Chapter 57

Mirri and I walked Grams home, which took hardly any time at all. The paths seemed to shorten beneath our feet, the demesne subtly reshaping itself as we moved - bending distance and direction to carry us where we wanted to go with quiet efficiency. It was becoming clear that this place listened. That it liked being helpful.

We said our goodnights to Grams, then turned back.

“That was a pretty neat trick,” Mirri said, smiling.

“Turning Adhaneth into a guitar? Yeah. Took weeks of practice,” I replied.

She laughed and nudged me with her side. “No, dumb-ass. The thing with the music.”

I glanced at her. “What thing with the music?”

“The part where you wove illusions through it,” she said, eyes bright. “The other instruments. The extra voices.” Her smile full of wonder. “Your control over your magic is getting really good.”

I stopped walking.

“What?” I said.

“You didn’t do that on purpose?” she asked, brow creasing.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said slowly.

She studied me. “You didn’t hear the drums? The other instruments when you played that November Rain song?”

I replayed it in my head. November Rain had always been big - piano, drums, soaring electric guitar. I’d always heard it that way when I played, even when I was younger. It lived in my head fully formed.

But had it stayed there this time?

If it hadn’t… why?

Was it the demesne responding to my intent? Was my control improving without me realizing it? Or worse - was my magic bleeding out on its own, shaping reality without my say-so?

I didn’t like that thought. Not at all.

“No,” I said finally. “I think we need to test that somewhere outside the demesne.”

* * *

The next day I handled my chores and then went to see Elise. I’d made omelets for breakfast for everyone, so I brought her one along with some of Mirri’s fresh-baked bread. After a gentle reminder, she slowed down enough to actually taste it instead of inhaling it like she was afraid it might escape. It was progress.

We spent hours in the library after that - talking, reading, drifting from shelf to shelf. I’d always picked things up quickly at a surface level, but now it felt different, deeper. Like my mind had gone porous. I read, we discussed, Elise nudged me in the right direction, suggested angles I hadn’t considered. She was brilliant - sharp without being condescending - and distractingly cute besides. Time slipped by.

Eventually I headed back to my demesne. We had dinner, and when the plates were cleared, Mirri and I stepped out together.

The last time I’d left, I’d aimed for a dim beacon and landed at a crossroads an hour from Reedwatch’s ruins. This time I searched my Faith-scape for something close to that point and stepped again.

We appeared in the heart of the village - at least what was left of it - at the main intersection. I let out a quiet breath of relief. No long walk this time. Not that the exact location mattered for what I wanted to try.

The village had settled into uneasy stillness. Fires were long dead, leaving only a faint tang of smoke in the air. Crows hopped and pecked at half-frozen chunks of warg, and beneath it all lingered the thin, sour smell as they started to rot.

Mirri looked around, eyes shining with grief she didn’t try to hide. This had been her home. The place she’d always imagined returning to. I didn’t have words for that kind of loss, so I stayed close.

Adhaneth flowed and reshaped in my hands, shortening, widening, strings blooming into place. A guitar. Mirri shook her head, then looked at me, a crooked smile tugging at her mouth. I pulled her into a quick hug and kissed the top of her head. She nodded and stepped back a few paces.

I started with the opening notes of Enter Sandman - slow and deliberate - listening to the song in my head as much as at my fingers. When the beat hit, I stomped my foot and tore into it.

The sound that exploded into the street wasn’t acoustic. It was heavy. Deep. Distorted. My footfall thundered like drums against the packed earth. The ruined buildings caught the noise and threw it back, amplifying it until the whole intersection felt alive.

“Say your prayers. It’s a won-derful gift my son, to include everyooooone!” I shouted out the lyrics - letting the words rip out of my chest. It felt like playing with a full band at my back, amps screaming, pedals engaged, power humming through the air.

I could feel my mana stirring, sliding out of me in time with the music, turning the sounds I heard in my head into reality. It came effortlessly. My focus narrowed to a razor’s edge, everything else falling away. When I hit the solo, I focused my mana and lights flared around me - first sharp flashes, then sweeping beams that cut through the twilight in bands of color. At the bridge, my focus shifted and the air itself answered - one small whirlwind, then another, then a third, spinning and dancing as I growled out the lines.

