Ranvir sat next to Kirs on a couch in the lounge. They both had a blanket wrapped about them despite the fireplace blazingly strongly, the sound of wood crackling and scent of smoke emanating strongly. Opposite them sat Pashar, seated on a chair with her ever present slate tablet in hand. Everyone else in the room had been cleared out.

“Once we’re done here I’ll sent off a request to the ankirians, the Queen, Ragnar, and the Master of Education that the ankirians get moved off campus and into the capital.” Pashar said. Her usually neat bun of hair was disheveled with hairs sticking out in each and every direction. Her distress at the events of the evening were clear on her face.

“Thanks,” Kirs muttered pulling her blanket tighter around her. “And what about Esmund and the others?” She gestured to the area where they’d vanished.

Even now, Ranvir could sense it with his tether. A connection to a different space. Like his own pocket-spaces, but Saleema wasn’t around to power this one. It should’ve fallen apart within seconds of her leaving, but it was still lingering, still trapping their friends.

Still, he searched for an opening. He couldn’t find one, nor could he force one open. All he could sense from the generated space was a disjointed sense of continued existence. Ranvir knew it was related to the woman’s Concept, but how he didn’t know. He didn’t think her Concept was actually continued existence, only related to it. The true meaning was too complex for him to interpret.

Ranvir’s sense brushed against another’s. It took him a moment of searching, before he realized it was Pashar’s. Hers was light, like a breeze, only the slightest distortion in the air. He hadn’t felt a lot of second-stage tethered’s presences, not while it was extended like that, but he still felt hers was significantly different from anyone else’s he’d ever experienced.

Yngvar’s had felt like an over grown version of Sansir and Grevor’s just after they’d advanced. Already, theirs were growing more controlled. But Pashar’s was entirely unlike anyone else’s, though she was only a Sword. It wasn’t the solidity that startled him, it was the lack thereof. He might’ve mistaken it for a pre-stage’s, if not for the way it maneuvered through the room. He couldn’t have done that. He didn’t know if he could’ve moved his like hers with another half a decade of training.

And he still got the distinct sense that she was allowing him to notice her presence. He felt her sense brush past his, through the walls into the first floor and beyond into the rest of the building, encompassing it in its entirety.

“I’m going to be very quick about this.” Pashar said. “You’re very lucky that Saleema took so much attention today.” Her voice going iron hard. “If they’d seen the experiments on your floorboards there would’ve been trouble.”

“Trouble?” Kirs asked, peaking up at Pashar’s shift in tone of voice.

“The disappearing kind. You’re experimenting with rituals aren’t you?”

Kirs nodded. “How do you know about them?”

Ranvir felt Pashar register something to her tether-sense, but he didn’t know what. “We’ve known about rituals in Ankiria for a couple decades. If you’ve heard of siege stations, then you should be able to figure out how they function.”

“Siege stations?” Ranvir asked. “Is that what it sounds like?”

“Up to five tethered pool their energy for a bigger techniques.” Pashar explained succinctly. “We’re creating more of them up and down the front lines, but mostly they’re good for penetrating the mass of Ralith. Unlike a single tethered’s ability, a siege station has all the weight of their tethers combined, making it harder to disassemble the technique.”

“And that’s done using rituals?” Kirs asked, excitedly.

“Yes. Now you have to be more careful than you currently are. If Zubair had realized what you were doing, things might not’ve gone so well for you.”

“Esmund’s stuck in another space!” Kirs exclaimed, waving with one hand. “Gone so well? Things have gone to shit!”

Pashar shook her head. “If he’d seen what you’d made he would’ve taken you. Whether you like it or not. You would’ve been interrogated. Then taken to Ankiria and forced to continue if you’d made any serious discoveries. Or you could’ve just been killed.” The smoke tethered was calm as she spoke, her tone dry.

“Thank you for telling us.” Ranvir said, speaking slowly. He hesitated, looking at Kirs for a moment. “Should we stop?”

