“This guy called Old Memek. Wizened musician, plays an oud? Hangs out in Ward 7?”
For a moment Naomi just stared at him, unsure if he was joking, but when his grin widened, she reached around, snatched up a chunk of wax, and threw it at him.
Her aim was good. The wax bounced off his head even as he flung up an arm to block it.
“So this is what we’re going to do,” she said, adjusting her robes and drawing herself up with stiff dignity. “You’re going save the bulk of your Gauntlet runs for when your friends can join you. It’s safer. But!” She raised her voice as he went to protest. “It doesn’t mean you won’t get a chance to die repeatedly in between. We’ll go together every two or three days, and you’ll get two to three runs while I stand guard. That’s enough to keep you at your edge, though I’ll be monitoring you, making sure you’re still not pressing too hard.”
“Only two or three times?”
“In the meantime, you’ll continue your regular training. Because there’s more to becoming a powerful Great Soul than just dying repeatedly. You’ll resume your runs, your morning meditation, and in the afternoons, we’ll train and spar.”
“All right.” Then he remembered his brief exchange with Leonis and smiled. “Actually, I can use the time to do some hunting. Fiends have Heartstones, right? I can start harvesting them, then maybe go to the alchemist and see if he won’t give me octs in exchange. Think he will? I mean, I’d love to get some basic amenities… sleeping on a blanket is starting to get old. And an actual weapon wouldn’t go amiss.”
“As long as you’re not an idiot about it and go after apex predators,” she said, expression dour. “Yes. Fine. I mean, I can’t stop you. Just… restrict your hunting to the borderlands. And if you get hurt, it’s on your own head.”
“Sounds great,” he said with a grin.
“But you shouldn’t be thinking on swords—depending on such items is a trap that will slow your progress. Have you been practicing the First Form like I told you?”
For a moment he couldn’t remember what she was referring to, then he felt his face flush. “Ah, well—”
“I thought as much.” She began walking slowly toward him, fixing him with her glare, and Scorio found himself shrinking back on his stool. “You will resume training as I mandated. You will focus as much on manipulating your mana and saturating your Heart as you will dying. You will hone your focus. You will do the hard, boring work, and not focus on the easy task of dying or hunting fiends.”
“Easy?” he managed a brittle laugh. “You think going through the Gauntlet is easy?”
She stopped right before him, and never had the Nightmare Lady ridden so close beneath her skin. Raising a hand, she poked a finger into his chest, just as Leonis had, ages and ages ago. “Yes. Dying is easy. Nihilism is easy. Throwing yourself off the top of a tower can be far, far easier than resisting the urge and forcing yourself to wait for another dawn.”
The air trembled with the intensity of her words, and Scorio stared at her, transfixed.
“I know the urge, you see,” she said, voice dropping to a near whisper. “The urge to throw yourself into oblivion. To call it strength. To call it bravery. To see refuge in the dark. And after a year of sleeping in this chamber, I can now see it for what it is.”
Scorio flinched but forced himself not to lean back any further.
“So you will train as I dictate. And every two or three days, we will go to the old Academy, and you can die to your heart’s content. Am I clear?”
“Yes,” he managed to say. “Perfectly.”
She pursed her lips as she glowered at him for a moment longer, then stepped away. Moving up to her sideboard, she hesitated, then picked up her knife. Looked back at him over her shoulder and frowned. “So. Another slice of bread?”
Chapter 36
Scorio trained. Each day once again fell into a steady rhythm, but now he saw definite signs of progress. The deep shocks to his Heart that he’d suffered in the Gauntlet seemed to have galvanized his growth; rising to his feet with a saturated Heart and walking across the room came ever easier to him. Once he’d managed to cross back and forth four times, Naomi escalated the difficulty.
“A simple obstacle course,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Nothing onerous. Nothing a child couldn’t navigate.”
Which meant blocks he had to weave between, a boulder he had to carefully scramble over, and finally a pole laid at chest height beneath which he had to bend.
Even walking slowly this proved almost more than he could manage, the mana sloshing within his Heart dangerously, threatening to spill over.
But Scorio persevered.
Naomi would leave him to work on increasing his saturation point, drinking ever deeper of the Coal mana in his room till he could clear the entire chamber, at which point he moved to denser spots close by.
Repeatedly, he’d manifest his will and sweep the cloying black energy into his Heart, pulling it in till he was filled to bursting. Each time the faintest of flames would cover his body, nearly translucent in the light of the sun-wire, burning down the length of his arms and manifesting around his fists. Each time he thought he was able to draw in a little more, and each time it took him longer to ignite.
“Think of it in terms of a log,” Naomi told him one morning after he’d complained about failing to ignite for near ten seconds. “What happens if you place a twig in a fire?”
“It burns up fast,” he’d said.
“And if you try to light a log directly? Hold a burning twig to its side?”
“Nothing,” he said. “That much wood needs to lie in a bed of coals or amongst other burning logs to burn.”
“Precisely. The deeper your Heart becomes, the more mana you can store within it, the more like a large log it will feel. Like I told you. You’ll know you’ve reached the very edge of Cinder when you can barely ignite it at all. But once you do, you’ll find that it lasts for much longer.”
“You’d said that would be dangerous, but I can really appreciate that now,” said Scorio, kicking at a loose rock. “What if I’m set upon while crossing the ruins?”
Her smile had been all saccharine sweetness. “Then, my darling boy, you’d best run your heels off while you try to make that log burn.”
So he sat and meditated, drinking Coal mana down with ever greater inhalations, seeking the point of saturation, that moment when soft gray flames burned all over his flesh. And then he’d strive to ignite, straining, bending his will to the task, till at last his Heart lit up and he knew he had more to go.
Afternoons, as promised, were spent training. His instincts were good, his body strong, and he picked up her lessons without much need for repetition.
“Your memory is gone, but you had martial training before your current age,” she said at one point, stepping back and lowering her hands.
He’d wiped the sweat from his brow. “You think?”
“Absolutely. You’re not learning to fight. You’re remembering. Most Great Souls have violent backgrounds, and many of them trained at fighting before the age they imprinted upon the Archspire. You clearly did. Your form is clean, your execution crisp, and you don’t need reminding. You’re progressing… I don’t know, ten times faster than a normal trainee? You’re fortunate.”
“Doesn’t feel that way,” said Scorio. “I can’t seem to land a blow.”
“I’m an Emberling,” she said. “I’d be humiliated if you could.”
He’d laughed. “Now I’ve got motivation. Watch out!”
And he’d glided forward, leading with a feint and following up with a brutal front kick that he powered right from the hips.
Naomi had only laughed and slipped aside effortlessly.
Sparring and technique training gave way by the end of Second Bronze to working on the First Form. Naomi would stand to one side, eyes narrowed, watching as he slipped from one position to another, offering her commentary, guiding him, correcting him.