30. Desire, Repetition, Time

Even as his heart pounded in his chest and his mind whirled to remember the plan for this eventuality, Tercius stood silent and stoic. Here is the moment to perform, so you better have your wits pulled together. You have planned for this, so play along with the established guidelines.

“Answer me.”

“By Ascension, you mean this?” he said slowly, tapping his chest and trying to buy himself some time to recollect and pull himself together internally.

“That I do.”

“Well… I never ate my own kind,” Tercius said firmly, his voice and stony face unreadable.

The Speaker’s cloudy eyes observed him for a few tense moments and then she nodded, lines of her face filling up with evident relief. “Good. I’m glad to hear that. Then…”

Even as his cautious heart hammered in his chest, Tercius crossed his arms over his chest, deliberately frowning. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I do consort with the magi of the Pyramid— if you count me joining their Academy over a year ago as consorting. What of it?”

“What of it, he asks…” The Speaker mumbled below her breath, raising a hand to her temple. “Did your grandmother not teach you anything? Did she not speak out against it?”

Tercius nodded. “She… may have said some words on the matter,”

“And did you not stop to listen to your elders?”

“Well… if I were to listen to what my elders said, then I should stop talking to you right about now,”

The Speaker frowned but remained silent.

Tercius weighed his next words and decided that he had to drive the point a little further. “Compared to what I heard about you all, the magi seemed far more… saint-like.”

By the small grimace that was gone before it fully formed, he saw that he had struck a chord.

What he said was the truth, but not for the implied reason. His grandmother never spoke of magi to him, not even once as far as he could recall. Also, now that he thought about it, his grandmother was the only one in his family who never once tried to keep him from leaving home, once he told them that he wanted to join the Pyramid and learn how to do magic.

Strange. He should have some words with Rona about that.

“But… what my grandmother has against you or the magi is her own business, just as what you have against the magi is your own business,” Tercius walked forward and sat on the ground near the ancient-looking woman. As he made himself comfortable on the grass, he looked out at the rising sun. “And while my grandmother’s… distaste, let’s say, for someone will undoubtedly influence me– as it should– it will never decide in my name. Only I can choose for myself with whom I associate, and I rarely, if ever, base that decision on unverified words — even when they come from those I hold in high esteem. Actions, Honored Speaker, speak louder than words.  Actions witnessed personally, even more so.”

The Speaker turned to him, her cloudy eyes searching for something on his face. She finally nodded, only to turn her eyes sunward. “You can certainly be direct with your answers when you want to be. Certainly far more better spoken than young men your age usually are. Much more… certain in yourself,”

“Hmm…” Tercius hummed noncommittally.

“Actions, you say…” The Speaker took a deep breath and sighed deeply. “I am sorry about what happened to your father. The way my brothers and sisters acted is… inexcusable.”

“Hmm,”

“I will see to it that everyone involved be punished appropriately,”

“Hmm…”

As a silence started to grow between the two of them, Tercius found himself hoping that he came across as convincing enough.

Developing an image of a neutral third party between the two sides was, in his opinion, one of the best options he had thought of. Nothing else that had come to his mind ensured the possibility of conversation in case his ties with the Pyramid became evident, as they did.

“Repeat what you said to me to no one, even if they ask,” The Speaker finally said. “It is imperative that you obey me on this, you hear me?”

“Why?”

The Speaker took a deep breath. “Much like I, some of them suspect you of using the means I asked about. But unlike me, most of them think that it is your blood that carries the power to Ascend so young.”

“My blood?”

“Your lineage— our lineage—” she said, waving an aged hand back and forth between them, “is an old one. And in our most ancient records, those whose blood had the power to be in tune with our Divines, who could draw directly on their power and who would Ascend quite early in life, some of them would do so even before the ceremony of adulthood was complete. Some of my brothers and sisters think that you might have this gift…”

“But you do not think that?”

“While you might be in possession of some other gifts, I have perused the genealogy charts of our people for longer than you have been alive. Despite the best efforts of our ancestors, lineages with young Ascended are no longer with us.”

Despite himself, Tercius smiled a thin line.

The Speaker studied him with milky-green eyes. “Is that amusing to you?”

“Oh, no, I don’t mean it that way,” Tercius hastily corrected himself. “Just when you say that you studied my genealogy, do you mean that you looked at only my grandmother, your niece?”

The Speaker nodded slowly. "Of course, I speak of Portia. Our blood has always triumphed, our green eyes passed on from mother to child, a line unbroken since the first Divine Dawn,"

Tercius’ newest sibling and her warm brown eyes came to mind as the Speaker said that. The green eyes did not win every single time, did they? What did that mean? What did all of this Divine lineage mean? He would have to spend some time and review this entire conversation…

“I see…” Tercius murmured.

“Now, let’s get you back to your family. We will speak again tomorrow. Remember, if anyone asks anything, keep quiet and steer them my way.”

*** *** ***

After Tercius was led and left where the “ascending” clergy was housed, he made his way to his father and grandmother. Both had greeted him with worry and pain on their faces, only for the frowns and grimaces to completely fade once they saw him.

The first order of business was helping Rona cope with the pain.

The pain-numbing potions brewed by Mistress Kalina— specifically made without any spells, just in case anyone at the monastery knew how to check for the difference— would be ideal, but since his grandmother was already on the highly addictive herbs, that option was out for now. To have Rona use the potions, she would have to first wean herself off of the herbs completely, and to do so he had to reduce their use gradually and over three to four weeks. Complete and sudden withdrawal from these herbs was, in Mistress Prime’era’s words, “often fatal”.

