Page 71 of The Tainted Khan (The Soulbound Saga #2)

I t had taken him all morning to finally will his and Winter’s cores close enough that he could discern the images she sent him. It seemed Winter had no control of her own core, and it drifted constantly.

Jai knew from Rufus’s teachings that when he entered the full trance, his core could see beyond physical form to the ethereal world where souls alone resided. Where they roamed unawares in a dark abyss, where strange currents pulled them.

This was the world that they lived in in tandem with their own, invisible to all but the soulbound.

This was the place he had avoided, the place he was scared to look. For he knew, this path would be hard.

For now, he revelled in the simple pleasure of living in Winter’s twin soul, letting his own worries fade away beneath the onslaught of her rushing senses.

The sky was an ocean, and Winter could hear its currents. It was like seeing with sound, in a way Jai could never do. She sensed the eddies of the airs, twisting her wings to catch each and every furl and dip.

Her belly was full, and he could taste the tangy salt of blood upon her tongue. She sought out Regin, whose scent was tantalising, and fleeting. Instinctively, she knew this was a game. In the world of dragons, it seemed it was the female that pursued.

And pursue she did, the mana in her core burning to be expended as she pushed for ever greater heights. Even now, she soared high above the tallest peak, and Jai watched in equal wonder. He could see the great spine of the mountains in earnest, a serrated knife’s edge, dividing the green of the Great Steppe and the misted expanse of the Frostweald. Far to the east, the mountains shrunk, disappearing beneath the ground as the steppe met the borders of the Phoenix Empire. And to the west, Jai knew, far beyond where even Winter could see, beyond even where the Sabine legion marched, and the Gryphon Guard flew, was a war: a defensive line held by snarling, frostbitten raiders, clad in ermine and bearskin and the steel and leathers of war, even as scarlet-cloaked legions marched into their homelands, taking advantage of the onset of summer, and the shrinking frosts along the southern stretches of the Northern Tundra.

A reminder of what was at stake. Enough to force Jai from the warm confines of his chamber, back out into the light. He stopped for but a moment to watch Winter’s silhouette bank high above, momentarily blotting the sun.

Then it was on, back up the peak, to meet the Speaker. The man had been in the midst of a lesson, but he was swift to usher Jai to his place once more, tantalisingly close to the faucet of mana, billowing high above.

From his vantage, Jai could see two roqs circling, following the mana where it went. It seemed the Caelite’s beasts too benefited from the conflagration of majick, absorbing the ambient mana as all soulbound beasts did, unable to soulbreathe themselves.

‘Swifter than expected,’ the Speaker muttered, as Jai sat, cross-legged, at his feet.

Jai looked away, knowing his shame was plain on his face.

‘The sixth level, then,’ the man sighed. ‘It is one of the hardest to achieve. And a slow process for many. Only those that have achieved it have the right to join the Caelite.’

He pressed his hand to Jai’s chest, and Jai knew he was doing the same as Eko had, examining Jai’s core.

‘Your core is large,’ he muttered. ‘Ascended, of course. Thick walls, too. Signs of a soulgem’s work?’

Jai nodded slowly.

‘Your channels are well formed already,’ the Speaker mused. ‘Signs of hemlock poisoning, successfully fought – you’re all the stronger for it. Hmmm... your meld with your beast is better than expected.’

Jai grimaced at that, but the man tutted nonetheless.

‘It seems your beast has been sending you mana, reinforcing the meld,’ he remonstrated. ‘But allowing your totem’s core to drift far from your side has stretched and weakened it. You must keep her core close, and reinforce the bond with mana.’

Jai went to ask more, but bit his lip in time. The Speaker shifted nearer.

‘Your core is a shapeless mass. The mana it filters is watered down. Golden, rather than pure white.’

Now Jai’s face fell in earnest.

‘Your spells will be all the weaker, and cost more mana,’ the Speaker stated. ‘They will be longer in the casting too.’

Jai knew it to be true. He had seen the pale light of Erica’s core. Still tinged with yellow, but far purer than the molten gold that Jai filled his own with.

As if he could read his mind, the Speaker leaned close.

‘To reach the next level, you must shape your core. Mould and prepare it, such that when the mana reaches its centre, it is as pure as you can make it.’

Jai’s mind flashed to the beauty of Erica’s core. Could he truly match something so perfect? It had looked so complex and intricate, patterns upon patterns. The most complicated thing he’d ever drawn was a toy soldier, and when presented to Leonid he’d been congratulated on the fine whale he’d drawn.

