Viriya was mad at Riven, that much he knew. He knew that he deserved a little berating too. Perhaps some censure, a few choice words, exacting a promise to do better next time and learn from his mistake, all the while swearing to do his best to not repeat whatever he’d done wrong.

Stoning, though, was taking it a bit too far.

“Here’s another.” Viriya said it as though she was bored out of her mind, like she was cleaning the same dish over and over again. Which really didn’t suit her actions, if Riven’s opinion was asked.

He didn’t see her arm moving. Too fast. She threw the stone in her hand, and if Riven didn’t get the warning beforehand, he’d have been hit right in the forehead. As it was, the familiar pressure shot out just as fast, the subsequent golden shield stopping the stone shooting fast as a bullet in right in its tracks.

Safe. He was safe from Viriya’s wrathful meteors for the moment. The shield disappeared and the stone dropped to the ground, its clatter overtaking the frothing of the fountain behind him. They had chosen a small park near their apartments to spare Viriya an unnecessarily long walk, which was the last thing she needed in her condition. It was mostly empty, the sycamore trees standing here and there the only ones that joined them in the green.

“I think we’ve established that I don’t have a problem with summoning it,” Riven said.

Viriya shook her head. She was sitting on a stone bench under the shade of one of the trees. The greenhouse they were in already muted the sunlight, which itself was rather weak this early in the morning—in truth, it was closer to dawn than to morning. “On the contrary, it proves that you don’t have any control on when your Essence works.”

“What do you mean? I just summoned it.”

“Three rocks. Three summons. Are you really that thick?”

Riven paused to think, trying not to let his brows furrow. Viriya had been vague the whole time they’d been here. They had been doing this for the last then minutes or so, which was why it wasn’t too annoying yet. Still. It was getting harder and harder not to let his growing irritation show. “But none of them hit me.”

“Exactly.”

Riven stared at her. Maybe he ought to scream at her that yes, he was quite obtuse, so she had better just say what she was thinking outright. Then he blinked. Of course. “I’m… not really summoning it, am I?”

“Yes.” Viriya kept her more injured arm close to her, but the other one kept throwing up and catching a stone, over and over again. Riven tried not to cringe. Every time she threw it up, he had to fight the urge to duck. For crying out loud, she didn’t intend to murder him just yet. Right? “The stones are summoning your Essence. Some innate part of you recognizes that you’re about to be hit, that you need to survive whatever would happen the very next moment, and then magic! Your Essence arrives to save the day, your knight in shining, golden armour.”

“So it’s an automatic response? I don’t really control it. It just pops up whenever my body thinks it’s in immediate danger.”

“Correct. Your problem is that you need to learn to control it. And not just summoning it. You need to learn how to control what exactly it does too.”

Riven frowned. “Do you mean as in how it sometimes throws a shield up in the air, and how it used to be different?

Viriya nodded. The sunlight filtering through the branches of the tree above her, played on her loose hair, dappling her brown locks into a green forest. She hadn’t bothered to tie it in a bun today, which Riven wanted to take as a sign that she was letting down her guard and feeling comfortable to be more casual. He himself had worn only a shirt and the trousers he’d have spent a day at home in. But it was wishful thinking. A bun was probably hard with only one hand functional.

“I remember that the first time it happened, the ground itself shot up, Then it happened again with the Deadmages we fought. And even Coral with the Infernal. Clearly, throwing up golden shields in the air isn’t the only thing your Essence is capable of. Firsta thing with Essence training is figuring what it is and how it works, including its limits, capabilities, and drawbacks.” She pulled back her hand, readying to throw the stone. “Get ready. And this time, try to think of using something other than air to protect yourself.”

Riven wanted to argue that he had no idea how to draw on something else, but there was no time. Viriya’s arm blurred but she didn’t throw it directly at him. Instead, the stone went sailing up in a steep arc. Time! Right, Viriya had given him some time to think. Some time to try to figure his Essence out, and make an even bigger fool of himself when he ultimately ended up failing.

No, focus. He had to focus.

The stone had just passed its peak. He had to survive the hit, but without using some random shield thrown up in the air. The ground. He’d use the ground. Question was, how? The top of his head prickled hard as the stone blitzed down, ready to shatter his skull and splatter his brain.

