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She was… shaken.

The poor girl was sitting with her back against the statue, staring into dead space. Her eyes weren’t hollow with trauma. It was just the look of helplessness that seemed to befit all manner of creatures except Mira Hill and her tiny feline companion.

"I told you it’d be hard," he said.

Mira turned to him blankly.

"But it’s not impossible… The trick’s—"

"I know," she said.

"You know?"

"I know…" She sighed. "Just as you can collect a ball of remnants, you can break a soul into a million loose remnants. The trick’s to collect a soul or remnants, insert it, and then obliterate it, allowing the remnants to fill the space before binding it together… right?"

Kyro’s eyes widened. "Your Guide tell you that?"

"No need. Just kinda figured it out."

"So what’s the problem?"

"What’s the problem?" Mira laughed and pulled her knees in. Kline huffed and jumped out of her lap, allowing her to hug her knees. "It’s just the concept… The thought of breaking a soul into a million pieces… separating its memories and emotions and blueprint… It’s disturbing. I mean… It’s cool. But…" She hugged her knees. "I mean… I’m not sure why, but I keep thinking about my brother. His name’s Tyler. He’s an idiot, but he’s a good egg and I love his guts and…" Her eyes welled with tears. "I keep thinking, wouldn’t it be cool if I could just… remove the trauma he got when his ex died in a lead climbing accident? I mean, the kid’s never been the same. Sure, he’s normal… but he hasn’t had a girlfriend since. And if he doesn’t… God, I sound like my fucking mother."

Kyro swallowed hard and kept silent. Mira had discovered the horrors of soulmancy far faster than he imagined, and he couldn’t refute it, so he just unscrewed his flask and held back, waiting for her to speak.

"But yeah," she said. "It’d be pretty fucking cool, right? But…" She paused, struggling for words. "It’s not so much that deleting something bad’s the problem. I’d bet your mother’s children that people would be better off if they could delete certain memories. But… It’s the good memories. You know? The thought that someone could just… erase his love for video games and pizza. Just edit it away to make him… whatever they want…" Her eyes welled with tears, and she looked up aggressively. "’Cause that’s what I do! That was my fucking job. I took… plants and made them practical. Tomatoes can’t survive in the cold? Fine. Let’s just splice it with the genes from a flounder… a fucking flounder… a fucking fish—and make it so that it can survive the voyage. And I mean, it’s… incredible, Kyro. Incredible. I’m not sure how many people’re on this planet, but mine supported billions because bread didn’t mold every three days and tomatoes didn’t rot after four. I mean, it’s awesome but… the thought you’d do that to people… people. People… people love and care about. You. Me. Tyler. My family… it’s so fucked up and…"

Kyro wasn’t one for emotion, but he balled his fists because he knew what was coming.

"The thought that someone can just… edit in feelings and thoughts and memories…" Mira laughed. "No wonder there’s groups devoted to killing soulmancers. This shit… is fucked up, Kyro. Fucked. Up. Fuck."

Mira let her head crash into the stone podium she was leaning against. She winced and held her head but just leaned back after—and finally broke. Tears burst from her eyes, and she sobbed and held her wrists, and when Kline pawed at her, she shooed him away aggressively and sobbed harder.

Kyro believed that he understood the depth of emotions a being could experience, but the truth was he had long since forgotten the impact of raw emotion after living so long. People come and go, children come into the world and die, wars kill, and civilizations fall. It had all become so numbing, but when he heard her sob, he remembered what it was like to come to that conclusion—the uncertainty and doubt and ethical dillemas. It really hit him, too, so he could empathize.

So he just sat in silence until her haunting sobs overtook the sounds of souls crying in the fog. Then he waited longer until she calmed down and hit the turning point where hot emotions flipped to numb depression and finally spoke.

"Soulmancy’s a tool… just like a sword."

Mira looked up. "Like a sword? You’re really going to say that this… is a sword?"

He nodded a few times. "Yes."

"Well that’s… fucking delusional."

