Chapter 13

Soulforging

Femira found herself once again in Garld’s office.

This time she was flanked by both Jaz and Aden. She was still wearing her red dress, Jaz in his formal suit that he had been wearing to the feast. Aden was wearing his bloodshedder’s recruits uniform.

“You’re still not going to tell us why we’re here?” Aden asked her.

“I’ll wait for Garld to explain it,” Femira told him. She was reluctant to part with any information on the events of the evening until Garld gave her the go ahead. Endrin had caught her and Jaz on their return to the barracks and had directed them to the General’s office for a debrief. For some reason, he had also sent for Aden. Endrin now stood stoic by the door like a bouncer in a brothel, he had a fixed glare but otherwise had told them nothing since they arrived. Before long, Misandrei arrived and took the space behind Garld’s desk. She looked them up and down, appraisingly.

“I can take it from here,” Misandrei said to Endrin.

“I’ll wait for the General, if you don’t mind, Captain,” Endrin returned. Her mouth moved to a thin line but she didn’t reprimand him. “Very well,” she replied before turning her attention back to Femira and the others.

“Jazerah and Aden, your assignment is finished,” she stated, Femira glanced between the pair at her sides. “What does she mean, what assignment?” She asked.

“Sorry, Annali,” Aden winced.

“I hope you still feel that we’re friends,” Jaz added, a rare look of shame crossing his face.

“You were watching me,” Femira realised.

“It wasn’t like we are always on assignment hanging out with you,” Jaz had been avoiding her eyes, but now fixed them on her, “we are your friends.”

Femira mused quietly for a moment, she wasn’t offended by the knowledge. It made sense when she thought about it, to everyone but Garld thought she was a highborn Lady of a rival nation. She was trapped here—yes—but she also had a great deal of freedom in the barracks. Garld probably wanted her monitored in case she tried to steal something and make a break for it.

It was better than the alternative; that Aden and Jaz had thought she was a bargaining chip for the Honorswords. She was beginning to worry that they were to keep her from running off so that she could be traded back to Keiran like a pound of skaga. That idea—planted in her by Endrin—was quickly diminishing from her mind. If Landryn or Garld were planning on handing her over to the Honorswords, Landryn wouldn’t have fought—and killed—one outright in her defence.

Outside of her training, all of her time had been spent with Aden and Jaz. Aden tasked with filling the gaps in her knowledge of her runewielding abilities and Jaz giving her insights on Reldoni high society. She hadn’t really started to think of them as friends, but seeing how embarrassed the pair looked at being revealed for spying on her ironically made her appreciate them more.

“It’s alright,” Femira smiled, “I get it. Can’t have a badass stonebreaker like me running about unchecked.”

“Hah,” Endrin barked from the corner, “where do you—”

“—hold your tongue, Endrin,” Misandrei warned him, her face stern as always, “General Garld has deemed that Lady Annali no longer requires observation.” Aden and Jaz had visibly relaxed at Femira’s unfazed reaction.

“The three of you have all proven your loyalty to the bloodshedders in your own ways over the past months. I’m happy to be the one to tell you that the three of you are being promoted,” Misandrei informed them, “tomorrow you all officially join the ranks as full bloodshedders. ”

“Really?” Jaz’s eyes widened, “are we going to… you know, become soulforged? Like the rest of you?”

Soulforged? She’d not heard anyone mention that yet. Was this something they’d been keeping from her?

“What’s a Soulforged?” Femira asked and as she did so the door behind them opened and Garld strode in, still dressed in his back uniform, gold general knots on the shoulders. He had obviously caught the end of her question. “The question that you’ve been trying ask since you arrived here,” Garld told her, stepping behind the desk.

“I’ll take it from here, Captain,” he said to Misandrei, dismissing her. “Aden, Jazerah; congratulations to you both. However, your training does not end here, this is just the beginning for you.”

“Yes, sir,” the boys replied in unison, “it’s an honour, sir,” Aden added.

“Endrin,” Garld started, “take Aden and Jazerah to the advanced training halls and introduce them to their seniors. You will each be assigned a mentor to help guide you through the changes after your soulforging.”

Jaz and Aden saluted and were escorted by Endrin out of the office, the man’s face was impassive but Femira got the feeling that he was seething internally.

Why is he bitter about this? Endrin from her brief interactions she’d had with him had come across as a man who enjoyed having authority over others; he had also demonstrated his superior ability on numerous occasions in the training yards on recruits. She paused a moment, considering, “You’re doing something to the recruits aren’t you? It’s how some of the bloodshedders are stronger than typical runewielders, isn’t it?”

“Indeed,” Garld acknowledged, “it is called soulforging.”

“Are all people able to become soulforged, what does that mean?”

“All people can runewield,” Garld replied. Hadn’t Landryn said that his brother couldn’t? She decided to not interrupt with that correction. “Some people are born with a natural affinity for it, people like you and I. But there is a threshold to how powerful our abilities can naturally grow.”

