The next few days were largely unremarkable. Declan hung the new doors, and now had a surplus of ready rooms, which was the way he liked it. He kicked Chen out to the library every morning, and practiced soul-casting Gather. It truly was helping. His focus no longer felt strained when he reached the top of the circle and he could-and had—forced it closed on numberous occasions. But rather than schedule another class with Instructor Brieze, he stuck to his practice. If he could feel the growth, there was still room to grow.

  Skinner gave him boring tasks, like Deflect four Strikes, each in a different direction, and actually worked with him on binding a third mana stone. Even more interesting, he took time to explain his method. “Binding a mana stone, a rune, it’s all the same. When you can bind a third mana stone, you can bind a third rune. The process of switching is called unbinding, and it takes no longer than binding.”

  “What about my mana bearing?” Declan asked. “It took years.”

  “I suspect that will one day be a powerful source of mana. Also, I have a solid theory about why you could orbit it at the Foundry but not as well here at Ariloch. If I put your hand over a flame, you’ll pull back.” Skinner conjured a floating flame without a rune. “The soul is no different. Your arcsoul is closed. Your mana veins are magnificent but unhardened. Fully orbiting it here, where the mana is strongest, would destroy mind, soul and body in seconds with the mana it harvested. It’s a self-defense measure.”

  “I’m doing this to myself?”

  “For yourself, not to. Now, as I was saying, binding is an arduous process. You should not surrender the work you’ve done when your goal is far higher. You aren’t aiming to use one rune, two, or even three, though each will be a greater challenge.” Skinner drew a rune from his desk and slid it across. “You’re close on Gather. I approve of your patience and think this is a reasonable next target for soul-casting.”

  Claw: Claw something with a claw. We can’t believe we need to explain this. Mana Cost: Moderate, fixed. Tier one rune.

  “Claw.” Declan’s insight said it was a decent one. The marks were mostly smooth, the imperfections everywhere, but a pattern he could work with. “Why not Strike?”

  “Strike won’t require you to grow. Claw will, and even better, teaches intent. Your task for today is to research intent. It’s the subject of so many books, many of them conflicting.” Skinner orbited a rune and ripped it from its orbit before it could lock, tossing it on his desk. The rune was carved on a double-pyramid, crossing each face, and on pure metal like Declan’s sword. “That’s tier nine. Don’t push mana into it, you’ll blind yourself again. It’s called Nightmare of the Heavens. A mind rune that causes agony inflicted by the target on themself, their worst nightmares. Say you had the mana. Say you had the will. Say I let you target me. Do you know what it would do?”

  “You’d relive facing the Defiler.”

  “That’s not my worst nightmare, but it’s a reasonable guess and the rune would obey. I’d relive it. It would hurt. But you don’t have the intent to cause nightmares. You don’t have an idea of the nightmares you want to inflict. You don’t have experience that tells you the difference between what men say they fear and what they fear. Intent guides the rune. It empowers lesser runes. For anything over tier five it’s critical. For tier nine it’s foundational.” Skinner waved, and the rune flipped down, skittering across the desk. A foot from him it faded away. “I want you to learn it now and Claw is the perfect one to learn it with. Intent turns a scratch into a bone-deep tear.”

  “I thought giving runes wasn’t allowed.”

  Skinner leaned back, his eyes narrow. “This is a loan until you can get your own. You’ll owe me service, and I always collect. Use it to practice until you know the imprint well enough to soul-cast. Anything you kill with soul-casting is by definition your own. Don’t you have several runes? I had to intervene in that ArCore dispute.”

  “The hydrion head was just sitting there. Someone was going to take the rune, it might as well have been me,” Declan said, defiant. “I’m the one who told them the green head was healing, they never would have killed it without me.” Not quickly.

  “I was talking about the Corrosive Slime runes the acid slugs gave. I’m going to tell myself you suffered a head injury and were fantasizing about assisting in killing a signature monster, let alone stealing a rune from one. The ArCore slaughted several hundred slugs rolling your barrels down into the scab. Even after their shard tax, the share was impressive. So impressive objections were lodged.”

  “By?” Declan asked.

  “Everyone. Some concessions were made to prevent house wars, but surprisingly few since only House Taylor truly appreciated their value.” Skinner glanced to the wall. “I may be gone for a week, not more. As your advisor, I think you’re on a solid path. Should you need me, Crown Post can deliver a letter.”

