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T he morning sun was like a blessing, soaking Jai in its light. He could feel the faint warmth upon his bare chest, see the orange behind his eyelids.

Jai was so deep in concentration, he had not opened his eyes since Eko had left him. But he could hear the Speaker’s words, drifting like flotsam in the quiet ocean of his being. By now, the winds at the top of the world had settled, leaving a silence that was deafening.

Jai missed the susurration of grass. For all was still, but for that voice. At least now Jai understood their rules. It was this silence that they craved. Allowing the mind to do what it willed, without the distractions of the world beyond.

No distractions. No food. No sleep. No warmth. Just mana. It was their clay, and they the sculptors.

His heart pulsed in a slow beat, his breath bellowing in slow tandem, his body attuned to the world. Mana entered, and moved swiftly in its cycle to and from his core.

And Jai knew he had reached some new level of control, one he had only come close to once before. When the hemlock had ravaged him, he had been forced to do the very same, controlling the mana, fighting the spreading blossom of poison as he’d tossed and turned in the back of Silas’s wagon.

This was a different battle, far more intense than the slow siege the poison had been. But he was sure this was the same reason Erica had succeeded in this test too, for she had suffered a similar battle with the poison. Jai understood now that it was the suffering of this place that made the Caelite so powerful.

A hand touched his shoulder, and a voice whispered.

‘Come.’

It took Jai a few moments to swim up from the depths of his subconscious. He felt the cold upon his skin again, and his core emptying out of the small reserve he had gathered.

He finally let the mana go where it willed, warming his feet such that he left glistening footsteps as he stood, sating the hunger that gnawed at his belly. He looked up to see the Speaker beckoning Jai to his side, where a dozen other acolytes sat, silhouetted amid the reverse waterfall of light. These were those who had passed the first test, and Erica was among them. He yearned to sit beside her, to let her see he had caught up to her, but she was in the midst of the pack, and he was realising such desires were not encouraged.

Indeed, the Speaker sat a little apart from the others, at the corner of where the great fountain of mana poured into the sky. Jai let himself abandon the half-trance, though, so he could not see it.

It was strange to switch between the two perspectives, one minute the whole world exploding with sparkling light, the next a windswept plain of frosted rock and snow.

Still, he settled where the Speaker pointed, just at the edge of the blazing mana. Jai sucked at it with hummingbird breaths, tasting the offshoots and letting it filter swiftly too, until his body steamed, and the cold of the night was well and truly purged from him.

If he just leaned a little closer...

A clicked finger turned his attention back.

The Speaker leaned forward, pressing a hand to Jai’s chest, just as Eko had. He kept his voice low as he finally spoke, for the silence lay heavy over the mountaintop.

‘You are a level-five soulbound now, Jai,’ he said. ‘No longer a devotee, but an acolyte. But we cannot allow you to join us until you reach the seventh level. The same as your enemies, the Gryphon Guard.’

Jai nodded slowly, for the Speaker was seated too far to whisper back. Not without disturbing the peace.

‘Fifth-level soulbound can exercise control within their bodies. Look within, my boy. See what your night has wrought.’

Jai closed his eyes. Entered the meld, the full trance. Looked within, at his core. He grimaced, and shook his head. It all looked the same. He knew he had been doing something more, but that was just what he felt, not what he observed.

He felt a prod upon his chest, and the Speaker’s voice, drifting as if from a great distance.

‘The channels. Look to the channels.’

Jai did so. Looked closer, and closer, until all he saw was that thin network around his body. Still, nothing. There was frustration, but it was tempered by knowing all these tests had led him here, led him to a new accomplishment each time. So he kept looking... and then he saw it.

The passage he had sealed off from his body, such that the mana could pass through to his core for purification without being used up. It was different somehow. As if the walls had been smoothed, and shined. It was almost like there was a thin layer of crystal coating their sides, and as Jai explored further, he confirmed it.

The Speaker hummed in approval, perhaps seeing Jai’s expression.

‘As you learn to seal your channels more, they will become reinforced. You will use and harvest your mana more efficiently. Only a fifth-level soulbound can do this.’

Jai opened his eyes and caught the man smiling at him. It was disconcerting, for the man’s browless face made his expression hard to read.

‘Now you are ready for the sixth level,’ the Speaker said. ‘Where, first, you must soulwalk – see through your beast’s eyes.’

Jai’s heart jumped at that. For this was what he had secretly craved. To soar the skies as Winter did, only with more than the jagged row of spikes to hold on to. It was a technique even Balbir had known, one he should have learned long ago.

‘I don’t know how,’ Jai whispered.

The Speaker heard him, and shook his head, a touch of disappointment.

‘You are full of surprises, Jai, son of Rohan. Perhaps you will surprise yourself. Go now to your beast, and do not return until you have done so.’

‘How?’ Jai asked.

The man tutted.

‘Never have I met an ascended soulbound who cannot soulwalk. It is a question of practice, nothing more. Go. Now.’