“Alright, do it again! This should be even better.” Bors sounded like a child waiting for his presents. He finished his tweaks and stepped back from the slender hexagonal pillar of stone that came up to his waist. I watched as a pale and shaky Gaz placed his palm atop it. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. A faint hum sounded, like someone running the edge of their finger around a giant wine glass.

  The sound grew—a chime of a bell strung out over several seconds. I started to hear the note quiver as the hexagonal structure began to shiver imperceptibly. I shielded my eyes just as the first crack formed, right before it exploded into needle-like shards.

  The shards didn’t go far, but I heard them pinging off Gaz’s armour. Then Bors let out a whoop, which Lance echoed from the sidelines. “Gaz, that was the best one yet! I think I’ve got it down now. I reckon one more try, and I could get the right structure to be lethal.”

  Gaz looked like he was about to object—probably starting with something along the lines of, You said this would be the last one, five exploded hexagons ago. But he sighed instead and tried to cultivate some strength back. I could have helped him, given that his main problem was his obsession with their ranks, which left him too timid to contradict the excited Bors. But I chose not to. I still nursed a grudge over the way Gaz had looked at me, as though I were a hexagon waiting to explode if struck wrong. Lance was there, and she’d help him if things got too dire.

  The pair had been obsessed with Gaz’s gift since our battle. Bors had naturally won, but Gaz’s ‘Sonic’ gift had made the fight far closer than expected. Bors had been forced to pull deeply on his earth gift to beat us. Gaz had shown remarkable skill in battle, and I begrudgingly had to admit that maybe the man was competent. Exploiting Crystal’s weakness to Sonic glamour had made all the difference. Sadly for Gaz, his decent level of control had sparked something in Bors, igniting this new obsession with exploding hexagonal pillars.

  That, and the fact that no matter how far along you were in your cultivation journey, there was nothing like being able to blow things up to make you laugh.

  I did my best to get my mind back on task, mostly deciding which of the two essential things I should do next, on top of keeping myself aware of the coming threat. We had limited time. The Founder’s Festival lasted three days, having started at noon this Thorsdaeg and ending by noon on Sunnundaeg. At any point, something could happen. Part of our deployment here was to keep watch on the bridge and anyone looking to cross it. Divine Cultivators wouldn’t move en masse; these lands were still under the Chox, so any movements would need to be covert.

  I knew that Lance could use dreams to send messages, but given her junior level of cultivation, she could only send messages to a dream glamour user who was currently dreaming. That meant we had a few check-ins scheduled, but outside of those times, we wouldn’t know what was going on.

  Lance had mentioned that she’d updated her mother about our slaying of the supremely stuck-up Barclay, and there was no sign Roland knew of his son’s death. Though he’d likely suspect something was wrong when Barclay failed to return by the end of the day. That meant people could be out seeking us tomorrow, even without the Divine Cultivators making a move. Lance hadn’t gone into detail, but she’d sounded shaken by the chat. It wasn’t that her mother had said anything specific, but Lance had stopped referring to the threat as a possibility and now spoke of it as an inevitable challenge.

  All of that meant I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had a book on death cultivation—that was damn important. But with the bodged dream glamour cultivation technique, it wasn’t essential. Then I had a stack of alchemy gear with perhaps enough impurities available to give me the fuel I’d need to return. That was essential, but I wasn’t sure if I had quite enough, and it would still clog my channels, slowing down my cultivation. I needed every ounce of power at a time like this. But I also really didn’t want to die.

  I floated my mind over to the beast cores in my storage ring. There was an assortment of low-powered cores, nothing like the Mist Lynx. The most powerful equalled the core I pulled from the first Gale Hare, which was high/peak Bronze. I still had the second Gale Hare’s core, which was the only thing that put me within spitting distance of getting my impurities up to the level I needed.

  I could, in theory, choke them all down in the span of a very unpleasant couple of hours. But then I’d lose a lot of potential to improve my cultivation by not alchemically processing them. Then again, I’d never done much of this work as an alchemist and could easily ruin them.

  I sighed and flopped back, pulling out the book. I knew on some level it was the smarter option—a gift from a possibly Mithril-level cultivator, who I was possibly pushed towards by the Lady of the Lake—had to be more important than me fiddling about with alchemy.

  It just grated on me. I didn’t like being a puppet of greater powers beyond me. I’d literally died to escape such a situation. Even if the Lady wanted the best for me, it itched to feel her hooks in every decision I made.

  My story didn’t need to be one of a hero forging the path of justice. I was happy not being the main character of whatever fateful destiny I was getting wrapped up in. What I could not stand was the feeling that I had no control over it—that I was marching to a story I had no say in.

  I’d grown into the role of the Bard that had been handed to me. I would sing the songs of destined heroes, but I refused to relinquish all control of the words to another.

  This control had already cost me my ability to lie. While the ability to perceive falsehoods was a reasonable compensation, it wasn’t what I’d have chosen. I’d made friends with Bors because I was put here. I’d met Ban because of the timing of the attack on Bors. I’d befriended Miss Peaches and aided Lancelot as I continued down that same path she’d set for me. It was getting exhausting. I was half-waiting for Bors to admit he was some runaway prince or other such source of destiny.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I didn’t think Gaz would be the source of destiny; the man was too dull to be part of such a tale.

  It was why I’d wanted to start on the alchemy—because that was fundamentally a choice of my own. An idea and a desire of my own. Yet here I was, staring at the Illuminated Text, and I could practically feel the Lady reading it over my shoulder with those eyes like ocean depths, smiling as her plans played out.

