The blood did not stop coming.

It welled in Eiden’s eyes and slipped down his face, scarlet tears of a body transfigured by the Source, be it his own soul or that of the world. His aether churned, Aedan drawing from both Eiden’s own life-force and that of the stolen vitality.

The feeling of impending doom came upon him as his lifesblood was being taken from him with no recourse. Dread filled his veins as his face became pale and his limbs turned numb. Cold spread out from his heart like a gust of wintery flame.

Aedan was a serpent wrapped around his Heart of the Bodies, suckling on his vitality. A leech of the spirit.

And yet the pain was middling compared to the internal turmoil the artifact caused. Eiden’s emotions ran rampant as images of the past ran through his mind. And with the visions came whispers, insidious things in his own voice.

The malaise wrapped around him like an infant swaddled by a blanket. He could not exert his will, he could not call upon his authority.

Power eternal and everlasting is forged from struggle. A blade wrought of simple iron will rust, yet one tempered in blood does not so easily drown in fell waters.

Iron turns to steel.

May the cold douse the fires of the heart and leave behind all but the most stubborn of embers, for all that burns must one day die.

Flame becomes cinder.

A smoldering ember lasts eternal compared to the bright and fast burning fire. A single gust and a smattering of tinder is all that is needed for another kindling.

But will it be the same flame as before?

The Apprentice prodded at the blade nestled inside his spirit with his awareness. He did so with the desperation of a dying man, his inner sight flitting along the surface of the artifact like a thousand-thousand spiders. Threads tangled, twisted like a ball of yarn with, spread from Aedan, connecting to things unseen. Eiden’s perception of sympathetic lashings and Weavian strings was nine-damned lacking.

Yet that did not stop him. Dying men were much like beggars.

They had no choice.

The sympathetic lashings that bound mana between the planes spread out in his mind’s eye. Eiden traced their paths and patterns with mental hands, his previous experience of meddling with his own mind endowing him with some amount of practice.

It’s no different than a mind—so many connections bound to dense cores of… something.

Eiden’s mental hands grasped around a heavy weight in the Weave. It was a bundle of threads that formed a knot not unlike a ganglia of nervous tissue. Eiden read their Names, their natures, and their arcana.

Defiance.

Struggle.

Another bulbous protuberance in the Weave signified another set of noetic essence.

Retribution.

Vengeance.

And when Eiden thought he could no longer make sense of the tangled mess of sympathetic bindings, he found the final and last arcane duality.

Compassion.

Malice.

The three bundles rotated in the Weave, the strings that bound mana together through the myriad planes. They formed a trinity that echoed something greater, and enshrouded in mist like leviathans at the edge of the known seas.

He knew only its Name. No, such was wrong. Eiden knew the shadows of its Name, not the thing proper. The knowledge brought no solace, a dead-end for a dying man. Fitting it was to die so close and yet so far to the shore.

Blades flitted in the black of the mind, each one containing the weight of significance collected through tribulation and deeds of great importance. Their bearers were enshrouded in shadow, their arms melding into the dark corners of the psyche.

When Eiden focused on a single sword, a voice whispered in his ears. No matter how much he turned, he found himself alone in the darkness.

Alone in his death.

Caladbolg.

Hard Belly, the Hungry Blade.

A sword whose edges cut the tips of mountains and drink the red seas of armies. A blade whose likeness echoes through the confines of eons and fatus.

Each stroke conjures the raiment of the Heavenly Bridge, a fragment from the Road of the Gods Above. Stolen from a prophet and fashioned around the sword as a tassel, the Ribbon of Rainbow reflects upon the blade’s crystal clear surface.

The Three Great Strokes.

Rend the Sky, Pierce the Earth, Cut the Tide.

Kaledvoulc’h.

Harden Breach, the Blade of the Lake.

A blade forged by the Aelyds of Ynys Afallach, the Isle of Fruit Trees. Its hilt was infused with the blood of twain chimeras and their likeness etched upon the crossguard.

Scarlet fire burned in their eyes of carved ruby, the bloodlust causing men to fall to their knees if they did not avert their gaze. The geas made warriors flinch amidst the clinchement of swords.

Bein Aard, the Scabbard of Stone.

A sister to Kaledvoulc’h, the two destined to each other as were Gealach Dhubh and Gealach Gheal.

The Twin Moons.

The scabbard was covered in runestones, rocks with whispers ensorcelled upon them. Bound to the original Standing Stone from which the Harden Breach was pulled, the wearer’s skin becomes like the Earth itself before the Heavens wept.

