Chapter 2-42

Stymied for the moment, we left Sati’s inner world. She agreed to speak with Myta about her history, and about Rina in particular. The bond between us had grown significantly stronger, both from restructuring it, and due to our increased rapport. I wasn’t keen to interfere with the budding romance between my two vas, but we were too tightly bound to let secrets fester for too long. Our deeper bond let the apsara sense my good intentions, which took at least a little of the sting out of my meddling.

“If we find out that your father lied to you, that Rina is alive and perfectly well, wouldn’t you want to seek her out immediately?” Sati nodded. “If you drop everything to pursue an old flame and leave her behind with no explanation, Myta would be devastated. She’d likely feel betrayed, and for good reason. Best you talk about it now, before you lose the opportunity.”

I didn’t bring up the possibility that Rina might well be dead, or just as damaged as Ramana had implied. If one of those were true, then Sati might experience her full measure of grief all over again, and Myta would have no context to help her through it. Hope could be a palliative, but it could also be a slow-acting poison. I didn’t need to tell Sati that, however, she already knew.

Returning to my own sanctum was a far shorter trip. Our inner worlds had drawn far closer in that visit than I would have imagined. Mana tainted with arrogance once again flowed into me, another encouraging sign of our progress.

I took stock of my sanctum as I returned, feeling the improved stability and strength of it. What was odd, however, was that the cracks in my inner world were actually worse than they had been before. I thought back to Sati’s moment of rage, her **** lashing out at me. She had put pressure on my spirit with her unfocused anger, worsening my condition. Yet even in the face of the increased damage, my domain felt more stable, more real. How could that be?

I sat at the edge of my mana pool, staring at its surface. The ‘water’ was now swirling gently, stirred by the flow of mana passing to and from the former princess. The stones lining that pool showed the cracks most obviously, but when I placed my hand against one fitted block, I could feel it like never before. Cool and slightly pitted, the surface seemed solid and real to my touch. As though I had somehow dragged it here from the physical world, rather than just imagining it into existence.

Puzzled, I thought the issue through. My soul had been strained by my earlier overreach. Compared to when I had seen Nagana manifest her domain, I had tried to manifest mine over a much larger area, and without infusing my mana across the area first. My spirit had been riddled with cracks as a result, it was one long breath away from falling apart. So how could my inner world feel more stable, while my spirit continued to weaken?

The answer, when I took a moment to think about it, was obvious. My inner world represented my entire soul, which had previously meant my spirit, body, and mind. My spirit was worsening, my body and mind were largely unchanged, but now there was another factor impacting me. The belief of my vas, and vasra. My ‘court’ as the spirits had referred to them. Given what I was learning, their belief helped shape my footprint in the Radiant Sea.

It finally crystallized for me, I had been viewing the domain the spirits spoke of as somehow being my inner world made manifest. I had ‘walked’ from my inner world out into the sea, and had decided that my inner world was in the sea. I had even learned that forming my inner world was preparation for connecting to the sea. They were linked, yes, but I abruptly realized that they were distinct. My soul had gained a new dimension, one that I’d been blind to.

Suddenly, small mysteries that I’d set aside made sense now. I’d struggled to contain the poisoned mana from Myta’s soul sickness, but had no difficulty with Sati’s. I hadn’t strengthened my spirit between those times, so why hadn’t it strained me. Why hadn’t my damaged spirit burst under the burden? It was because I was storing that mana in my domain, rather than my spirit.

The same thing had happened when I’d confronted the newly formed spirit beneath Bani, when Myta and I had defeated the spirit it must have fled to my domain. Manifesting a domain was not a matter of forcing your power and will onto reality, as I had thought. Rather, it was bringing the physical world and the Radiant Sea into contact with one another. It was a matter of harmony, not brute ****.

If I wanted to strengthen my domain, I had been going about it all wrong. I had tried to improve my connection to Sati so that I could draw on more of her mana, but it was our increased closeness that had helped. Her increased trust in me had made my domain stronger, or at least more stable. I wondered if perhaps ‘my domain’ wasn’t ’our domain’. There were hints that our entire court shared our space in the Radiant Sea.

Deepening our relationships would take time, but there was another method for borrowing intention and belief that I was learning about right now. I hesitated for a long moment, considering what damage I might do. But this felt deeply right in a way that I couldn’t explain, in a way that many of my other attempts to interact with the sea and my domain hadn’t.

I turned my attention to my bond with Myta. The stream of mana that flowed between us looked like liquid gold, a mix of her fiery spirit, and my aspect of refinement. I dipped my fingers into the stream, and could immediately tell that she and Sati were speaking, having an intense discussion that I had little desire to interrupt or listen in on. Fortunately our bond was now such that I didn’t need to, her **** mind acknowledged me, and my intent, without more that a ripple in her attention.

With deliberate focus, I split the channel of mana between us as I had with Sati, firming up the stone lined banks of our connection in my inner world, and in my domain. Now that I understood the separation between the two, it was simple, if not easy, to distinguish between them. My pool of mana spun faster, as my link to Myta strengthened and grew deeper, something I had not thought was possible. And yet, I was about to deepen it further still.

