By slow degrees, the intensity of her assault lessened. She hopped from shadow to shadow less, and finally they simply stood before each other, her tail whipping around again and again as she punched and raked at this chest and face.
Scorio’s arms felt like logs. He blocked, blocked again, and then grinned when he realized what had happened. They’d both fallen into the striking combination she’d taught him back in Bastion. The familiar pattern that they’d worked on for weeks, ramping up the speed and intensity as she’d sought to push him past his edge and help him find his power.
Now it worked in the opposite way. It was a path home. A means to de-escalate.
The Nightmare Lady was heaving for breath, her prominent ribcage rising and falling as she slashed at him with less and less power, until at last she staggered forward, arms dropping, to collapse against him, her alien visage pressing against his broad shoulder, her body slender compared to his scaled mass. They stood thus, steam rising from them both, and Scorio wrapped his throbbing arms around her.
“I can’t do it,” she whispered, almost inaudible. “I can’t split the mana stream.”
“You can.” He was quickly catching his breath once more. “If anyone can, it’s you.”
“I don’t know how.” She turned her head from side to side. “It’s… it’s like trying to light a candle and keep it dark at the same time.”
“You’re trying to brute force a technique I was only able to understand after entering Nox’s jelly bath.” He gently pushed back and held her at arm’s length. They’d both shifted down to their human forms once more, and her black hair was disheveled, great lengths of it hanging before her face. “I didn’t understand it either till I performed his actual technique.”
And it was true. Right up until the last second of entering Nox’s pool, Scorio had been at a loss as to what Nox had been trying to convey. It was only by experiencing the Delightful Secret Marinating technique that he’d finally understood. “What we need to do is find Nox. Maybe he can help.”
Naomi’s expression was heartbreakingly vulnerable. “But where is he? Would he even help?”
Scorio grinned. “We’re his favorite friends, remember? I’m sure he would.”
“But how would we find him?”
“I don’t know.” Scorio scowled and looked off into the darkness. “He tracked me down once. Said we were clutchmates. Maybe… maybe I can do the same.”
Naomi shivered and hugged herself. “You’ll be more fiend than Great Soul if you can start sensing Imperial Ghost Toads at a distance.”
“That doesn’t sound like a bad thing.”
“No,” agreed Naomi, her face lighting up with a smile. “Given what we’ve seen of Great Souls so far? I’d agree.”
They walked back to the fire as Druanna tossed another chunk of fossilized iron mana onto it. “Feeling better?”
“Yes.” Naomi returned to her spot. “Depleted to the point of exhaustion, but fine.”
“I’ll say it again.” Druanna leaned back as the new chunk of iron ore lit up and shed warmth over them all. “You’re getting ahead of yourself. Ambition is a fine thing, but not if it leads you to waste your time. Flame Vaults don’t have the sophistication to manipulate mana like Pyre Ladies. You should be focusing on advancing to Dread Blaze.”
Naomi’s expression turned sullen.
Druanna laughed. “I sound like all the old Great Souls who would lecture me when I was young. And I must have worn that exact same expression when they did. But it’s true. There’s a reason Flame Vaults become Dread Blazes before they ascend to Pyre Ladies. If all it took was ambition and desire, don’t you think every Flame Vault would do it?”
“It’s possible.”
“Assuredly.” Druanna’s tone remained good-natured. “If, like Scorio, you have the luxury of being suspended for two years in the Crucible while protected by a unique Great Soul power that insulates you from being destroyed. If, like Scorio, your life is on the line, and you have a previous experience with an even rarer fiendish technique.”
“It also makes sparring with him an extremely unsatisfying experience,” muttered Naomi. “He was shrugging off direct blows. Infuriating.”
“Not shrugging off,” said Scorio, rubbing at his forearms. They were mottled with deep red marks. “My ribs are killing me. You weren’t holding back.”
“I didn’t have to hold back.” She glared at him. “Your Gold-tempered body is ridiculous.”
“She’s correct,” said Druanna. “I’m Bronze-tempered myself, and was inordinately proud of it until I met you. Gold-tempered. I’m tempted to hit you with one of my blades to see how well you stop the blow.”
“No thanks.” Scorio had seen how hard the Pyre Lady could strike with one of her black glass swords. “I don’t fancy trying to regrow a limb.”
“Then I advise you both focus on reaching Dread Blaze. That’s accomplishment enough.”
Scorio inhaled deeply and then blew out his cheeks. “Control over the intensity of our mana burn.”
“Up to this point, you’ve just ignited and poured all your mana into your powers. Like pouring a bucket of oil onto a bonfire. You’ve given no thought to the rate of mana expenditure, just fueled your need instinctively. Now you must learn to control the speed at which your mana burns. Dread Blazes must be able to limit their ignition to the slightest of smolders, allowing their Hearts to burn for what feels like forever, or light up all their mana at once for a brief and terrible outpouring of might.”
Scorio frowned. “But Pyre Lords can just draw from ambient mana to replenish what they burn. What’s the point in controlling the rate when you can just draw more?”
Naomi threw a pebble at him. “Idiot. Have you forgotten everything I taught you? There are places with little to no ambient mana. Mana can be expended swiftly if enough Great Souls drain the area. Or advanced ranks can control the mana directly, shaping a void around you.”
“Truly advanced Great Souls can tear the mana right from your Heart,” said Druanna, “but you’ve got the right of it. Too often you’ll find yourself with nothing but what you’ve squirreled away in your reservoir. Controlling how you burn it might make all the difference.”
“Alright.” Scorio settled himself comfortably and closed his eyes. “So I just reduce my burn to near guttering?”
“Easier said than done,” said Druanna dryly. “Though, actually, with your Delightful Secret Marinating technique, you’ve got an unfair advantage. Most Flame Vaults have to endlessly ignite and gutter as they experiment. You can just siphon mana directly from your environment, allowing you to modulate your burn without ever guttering.”
“Unfair,” said Naomi.
“Agreed,” said Druanna, then frowned and looked off into the darkness.
Scorio sat upright and extended his senses. At first he detected nothing, but then he felt it: the Iron mana was starting to flow more rapidly past them, almost imperceptibly at first, put picking up speed.
“What is it?” asked Noami, then twisted about to look in the same direction. The Iron Weald had proven to be an endless series of broad, dark canyons, all of which extended radially like the spokes of a wheel from the core of the Rascor Plains toward the distant Telurian Band.
The Weald had proven intimidatingly alien. Where the Farmlands had felt right in a way that he couldn’t explain, the closest he could come to relating to the Iron Weald was to compare it to the rotted section of Bastion where the stone had gone bad and all life been extinguished.
This layer of hell was nothing but vast, endless canyons. Canyons that extended as far as the eye could see toward the misty southern horizon. Canyons whose vertical cliff faces were topped by sharp spikes hundreds of yards tall. Cliff faces whose gently undulating sides looked sculpted from the eroded remnants of cathedrals, with hints of archways, horizontal seams, and great vertical windows all layered over with petrified cobwebs.