Before souls came from the Grand Loch.

Dry and without water the Firmament was, unbleeding and eternal. For as long as the Twins were near and Kaledvoulc’h was unsheathed, the wielder would never bleed and die for lack of such vital humor.

Each artifact left an aftertaste that had the tang of distinct history and great significance. Yet all brought feelings of blazing fury and cold retribution. They left a metallic taste on Eiden’s tongue whilst also setting his blood boiling with desire to right wrongs. The distilled essence of the swords were many things, chief among them defiance and struggle against greater power.

A vector for vengeance wrought from mortification of the flesh. Yet it was not without price, and that scared Eiden a good deal. It was given to him by the Source Beyond the Veil, and he reckoned it could be taken back. Not Aedan in its entirety, for that was his and himself. But the form which it took, the blade, the Greyen Arbiter and its many iterations before.

Whispers, sometimes his, sometimes not his, beckoned in the black of the mind.

How long will I bear its burden? If I falter, will it be taken as have all else in my life?

My heart is wrought of cold and unbending steel, yet the fire that burns inside it lends me the logic of emotion.

Will the flame die, will the ember fade?

When the smoldering ashes are all that is left, will I be no different than that which I hate the most?

Cruel and monstrous steel.

[Worry.]

Hellion stirred from his deep slumber, the swirling cauldron of unease prompting the Khaeros to do as such. Eiden felt comfort radiate from his chest as did he felt the phantom weight that sent him stumbling back. The mental hug from the manticore helped anchor him and stop the flow of negative thoughts.

Yet it wasn’t near enough to stop the undercurrent of insidious doubt. Though his feelings were no longer manifesting as surface thoughts, they still lingered as fleeting shadows in the dark corners of his mind.

The malaise held him back from his will with adamant chains.

Even when the Empty Breath did nothing for his turbid mind, Eiden still continued with its ministry. His mind raced like hounds of war let loose, chasing phantom prey never to be caught. Hungry and never full, wanting and never getting.

The feeling struck accord with twisted remembrance, monsters of the mind itself. Clawing at cold iron bars and marble wall. Nails broken at their beds, bent down and away through desperation of escape.

Hellion wrapped around Eiden’s mental form, licking his face like a worried cat would to a hurt kitten.

[Fear.]

Eiden took in breath till his lungs could hold no more. Then, he let it go until he was empty and without air. The slow breathing served to calm his turbulent heart, stopping it from pounding like a blacksmith’s hammer upon a breastplate.

A hand on his shoulder pulled Eiden from his rumination. It was the final straw that broke through the malaise. Though his mind no longer drowned in doubt and unease, his heart was still in the cold fetters of Mortus.

Eiden gathered the strength of his will and let loose with the fading embers of his soul.

“Stop.”

The command, echoing from the confines of his mind, brought Aedan to heel. The artifact still sipped on his aether, but at a much slower and safer rate. He would live.

Reylef’s steady arm was comforting as was it unnerving.

The feeling of support rebounded through the mental realm, causing resonance inside Eiden. Like a yell echoing through a cavern, the comforting warmth of the emotion bounced off the walls of his mind.

Why?

Eiden had taken his hand, his livelihood, and temporarily doused the fires of his hope in dreadful water. And yet, here he was, offering what middling support he had. The man had no knowledge of magick, knowing only that the Apprentice was in trouble and so he acted. The guilt weighed like an atlassian stone fit for the bowels of the Earth.

“I… thank you, Reylef.” Said the Apprentice with a grimace, his tone tinged with pain yet nonetheless sincere. “You pulled me from my own darkness sooner than I could’ve meself.”

Reylef only nodded, removing his hand from Eiden’s shoulder.

After a bout of silence, Reylef’s voice returned. This time, grim.

“What do we do now?” He asked.

“Help me find the contraption that closes the hidden door. I need to recover, so it's best we aren’t found here as I’m still weakened.”

Eiden and Reylef scoured the room until they found a chain lever with a loop at its end. Eiden pulled it, stretching his acute hearing as he did so. Mechanisms deep within the stone reverberated ever so slightly.

“Go and check if that closed the door.”

Reylef did so and yelled back a hushed “It’s closed!”

Eiden sat down on the cold stone floor, his back to the wall. It brought a bittersweet feeling of what was once his home. And his Hell.

Yet now it was its namesake. A pyre, fit only for the ash of the dead. It was not a place for the living, for those that still clung onto the Coil.

