PreCursive

  I simply stared into Sylvia’s gemborn sapphire blue eyes for a moment, doing my best to hide my unease. I may have a maxed-out Ag Talent, but I couldn’t be sure I was able to fool her.

  Sylvia had always been more perceptive than most gave her credit for.

  “What did you want to know?” I finally asked quietly.

  To my surprise, Sylvia began to fidget in pce slightly, toying with the pommel of her sword. Her eyes cut away from me. “I…am given to uand that you are my father’s apprentice,” She said slowly. “And that you were instrumental in freeing him, and have been sihat time. Not only that, but we were…partners for a time-”

  I felt my heart stutter in my chest for a moment at those words.

  Was she remembering?

  “-in our work with the Noe Division,” Sylvia tinued awkwardly. My hopes died a swift death. Thankfully, I don’t think she had noticed, with the way she wasn’t looking at me. “I…likely already thanked you for your liberation of father, but I wao do so again. It’s weighed ohat I ot remember that.”

  I sighed slightly. “You did thank me,” I said, my mind fshing back to the hug she had given me all those months ago. Even then, I think I might have had a small crush on the Sculpted woman. Sylvia had been a small source of fort for me, ier half of my time in Addersfield. I had been so emotionally raw in those days that even the smallest source of distra in the form of her lessons had a gigantic impae. I had so desperately needed any source of hope for the future, and her instru ih I had eventually e to hate had given it to me.

  Even now, I was disturbed at the realization that I was feeling nearly as vulnerable now, as I was in those nightmare filled days long past.

  There were some things strength simply couldn’t fix.

  Sylvia finally turo face me, and I think some of my unease must have finally occurred to her. “We were…close, weren’t we?” She nearly whispered.

  I closed my eyes, unwilling to meet hers. I couldn’t bring myself to speak, and so I just nodded.

  Silence desded on us for a moment, before she spoke again. “How…close, exactly?”

  I opened my eyes, but didn’t look at her. “Very,” I said roughly.

  Sylvia was smart. I had no doubt that she uood what that meant. “Oh,” She said, in a weak voice. “I…see.”

  I finally turo look at Sylvia at those words. It pained me to see how small the Sculpted woman looked then, with her arms ed tightly around herself. I so desperately wao be the one who could fort her again and take her Mithril form in my arms, but…

  I was nearly a stranger, now.

  I took a deep breath. This had been ing since she had woken up, and it was time to stop running from it.

  No matter how much it hurt.

  Slowly, so as not to startle her, I approached Sylvia aly pried one of her hands off her forearms. Meeting her eyes, I did my best to smile. “I’m sorry, Sylvia,” I said quietly. “You don’t deserve this, and I’m sorry that I failed you so deeply. If I had just been stronger, if I had just known how to treat you better…maybe you wouldn’t be suffering this way now.”

  Sylvia’s eyes widened from the tact, a small amount of paering her eyes as she gnced down at my hand on hers. “I…” She tried to speak, but couldn’t force the words out.

  “Maybe one day…we be friends again,” I said softly. “But…I don’t know if it’ll be more than that. You, as much I care about you, aren’t the woman I fell in love with. As short as a year is…that history was important.” I said, taking a step bad feeling a weight lift off of my shoulders. Both the aowledgment of that fact, and the small amount of relief that I could see in Sylvia’s eyes…

  It hurt, of course. But maybe not as much as it had been.

  Like the ng of a boil, the pain first o be fronted, before it could heal.

  Sylvia shuddered from my words and nodded jerkily. “I-I see,” She said, looking simultaneously dazed and forted. If I knew Sylvia…

  And I did.

  After somehow finding out about how close we had been, she’d felt a pressure at the expectation of the retionship. She hadn’t known me, and even if she knew intellectually that she had no obligation to a stranger, I was still her father’s apprentice.

  I had no desire to weigh on her mind as she worked to find herself once again.

  “When I get back,” I said with a smile. “We should talk. Maybe spar. And see if we get to know each ain, if only frey’s sake.”

