Chapter 32

I’d lost my guitar when we fled Northgate, so as the night wound down I retreated to my room to practice the focusing exercises. I closed my eyes, slowed my breathing, and reached inward for my mana. It was something I’d done dozens of times before. I always felt a little clearer afterward, a little calmer - but nothing had ever happened. I wasn’t even sure what was supposed to happen.

This time was different.

After several breaths, my fingers began to tingle. I opened my eyes at once, but the room and my hands looked the same. I closed them again and started over. The tingling returned, stronger now, as if something were pressing from inside my hands, searching for a way out.

I exhaled slowly and focused on the sensation, trying to guide it, to push it outward. The tingle sharpened into pins and needles. I cracked my eyes and the feeling ebbed, but there was still nothing to see.

I tried again.

The sensation came faster this time. I willed it forward with each breath, the pressure building until my fingers burned. I was close - to something. My breathing grew strained, my muscles tightened, and I pushed harder, pouring everything into it.

Then it broke.

Whatever had been holding it back shattered. Agony ripped through my hands as my arms flew backward, striking my face and sending me sprawling. Blinding light flared behind my eyelids. I heard wood splinter, pottery shatter, and people screaming. Then it was over - no longer than a heartbeat.

I blinked, suddenly exhausted. My ears rang. I rolled over and hissed as my fingers, bloody and blackened, scraped against the stone floor. I tried to stand, but my legs buckled. Someone grabbed me and hauled me upright. The world lurched.

Ashlara towered over me, then stepped back as Mirri rushed in. Her lips were moving, but I couldn’t make out the words.

“What happened?” I asked, unsure if my voice was carrying at all. I was so tired - achingly so - but I needed to stay awake. I needed to know everyone was all right.

Grams appeared with a bowl of water and cloth. Mirri wrapped my fingers while the ringing in my ears slowly faded. Ashlara helped ease me into a sitting position, and Grams pressed a cup of something warm and sharp-smelling to my lips and made me drink.

Mirri’s voice drifted back into focus.

“Is everyone okay?” I asked.

“We’re fine,” she said, though the rush of blood in my ears nearly drowned her out. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” I muttered, shaking my head - immediately regretting it as vertigo slammed into me. My head struck the wall and I nearly tipped over again. “I think… something came out of my fingers.” I stared at the thick bandages covering my hands.

“Tell me exactly what you did,” Mirri said, slow and careful, worry carved into her face.

“I was doing the focusing exercises. My fingers started to tingle, then sting. There was a flash, and something knocked me over.”

“And you didn’t think to stop when it started to hurt?” she snapped.

“It felt like it was working,” I said weakly.

“Oh, it worked,” she shouted. “You blew a hole in the ceiling! Magic isn’t supposed to hurt, you idiot. What happened to focus and control? What were you thinking?”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I just wanted to… I thought…” I swallowed. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry.”

She pulled me into a tight hug. “I know. You finally managed to channel your mana. But you have to be careful. Slow. You could’ve hurt someone.” She leaned back and met my eyes. “You need to stop hurting yourself. You need to stop being reckless. We need you.”

I nodded.

She helped me lie down, and I realized I was back in my bed. That was the last thing I remember before sleep took me.

* * *

I woke the next morning as the sky was just beginning to lighten. Without thinking, I pushed myself upright and rubbed at my eyes, only to remember the bandages wrapped around my fingers. I flexed them, expecting pain that never came. Curious, I peeled away the gauze.

The skin beneath was whole. Smooth. There wasn’t even a scar to mark last night’s stupidity.

I scooted out of bed, sat on the floor, and began the focusing exercises again - slower this time, careful to keep my mana reined in and alert for the first hint of pain. Within seconds a gentle tickling spread through my fingers. It felt like holding my hands under running water - each digit venting a thin, steady stream that met between my palms, mingled, and pressed softly against the air.

When I opened my eyes, I caught the faintest distortion between my hands before it slipped away. I practiced a little longer, and soon I could keep my eyes open and watch it happen: a subtle shimmer, like heat rising off sun-warmed stone.

It was exhilarating.

I couldn’t help wondering what I might be able to do with it. Mirri would have ideas - she always did. Part of me even considered heading back to Northgate and checking in with Professor Nanders. As far as I knew, no one there would recognize me now.

Once the sun crested the horizon, I went to inspect the damage from the night before. Aside from the splintered door - visible even from my room - the worst of it was overhead. A jagged hole gaped in the ceiling near the far wall, charred beams and broken planks framing a patch of sky. A few stones had shaken loose and fallen to the floor.