‘How?’ Jai whispered.

The Speaker could not possibly have heard, for Jai barely gave it voice. But it seemed he was adept at reading lips, for he clucked his tongue and waved around them.

‘Mana is formed of life,’ he said. ‘But its quantity, its purity, is derived from order among the chaos. Life, Jai. It is for you to seek out the patterns of the natural world. Form their images in your mind, learn them absolutely. Imprint these upon your core, shape it to your will.’

He clicked his fingers impatiently, and tugged Jai to his feet.

‘Come,’ he muttered. ‘See.’

He did not take Jai far, virtually dragging Jai by the scruff of his neck in his haste. There were other acolytes waiting, heads bowed, crouched in silence nearby. The lessons here were swift, and unforgiving, doled out like bitter medicine. Jai would sup it all.

The Speaker pointed a finger at the rock, and Jai’s eyes widened. There upon the sheer rock where the mountain’s spike had been sliced away... was a spiral.

A concentric circle of expanding size, segmented along its side. A seashell of some kind. Long dead, crystallised into rock and pushed from the sea’s depths to the mountain’s peak, driven by ancient machinations that had grown this ridge in aeons past.

‘Start with that one,’ the Speaker said. ‘And seek out others, in your mind’s eye. Trace the flow of mana, seek out their shape, their form. You may now sample the mana from the font.’

Jai watched him stalk off. No sooner was the man’s back turned, he rolled sideways into the spurting mana, his fingers tangling in the perforated ground.

Entering the trance, Jai began to soulbreathe, his lungs taking their first lungful of the billowing fountain of golden light.

It was like breathing effervescence itself. His body heaved, and he let out a cough, but his next breath was just as full. It took a while for him to become used to the tickling, fizzing air, his body shaking as glittering motes roiled through his veins.

Mana flooded his core faster than ever before, and Jai could only sit and gasp, letting it fill and fill. In a world of golden light, Jai could not even see the colour of the sky.

He supped and supped on it, until his hair stood on end, his fingers crackling with power as mana escaped unbidden. Jai laughed aloud.

This was the true power of the Caelite. And he would take all that he could.

Jai only stopped when his core was full to bursting. No longer would he spend his nights struggling for warmth, hunger roiling in his belly.

Indeed, with the sun near set, its honey light staining the rocky vista, he expected most of the acolytes would be in their alcoves, and the devotees in their silent battle with the cold upon the mountainside.

So it was some surprise when Jai stepped from the mana, leaving his half-trance, that he could make out a faint noise, one he had come to know well since he had arrived in the grasslands.

The clack and rattle of practice weapons, and the grunts and cries of men and women locked in battle. He followed the sound, down the winding path, past the ribbon bridge and the spiral chamber at the staircase’s top and further down the mountain, following the spiral slope to its conclusion.

And there, Jai found the spire of a smaller peak, a sister to the one he had just descended. There was a doorway in its side, one so tall, a Mahmut mammoth rider might ride through and hardly graze his head.

It was sealed by a great block of granite, but for a gap where it had not been pushed shut, just large enough for two men to walk through shoulder to shoulder.

The sounds came from within, and Jai hurried through the gap, alive with curiosity. What was within took his breath away.

A chamber of immense size lay within, every inch of its interior smooth and shiny where some great power had been wrought upon it. Crystalline structures hung from the ceiling like fine cut diamonds, reflecting the light of the spinning glintlights within into wild fractal shapes beneath.

And they lit... an arena. A circular depression in the pale floors, where figures swirled in the patterned, ethereal light.

Eko overlooked the fighters, a half-dozen Caelite acolytes at his side, his face implacable as he watched the combatants dance, the tok , tok , tok of weapons echoing in Jai’s ears.

None seemed surprised at the sight of him, and Jai joined his fellow devotees, observing the two fighters. One was Erica, he saw, her platinum hair tied in a tight bun, her elfin face twisted in concentration.

She lunged, only for a flash to turn Jai’s head, but not before he saw Erica fly back, skidding to the arena’s edge. She lifted her blade with a grunt of annoyance, wiping blood from her brow with her fingers.

Only for Eko to clap his hands, the noise so sharp and loud Jai thought the lights above might shatter. The result was instantaneous – the two fighters hurried to stand opposite each other, blades outstretched in what he guessed were their starting positions.

