You cannot control the bison of burden as they cross your land, but you can prevent them from making your soul their pasture.
– Bal Proverb
Aslavain: Seventeen Days After the Summer Solstice
Hadrian moved through the chamber like a man in a trance, the fog Sylva had summoned hanging thick in the air, tinted red by the torchlight. He didn’t fully understand why Casselia had him light multiple torches with the flames of frustration that Lotem had trained with, but he was glad for it.
The torchlight filled the fog, reminding Hadrian of home. Cutra was shrouded in dense mist that dripped endlessly from the trees, flowing westward toward the distant sea—Brood territory. Every village in the Foglands was bathed in the light of Luminaries flame, a constant presence in their lives.
Luminaries flames kept most threats away from the village; few creatures dared to enter the part of the forest touched by that subtle menace. Those that did were revealed by the magic of the flames, easy targets for the [Hunters] and [Guards]. Without that protection, Cutra wouldn’t have survived.
The light in the chamber spoke of frustration, a constant stream of grievances he couldn’t ignore. Hadrian had learned a trick with Luminaries flame—a secret that took him years to master. He couldn’t stop the emotions the flame stirred, but he could change how he responded. If it filled him with frustration, he countered with hope, enough to cut through the negativity.
Controlling his emotions in the face of Luminaries fire was like fighting. The flames pushed him to act, urging him to submit to their will, but he riposted, countering with emotions that defused their effect. It was a dance—attack and defense, emotional strikes followed by emotional parries.
As he moved through the kata, he let the frustration fill him, refusing to balance it out. He reveled in the sudden surge of anger and uncertainty. The anxious pit in his stomach tightened, clenching his jaw with it.
Eventually, he shifted his thoughts back to hope, letting the frustration fade and the knot in his stomach ease. He moved through the kata without thinking, his vision obscured by the blood-red fog swirling with his every motion as he danced with his twin knives.
Hadrian focused on the Fogflare Moth, his supposed affinity and the foundation of his combat art. He hadn’t studied the creatures much growing up—the trees where the moths were raised lay outside the village, in areas too dangerous for him to visit alone. But his Pa had taken him once, showing him dozens of newly emerged moths clinging to the hollowed tree.
Each moth had wings speckled with shades of gray fog, and six amber eyes that seemed to watch him from their perches. When one moth flew through a stream of mist that had drifted into the hollow, the eyes glowed, lighting the fog in an amber hue. It had been breathtaking.
His Pa had explained how each cocoon would be harvested, the single silk strand treated to retain its magical properties. Each strand stretched hundreds of feet and, as long as it wasn’t cut, would resist fire and illuminate any water it touched—whether fog in the air or liquid in a cup.
Hours passed as Hadrian moved in a constant whirl, the kata, fog, and Luminaries flame all pulling him back to memories of home. And home reminded him of his purpose. He would grow strong enough to build a new shrine—he believed it, Rovan Khal believed it, even Casselia and Alsarana believed it. He wouldn’t let them down.
Casselia entered the chamber, and Hadrian paused. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been alone, or if he wanted to leave and face the possibility of letting his team down. Casselia closed the door behind her, sealing the thick fog inside.
“Has it been three days?” he asked, uncertain.
“No, just over a day. I’ve come to observe. Continue.”
So he did. Hadrian moved through one kata, then a second, then a third. Casselia watched in silence. When he paused to rest his muscles, Casselia nodded and told him to sit. She gestured, and suddenly his eyes were closed, head drooping. Then, he awoke, unsure how long he had been asleep. In the silence that followed his awakening, the voice of the Sulphen echoed in his mind.
[Skill Obtained: Bound Item – Fog Robe]
[Bound Item Upgraded: Everflowing Fog Robe]
Hadrian blinked, still disoriented, his body stiff from the fog’s repetitive embrace. The chamber pulsed with a subtle energy, the fog swirling in deliberate, almost expectant movements. The voice of the Sulphen echoed in his mind, reverberating with an uncanny weight.
He sensed the robe against his skin, swaying gently in the fog-laden air. Instinctively, he knew it was more than it had been before. He didn’t just feel it—he could interact with it. His brows furrowed as he focused, pushing his senses toward this newfound connection. The light resistance yielded, and suddenly, the silk released a surge of fog, cascading out to fill the chamber.
“You received a new skill, it seems,” Casselia remarked, her voice muffled by the thickening fog. When Hadrian recounted the Sulphen’s message, she let out a tinkling laugh, oddly cheerful in the blood-red mist.
“Is the skill good?” he asked, still unsure of what separated one skill from another.
“With few exceptions, bound items cannot be stolen or taken from you while you live. That alone is invaluable with something as rare as a Fog Robe. At the very least, it spares us from worrying about thieves, which was about to become a major problem. I’m not surprised the robe was upgraded; that’s half the value of Fog Silk—it absorbs meaning faster in the Sulphen’s eyes than nearly anything else. The Imperial Archives even compare it to dragon bone.” She shook her head. “It’s a wonder your village could afford the stuff.”