  The book was a formal printing done via some process that allowed multiple copies to be made. It held only a smattering of gold leaf to highlight the title The Book of Lesser Death Curses. The cover was, of course, black leather, which fit its utilitarian design. The book didn’t have gilded pages or beautiful scrollwork like Bors’ text bore, but I had no doubt it would be just as useful, if not more so.

  I always liked reading the manuals and guides of witches. They did use fancy words that would’ve had Bors pulling his hair out, but they followed a highly academic format. The witches were Euross’ foremost natural philosophers and researchers, and their texts all matched a similar structure—which included, to everyone’s great benefit, a summary at the beginning.

  ‘The nature of death glamour is that of a power that must be met with respect. All but the weakest emanations of the glamour hold a will of their own, which does not tolerate being casually seized and bent into new forms like elemental glamours allow. Death glamour must instead be appeased by sacrifice or carefully squeezed of its will. To be deployed, the glamour is most skittish and fragile; it must be given shape by another form, applied to the edge of a blade, layered onto another technique, or, most relevant to this text, applied to the Evil Eye. Death glamour is eminently suitable to empower the Evil Eye to form curses with a variety of forms that range from minor debilitations to deadly curses. This text outlines the path a death cultivator can follow to gain this control.’

  Well, that sounded promising.

  I had never refined the Evil Eye myself. It was easy to trigger by accident if one’s emotions got the better of them, and I knew of plenty of times I’d likely accidentally shot out a blast of it during my captivity. I looked through the contents and found an appendix that included, among other things, the basics of a cultivation technique that the author referenced heavily. One specifically aimed at death cultivation. That seemed like the best place to start.

  I hoped to focus on my reading but was interrupted when Gaz almost collapsed, and the pillar exploded once more. Bors offered a great deal of apologies, pausing the exercise. I didn’t want to get into a conversation now that the group was no longer captivated, so I slung Bors my ring and explained he’d find a gift within. I also told him about the deal with Gaz regarding the looted gear and set them all to sorting out the spoils of battle.

  I briefly noted the storm that crossed Lance’s face—a reminder that she’d slain someone who was, in theory, her kin. I had to ignore it this time. My friend would have to handle those worries on her own for a while.

  Reading the outline of the technique piqued my already boiling curiosity. From the short extract at the top, it was clear the cultivation technique was like none I’d ever encountered before. I’d twigged something was odd when the opening text mentioned sacrifice. Unlike the dream glamour method, which pulled the power in and then suppressed its will, this approach worked on aligning the will of the glamour to match your own. It was a baffling concept.

  ‘The will of death glamour reflects the life that was led and the emotions in the final moments. The glamour retains only the strongest emotions and follows only the grooves cut deepest into the soul by the life they’ve led. This will is not intelligent, and only in special cases can it identify those important to it, with exceptions being those beings with distinct souls or those it has spent much of its life beside. This will can cause dark maladies if taken directly into the hearth, as this remnant will clashes with the cultivator's true soul.’

  ‘To avoid this, the sacrifice method relies on an intermediary “offering.” This offering is infused with a minuscule amount of the cultivator's death glamour, which helps alert the energy of death to its presence. As long as this offering is something of interest to the dead, then they will gather about it, being held there as a ship to an anchor. This holds the glamour in place, and then the cultivator can push their will into the offering, similar to holding the death glamour against the hearth, but without the significant risk of taking in the still-volatile energy. This glamour can then be absorbed by the cultivator.’

  I reread this passage several times. If I hadn’t died myself, I’m not sure I’d believe it. As someone who had died, I could picture it perfectly.

  I didn’t think often about being dead. I thought a fair amount about death—much more so now that I’d realised just how close I’d come to it yesterday—but that wasn’t the same. Thinking about death was worrying about not being present, not about exploring what happened after.

  I didn’t think much about the afterlife. It was something Divine Cultivators rambled endlessly about. They sounded confident, yet I was certain it was all lies from the monsters who supported them.

  I had a unique perspective on being dead, having been so twice now. Trying to think about that time spent severed from the world was difficult. It slipped away from my mind like an eel in a muddy pond—barely noticed, and if I did spot it, it would slip out of my clutches the second I tried to grab hold of it.

  Still, of what I could grasp, I remembered being alone with my soul, as if there was nothing beyond it. I remembered nought else about it apart from a soul-deep sensation of loneliness, like I was a lone star in an infinite night sky.

  If I saw even a glimmer of something appear—something I recognised and didn’t fear—I would dash towards it. I’d hold onto it rather than be lost and alone.

  As I tried to think more on the realm of death, I felt my grip on even that knowledge begin to slide. I brought my attention back to the book.

  I wasn’t sure what this new method meant for me and my cultivation or what these ‘offerings’ could be. It sounded complicated, having to impress my will on something in battle. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was worried I’d start whistling the next time we fought, as my body sought to protect me from the dark temptation of the death glamour.

  The next paragraph sent a tingle through my spine and had me tap the side of my lute. I read it again to be sure.

  ‘The offering can be almost anything that the living soul would’ve known and been drawn to. This act is co-opted into many rituals of the dead, ranging from the use of candles, as humans seek the light, to burial mounds full of treasures, and even the use of funerary songs.’

  I read those last two words over and over until I felt a smile sneak up on me, causing my cheeks to ache.

  I could cultivate through music.

  It turned out my goal of bardic cultivation had potential, even if it relied on the audience of the dead.