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Slowly, slowly, the tears faded. Slowly, my breath began to lengthen and shallow on its own, returning to its usual pace.

The rocking stopped, the sobs subsided, and I was left sitting still, empty.

I wiped my face on my sleeve, then opened my eyes.

Eilith was seated across from me in the circle, a melancholic smile on her face.

As if she had been through what I’d just experienced many times.

I felt cleared, like I had purged some poison inside me. Although I also sensed that there was far more where it came from.

I was to practice this way each morning to expand my awareness, my knowing of my own self.

At first, I spent my time sitting on the shore of that inner ocean, dipping a toe into the lapping waves.

Even that was enough to make me sob most days.

But the crying became shorter, visited less and less often.

Despite the painful start, my curiosity and desire to learn overcame my trepidations.

Soon I was wading into frigid waters, taking deep, controlled breaths against the cold.

Then I was diving in, exploring the depths.

And as I explored, I found there was little there to fear.

The shadows held only me, only sides of me I had always known but had forgotten, or hidden away intentionally.

The monsters I had been afraid to discover greeted me with familiarity after a few visits.

Sometimes with an embrace, sometimes with only a passing look and the memory of a hard lesson.

As I advanced, Eilith added another layer to the practice. She taught me several an fonn , rhythmic repetitions or chants. Blessings, she said they were. Ancient fae calls for peace and wisdom that would help me clear my mind.

I repeated them with my practice, but soon found myself repeating them as I went about my day as well.

I enjoyed the comfort and simplicity they brought to me at any time I called on them.

I often said them as I did chores, when I rode Anam through the woods and hills, or while I cooked.

They became the backdrop to my inner monologue, sometimes emptying me of thought entirely.

At any time, I could use the an fonn to slip beneath the surface and touch the depths.

It became my way of keeping my magic, my wildness, within arm’s reach.

With time, those expansive, dark waters became a comfort, a home. Where they had once been unknown and shadowed, now they were healing, concealing, safe.

One morning, as I sat upon my usual rock, drifting peacefully in my inner ocean, Eilith’s footsteps approached. I felt her take a seat on a rock across the circle from me, but did not open my eyes. I waited.

“Have you been looking?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, and smiled.

“And what have you found?”

“Myself, in an ocean. Cold, dim, and steady. Steady, but wild. Untamed. It’s huge, and most of what it contains is hidden far, far beneath the surface. But there is so much there, Eilith. So much I never knew.” I opened my eyes and saw a small smile tug at the corner of her mouth.

“Beautiful,” she said. “All of that ocean is you, Hal. Your own self, as you said. All of that power is yours, all that potential can be accessed, controlled, woven into whatever shape you choose, should you will it. All you have to do is bring it to the surface. Let that power meet the force of nature, let it hold hands with the land, the sea, the realm. Let it connect, and with you as its conduit, its conductor, you will move mountains.”

She sat facing me, her long gray hair blowing with the early spring breeze, an empty bucket next to her feet. My next lesson began.

“The way you use the an fonn I taught you is the same way you’ll use incantations.

They’re conscious at first. Intentional, requiring focus.

They’ll draw up the power from within you while summoning the magic from outside.

Sometimes you will say them just once, for a quick, single response.

Other times you will repeat them over and over.

Their power will intensify. Eventually, when you begin to master your Sourcery, you can keep one incantation going in the back of your mind, just in the same way you repeat your an fonn as you focus on your work.

Then you can add another on top of it, in the forefront of your awareness.

Two different spells working at the same time.

“But that is for another day. For now, we start with something simple. Today, we will fill this bucket with water. All you need to do is summon it, and direct it.”

She spoke the incantation to me, ancient Senuan words long lost to our human tongues. I repeated it until it flowed smoothly, and even with the slow speaking of it, I felt the air shimmer around me. Something was ready to answer my call.

Eilith set the bucket in the center of the circle and took a few paces away from it.

“It’s easiest at first to use hand gestures.

Some incantations require them, especially if they are more complex.

Simpler spells, like summoning elements or shaping them, usually don’t.

But when you’re starting, they’re very helpful in directing the flow of Source.

So do whatever feels natural with your hands.

Now, aim for the bucket and use your incantation. ”

I raised a hand toward the bucket, fingers half flexed, and spoke the words, calling my own power within me and summoning the power without. The forces above, and so below.

A heavy splash of water crashed down onto a standing stone a few paces behind the bucket.

Eilith chuckled and nodded. “A good first attempt! Plenty of water, not so much bucket. Try again.”

I tried again, summoning just as much excess of water, and only marginally closer to the bucket.

“Again,” Eilith said.

I repeated it over and over until the water hit the bucket, although the first time it hit so hard it knocked the bucket over. I repeated the exercise until the roaring splash became a gentle flow and I finally filled the bucket without spilling it. I was breathless, and my head had begun to ache.

“Well done, Halja. You’re catching on fast. This evening, fill the tub for your bath that way. And I expect to find not a drop of water on the floor.” She began to walk away, but turned back. “Oh, and if you want it warm, play with adding heat.”

“How do I do that?” I asked.

“Most of magic is intuitive, Halja. So intuit it! Let the fear of another cold bath inspire you!”

“Is this how you’ve been filling your bath all along?” I asked. “While I’ve been carrying bucket after bucket to the tub for myself like an idiot?”

“I’ll never tell!”

I could hear Eilith’s cackle as she strode back down to the house.

∞∞∞

My bath was cold that night, and the next.

But on the third, it was triumphantly hot.

Although my progress with Sourcery took time, I noticed changes in my awareness, the very energetic feeling of my own body, almost immediately.

I felt the life, the Source, in everything around me.

I noticed the animals, the trees, even the energy of the garden.