“Now,” she added, “you’ll need to practice controlling the new ‘everflowing’ feature. Once you master it, Sylva won’t need to make fog for you anymore.”
The air buzzed with a newfound energy, and for a fleeting moment, Hadrian felt like he could touch the very essence of the mist. A slow grin spread across Hadrian’s face; it was time to see just how far the fog would obey.
“You need to understand what fire is if you want to keep countering Seraphis’ abilities,” Krinka said, his words making Sylva wince. She had always hated fire, instinctively fearing its hungry, licking flames—though she hadn’t had much experience with it until Seraphis began to burn her.
“Fire is a force of transformation,” he continued. “It transmutes base matter into ash and smoke, releasing the energy within. In a forge, it purifies metals, separating the valuable from the useless, and it consumes the old to make way for the new. Fire is the greatest catalyst for change. In the Province of the Sun, fire is even more than that—it is holy. To Seraphis and the Sunborn, the Radiant Flame is the ideal form of fire.”
Krinka saw her hesitate and gave her a gentle smile. She understood logically why he was teaching her this—understanding fire would allow her to influence it. That was the essence of sympathetic magic: knowing an element well enough to convince the Sulphen to manifest or change it. And yet… she hated the idea of working with fire at all.
She cursed her fate for forcing her into this part of the empire. Technically, Dornogor and Tir Na Nog belonged to the Province of Justice, overseen by Ylfenhold, the City of the Veil. Yet, only a few dozen miles to the north, where the grasslands gave way to flowering marsh, lay the border of the Province of the Sun.
Sylva’s studies had taught her about the Sunborn who ruled Sabahar, the City of the Sun, in the most abstract way. Silkborn rarely entered that province, and when they did, it was with reluctance. She had also learned about the Penitent, a predominantly human faction that worshipped the Radiant Flame with a fervor that left burn marks crisscrossing their bodies—a grotesque parody of beauty. At least the Sunborn didn’t scar themselves.
“Seraphis will summon flames to consume you, as the Sunborn do,” Krinka said with an apologetic shrug. “You need to understand the essence of the flames well enough for your incantation to be persuasive. You need to know what the fire wants.”
“It wants change?” she asked hesitantly.
“Exactly!” Krinka beamed. “Flame wants to grow more than anything. If I fed a corner of parchment to it, the fire would consume that first, then spread. It yearns to expand. So, how can you harness that desire?”
“If the flame wants to consume something, I need to convince it that whatever it is isn’t me or my companions?” Though it wasn’t exactly a question, it sounded like one.
“If the flame can’t burn you or your companions, then how else could we harness its energy? If the heat must be released, where could it go?”
“Could I direct it toward Drakar or Morvan?” she asked, suddenly hopeful. She had assumed that interfering with Seraphis’ magic would be more complex than that.
“Technically, yes. Practically, no,” Krinka said, shaking his head. “Fire can consume flesh, but it has a low affinity for it. Now, if one of them were Silkborn, that would be different—fire is far more eager to consume silk than flesh.”
“What about metal?” she asked, her thoughts drifting to Morvan’s heavyset armor.
“Ah ha!” Krinka exclaimed. “A much better idea. Metal has a natural affinity for flame—it is purified, softened, and shaped in the heat of the forge. Metal is an ally to fire. And Seraphis,” he added with a wry smile, “has made that association even easier for you to exploit.”
“Why?” Sylva asked, curiosity piqued.
“She works in the Forge of Tir Na Nog, where her flames are accustomed to heating and shaping metal.”
“The Forge?” The Eidolons had mentioned it when they first arrived, but she hadn’t given it much thought. Her lessons on Tir Na Nog had been lacking—the Elders hadn’t expected anyone from the Sect to venture here, let alone fight in its trial. What use was rage for the Silkborn?
“Tir Na Nog produces weapons and armor—it’s the city’s main industry. The quality isn’t on par with the forges in the Khanate; no forge on the continent can match them. But the blades crafted in Tir Na Nog’s flames carry an emotional impact that the Khanate’s lack. The Legions favor weapons and armor that resonate with the user’s rage, helping newer candidates overcome their fear.”
“Regardless,” Krinka continued, “Seraphis spends all her time in the Forge when she’s not selected for these trials, stoking the flames and pouring her rage into their creation.”
“And that’s an association I can use?” Sylva asked. “How?”
Lotem dodged the skeletal figure’s punch. The necromantic construct wasn’t at all what he had expected. He had imagined a skeleton formed from a complete set of matching bones, but Alsarana had shattered that assumption.
The skeleton was a patchwork of mismatched bones. Most were small enough to belong to a goblin, too small to pose a threat if assembled normally. Instead, Alsarana had fused them together, melding the bones into larger, grotesquely intricate shapes that barely resembled their original forms. Four goblin femurs had been combined into a single, crude femur for the skeleton’s right leg, while the left one seemed to come from a large human or even a Numen, its smooth, unblemished surface only emphasizing the grotesque mockery of its counterpart.