How was he to send his Essence into the ground? Hadn’t he been in the ground before, in one way or another? Hadn’t he been buried under that mountain of dead Sept? He’d been trapped underground with nowhere to go and smothered by darkness, the threat of his breath running out having permanently raised his heartrate by an order of magnitude at the very least.

The ground. Survival. The stone was only a few yards over him and he needed to—

His Essence shot out in a golden net, the pressure prickling his skin as though he was being blown up like a balloon. The lines of gold sank into the ground, stitching it everywhere faster than his heart could beat, almost too quick for him to understand with his eyes.

The earth rose in curve around him, and the stone bounced off, falling to the grass outside the little area of cobblestone around the fountain where Riven stood.

Heart sinking in his chest, he stepped out from under the curl of earth. He gazed at it, then turned to Viriya with a smile. “ I did it!”

She didn’t look very impressed. Not that it was going to dampen Riven’s sense of celebration. He had controlled his Essence!

“How did you do it?” she asked.

“I remembered the times I was buried in the ground. Especially that time when we first met. I think… my Essence works by either whatever is closest to me or by whatever my memory dictates is the best option.”

“That’s how all Essence works. It’s called attuning. The only way to control your Essence is by meaning, by defining. That’s why it’s called a Defining Act. Define the Essence with the moments that define you best, with memories, thoughts, emotions, whatever else that might be going on in your head.”

“I see.” Riven decided to ignore the light jab. She’d been frosty for so long, it was now easy to ignore her little thrusts. “But what about the people who don’t have Defining Acts? The Essentiers who got their Essence through Impersonal Acts or Abstract Acts, what do they do since they don’t have a Defining Act or moment to fall back on.”

If Viriya was surprised that Riven knew about the greater Mortal Acts, she didn’t show it. To be fair, she hadn’t shown much of anything the whole morning. Well, except for the need to ridicule Riven before surreptitiously murdering him with a thrown stone. “They work in much the same way. It’s called Essence because it is your essence. The core of who you are. It embodies your main truth. For everyone, attuning is just exercises to get a better grip on what the Essence really says about them. Defining, as I said.”

“I could potentially attune my Essence to control anything? Like water, for instance?” He looked down. “Or the cobblestones themselves, instead of the earth underneath?”

“In theory, yes. Though now I wonder. The attuning can only happen if you have the relevant experience to draw those memories from, a base for having strong thoughts and emotions in the first place. You’ve had a lot of those experiences to draw from by now. It shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“You’re right.” Riven stared at the fountain. The water spraying all around it created a small rainbow of colours, the shifting liquid giving an opalescent hie to the air. Opalescent, just like that Cataclysm. “I’ve been focusing on the moment of survival. On the act of living past that moment, and countering whatever that’s thrown at me. But now I get that I need to focus on the experiences. Memories and emotions, as you said.”

Relevant experiences. Had he really had those moments where survival was his greatest priority? Oh, there had been threatening moments no doubt about it, but he had never been facing certain death. He had never been in serious mortal danger.

“What about you?” Riven asked, pushing away the apprehension clinging to his voice. “What sort of experience lets you use Locking?”

“I don’t think that has anything to do with our current concerns,” Viriya replied.

“Well, I was curious.”

“You can keep your curiosity to yourself.”

“The same way you can keep everything even slightly personal to yourself too?” Riven hadn’t meant for his words to sting, but they took on an abrading note all on their own. “You yourself said that when things are hidden, it gets difficult, yet look at you. Doesn’t it feel even a tiny bit hypocritical that you’d get mad about hiding things when you’ve been hiding things all along?”

Viriya faced him head-on. The shadows lent her face a hard cast, the glimmer in her eyes sharp as the twinkle at the tip of a dagger. “What you ask isn’t relevant to anything we’re doing right now. What you want to know isn’t something that might help in any of our missions or tasks. What you ask for is some assurance that you aren’t being treated the same way you’re treating others.”

The flush on Riven’s face was burning him alive, eating him up from the inside. “It’s the crystal, isn’t it? Who told you about it?”

“You’re dear friend, Mhell. That Necromancer who’s anything but.”

“When did you—” Stupid question. Of course, Viriya must have met Mhell while out in the Frontier. Maybe the witch was the one who had shown her the way back to the garrison too.

