Kain laid sprawled on the floor. Years of sleeping on the devil’s mattress had made him practically immune to physical discomfort. There were times he purposely rolled off the mattress and slept on the cold, hard floor of his bedroom. In contrast, the soft, wooden floors in Maleek’s gym were basically a bed of pillows to him. He could comfortably sleep there all day.

Usually.

Mom, no… Please! I’ve been a good boy. I don’t even complain anymore, I promise!

Sweety, I know you’re a good boy. Its not your fault, its...its...

Mom? Mom. Mom!

“Mom!” Kain burst to life, sitting up as he panted heavily.

His heart raced as his head frantically jerked from side to side searching his surroundings. Anxiety washed over him, but after a few seconds he recalled where he was and why he was there. His head stilled and slumped downward as the adrenaline wore off. Closing his eyes he took a few deep breaths to calm himself, his heart slowing down with his breathing. Successfully relaxing himself, he immediately laid back on the ground.

Here we go again.

Since Kain’s training began he’d been having infrequent nightmares. They disappeared as abruptly as they appeared. While they often caused him to wake in a state of panic, they were far from being debilitating or even mildly impeding. Going about his days normally while keeping them a secret wasn’t difficult. In fact, it was easy. The nightmares motivated him.

It wasn’t their first appearance in his life. Kain had gone through them, and the dark scenes they portrayed, before. Twice. They popped up roughly two-and-a-half years ago and slightly more than five. Those time however, they brought with them a lot more than dreams.

Kain got up and stretched his neck and shoulders. He worked his way down his body until he finished stretching his ankles and cracking his toes. Thankfully for him, the healer was not in the room to see his outburst earlier. That would have been an awkward situation for both of them. Her disappearance also meant that Maleek hadn’t come back in time. With that, training was done for the day. Kain was free to his own devices.

He could have left the gym to go relax, but with how much time he spent in the snow daily he wasn’t keen on being outside if he didn’t need to. What he was going to do instead was practice using sahirlah.

He took a quick breath then let the sahir pour out of him. It flowed out into the air unabated, painting the room red with its glow. He took another breath, deeper this time, and started slowly restricting it. The blinding aura gradually retreated. Kain restricted it to the point it was no longer blinding, but rather a faint outline. The sahir no longer poured out, but dribbled like a tap that wasn’t properly closed. That was his attempt at making the sahirlah usable.

While the work around did alleviate the issue of Kain’s reserves being drained, he could last around thirty minutes before he felt tired, it was ultimately impractical. It took intense focus to restrict the sahir’s flow like he was doing. He had only just learned how to do it with his eyes open. Even then, he wasn’t really ‘seeing’. While his eyes could be open while he did it, he could only stare blankly at whatever was in front of him. If he wasn’t completely focused his sahir would break free from behind the dam he placed around it. As such, It would be quite a while before he mastered it enough for it to qualify as an actual work around.

The fact he had to practice in hiding didn’t help either. As far as Maleek knew, or anyone for that matter, Kain’s only knowledge about sahir came from books and what Maleek taught him. It was a likely and believable story, but also a blatant lie. Kain didn’t just have access to books and a teacher, he had access to the ultimate book and the ultimate teacher. Kaige knew everything there was to know about sahir, at least that was his claim. In theory, with access to such knowledge Kain could learn to be a mesheer malsir with Kaige alone. In reality, much like that statement, Kaige’s knowledge was theoretical. The list of things he could personally do with sahir was very limited. For those things, controlling the input and out of sahir and sensing its flow, he could teach Kain. For the rest, he could explain what had to be done but explaining how was a different matter.

That’s better, but you’re still letting it spill out too much.

Can’t. Go. Thin. Er

Fine. Release it and go again.

Kain let out a tired breath and his sahir gushed out unrestrained. Taking a second to take a few deep breaths he began the process again, constraining his rampant sahir. He’d repeat this 18 more times. Alongside the potential benefit of being able to use sahirlah, Kaige believed the practice would help Kain awaken to his sahir.

That statement seemed contradictory to Kain when he heard it—he was very conspicuously glowing red at the time—but Kaige explained it as, ‘You still can’t sense sahir. What you’re doing now is akin to muscle memory. I pushed sahir out of you before and you’re just repeating that sensation. You haven’t actually awoken to it.’

In short, even with all the power and all the potential, Kain would have to learn to be a malsir like anyone else.

—————

Twenty or so minutes later Kain finished his practice and began disrobing. Unlike Maleek, he didn’t enjoy walking around in armor. Even though the armor was leather and made to be nonrestrictive, he still found it bothersome. Having removed the parts that covered his upper body, he took off his shirt as well. He didn’t have a problem with the shirt, he was merely checking out his progress in a mirror. He frowned.

This is too much.

You’ve barely changed.

Barely? Do you see these arms?

Kain flexed.

Any bigger and it’ll look like I eat boulders for breakfast.

You’ll live. If it was up to me, I’d be ecstatic.

Kain rolled his eyes.

If it was up to you, I’d try to fu—

Someone's coming.

Someone?

…

Kaige?

Kaige stopped responding. Kain instantly knew that was a bad sign. He quickly slipped his shirt back on while staring intently at the door. Soon he could hear faint traces of a conversation.

“....miss….strict instructions….not even….”

Miss? Is it mother?

Kain’s mood brighten up. His mother usually only came around dinner time. If it was her, he could see why Kaige was playing coy. He quickly jogged to the door and opened it. Ready to tell the arberdir standing guard to stand down, he suddenly froze. Beyond the door stood not his mother, but someone completely different.

“Good afternoon Kain, mind if I join you?”