Barry and Emi sat near each other under the church’s porch. The day had been long with Emi trying to teach Barry to read. He had most of the Kedweni Common alphabet down and knew how to write his own name, but had yet to truly read.

“It’s been a full day already.” Said Barry. “I know the alphabet, but have yet to actually read.”

“Com’ on Bare, you’ve never touched paper before today.” Said Emi, “Whatcha expect? You may be a mage, but you’re still a mortal. For now.” Emi finished talking with a wink.

“Ha, you know I awakened from pure luck. It was a fluke.”

“I doubt that. You stared down a beast, and instead of resigning to the most probable fate, you resisted. You struggled. Down to your very spirit, you’re a fighter at the core, Barry. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

“Now, come with me to get some supplies for a meal. How much can you hold with those hands of yours?”

Barry looked down to his arms made of shifting shadow. Remembering the visions in the cave, Barry spoke up.

“I’m not entirely certain. I have a good hunch that I can make more of these. Let me try something real quick.”

Barry got up from his rocking chair, walking away from the porch in case he manifested too much power. I could probably destroy that whole porch if I’m not careful.

Once Barry was safe enough away from the porch, he retreated inside his mind. The world turned true black. There was no ground under his feet, no light for his eyes, no awareness for his limbs. There was only breath. Cold air went into his lungs like a cleansing fire, and warm air seeped out of his nostrils as winter's breath.

Barry focused on the starlit sky he had seen in his dreams, evoking it from the depths. From the darkness came light. Shining beacons of every color came into existence in the void around Barry. He reached out, brushing upon the wellspring of power. The knowledge came flooding in, reinforcing the dried channels and cracks of Barry’s mind, drenching his psyche with vital noesis. A whisper in the black of his mind breezed by his awareness.

From a trunk comes splitting tendrils. Above and below. One is of the darkness and the other light. Reach for the sun, and shadow shall follow. Grasping Darkness.

Barry opened his eyes to sunlight, looking down at his hands, he imagined his arms soaring towards the sun like the branches of an oak. Grasping Darkness.

Barry’s shadow limbs parted into branching tendrils. Where there were once only two limbs, there were now many. Too much.

Barry focused again on his shadow limbs, merging together the tendrils of darkness until he had four separate arms. The limbs separated just below the shoulder. Barry felt drained after performing the feat of magic. His breath came a little faster, and his muscles felt taught. Barry felt the cold permeate his mind like a gust of winter night.

Something had been taken away. What it was, he did not entirely know. But still, he felt hollow. Hungry wasn't close enough of a word to describe it for what he lacked was not a physical substance. The whispers in the dark answered his unuttered question.

Take upon the luminous pinpricks that dwell in the void, and shadows shall come. Dark Mirror.

Barry closed his eyes and focused on the blackest part of his Shadow. The world around him turned black, leaving behind faint traces of essence in the void. In the black of his mind, the faint essence turned into luminous flames of all colors. Towards where his feet would’ve been, the essence was slight and green. Blue pinpricks of light floated around in the air. And a mass of vibrant red floated just a few steps away. Barry could practically feel the boundless energy within the vibrant scarlet.

In hushed breath, Barry uttered “Dark Mirror” in his mind’s eye. A small drop of water landed on the surface of his psyche, echoing outwards into the depths. The surface reflected the colorful essence above it like a dark lake in black night.

The center of Barry’s spirit came alive like a rend in the fabric of existence, pulling away at the threads and essence of life around him. He was in the eye of the storm, dwelling in the serene center while chaos raged but a few steps away. The black hole in the center of Barry’s Shadow slowly filled with a rainbow nebula as it sucked all of the ambient essence it could. The stars were hard to distinguish individually, their luminous essence blending into one another like blood in a butcher-house. Vibrant red painted the nebula's edges, and winter blue stood stalwart at the center with purple melting the two colors together.

Barry once again opened his eyes to sunlight. The snow around his feet had melted, and the tree at his side had slightly withered. Not enough to kill it outright, but just enough to put doubt in its survival through the rest of winter. The cold air around Barry had warmed. Warmth also suffused his Shadow like a blanket. He felt full of vigor and power, feeling like he was hit with a rush of battle-high. This feels amazing.

