In the Lerne Diarchy:

  Gaden’s foot set down onto the doorstep of the store he had bought his sword from.

  Earlier, after he had received his new ability and tied it to his blade, he and Omaren had utterly destroyed the building that the guards and boy had come from.

  When they returned, Omaren had, as usual, gone almost immediately to rest.

  After, Gaden stayed in the common room, absorbing the atmosphere of all of the people that spent their time there, before he too at last went to sleep.

  In the morning, he had taken his sword from where he had left it, only to notice it glowing slightly, with a burn both ruining the leather sword belt, and damaging the table it was placed on and the floor below.

  Dealing with that had taken most of the day. Omaren, when he woke up, assured the innkeeper that he would of course be paying for the damages.

  He had also told Gaden to go search for a heat resistant sheath for his sword, starting at the store that he had bought the weapon at.

  Apparently, that shopkeeper often had special pieces, and would gladly, and had before, sell them to Omaren.

  Gaden pushed open the door and walked into the shop.

  The shopkeeper looked up, noticing him. “Welcome back! I trust that the sword is serving you well?”

  “Yes.” Gaden said. “There is a problem, though. It’s… hard to explain.” He held out the sword, displaying the strange purple-blue glow.

  “You’re an Aether user.” The shopkeeper said, contemplating. “Now it makes sense. You’re following Omaren because you’re helping him with his work.”

  “How do you know so much about him?” Gaden asked.

  “It’s not relevant, and anyway, it’s something I don’t like to share.” The shopkeeper replied, and looked more closely at the blade. “What exactly does this glow do?”

  “It burns. It burned through both the leather sword belt and the table, and damaged the floor.”

  “Follow me.” The shopkeeper said, then opened a door behind him.

  Gaden followed, and the shopkeeper gestured towards a stand for a weapon.

  Gaden set it down, and the shopkeeper took a water dropper from a shelf. Gesturing to a weapon stand, he filled the water dropper, and Gaden set the weapon on the stand.

  The shopkeeper carefully put a single drop of water onto the blade, and watched closely as it reacted.

  The drop danced back and forth, moving and sizzling along the blade.

  The shopkeeper nodded. “It’s quite hot, but not too hot for my capabilities.”

  He turned away, and walked to the far corner of the room.

  Rummaging in a crate, he came up with a metal sheath, and brought it back to Gaden.

  It was made of a silvery-white metal, one that Gaden had not seen before. He took it, and was surprised by its weight.

  “This sheath is made of a special metal. It is exceptionally resistant to heat, and quite durable as well. The only problem with its use for normal soldiers is its relative rarity as well as its weight. This is made to be a tool for an Aether user.”

  He took the sword off of the stand, and gave it to Gaden. Gaden sheathed the blade, and found that no heat escaped, being instead contained by the sheath.

  “Stronger abilities imbued in items, such as yours, often activate in a slight manner without input. This sheath should contain the passive flow of heat that the ability creates for you, unless you intentionally flare it.”

  “What do you think this is?” Gaden asked.

  “I have honestly never seen its like. It isn’t a flame, nor some molten substance. It is something other, something foreign, and that confuses me. If the heat this ability gives off in a passive state is this intense, I wonder at the power it would have if you would flare it. If you touched it in that state, you might undergo permanent damage, despite Aether functioning less powerfully against its user.”

  “Noted.” Gaden said. “Thank you.”

  “As I have said before, I am happy to help a friend of Omaren’s.”

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  Gaden took the bag of coins Omaren had given to him in the morning, and held it out to the shopkeeper.

  Taking it, the shopkeeper opened it and emptied its contents onto a table. He counted out the price of the sheath, and then returned the other coins to the bag, before giving it back to Gaden.

  He took the bag back, and turned to leave.

  “I appreciate your patronage.” The shopkeeper called out. “Do come again if there is any problems with either tool.”

  Gaden nodded, then left the store.

  He walked back to the inn, as the sky darkened.

  Looking into the silver lustre of his sheath, he wondered at the strangeness of it and its exotic quality.

  Absorbed as he was, he did not notice the commotion until he was already in view of the inn.

  At its door, a man was arguing with the innkeeper, angrily gesturing towards the inside of the building.

  “-and I’m telling you, I don’t disclose any information about any of the people who stay here at my inn.” The innkeeper said.

  “It is the simplest question. All I want is to know if he’s here. I don’t even want to know where specifically.”

  The innkeeper shook his head. “No. For the last time, no. Now leave.” He turned to go back through the doorway, and the angry man stepped back.

  “It is unwise to cross me.” He muttered, and reached into his apparel.

  Gaden sprinted towards him as the man stepped back forward again, reaching out his hand, and Gaden shoved him aside.

  A knife clattered to the ground as the man stumbled sideways, his murderous attempt halted.

  The innkeeper turned in surprise, and Gaden shouted.

  “Get inside! I’ll handle this!”

  He cursed himself for not taking Damad with him when he first left. Even though it had seemed like a peaceful day at first, everything could change in an instant, and here he was without one of his best tools for survival.

  The instigator turned, and the dagger suddenly lifted off of the ground and flew hilt first at the man.

  He caught it, and brushed his clothing off with his other hand. “To think that you would dare to touch me. You must not have common sense.”

