The next morning, I stood in front of a standing mirror in the room next to the one in which I had rested. I ran a hand over my bare chest as I considered my visage for the first time since coming to the Physical.

I had black hair that hung down to my shoulders and framed a soft face with deep black eyes. Underneath my hand, I felt the smooth skin of my chest that had once been ravaged by stab and bullet wounds. Not a mark of the brutality lingered on my light brown skin. Morgana’s healing technique had proven remarkably effective, even more so than she had expected based on her comments about my rapid recovery. I suspected my new body had many unique advantages that I hadn’t yet discovered; after all, it had been prepared with rituals under the supervision of Akasha whom I respected as my equal if not my better when it came to mana constructs. I pulled my hand away turning my hand over in front of my face.

Interesting, I thought. There’s still blood under some of my fingernails…

For some reason, the sight of the dried brown filth evoked an unpleasant feeling in my gut. I glared at the offending material for a moment before a memory surfaced of the last moments of Elijah Daniels. I watched the man’s visage transform from confidence to confusion to horror over several seconds.

The memory shifted. The sorcerer’s face shifted to that of Morgana. I drained her soul with glee reveling in the power granted by it as she screamed curses of betrayal and hatred. The visage changed again. This time, I consumed Yotta, the Languid King’s vessel. The sight of her terrified face as I sucked the soul from her body triggered a war of revulsion at the very concept of the act and the glorious joy of the power that I could gain from the Languid King. Finally, the image changed again.

Libbu knelt in front of me, our hands intertwined and she smiled while squeezing my hands. I realized what was about to happen yet no matter how much I willed it, my actions wouldn’t reflect my desires. I pulled on her essence watching with abject horror as her face decayed. She spoke, her voice sending shivers of pleasure and dismay through my body and soul.

“Yes, my beloved. I am yours to take. Drink of me and be full so that our essence may flow together.”

The delight infused into her words struck my rebelling mind like a sledgehammer against a wall of ice. Before my eyes, she turned to ash in my hand letting out one final cry of pleasure as I devoured her soul. I fell to my knees, trembling like a child in the cold. My hands scrapped through the ashes searching for something of her, anything, yet nothing remained. Tears filled my eyes and I looked up. My eyes fell upon a blot of darkness that had gone unnoticed even though I knew instinctually that it had always been present.

The blot bore down on my body crushing my bones with a weight that a shadow couldn’t possibly hold. Its embrace injected a cold unlike anything I had ever felt into my muscles and my mind went numb. Within my soul, the presence violated my identity pressing up against the threshold of my cognition until I mistook it for a part of myself. A single word echoed through my entire being.

“Grow.”

Then, warm hands grabbed my face. I was pulled into a soft embrace by someone who muttered assurances and pleas in my ear. I looked at the person only to see Liberty Blackthorn kneeling next to me. I heaved in deep breaths while I searched the room with frantic eyes.

Nothing. No corpses, or ashes, or unfathomable blots of darkness.

I was just in a room with a mirror and a window that revealed to an early morning sky.

“It’s alright, darling. Mother’s here,” Liberty murmured. The scent of lavender and juniper berries filled my nostrils banishing the phantom smell of rot. My breathing slowed down as I distracted myself with the sound of her voice. Her next words weren’t directed at me. “I thought he was healed! I knew I should’ve been there: his stigmata must’ve been aggravated during your ritual. You druids don’t understand the nuances of the soul.”

“He is healed, girl, No mortal could sustain wounds as bad as his were without trauma or complications,” said Morgana who stood by the door watching us. Her tone was stern and her gaze had a hint of disdain as she regarded Liberty. “As for you, I may not be as cruel or vindictive as your grandmother but I’ll not have you question my competence at an art that I’ve practiced long before you were born.”

My “mother” didn’t have a chance to respond. I had pulled my mind into an acceptable state and pushed myself into a sitting position. Liberty tried to stop me but it was a half-hearted attempt. I took a deep breath expelling the tension throughout my body with a substantial amount of will. Despite my efforts, a headache lingered behind my eyes.

“I am fine… Mother,” I said; the last word coming out with a bit of reluctance. “I just need a few moments to collect myself. You don’t—”

I trailed off when I caught sight of Liberty’s face. It had transformed from a frantic mess of worry to a tearful expression awash with regret, relief, and another emotion that I couldn’t identify. The last one delayed my response because I had seen its perplexing visage on Libbu many times in the early days of mankind’s advance to civility.

