Chapter 5 — Resolve

“Come in,” Welkin said in response to the knock at his office’s door.

His office. He still got a chuckle at that. The room was one of the perks or annoyances of being Acting Student Towerleader, depending on how one looked at it.

“Welkin,” Hulle greeted, dropping a packet of paperwork on his desk before easing into the seat opposite.

“The bracket assignments went well?” Welkin could guess as much from his strategist’s relaxed, almost smug expression.

“We have received approval for our request to compete in Dartha Province’s regional tournament.”

The top report from the delivered packet was their tournament brackets for the Grand Games, as expected. Welkin gave a cursory paging through the included summaries and analysis of their expected opponents. Inevitable surprises notwithstanding, the match-ups were favorable enough to give them a viable path to the top 4 if they survived the preliminaries and the first and second-years continued to outperform expectations.

Even with the excellent result obtained—or rather because of it and Hulle’s good mood—a pit of dread still tightened his throat at the thought of what favors had been promised to give them this chance. His icy-cruel friend delighted in being the bearer of bad news as often as good, after all.

“It’s good that we could get our first choice. With the Fire Lakes not far from where Dartha’s tournament will be held, this will make acquiring materials for Rialle’s new competition robe easier, and Rialle can show us around her home province. Did we have to offer anything in exchange?”

“Not a thing.”

That was definitely Hulle’s smug face.

Welkin raised an eyebrow. “Just getting our desired matchups for the preliminaries shouldn’t be enough to get you this pleased.”

“Indeed,” Hulle chuckled. Chuckled! The boy even let the hint of a sinister grin of minor triumph slip onto his face. “As you are aware, Ria’s situation has complicated the process and the logistics requirements.”

Ah, something related to the talented Revanti girl Hulle was sponsoring then. Both Wendra and Orlisi thought rather highly of the girl’s potential. With recent incidents demonstrating the depths of her backing…

“I am aware, yes.” Coordinating the student side of the changes to the tower’s security situation had required his participation as the tower’s student representative. Having two Gryphon Knights stationed in the tower was just the tip of what had been arranged at the High Council’s directing.

The Novidus boy adjusted his spectacles for effect. “Thanks to that, we were able to get the High Council to cover the costs for our use of the teleportation array.”

Even having anticipated something outrageous, Welkin was stunned. The funds for teleporting the team to a regional capital city where they would have easier matchups for the Grand Games qualifying tournament was a major expense—one that most small Orders tried to avoid, going as far as owing favors to swap for a Vesali City qualifying tournament slot.

If not for the expansion of this year’s crystal fruit cultivation, the expense would have taken up almost their entire budget. Freeing up that much in funds would make a huge difference in what they could do for training and equipment.

That meant he had work to get started on.

After what felt like an hour spent circulating the light-aspected energy to improve her attunement and control, Ria decided to take a break and reevaluate her approach.

There was another reason for doing the light-aspected meditation after gaining shadow insights than just preventing her attunements from progressing too far out of balance. From her recent reading on meditation, working on opposition elements in sequence was supposed to provide additional chances for insights to both. Frustratingly, the progress furthering her light attunement was lackluster and little different from the usual—maybe even worse than usual. She knew failing to achieve more significant gains would waste the opportunity. Even so, her heart really wasn’t in it.

Giving up, Ria laid back on the grass and idly let her gaze take in the divide of starlit night and Anasari-blessed day imitated by the ceiling above. The faint elven music of the garden’s statues and trees waxed and waned with the changes in the wind blowing in from the repurposed elevator shaft, occasionally teasing with hints of meaning.

Maybe focusing on the element wasn’t enough? Plunging the depths of her negative feelings had led to the insights into shadow. Maybe to achieve a similar result, she really did need to mirror the process by exploring the truths of light she could find from her positive feelings and experiences?

Reluctantly, Ria summoned the sealed box containing the Soaring Above The Clouds, Greeting The Sun incense sticks to a raised hand and stared at it as if she could peer into the experience contained inside... before returning the box to her vault. No, there was no way she could subject herself to that right now. In no way was she in a state of mind amenable to incense-induced feelings of joy and reliving her happiest moments.

In a way, this reluctance wasn’t that different from when she first started using the soul-strengthening method to face her fears and regrets. As with then and starting by working through her embarrassments and insecurities, she would have to approach her positive emotions with baby steps—maybe she could start with something that went well, or at least, better than expected recently? She could probably handle that.

Ria could think of one ‘something’ right away—a good that had come of her first day’s return to classes: no one had treated her as a freak or ‘creature’.