Reylef brought a waterskin to Eiden along with a bottle of some hooch.

“Brittanic,” said Reylef, “who would’ve thought the whoreson was so kind so as to leave it for us.

“Always wanted to taste some of the liquor o’ the Hallowed Marsh.”

Eiden chuckled at the jest, the motion of his head causing his senses to spin. Chimaeric bodies were in tune with mana and magicking much more strongly than a normal human’s physique. As such, the bout of weakness that came from the injection of foreign vitality and the subsequent pull of aether was enhanced tenfold.

Reylef passed the bottle of Othenfurt spirit to Eiden who promptly took a swig.

The warmth that spread down his throat helped ease his discomfort. His body had even started to turn warm once again as Aedan ceased its pull on his lifesblood.

Damned strong. Can’t drink too much of this, else me head won’t ever stop spinning.

“What happened with ya?” Asked Reylef.

Eiden shook his head.

“Truly? I haven’t a fucking clue. Magick, be it sorcery or Sevenfold miracle, is a bit… spontaneous. You can’t always guess what’ll happen.

“But, I shall tell you what I think might’ve happened. I had yet to kill a man with that silver blade of mine.

“The blood woke it from its slumber, and like any tyke, it woke up hungry as an abyssal leech. It drank up all that coated Byomir’s veins, turning him to dust in the process.

“Yet its thirst was not quenched. The blade started draining me from the inside out. And with it came visions…

“I would’ve spiraled into those dark images if not for your help. That gesture woke me from my own malaise and let me exert control over the soul-sword.”

Reylef simply nodded, not seeing his part as much. Eiden could’ve told him that Reylef had pulled his soul from the Pale River, and the man would still react with the same casualness and matter-a-fact attitude.

Eiden handed the bottle to Reylef who downed a large gulp. The man put the bottle down on the floor before he used his remaining hand to clean his lips.

Reylef looked pensive, his eyes distant.

When he spoke, his voice was lost, wandering like a comet. A wayward star in the vast void with no place to call home, nothing to bind it to a single place.

“I don’t hate you.” Said Reylef. “If I’d known the price for my vengeance was me lefty, I would’ve cut it off years ago.

“Yet, now… I don’t know what much to do. I feel like cloth left outside on the line in a storm. There’s nothing more to guide me. My anger’s gone and all that’s left is the husk.”

The wayward comet in the form of a man looked to the pile of stone-grey ash in the middle of the room.

Reylef waited a spell, the silence of the hidden chamber was as audible as a Dominidas bell.

“Can you… you know? Kill me.

“End this farce so that I don’t feel so… hollow.”

Eiden shook his head.

“No. I will not kill you. Neither can I give you a reason to live.

“All I can do is tell you that loss is inevitable and so is suffering. Yet so is gain and happiness.

“There is no universal truth to why you should live. And neither is there one for you to die. You shall have to find either on your own.”

Reylef’s distant expression remained as he asked again.

“Please. Me family will be better off without me.

“I… I can’t take this anymore.”

Eiden shook his head once more.

“You want death to release you from feeling so empty and useless. Yet death will not give you that reprieve. It will destroy all that you are, so that even that which wants to forget is also forgotten. It will turn you into a husk proper and return you to all that was before your birth.

“You will cease to be empty and become the emptiness itself.”

Reylef’s wandering gaze came back to the present, back to the immediate. His face turned into a scowl.

“You nobles and your Hell-ridden riddles! And how’d you know? You’ve no sense of what I feel! You know nothing of loss, a lordling like you that’s been pampered with silver and arse smeared with honey.

“Whose birth made the gods so nine-damned happy, they gave ye magicking like it was nothing. They gave ye power like it was just some candy to be handed off to noble-born tykes.

“You know nothin’ of suffering proper.”

Eiden just smiled.

“Reylef. I have lost more than you have ever gained.”

A breath passed. The half-hand man dared not to fill the silence for the rage that suffused the air was suffocating. It was a tyrannical presence that made all bend and that which did not was utterly broken.

Reylef did not want to become a mangled mess or a smear left on the floor. Or a pile of ashes. He wanted a clean death, not whatever awaited one that crossed the beast in the form of man that sat in front of him.

“I mean not material wealth. I mean true wealth—kin and kith.”

Eiden conjured a wisp of blood-fire upon his palm. The simple act of spiritry brought him heart-wrenching pain.