I examined the stones laid around my pool of mana again, with my new understanding. I could feel that this point was the axis, the place where each aspect of my soul joined in harmony. The heart node of my spirit body, my physical heart, my deepest desires, and my connections to my court. As a healer, I would have thought that my brain would be the physical anchor, but that was a mystery for another time.

On the stone where my connection to Myta terminated, I began to carve a rune. I was careful and exacting, as I needed the rune would reflect through every layer of my being. My domain appeared much as my sanctum, and the Metic rune for fire practically leapt into existence, as though the Radiant Sea was only filling in a detail that had already been present. Like spilling ink into an unseen carving.

I had to focus the rune, narrow it down, as Riona had taught me. I thought of Myta, her warm compassion and hot temper, the way that she worked to forge our company into a disciplined fighting ****, and the way that she had pulled me from my quiet life, burning away the swaddling veils of fear and complacency that had kept me bound and stagnant. This rune was Myta, not just any flame, but my flame. It represented my connection to her, and marked her place in my heart and my life.

I could feel other runes begging to be formed, and with Myta’s rune already here I could sense them more clearly than ever before. Hati’s solid aura of earth, Denu’s excited and joyful air attainment, Jito’s drive to advance and improve. But I pushed these others aside, knowing that I was far from done. The next layer of my being was my mind, and that too was remarkably simple. Myta had been foremost in my thoughts for months now, and wormed her way into my heart. I loved her, and increasingly couldn’t imagine my life without her, despite the short time she had been at my side.

My sanctum was my mental representation of my soul, and so visualizing the rune was no effort at all. More importantly I knew that it was not a transient change. Myta was already so deeply a part of my life, that even if she were to die tomorrow I would carry the effects of our connection for decades to come, or more likely, until the end of my days. My flame had shaped me, as surely as I had shaped her.

Next was the layer that was most dangerous. I needed to engrave the rune upon my spirit but surprisingly, I found what I needed easily. Within my spirit was a seal, a reflection of the seals I had found in all of those affected by the manipulations of the Pure. I had seen this seal before, it was the same design that was imprinted in my palm, but this seal was formed of anima, and it hung suspended within my heart node. I could almost remember seeing it before, but a terrible sense of danger prevented me from chasing the memory.

Had this spiritual seal been lurking here the whole time? It was so obvious, so apparent, that only my willful disregard could have kept it from my awareness. Now, however, I knew exactly what I needed to do. I pulled on Myta’s mana, knowing that to use my own would strain my spirit far too badly.

Although I had been learning of runes, this seal was still far beyond my comprehension. I could recognize individual characters, however, and I could see the point where Myta’s mana was drawn down into my spirit. It passed through a specific rune, one that repelled me. As much as the rune for hubris that I’d found in Sati’s spirit made me feel physically ill to look at, this one was worse.

I knew, deep in my bones, that this character was aligned with Myta’s soul sickness. I wasn’t sure how it still connected me to her, as her sickness was cured, but somehow it did. Her fiery aspect flowed through this character, clashing with the rune representing shame, and the seal was wobbling under the conflict, the rune degrading. I would likely have only a single chance to fix this error, and I cursed my own haste, wondering if my contact with Sati’s corrupted spirit had infected me with lingering hubris.

I considered backing out now, seeking advice from Ket or Riona. But it was likely that neither the god nor druid would be able to give me any direct advice on this matter, and I was afraid that failing to finish would destabilize my fragile equilibrium. I knew that stopping part way through widening your meridians could shatter your spirit. Could stopping partway through reforging our bond shatter my soul? I worried that it could.

The character on the seal needed to be replaced, and it needed to be done quickly, if not in a single moment. Once the seal was disrupted I would lose control of Myta’s mana, she still didn’t have the kind of fine control needed to perform this operation herself, and I couldn’t use my own mana. Carefully I forged a golden disk of anima with another rune rune of fire upon it. I had a harder time perfecting the rune this time, my worry making it harder to fill my intention with thoughts of her.

But that was silly, wasn’t it? My first vas was the one I depended on most, my flame, who protected me where I was weak. She might not have the mana control to forge a minute rune of anima, but she certainly had the will and self-awareness to claim it. I called her, drew her thoughts and will to me, only to realize she was already there. Myta’s presence blanketed and supported me, not her lose mana, but just the feel of her supporting my intention. Her will, backing mine.

In an instant the rune was forged to perfection, and I pressed it into the seal without hesitation. The sharp ridge I has forged around the edge of the disk cut the symbol of shame from the seal as though coring an apple, and the foul rune began dissolving immediately like ice under the summer sun.

There was a brief moment of breathless hesitation, and then I was plunged into agony, both spiritual and physical. My chest burned, as did my palm, and I realized for the first time that the seal on my hand was just a reflection of another physical seal, which lay between my lungs.

Tired, and mentally exhausted, I sent a grateful thought to Myta before relaxing into true sleep.