Declan rose before dawn and ate alone in the quiet kitchen, attempting to drive mana into the mana stone that fit in his fist. It weighed nothing and yet refused him just like the mana bearing. And yet, he’d learned on something fifty times the size. Bringing every ounce of his will to focus had it yield, a little.

  He wore Ariloch white and expected to add red, black and blue to the mix if there was any question. House Drevond lay left and across the world wound, so Declan ran, sprinting along until he reached House Drevond, which was wide awake, if it had ever gone to sleep. The only light streamed from the houses, or the lightning far above as it continued its eternal circle.

  “Declan, my friend!” Anthony. Oh, yes, the vast black man with muscles that made Rohan look weak and hair tied back in a braid. He carried a bundle of bamboo sticks and pointed to the World Wound. “It’s so good you’ve decided to learn to fight. Really, it made me happy. The best time was when you were a child but this morning is good, too.”

  “Do we have any actual weapons?” Declan asked, feeling mana shift far below. “We could be attacked.”

  “We can only hope! That might make this day even better.” Anthony unbundled his sticks and tossed one to Declan. “Hold like so, swing the way your heart desires. The sword’s edge is the last thing that cuts, my friend. Your heart slices long before. Show me!”

  Declan knew fuck-all about swords, but he knew about sticks, and swung at Anthony’s head.

  One moment the man was about to be hit and the next, the stick had passed just short of his chest, and Anthony was in his face. “Good! Swing more! Swing from the heart!”

  Faster and faster, Declan attacked. Frustration built as with every swing, Anthony tapped him on the hand, or the arm, or the chest. “Come on, friend. The heart must cut.”

  He didn’t hold back this time, swinging with all his strength and pivoting to bring the stick down in arcs that should have connected over and over, until he stood, gasping, hands shaking, legs burning. “This. Isn’t. Working.”

  “Now your heart is ready.” Anthony prodded him. “Like this. Hold like so, swing elbow and arm. Again. Again, my friend. This is how you learn.”

  It wasn’t so much that Declan was losing. It was that Anthony would wear a shit-eating grin the whole godamned time.

  ###

  “He’s a monster,” Declan said as he sat down at the table with Eden, Harris and Roland. “I hurt. I had mana channel alignment and that didn’t hurt like this. Why didn’t you tell me, Roland? Isn’t there someone who would have started simply?”

  “He’s the best.” Roland offered that as his only explanation. “Also, you owe me. Got a weird rune, no one can sleep with it in the same room. We think it’s cursed and we’re kind of on restriction from turning in cursed runes because of a small hoarding problem. Consider it a bonus shard.”

  “Corrupted,” Declan said. “If no one’s activating it, it won’t explode like a bomb but I’ll come by and check it.”

  “I had someone put it in your apartment, no worries. Eden, how’s that project going for me?” Roland asked.

  “Wait!” Declan said. “You can’t open my apartment. Only I can. Why would you put it in my apartment?”

  Roland didn’t look away. “ArCore can open it and they owe me, too. Like I said, corrupted, no one on the floor can sleep, blah blah blah. Eden, I really, really need that project. I mean, it’s close to me owing you.”

  “Chocolate. Long Dark chocolate,” Harris said before Declan could ask. “It’s the only thing he ever gives his parents for Long Dark. What’s your tradition? You’re the only Foundry person I’ve ever met.”

  Long Dark. It was a time of warm fires and warm cider and stories told around the fire. “Sullivan cleans the foundry that week. We got a week off. Not us, but the other Foundry workers. It was so nice.”

  “Gift. What did you give?” Roland added.

  “I got a mana bearing for my tenth birthday,” Declan said. “Ten and eighteen are the ones that matter.” It would be the first Long Dark away, though it wouldn’t be dark in House Ariloch.

  He could afford to send gifts. Small gifts.

  It was a great feeling. “What happens here?”

  “Blazed beasts don’t take holidays, we don’t take them, you don’t take them,” Eden said. “On the plus side, there’s always something nice to kill in the world wound. It all works out.”

  “New rule, you leave me a cursed rune without asking first, I’m keeping the cursed rune,” Declan said. “Why the hell did you not turn it in at the armory?”

  “We’re already in trouble, no one in the house can sleep with it there, and it’s too much work for a shard. And I thought that was the rule. Hey, it’s your Long Dark gift!” Roland flinched as Eden punched him.