  Something about my words must have finally reassured Sylvia, because she gave me a tiny smile. “I would like that, Sir Hart.”

  I made a show of wing exaggeratedly. “Just Nathan, please.”

  Her smile widened. “Nathan, then. It’s o meet you…Nathan,” She said, extending her left hand.

  Something about that gesture…it puzzled me for a moment, before I realized what it was.

  Sylvia was naturally right-handed. Why would she extend her left?

  My heart picked up slightly at a possibility.

  Sylvia, my Sylvia, had been strangely fond of my false left arm, whose foundations had been built oudy of her soul. Always when we had held hands, or merely when she sought fort from me, it had been my left she had sought out. I think something about the simirity of the limb to her own had reassured her.

  Maybe it was just hope…but if she wanted my left arm now….

  Maybe something of her old self still resided inside of her.

  My own smile widened as well, and I reached out and csped her hand with my new Primordium one. I met her eyes.

  Emerald on Sapphire.

  “It’s o meet you too, Sylvia.”

  ……………………………………………

  After our ‘introdu’, Sylvia nearly hurried out of Grey’s temporary office, looking deeply embarrassed. If she had lost all of the emotional growth of the st near year, I wasn’t surprised. Sylvia had been a bit…awkward, back then.

  Well.

  More than she had been, at least.

  As for myself, I was feeling more at peace. Don’t get me wrong, I was still itg to get away from this city and the war in general. And it wasn’t like one small exge had eased my burdens.

  But I felt like at least one small thing was going to turn out alright.

  Sylvia would be fiually. She just o adapt to the world that had moved around her, in her lost memories.

  And…I think I would be fine one day as well.

  In time.

  I left Grey’s office feeling buoyed for the first time in over a week to seek my mentor out. It was time to get this ritual underway, after all.

  The soohe better, I say.

  Luckily, Grey had showhe Isotion Chamber he had set up for our use yesterday. The manse, once upon a time, had tained a small Gyreite churside of it. The former ruling house of Elderwyck had apparently been a bit religious, but unsurprisingly, Olsen hadn’t beeher he or the guard he had gifted the mao had maintaihe tiny room, with its single pane of dusty stained gss set above in the far wall.

  Grey hadn’t even bothered to up the room whe up the Isotion Chamber. The physical liness didn’t matter for our purposes, only the spiritual. It made for an odd diy as I ehe cluttered, dusty stone fines of the long-abandoned Church that heless felt entirely Aetherically sterile.

  Grey was here, as he had said he would be. My mentor was kneeling on the only patch of stohat had bee of the dust, and only for the purposes of creating the needed circles.

  I examihem as I stepped into the room. The physical shape of the new engraving on the floor was very different than what I had seen ba Silvercret. There, it had been of a rge, golden, seven-armed spiral, the primary iography of the Gyreites.

  Here, it was of eight interlinked circles, cast in silver. They were arranged in a near circle themselves with seven of them surrounding the eighth in the ter. I had found that a bit odd, actually. Eight was an unon number in Magic, I’d found. Nearly everything seemed to e is of seven, instead. But Grey had said this was how it o be, and it’s not like I knew aer.

  My uanding was that I was meant to kneel in the ter circle, while the other six would tain the necessary reagents for the ritual. Grey had carved into the stone of floor using some instrument, and then filled those grooves with molten, Mana-charged silver.

  Apparently, he had melted down and charged the metal himself out of some silverware he had found in a dusty et in the ba of the church.

  Every silver line of those circles was framed by tiny lines of inscribed runes. What I’d found a bit surprising about the runic structure of Magi Assion rituals was that the syntax almost read like plete nonsense. Rather than the near versational tone of traditional runic script, this was almost purely funal. Nonsense phrases like that were hly transting into things like ‘Aether line down surround envelop totality reverse nothingness’, and that was only one example out of hundreds iire array. However, empowered by the array, I could feel that they were w, even though my uanding of the script told me they shouldn’t.

