Chapter 2-46

“So, why aren’t you healing yourself already?” Sati was putting on a bored, dismissive air, which I’d learned that she used to hide anxiety or nerves of any kind. It was a reflexive facade she’d developed to prevent her rivals from knowing when she cared about something, so I was oddly flattered, rather than annoyed.

“Reforging my entire spirit is an intense undertaking,” I explained again. “The best possible results come when the largest possible amount of will is brought to bear, both without and within.”

“I know that!” The apsara snapped the words out, and I could hear the tension, and some genuine fear in her voice. “I just don’t see why you need us to bully you. Isn’t the domain supposed to make your control perfect? Can’t you just forge as much anima as you want, as strong as you want?”

“That’s a good question.” I smiled at her, and she scoffed, turning away to hide her gratified look. “Unfortunately it doesn’t work well like that, I tried.” My mouth twisted in annoyance at the memory. “I was able to make the clarity, size, and shape of the anima perfectly. But the strength, the density of the anima is still limited by my own will. Without someone to oppose me. My anima would only ever be half as strong as it could be.”

“Myta can handle that then! You know what…! You know that you can trust her.”

Sati’s real source of worry crystallized for me in a single aborted sentence, and I felt a wave of shame hit me.

“Yes I know what is liable to happen. And I’m sorry that I didn’t consider how uncomfortable a position it might put you in, I’m sorry, little flower. You don’t need to do it, I will make do.”

“That’s not… not what I meant, exactly.” The apsara’s voice was conflicted. “You were so angry last time. I just don’t want to upset you again.”

“I was upset, because you influenced me in a way that I didn’t understand. That you did it without my knowledge or permission.” I sighed. “I cannot absolutely guarantee that I won’t be distressed, emotions can be fickle things, but I am asking with full knowledge this time, and I certainly won’t hold you responsible if I lose control because of something I asked you to do.” I looked at Myta with a raised brow, and she nodded in assent to my silent question.

“I understand if you still don’t want to do this,” I continued. “But Myta will be there to take the brunt of my desires if it’s needed. Again, you can say no, and I’ll give you some space to think about it.”

“It’s fine.”

I had turned to leave the tent already, when Sati’s quiet words brought me up short.

“Are you sure you don’t want to take a day to think about it?” I searched her face, and as much of her emotions as I could read, for hints of ****. I could tell that she was nervous, yes, but it was leavened by hints of excitement.

“I’m sure.” Her words were firmer this time, and I thought I detected an undercurrent of hope? I realized then how deeply she must have associated her compulsion of lust with broken relationships. Her father had hammered that point home, though it had been a side effect of trying to distance her from the unawakened. If I could still trust her after succumbing to her power, perhaps she saw it as a sign that others could as well.

“We’ll start with my heart,” I said, and then continued quickly when I felt Sati about to object again. “I know working on the heart node first is dangerous, but that is where the damage radiated from. If this doesn’t work it won’t matter if the failure is at my heart or my root. But if it does work, beginning with my heart will better stabilize me.

“Just remember, both of you, if something goes wrong you might still have a chance. I’m not certain it will work, but if you can redirect your bonds to one another…”

“No, master.” Myta’s reply was soft, but it brooked no argument. “You will focus on success, there is no other option.”

I couldn’t tell if she was refusing to acknowledge any possibility of my failure herself, or she just didn’t want me to dwell on the possibility. Either way I nodded my acceptance. If I failed, I would be dead, and they would need to fend for themselves if they could. It brought a sense of simple clarity. I needed to succeed. If I didn’t, then anything else would be beyond my control.

I looked at my two vas with clear eyes, taking in their very different, but precious forms. I’d felt more alive, more connected to the world over these past few months, than I had for decades previous. Myta was responsible for that, and Sati had continued the trend. I was tired of being alone, living in fear, and strangling my dreams. Living was about much more than survival. I wanted, needed, to pursue my own joy.

That joy was in healing the broken, raising up those that life had cast down, and defying the petty hatreds that defined so much of our lives. I wanted to stop defining myself by what I was against, and instead live for my new family.

I smiled at my lovers, and whatever was in my eyes caused Sati to burst into tears. Myta just smiled back at me, stepping into my embrace, and pulling the apsara with her.

“Well, if we’re all in agreement after all, then there’s no reason to delay.” My own eyes were suspiciously clouded, but my resolve was stronger than it had ever been. “We have only a week left until reaching Clan Ket territory, and the area you worked out with Siobhan is right on the border?”