  “Can I trade this Claw at the armory for a better one? Every imperfection makes soul-casting more difficult.”

  “Just because I cannot appreciate a difference doesn’t mean you can’t. Permitted.”

  Declan had one more question. “The Sun Queen. She told me to ‘rise.’ I hear it all the time. I thought it was just a saying, but it means something when she said it.”

  “That, too, is the subject of a thousand theories. I’ve heard the answer from her and willingly offered an oath to hold it secret, but the answer lies at the intersection of meaning, truth, and intent.” This time, Skinner pointed to the door.

  Good enough.

  ###

  At the library, the librarians presented four different choices for Intent and Declan skimmed all of them before settling on one that was less theory and more practice. Runes would absolutely work if one simply empowered and activated them. Runes worked better when focused with intent. It was the details that mattered. Picturing how it would activate, how it would effect, didn’t so much shape the mana as refine the imprint the rune created. It gave Declan a solid theory for how to use it and an understanding of why Claw was a solid choice.

  At the armory, he stood in line just like everyone else, then explained how he wanted to trade for another Claw. Soon enough, he sat at a table, sorting through bins of them while Gladson watched. “These are all Claw.”

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  “Yeah, but they’re not all the same. Two runes, same tier, one can definitely be more powerful. Take this one—this will function but it’ll cost more mana and produce worse effects. The imprint is jagged, barely sealed, not even.” Declan drew out his second candidate. “This is the most perfect Claw example I’ve found. If you took three Strikes and laid them out beside each other, this would be it. Every stroke the same width, the lines are mostly smooth, a tiny defect in each corner, but usable and far more powerful than that one.” He kept searching.

  After two hours, he’d found the one he wanted. It was technically an inferior rune, absolutely not the clear copy of the prime Claw but it felt right. Even better, it made it easier for Declan to envision and intent was closely coupled to that. “This one. I want this one.” The strokes were just shy of being defective. The top of all three was narrow, the base the normal width. It looked like a claw mark.

  “Label the other two and I’ll approve the exchange. I want to do some testing,” Gladson said. “A Claw is a Claw. I have a shit-ton of Corrosive Slime runes that need papers, you have time to do a few?”

  Declan made time.

  ###

  “I saw you at the library, the doors are open,” Declan said, opening the front door of House Ariloch as Chen ascended the steps. “I’ll still kick your ass if you don’t go study.”

  “You’re an asshole. But thanks. Did you get your Corrosive Slime runes? We all got five.”

  Delcan shook his head. “I wasn’t part of that. Emperor Chen organized that stroke of brilliance, communicated it to the ArCore, bargained for rewards and got it done.”

  “House Arcanist gets double shards, my rule. It was easy to communicate when I had three ArCore candidates in the house. And it was brilliant. I am brilliant. And humble. And hungry, so get your runes from the armory. Everyone else has, a bunch have cashed in or banked for shard tax. Maybe it’s time to upgrade our maze.”

  Declan had no plans of that. The current method was cheap, built of cast-off pieces and razor wire and though he wanted to build it better, bigger, he wasn’t about to change the how, with two major exceptions, both of which would cost. He wanted drop-gates. At the start of a swarm, blocking the paths would result in blazed beasts bashing their way through and destroying everying, or worse, turning on the houses. But at some point, it would make sense to trap what they could, closing them in for arcanists to pick off from the windows and securing the runes and shards from scavenging arcanists.

  Like himself.

  “I’m going to Taylor Keep in four days, should only be overnight. The house will be yours, Emperor.” Declan headed to the kitchen, where he sat with Gurnak, listening to the man explain about all the various ways one could infuse mana into materials, like the crystal that formed the windows or the doors that couldn’t be broken down. Everyone had their passion.

  The Academy was odd in that there was no set course. One could attend one year or ten, though seven was common. The goal was to learn the skills needed to serve the crown, a house, or themselves in whatever way the arcanist desired. Gurnak didn’t want to craft, he wanted to create crafting materials. There was only so long Declan could listen to theories about mana circulation in wood before his eyes glazed over, but he treated it like a mana channel exercise. One minute longer, one more material.

  At last, his brain gave in, and Declan went to the great room to listen to the flowing conversation and practice soul-casting Gather. Twice, he managed to close the loop, though both had been ever so slightly rushed. He switched to working on mana stones, bearing in his lap, one orbiting, the third held tight, eyes closed.

