My talks with Elian were the thing I most looked forward to. Soldier-Candidates like Elian began training when they were ten years old, but Priestess-Candidates began their training at age five. I once tried to complain to a Priestess how much of my time was spent memorizing chants and writing until my hand cramped. Again and again, I would ask when my parents were going to visit.

She told me to stop complaining, and that few people in Gresha were allowed this opportunity. How once I completed my training, I’d have the most luxurious rooms and feasts in the city, near-untouchable status, and the respect of the entire city for the work I did. She told me my parents had made a very noble sacrifice, sending me here to be trained.

Elian’s had been the only sympathetic ear offered to me in seven years.

But since meeting Talon, I’d also been listening to Elian as he rambled about their last matches. Elian would go over the fight in detail, reflecting on what he did well or could have done better. I didn’t know enough about fighting and warfare to be of much help, but just talking seemed to help him. And in return, I was happy just to listen, happy just to repay him even a little for how he managed to ground me.

As the Rite of Sunset approached, though, the itch to escape the city again grew more and more irritating. This time, I got lucky. Somehow I finished up my extra assignments, while the Priestesses grew too busy to teach us. We Candidates were given more free time, as the dry Sun season drew to a close. And I knew exactly how I wanted to spend it.

As today was another day Elian would spend sparring with Talon, I could simply accompany him into the Deep Woods, and spend the time they trained experimenting with magic. He assured me that this time our trip would be short, and he’d get us both home before anyone realized I was gone. When he tried to apologize for getting me in trouble last time, I gently rebuffed his apology; all it meant was we’d need to be more careful, so it doesn’t happen again, I told him. That’s all.

As we approached the clearing he and Talon regularly met in, however, he brought up another topic. “I’d like you to apologize to Talon, Nia.”

That Angran…Elian seemed to genuinely like him a lot…but it made me anxious. It wasn’t just because he seemed rude, inconsiderate, and uncaring. I worried that someday, he’d be the reason my best friend doesn’t return home from the battlefield. I couldn’t stop Elian from sparring with him—even if I did try supervising them, they were both much stronger than I was, and incredibly stubborn…but still, weak as I was, I worried for them.

Still, I agreed to apologize. I had enough going on back home, and just wanted to focus on my magic, not get into another argument with him. It wasn’t the fresh start and blooming friendship I knew Elian was hoping for, but hopefully we could at least agree to tolerate each other.

It was far from my first time apologizing to someone when I thought I had done nothing wrong, but this time felt different. Talon gave off an entirely different impression from the Priestesses of the Temple. They would act superior, or demand I prove my sincerity through groveling, or extra chores and assignments. But he seemed to accept the apology instantly…though I’m not sure ‘accept’ was exactly the right word.

“Fine. Apology accepted. It’s not like you could’ve actually hurt me, even if you wanted to,” he said, coolly.

He wasn’t smug, simply stated it as though he were stating a fact. Which…I suppose he was. One only needed to give us a quick glance over to tell he was not only much stronger, but also more skilled.

With the apologies over, I bottled up my annoyance and went to work. I tuned out the nearby sounds of the forest, and of Elian and Talon’s sparring. While there existed thousands of forms of channeling, Gresha’s temple believed retelling a specific cycle of legends to be more sacred and sublime than others. Silently I recited these stories. With my bare feet planted firmly on the mossy ground, I tried to feel for the magic of this place, for a connection to Crown Naruune and Hallow Zaya, for a sign either of them were listening…

…Only the wind in the trees.

An hour later, I sat on the ground and sighed. Nothing I had done so far had replicated the miracle. Not internal or external channeling, not carving runes, not even my clumsy attempts at lesser forms of channeling like dancing, singing, or drawing. I was beginning to wonder if I had somehow hallucinated the event, but that couldn’t be true. Elian had been in danger, and he was safe and sound now.

Maybe it had just been Crown Naruune responding quicker than usual to a perilous situation…? But if that were the case, then Gresha and Angra wouldn’t need to bother at all with magical weapons. It had to be something else.

Coming up with nothing, I decided to take a break. My gaze drifted to where Elian and Talon were still sparring, where I was shocked by a strange sight.

Talon POV

“Okay, break!”

At Elian’s words, we collapsed to the mossy ground, panting. It had been a long time since I’d fought with no intent to kill, and so I’d tried keeping a tighter rein on my unique brand of channeling in this battle, so as not to hurt my newfound training partner. Still, a pleasant burn danced up and down my muscles.

As I rested, my gaze drifted over to the girl Elian had brought. What sunlight made its way through the leaves caused her red hair to almost glow, matching the freckles on her skin. Now that she wasn’t causing life-and-death perils, her freckles reminded me of stars in the sky.

When Elian brought her here, I nearly rolled my eyes. She was going to be a pest, I knew it. She’d mistake our sparring for real bloodlust, and start bawling that I was hurting her friend. But to my surprise, I hardly heard a peep out of her. She had become completely absorbed with her unfamiliar methods of channeling. As long as I was resting, I may as well indulge my curiosity.

I leaned closer to her. “What are those?”

She flinched slightly, then turned back to look at me with an irritated look. “What?”

“The runes. What do they represent?”

“You can’t read?”

I squinted. “...Would I ask if I knew?”

“Right. Um, well…” She turned back to the fallen branch she had been carving runes into. The latest of many, I realized.

She began to explain, “You remember, when I, that sapling—? Oh. Um. You were there. I was trying to do it again. On the branches. Not that they weren’t already slowly rotting, but I didn’t want to cause the whole Deep Woods to rot. That would be wrong. Morally, I mean. But also…bad in general. But I shouldn’t worry, because Crown Naruune would never allow that to work, as this Channeling would go through her—er, not that these have been working as intended, either… Gah…” She groaned in frustration.

“What method of channeling is this? Picture-based?”

“Writing-based, actually.”

“Writi—?”

“It’s the ‘highest’ form of channeling in Gresha—er. Each of these little images represents a word in the Greshan language, and these ones represent sounds we make. We put them together in order to create words, sentences, and larger stories. I mean I guess it’s not so weird you can’t read it, only Priestesses, scribes, some court officials learn them. Writing’s supposed to be sacred, you know. Some officials use them to record legal documents or histories—Angrans don’t write?”

“Carrying around a bunch of stone slabs is pointless. Do you have such bad memories that you forget what you don’t write down?”

She shrugged, her face reddening defensively. “It’s a useful backup. The King has dozens of issues brought to him every day, and his decrees on one may provide guidance to his children’s children.” She turned to me, her eyes bright and green as sunlight filtered through leaves. “What about what you were doing? It looked like you were using fire magic, but not your bow. What sort of channeling was that?”

I was a little taken aback. I hadn’t expected her to pay attention so closely. “It’s a special form of channeling the Angrans have been honing over generations. We call it Flame Arts. After years of observing and hunting the Sun Fiend, we developed a martial arts style based off her magic. By turning fighting itself into a form of channeling, we can use magic mid-battle without relying on special weapons, though the effects are usually limited to just our own bodies. Anything greater would be too complex to reliably organize mid-battle,” I explained. My lip curled in a sharp smirk. "After all. What better way to fight fire than with fire?"

“Wait, would that be channeling the Sun Fie—”

“No,” Elian interrupted her. “He just said. They hate her too. They want to kill her.”

I took a deep breath. It was just an ignorant question. But I hadn’t expected Elian to aid me like that. This girl, though, Nania, also seemed genuinely fascinated by the Flame Arts.

“I see. I’m sorry.” A few more moments spent chewing her lip as she thought. “Could you teach me? I’m…curious about other sorts of channeling.”