I gathered the stones and stacked them back into place. Without mortar there wasn’t much to be done, so I left it for the moment. Out back I found a small pile of planks and a handful of cut nails, probably leftovers from when the house had been built. I didn’t have a hammer, but I hoped a stone would do if I was careful. I climbed onto the roof and started patching the hole as the sun climbed over the horizon.

Ashlara joined me a few minutes later. Using a rock as a hammer was slow work, so she fetched her spare axe. The flat of its back worked well enough, and the repairs went much faster after that.

When we finished, Grams called us down for breakfast - eggs, bacon, and fresh bread. She mentioned she’d be heading back to Reedwatch after lunch. I offered to walk her there.

“Why?” Mirri asked, narrowing her eyes.

“I need to check in with Yveth,” I said. “She asked to see me when I had the chance.” At her look, I hurried to add, “I’ll be careful. No fighting. No explosions. No me being an idiot.”

She still didn’t look convinced.

“You can’t baby me forever,” I said gently. “I’m grateful - for all of you and everything you’ve done for me. But I need to know I can do something on my own. Even if it’s just to prove it to myself.”

She sighed. “Fine.”

“I’ll be back in a couple of days,” I promised. “Three at the most.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” she said. “Lilae needs a father. If you’re not back in three days, I’m climbing that mountain, dragging your corpse home, and burying it in five different places around the house. We’ll see if you heal from that.”

I kissed the top of her head. “I promise.”

* * *

Mirri and I spent the rest of the morning on magical exercises. We broke a little early so Ashlara and I could continue weapon training. Mirri stayed to watch, her eyes tracking every movement. I couldn’t tell if she was making sure I didn’t hurt myself or trying to confirm what Serah had said about our increased speed. Probably both.

After lunch, Grams and I set off.

We walked in silence for a long while.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said at last.

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” I admitted. “But I need answers. And while Yveth is my first step, she’s not my last.”

“You’re too trusting,” she snapped.

I chuckled. “Serah said the same thing. Maybe you’re both right. But I’m not walking in blind. I’m not expecting the whole truth.”

That seemed to satisfy her, at least a little. The rest of the walk passed more easily. I asked about her children and grandchildren. She asked about my world, and how things had changed since her father’s time. Losing him must have been hard. I wondered if part of her feared I might disappear the same way.

We reached Reedwatch an hour or two before sunset. After saying my goodbyes, I paused at the edge of the village, looking at the newly raised standing stones. Each was carved - crudely, but with care - with words I couldn’t read. Names. Memorials for those who had lost hope.

I lingered only for a few moments, then turned toward the mountains and began walking.

Night fell, but the darkness didn’t slow me. My eyes adjusted as if they had always known how to see this way. When I reached the base of the mountains, I stopped. By my reckoning, it was close to midnight, judged only by memory of our first journey and how long it had taken.

I had just started setting up camp when I heard a voice behind me - soft, weary, and sad.

“You’ve come.”

I turned. Yveth stood a dozen paces away, her long white hair and simple gray dress glowing faintly in the moonlight.

I smiled. “Yveth.”

“Shall we walk?” she asked.

I nodded and fell into step beside her. Within moments we reached a cave in the mountainside. I was certain it wasn’t the one she had led us out of before. Inside, the ice cast the same mournful blue glow, filling the frozen halls with quiet light.

We walked in silence for a time.

“Thank you,” I said finally.

“For what?” she asked.

“For checking on me. When I was hurt.”

She didn’t respond, but a faint flush crept into her cheeks.

We continued on. I wondered if she preferred the silence, or if she had simply grown used to it. Either way, she seemed content to let the quiet stretch, and I was in no hurry to break it.

She led me to an opening in a cliff face. Outside, the mountains stretched endlessly beneath a vast sky. The moon and her children hung low, while the blue and red haze shimmered high above. Wind howled, whipping snow along the stone, yet none of it touched us. Below was a sheer drop - well over a hundred feet.

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

She nodded, but said nothing.

As the moon slipped behind the peaks, she finally asked, “What will you do now?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I want to understand what’s happening to me. What I am.”

“Many have noticed you,” she said quietly. “Any new god draws attention, but you are… different. They will try to sway you. Failing that, they may try to destroy you.”

“Can a god be destroyed?” I asked.

“Yes and no.”

She was silent for a long moment, so long I wondered if she'd ever say more, but then continued. “A god can be killed. Reduced to nothing but Faith. When that happens, we lose ourselves - who we are, who we were. The Faith remains, and if given time, it will manifest again. But the god it becomes will be different. Hollow. It will not remember.”