And I could feel Eilith when she moved around the steading.

Even when I couldn’t see her, I had a sense of where she was.

It was overwhelming, like a rushing waterfall of energy that I had no idea how to tame.

I decided to ask Eilith about it one evening.

“You have a deep well of Source within you, Halja. And a deep connection to it outside of yourself. It’s what makes you a Sourcerer, but it also means you feel the life energy of other living things, if you try.

With practice, you can use your power to read both the location and condition of others.

But just know that if you try to read others who also use Source, they will feel it. Try it on me now,” she commanded.

“Eilith, I don’t want to pry–”

“Yes, please do. I want to show you this. It’s important.” Her tone was firm, but not unfriendly. “Let your awareness reach out, just like you normally let it flow. And when you feel my presence, focus on it. Like looking closely at something. Look closely at me.”

I tried and immediately felt the energy of her, like a bright light in my inner vision.

I focused on it, feeling around it, and felt the waves of her emotions respond.

I felt her tiredness, the soreness in her hip, a glimmer of affection for me, and an underlying satisfied contentedness at her place in the order of things, in the world.

Then, as suddenly as I felt it, it was snuffed out. The light of another within my awareness dimmed, and I felt nothing more from her.

“Where did it go?” I asked, confused, and she laughed.

“I shut you out,” Eilith said. “Closed off my own energy to you so you couldn’t read it.

And I suggest you learn to do the same, especially before you go into town.

If you think it’s overwhelming here, wait until you’re surrounded by a village full of strangers with no self-awareness of their energy. You’ll be blinded by it.”

“How do I do that?”

“Like you do anything: With practice. But this one is even more intuitive. I’ll give you a hint though. The trick is within your meditations. It’s inside that calm, dark place you go.”

I nodded, resolving to try it the next morning. I found it came just as easily as the reading of Eilith’s energy had. Throughout the next days, I practiced with flexing it on and off, letting my awareness wander throughout the steading, then reeling it back in.

Setting a boundary around my power was easy enough at Eilith’s steading.

She let me practice reading her energy at times, but mostly we both kept our minds to ourselves.

She told me that, more important than reading others, was protecting my own inner power from those more skilled than myself.

Strong walls would keep me safe from any prying minds, and that was what I was to practice.

∞∞∞

After my encounter with the nuckelavee, I was more concerned about my safety than I had been previously.

I had always thought my parents exaggerated the dangers of shadowfiends to scare my sister and I into following our curfew.

And perhaps they did, but the brush I’d had with death had been very real, and I did not like that my only option had been to flee. I wanted to be able to fight too.

As Anam recovered, my usual afternoon walks with him became rides, which then––like everything else in my life––became practice.

Eilith had two bows and a couple quivers of arrows hanging on the cluttered walls of the cottage that she never used anymore, and she told me to borrow them whenever I pleased.

So I tested them both and chose the larger one.

It was stiffer, harder to pull, but delivered a much heavier blow.

I made targets and arranged them in a nearby meadow.

My father had taught me to use a bow, and I had brought down deer before while hunting with him.

My technique was sound, if simple, and I could shoot accurately while standing still.

I began gradually increasing the distance of the targets from me, learning to adjust my stance and aim with the length of the shot.

Next, I began to shoot while running. Well, I tried running, at least. After some failed shots that resulted in lost arrows launched haphazardly into the meadow, I changed my pace to walking.

Very slow walking. But it came, over days.

I added ducks, rolls, sidesteps, springing out of hiding and firing quickly. Finally, I added riding.

I shot from the saddle at a standstill for weeks, simply working on aiming in all directions, especially shooting directly behind me. I added a slow walk, approaching targets at a steady pace, or walking away from them.

As the ice began to melt, we increased our speed to a gallop, with disastrous results.

At first I couldn’t even stay in the saddle without holding the reins.

I would pull up my bow just to lose the grip of my legs and slide off, thumping into the snow again and again.

When I finally gained enough leg and core strength to stay on and loose an arrow, I somehow lost arrows faster than I could shoot them, as if they leaped from my quiver at the sight of my atrocious skills.

I’d need to buy more, or learn to make them.

Or simply get good enough to stop losing them.

Despite the frustration of learning, I loved my hours of practice.

As days grew longer, our rides stretched later and later into the evening.

Sometimes I would miss dinner entirely, not even feeling the hunger of it through my focus on each shot, each step.

I’d return to the cottage with my cheeks red and windburned, my hair a wild tangle.

Eilith would laugh and tell me I looked like a veritable dryad, or even a banshee on the particularly exhausting days.

“What is this wild creature in my house?” she’d chuckle, ruffling my tangles affectionately as I scavenged about the kitchen for dinner.

As spring came, I ventured further and further, seeking ever more challenging terrain.

We galloped through thickets, up and down hills, across ridges.

I could sink arrows into a series of targets with Anam at an all-out sprint, although my accuracy still left something to be desired.

I grew stronger, and the muscles of my arms and shoulders were visibly toned from pulling the heavy bowstring.

I had never felt so free. Nobody looked over my shoulder.

Nobody told me where to be, or when to be there.

Nobody judged my every move, lashed out at me with anger and shame.

There was no tension to navigate, no father to appease, no family expectations to meet.

No falsehoods, no lies. My confidence grew each day I pushed myself, each time I achieved a shot I hadn’t managed yet.

I felt myself growing, expanding, thriving in ways I had never before.

I thought of Sigurd less and less, and shed no more tears over him. I still thought of my mother and Noirin, and I missed them, missed the home I’d had. But there was no home for me there now. Nothing left to go back to. It was all tainted, corrupted with the lie I had lived under.

My home was here. This steading, these woods, this river. I needed nothing else.