“I suppose you have a point there.” Wix chuckled. “Sechen, I want you to tell me what you saw in those monoliths. In exact detail, down to how the carvings looked like they were made. Don’t ask why, just know that it might be extremely important for Paui.”

Sechen nodded and explained what she’d seen in each of the monoliths, Wix’s face an unreadable mask during the entire short speech. When she finished with the force Issi carving, stating that it felt like it was exhausted instead of the calm she’d initially thought, the facade splintered for a split second as Wix’s eyes lit up with excitement before fading back to the forced nonchalance he’d sported.

Wix shook his head and sighed. “You have a bizarre way of seeing things, don’t you?”

“Good bizarre, or bad bizarre?” Sechen asked.

“Bizarre bizarre.” Wix replied. “The three monoliths have been dubbed ‘the self-chained beast’, ‘the free maiden’, and ‘the husk’. You managed to perfectly explain all of them, whereas I can only see the free maiden myself.”

Sechen blinked in surprise. “What?”

“This room is where all practitioners are taken to determine which Issi their bond with Runfree will grant them, though their memories are scoured immediately. I’ve brought people in here over the years to see what they see, and none of them have ever reported seeing more than one understandable carving.” Wix explained, growing excited as he spoke. “They report that the others are a mess of symbols, swirls, or lines. I’ve managed to get an idea of what the others see for myself, but I’ve never met anyone who could see more than one.”

Metea/Irric popped into Sechen’s mind, her friend’s twin names spoken as one and somehow indiscernible to everyone. “And how does that help Paui?”

“Because we, we being my wife and I,” Wix clarified, “toiled and searched the world piece for anything to help our daughter stabilize her Issi. And what we found was…” Wix fumbled around the inside of his suit for a moment, muttering to himself as he moved to his pant pockets. “Where did I… ah! There you are! What we found was this!”

In his hand Wix held two small hexagons encased in clear Issi. Sechen leaned in closer to try and get any sort of feeling from them, but she couldn’t get anything from the little things. “You found hexagons?”

“Not just any hexagons, no, these are the scales of an eternal!” Wix said triumphantly. “When ingested by a pair of practitioners, they gain the ability to share senses for a short time. With these, Paui could see all three monoliths and choose her bond’s Issi for herself!” Wix pulled his hand close to his chest and stared longingly down at the scales. “The initial plan was to share senses with another fluidity practitioner who didn’t have the same difficulties with their Issi that Paui did, to hopefully rewrite whatever connections between her container and her body were causing the problems, but if Paui can choose a different Issi type, then maybe she wouldn’t have to work at fixing anything at all. This bond would be of her work alone, without any residual guilt from my intervention.”

Sechen tried to hide her curiosity at whatever Wix was holding and nodded. He didn’t know that Runfree hadn’t actually severed Paui’s bond, so Paui wouldn’t need a new one, but if silence here let her get her hands on those scales she wouldn’t say a word. She doubted they were actually the scales of an eternal for some reason unknown to her, a feeling in her gut whispering that it was all wrong, and she knew she wouldn’t be ‘ingesting’ those scales anytime soon.

Wix’s fingers curled around the Issi keeping the scales immobilized. “Yet Paui can’t know that these were from me. She can’t know they were from anyone.” Wix leaned forward and took Sechen’s hand, pressing the rectangle of Issi firmly into her palm and curling her fingers around it. “The effects last for twelve hours after ingestion, and the first person to ingest them controls which senses are shared and how. It is unexplainable, but know that when you consume one you will instinctively understand which senses you wish to share and to what extent.”

“If you say so.” Sechen shrugged, placing the rectangle of Issi in her pocket. “How do I get them out of the Issi?”

“Twist the rectangle as hard as you can and the Issi will shatter into nothing.” Wix placed his fists next to each other and twisted them in separate directions. “They are as fragile as tissue paper, so take care not to destroy them after you’ve removed them. Oh, and the effects are just as potent if the scale is ground down and, say, placed into a water bottle, so you will not need to give one of them directly to Paui.”

Sechen nodded blankly, but grimaced internally. Wix still didn’t trust Paui to do this on her own, and now he was trying to use Sechen for that end. Well, she trusted and believed in Paui. Wix would be damn surprised once he found out Paui didn’t need his help for this, yet that thought also brought Sechen to a pause. If Wix knew she didn’t use the scales, he’d want them back.

An hour later, Sechen stumbled out of the room with a splitting headache. The process of creating a barrier had been fairly simple, but it took so much Issi that her container was down to droplets, and then Wix had insisted on adding a veil to the equation as well, which had required her to drink a fair amount of Issi supplements that stole energy from the rest of her body to convert into Issi. She could still hear Wix’s words rattling about in her mind, telling her just how often she’d need to upgrade her barrier and veil now that they were a permanent part of her.