  Declan had class, but first, he ran all the way to House Ariloch and removed the gods-damned cursed Runes. Running without all three bearings was like being lifted by the wind, so he sprinted to Instructor Skinner’s classroom and waited until he was called.

  “You’re supposed to be controlling one rune, a mana stone,” Skinner said.

  “They’re apparently cursed.” Declan picked up one. “Oh, yeah, that’s corrupted. That one’s really corrupted. That’s not corrupted, but I have no idea what the rune is.”

  “Today’s practice, then.” Skinner said. “Cursed runes. It’s an interesting term. Corrupted is a more accurate term, though I must ask you, corrupted by what?”

  The answer might lie in forcing him to examine the runes closer but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The pieces of the puzzle were there. “The Defiler?”

  “Possibly one of them.” Skinner glanced to the rune stones. “There have been several over the centuries. There will be more. They are an expression of the world’s ills, not the cause. Work the rune or work the mana stone, I leave the choice to you.

  Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

  Declan chose both.

  ###

  He was barely able to move, barely able to limp and just about to give up when he arrived at lunch. “Two cursed runes and a tier one Night Terror rune. They’re known for insomnia. You can’t even kill a beast with one.”

  Night Terror: Plague the enemy with their worst fears for a brief but intense moment. Mana Cost: minor, fixed

  “Still too much work,” Roland said. “I got a bonus for letting the house sleep again.”

  “You won’t believe what I got,” Harris said as he ran up. “A complete Night Terror rune. I’m waiting to work on it with care but I think it’s going to be my first forced merge. Night Terror and Claw,” Harris glanced to Declan with admiration. “This isn’t a mistake, it’s an investment.”

  Declan had given him the rune but banked the cursed rune shards. He couldn’t use them but they were a currency.

  “Hey!”

  The table turned to find Lake Domine climbing the stairs. Her hair had grown back and she’d cut it to match, and now she only looked slim as opposed to emaciated. “I wanted you to hear it from me. I’ve been tapped for ArCore expansion, leading a new arrow. I don’t have to move out immediately, but I probably will eventually. It’s easier if the arrows are all together.”

  “Congratulations,” Declan said, bowing. “I’m grateful to be under your protection a while longer.”

  “You are always under my protection. There’s just more people under it with you. I’ve got great big wings with lots of room for little chicks to be protected.” Lake’s gaze fell. “You’re not angry?”

  “We were fortunate to have you. You’re welcome when you want. If you get lonely? You know where we are,” Declan said.

  “I’m not moving yet. Don’t get all teary-eyed. Just because I turned down your every advance!” Lake grew more dramatic with every proclamation. “Could I still drop by for breakfast?”

  “That would be for you and Hayden to work out.” Declan hid the sadness and the worry until she’d left. “It’s like my children are growing up and going out into the world to murder monsters.”

  “Every parent’s dream,” Eden said. “You’re going to need a bruiser or three to back you up when she’s gone.”

  It was yet another problem.

  The mana stone fought Declan, but it was a losing battle. He’d beaten a mana bearing into submission and would do so much better if there were only a surge, but right now, the surges were anywhere but Ariloch.

  His morning lessons had progressed to using wooden swords, but every time he heard “My friend, your heart is growing stronger,” it was more a kick to the gut.

  Then House Sense woke him in the middle of the night. There were people on Ariloch’s porch and the doors had been locked hours earlier. Declan ran to the door in his sleeping bottoms.

  A junior Researcher stood there, frantically eyeing the World Wound. “Instructor Skinner said to get you. You’re needed at the armory.”

  Declan brough the man in to warm up and dressed, then exited by the back and ran through the campus, a path he knew by heart. The armory was never really closed—none of the buildings closed as private lessons ran at all hours, but there were only two arcanists in line to make trades and no one waiting on them.

  “This way,” one of the researchers said, opening the door to a lab.

  A crowded lab. Six members of the Arcore, almost every researcher, Skinner, the president of Ariloch, all of them gathered around a table where a rune stone rested. Instructor Skinner looked to Declan. “The responsible course of action is to apply a standard test battery. I refuse to belive a single rune is worth the risk of activation.”

  Rohan answered. “This was the only one we managed to kill in the whole town. Whatever it used, the people never saw it coming and neither did the army unit.”