“That would probably be the safest thing to do.” Pashar said. “Then again, the reason it would be safe is because no ones ever gone against the United Alliance. You would be taking your own life in your hands, though that might allow you to lift yourself from the elusrian ground where you were born.”

Ranvir glanced at Kirs, they shared a long glance. He knew they were in for a longer conversation. “Thank you for telling us.” Kirs finally said, turning to Pashar. “I’m sorry about my outburst.”

Finally, Ranvir sensed what Pashar had registered earlier. A presence making its way up the stairs to their floor. They were moving slowly, but were strong. Not like Saleema, but close enough that it made Ranvir’s skin crawl.

He noted the cold shivered across him, limbs veined in pale violet fear. “Who’s that?” He asked, before he could stop himself.

“Master Floki.” Pashar said, getting to her feet. “He’s going to break the pocket-space Saleema created and help free your friends.” She made her way to the door, opening it well before the master arrived.

As they crossed the threshold and Ranvir got a good look at the old man. He looked very different than he had in the summer. Ranvir didn’t know if it was the late hour, or the winter, or just declining health. But he looked at least five years older. His hair was in disarray and he breathed heavily, sweat pearling on his brow from walking up the stairs. Liver spots dotted his hands and scalp.

He looked very old and very tired.

The old man stopped at the door, looking in the direction of the pocket-space. “You’re the expert here, so I’ll let you get to it.” Pashar said, patting his arm. “Take care.” She told Ranvir and Kirs then left, presumably to sent her requests and other paperwork.

Floki’s presence flowed from him in a sphere, quickly growing past the limits of Veil, until it passed over Ranvir and Kirs, where the old man’s eyes snapped onto them. Onto him

“Oh, you’re still here.” He said, though he looked old and tired, his voice had a strength to it that Ranvir didn’t expect. He sounded nothing like the teacher he remembered. “That’s good. Then you can help me. It will make this a lot faster.”

Floki walked further into the room, his steps stronger now.

Ranvir did his best to keep his senses off him, knowing the kind off pressure a Master could exude. Even avoiding him, a master holding the full weight of his power was impossible to ignore. He walked like a mountain of matter folded onto itself a thousand times over. His power was inescapable. No matter where Ranvir sensed he was completely enveloped by it.

And yet, it felt so minuscule compared to Saleema. She’d been blinding, to the point it was hard to gauge her actual power. He couldn’t guess at her strength, since he couldn’t get a reading of it at all.

“What are you waiting for? Get over here.” Master Floki complained. He’d stopped in front of the connection.

“Can’t you just break it down?” Ranvir asked, as he left the couch and blanket behind. It was only reluctantly, that he let himself get that close to the master.

“I could.” Floki said. “But the space has too much internal integrity for me to do it easily or fast. It would take hours. Even with your help it’s still going to take hours, but I might make it to my tether class.”

Ranvir looked out the window into the black night. The empty night sat only with the two moons in the sky. It’s not even the middle of the night, yet. How did she make it that strong? Ranvir wondered, turning his sense to the connection.

“Do you feel it, the connection to the pocket-space?” Floki asked. Ranvir nodded, so the master continued. “Really? Follow it up to the pocket, if you can.”

“I can’t reach that far.” Ranvir said, already trying.

“There’s only distance where reality governs there to be.” Master Floki said. “And space is a byproduct of reality. In the connection between space and pocket-space, there is no reality. So there is no distance. You can reach anywhere in the perimeter of the pocket.”

Ranvir frowned. He tried to sense for it, but there wasn’t anything he could reach.

“Don’t try to sense for it. There’s nothing to sense.” Floki said. “You reaching out of reality, out of the plane of Vednar, you can’t feel anything because there’s nothing there. Keep on the connection.”

Ranvir gritted his teeth, but tried one more time. He’d been keeping on the connection. He was trying. Then he felt it. He’d followed the connection up and then it disappeared like everything else. It took him another three tries, tracing the connection up and down, before he touched the pocket-space.

