Rayna held her hands in front of her, trying to visualize the bubble between her palms that Naomi described. Their awkward exchange of names had come a full thirty minutes into this magical lesson as Naomi already knew Rayna’s name and Rayna didn’t even think about asking for hers.

  “You have to concentrate,” Naomi said unhelpfully. “The Essence should accumulate between your palms. Feel it and push it outwards. It will repel the Miasma.”

  Rayna felt nothing. No Essence was pooling between her hands, no energy built up in the air. She just looked stupid.

  Rayna growled in frustration, dropping her arms to her side. “Forget it! Let’s just go through the dungeon. It’s not like it’ll take long to get there.”

  “This is something you have to know,” Naomi said, already in teacher mode. “You can’t just walk to the nearest dungeon every time you get stuck in Ashen and you can’t run from every monster you come across.”

  A bird flew past at a distance, its wingspan massive, but it didn’t attempt to move closer.

  “They don’t seem very keen on eating me,” Rayna said flatly.

  “That’s because you haven’t used Essence yet,” Naomi said. “Trust me, they’ll get riled up if you’re too close when you cast spells, and when that happens, you have to be able to defend yourself.”

  Rayna pressed her lips together. “Doesn’t that make not using spells the safer option? If Essence is what makes them aggressive, I mean.”

  Naomi shook her head. “Your mere presence will make them aggressive when you get stronger. If you uncover your hair, those monsters will be much less docile, I can tell you that.”

  Rayna had seen that first-hand. If she kept her hair uncovered, she got attacked by things. It still didn’t make sense to her, though.

  “Why does Essence piss them off?” Rayna asked. “If monsters are a combination of Miasma and Essence, why is it only one of the two that makes a problem?”

  “It’s not,” Naomi said. “It’s about the form of the magic. When it’s contained in a vessel—be it a body, core, spell or item—the magic will affect nearby creatures, animals and monsters alike. Scholars believed that it was an innate defensive instinct; remove the source of the power before it exploded and killed everyone.”

  “Scholars?” Rayna asked.

  “From before the cataclysm,” Naomi clarified. “Before everything changed…” The latter statement was morose. Naomi’s eyes lost focus for a moment as she seemed to ruminate on some distant past. She pulled herself back to the conversation. “Right. Well, then, we should try again.”

  Rayna sighed, raising her hands while keeping her attention on Naomi. “How old are you?”

  She acted like she was old but talked like she was young. She had to be in her mid-thirties or forties based on her appearance, but that didn’t take the System into account.

  “That’s none of your business,” Naomi said defensively. “Focus on the magic.”

  She was younger than she was pretending to be, that was for sure. Her response had the feeling of a teenager trying to defend her fake ID.

  Rayna put it aside and turned her mind back to the magic. This time, she didn’t close her eyes. She examined her hands. She got excited when a bubble formed, but it didn’t seem to be made of Essence.

  Whatever. A bubble is a bubble, Rayna thought.

  She made the bubble grow, forcing it slowly outward through the dense Miasma.

  The Miasma passed through her bubble without any hesitation, buffeted only slightly by the magic’s passing. It was like dust in a light breeze instead of the impassable bubble that she was trying to make.

  “No dice,” Rayna said, dusting her hands off on her clothes.

  “I don’t understand it,” Naomi said. “This should work. It was never this hard before. Maybe there’s too much Miasma in the air? Or maybe you’re not putting enough power into it. Make it bigger, let’s see what happens.”

  “Can you even see anything?” Rayna asked. The darkness was so thick that Rayna could barely see a few feet in front of her. The moon had retreated behind a cloud, removing all light but the subtle glow of the nearby buildings.

  Naomi misunderstood Rayna’s question. “I can’t, no. I never could. I used to hear magic, but that doesn’t really help us now. It didn’t carry over.”

  Every now and then, Naomi would say something like this that caught in Rayna’s brain. She was slowly coming to a conclusion, but she needed to confirm before going forward.

  “You’re a Lerian, right?” Rayna asked carefully. “But not part Lerian. You’re like me.”

  Naomi looked surprised. “I didn’t say? Oh, sorry. Yes. I’m Princess Naomi Emberan, Third Princess of Helia, Ambassador and Dungeon Architect.” She rushed through the introduction as if it was made out of habit and not because she actually cared about the long string of words. “At least I was… What do you mean ‘like me’?”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “A body-snatcher,” Rayna said without thinking.

  Naomi recoiled. “What’s that supposed to mean?!”

  “I just mean… that body wasn’t originally yours?” Rayna said. “The cervinale was—”

  “Dead,” Naomi finished flatly. “You can’t put a soul in a living body. And no soul would willingly leave before the body has expired.”

  “You killed her?” Rayna asked, fear making the words catch in her throat.

  “What? No!” Naomi looked appalled. “I’m not sure how she died. When I woke up, I was lying on the side of the road dressed in shredded clothing with a quest that told me where to go next.”

  Rayna wasn’t sure how much of that story she believed. It sounded plausible enough, but it was also coming from someone who basically just admitted to being a zombie. Did that make Rayna a zombie? That was a step down from body-snatcher.

  “Let’s just go,” Rayna said, wanting to end the conversation quickly. “I don’t think I’m going to figure out the bubble anytime soon.”

  She started in the direction of the city gates but Naomi caught her arm.

  “No,” Naomi said. “We have to figure this out.”

  “Why can’t we practice this on Ember?” Rayna asked. “That seems like the safer route, if Miasma is really as dangerous as you all think.”

  Naomi shook her head. “Anywhere with enough Miasma to test the theory would also be soaked in Essence. The movement of energies might cause explosions, or worse, monster spawning.”