“Hey Emi,” said Barry while turning around to see the priestess, “I think I can manage. Did you see-”

The priestess stood wide-eyed, grasping her cane with all her feeble might. Her wrinkly hands shook to the bone. Her white winter breath came out in shudders.

“Are you okay, Emi? Did I do something wrong?”

Emilia shook away her state of fugue, wiping away at the sweat that formed on her forehead.

“I apologize,” said Emi. “It’s just that… forget it.”

It felt like I was about to be devoured by an all-consuming void that not even the fastest of stars could escape. Thought Emi, her aura and spirit cowering like a deer that had stumbled upon a mountain lion.

“Oh… Do you still want to go get those ingredients?” Said Barry, his tone slightly anxious.

“No,” answered Emilia. “I’ll send for an acolyte. You can do as you wish for the rest of the day, Bare. Don’t worry about this old lady, she just needs some rest.” Emilia made her way into the church to her quarters, leaving Barry feeling slightly guilty and not knowing what he had done wrong.

Well, that was awkward. Guess I’ll go practice some more… A spark of confusion and curiosity passed through Barry’s thoughts. Doesn’t feel like I’m actually learning anything, though. It’s more like recalling. The knowledge of my magic is water, and my mind is a dried river waiting to be filled by a monsoon. A chill brushes through my thoughts when the water is used, leaving behind a cold emptiness. Where does this otherworldly knowledge come from?

Barry looked down at his split shadow limbs with a frown on his face. You’re what got me into this mess. Time for you to go. Barry merged his many appendages back into two. Shadows shifted around them like thousands of black serpents. Can’t you look more ordinary? I’d prefer not to look so menacing when talking to an old lady.

Barry focused on his shadow limbs. They were an extension of his Shadow, and thereupon, an extension of himself. He imagined his old arms—the stuff of flesh, bone, and blood. He envisioned their old skin, the scars left behind from combat, the blonde hairs that protected him from the cold, and his uneven finger-nails. Shadow essence coiled around Barry’s arms, transforming them from insubstantial, inky smoke into the pale blue facsimile of flesh. His shadow limbs became the stuff of a corpses’ cold-blue skin. Better, but I still need to hide you.

The call of knowledge came again into Barry’s mind, whispering its cryptic insights in the flood of noesis. In the night, shapes and figures blend into the darkness. The black shrouds their contours as a snake hides in the grass. Shadow’s Embrace.

Barry’s Inner Shadow bled from his skin, covering him a veil of darkness. Shadow essence seeped into Barry’s roughspun tunic, staining it black and extending the tunic’s short sleeves. From under the inky tunic’s long sleeves came a pair of gloves, the color of midnight on a shadowmoon.

“Yes,” thought Barry, his lips parting in a grin, “that'll work just fine.”

Eiden read the Magical Awakenings section while he waited for Fin to return. There were many words he did not know, but they felt familiar. It was as if there was a veil between his mind and the knowledge about the unknown words.

“Ar-kay-nums.” pronounced Eiden, unsurely. “Hell take me, what is it even supposed to mean? Don’t these books have some sort of reference page?”

Eiden flipped through the tome until he reached the first pages. Ah, there it is. Eiden brushed his pointer finger through the different sections and their page numbers. Arcanums of the Soul, found you. The young man read through the section, filling in the gaps of nescience

"Okay, so arcanums are like magic types." Muttered Eiden. "'Indexes of meta-knowledge. Stuff mana has that makes it act in a certain way. Meta-knowledge is also known as arcana. My soul-marks represent my arcanums. I need to know what mine do, but I can’t do that yet because otherwise, I might accidentally wake that thing inside me."

A shiver of fear and… excitement wormed its way through Eiden’s spine. A part of him feared the thing that lived inside him. The other part saw it as a useful tool—a sword in a scabbard waiting to be drawn. The blade was hungry for blood.