  “What did I say about isolation? I said to engage!” Rohan Taylor pulled Declan’s attention from his efforts. The ArCore leader was fresh from battle, his cloak ripped, his armor broken on one side, a pair of runes orbiting. Tegan stood in one corner locked in either conversation or a word-war with Hayden, and shockingly, Alister Rush sat, eyes closed, legs crossed near the fireplace.

  “I’m working on it,” Declan said. “You’re still on duty, right?”

  “Three more weeks. We’ll get to the point where it’s one week on, one off, but all the rin in the world can’t speed up the process too much.” Rohan sat in the chair next to him. “Your Insight was helpful against that hydrion. Like, critical levels of helpful. Then again, you were nearly killed five times.”

  “Two,” Declan said.

  “Five, two you noticed. And that’s another problem. Against signatures, knowing what they can do is very, very helpful but if you’re close enough to see, you’re close enough to die. Consider running?”

  Declan sighed. “I didn’t want to run. Tell that guy who uses Gnawing Passage not to. Rune’s a waste of mana for what he’s getting out of it. You move better with Wind Lift. It’s a shitty teleport.”

  “That’s what Cross is using? Ah. You’re not required to share your runes and the guy’s a duelist. That has a really long startup and cool down. And, it has a tendency to cause void beasts to spawn where it’s used. Fuck.” Rohan put his head in his hands. “Now I have to take it up with leadership. And I’m going to have to figure out how I know, because I’m not telling a duelist ‘Declan Thorn told me your secret rune.’”

  “Appreciated. Hayden’s off tonight. I mean, he’s there but he’s not cooking. What brings you by?”

  “Just wanted to say thanks and that if you don’t run next time, I’ll personally throw you three blocks. I might even break the fall a little. You’re a good one. You understand duty. I need you to understand survival.” Rohan stood and shook himself. “Teeg, Al, we’re on in ten.”

  “Hey!” Declan yelled to Tegan. “When you’re done, can I have a moment?”

  She waved him away until she’d handed over a stack of rin to Hayden, then saunted to him. “If it isn’t the would-be hydra chow. What carnal pleasure do you want from me?”

  That made Declan snort. “I wanted to thank you for what you did. Sometimes it’s easier if someone gives you a start on a project like that. And I have something I want to ask privately. If you’re uncomfortable in my apartment, we could go to the library.”

  “Like you’re a threat. Come on, chow.” She opened the door, walked through and sat down on the bed. “What’s so important?”

  Declan opened the lockbox. “This. That Hydrion head Rohan ripped off wasn’t dead. I dragged it away, killed it, and took the rune. Didn’t dare take it out to check until I was home.”

  Healing Breath: Exhale the power to heal minor injuries, a power that will circulate in the blood of those who breathe it for a duration limited by this rune’s tier. Mana Cost: High, Continuous. Tier Five Rune.

  He repeated the Insight. “Healing Breath. I don’t get your obsession with healing but I’m happy to help.”

  Tegan had closed her eyes. “It’s not an obsession, it’s need. You know our blood-rune. You know what it does. When I was sixteen, I was out in a swarm, chewing through monsters, and it was amazing. They came, they died. And I realized my mom isn’t as good with Destroy as I am. I was really proud. Then I spent some time thinking about what that meant about what I am. Who I am.”

  “So you took up healing?”

  “I need balance. I am raw destruction. It’s in my blood and I wouldn’t be so good at it if the rune didn’t resonate with me. But I can’t be all destruction. I won’t. So yes. Two years of nothing but book learning. Another year of practicing with someone else owning the rune.” She wiped her eyes and glared at the world. And him. “Then my parents step in to pressure Medical. Healing runes are so rare, they say. So difficult to come by. Prized. Treasured. They should go to someone who’s going to commit to it, not someone who dabbles because she’s afraid.”

  Declan actually understood. Intent had to be there for the blood rune to do so much damage. “Figure out a trade. I’ll give it to you if you swear you will.”

  “They’re not wrong about healing runes. That’s the problem. They’re not wrong. Thanks for the offer, but I have to pass.” Tegan closed the box and handed it back. “And next time, run.”

  “Next time, duck!” Declan shot back.

  “Make sure there’s not a next time.” Tegan slammed the door behind her.

  Declan sank onto his bed and sighed. Lake Domine was right. Tegan might be beautiful when she wasn’t covered in blood but any relationship would be diving into a volcano. He had enough burns from last time.