  “Declan, this won’t be in the rune archives. There’s not a right answer. What do you think it does?” Skinner asked.

  Declan pushed researchers aside and reached to take the stone. It wasn’t much larger than any other rune, but the mana around it felt weird. “It’s muddled.”

  “That’s why mana sensitivity isn’t working,” a researcher stated.

  It wasn’t corrupted. Declan pushed mana into it gently, then flinched away as a blinding set of symbols burst into view. Again, he pushed it. Again. Each time, the blurry mess became clearer. “What tier is this? There’s so many pieces.”

  “We think it was a four,” Rohan said. “Tegan ripped into it but didn’t tear it to shreds like normal. That’s a decent guess it’s four.”

  Four base symbols, possibly all with modifiers. Declan pulled a chair out and sat, focusing. The words wouldn’t come. It wasn’t as simple as reading and interpreting. These symbols interlocked in ways his gut said affected the meaning. The constant chatter kept breaking his concentration. “Shut up or go away, I don’t care which.”

  “It’s an interlocking rune. The sections aren’t just additive, they’re reinforcing each other, I think. And every one has a Protect base.” He looked away, blinking. “Get Eden Proctor, tell her I need a wake-up. She’ll know what to do. Also I need some mittens.”

  The longer he looked, the more the runes felt wrong. Well, not wrong, but off. “Ash and shit, would you please stop talking?”

  He looked up and flinched. He was alone, or at least more alone. Skinner remained, as did all three Arcore, but they stood far from the table, watching. “I don’t know. This is way beyond anything I’ve handled. Insight isn’t even completely active.”

  “Talk it through,” Skinner said. “I won’t distract with answers, you work it through.”

  “It’s Protect. They’re all based off it but Protect is a barrier. But barriers can be deadly, too. So maybe, maybe they’re the same rune with different purposes. Different modifiers. That’s Wind but Wind Barrier is a great defense and a terrible weapon. These killed an entire town. How many of them?”

  “Dozens, based on the tracks,” Tegan said. “One by itself—”

  “Doesn’t have to be overwhelming. What if it’s not? That’s Gather. Gather Protect is related to healing, but it’s also life and mana and there’s modifiers everywhere.” Declan tried to split the rune up, reading it a section at a time. “We don’t know the root. The real root. One of these is the foundation and everything else combines to alter or extend that.”

  The door to the armory opened and Eden Proctor walked in. “Just a little, if you’re trying to focus. You know what? I’ll dose it. Your idea of a little is pounding the vial.”

  Declan accepted the potion, gagging on the flavor, but settled in as it began to take effect. It was like patience in a bottle, a multiplier for his mind. It made the jagged lines sharper, the motions clearer. And each section moved on its own. He began to mouth the words. “Gather Protect Wind. Gather Protect Life. Slice. That’s Slice, that’s what it’s doing. That one. It’s a weakened Slice. I think it’s bending. But that’s a heal, for sure. It’s absolutely a heal. It’s—Where was this? What kind of land?”

  “Capris,” Rohan said. “Port down in Elantin. Beautiful, if uncomfortably hot.”

  “There’s an elemental essence here and it feels like plants. I think it’s an inverse healing. It draws life from the target, Slice severs the link to whatever it drew from and then the foliage around it grows denser due to the heal. The last Protect is a minor illusion. So it’s a loop. It draws life out of someone, cuts it off, and grows the plants to hide it, all while reinforcing its natural and magical camoflage.” Declan’s mouth was so dry he could barely speak. His skin itched, hell, his eyeballs itched, and somewhere along the line he’d put on mittens. Insight refused to speak in words but his gut remained certain. “These things will be damn near indestructable to weapons. Burn them and burn them more after you burn them.”

  The ArCore members had taken seats at another table and were sound asleep, snoring, heads down. Declan fought a wave of dizziness as he left the room, then spotted the drinking fountain and drank until he couldn’t drink anymore. His skin itched, but the mittens were doing their job.

  “You’re moving.” Skinner hobbled down the hallway. “Who won, it or you?”

  “It’s a life stealing monster with mild illusion powers and so many reinforcing shields the only good way to kill it is to burn it. I have no idea what you would call a rune like that because there’s no way to use it. This will kill someone who attempts to activate it.” Declan was losing the focus, but one thing remained. “And it’s wrong. It reminds me of when Lake tried to force her runes together. Can someone make monster runes?”