He did not grimace, his gaze as steady as a blade in the longpoint guard.

“I envy all that you possess.” Continued the Apprentice. “If I could skin you and wear your hide and take your place, I’d do so in an instant.”

Reylef believed him wholeheartedly, and he thanked the cruel Fates above that they did not give the exorcist the ability to wear another’s hide.

The half-hand man eyed his leather boots, feeling a strange sense of camaraderie with the poor animal skinned to provide him warmth.

“Damn this magicking, for it was gained with a price far too heavy for a boy of sixteen winters.”

The flame turned amaranth, bringing with it psychic pain in the form of a head-splitting migraine.

He did not flinch, his face as placid and unfathomable as the still waters of a dark lake under the stars.

“Damn this world where gods think themselves benevolent and yet let so much evil wreak havoc unchecked.”

Then came azure ember, the pure sky-fire purging all and centering Eiden’s mind.

He did not relax, his hands as tense as taut bowstrings ready to unleash their volley.

“Tell me, Reylef, do you know of all the Circles of Hell?”

The man gave a small nod as a tingle of fear ran down his spine like a mouse scurrying away from a cat.

The wisp of sky-fire died, vanishing into nothingness. In its place was now mist, cold as the grave and apathetic to any and all. When man thought of order, they thought of flame and of metal—torch and sword—but the true bringer of copacetity was much more sinister.

True order came only when all was still and quiet.

When all was dead.

His expression turned somber, his eyes as frigid as the place where dead ships dwelled.

“I’ve lost my family twice, before my own eyes. I’ve endured torture and pain and suffering your mind cannot imagine, for it won’t. It can’t lest it descend unto the Seventh Rung of the Nine Hells.

“Asphodel the Garden of Mists is a much more safe place than the confines of my mind.”

Eiden’s voice was not angry, but instead monotone. It was the cadence of someone numb to it all, of someone so very tired.

“I am no lordling. I hold no title other than that bestowed by my magicking Path. Neither do I lord over land.

“I am a thieving orphan, picked up and elevated from the forgotten masses. I’ve still yet to adjust to having meat on my bones. When I lay down, I surprise myself at feeling no pain from protruding ribs and arse bones.

“I am no one.”

The mist turned from spectral blue to shimmering green, coalescing into streamers of wind that were bound in the form of a sphere. A seed of tempest raged within the orb.

He frowned, his brow as furious as a rabid wolf baring its fangs.

“You’ve a family, Reylef. You’ve a mother, a wife, brothers. Things that have been taken from me before I could ever take them for granted.”

The tempestuous orb unraveled under its own strain, dispersing through the Ether.

“You’ll go home. You’ll never speak of this ever, and you’ll live a long and peaceful life if the gods don’t get too bored.”

Eiden looked into Reylef’s eyes now instead of his own palm. His sight did not burn with the Whitemoon Visage, neither was it warped by arcana of any sort.

In the shadows provided by candlelight, the crimson of his irises looked a tawny brown. Mundane and unremarkable.

“We shall go our separate ways.”

A spell passed as Reylef mulled over Eiden’s words. Now that the suffocating presence no longer inhabited the air, Reylef could think and ponder.

“Where shall you go?” Reylef found himself asking, surprised by his comfort near the beast veiled in human hide.

“I shall wander through King’s Kedwen for a time. After that, who knows?”

“Do you like it? Being an exorcist that is.”

“As much as I shall bind specters, I am bound to the Path no less. I am chained to it by links of my own creation and yet without my consent.

“I hate it with all my guts and yet love it with my heart of hearts. Magicking is… beautiful. It is a wonderful thing if done with spirit—it breaks no laws but instead exerts that which already dwells in nature. But, like all things in life, it also has darkness. It can break minds and twist the soul.

“Yet it is not a corrupting influence. No, it simply makes one more of what they already are. Power does not taint, it only shows who you truly are.

“It burns away at the flesh and bears ashen bone.”

A gust of wind knocked the bottle of Othenfurt spirit to the floor, causing it to roll towards Eiden.

He grasped the alcohol and took a long gulp. Yet he knew nothing could drown his sorrows.

The Hells could not be drowned.

They lied on a firmament of unfathomable depth.

Hours passed as Eiden regained his strength. He used the time for both rest and rumination.

Aedan was a peculiar sort of magicking, having its own sort of mind and reason and rhyme, not unlike the immortal soul. Power dwelled within to be parceled out to the bearer when certain conditions were met similar to how sorcery bestowed spells of a given arcanum.