“She didn’t tell me anything new, really. Most of it was what you said before we left on the rescue mission.” Her lips twitched, and for just a second, it looked as though she might have been grinning. “She didn’t say anything about this crystal of yours, though. A pithy remark that there was more going on that you knew about, but nothing so specific as a crystal.”

If his face could burn any more, than it was doing so, turning into a painting of ashes. “You tricked me?”

“I said the truth, Riven. There’s a difference, one that you keep failing to see over and over again.”

Riven turned away. It was getting more and more frustrating with every word, and he couldn’t keep it up. Not anymore. Any second, he was liable to burst and spew forth a torrent of curses because damn the Chasm, but Viriya was being needlessly difficult. Hidden things? She should look at herself and ask, in fact, sit herself down in a closed room and interrogate herself, all to find out why she was keeping things from him. Ridiculous to think he was at fault here.

“You’re not really angry at me, are you?” Riven turned back to her, shading his face from the glare of the sun. “You’re angry at everything else, and only taking it out on me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The fact you couldn’t save the villagers of Rattles. The fact that you, the great Viriya Rorink, proud prodigy of Providence, failed. That’s what’s irking you. I hate how it’s making me feel useless and powerless, and what’s worse is that it’s not a lie! Darley is dead. Darley and Bartle both. But I’ve realized one thing Viriya. We can’t keep living on our regret and getting upset over the past. Got to look forward to move forward, right?”

“You don’t get to pretend you know how I feel.”

“Oh? And how do you feel? Or are you going to keep that to yourself too?”

“Fucking furious!” Viriya stood so fast, she weaved on her legs this way and that for a moment. She hadn’t brought her cane, determined to use only her feet. Her face was set though. Part grimace, like her own rage disgusted her, and part scowl. “Explain it to me, Riven. Why did you hide this crystal from me? What’s so important about it that you couldn’t tell it to me at all?”

Riven looked around. His face was burning, but more than that, he had to check if there was anyone else nearby. This was sensitive information. There was no one, thankfully. Just regular trees with green leaves, and still grass that missed the wind.

He walked closer to Viriya, though each step was heavier than the last. Harder, his legs growing stiffer on their own, like he was approaching a wounded, desperate tiger that would bite off his head at the smallest sign of provocation. Riven put a clamp on his voice. Couldn’t let his anger run away from him, after all. “No one can know about this Viriya. The crystal is a piece of a Scion. At least, according to the Deathless. It has weird powers too, ones I have no idea how they work. But it’s a combination of all of those things that make me hesitate before revealing anything about it to anyone.”

“A Scion piece?” Viriya’s anger had given way to an overpowering amazement, though her face kept trying to twist back into a scowl. “That… shouldn’t be possible. What could a piece of some Scion be doing in… well, here?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about it, to be honest. That thing freaks me out, and I’ve kept my distance. It won’t even let me use my Essence if I keep it too close. It’s… I just don’t want to imagine what it might be capable of in the wrong hands.”

“You mentioned other strange powers?”

Rivne nodded. “Deathless who touch it sort of, transform. Like the Spectre who ran from the hospital in Welmark became a Spectre after one of the patients we talked to accidentally touched it. Even further back, there was that the Phantom, Nory. He was just a Spectre too, but then he touched the crystal and automatically turned into a Phantom.”

“No idea why, I imagine.”

“No. Though speaking of a Scion… everyone keeps mentioning how they cause the Deathless to ascend to the Beyond, so maybe that’s it? As in, the Deathless who come in contact with a piece of the Scion start the process of ascending.”

“Shit.”

Viriya’s eyes were far away, enraptured by distant possibilities, all of which were likely quite frightening going by the look on her face. Riven bit his lip. Damn him. He should have figured out the crystal was making the Deathless ascend by now, if only he had taken the time to properly think on the matter. But no. Riven had wondered about everything but that.

“This isn’t good,” Viriya finally said, focusing back on Riven with obvious difficulty. Her scowl returned too, her brows drawing together weirdly like Father steepling his hands. “If someone got a hold of this crystal of yours, they could force the Deathless to ascend. Turn them into worse threats without even trying. Who else knows about it, besides Mhell?”

