After helping out with the kitchen for an hour and a half in the morning, Caen rushed down to the Plane. He'd woken up late today because of his sleep debt. The sleep abeyance spell could be applied almost indefinitely, but without a boosted affinity, he couldn't cast it reliably. A few bad experiences had taught him that casting that spell in his abjection could easily result in him suddenly going unconscious.

  The night before, Caen had claimed a cot in his newly assigned tent and had gone looking for Vensha to borrow clothes from her. Nothing Zeris owned was his size, of course, and his father's clothes were far too tight for him.

  He'd earned enough meal tokens yesterday—in addition to some that he'd saved—to coast for a while, so he intended to direct most of his focus to cutting down the time it took him to Mimic affinities.

  At the Courtyard, people kept giving him strange looks, which wasn't unusual for Caen. His helmet was currently strapped to his belt. White hair and a speculon often drew the eye. The goggles probably weren't helping either.

  In the front zone, he sat with his back to a stump and got to work. There were several tree stumps to Mimic. He'd imitate each of their affinities, Blood-healing and Flora magic, then jump to another stump and do it all over again. All while attuning mana. Without a functional watch, he had to split off a small portion of his attention to keep track of the time, which was quite the drudgery. He earnestly looked forward to the day that he could cast that blessed time display spell by his own power. He also spent some time performing Blood-healing and Flora exercises with and without a boosted affinity. The hours flew by as he focused on these.

  He took a quick break for lunch: mashed potatoes and oats, as usual. Surprisingly, one of the kitchen staff at the serving tables gave him two extra spoons of oats and winked at him.

  A few more hours with the stumps. He occasionally stopped to take notes as he worked. He also practiced clamping down on his partially reverted affinity clusters and maintaining them.

  He went down to the workout field. Caen sat among the other onlookers on one of the tree-log benches that had been placed here. He found his cousin, Ganul, there, and they chatted briefly before the young man went back to sparring. Caen Mimicked active thread clusters, moving from person to person and still performing magical exercises. He was there till nightfall, and even did some light sparring himself with a blue-haired Body-enhancer.

  After sharing supper with Zeris, he went looking for his old tent mates—the ones whose belongings had been vandalized along with his. They were all fine. The only one among the three of them that had been approached by those troublemakers was the Vedul woman, and since she'd been with her party members, they'd backed off.

  * * *

  Very early the next morning, Caen went to find Sh'kteiro at the officer's quarters. His uncle opened the door, surprised to see him.

  The inside of the room was quaint and undecorated. A comfortable-looking bed and a table with two chairs at it. It was cold in here, so much so that Caen bunched up his coat around him. He’d taken a temperature regulation pill minutes before arriving. Uncle Teiro lived in the Northern region of Pectos, which was particularly chilly all through the year. Every time Caen had followed his mother there, he’d fallen ill.

  He and his uncle sat at the small round table. After adjusting the temperature in the room, Uncle Teiro had poured them small cups of hot tea that smelled of cherry blossoms and cinnamon.

  “I’m guessing you're here to ask me questions about the Planar light,” Sh'kteiro said, giving Caen a knowing smile.

  “That and something else,” Caen said, leaning back in his seat and taking a sip of his tea. Barring some specific ones, his uncle had always been accommodating to his questions. Edict doctrine encouraged curiosity and investigation after all. “We can start with the Planar light, though. I’ve done a few meditation sessions in the past few days, but I'm… not exactly sure what I'm supposed to be meditating on. I don't know how to view myself as a conduit.”

  Sh'kteiro nodded as though this made perfect sense. “Close your eyes.”

  Caen complied, and his vision was replaced by the clearer, more distinct perception of his speculon.

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  He felt a sudden warmth on his forehead, on his speculon. It was a startling sensation. Something pinging off his speculon and deflecting off in Sh'kteiro's direction.

  “What you want to do,” Sh'kteiro said, “is to pay attention to that feeling of the Planar light hitting your speculon.”

  Caen's brow creased. “Why would this have anything to do with me being a conduit in particular? Is the sensation of being one similar to this?”