Mana was wont to accumulate like dew upon a leaf or condensation upon metal. The noetic water built until it could no longer hold onto the surface of the arcanum, trickling down in the form of a droplet of sorcery—a spell. Eiden reckoned the Greyen blade functioned in the same sort of way, requiring the build-up of compatible arcana to condense new functions.

The strange part was that after the two runic brandings, the visions didn’t offer up any new power or ability. Eiden had only gained knowledge of the artifact’s past forms and their magicks.

Maybe it’s a choice of sorts? Like a branching path, I have to choose either Caladbolg or Kaledvoulc’h. Or perhaps it's a promise of further power. Aedan’s trueform is, afterall, a pile of slag.

It can become anything, formeless as aether of the mortal soul.

Eiden closed his eyes as he laid his back to the stone wall.

Runes floated inside his high-spirit, his spiritual sea. They were Heartskewer and Heartseeker. Rotating in the space coterminous to his Heart of the Bodies.

Eiden felt he could simply fill the runes with aether and they would endow him with their power. What exactly was that power, he didn’t entirely know. The specifics would only be found when he ran a current of aether through them. And he decided not to delve into any sort of magicking so soon.

But, as with all natural magicks, instinct and implicit understanding came in twain with their acquisition.

Heartskewer drains the essence of a slain enemy. Heartseeker is either a perception ability or ocular geas. Probably inflicts those visions of doubt that I experienced. And since Aedan is double-edged, it’ll affect my mind together with the intended target.

Eiden prodded at the runes in his high-spirit, trying to discern anything else of use. The glyphs were strange to say the least. They had a two-dimensional skin that made up the “rune” part and identified them while also possessing layers upon layers of hidden depth.

Eiden stared into their depths, his awareness spiraling and breaking into a thousand-thousand threads of perception.

They were fractals, infinitely repeating patterns with self-symmetry.

Eiden quickly pulled back his awareness from the runes, a migraine pulling apart at his head from the inside out. His sight had dark blotches and streaks of light. His tongue tasted iron as a droplet of blood slid down from his left nostril.

Psychic and somatic backlash.

Eiden stopped his prodding as quickly as he started. He knew he shouldn’t have tried to even parse the etchings on his soul. He was no sorcerer to invoke the Deep Sight and neither was he an arcanist whose steel-trap mind could contain the intricacy of greater mysteries.

The Apprentice waited another quarter-hour for the headache to subside. He had snuck into the lord’s manor in the fleeting afternoon, and now it was midnight.

Eiden closed the lid to his brass and bronze pocket watch. He stood up, stretching out his muscles and eliciting pops from his joints.

I’ll need to check those notes and journals of his.

The Apprentice scoured the room, reading every bit and scrap of parchment. He poured through the leather-bound tomes filled with lists and writings of all kinds.

A catalogue of sorts. They list prices and goods and earnings. A lot of this is written in a mix of shorthand and cipher.

Eiden found himself on a crossroads of sorts. He couldn’t so easily walk out with so many tomes, but he could use a bit of magicking to store the important enough information.

The Veil of Obscurity was a primitive and undeveloped auric technique. If the subject to be obscured was too fantastical and out of the ordinary, the veil wouldn’t be as effective. Two men carrying piles of tomes would break the illusion before it could even take effect.

Either I bind mental constructs or I try to read the fragments of psychic energy and cobble together a piecemeal sort of divination.

Mental constructs seem easiest, but will take the longest. Yet the reading of residual emotional mana will be fastest as will it be dangerous.

My mind’s frayed and withered like a spine that’s carried too much and herniated. The pain makes me flinch and the structural damage causes me to freeze up.

And that’s when Eiden remembered.

He was not one, but two.

He closed his eyes, plunging into the mental realm. The grey waters seemed distorted like warped glass that reflected a mockery of reality. The black of the mind seemed darker than before.

No, it was not darker. It was fading. Nothingness crept upon the edges and corners, true order claiming its due.

“Hellion.”

The waters frothed black with blood as the sanguine manticore clawed his way out from beneath the Waves of the Mind.

Hellion jumped onto Eiden like a dog without manners, pressing him down with his monstrous weight as he licked him clean to the bone.

Thank the gods this stuff is imaginary. Manticore saliva is downright vile.

Eiden tried his best to push back Hellion, yet the manticore would not relent. Its worry flooded the Thread that Bound like a monsoon.