“You… you can speak,” she said cupping my face in her hands. A sobbing laugh spilled from her lips. “Yotta wasn’t lying. You’re really ok. Oh, Jon… H-he’s… I…”

It became hard to understand her toward the end but it didn’t matter as she pulled me into a tight embrace. Unthinkingly, I lightly returned her embrace then frowned when I realized that the action had been a reflex rather than a decision. My mood soured further when I realized that I felt sadness at the sight of her tear-streaked face. I honed my vision in on Liberty’s soul, spurred on by my desire to understand what was happening.

I saw a mess of emotion swirling around the woman’s Astral Bridge. However, instead of making a mess of the sorceress’s mana, the sentimental chaos slid over a barrier projected by a technique that had been integrated into Liberty’s Astral Bridge. The barrier didn’t stop the flow of mana between her body and her Astral Domain through her soul but it stopped the emotions from destabilizing the flow from her Astral Bridge and ensured that the mana passing through the barrier remained stable in the face of said emotion.

I had to admit the simple yet ingenious implementation impressed me. I didn’t get to analyze the structure any further though since I spotted the source of my sentimental reaction to Liberty’s tears.

Barely visible even to my eyes, a thin strand connected her soul to mine. The connection was so minuscule that I could forgive myself for not noticing it until now. Unfortunately, before my eyes, the strand grew, albeit slowly, fueled by Liberty’s emotional duress and our physical contact.

I knew why this connection existed: I had learned of its nature long ago when I observed the formation of proto-souls and souls within the unborn spawn of various species. Any creature with a soul and the capacity to reproduce could form such a connection with its offspring. To put it simply, most mortal souls can’t grow in the earliest stages of their development so the new souls form connections with mature souls who are nearby. These connections are frail and break if the mature soul moves too far away for too long. The process allowed the souls of infants and unborn children to develop properly. For that reason, the phenomena most often manifested between mothers and their progeny. The connections eventually solidified into a semi-permanent state which affected the relationships between the child and those with whom it was connected.

Long ago, I had had personal experience with such a connection and the illogical attachment it could create between two people even when the relationship in question brought more harm than good to both parties.

An idea occurred to me and I glanced at Morgana whose expression had softened as she watched the interaction. I made eye contact with her and witnessed a hint of sadness in her gaze. Looking into her soul, I looked for a strand to support my growing suspicions.

Sure enough, I found a connection flowing from Morgana to myself. It was slightly thicker than my connection with Liberty but that made sense.

Of course, I thought; the realization made me question how profoundly the transition to a mortal body had hindered my mental faculties. The Nascent Soul: that’s what the Sanguine Dream called me and the moniker I used with the Akashic Records. How could I not have considered its meaning?

I closed my eyes in contemplation. My soul wasn’t new by mortal standards since it had taken over twenty years for Akasha to prepare a proper body that could house it. However, the strength and nature of my soul isolated it far from the norm of mortal standards. Moreover, I had modeled my new state of being, unconsciously so, after the souls of humanity which meant I had unwittingly tied my advancement to the connections between myself and other mortals.

The implications of the revelation fell upon my mind like a weighted shroud as emotions pushed themselves through my connection with Liberty like insidious parasites looking for a new host. I had hoped to keep a healthy mental distance from the attachments mortals developed with each other since other than soul bindings, I saw no benefit to anything deeper than a business-like relationship like I had planned on having with the Holston family.

Even with my considerable willpower, I knew the creeping influence of sentimentality would dig its claws into my psyche eventually. The great conundrum that I faced concerned the necessity of said sentiment. The mind and emotion were indisputably linked to the soul and its nature or at least, that was the case for the mortal souls after which I had modeled mine.

Perhaps, I can draw benefit from my circumstances, I pondered. I could use this family as a testing ground for these connections. Yes, there is much that I can gain from this. Still, I must be wary of becoming a blubbering ape or a blundering fool…

My thoughts raced as I held the sobbing woman who had given birth to the body that I had been promised. Many scenarios presented themselves and were filed away for later or discarded. A common theme of my discarded plans was a disregard for the consequences on my body. It would take some time before I fully grasped the practical ramifications of my new existence but I would adapt. I had no choice.

Throughout all of my musings, a single question lingered in the back of my mind. It tantalized my imagination and rallied my unease with its potential. Some of the Shadow’s words after it accepted the covenant with me fed the uneasiness causing a disturbing imbalance.

If my soul was similar to that of a newborn mortal, what would happen when it reached maturity?