Her bloodline ingrained in her a pride of what she was, and she had embraced that during her debut, but with the new changes… it had still been a worry. Other than elves, Ria hadn’t seen any obvious demi-humans in Revant or Crysellia. She knew people like that existed, people in other lands from races with bestial traits, and intellectually, she understood that the Vesali’s gemstone-like hair was a demi-human trait. Different-colored hair just didn’t have the same impact as her new horns, fangs, claws, and void-filled eyes.

Could it be that others viewed her differences the same way? Her black veined fangs aside, her filed-down black fingernails could easily be thought of as fashionable nail paint, and maybe, with as small as her horns were, the other students thought they were hair ornaments? Maybe the changes were still minor enough not to draw a strong reaction?

Whatever the reason, it hadn’t stopped some of her classmates from treating her as more of a celebrity than before.

Ria sighed. Worries about how her changes would be viewed had been a cloud of anxiety hanging over her since she woke up in Healers Hall, whether she wanted to admit it or not.

She was getting off topic though. As for how that could pertain to light, maybe dwelling on anxiety and guilt made it harder to express light? Hid one’s light in emotional shadows?

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It seemed a reach, but if she thought about Keira, her naturally light-attuned best friend was almost always cheerful, honest, and straight-forward. The noble girl expressed her anxiety in a different way from Ria’s brooding or forced cheer. Even when Keira seemed insecure, there was always a directness that shone outward, unhidden.

Hmm.

While those were certainly properties natural to light, Ria still felt dissatisfied at their shallowness. None of the observations were on par with her insights into the void of absence and the suffocating darkness that was the abyss of guilt.

What property did light have that was comparable?

She summoned the holocube of Lady Averlee and a spirit token with Kiera’s energy stored inside. Activating the holocube, she let her senses take in the properties contained in each.

Though much the same, there were both subtle and not-so-subtle differences in the qualities of the light energy. Ria liked the feel of Lady Averlee’s light. It felt right and was filled with the weight of the master mage’s justice in a way that resonated with Ria’s own seed. Keira often made use of Lady Averlee’s magic, but the weight in Keira’s light didn’t resonate with Ria’s seed—expressing more of a desire and duty to… protect? Yes, that was the sense of it.

Ah. She recognized the nature of that difference: the sword and the shield. A concept that Jarrel had explained early into her weapons training when crossing the wilds.

Interesting and worth future meditation but not the direction she needed at the moment. Unfortunately, the difference wasn’t which property existed in contrast or opposition to shadow. Rather, attacking and protecting were shared with shadow. Like light, shadow was flexible in its uses, whether using barriers to protect or void to destroy. Similarly, the physicality that Keira and her grandmother could add to light was a property that could also be added to shadow. Neither was exclusive.

Ria felt certain ‘void’ was a property which light just didn’t have. Conversely, surely, there was something, some property which light had that shadow didn’t.

What was the opposite of void? Existence? Pressure? Substance?

None of those felt correct nor were they native properties of light. Maybe she was still going about this wrong? Maybe she needed to approach it from what void was not instead of an opposite which light could exemplify?

She couldn’t think of anything new. Void seemed limitless in its expression with its ability to absorb or destroy anything. Destroy… was creation its opposite? But creating light was just light, right?

Her thoughts drifted to her light-aspected healing scroll and to the rose formed of light Keira had made for the talent competition. The created terrains at the Grand Arena, too. Could shadow also be used to create? Her orichalcum-flavored crystal magic suggested it could.

Though she often used her energy to manifest the elements, she didn’t know enough about creation magic to even begin to understand its truths and limits. This was again an important and potentially promising subject she would need to study further—a critical weakness in her current magical knowledge that needed addressing even—but she was feeling more certain that it too was not the answer she was seeking.

Ria returned her thoughts to the qualities of the void of absence. She had already spent hours exploring it, but comparing the concept’s properties to light wasn’t something she had done. Could light really offer no counter? How could light or anything else return what could never be returned? Was the void of absence by definition absolute and unchangeable? An all powerful oblivion that was the inevitable end point of all things as the followers of Ohgren believed?

The loss of Ellen was too recent to draw such conclusions, but this wasn’t the first time Ria had felt the void of absence or the loss of a friend. Was the void of absence she felt from Shadewood’s demise, the loss of her parents, and Jeni being sacrificed still as gaping a wound in her soul? Was it as raw as it had been in the days and weeks and months immediately afterward?

She desperately wanted to say that it was. Thanks to weeks of reliving the pain of those days while practicing the soul-strengthening technique, she knew it wasn’t. Thinking of the loss of her home, the milestones of her life that she could no longer share with her mom and dad, and all of the other things that had been taken from her on that day still brought a bitter anger, but… the joy-swallowing emptiness was less than before. She could admit that now. The distance, physical, temporal, and emotional, had become enough that she could now look back on the time spent together and… and accept that the time shared was precious.