It was easy. So easy. My mana flowed slow and steady, pulsing with the rhythm. Control settled into my bones like it had always belonged there.

When the song crashed to an end, I was grinning like an idiot.

“That was amazing!” I yelled.

Mirri was beaming. “What was that?” she asked.

“Rock and roll!” I shouted back, laughing. Adhaneth flowed back into a staff, which I leaned against the remains of a wall before scooping her up and spinning her around.

“Next test!” I declared, snapping my fingers as I launched into something lighter, upbeat, infectious. “Whoaaaaah-oooh-oooh-oh. For the longest time!” I held her hand as I danced around her. Other voices joined mine. A bass line rolled in beneath us. I reached out with my mana and we lifted off the ground, drifting in lazy circles.

Mirri squealed and clutched my hand, laughing and half-terrified.

I stopped snapping and let the magic carry the rhythm. I pulled her close like we were ballroom dancing and we spiraled higher.

“Uh, Seth?” she said, gripping me as we rose higher, fear rising within her.

“Ahhhhh-ahhh-ahhhh,” I sang through the rise and fall, dipping us down until our feet skimmed the street before setting her gently back on solid ground. As the song rolled on, my mana reached out again, tugging at charred beams that had toppled from a wall. They slid back into place. A collapsed roof heaved upward, timbers groaning as they tried to remember how they fit together. I couldn’t recreate what had burned to ash - but what remained, I could move as easily as breath.

When the song ended, the roof gave up and collapsed again in a clatter of ruined wood. I flinched, then laughed, exhilaration buzzing over my skin.

“It might not be useful in a fight,” I said, breathless, “but - magic, Mirri! Real magic. And I was doing it!”

“Amazing!” she shouted back, just as giddy.

I hugged her tight and spun her once more, the ruins of Reedwatch ringing not with grief this time - but with music, light, and the wild promise of what I was becoming.

* * *

The next two weeks went by in a flash. I continued to spend time with Elise, learning everything I could pry out of her shelves and out of her sharp, patient mind. When I wasn’t buried in books, the goblins and I put blood, sweat, and no small amount of my magic into rebuilding Reedwatch. Walls rose where there had been ash - streets re-emerged from ruin.

Back in my demesne, Mirri, Grams, Lilae, Elarion, and Brinja planted crops, threading their mana through the soil to coax life back into it. To everyone’s surprise, the earth welcomed it. Shoots took hold quickly, green and vibrant, and we estimated a harvest in a month or two. It felt like a small miracle in the wake of destruction.

My Brel improved faster than I’d expected, even if Lilae’s English continued to leave it in the dust. I could speak with the goblins now without much difficulty, without that constant sense of grasping at the wrong word. My Drath came along more slowly, but steady, with Ashlara, Serah, Torvek, and Mak giving me no shortage of practice - or correction. On top of that, I’d begun to pick up Auralis, the language of dragons, and Elithae, the tongue of the elves. My head was crowded with sounds and shapes, but somehow it all fit together.

I visited Yveth a few times, thanking her again for helping Mirri. I told her what the High Witan had revealed - about my ****, the others who hadn’t survived, and their expectation that I would stand against Brand.

“I should not be surprised that you were able to leave the High Witan’s Concordance,” she said calmly. “It exists within the Interstitium.”

“That’s a lot of big words,” I replied. “I’m guessing the Concordance is the place I was - the floating island.” She nodded. “So what’s the Interstitium?”

“The space between demesnes,” she said. “A remnant of the primordial energy that existed before the world. It is dangerous, even for gods. Raw Faith and chaos fill it - enough to dissolve the Will that holds us together. It is not a place one enters without preparation. Attempting to leave it could have destroyed you. That you were able to try at all speaks to your power.”

“I thought it was a bumpier ride than normal when Miralis took me there,” I said thoughtfully. “Guess even with preparation, it’s not an easy place to reach.”

