘No. Could you hear me?’

  ‘Yes. I tried responding, but you didn’t answer. I came back up when I realized you were gone.’

  ‘Are you ready for me to try and find the others?’ Dev asked. ‘I’ll try to steer around you, if that helps.’

  ‘Sure,’ Tae said after a few moments of hesitation. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  Dev dived back down, then reemerged. ‘Actually, we should move away from here. Best if we don’t risk me losing control in the middle of camp.’

  Dev stood up and walked over to Preston. “Hey, man, I’m going to go and practice by the edge of the island. Could you tell Terra that I’m there if she asks?”

  “Sure.’ Preston said, before looking him up and down. “But I don’t think anyone’s going to ask while you look like that.”

  “What?” Dev said, then realized, “No! Not like that! No! For the fire inheritance.”

  “Sure, man, whatever you say.”

  Dev opened his mouth, closed it, then walked away.

  ‘I really hope that I’m reading too far into that,’ Tae commented.

  ‘What do you expect?’ Justin said. ‘Put a bunch of fit teenagers away from adult supervision, with a bunch of people they’ll probably never see again, what do you think happens?’

  ‘Exactly what seems to be happening. I just figured the empire would have safeguards in place. Yuck.’

  ‘Maybe they do. It doesn’t really matter for us, though, as we certainly won’t be accepting any propositions.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Mentally shaking himself, Dev continued to the edge of the island. Once there, he had to take a break to admire the view. There were crackling storm clouds only a couple hundred feet from the edge, and looking to the west, he could see the cloud bank being split. To the east, Dev could see two walls boxing in around the path of the island.

  ‘Woah. I never considered how these could impact the weather.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s kind of awesome.’ Justin said. ‘You know what would be even more awesome? Getting contact with my soul before we make it to the Apollo inheritance.’

  ‘Fine. Tae, you still okay?’

  ‘Yeah, go ahead. I’m feeling much better.’

  ‘Okay, here goes.’ Dev dived down into his soul again. Double activating his axiom again, he overlapped the two waves, rolling them around the spirit space while trying to avoid Tae’s soul.

  After a minute, Dev surfaced again.

  ‘Everything okay up here?’ Dev asked. ‘No trauma?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Tae answered. ‘I’ve barely even felt anything.’

  ‘Me, too.’ Elluvian said. ‘Barely even echoes.’

  ‘I’m not getting anything either.’

  ‘Okay, I’m going to try and roam further afield from my soul. I’ll try and check in on you, see if anyone felt anything.’

  Dev gave them a moment to respond, and when nothing was forthcoming, dived back to his spiritual space. Once again doubling up on his axiom, he swept it further around, occasionally reinitiating the axioms when they dispersed. Every couple of minutes, Dev left to check on the others again.

  It was only after about twenty minutes that he finally felt something. His axioms felt like they had snagged on something. Rolling back over the spot, he confirmed the sensation.

  ‘Did I just hit one of you?’ Dev said, resurfacing.

  ‘ I didn’t feel anything.’ Justin said.

  After a moment, Dev said, ‘It must have been Elluvian. Let’s give him a minute to compose himself. What were y’all talking about?’

  ‘I was explaining the internet to him, with Tae’s help. We were trying to figure out alternative rune storage methods since you said the empire doesn’t have rune libraries.’

  ‘Oh, that must be so weird for him, to jump forward thousands of years technologically. Let me know if you need help explaining it to him.’

  ‘He does know more about cultivation than any of us, though.’ Tae said.

  ‘Hopefully, he will be ready soon,’ Dev said.

  ‘Maybe you should start searching again.’ Justin suggested after a few more minutes without contact.

  ‘No need,’ Elluvian said. ‘I’m back.’

  ‘Are you doing okay?’ Dev asked. ‘You took longer than Tae did.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ Elluvian answered. ‘But that is one hell of a shock. I did feel my soul, though.’

  ‘That’s great,’ Dev said. ‘What did it look like?’

  ‘It was the royal gardens from back home,’ Elluvian said, his voice cracking. ‘My royal father maintained them personally as part of his cultivation. We were hardly ever allowed inside.’

  ‘We? Did you have siblings?’ Dev asked.

  ‘Yeah, I had lots of siblings. They were all plotting against each other, but we were mostly family.’

  ‘You went full Game of Thrones?’ Justin asked.

  ‘That depends, what is Game of Thrones?’ Elluvian asked.

  ‘It’s a television program, which is like a long-distance play. It was all about the struggle for power between different monarchs and heirs, fighting for the fates of kingdoms. It was really big back home, but I never really got into it.’

  ‘We didn’t go that far,’ Elluvian said. ‘Just fights between siblings for our royal father’s cultivation techniques.’

  ‘Who won?’ Dev asked, morbidly curious.

  ‘I have no idea. I died before things concluded. I do wish that I knew what happened after I died. I did my best to preserve the kingdom, but with my death, who’s to know what happened.’

  ‘I’m sure it turned out fine,’ Tae said unconvincingly.

  ‘Yeah,’ Justin said. ‘It can’t have turned out too poorly. You seem like you know what you’re doing.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Elluvian said, sounding about as convinced as Tae did.

  ‘Anyway, how about we search for my soul?’ Justin said.

  ‘If everyone is ready, I’ll start again,’ Dev said.

  ‘I’m ready.’

  ‘Ready.’

  ‘Ready.’

  Dev dived back in, quickly generating two new ripples of his axiom. He quickly swept them up to where he’d found Elluvian’s soul, then generated two new ripples to explore the space beyond. Dev continued his search as he had before, periodically resurfacing to check on the others.

  After what seemed to be a much shorter time than before, he again felt his axiom snag on something. Quickly resurfacing, Dev asked, ‘Did I just hit Justin?’

  ‘He just fell silent, if that’s what you’re asking,’ Elluvian said. ‘I expect we’ll be hearing from him shortly. In the meantime, could you tell me about cars?’

  ‘Yeah, what do you want to know?’ Dev said. ‘I’ll warn you, I am not an expert on them.’

  ‘Justin was trying to explain how they work?’

  ‘Ours just run on magic, there’s not that much to explain.’ Dev said.

  ‘He was talking about internal combustion. Does that seem familiar?’

  ‘No, not at all. I—’ Dev paused as he saw someone walking up to him.

  “Hey,” Terra said. “What’s happening?”