  “That is correct,” Sh'kteiro said, smiling that mischievous smile of his. “The sensations of emitting light from your speculon and of light deflecting off your speculon are nearly indistinguishable.”

  They spent a while longer, with Sh'kteiro repeating the Planar signalling as Caen committed the sensation to memory.

  “Uncle Teiro, I think I know what might help accustom me to this sensation. Will it be a bother for you to send out two pulses in quick succession by 12 and 6 every day?”

  “It’s no trouble at all,” his uncle said. “But every day? I think that might be far too much practice. I was going to recommend meditating on this sensation, maybe once a week.” He scratched his nose, chuckling. “What was the other reason you came here for?”

  “Well…” Caen connected to Sh'kteiro and was once more presented with a bright blur in place of the visual elements of his uncle's soul structure.

  The connection felt far too heavy and extremely difficult to maintain. All the typical sensations and impressions that constituted a soul structure were utterly muted, save for a low crackling, distorted sound. With a soft grunt, he terminated their connection.

  “My abilities don't work on you,” Caen said. “I suspect it has something to do with your level of advancement. Do you feel anything when I use it?”

  Sh'kteiro tilted his head in consideration. “It feels a little like someone else's aura brushing against my own, but I'm not fully able to perceive them in turn. My aura is suppressed right now. The other day, though, my aura was expanded and focused on you. That's how I was able to tell that something was happening, even if I couldn't say what exactly.”

  Caen sat straighter. Finding information about the aura and other elements of the Percipient stage of magic was incredibly difficult and very well guarded, even in Grat. His uncle had always shied away from discussing it as well. “Is it… an effect you can reproduce for me?” Caen asked hopefully.

  Sh'kteiro watched him quietly for a moment, and then Caen's stomach dropped. His breath hitched in his throat. He felt an existential itch, a prickling sensation running all over his body. His mind and spirit felt… weird. It felt like he was being watched and examined and inspected by a thousand people. It was one of the most eerie and discomforting things he'd ever felt.

  Then the sensation vanished completely, letting Caen breathe out in relief. “Okay, wow,” he said, mind whirling. If he could learn to cause a similar effect to this one using his connection to people…

  “It's not nearly as bad as that, I assure you,” Sh'kteiro said with a small smile, “but I can't exactly speak for what an Attuner would feel. Also, I'm not yet as proficient in manipulating my aura as I'd like.”

  “Can all Percipients do this?”

  “Yes,” Sh'kteiro said gravely, after thinking it over for a brief moment. His smile was gone. He leaned back in his chair and retrieved his pipe. “They most certainly can.”

  This was more than Sh'kteiro had revealed about his stage of advancement in the few times Caen had brought up the topic. “Uncle Teiro… what does it take to become a Percipient?” The one time he'd asked his uncle this question, the man had evaded it.

  Sh'kteiro actuated the heirloom and pulled from it. “I've never told you this before,” he said. “I almost died when I advanced.”

  Caen was scared to move even a single muscle. He felt as if he so much as twitched, his uncle might no longer be in a sharing mood, and this was vital information.

  “It was a painful experience.” He shook his head as though dispelling the memory. “As for what it takes,” he shrugged. “I have absolutely no idea. I was doing what I do best, and then it just… happened. Took two whole months.” The man seemed to shudder a little. “I’ve heard that it’s not the same for everyone, but that was the worst thing I’ve ever had to go through.”

  Caen was leaning forward in his seat. It had always intrigued him how much mystery surrounded the higher stages of magic, but not once had it occurred to him that someone at that level might also not know how they got to that stage.

  “Well, I—” Sh'kteiro began.

  Someone knocked on the door. “High Priest Sh'kteiro,” came a voice.

  “Enter,” he called back.

  A woman in a crisp uniform marched in. She looked over at Caen, then turned to Sh'kteiro, who gave Caen an apologetic shrug.

  “That's my escort. See you at noon?”

  “Yes, Uncle. Thank you.”