Page 40 of Cage of Starlight

“Yeah,” Tory says, “And . . . no. Like, I get what it . . . wants? But I don’t get it.”

Iri laughs, a dry breath of air. “It’s not asking you to understand. It’s asking you to restore. Can you do it?”

“I think so.”

“Then—”

Before Iri can say anything, Tory sets to work. Sena can’t sense the energies like Tory can, but it’s visible. The grayish branch gains color and richness and breadth. The trailing bark where it was torn from its tree goes springy rather than brittle.

And on the tips of the branches, life. Leaves, vibrant green, then flowers in full bloom, silky white with gold and pink tones at the center. It’s beautiful.

“Stop,” Iri says.

Tory drops his hand like the branch is letting go of him, not the other way around.

He falls, hard, to one knee.

Sena hurries toward him and takes him by the shoulder. “Tory? Are you okay?”

Tory’s head hangs, face slick with cold sweat that darkens his blindfold and drips from the tip of his nose. “That was . . . really weird. I feel . . .”

“Take some time. Catch your breath. What you have done is not so simple as merely grasping or releasing common energies. This work can easily exhaust you. Restoration, after all, is against the natural flow of things.”

Tory hunches over, breathing hard.

“Do you wish to stop? I would rather not be responsible for your death. If it helps, we are nearly done. I have only one more question.”

Dragging in a breath, Tory says, “I’m okay. I’ll finish up.”

“Good.”

Tory finds his feet. “Can I take off the blindfold?”

“You may, but only after you tell me what energy you believe you handled.”

Tory grumbles. “Shit, I don’t . . .”

“Reach for it again. I think it might be more familiar to you now.”

After a long pause, Tory gasps. Finally, voice low, he says, “It’s a tree, isn’t it? It’s . . . in Hulven, I’d lay in the woods, and there was this—something. This peace, like they were watching over me, you know?” He frowns. “But this is . . . so small. A baby tree.”

“You may remove your blindfold.”

Tory pulls the sweat-soaked strip of cloth away from his eyes and flings it to the ground like he did on the training field. Sena finds himself smiling. For all that things change, so many remain the same.

“I was right,” Tory says, triumphant. “Close enough, anyway. A branch is kind of a baby tree.” He stares at the branch, the infant leaves, the vibrant blooms. “Did I do that?”

Iri smiles. “You did.”

Quietly, nearly inaudible, Tory says, “That’s not healing.”

“It never was. I told you, what you do isn’t healing. It’s—”

Tory traces the silky blossoms. “Restoration.”

Iri turns to Sena. “And what you do is not destruction.”

He walks off the rug, to the pile of items he dumped in the clearing when he arrived, and he grabs a dented metal bowl.

From the bowl, he lifts a flattish, disc-shaped stone, deep blue and milky, with inclusions that catch the dim light like stars.

He grimaces when he handles the stone, fingers twitching like he wants nothing more than to let it go.

“Remove your gloves.” Iri walks toward Sena with the stone clutched in one hand, and Sena retreats, a shudder crawling up his spine. “It’s your turn next.”

Remove his gloves? Sena’s hands clench, and before he knows it, he has them half-hidden behind his back.

Tory turns as if sensing Sena’s unease. “Hey!” he says. “He clearly doesn’t want to. Knock it off.”

Iri stops, sighs. Drops the stone into a pocket and winces like it punched him. “I assure you, he’ll be thankful.”

He turns to Sena. “My dislike of this training method aside, I promise it will not hurt you. We use these stones for Seeds who struggle with control. Because of the stress my family endured and our nearness to the battlefront, I blossomed when I was six—earlier than I should have. Earlier, certainly, than was safe for a Flameseed. I had to train with one of these for two years after I burned down our home without meaning to. I keep them to remind me of how far I’ve come.

My discomfort with the inkhstone is personal, not universal.

It dampens powerful Seeds and will allow you to train without fear of causing wide-spread damage.

” Iri lifts it from his pocket and holds it by two fingers.

“I’ll be asking you to use your abilities, and in absence of the control this demonstration requires, a dampening of your energies will suffice. ”

“He’s not a child,” Tory blurts.

Sena takes the inkhstone immediately.

“It requires contact with skin. Remove the gloves.”

Sena does, and the effect is instant. All this time, if he’d had one of these—so many things could have been easier.

Unlike Tory, he can’t feel his energy dropping.

Instead, he feels the stone’s effects like a cocoon, like a weight around his shoulders.

“I . . . It’s okay,” he says to Tory. “I like it.”