Yveth inclined her head in agreement.

Our conversations were light, threaded with long, comfortable silences. I never felt the urge to fill them. I think she didn’t either. Sometimes, it was enough just to sit there - two beings sharing space, and nothing more required.

* * *

By now it was solidly winter. Light snows fell every few days, dusting the roofs of Reedwatch’s newly rebuilt homes in quiet white. Most of the goblins had returned, and life was beginning to resemble normal again. The council hall stood whole once more, its stones fit tight. We had even reinforced the great stone dome raised during the warg attack. The goblins called it Mirri’s Stand - a fitting monument.

We discovered that anything I created within my demesne endured once brought out into the world. As a result, the goblins had no shortage of wood, bedding, clothing, furniture - even a scattering of simple appliances. What they lacked now, more than anything else, was food.

To fill that gap, the goblins, Ashlara, and I hunted as best we could. We ranged far and wide, careful not to strip any one area bare, sometimes stepping through my demesne to places that might have been hundreds of miles apart. It wasn’t elegant, but it was effective. If we kept it up, we had a fighting chance of seeing everyone through the winter.

In the quieter hours, I turned my attention to our house. I was grateful beyond words for what the goblins had given us - raising the walls, furnishing the rooms, turning a structure into a home. But we had outgrown it quickly, and the scars from the attack were hard to ignore. The front doorframe was splintered, stray lightning had punched holes through the walls, and the floor was a tangled mess of dead roots and warped vines.

Working alongside the goblins had given me a crash course in construction, and my former life had left me with an appreciation for architecture beyond simple utility. Now, with magic at my disposal, I felt I could give us something better. A home befitting the family I now had.

The land was once called Northwatch Keep and it had held a castle with mighty walls. Over centuries of abandonment, the goblins had dismantled it stone by stone, repurposing the ruins into homes and fences until only foundations and a few broken walls remained. Now, they called it the Bones - because that was all that was left of a once-proud fortification. I aimed to bring it back.

With Adhaneth in hand, I sang.

The mountain answered. Stone surged up from the earth as a two-story keep took shape, supports forming roughly at first, then flowing into shape. Trees warped and twisted, their wood flattening into polished floors and shingled roofs. A gatehouse rose, followed by a curtain wall of seamless stone, smooth as if poured rather than built - like the walls I’d seen in Northgate. Walkways, stairs, and battlements unfolded as I moved around the bailey. A round watchtower broke the line of the wall, climbing high above the treetops, its peaked roof held aloft by columns that opened onto an airy platform with a breathtaking view of the surrounding land.

It took days to form the structures. I found the edge of my limits quickly - only an hour or so of work at a time before my mana ran dry and I was **** to rest. I was able to work for maybe four hours each day in total. Windows, doors, floors, furniture - those took even longer. I supplemented where I could with my Will, forming pieces within my demesne and carrying them out to be installed. That was how I managed glass for the windows, something I hadn’t seen anywhere since arriving in Arvellia.

When it was finally finished, it was a thing of beauty. Not the impossible splendor of my demesne, but something grounded and real, rising from the mountain like an Austrian castle pulled from memory and stone. Beyond the heavy wooden double doors lay a two-story entry hall, open and grand, reminiscent of a throne room. To the left stretched a great dining hall and kitchen. To the right, a common room and library - empty shelves, waiting. Broad staircases climbed along both sides to a balcony lined with two dozen doors. Behind each lay a bedroom, enough for everyone in my family, with extras for guests. Bathrooms and lavatories were spaced throughout, and in each corner, a discreet door hid a spiral stair leading up into the attic beneath the peaked roof. It was empty for now, but there was room to grow.

At the far end of the entry hall was a concealed door - not hidden, exactly, but crafted to blend into the stone. Beyond it, stairs led downward. I had hollowed out the mountain beneath the keep for purposes yet to be decided, but my primary concern was defense. After witnessing the devastation a dragon could bring, I couldn’t stop wondering what might have been different if the goblins of Reedwatch had had somewhere underground to run.