"Is it?" Kyro asked. "I’ve seen fires burn down forests… burn bodies… kill creatures. And I’ve also seen it cook food." His voice turned low and sad, and perhaps, only for that reason, Mira didn’t snap and scream and instead chose to listen. "Same’s true with… swords. I’ve seen ’em kill people, protect people… save people… kill food. I’ve also seen ’em used to betray folks and murder people and… fuck, all sorts of messed up shit. But…" He thought about it and then looked up. "You wanna hear something strange?"

Mira turned away and huffed and took a breath but still said, "Sure."

"Zyphrael. The dick head with a hard-on for Nethralis. I hate the guy. I think that he’s over-devoted, zealous, inflexible, rude, and altogether a nightmare. But… he’s strong for his Ring… really strong… actually… but the guy’s never unsheathed that sword on his own people."

Mira’s eyes widened.

"In fact, I don’t think he’s ever killed a single Drokai. He’s fought, sure… we always fight. But he’s always used the bare minimum…" Kyro thought about it and developed a forced smile. "Maybe that’s what I hate about the prick. He’s so damn self-righteous that he lets the executioner cast the final blow. But… for better or worse, the guy’s never lifted a sword… or lethal magic… to a fellow Drokai. And… I mean… the guy can, right? He can bisect an asshole and drag his torso to the man’s wife… but he doesn’t. He can turn a person to a pile of charred bones… but he doesn’t… Fucker. Sometimes I wish we were all equal, that people were equally cold and destructive and awful so I wouldn’t feel bad about things I did eighty millenia ago… but fuck." He finally gave in and drank from his flask, and laid back. "There’s those people, right? They prove that magic’s a tool, swords are a tool, soulmancy… is a tool."

Glistening rain dropped onto Mira’s pants, and she gripped her stomach.

"And for what it’s worth… I ain’t never… never added something to someone’s soul…" He paused. "I’ve deleted shit… I don’t… regret it and trust me, Mira. You won’t either… but I’ve never added anything. Not in tens of millennia. Shit… what are you twenty? Twenty-five? Fuck. I’ve faced death a hundred miles more than the years you’ve been alive. You’re a baby… I’ve lived it all… experienced shit you can’t fathom… but I’ve never… ever… ever added something to someone’s soul."

Mira smiled wryly and looked at him with these insane eyes. "But Brindle has, right?"

"Oh, yeah." Kyro developed this insane grin and laughed his brains out. "You don’t even under~stand… just how fucked up soulmancy can get, yeah? Yeah?" He nodded at her. "Okay? And the thing about Brindle is…" He paused. "He doesn’t see the world like we do. And I mean… to be fair… if you hadn’t noticed…" He presented his hand to the dimming fog filled with tortured souls and said, "It’s fucking miserable being a remnant. And trauma’s terrible, and enemies need to be killed and disposed of by any means. So while he’s inhumane… or however that translates… he’s… not wrong. If someone wants to forget, he’ll help ’em forget. If he needs an enemy to disclose something, he’ll implant things into their mind to get what he needs. He’s just like us, but… he’s a druid. He’s not a human or Drokai or whatever. He’s a fucking plant with a brain. If he didn’t love Yakana and… me… I’d think he was heartless but look… I’m fucking this up but just listen."

Mira nodded and swallowed and balled her fist, eyes welled with hope.

"You’re not Brindle, Mira. You’re whatever the fuck you want to be. And if you don’t want to learn how to edit souls, that’s on you. It’s not a soulmancy thing—it’s a you thing. But for this… this type of thing… I mean… look… don’t even know what you’re doing. Just… just wait until you start up on the plant monster. Once you get to the third tutorial… work with a real soul… you’ll realize that Brindle… isn’t so bad. There’s… just wait. But don’t give up. Not yet. Just… give it a shot."

Mira stared at him like a helpless kitten and then looked away. "Okay," she said.

And she meant it.

She turned back to the runes and stared at them. An hour later, she started looking around in dead space, something that she had hidden well for a long time, but he knew—she could talk to her Guide.

Kyro didn’t like that.

But at the same time… fuck the people who hated it. He took a drink and scoffed and laughed at their bitterness. It’s not like they were helping Mira survive.

