Scorio heaved deep breaths, trying not to vomit. “This feels…”
“Terrible. Yes.” Naomi winced in sympathy. “But I can already tell you’re the kind of Great Soul that disregards well-intentioned warnings. Best way to teach you is to allow you to hurl yourself headfirst into a wall. This is what happens when you burn through all your mana heedlessly.”
Shoulders still rising and falling, Scorio forced himself to swallow. “Can I… can I pull more mana into my Heart?”
“Of course. But it won’t feel good. Because when you drain it dry like you did, you expend some of your Heart itself. Now listen up because this is important. Your power comes from the divine combination of Heart, mana, and tension. You suffuse your Heart with mana, then spark it to life with tension. But in extreme situations, if you run out of mana, you can choose to purely burn your Heart.”
“Wait,” he said, blinking away sweat. “You let me just do that?”
“No,” she said, feigning tender care as she crouched before him and patted his cheek. “You’re still too ignorant to know how to do that on purpose. What you’re feeling is the shadow of what that would actually feel like. You slammed into your Heart’s reserves instead of actually burning them. But here’s the crux of the warning: burning your Heart gives you power at the expense of your sense of self. Tremendous power. But—and they drum this into everyone at the Academy, over and over again—that power is fueled by your nature, your personality, everything that makes you you. So what’s the moral of this story?”
“Don’t do it?” asked Scorio.
“Don’t do it,” agreed Naomi. “Though I know you will. Your drive is too reckless to turn away from ready power. Just know that you’ll burn yourself out from the inside if you choose to tap that source. Clear?”
“Clear,” said Scorio, rising to his feet. “I’m guessing I’ll develop larger reserves of power the higher up I rank?”
“As well as lasting longer if you’re burning better mana. Coal really is the worst.”
“It got me this far.” He ran his hands through his sweat-soaked hair and nearly stumbled. “Whoa.”
“You must be starving. Come on. I’ll escort you back to your place. Right now you’d have difficulty fending off a fire salamander.”
Scorio fell in beside her. “Thanks.”
They walked in silence. Scorio practiced focusing his darkvision, looking sideways and narrowing his gaze to bring different areas into sharp relief, but found no noticeable improvement over how quickly he could tease out the gray contours from the deep dark.
“You’ll be wanting a lantern yet,” said Naomi, unhooking hers from her belt and lighting it. “Darkvision only becomes a practical way to get around once you hit Tomb Spark or Flame Vault.”
“Speaking of,” said Scorio as he took the lantern gratefully from her.
To which she laughed. “Are you serious? You just ignited your Heart.”
“Which means that’s behind me. How do I make Emberling?”
“You should have stayed at the Academy,” she said, shaking her head. “They’d have loved you.”
“Didn’t have much of a choice on that front. Emberling?”
She blew out her cheeks in resignation. “You realize this is going to take you much longer than making Cinder?”
“Sure, that’s fine. All the more reason to get started now.”
She eyed him.
“Well, after I eat and sleep,” he amended sheepishly.
“Sure,” she said skeptically. “But very well. To reach Cinder you need only ignite your Heart for the first time, which means saturating it and targeting it with sufficient tension to cause it to alight. Trust me. That’s child’s play compared to what comes next.”
“You’re wonderful at boosting my confidence,” he said.
“To reach Emberling you have to increase the amount you can hold. You need to swell the capacity of your Heart till you can barely ignite it at all. This is obviously dangerous, as it will become increasingly difficult to harness your power the closer you come. Most Great Souls with normal, natural depth can do this without too much difficulty; in effect, they work hard to get to where you already began. But those like you, who are born with incredibly deep hearts to begin with, are in for a rough time. How deep you choose to make it will depend on your tolerance of ever-greater weakness. Protected in the Academy, that’s not so much of a problem. But out here? That can be a walking death sentence.”
Scorio nodded thoughtfully. “Can I just drink more Black Star tinctures?”
Again Naomi laughed in disbelief. “Poison your way to greatness? Sure. But I won’t be sitting around each time to make sure you don’t choke on your vomit, and the raw nature of the tincture will wear at the structure of your Heart. Using Coal mana already develops brute strength at the expense of finesse, but drinking tinctures? That will make you a raging beast without any self-control.”
“So not a good idea?”
“Not a good idea.”
He frowned. “Ah well. I’m sure there are other treasures out there I can use.”
“For sure. The trick will be getting your hands on them.”
“You think I can speak to your apothecary, ask him what other raw materials I can harvest out here in the ruins?”
“Sure, fine.” Naomi seemed almost resigned. “But you know that doing so will expose you, correct? The more you interact with society as an anonymous Great Soul, the more you’ll be remarked upon?”
“Hmm.” Scorio considered. “True. But it’s not like I have much choice.”
“See, that’s the thing. You do have a choice. You’re simply telling yourself you don’t.”
“Semantics. But what about this trial I’ve heard of?”
“Your first trial, yes.” Naomi looked away, her expression turning half-wistful, half-bitter. “Once you’ve deepened your Heart as far as you can take it, or are willing to take it, you’ll have to ignite it with a special sense of purpose, willing this ignition to take you over the threshold. That will take you to the Trial Room.”
“Take me? How?”
“Just as you are ‘taken’ to the Gauntlet. You’ll find yourself there.”
“I see. And everybody goes to the same chamber?”
“Right up till they make Dread Blaze, and then they’re done with it. You’ll have access to the first door. If you pass the trial within, you’ll emerge an Emberling and manifest your first true power.”
“Like you did your nightmare form.”
“Correct.”
“And the trial? What is it?”
She looked away again. “It changes for every Great Soul. Telling you more than that will hamper you.”
“So wait. Your nightmare form is…?”
“Not a literal reflection,” said Naomi, rolling her eyes. “But yes. On some level, the power you manifest captures something essential about who you are. And no, I don’t want to hear you puzzling out what my power says about me. Do that thinking on your own time.”
“Got it,” said Scorio, thoughts swirling. “I won’t say a thing. But can you tell me anything else? What was your trial like?”
“No.” A flat response. “My trial is my own business. And telling you more will only artificially influence your own trial. Believe me, you’re best served entering it without preconceptions.”
“Great,” said Scorio, resisting the urge to kick a rock as they walked on.
“You’re welcome,” said Naomi with utterly false and saccharine sweetness.
“How quickly do students at the Academy reach their first trial?” he asked. “I mean, you said they ignite their Hearts usually within the first week, so…?”
“The goal is to undertake your last Gauntlet run at the end of your first year as an Emberling. Most make it.”
Scorio stopped. “Last Gauntlet run?”
Naomi had continued walking and now stopped to look back at him. “Yes. You do two runs each year. When you first reincarnate, and at the year’s end. You’re expected to do much better the second time through.”