Multiple, hour-long doses of sharing the space of {Distant Mind} helped decrease the dosage, but Tercius did not dare overdo it, no matter how much every single painful grimace and scream unsettled him.

In the following afternoon spent at Rona's bedside, Tercius found himself increasingly thinking about safe ways to help her, searching for something that ideally did not depend on him beyond creation and which would still help Rona solve this as soon as possible. His initial ideas were dangerous or outright self-destructive, but he found himself with little resistance to such notions when he placed them into perspective for whom he was doing it.

For example, he knew that he could help Rona develop her Well faster with simple injections of neutral energia, and not being able to use that simple and harmless solution hurt far more than he thought it would. If he was not in the monastery, he could try to figure out how the magi taught the students the art of harnessing the magia from the bodies for the first time. If he was not in the monastery…

Many of his solutions required him away from peeking senses of mortals and spirits, and not only for his own benefit. Rona and Septimus could and likely would be pulled along for it. But how could he know if he was spied on if he could not use his {Magia Sight} and {Energia Sight}?

No, he would have to first find a solution to—

A flute woke Tercius from his musings and demanded of he to find the source. Andria sat on one of the beds near the man who was ascending alongside his grandmother, her fingers playing along the length of the wooden instrument. It was a slow composition, conjuring images of a lazy summer wind drifting over a blue river.

Tercius’ eyes narrowed as he grimaced. He had thought that he had caught everything so far, but now he knew he ought to do a more thorough investigation.

Tercius leaned over to Septimus and asked in a whisper, “She’s using a Skill?”

Septimus nodded, his eyes closed and his head swaying slightly.

“Dangerous?”

Septimus opened his eyes and looked at him. “If I allow it, the music takes my mind away to better times and places. While it plays, I… Look, your grandmother and I have been here for half a year, Tercius. That man over there has been here months longer than us… The music… it lifts us to a better place, if only for a little while…”

Tercius observed the recipients of the music displacement therapy, fighting the urge to close his own eyes and think of better times. Like Septimus said, even as they slept from the meal they just had, both Rona and the other man seemed… calmer than just moments before. They looked at ease, even.

Tercius glanced toward Andria. The young woman was sweating heavily, but she played on.

Looking at the instrument she was playing, an idea formed…

*** *** ***

Exchanging a single general healing potion for an old oud was easier than he thought it would be. A single mention of the trade to the Speaker during the conversation they had the following day and she herself pocketed the potion, only for a young priestess— who had a set of familiar green eyes upon her curious face— to deliver the oud to Tercius once he returned to his father and grandmother that same morning.

Cutting himself out of the equation might have been an ideal to seek out, but the real world was practical. And in this practical world, Skills were the cornerstones of entire civilizations.

Skills were, in his humble opinion, his specialty. More specifically, the creation and growth of Skills had been the focus of Tercius’ observation and experimentation. Finding ways to destroy them was one of the main projects that featured prominently in several future plans. His most recent one {Spirit Pact} was likely chaotic so soon after it was formed, but he had options to deal with that.

Tercius sat on the bed next to Rona’s and started plucking the strings with no seeming order.

Seeing his grandmother’s face come alive with a full smile was reward enough for bringing the instrument, but asking her to teach him and correct him, if only to occupy her mind, was another step in his idea.

His grandmother had taught him the basics of playing the oud years ago and his Mentor recently made him refresh his memory and improve and improvise upon the basics. He was fine with it even before his Mentor taught him, but Rona was fond of saying that there was no heart in his play, and that all the sounds would be hollow until he found that heart.

Of course there was no mysterious “heart” in it. He started to learn to play the oud just because it became available, because had gotten Rona’s offer to teach him, and mostly because he had been bored. Now, Tercius didn’t bother himself if he would or wouldn’t find it. The instrument was here as a source of distraction for his grandmother and only a useful tool for him.

Not having a nonchalantly usable way to tell when he was being spied on, Tercius had no choice but to think that every moment of every day here was spent under someone’s surveillance.

He had to remedy that in some way that did not involve glowing eyes.

Clear desire was needed, a lot of repetition, and even more time. He would help the Skill along after a point, but he could only do that if he could set up a bse for it.

Even as he played with the strings absentmindedly and Rona kept correcting him, Tercius kept imagining the inner workings of a new Skill. With each plucked string, Tercius visualized a special magia wave being emitted omnidirectionally from his hands and fingers. He deliberately kept away from reaching for {Magia Manipulation} or {Energia Manipulation}. No, this Skill would have to develop itself the old-fashioned way.

This wave of highly elusive magia that he would eject despised interaction of any kind with "foreign" magia sources and so it rebounded itself off of it with terrifying ease, but upon rebound, it lost a tiny fragment of itself. When it returned and came into contact with his skin, it was easily absorbed. From there, he would have to hone his sense of magical touch and judge where and how far the rebounded sources of magia were.

Desire, repetition, and time.

*********************************

AN: A heads up: the next chapter will likely be in a week. 

Explanation for the two weeks of absence: My new job on average takes me nearly two hours of travel every working day (a good hour is wasted at a nearby border crossing in a car under the hot sun and while sometimes we cross in 10 mins, other times we got stuck for nearly two), to go there and then come back, and I work an additional hour on top of the normal eight for the first month, to acclimate faster before the summer tourist season starts. The schedule has been like that for the past two weeks and most days when I come back home, I'm wiped. I only want to get to the bed and sleep. That kind of wiped. That said, I feel that I am getting the hang of things as a new normal is starting to be established.

Be well, 

Humas