“How does that happen?”

She glanced at me, a small smile touching her lips. “You wish for our weakness. Not out of malice, but for protection. Very well. The answer is surrender. When your Will is shattered. When you no longer have the strength to continue. When you give in to hardship - that is when you die.”

I nodded slowly. It didn’t sound so different from mortality, but the implications were unsettling. Was that why I survived the Bonefire Sphere? The beating Hek gave me? Both should have killed me. Both left me ****. Was the difference simply choice? That I hadn’t given up?

“The way you speak of faith and will,” I said, “they sound different. Like they have meaning I don’t understand.”

“They are,” she replied. “There is faith - the belief that something will happen, confidence without proof. And then there is Faith. Faith is the power that governs the world. It is born from mortals. When enough believe in something, their faith becomes Faith. When faith tells you water flows downhill, Faith makes it so. When faith tells you fire burns, Faith ensures it. It stabilizes reality. Without it, the world would collapse back into chaos. When the last mortal dies, so will Faith.”

“And Will,” she continued, “is how we shape it. Will is what makes me me, and you you. It gives form to Faith. Without Will, Faith would ensure suffering endures endlessly and without shape. With Will, it becomes… personal. I can cause it. Or prevent it.”

“When Caelith was destroyed, fire ran wild,” she said. “It threatened the world itself until the Faith of fire manifested as Ashira. Her Will brought it to heel. The world cooled. The ash settled. Balance returned.”

“So if you were destroyed,” I said slowly, “the world would fall into despair.”

“And more,” she said quietly, offering no further explanation.

“How did you know?” I asked. “That you were the goddess of sorrow that never fades?”

She watched the stars for a long time. Clouds raced across the sky.

“That is difficult to answer,” she said at last. “I was not always thus.”

I frowned. “Then what were you?”

The wind howled. Snow skittered along the cliff face. A single, crystal-clear tear slid down her cheek. She wiped it away.

“The better question,” she said abruptly, “is what are you the god of? For most, it is found by exploring within. By examining your Will. By looking at your Faith.”

“I don’t know how to look at my Faith,” I admitted. “What does it feel like? Does it flow through you like mana?”

“Mana is a shadow of Faith,” she replied. “It allows mortals to bend reality in small ways, but never to shape it. Mana is a stone thrown into a lake - it makes ripples, but they fade and the lake remains.”

“Could enough mana change Faith?” I asked. “Like filling the lake with stones?”

“No,” she said. Then paused. “But if enough stone was tossed into the lake to fill it up? That sounds to me like faith becoming Faith.”

I nodded slowly. I kind of understood where she was coming from. On one hand it seemed like semantics. On the other, it could be plausible based on everything she’d said. I’d have to think about it more.

“So how do I use it?” I asked. “How do I even feel it?”

“How have you used it already?”

“I don’t think I have,” I said. “Aside from healing fast. Or… getting younger.”

She shook her head. “Those are expressions of your Will. Not your Faith.” She studied me. “You have imbued your Faith into your companions. I felt it when you entered my demesne. As I assume you felt mine.”

I remembered the unease when we first entered her cave. The sense that something fundamental had shifted. Something unnatural. Or was that supernatural, since Faith made the world work the way it did?

“Mortals do not have Faith,” she said. “Yours do, and it has marked them. Any god will sense it. You would do well to protect them.”

I ran a hand through my hair. “Great. I can barely protect myself. How am I supposed to protect them?”

Her eyes narrowed. “And there it is again. A flicker.”

“What?”

“Your Faith flickers when you speak like that.”

“When I put myself down?” I exhaled. “So what, I’m the god of failure? Of weakness? The fuck-up god?”

She smirked faintly. “I did not say it flared. I said it flickered.”

“So it dimmed or got weaker?”

“It flickered,” she repeated. “I do not yet know what that means.”

I sighed. “What about the rest of it? No swarm form. Being born. All of that.”

“I do not know,” she said. “Such things should not be possible. Perhaps you do not remember.”

“I remember my life,” I snapped. “My parents. My siblings. My shitty job. I’m not imagining that.”

“I did not say you were,” she replied calmly. “You said you were taken. What do you remember?”

“Not much,” I said. “I was walking down the street and someone grabbed me. I felt… cold. And then woke up here.”

She was quiet for a long time. “It may have happened then - if it happened at all. Gods are not born. You are already an anomaly. Finding who brought you here may give you answers.”

She suddenly turned to face me. “It is late. You must be tired. Let me offer shelter once more.”

She walked back into the icy halls. After a moment, I followed.