And why not? That was the real question. This was Brindle’s student—their hope—and people were petty as fuck toward her. She was unknowingly sitting in the Fifth Ring, staring at a series of statues that could kill her, doing the best she could all because Thorvel couldn’t see past his rage. And while Kyro planned to kill Thorvel and the rest of the wyverns as his final act, he wouldn’t be able to because he was currently dying—because of the same exact pettiness that inspired such a desperate plan.

Fuck Thorvel and the forest. Fuck everyone.

Kyro leaned back, feeling tired again and musing over the irony. He supposed it was because everyone was bitter Brindle didn’t help them during the last conquer—but they were fucking stupid to expect he would. Brindle never helped the Drokai or dryads or forest elves or giants or leshens. He just did what he wanted, and that just so happened to help the entire forest. If he was growing something and harvesters burned it down or picked it, he would set up traps to slaughter anyone who tried. That’s who he was. Hell, he created the Bramble because it was the one place in the Grand Barrier that allowed people in, and people got the fancy idea to just burn down the whole area to create settlements. It was practical.

Brindle Grask was a druid.

He didn’t think like Drokai or wyverns or even dryads, and he definitely didn’t choose to socialize. The only way that Kyro or Emael or anyone talked to Brindle was if they followed him around. Hell, he left Yakana behind hundreds of times, but the human always managed to track him down. It was a miracle that Brindle found a way to keep in contact after he left.

And despite that!

Kyro picked up a rock and threw it into the mist. He was furious. Brindle did more for the forest than anyone. Anyone! Hell, the Drokai existed because Brindle sent Kyro to train them and build them up again. And while Kyro didn’t feel worthy of praise for it, Brindle sure as fuck did.

Mira suddenly stood and put her hands on the ball. It pulled soul remnants directly from the mist in a vortex, creating a ball that she squished in wonder. She compressed it with her hands, and her nose scrunched in, and she dug her foot in the dirt and let a grunt and sat down, whispering:

"Is it cool to mix and match?" she asked to her invisible friend. "I could really use a compression spell right now. And that’s part of the Soul Manipulation skill, right? Huh? Yeah there is, but… it’s the same spell. I think you’re supposed to figure out how to improve the compression spell on your own. Huh? Fuck off with that. If I wanted to ’figure it out on my own’ I’d kick your ass to the curb… Okay, I’d try to… Know what, fuck you. God, you’re unbearable… Fuck him, too. Just… okay."

Then she sat down for a full hour, and when she got up, she summoned souls without the help of the ball and compressed them down to the size of a rock with a wide grin on her face.

This’s crazy to watch, Kyro thought sleepily, but he kept focused because he was fascinated. The next moment, she put the soul directly into the stick and closed her eyes. And on her first try, the souls broke apart and filled up the stick without a soul shock explosion. The ball lit up, and the next statue lit up, enticing her to move on.

But she didn’t.

She turned to Kyro without the slightest smirk and asked, "Is it okay to learn the spell on the second without the Bramble opening?"

He nodded. "It’s cool."

"What is it?"

He smiled strangely. "It’s actually got nothing to do with stretching souls. You were supposed to learn that from the first on. No… that one’s about collecting real souls and keeping them together."

"Then what does that have to do with a blank statue?"

"’Cause if you just do what you just did, it’ll be impossible for all the pieces to attach back together. That’s what the shape is—it makes it difficult for the remnants to rearrange themselves. It’s also too big for a soul and… you’ll see."

"Huh…"

Mira walked to the next statue and sat down. Kyro wanted to watch, but he was getting really sleepy, and even the thought of alcohol sounded bad. So he leaned back and groaned and thought. She’ll be able to do it, I’m sure. He fell asleep.

2.

I sat in front of the second statue with an overconfident expression, first opening my Guide. I still hadn’t examined my levels, but I got something huge after completing the trial—a landslide of new legacy skills.

Soul Sight (Second Tier)

Soul Channel Visualization (First Tier)

Soul Stretching (First Tier)

Soul Stitching (First Tier)

Soul Gathering (Second Tier)

And so the list went. There were skills, big and small, tutorials that reinforced what I had only learned—others that gave me new skills entirely.

I smiled in satisfaction, thinking how simple it would be to complete the next assignment.

I was wrong. I had no clue just how difficult and deceptive the second trial would be.