[Are you well?] The manticore intoned through the connection. His mental voice seemed less bestial, more coherent. And unnervingly like Eiden’s, only much more sinister and deeper.

“I am fine, Hellion. Just a bit hurt from a beating done by me own soul. Nothing I haven’t survived before.”

[Aedan.] Hellion snarled in a bestial cadence, the syllables more growl than spoken word.

[That thing is not your core. It is… other. Be careful with it.]

Eiden smiled bitterly.

“Hellion.” Eiden said as he stroked the manticore’s mane. “The form which you see may not be mine, but its steel is entirely my own. Aedan is my True Name. It is my core.

“The form is just a shell given by the soul of the world. Think of it as a callus that forms from walking barefoot. Or paw.

“It just seems so different and weird because it has been scarred. It has been damaged and all that has struck me has been left atop it.”

Eiden took a few more breaths to calm down Hellion and then he rolled out from under the beast.

“Now, I’ve come to ask for your help.” Eiden explained. “Sorry for waking you twice in such a short time, by the way.”

Hellion sat down on his haunches, his head rotating in puppy-like confusion.

[Sleep is… dull. Much better to help packmate.] Hellion intoned.

The manticore’s vocabulary advancement surprised Eiden a great deal. Then again, time passed differently in the mental realm. It felt like a breath, but lasted an eternity.

Eiden patted Hellion’s head as he continued his explanation.

“I need to use some magicking, but I can’t use my mind as the medium. It’s a bit… frayed.”

Hellion nodded in a matter-a-factly way. How Eiden knew this was a mystery.

[What is mine is yours and what is yours is mine.]

“Read my mind.” Said Eiden with a grin as he scratched the manticore under the chin. “I’ll pull from the Well-In-Between that binds us in twain. It’ll drain you a good deal since you’re a remnant spirit rather than a full-bodied being.

“You’re mostly psyche as you use my aether as yours.”

Hellion seemed to understand. Most of it, at least. Well, the most pertinent parts.

Eiden willed himself to the center of his Palace Above the Waters. The depths here were the lightest with a thousand-thousand lanterns floating in the still grey sea below. The farther away from this center, the darker the mind’s surface became until it melded with the darkness.

Eiden chanted in High-Akaen, his voice commanding as a priest preaching on a Dominidas morning.

“Anatelluh, O’ Khaeros.

“Anatelluh, O’ Phreare.

“Anatelluh, O’ Aima me Aima.

“Anatelluh.”

[Rise, O’ Khaeros (Bound one).

[Rise, O’ Well.

[Rise, O’ Blood of my Blood.

[Rise.]

The water’s beneath Eiden’s hoarfrostian form frothed black with blood under a voidmoon.

Yet no Gealeach Dhubh was present, only Gheal bound in his eyes of alabaster white.

Eiden plunged his hand down into the frothing and bloody water.

His eyes darkened from the white of Alba to the scarlet of blood like ink dripped into water.

His hand turned into bestial claw, the ice tinged with dark crimson. His argent veins that spread inside his mental form were now pulsing with scarlata incarnata, the red of lightning birthed in volcanic eruptions.

Eiden opened his eyes to the world without.

His irises were now bright scarlet and his canines twice as prominent, more fangs than human teeth. Scales started to form on his body in disparate places. The keratinous growths itched like the Nine Hells.

His left hand had turned into a mixture of human and manticore. The hair had morphed into fur that covered his left arm until the elbow with dark claws erupting from his finger-tips.

Ah yes, I did not miss this.

Is there an opposite of nostalgia?

Eiden did not dally on jests, for he knew he was draining Hellion’s energy with every passing moment. Every breath he drew was one the manticore lost and would need to arduously recoup.

Eiden read the room for any psychic foci, areas of dense enough mental energy. He found three total. One infused into the marmory table. Another in the sacks of grain. The last was located in the middle of the room.

At least these were the areas coterminous to the psychic imprints as they were bound to them. The space in which they truly dwelt was spiritual—a distorted mirror of the Prime Material.

Eiden started with the table, pulling the mental mana into his Center. He cycled the essence into his mind and quickly parsed through it with Hellion as the medium.

Much was lost in the translation, but a good deal was safely stored and tucked away inside his memories now. He could delve deeper into the collected psychai later. They would last for a time.

Eiden then proceeded to absorb all the other psychic remnants and he took the most heavily imprinted book.