“It’s as if you’re creating a thin layer of protective Issi around your headspace and container. A veil is focused inwards, keeping your thoughts and Issi from leaking out and being picked up on by strangers. Veils become incredibly important as you grow stronger, keeping others around you from being affected by your Issi and keeping your enemies from tracking you over hundreds of miles from the smallest trace of Issi.” Wix had said, and Sechen had found that creating a layer of Issi was far simpler than she’d expected. Keeping it there, and making sure it was even and not full of tiny holes however, was mind-breakingly difficult.

She used the same motions for connecting her halos to spread a layer of Issi around her container, then worked her Issi into it little by little until there was a solid, murky shell around the space she imagined her container in. She felt a similar veil materialize around her headspace, but she didn’t check to confirm. One last probe had confirmed that her container was basically empty, and she’d told Wix as much. He’d responded by laughing and saying that doing it again would be terrible, yet she’d have to do it anyway.

“If I never have to do that again it’ll be too soon.” Sechen grumbled, holding her stomach with one hand as the other flew up to her mouth to block whatever might follow the retch she felt coming. “Eternals, this sucks.”

“You could have taken a vow of silence.” Wix said as he stepped past Sechen, patting her on the back and pushing the smallest amount of Issi into her. “That should help with your nausea, but the aching will remain until your container refills itself.”

A blur of yellow Issi coalesced into Thana, who looked between Sechen and Wix multiple times with an unreadable expression. “What have you done to her, Wix?”

“Nothing to harm her, if that’s what you’re insinuating.” Wix said. “Remember what we talked about, Sechen. Say hello to Paui for me, please; she has a difficult couple of days ahead of her.”

“Sure.” Sechen grunted, standing as straight as she could. Wix’s Issi did help a little, but everything ached just a little too much to pretend nothing was wrong. “See ya.”

Wix gave Sechen a shallow bow then turned to walk the opposite way that Thana had come from, humming a tune as he clasped his hands behind his back. He seemed to be one step away from skipping down the hallway, and Thana tilted her head to the side in questioning.

“You’re certain he didn’t do anything to you?” She asked, taking Sechen’s face in her hands and inspecting her closely. Her eyes bore into Sechen’s with a sort of blank intensity, her fingers gently pressing into Sechen’s face to make sure nothing was out of place. “I can’t find any physical damage, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t hurt you. Are you well enough to attend Paui’s trial? I could inform her that you are out of commission for the morning, and she would be disappointed, yet she would understand.”

“If I’m just going to rest anyway, might as well do it while cheering Paui on, right?” Sechen said with a forced grin. “You’re going to have to carry me again. My legs are a little shaky right now.”

“I came prepared for that.” Thana said, bending down and throwing Sechen over her shoulder in one swift motion. Sechen yelped at suddenly being swept off her feet, and by the time she reoriented herself Thana was standing just outside the whitestone perimeter from yesterday’s trial. “Paui, I’ve brought Sechen. You have two minutes to speak before your trial begins.”

“Yeep!” Paui yelped as her shoulders shot up, spinning in place to face Thana and Sechen. “Two minutes! Okay! Hi, Sechen!”

“Hey.” Sechen waved.

“I’ll leave you alone while I double check the Issi contraptions for this trial.” Thana stated, disappearing into a puff of pollen-like Issi.

Paui swallowed hard and smiled nervously. “Today’s day number two, huh? I didn’t do so hot at this one the first time, but maybe it’ll go differently this time? Hopefully?”

“You gotta stop getting in your own head.” Sechen pulled Paui into a hug, noticing that she was shaking a little. “You’re going to do fine, Paui. Even if you don’t believe in yourself, I believe in you. You can do this, and you’re going to kill it.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Paui said in a tone that very much said she was not okay. The shaking did die down, though. “The fast trial really sucked last time, and not just because I was bad at it. Don’t laugh too hard when I fail, please?”

“I won’t laugh at all.” Sechen assured her, squeezing tight one last time and eliciting a little yip of surprise from Paui. “I’ll be cheering you on for however long it takes. Go do your best.”

Paui nodded and let go of Sechen, stepping over the whitestone boundary with a little wave goodbye. Thana’s voice carried crisply through the clearing, dull yellow Issi spreading through the whitestone as she spoke.

“The trial has changed slightly since you left. It is more difficult in some aspects, simpler in others, but overall a fairer competition than what you went through.” She said as a banner of Issi rose before Paui. “To begin, we will be testing your speed and endurance without Issi to aid you. Once you pass through that banner a timer will start for ten minutes and another banner will appear inside the clearing. Passing through another banner will grant you a point and pause the timer for thirty seconds at first, reducing by one second for every two banners passed through. You are not allowed to see the timer, you will not be told when the time is over, and for every banner you pass through while you have no time left you will be deducted one point. Do you require any of the instructions to be repeated, or do you have any further questions?”