“Rio. He knows. He’s always known. Form the moment I found it under the Sept mountain, he knew about and was the one who kept telling me to keep it secret.”

Viriya looked away for a second. “That sly bastard…” She focused on him, though she set herself back and retook her seat. Must have been difficult for her to keep standing for so long, especially with her cane absent. “That means the Invigilator knows too. He has too.”

“Orbray?”

“I mean your father.”

It sounded quite like she had bitten off a biting remark after “father”. Riven was getting tired of standing too, so he got down on Viriya’s bench as well, albeit at the other end a safe distance form her.

“I actually told Father I had it,” Riven said. “He also counselled keeping tight-lipped about it. Honestly, I thought he’d share it with the people closest to him, and I thought one those people had to be you.” He looked away, took a deep breath, then stared at Viriya right in her deep green eyes. “I’m sorry. I expected, and wrongly assumed, that you’d hear about it from Father. And when you didn’t broach me, I thought Father was keeping it hidden for everyone’s sake, or just didn’t trust anyone. I should have mentioned it, because believe me, I do trust you.”

Viriya looked like she was wrestling with something again, a hundred thoughts giving voice to a thousand words that all crowded the tip of her tongue, desperate to get out. But she held it back. Smoothed her face so that only a glimmer of her resentment remained. Or showed, rather. “I was going to say that Rio must have told him.”

“Rio and Father. I keep seeing them, the way they act, and I can’t help but feel Rio’s one of those people who are close to him. Well, closer than me definitely.”

“There are different kinds of close,” she reminded him.

“Oh yes, of course. Well, I’ve never been that kind of close with him, and this kind of close requires trust. Or maybe faith, I think.” Riven scowled. “Something he keeps reminding me to have, but then fails to do himself. Damn it, I so hate hypocrisy.”

“Yes. That has been made abundantly clear.”

Riven sighed, looking at her and not daring to turn away. “Again. I apologize.

Viriya stayed silent, staring right back at Riven with those beryl eyes, tinted dark by the tree’s dappled shadow. Refusing to budge. Refusing to cower, or give any sense that she was giving way or surrendering. Refusing to acknowledge that she might be wrong. “It couldn’t be helped, it seems.”

Riven wasn’t sure what she meant by that, and he didn’t ask. No doubt, she’d get frustrated he was too dense to pick up on every vague little thing, the meaning of which dangled just beyond reach, where Riven should have gotten a hold of it if he had just used his head. No, there was no point in bringing it up.

They sat silent for a while after that. The fountain still gurgled and the tops of the trees had finally started to rustle a little. There were vents in the greenhouse that allowed streams of air to enter and leave, which were often kept open during windier times of the day. The sun had risen high enough to be seen, a shining orb in the sky that was the same golden green as Viriya’s Essence-infused bullets.

Well, it was a good thing she had decided not to use her gun for helping Riven practice his Essence control.

“I—” Viriya opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. “I need to get going. Get some rest before heading out for the mission.” She stood up, placing her cane of Coral on the ground, then nodded at the curl of earth near the fountain. “Can you clean that up?”

Riven bit the inside of his cheek for a moment. “How am I supposed to do that?”

“No clue. Homework for your Essence control exercise.”

“Why, thank you, teacher. I was looking forward to assignments.”

Riven looked at her, hoping to see that hint of a grin playing across her lips. No such luck. She wasn’t scowling, but there was nothing else there either. A mask, hiding away the fact that she was barely here in truth. They had probably discussed enough to keep her occupied for a while.

Viriya limped out of the greenhouse, the doors closing automatically behind her. She knocked on the glass wall on the other side to get Riven’s attention, which was pointless since Riven hadn’t taken his eyes off her. Far too late to realize he’d been staring all this while. “Bring the crystal to the post office in the evening.”

And with that, Viriya was gone.

Riven rested in the shadows for a moment. Maybe he could take a stab at returning that bit of earth to its original condition, but how? Foolish to think he could somehow make his Essence think he was being threatened to death by a sitting rock bent out of shape. Far above, the sky—tinted green by the glass roof—was darkening, miniscule glints dotting the clouds as though the sun had shattered into millions of stars at the cloud’s daring to cover it up.

Sept. A lot of Sept, falling from the sky. Damn the Chasm, but another Septstorm was coming.