I waited for Myta’s nod before continuing “We could be encountering the enemy within a week, and that’s assuming that they don’t attack us before we locate them. That’s a day per node, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle even that pace. I expect the pain to be intense.”

My vas both nodded, though I could tell that Myta wasn’t that concerned. They had both responded rather differently to my work on their spirits. Sati, at least, understood what an ordeal this sort of thing normally was. I wasn’t about to expect that my experience would be any easier than I was accustomed to.

Our presences spooled out and blended easily. Another week of practice had made manifesting our domain, if not second nature, then at least familiar. I’d focused much harder on training our ability to maintain the domain after it was made manifest. If our control faltered partway through, then my **** wasn’t a possibility, it became a certainty.

I manifested a slightly larger domain this time, large enough to cover all of us laying on bedrolls side by side, which we did. Myta and Sati lay to either side of me, disrupting their normal pattern of laying next to each other. It didn’t really matter how we were arranged physically, but the thought was important when performing a difficult or complex working.

I took a moment to clearly form my intent. This was the hardest and most essential part of the working. If my intent wavered then our efforts would fall apart, and perhaps I would fall apart as well. First I pictured my spirit body as it currently was, cracks and all. I needed to maintain all the portions of my spirit that we weren’t currently working on intact, while keeping control of my internal mana, even as a portion of my anima dissolved.

Outside of our domain, such a feat would be impossible. Even working inward from the root or crown nodes, completely dissolving that much of a sorcerer’s anima would spill out their internal mana like a dismembered limb gushing blood. Carefully splitting and stretching the nodes and meridians, as I’d helped Myta to do, was the only way I had known to expand the spirit. That method left most of one’s anima intact, ready to be fused back together again.

According to common knowledge, just reforging my spirit in the way I was about to attempt was tantamount to suicide. But I wanted to push things yet further. Sati’s offhand observation about the flows of mana between us, and my subsequent experiments, had convinced me that paired meridians were vastly more efficient and effective than the singular links that my spirit body currently used. So I had drawn dozens of diagrams, attempting to reimagine my spirit with that in mind.

I could alter my minor meridians later, even without Myta and Sati to help. But at a minimum this session I would need to remake my heart node, the trunk meridians leading to my core and throat, and the connections to those nodes as well. That meant that the first session would be the hardest, but I couldn’t risk leaving my most damaged node for later.

I set the image of my spirit’s current configuration in my mind, including the way my mana was currently flowing. The domain would protect and sustain me, it had to, or the next step would be my last. Focusing my mind and steeling myself for the pain, I began dissolving the anima around one of the cracks in my heart node.

Outside of our domain I would have needed to wear away at my anima with my sorcery, throwing spells at my own spirit, or carving myself up with my lancet. Anima, even if it was your own anima, strongly resisted change and dissolution. Within our domain however, just my intention was enough. To my surprise, there was no pain, but I almost wished that there had been. it would have distracted me from a sensation that was so much worse.

As I began to dissolve my anima, it felt as though I were peeling off my own skin, leaving the nerves beneath exposed to the air. It was a sense of wrongness so profound that I had a moment of utter dissociation. And for just that moment I seriously considered just cracking my heart open. Letting the pain chase away that feeling of unclean exposure. Then Sati and Myta pulled my attention, their concern crashing over me, and distracting me until the impulse passed.

Shuddering, at least figuratively, I paused long enough to firm up my resolve. Then I began the process again. It took everything I had to peel back my heart node, and then dissolve the connecting meridians. Every moment felt like I was imagining pulling out my own fingernails, in detail. It didn’t hurt at all, but I wished that it did.

After an eternity of that mental ****, my spirit was segmented into two distinct halves. The seal spun where my heart node had been, my mana churning and flowing as though my spirit was still intact, I swallowed bile, my reaction similar to the first time I had operated on an open gut wound. The fact that these were my own spiritual entrails was not lost on me.

Not wanting to spend any more time like this than I needed to, I set my mind to altering how my ‘internal’ mana was flowing. Despite my missing anima, the distinction was clear. All of the mana was my mana, but some of it was intrinsically part of my being. I set the vortex of mana spinning faster, more forcefully, splitting the flows that would form my trunk meridians into two opposing flows. Complimentary flows? One side flowed downwards, toward my lower nodes and eventually my root. The other flowed up, in the direction of my crown.

Once my main flows were correctly formed, I began pushing my mana outward, expanding the size of the vortex and streams.