“It’s harder to sense you,” Tory grumbles. “It’s weird.”

Sena smiles. “I really like it, Tory.”

Tory throws his back against the nearest tree and crosses his arms. “Fine. Do your thing.”

Iri invites Sena close to the blooming branch. “Tory, I’ll need you to observe this, as well. Sena . . .”

Sena’s grip around the stone tightens.

“I’ll . . .” Iri frowns. “Actually.” Without another word, he disappears between the trees.

A minute or so later, he returns, arms packed with items: a bright copper teapot, a few blossoms plucked from a hardy wildflower, a glittering silver wristlet, a potted plant.

“All right. We’re working on control. Your goal is to do your work as slowly as possible.” He clears the branch from the simple pedestal, twists the wire smaller, and sets a single flower in the y-hook. “Do what you usually do but make it last.”

Sena shakes his head and backs up. “I’ve never—”

Duration has never been a consideration. His focus has been on never using his abilities, and his uses of them, otherwise, have been instinctual. Fine control was never part of the process. No one, not even Sena, thought he was capable of it.

“You have the inkhstone,” Iri says, and now his voice is softer.

He’s looking at Sena like he understands the fear pinging around inside him.

Maybe he does. “It’s all right. You won’t harm anyone here.

Tory is off the training blanket, see?” Iri gestures to where he’s still leaning against the tree. “Watch this.”

Iri hits his flint thumb-rings together and makes a massive fireball from the sparks.

“Even if you tried to hurt him . . .” He flings the fire at Tory before Sena can stop him, and the ball blinks out midair at the rim of the training rug.

That’s when he sees it. At regular intervals along the rug are thick chunks of inkhstone in hammered metal settings.

Dark chain is woven along the blanket’s edge, connecting one inkhstone to the next.

“Like I said. Inkhstone is a dampener. In direct contact, it dampens a Seed’s power.

When arranged in a ring, it creates a barrier.

The ring on this training blanket means no outside energy can get in and no energy inside it can get out.

” His expression twists. “Not even fire. I will leave the ring. Please.” He gestures at the flower.

“The inkhstone in your hand will be doing its work as well. You have no reason to fear.”

Sena extends a bare fingertip to touch the flower. It’s a bright thing, purplish-blue and dense—many-petaled, like a crumpled silk napkin. It’s cool to the touch, its smell lightly sweet.

“As slowly as you can,” Iri says again.

Sena touches it and pushes his energy into it tentatively.

Instantly, the flower grows small, brittle, grayish-brown, and flakes away like ash. Sena jerks back, broken ribs sending a bolt of pain through him. Iri, even though he’s outside the circle, jerks away, too.

“Oh, dear,” he says. Setting down his teapot, his wristlet, and the potted plant along the way, he tucks the remaining flowers into his pocket and returns to the small black bowl, grabbing one more stone and bringing it over. “All right. Another,” Iri says. “One in each hand.”

The next flower takes maybe two seconds to become like the first.

Gaping, Iri pushes the whole bowl at Sena. It contains maybe six or so more inkhstones. Even in the morning light, they glitter like a profusion of starry nights. “More. Try again.”

Four stones. Six.

With six, the decay is slower, and Sena winces, watching the bloom close and grow brown and spill its seeds. The leaves wither and crinkle and crumble. In less than a minute, it’s dust.

Iri lets out a blistering string of curses before dropping the last two stones into Sena’s over-filled hands and retreating. “I don’t have any more, and I refuse to destroy the training rug, so this had better work.”

On his way back, he lifts the branch Tory returned to health. Sena’s stomach sinks. The blossoms are still breathtaking and fragrant with life, the end still wet with the muddy water that fed it. Again, he places it in the hook.

“Try again,” he says.

“But . . .”

“This branch will not grow roots if replanted. Whether you or the natural flow of time ends it, the thing will not survive. It was . . . a good luck charm I took from my favorite tree back home before coming to your country. It has faded since I cut it. Allow it to serve one last time.” An open-handed gesture at the branch. “As slowly as you can. Watch.”

Before he begins, Sena shifts all the stones to his right hand. With his left, he traces the blooms, inhales the subtle sugary-sweetness of them. They’re water-soft. He sighs. Cups the stones tight in his right hand. Sena whispers, “Sorry,” and he touches the textured wood of the branch.

At first, nothing happens. The blooms shift, maybe. Sena turns, withdrawing his hand.

“Keep going.”

He does, and indeed, his power is doing its work with brutal slowness. The beautiful petals flutter down or curl up on the branch and brown. But—