The journal’s weight in the mental realm was extraordinary. From his surface-divination, Eiden knew the damned thing contained all sorts of juicy secrets. Besides that, he ripped away at the fabric of the mental realm, scouring any weights nestled upon it with Hellion’s mind. The beast’s innate destructive abilities translated well to the task of obfuscation.

With the scouring done, Eiden let go of Hellion’s power. With the Thread that Bound he felt his Khaeros fall into a deep slumber. The manticore dreamt of his offspring playing in a humid, crimson jungle.

[Contentment.]

Hellion had acted as the siphon or vector for the mental essence whilst Eiden functioned as the receptacle. With his frayed mind, the stability of the harvested mana would last for only a half day.

Eiden gingerly pulled at the residual aether and ether contained in the Ethereal he had left behind. His spirit was severely weakened overall, but his Center was otherwise structurally fine. He then stored Byomir’s ashes into a leather satchel he had in his pockets. Netheric evidence, such as trace particulates, Eiden simply burned away with azure fire.

Only a royal investigation or a Grand Inquisition done by the Order of Lumenari would find anything of note. And quite little at that.

“Reylef.” Said Eiden. “We shall now leave, follow me.”

The Apprentice took the steel loop with two heavy keys that was atop the table. He unlocked the door that went to gods-knew-where.

It was well-balanced, easily opening with only a smidgen of a creak. The tunnel was dark and unlit, hewn of gritty stone.

Eiden’s eyes burned white, alighting the corridor in just enough light to not trip. The alabaster luminsence casted deep and dark shadows on any holes or crevices.

The two entered and locked the doors behind them. They left no candle lit. But otherwise the hidden room was exactly as they left it before.

The only difference was that it was two monsters less.

Or three, thought Eiden with a bit of morbid humor.

Reylef was returned to his home proper with a cover story that he had been drinking with the scarlet-haired exorcist, making amends.

It wasn’t entirely false, containing a good deal of truth. They were making amends, but less like a sinner confessed to Lumenari and more like a seamster did to cloth.

They cut and reknit.

Emphasis on the cutting part.

Eiden returned to the Inn, crawling up the side of the building in the black of night. His speed of ascent was slow to himself, but much faster than achievable for the common man. Years of acrobatics training were replaced by the Trials of Grasses and Beasts. He scaled the building much like an insect, skittering with confidence earned through birthright. Natural as breathing it was.

The Watcher Lumenari observed the spectacle with some mirth, Eiden reckoned.

A slayer of monsters, climbing back into his abode like a bairn returning from a tryst. Or a common thief.

I’ve been one of those. Wouldn’t mind being the other.

His spirit was flagged and strained, barely holding his weight. Much like a fat man that had eaten too much and couldn’t so easily pull their belly back in, leaving him with a distended and protruding gut.

Still, Eiden persevered, using his ability to forgo strain and ignore limits. Unhealthy but otherwise quite useful.

He Forged his left hand into claws that dug easily into the crevices of the building. The task was devilishly difficult given he had to also use Lightening on his atlassian bodily weight lest he rip apart the boards of wood he was currently climbing.

Executing two focal techniques at once with his broken and ripped spirit-tendons was painful. The spiritual force he exerted was ripping himself apart from the inside out, aether starting to leak into places it shouldn’t rightfully be in.

Fuck. Window’s closed. Of-fuckin’-course, it is.

Damn the vicious Fates.

Eiden projected his aura into the room, fumbling with the locking mechanism with the skin of his spirit. He heard Bela wake with the noise of the fidgeting and her loud footsteps. Well, loud to himself, as she was actually tip-toeing across the room from her bed to the window.

A few breaths later the window opened. Eiden had to duck lest the wood splinter on impact with his dense head.

“Pssht.”

Bela looked down, coming nose to nose with Eiden.

He clamped her mouth shut before she could scream and wake the whole nine-damned town.

A quick hop took him and her into the inn room with a controlled tumble. They rolled with Bela cradled in Eiden’s arms. A single palm to the floor righted their course and sprung them atop the bed.

He had already manifested a shroud, so their stop was arrested on a material as soft as clouds.

Eiden righted himself easily on reflex, his augmented body much like a spring.

“Sorry.” Eiden said as he helped her up from the bed. “Did you get hurt?”

He knew she didn’t. He didn’t smell any blood in either body or spirit, and her aura only emitted surprise and startlement not hurt nor pain.

“I’m fine, but Hells-take-me-if-you-sneak-in-here-again-like-that!” Bela yell-whispered the last of her words without space for breath or pause, stringing them out like beads hanging on a necklace.