Was that an important observation? There was a saying that ‘time heals’, but to say the change was because of time or because she had found replacements in Jarrel and his family, Keira and hers, and Vorshan's Hills, that seemed cruel to the memory of those she lost.

It was true she didn’t think of Jeni as often now—mostly because she had thrown herself into other passions and new experiences. In many ways, Keira’s friendship had gradually filled in the void left in Ria’s heart from losing Jeni-

Wait.

Filled. Just as new friendships and new family could fill the void left by loss, so could light fill the void!

And it was no coincidence that Keira was that light for her. People strong in light-attunement were like beacons! Beacons that proudly radiate their truth for all to see, filling their surroundings with their truth.

No, not just light. Radiance.

Void’s opposite was radiance!

And, it wasn’t that the void stopped absorbing the light; it was a matter of balance! Light by its nature had to continually be produced to exist. It was continually produced and absorbed, and either light or shadow could be overcome when creation and absorption were imbalanced.

The realization set her mind ablaze with possibilities.

The late afternoon was casting long shadows into the meditation garden, and Ria felt curiosity grab her as she quickly pushed herself up enough to observe how the radiating light from the garden’s glowing flowers and the nearby light-attuned sculpture affected the shadows. The interplay of elements seemed to confirm her speculation and added an interesting further observation: distance from the source of light affected the balance. She tried to make the same observation for shadow, but the relationship with distance and shadow seemed more complex, since shadow seemed to naturally exist independent of a source.

The joy and triumph of discovery reminding her why she loved the pursuit of magic so much, Ria welcomed losing herself to the meditation and exploring her newly gained insights, drawing in the light energy and truths from the small section of the garden to resume the attunement exercise with a vigor that far exceeded her earlier effort. By the time she was satisfied at having done enough, day had rapidly turned to evening.

Increasingly gnawing insistence and audible groaning from Ria’s stomach asserted that energy cultivation alone wasn’t enough for her physical body to survive off—at least not yet. With a vocalized groan of her own and careful flexing of stiff limbs, Ria climbed to her feet and mentally nudged Ranger to let him know she had finished.

The light murmur of conversation and outbursts of laughter gently greeted Ria from the lounge part of the ‘student lounge’ now that she was no longer focused on her meditation. It seemed that without Ria filling the lounge with her angst, the trickle of students showing up to buy from the self-service store or hang out with friends had gradually resumed until the space had regained its usual after-class occupancy.

Ria easily spotted Knight Arella, who had stationed herself at one of the smaller tables after swapping out with Rigonni some hours earlier, and motioned for her knight to stay seated while moving to join her. She amicably returned the greetings received from other Sages met the previous evening as she approached but declined their invitations.

“Sorry I took so long,” Ria offered while claiming the seat opposite her Gryphon Knight, and using the tower’s communication magic, she ordered dinner for both of them and Ranger from the tower’s chef.

“Not a problem for me.” Arella shrugged. “Feeling better?”

Ria nodded. Even with her soul reservoir full to the brim with everything that had made her feel pain or anger at herself, the gods, and others and other dark emotions that she wasn’t proud of, she did feel better. Not good, but better. Settled. “Does it get easier? Losing people you know?”

Did she want it to get easier?

“I honestly couldn’t tell you, Celestria. I have yet to lose someone important to me,” Arella admitted, her expression becoming gentle and more than a bit sad. “The older knights do talk of it sometimes. Members in our Order often face magic beasts and rogue mages deemed too dangerous for the City Guard to safely handle, so there are occasional incidents bad enough or unlucky enough where we do lose members. Some of the Gryphon Knights who have been around a while do get a haunted look to them when the subject comes up.

“When I asked my flight trainer a similar question, he told me: ‘When the deaths become nothing but numbers on reports and it stops bothering you, that’s when you know it’s time to put your sword and lance away and retire.’ It seemed eye-rolling to me at the time, and it’s probably just as eye-rolling to you, but maybe it helps?”

The trainer’s advice affirmed Ria’s growing certainty that maybe she didn’t want the pain of loss to get easier. Would she want to be the kind of queen that could send her friends or her people or her family to die and not care? That was the entire reason she hated her great grandfather.

Ria wryly smiled at the young knight’s candor and nodded. “It does. Thanks.”

They found cheerier subjects to talk about as they ate. Ria was curious about what both knights did during their off time since they too were stuck here in the academy with her for the foreseeable future.