“So I won’t ever be as strong as Endrin?”

“Your edir is strong. You have a natural affinity for using eradite… but no, you would never be as strong as Endrin, not without soulforging.”

“So soulforging can help people learn to have a stronger affinity for runewielding?”

“Not exactly,” Garld replied, “it’s a complicated process and it requires an extensive knowledge of how our bodies work.” Femira’s shoulders were slumped, if it couldn’t be taught then how could she gain the power of becoming soulforged? And why were Jaz and Aden able to do it?

Misandrei’s voice always had a commanding air about it, running training drills all day changed the way you spoke, “an adept runewielder can become a master of a particular type of runestone with decades of training and practice, building upon natural talent. But soulforging is something different, it is a change to a person’s soul.”

“Their soul?” Femira asked. There had been temples in Altarea where men in robes babbled about immortal souls inside people, but everyone knew those guys had a few blocks missing.

“Yes,” Misandrei continued, “our bodies are the physical manifestation of the soul,”

“I thought the Reldoni didn’t have any gods?” Femira probed.

“We don’t,” she affirmed, “Queen Elyina killed our gods but the soul has nothing to do with gods. It could be seen as a type of… map of a person’s being. Or more like a series of instructions for our body to be.”

“And you can change this?”

“There are… ways,” Misandrei replied, looking at Garld.

“—with a soulstone,” he added.

“This is what I found in Altarea,” Femira said, rising. If Garld and Misandrei had both the knowledge and resources needed to make her soulforged, would that mean she would be as strong as Endrin?

“Indeed,” Garld inclined his head.

“So, if you have the soulstone, why haven’t you already turned the entire army into soulforged? Why restrict it only to those in the bloodshedders? Would doing this not make us the strongest force in the world?”

“There are a few reasons,” he replied. “The cost of soulforging is… a consideration but also there are substantial gaps in our knowledge of how soulforging works. Much of the information had been destroyed during the fall of the Sorcerer Kings, when all of the known soulstones were hidden away. Our own founder—Queen Elyina was a driving force behind that. But our scholars have confirmed that Elyina herself was a soulforged stonebreaker.”

“The book,” Femira mused, “the one in that room in Altarea.”

“A guide on soulforging,” Garld replied, “we have learned much from it, it plugged a lot of the gaps we had. The existence of soulstone was little more than myth until only a few years ago, a cache of Elyina’s journals were discovered buried in the Pillar of Reldon.”

“So the attack on Altarea… it was never about reclaiming the islands, it was about the soulstone?”

“Elyina’s journals led us to believe that she had hidden her soulstone in Altarea, yes,” Garld confirmed. “Altarea was her seat of power for a time before she had claimed the Pillar of Reldon.”

“So if the Altareans had the soulstone, why hadn’t they created their own soulforged soldiers?”

“We believe they tried, but their knowledge was even more fragmented than our own. We discovered… evidence to suggest that they had made many attempts at doing this. The room where you discovered the soulstone we believe was a ritual room where they were attempting to infuse a stormstone affinity.”

“I’m guessing they failed,” Femira replied, “what makes you think that you have the knowledge to succeed where they did not?”

“From Elyina’s notes we have devised that there are three stages to soulforging. A person’s soul can be bonded to a runestone, once that is done it closes off their edir to other runestones.”

“So if you choose to become soulforged, you’re limiting yourself to only using one type of runestone,” she figured.

“Indeed, but the boost to your ability to use your chosen runestone is immeasurable. The book in the Altarean ritual room only had the instructions for extending this to include another runestone. The effects of this process on the body of a person who had not gone through the first stage is…” Garld’s nose wrinkled, his otherwise handsome face curling in disgust, “it is unpleasant” he growled.

“And you had the knowledge from Elyina’s journals on how to do the first stage, so you were able to succeed where they had failed?” Femira said.

Misandrei jumped in to take over the explanation, “Our understanding is still far from complete,” she said, “Elyina’s journals gave us the instructions for the first stages of infusion for stormstone, topaz and eradite—your earthstone. We needed only a soulstone to test it ourselves.”

“Endrin…” Femira speculated, “he’s been soulforged hasn’t he?” The new term still sounded strange, it was too close to the nonsense the lunatics in the temples blathered on about. “That’s why he can stonebreak so quickly,” she didn’t really need them to confirm it, her mind already working to connect to the dots, “He turned my dagger to dust.”

“Many of us are,” Misandrei confirmed, “there are one hundred in our ranks that have undergone the first infusion. Over the coming months, all of us will make the transition.”

“Why are you telling me all of this now? You promised me nothing would be kept back,” Femira directed to Garld.

“I didn’t know if you could be trusted.”

“You thought I was a spy?!” she laughed.