“Good, good.” Floki said, and Ranvir realized the master had already spun his own tether-sense up through the connection. “See the poles wrapping around the space? The ones stabilizing it.”

The masters sense disappeared wandering off, it took Ranvir a moment to figure out keeping himself on the outer side of the space. He didn’t even feel his sense traveling, it just touched down on different points in the space, searching for what Floki was talking about.

He knew it the moment he felt it. A pillar of iron-like space wrapping around the pocket. It was so infused with the lingering existence of Saleema’s Concept that Ranvir felt it before he felt the pillar itself.

“Yes, yes. Now track it to one of the joints, where it meets the other stability pillars.”

Ranvir followed Floki’s instruction, touching down on the space for a second, then separating and reaching another spot a slightly different place. Soon he found a joint of two pillars.

“You’re doing good.” Floki said. “I’m going to start leaning on it, that should allow you work on it. We don’t need much, just a little bit of instability.”

“Like corrosion?” Ranvir asked.

“Exactly like that. If these are iron pillars then corrode them, rust them.”

Iron pillars? Ranvir thought. Did I say that out loud, or did I just think it?

“Out loud, boy. Now focus.”

Ranvir felt himself flush, though it stopped the moment Floki drew on his tether. The encompassing mountain of power lit up with Purple Space, rocking through into the pocket-space.

It barely budged, the joint Ranvir was examining moved only slightly. Still, he got to work. Ranvir drew his own power touching the joint, imagining it corroding, breaking down. It felt wrong to him, antipathetic to his power, but it worked. He wasn’t undoing the space, but the Concept itself. Tiny bit by tiny, excruciating, bit.

He worked at it, worrying at the joint even as his power worrying away at him. It didn’t take long for him to feel the strain of his effort, pushing through each and every second to cut away at the bar. Minute by minute. Decaying the Concept and letting the energy dissipate.

“Take a break.” Floki said, slapping Ranvir on the shoulder and pulling him back in his body. He was tired, exhausted really, his limbs had less surety than mud and a headache was burgeoning.

Floki let him over to a chair and he flopped into it. A glance at the Master told him who the break was for. The Mantle looked better than when he’d arrived. Fresher, stronger.

“You’re abominably strong.” Floki said, sitting down in a chair opposite him. “Maybe strong is the wrong word.” He leaned back rubbing a hand over his chin. “You’re breaking down a triplet master’s Concept and you kept going for almost an hour.”

“I haven’t even advanced, yet.” Ranvir replied, rubbing at his forehead.

“Nor should you, I don’t think you’re quite ready.”

Ranvir jerked up, his gaze locking on the master. “What do you mean by that?”

Floki smiled. “Advancing your tether and developing your power is, above all else, a personal journey. Usually, people at the second-stage after they’ve developed their tether reach a point where they can advance, far before they’re ready to advance. Some feel it strongly, other’s don’t. Some don’t feel it at all. We don’t know why. But some feel it so strongly that others can too.”

“How often does it happen?” Ranvir asked.

“To my students?” Floki asked. “I could count it on one hand.”

Ranvir waited but Floki didn’t move. Then, he got it. “Never?”

“I remember only twice in recent memory that I’ve met tethered who had that sense about them. Master Ayvir, when he returned from the front lines. He had the known requirements to advance, even some he wouldn’t tell, but the reluctance was coming off him so strongly I could feel it half-way across the academy.”

“And the other?”

Floki smiled, then gestured at Ranvir. “Yet, you’re not a second-stage tethered. Is it because you’ve taken hold of your advancement already? Or is it something else? I can’t help but be excited for what it means.”

Ranvir blinked, feeling oddly numb at the comment, compliment?

In the end, it was well past dawn before Ranvir had worried away at enough of the joints that Master Floki could bring the pocket down. Esmund, Sansir, and Grevor came tumbling out in a unconscious tumble. They’d been in the eye of Saleema’s exertion of power.

Ranvir suspected they might’ve lost consciousness before the space had even finished forming. What worried him more was the insane woman, who was still capable of her intensity as to target only those three in a room full of students.