The rest of the skeleton followed the same grotesque pattern. Some ribs were fused from pairs of bones, while others were intact remnants from a larger species—perhaps orcs, though Lotem wasn’t familiar enough to tell. Yet, despite its mismatched structure, the skeleton moved with a grace that defied his expectations.
Lotem was certain Alsarana controlled the construct from his coiled position in the corner, though the naga remained mostly silent as Lotem dodged and countered the skeleton’s strikes.
Lotem applied the movements Hadrian had taught him, keeping his stance firm and his feet planted as he twisted, channeling energy from his hips into each blow. When he managed to land a hit, his strikes sent the skeleton’s bones flying apart, clattering against the chamber walls in a cacophony that made Sabel flinch on his shoulder before they reassembled.
Sabel’s claws gripped the bison fur on his shoulder as Lotem ducked and dodged. At first, she had resisted the position, trying to hop down whenever his movements grew erratic. But after hours of him reassuring her through their bond that his shoulder was the safest place, she eventually seemed to understand. Once it was clear that Lotem and Sabel had settled into a routine, Alsarana uncoiled and took a keen interest in them.
“That should be sufficient training to satisfy Casselia,” Alsarana said, a gleam in his eyes that made Lotem wary. He wasn’t sure if his discomfort around the naga was his own or a side effect of his bond with Sabel, but it felt real enough in the moment. “Now, it’s time you learned your class’s true role in the team.”
Lotem stood patiently, certain that the naga would soon make his point.
“A [Guardian] must, well, guard. Your job isn’t to kill the enemy—that’s Hadrian’s role. Nor is it to outthink them—that’s Sylva’s. No, your job, my half-Numen friend, is to keep your companions safe enough to do theirs.”
Lotem already understood that, of course—so why was the naga bothering to mention it?
“For most [Guardians], that’s simple enough. You take the blows so your companions don’t have to. But I doubt you have the spine for that kind of work.”
A familiar burn of indignation flared in Lotem’s chest. Who was Alsarana to say he couldn’t protect those around him? Of course he was brave enough. What made the naga think otherwise?
“There it is—the anger that was missing. Maybe you do have a spine for this.” Alsarana flicked his tongue, tasting the air as if sensing something. “I wonder, though, how high can you stoke that anger? How much rage can your body hold? If wrath is your armor, how much can you muster? Enough to withstand a blow from my skeleton? From Morvan? From Drakar?”
Lotem wasn’t sure. He had never tried to make himself angrier—not on purpose, at least. The shamans of the Zherenkhan had spent years helping him process his anger after his brother’s death, guiding him through the quagmire of emotions that had consumed him for months following the imperial message. He had tangled his guilt, sadness, and hopelessness into his anger until it became a knot too complex to unravel. Now, Alsarana was asking him to abandon the effort entirely.
“You see,” Alsarana continued, as Lotem stood silently across the chamber, the blood-red light reflecting his simmering frustration. “I don’t see true anger in you—I see other emotions struggling to escape. I see fear, guilt, uncertainty. But anger? You seem afraid of it.”
“And what if I am?” Lotem said quietly. Hadrian and Sylva insisted that anger wasn’t something to be feared, but how could they understand? They hadn’t faced the red haze that clouded his mind, the sudden, burning urge to make someone else suffer for everything wrong in his life. Was anger really something he wanted to embrace?
“Then you need to change,” Alsarana said. “You already have two skills tied to anger—one that brings the emotion easily, and another to keep you alive in the throes of a grudge.” Alsarana paused, meeting Lotem’s gaze. “Do you intend to fight the Tul?”
“You know I do,” Lotem replied, his voice steady.
“Then accept and wield the powers the Sulphen has given you. Do you think every skill is easy? Do you think being a [Harbinger] is a walk in the park?” Alsarana hissed. “I have skills that make people fear me, that let me sense the chance to bring ruin upon everything I touch. I could destroy entire cities if I lost control. You’ll have the same potential—so why shy away?”
“And what, then?” Lotem said, frustration thick in his voice. “Am I supposed to walk around consumed by fury, collecting anger skills until I turn into a berserker who can’t tell friend from foe?”
“Once again, your misconceptions are plain to see,” Alsarana replied calmly. “Anger isn’t about losing control or breaking things for the sake of destruction. It’s passion imposed upon the world. If your anger controls you, then you’re simply not strong enough.”
“What do you recommend, then?” Lotem asked, Alsarana’s rebuke dousing the anger that had been building.
“My skeleton will keep punching you until you’re angry enough to withstand the strikes,” Alsarana grinned, his twin fangs gleaming as the skeleton rolled its shoulders, the bones grinding in their sockets. “And if you can’t summon enough anger on your own, well, I have plenty of stories about the Tul that I’m sure will help.”