“I found a talented Keiran stonebreaker in the ritual room having just stolen a soulstone. The Keiran are among the other nations we believe to have uncovered a soulstone of their own.”

“So you brought me here to keep an eye on me?”

“I saw your potential,” Garld said with a touch of a smile, “and if you were indeed lying to me, then I saw you as a means to feed false information back to the Keiran Empire.” Femira nodded in understanding, she looked to Misandrei, “she knows?” Femira asked.

“I figured it out,” Misandrei nodded, “Keiran women are sheltered from runewielding… but you. You were not sheltered, you had no knowledge at all of traditional runewielding. To be so accomplished in ability but so uninformed in knowledge,” her words weren’t meant to be offensive but Femira felt herself grow a little hot in the face having her shortcomings highlighted.

“Aden and Jaz?” She asked, “do they know?”

“I assigned Aden to you to help in your training because he has an innate trust. I don’t think he questions even now that you are not Annali Jahar.”

“Captain Misandrei and I are the only two who know the truth,” Garld advised her, “you must keep it that way. No one else is to know who you are.” Femira immediately thought of Darza and whether she should bring his knowledge to their attention.

Karas had also known but has two stoneblades in his eyes now, it wasn’t likely he was going to be telling anybody anything. Folk in Keiran told stories that the Honorswords couldn’t be killed, that the same magic that made them so strong stopped them from bleeding. Well Femira had seen a river of blood flowing from Karas so the stories couldn’t all be true.

“Do you think the Honorswords are soulforged?” she asked.

“I cannot think of any other reason they have the abilities they have,” Garld responded.

“Sadrian Graves…” Femira considered, “He was too?”

“Graves was an excellent soldier and exceptionally talented runewielder. I had him chosen to become soulforged but he was wasted on that spectacle.”

“So the fight was a ruse to deceive the Honorswords into believing you hadn’t discovered soulforging yet.”

“A ruse that worked,” Garld conceded, “that is until Landryn and Vestyr killed one of them tonight. Knowledge that we have soulforged soldiers will soon reach the Emperor, regardless of what happens. It’s inevitable as our ranks grow and wasting Sadrian Graves in that deception was a mistake.”

“Did you think I was working with Karas?” Femira’s brain was working to connect all the pieces together.

“I thought it was a possibility,” Garld said, “when Karas uncovered your guise and attacked. I could rule that out.”

“I could still be a spy,” she teased, “unless… the night I broke into Averstock’s manse,” she said with realisation dawning on her, “it was a test.”

“I had known for some time that Averstock had hidden some pages of Elyina’s journal. It was a member of his house that discovered Elyina’s journals in the first place. I had long suspected that he was keeping some information to himself for leverage.”

“You had me tailed, to see if I would run off with Elyina’s journal.”

“I did.”

“So Vestyr is working for you,”

“No,” Garld grimaced, “Vestyr is not one of mine. I had Endrin follow you.” Suddenly Endrin’s distrust and aggression made sense to her. He believed she was a Keiran spy.

“Vestyr is working with Princess Allyn,” Femira thought for a moment, “so she is working against the army’s interests?”

“The Royal Council will deal with Princess Allyn. She is not my concern. From your description of Vestyr’s ability, it confirmed my suspicion that she is also dabbling soulforging.”

“So, what does this all mean for me? By telling me all of this, does this mean that you’re going to make me soulforged?”

“You have a natural affinity for stonebreaking,” Garld smiled at her, “and your skills in stoneshaping have also progressed faster than I would have imagined. Your potential is great and Misandrei agrees with me on that point. Infusing you with an eradite runestone I believe will make you an invaluable asset to Reldon. My only concern is still your loyalty as you are not Reldoni and beyond the training I have given you, you have no reason to pledge your life to our cause.”

“I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me, without question!” Femira argued, anger rising in her, “I’ve passed your tests, what more can I do to prove my loyalty?”

Garld was silent in consideration, Femira couldn’t hold herself back not with the promise of such power in her grasp, “make me one of the soulforged,” she pleaded, “give me a chance and I can prove it to you!”

“There are few missions that could suit Femira’s skills, sir,” Misandrei added, “infusing her will open her stealth operations to a new level. It won’t take long before the Empire learns that Karas is dead.”

“And figuring out we’ve unlocked the secrets to soulforging will soon follow,” Garld agreed. “We need to start moving quickly to defend against retribution. Landryn killing the Honorsword has forced me to push carefully laid plans into action sooner than I’d hoped.”

“Vestyr is also growing in his ability,” Misandrei noted, “while we are busy looking to the Keiran, Allyn has been quietly moving her own pieces.” Garld took a moment of consideration. Femira’s heart fluttered in anticipation.

“We will do the first stage of soulforging,” Garld said, and then solemnly to Femira, “prove yourself and we’ll talk about the potential of moving to the second stage.”