Chapter 7: Adequate.

Ash was already gone when I woke.

Light found me past the unshuttered windows. I rose slowly, and my body felt rested. It felt strong -my mana did not. More of this world’s thin supply had filtered into my core overnight, and now my mana core was leaking like a damaged vessel. There were ways to fix that, ones I had never needed to use. My stomach growled.

My armor wasn’t there -the Darkness Binding was gone. Something sharp rose in my chest. Who would dare-

The door swung open. “You’re up, dear? Ash said you might sleep in late. Come now, you must be starving.” Martha said, peering in through the door.

“Where is my armor?” I demanded.

“Oh, that old thing. I set it aside for a wash. Starting to smell, it was.” She gestured to a corner. “Left you something else. That fancy thing ain’t going nowhere.”

She wasn’t lying, I could tell in her face now. The Darkness Binding had never needed cleaning before, but it was less than it had been. I stifled the emotion that came. “What payment do you require for this service?”

“None at all, dear.” Then she chuckled and turned away. “Come now. You must be starving.”

My stomach answered before I could. Even I had no choice but to follow, after I got dressed.

It was a simple dress -brown and faded. Next to it, there was a pair of worn leather shoes. This was what the woman expected me to wear? I held the dress up. It was too short by a hand’s width, at least. The fabric was coarse under my fingers. I put it on or rather, I attempted to.

The neckline caught on my left horn. I worked the fabric over it with both hands, more carefully than I was accustomed to. The right horn caught next because of course it did. By the time the dress fell past my shoulders, my hands were shaking. They were not shaking from effort -from something smaller than that.

The ‘dress’ hung wrong on me. It was too wide at the waist, too tight across the shoulders, and much, much too tight across the chest. I caught my reflection in the window glass and did not look long.

The stew was waiting at the table. I sat at its head, as was proper. The first bowl was gone before Martha had finished settling into her own chair. I did not ask for the second. she simply refilled it. I ate four bowls and each tasted less extraordinary than the first, but each was still among the finest things I had ever tasted.

“Dear,” Martha said gently. “That’s your fourth.”

I did not respond. The woman hovered, and she touched my shoulder when she passed behind my chair, and she refilled my water without being asked. I did not know what to do with any of it.

“Where is Ash?”

“Oh, your friend’s out helping around. She sees something that needs fixing and throws herself at it.” Martha shook her head, smiling. “Somewhere close, I’d wager.”

Friend?

All I had to do was join the small crowd that had formed in one corner of the village. I found the Hero.

Ash was dressed in a similar rag to myself, hers more pink in color. As I watched, she brought down a small axe over a circular piece of wood lying on a tree trunk. The axe cut through the wood cleanly, splitting it into two equal halves. Ash was splitting logs, using one strike to split each. The pile beside her was already taller than the child handing her the next piece.

The crowd whispered. I caught fragments of conversation:

‘…doesn’t even see her mark…’

‘…must be a Sigil at least.’

I filed those words away. Then I filed away the way Ash smiled at the child, as though splitting wood for strangers was something worth smiling about. Ash rose and wiped sweat from her brow. She scanned the crowd and seemed to hunch in on herself as she did. Then, her eyes met mine.

“You’re awake.” She waved.

I moved through the crowd. “Do tell me this isn’t what I believe it is.”

“Huh?” She looked at me, then down at the log. “Oh, I’m just helping out a bit.” Then her head tilted. I got the impression she was scanning my dress. It was no more shabby than her own.

“You should try it.” Ash held out a second axe from where it rested against the trunk. “The work goes faster with two.”

“You think I would use these hands to split wood?” I turned and walked past the crowd, to the edge of the village.

There was a patch of grass near the wall where I could see most of Hamel and where nobody seemed to go. Perfect.

There were things these hands were made for. I intended to prove they still could. I did not trust those meager walls, especially not against the kinds of beasts I had encountered in the forest. I sat down on a patch of grass and crossed my legs. It was undignified to do this on anything less than a proper dais, but I doubted I would find one of those in these savage lands.

I closed my eyes and reached outward with my mana. A thousand invisible fingers, touching the world all at once.

The mana here was thin, as thin as it had been in the forest, but thinness was not absence. It could be compressed and refined. I had techniques for this -twenty breathing methods. Every single such ability the System had, some so rare only a handful of people had ever found them. Well, before I had found them and forced out the knowledge, at any rate.

If the Hero could make fire without her skills, why couldn’t I do this? Other races had fancy names for what I was doing. Some called it cultivation. Some called it purification. Some called it cycling. It depended on what their System told them.

Some fools thought themselves poets. Zarvok had said it was clashing darkness against itself, till from its clash sprang blessed light.

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I had not minded that eccentricity of his.

I began with the simplest method and drew the ambient mana in through my skin, even as I tried to compress it against itself within my core. The mana refused to take shape. It did not work.

“Excuse me…miss?”

My concentration shattered, and I opened my eyes. A man stood a few paces away -he was young, holding a rake. He had the look of someone who had drawn the shortest straw. “We’re clearing the north path. Could use another pair of-“

“No.”

He blinked. “Right. Sorry to-“

“Leave.”

He left, and I closed my eyes again. The mana I had gathered had already dispersed, not that my attempt had been working. I started over.

The second technique was harsher. It churned the mana instead of compressing it. This technique didn’t take -the mana swirled and then went still. The third technique -threading- did not work either. I tried the fourth, layering, and had no more luck with that than I had with anything else.

I opened my eyes and drove my fist into the ground. The earth gave way easily, and my knuckles did not hurt. At least that much still worked. I closed my eyes again.

A while later, there was laughter -shrill and getting closer.

I opened my eyes to find three children chasing each other past me. The one in front ran on tiny, wobbling platforms of silver light that formed beneath his feet and vanished behind him. The one behind sprayed a thin trickle of water from his palm. Those marks on their arms glowed again.

Children, using power I could not access.

The third child stopped and stared at me. She had dirty black hair and a runny nose. “Why are you sitting like that?” she asked. “All alone? Are you ok?”

“I am doing something beyond your comprehension, child.” I said, keeping my tone as neutral as I could manage.

She considered this. “You look angry.”

“Leave.”

The girl ran off after the others, and I watched her go. Then I watched the silver platforms wink out, one by one, as the first child rounded a corner. Even children could use this power, while I sat here and failed.