  “I’m not just going to let you murder someone.” Gaden replied, and drew his sword. His fingers curled around the hook of the hilt, and the glow patterning the blade brightened, becoming the same dancing light that the boy had tried to use to kill Gaden and Omaren.

  The man’s eyes gleamed, and he looked in approval. “At the very least, you seem to be a particularly shiny piece of dirt.”

  “Just shut it.” Gaden said, raising his sword in a fighting stance. “You’re starting to annoy me.”

  As the people in the streets fled, the assailant took a thin brown cloth, and warped it around his hand. He then took a ring off of his finger, and held it in the opposite hand as his dagger.

  “I suppose that dirt with lustre is, nonetheless, dirt.” He said, sighing.

  Gaden readied his blade, and the man leapt forward, stabbing the dagger at the soft point under Gaden’s jaw.

  Swaying sideways, Gaden dodged the strike, and grabbed hold of the man, then stabbed at him with his sword.

  The man’s dagger flashed as it deflected the sword, then stabbed towards Gaden’s arm.

  Gaden shoved the man backwards, letting go, and the man drew back the arm that did not hold the dagger.

  Flinging the hand outwards, the ring that was held there glittered as it flew past Gaden’s side.

  The man then threw the dagger, but it was immensely off course, and Gaden took his attention off of it for a moment before it suddenly turned midair and hurtled towards him.

  Gaden, caught off guard, barely deflected it, but only a short distance behind him, it reversed its momentum and rushed back at him.

  Gaden dodged, and the knife and ring both returned to the hands of his assailant.

  The man smiled, and Gaden ran towards him.

  He has some sort of ability that uses range… I can’t let him use it. Without Damad, dodging is too dangerous for any extended period of time.

  The ring went past Gaden’s ear again, and the instigator drew back his hand again to throw the dagger.

  Focused only on dodging and observing, Gaden watched the knife.

  As it was about to pass on the opposite side of Gaden as the ring had, it twisted midair and moved directly towards Gaden’s heart.

  He ducked under the knife, and watched it fly past.

  As he looked, he realized that the knife was moving to collide with the ring, and the path change it had originally taken was going towards the ring, with Gaden’s body simply being in the way.

  The two items changed paths again simultaneously, moving to the assailant’s wrapped hand, and he caught them both.

  Those three items are tied together somehow. I need to keep watch of all of them.

  Gaden held his sword away from his body, taunting the man with a clear target.

  Taking the bait, Gaden’s enemy threw the knife directly at Gaden, and after he had dodged, threw the ring so that the knife curved backward, and would again hurtle to cut through Gaden.

  Deflected again, both it and the ring cluttered to the ground, uselessly, but suddenly the instigator rushed forward and attacked.

  Gaden ducked under the punch, and the dagger again moved, going to land in his assailant’s hands.

  He dodged the knife, and the instigator took the dagger again, throwing a punch at Gaden’s face.

  Gaden turned his body so that the punch would hurt less, and threw a punch in return at the man.

  So close to the wall, the man had only one good direction to dodge, and so Gaden anticipated it, and moved so that the punch intercepted the instinctual dodge that the man’s body did.

  It hit his jaw, and he stumbled back, before Gaden slashed his blade at him.

  The assailant managed to dodge, but the blade grazed his clothing, and they instantly began to burn.

  He quickly patted out the fire, but his hand came away slightly burned.

  Stabbing at Gaden, angrily attacking again and again, the man swung his knife, lethality in every swipe.

  Gaden carefully retreated until his back was to the wall, then, as the man tried to take revenge by pinning the boy to the wall with his blade, he ducked the blow.

  The force of the attack drove the knife into the wooden board, and the instigator blinked in surprise as Gaden’s elbow collided with his stomach.

  He fell backwards, and began to crawl away as Gaden pursued him, slowly walking.

  The now terrified man scrambled away until his back hit the wall on the other side of the street, and Gaden stepped close.

  “Wait! Please! Don’t kill me!” He said, as Gaden drew back his sword. “I surrender.”

  Gaden stopped his sword before it slashed, and the man flinched.

  “T-thank you.” He said, before he kicked Gaden’s feet out from under him.

  Gaden rolled backwards, watching the man carefully, but he failed to notice the extended hand in time.

  The knife that was before embedded in a wall rushed backward, and pierced Gaden’s back.

  Pain shot through his body, and he fell to his knees. Gaden stared in accusation at the man, who stood, laughing.

  “When you’re fighting the rabble, such as yourself, there isn’t any such thing as cheating. People like you lack the sophistication for rules.” He said, smiling. “I would say that I’m sorry about this, but I would be lying. I couldn’t feel sympathy for your kind.”

  He took a smaller knife, one that he evidently only used when he was sure of an execution, from his outer clothing, and he placed it on Gaden’s neck.

  As he sat there, helpless, knife still embedded in his back, Gaden watched as the knife was about to slice when a sword blade suddenly appeared from midair.

  It slashed sideways, and the would-be murderer’s head rolled on the ground.

  A hand, and then an arm, and at last the rest of the body of a girl appeared from the air.

  “Hey, are you gonna be alright?” She asked. “Would be a shame to save you for nothing.”

  Gaden slumped forward onto his stomach, and his vision began to fade in and out for the rest of the night, seeing only brief flashes of faces, including Omaren’s.

  The last thing he remembered was a tugging sensation at his bag, and a sudden flare of pain.