Eiden read through the tome, looking for explanations as to what lived inside his spirit. When it had been almost midday, Eiden felt an aura enter the range of his magical senses, putting pressure upon his mind. The aura was sharp like a blade and familiar.

“Fin.” Thought Eiden, a smile appearing on his face.

A knock resounded through the door.

“Can I come in, lad?” Asked Fin.

“Nah, twenty coppers for the entry.”

"Thought you were an exorcist's apprentice, not a bouncer for a brothel." Said Fin through the door.

Fin let out a small chuckle as he entered the room with a small hint of curiosity on his face. The Exorcist’s aura became inquisitive, branching out like a mass of serpents prodding at the air.

“Huh, you did it again.” Said Fin. “Practically bled the air dry of mana. Did you do it deliberately?”

“Uh, sort of.” Answered Eiden. “I practiced with my aura, I even made something resembling a dagger, but it sort of drained me.

“I felt weak, and the center of my spirit—or the etheric stomach, whatever you call it, came alive. It was like the maw of a hungry beast, pulling away at the air.”

“Interesting,” Said Fin, “an acquired ethereal organ.” Fin’s remark was answered by Eiden with a lifted eyebrow.

“Your ethereal organ is what we call an acquired type. You didn’t actually acquire it in its entirety, though. Your pre-existing ethereal organ adapted to act as the foreign intruder. You felt it that night, didn’t you? That hunger in the air.”

“Yeah… It felt like thousands of bugs crawling over my skin, waiting to burrow in.”

“I know the feeling.” Said Fin. “Vampiric auras are quite uncomfortable. But anyways, resistance to any specific magical type is done by practicing, harboring, or being exposed to said magic. So, you should fare well against any vampires in the future.”

Trying to get his thoughts away from the possibility of being near, or worse, fighting another vampire, Eiden changed the subject.

“Is it bad that I have vampiric magic?”

“Not necessarily. You can probably better absorb ambient mana, but not too much of it. It would also leave you vulnerable since foreign spirits could try and invade. Life or blood mana will be the most compatible for you to absorb.”

“Can I regain mana without absorbing it from the environment? Or from blood?”

“Yes.” Said Fin. “There are two major ways of regaining mana. From your inner or outer source. The inner source is the soul, and the outer source is the ethereal stomach or Center.”

“How do I use my soul to regain mana?”

“It normally generates a small amount of mana on its own. But, you can, with effort, generate more. This does have drawbacks. Mana production from the soul slows down after drawing on it, so the more you use it, the less it makes for the foreseeable future. Hell, use too much and it'll cut your lifespan down to thirty..."

Fin let out a sigh before speaking.

"I understand that you’d like to avoid using your acquired magicks, but I’d recommend you integrate them. I don't want you relying too much on your soul while you're so young. With the number of ways it can go wrong and all. Your powers aren’t inherently evil. A blade is no more evil than its wielder.

"What makes most vampires abhorrent is the way they feed on others, killing them, not their magic nor their proclivity to blood essence. The absorption of blood mana is not evil, the killing and torturing of innocents is."

“I understand.” Said Eiden. “I know that it’s a part of me, but… It’s unnerving. It feels like there’s a beast inside me, waiting to be let out. I had strange dreams that night. I can’t tell if they were soul-dreams or just nightmares.”

“We’ll deal with it, lad. You’re not alone in this. I wouldn’t be worth a damn copper if I didn’t do my best to help my apprentice. While I recommend that you integrate the dark splinters left behind, so that you may better resist them, we can first practice with your affinity type.”

“When will we do that?”

“Today… Preferably somewhere you won’t traumatize people. I can still feel the dredges of fear left behind in this inn’s patrons. Their auras are practically trying to hide inside their bodies. We’ll go collect the bounty, and then you can take us somewhere away from people, and with a view, we’ll train there. Wait, are you hungry?”

“Yeah,” said Eiden, “but we can eat after training. It’s not like hunger’s all that new to me. Lemme grab my new coat, and we can go.”

“Can’t let my apprentice stay hungry. Said Fin. “Let’s grab a chicken thigh or two, and head on to the manor then.”