  Rayna frowned. “I thought monsters only spawned in dungeons and spawn sites.”

  “And those are the only places that you’ll find enough Miasma to test it,” Naomi said. “Those areas naturally attract Miasma, stabilizing the rest of the world at the cost of dungeon stability. That’s why it’s so important to keep the dungeons running smoothly so the Miasma can be sent back to Ashen. In any case, it’s better to learn your bubbles here where there’s only one energy present.”

  Rayna tapped her foot impatiently. If she realized Naomi would be this difficult, she would’ve waited until they were back on Ember to suggest the mentorship.

  “Are you using your hair?” Naomi asked out of nowhere.

  Rayna tilted her head in confusion. “My hair?”

  Naomi nodded. “The spell should be coming from your hair. That’s your only source of Essence right now. Once you develop a core, it will come from there, but by then, you’ll have other powers that combine with these to make travel between the boundary easier. That’s what the Inheritance was designed for.”

  Designed? The Inheritances were manmade? Then how were they passed down in families?

  Rayna wanted to ask these questions and more, but she was eager to try the new approach. She had been using her core this whole time. Maybe the fact that her core was damaged had kept the bubble from forming properly.

  Rayna lifted her hands, and Naomi walked her through the process again.

  “Focus on your Essence pool,” Naomi said. “For this spell, that’s your hair. Feel the Essence flowing through your body and up through your scalp.”

  Rayna took a breath in and let it out, feeling the Essence as it traveled from her head to her feet. She had noticed it moving before, but now she took extra care to trace its path through her body. Up her legs, around her core, behind her heart and up to her head.

  It was like there was a magical silly straw twisting through her body, stretching out through her limbs.

  Looking inward, Rayna found her core as well. It was darkened, a large crack on the left side that leaked energy at a steady rate. Rayna wasn’t sure if she was actually seeing her core or if this was just her imagination.

  “Once you can feel it, send that energy to your hands. Don’t pull too much—you don’t have to drain your pool. It’s a low-powered spell.”

  Rayna pulled a small piece of Essence from her hair and directed it to her hands. The feeling of magic was similar, but this time, the magic around her responded, trying to surround the spell in her hands.

  Rayna pushed her bubble outward, making it as big as she could.

  It pushed back the Miasma a foot, then two feet, progressing until she had a solid ten feet of clear space.

  It wasn’t a pleasant experience.

  Devoid of Essence and Miasma, Ashen felt hollow and empty. Her stomach roiled as if she was going to be sick.

  “Fill the area around you with Essence,” Naomi said quickly. “Sorry, I forgot that part!”

  Rayna pushed Essence out as she had with her Mana in the dungeon. Her chest loosened and she breathed out a sigh of relief.

  “You did it?” Naomi asked excitedly.

  Instead of answering, Rayna drew a portal in the air. The shining silver disk opened even easier than it had on Ember and as soon as it stabilized, Naomi’s name tag appeared.

  [Naomi Emberan — Level 210]

  [Cervinale]

  Rayna nodded at the portal. “After you?”

  Naomi shook her head. “The portals are personal. I can’t follow you through.”

  Rayna gaped at her. “Then why did I spend the last hour making one?!” she asked incredulously.

  “Because you needed to know how,” Naomi said. “You had already mastered portals—at least, you can open and close them. We can talk about the particulars later—but you needed to be able to open them on either side of the boundary. Now I don’t have to worry about you getting stuck here.”

  Rayna considered strangling the cervinale. She closed the portal and crossed her arms. “So, after all that, we still have to walk?”

  “Go back first,” Naomi said. “I’ll meet you at the Caverns and Cave Rats Dungeon. I promised Amon some information.”

  * * *

  It was easier to navigate with Rayna’s map back up. She followed Naomi’s plan, if only to give herself time to fume in private. She was having second thoughts about making Naomi her teacher, but she wanted to get Corban’s input before she made the final decision.

  Also, she wanted to ask Amon what he was thinking, sending an unknown person into Ashen after her. She thought he was more reasonable than that.

  She went the long way around Ellis, passing close enough to the Aeteraut forest that Salice stopped to say hi.

  After a ten minute greeting and a ten minute goodbye, Rayna managed to extricate herself from the clingy forest spirit.

  By the time she reached the hub, Naomi was already waiting outside. Apparently, Amon had the good sense not to send her directly to Rayna’s room.

  “Rayna! You made it,” Naomi said as if they hadn’t talked less than a few hours ago.

  “It’s late and I’m tired,” Rayna said grumpily. “Whatever you have to say, say it quick.”

  Naomi frowned. “This isn’t exactly a quick conversation…”

  “Then come back tomorrow,” Rayna said. “I’ll let Amon know you’re allowed in.”

  ‘Tomorrow’ was a relative term, Rayna observed as the sun peeked out from behind the horizon. Rayna wished she had the foresight to get Lord Emery’s contact info. She had no way of telling him that she made it back safely.

  “I can’t come tomorrow,” Naomi said. “I’ll return in three days.”

  She left before Rayna could object.

  Rayna groaned. That meant she was stuck at the hub for three more days before she could start looking for the hubs again.

  Technically, she could look in the meantime, but she had a tendency to get sidetracked and she didn’t want to miss out on information because she ended up in a hole somewhere battling giant chickens or something equally ridiculous.

  She was finally going to get some answers, and she wasn’t letting some inopportune detour take that away from her.

  Before anything else, she needed a nap.

  The Stubborn Light of a Dying Flame!

  Vanessa Br?uer