“Again, sorry. I was out drinking with a… friend. Got late. Didnae want to come back smelling of liquor. Wouldn’ do good for me image as an exorcist, now would it?”

“If ye was out drinkin’, how in the Hells would any not know?”

“It wasn’t in an inn-“

“You’ve got a lady-friend! I knew it.”

“No, I-“

“Gods, tell me you did not just leave a town lass with child! You’ve gotta assume your responsibilities, it takes two to-“

“Oh seven-blessed heavens. It wasn’t a tryst! Nothing like that!”

“Oh.” Bela said, deflating. “Well now I’m disappointed. I wanted to be an aunt to a few scarlet-haired bairns.”

Eiden dragged a hand over his face.

“Bela, I can’t have children anyhow, so that won’t ever be happening.”

“Whaddya mean? Just because you’re on the road a lot does mean you couldn’t at least visit them. That’s just an excuse.”

“No, Bela. This isn’t about not wanting to have children. I can’t have children. I’m sterile because of the Trials. The mutations caused by the alchemy and chemicals don’t play well with procreation, so a sequence that inhibits the production of gametes needs to be introduced. Lest any developing fetus just ends up comin’ out like a chimera proper.”

“Oh…” Bela said with a bit of confusion. She understood the gist, but not the extra bits on mutagenic alchemy.

“Anyhow,” Eiden said, “I need to meditate. We can talk more come the morn.”

“Aye,” Bela said, giving Eiden a hug. “Good night.”

He ruffled her hair and planted a kiss on her forehead.

She laid down on her cot, pulling the newly-bought fur blanket to her chest. It cost a good deal, Eiden having to give her another full talent for its purchase.

A full talent plus twenty shills from before.

Five talents total, three-hundred and fifty pence! Hells below take me, that thing costs as much as a steel-wrought arming blade!

Eiden consoled himself with the fact that his sister would not suffer the cold breath of Mortus come winter. He’d sooner set the season aflame with the power of his spirit than let her shiver.

Before Eiden sat down to meditate properly, he scoured his memories for the implanted shadows of remembrance.

He saw faces of men he never met, and walked to lands and towns he’d never seen. Names flitted through his thoughts as did promises and contracts.

This’ll come in handy.

Eiden took his journal from his pile of belongings by the wall and wrote down all he could.

He put it back atop a wooden trunk to the right of his twin blades.

The Apprentice took his seat opposite Bela and closed his eyes. He needed not sleep after the Trials, at least not in the usual sense. Meditation could be done in place of true rest. The last Trial would mark his full divorcement of humanity proper.

He would not be bound by the limits of his species. He would not be bound to his body like it were a ball and chain.

Hands came together in the gesture of prayer. Not for divinity already established, but that which may one day be. Eiden’s hunger to advance was a blazing pyre, yet as endless as the abyss.

Mana coursed through his spirit as his mind went blank, his own version of rest taking hold. His eyes saw visions conjured by sleep yet his soul worked without respite.

The spirit was willing, yet the flesh needed recovery. Thankfully, the last Trial would right that wrong, that weakness.

The Trial of Pains was not aptly named. It was a superficial sort of thing as any observer would see a spasming body locked in the throes of epiletic shock.

No, the Trials like Eiden himself had hidden and True Names. Utterances of their souls, distillates of their very essence.

The Trial of the Grasses was truly the Trial of the Forgotten. One had to lose their body and most of their specialized cells and organs, returning to that which existed in the womb.

Only once they were clay could they mold their new bodies from the remnants of the past.

The Trial of the Beasts was truly the Trial of the Madness. Man had to revert and devolve from their niche and branch upon the Tree of Life. They had to become a beast proper and divorce themselves from rational thought.

Only once unthinking madness took hold could one’s spirit be conditioned as a master did to a hound. Only once one revert to the crossroads between species, could a better route forward be blazed upon the World Tree.

The Trial of the Pains was truly the Trial of the Deaths. The essence of a mage’s spiritual sea would be transfigured. There would be a balance of Black and White upon their high-spirits.

Their aether would be both blazing life-force and chilling death-gust.

When Fin returned, Eiden would breathe his last true mortal breath.

A boy-turned-man dreamt that night of a sea-side cliff. Of walking the knife’s edge, his step always at the precipice.

There was no fear. No lurching and subsequent awakening, for his instincts did not belong to man.

He was a feline, trodding with grace befitting his nature.