Eko strode forward, and Jai watched with curiosity as the big man spoke. It was strange to hear anything other than a whisper in this echoing chamber, and Jai realised that in this place, away from the sacred peak that the Caelite called their home, speaking was allowed. Indeed, every sound here seemed to be amplified by the concave shape of the chamber itself.

It was hard to make out Eko’s advice amid the echoes, but the other acolytes watched intently. He was moving Erica’s hands, her feet, pointing to the strange patterns cast on the floor, raising her arm, her shoulder, to show where they met the light.

This was different to what he had learned under Kiran. For while she had taught him much of what she had known, here, his footing, his stance, even the angle of his blade could be measured beneath the fractal lights above.

‘Jai,’ Eko’s voice echoed, the chamber whispering back his name.

‘Yes,’ Jai called back, his voice cracking, the loud speech strange on his lips.

‘Your first lesson in Talvir,’ he said. ‘It’s good to take a break from shaping your core. Come, replace Erica.’

Jai bristled at the assumption, his approach buoyed by a flashed smile of encouragement from Erica as she stomped past him. He stood in the classic pose, legs akimbo, sword tilted at his enemy.

Eko tutted, kicking Jai’s feet a hair wider, tipping his blade down a few degrees. Jai’s opponent was a Phoenixian by his looks, clad in the same homespun loincloth as Eko.

Jai faced him, his nod of greeting ignored as the man squinted beneath the bright lights. Jai startled as Eko crouched, his great legs bowing and then straightening like pillars, sending the man soaring out of the circle.

‘Begin!’ he snapped.

Jai was caught unawares, but instinct took over as a bamboo blade flickered at his throat, Jai leaning back and countering like a bent bow.

His blade was slapped down in a spinning parry, and the Phoenixian stepped into Jai’s guard in the same movement. Jai knelt to counter a high sweep, their blades locking, straining.

The man lifted a hand from his hilt, and Jai yelled in shock as light flared, and he was hurled back in a tangle of limbs. He lay there, only for a blow to fall upon his back, then another and another, Jai rolling and grunting with pain.

He blasted glintlight back, the shock of light buying him time to scramble to his feet before a series of blinding cuts battered him back to his knees.

He fought on, parrying, countering where he could, but the blows rained incessantly until they stopped, a blessed relief from the pain.

It took a while for Jai to realise that Eko had clapped his hands.

‘I see some training,’ the big man muttered, as Jai staggered back to the start position, his vision blurred. ‘Sloppy, though. See here, where you let him hold the high position in Locked Horns pose...’

He shifted Jai’s feet with taps of his own, showing Jai where he’d gone wrong, taking him through the motion and positioning his sword where the light met it just so.

‘And you should always be wary of the other’s hands, in case of majicking. A soulbound can wield a falx with one hand. Mind you do not forget it.’

Jai could hardly do more than nod along. Pain, all over, feeling fast catching up to the whirlwind of blows he had suffered. The Phoenixian was a master of his craft, that much was certain.

‘You must infuse your movements with mana, Jai,’ Eko muttered. ‘And be ready to counter any spells with a shield or spell of your own.’

‘Right...’ Jai muttered, feeling his confidence draining. ‘I’ll try to remember that.’

Eko clicked his fingers, ordering Jai out of the circle. Jai limped out, stunned at the ferocity of the relentless attack that had left him with a loose tooth, and blood pattering in a steady rhythm on the floor from a cut somewhere on his head.

He caught the others staring at him, and he shrugged.

‘First time, didn’t you hear?’ he said.

‘Heal yourself, fool,’ another acolyte said, rearranging his loincloth. ‘You’re making a mess.’

‘Oh,’ Jai said. ‘Right.’

Of course, mana was plentiful here. He happily wiped away his wounds, mana burning in his fingers. He was wasteful in the doing of it, for it was one of the spells he had yet to perfect his finger positioning for. It mattered little, with the great foundation of mana just around the corner.

‘Erica,’ Eko ordered, having finished instructing the Phoenixian. ‘Again.’

Erica rushed past Jai in an eager hurry, careless to heal the bruise blossoming on her forehead as she went in for the attack.

Jai watched, trying to memorise their movements. He couldn’t focus on his majicking all the time. If he could not bring the Caelite to his cause, then he would learn all he could from them. And if that meant getting the leather beaten off him each day, so be it.