  Guess I still had a bunch to learn about Magic.

  Holy, it was a bit exg.

  Grey looked up from his kneeling iion of the circle as I ehe room. At the sight of me, the wrinkles on his brow deepened into a ed look.

  I smiled and shook my head at him, to his visible relief. “We’ll be fine, Grey,” I told him. “Don’t worry about it.”

  My menthed his relief, standing up from his croud dusting off his robes as he did so. “Very well. I trust you, Nathan,” He said with a small smile on his lips. Abruptly, he shook his head. “If that’s out of the way, the us begin. You’ll have to strip down so we begin the preparations for the ritual.” His smile shifted, taking on a mischievous tint. “I trust you’re prepared for the most harrowing of all trials?”

  I rolled my eyes at him, but still ran a self-scious hand through my shaggy brown hair. You see, during our preparations, Grey had told me about otle requirement to a Magi Assion ritual.

  You had to shave your head.

  Although the mind wasn’t apparently bound to the head or brain like some thought, there was still a symbological linking to it. That apparently mattered for something like this. Part of the ritual involved shaving your head so it could be painted in simir runic scripts that would decorate the rest of my body. From what Grey had told me, the Cultivators didn’t have to do anything like this. I certainly hadn't seen Sylvia do something simir.

  Lucky them. I was going to have to be bald for a few months.

  Just like Grey.

  Said i ran an almost smug hand over his shiny, smooth, nearly gleaming skull. “Don’t worry, Nathan,” He said almost desdingly. “There’s only a tiny ce your hair won’t grow back. As, I was one of the unfortunate few. I’ve been cursed with this smooth, perfectly spherical for turies now. I’m sure it won’t happen to you too.”

  I rolled my eyes at Grey, shrugging off my shirt. “Oh, give it a rest, old man,” I said, exasperated. “I’ve watched you shave that e-dome. Your hair still grows back just fine. You just like it that way.”

  “Pure window dressing,” He lied shamelessly, not even blinking at the btant falsehood. “A habit I developed to cope with my unfortunate reality.”

  her of us could keep a straight face at that idea, and broke out into chuckles. After a moment we calmed down, and Grey smiled at me with a slightly relieved shade to the expression. “e, Nathan,” He said eventually. “Sit in that chair, and I’ll get started on your hair.”

  I nodded and did as he said once I was down to my small clothes, walking over to a small stool and sitting on it. After that, I heard Grey pick up the pair of shears he had brought with him and snip the air to test. Seds ter, my hair began to fall from all around me as Grey trimmed my hair far down enough that he could shave my head. I shivered once he did, feeling the sharp bde of his personal straight razor depriving me of my shaggy hair. I shivered again once he was do the feeling of air on my bare scalp.

  A yelp escaped my lips when I felt Grey sp my head pyfully, causio turn around and gre at him. He just smirked at me and the ritual circle. “Kneel in the ter and I’ll get started on the runes.”

  Sn, I did as he asked, resting on my knees in the ter. Not long after, Grey approached and picked up the brush resting in a nearby pot of prepared ink, and got to work. I fought down a ugh at the feeling of the bristles on my skin, especially on my newly bared scalp. I had always been a bit ticklish.

  It took Grey nearly half an hour of careful painting to finish, and when he had, I looked down at myself. I nearly whistled at the density of runes now painting my flesh. They flowed ay skin in waves and circles, f smooth patterns that almost blended into each other. I didn’t know Grey was capable of such artistry.

  I was broken out of my iion by the sound of Grey’s voice. “Now…” He said, uedly solemn. “You’re ready. As I told you, Nathan, you’ll have to focus through the entire process. It might be a bit painful, but you o e. The active part of the ritual will not take long, but it will be violent. Thankfully, the included shield meism in your circle will tain most of the unstable energies. Are you ready?”

  I looked up a my mentor's eyes. After taking a moment to squash any doubts, I him.

  Grey studied me seriously and theurhe gesture when he saw I was serious.

  “Now…let us begin.”