Chapter 7

As well as possessing the most maddening way of telling time of any language I know, Thous is a realm that contains a sea, an enviable position as a key source of water—and salt—when much of the Sundered Realms' former oceans are no longer accessible. Not the only realm, of course, but they will always have leverage in trade. Serenthuar has an entire line of glassworks designed to resemble contained seas to sell to wealthy water-source realms.

I wonder how many underwater species we lost in the Sundering. But I also wonder if those that remain feel the limits of the space now available to them like a fish in a bowl.

Liris' first class was an introductory intensive workshop. She sat high up toward the back of the lecture hall so she could see how other students behaved.

It was her first day without Vhannor, and she was not going to mess up.

She hadn't had a chance to take stock of much in Embhullor yet: most of her time since meeting Princess Nysia had involved filling out forms and, back at Shry's house, creating more teaching materials for Thyrasel. While learning spellcasting was important, that was the one task she couldn't let slip: both for demon hunting reasons and to prove she was worth the icy Lord of Embhullor's professed faith.

"Why do spells use patterns?" the lecturer asked.

Liris watched several students lift a single arm in the air, and the lecturer pointed at a few of them to offer theories. So, that was the proper way of responding, though apparently none of them was correct. But it didn't look like there were any consequences for that; at least not immediately.

The lecturer continued, "A spell, ultimately, is an action. The easiest thing in the world for magic to do is move, and change. So why doesn't it?"

Another round of answers, and this time a student got it right. "Exactly: Magic exists everywhere within the Sundered Realms, but it's spells that shape it to purpose. Which means that lacking human will, it doesn't do anything.

"A spell is will made manifest. In theory, a spell can do anything; in practice, it is constrained by two things. Yes, that's right: power and specificity, both of which are determined by the complexity of the pattern."

Other students began writing on their pads, but Liris wasn't sure what—she focused on processing.

Effectively, the more difficult the spell pattern was to create, the more powerful it was. But the other component a spell needed was specificity.

A very specific task might not take much power: the challenge was figuring out how to express the goal specifically enough for it to actually work at all. Whereas a vaguer goal—say, "shield"—was so abstract it would require huge amounts of power. Spells were usually constructed around a language for the specificity and incorporated additional layers for the power.

Thyrasel was such good bait for a caster because it had all that at once.

Half an hour into the lecture, the doors to the hall burst open. The woman who entered strode confidently to the front carrying a small board that Liris identified after a stunned moment as a skimmer.

Liris had never seen one in person before.

It was unobtrusive, an innocuous board a person could hold in one hand that folded up even smaller, with foot holds and a raised circle in the center to key the controlling spell pad to. But while it was inconspicuous in theory, seeing a device that enabled a person to fly, hovering off the ground above earth and sea alike, made Liris feel like someone had landed a kick right to her head.

Skimmers were rare and horrendously expensive, which was the reason Serenthuar didn't have any—and didn't have the raw materials to make their own—because of the incredible complexity of spellwork to make them work.

But they also required advanced spell licenses to use, which meant this person was a caster, and probably one with a high clearance level.

That could be her.

After the visitor conferred with the lecturer, they turned back and addressed the whispering class.

"We have a special exercise for you now," the lecturer announced.

Liris sat forward.

By the new thrum of excitement in the air most of the room appeared to already know what this was, but thankfully the lecturer explained while the woman began sketching a pattern on the paper behind the lecturer's head. Liris squinted. That looked familiar...

"Occasionally a deployed field team can't identify part of the pattern," the lecturer explained.

The stranger with the skimmer was a field operative.

Like Liris was going to be.

She'd always hoped to be a passenger on a skimmer someday, once the spellcraft advanced enough to make that possible, but it occurred to her for the first time that she could learn to fly her own.

The lecturer continued, "The field teams send these questions back to Special Operations. If a student at the University of Embhullor can identify the pattern faster than the research division, their reward is to accompany the team back to the field to observe the mission firsthand."

Perfect.Time to start proving she was prepared to be Vhannor's partner.

And maybe get her own skimmer.

Liris' hand shot up.

The lecturer glanced at her. "Do you have a question?"

"No. The pattern is a guide for Ceingpol floral arrangement."

The hall went silent.

The lecturer blinked and looked over their shoulder. "Ah. So it is."

The woman with the skimmer swore, and now Liris was the center of the whispers around her. Field operatives were rare, and an unknown student had just seized a coveted opportunity to gain firsthand knowledge from behind them without apparent effort.

That, she decided, was either a useful way or the worst way to start at school.

"What's your name?" the lecturer asked.

"Liris."

For the first time the omission of her home realm felt like its own statement.

The lecturer looked thoughtful, but the field caster was already turning toward the door. "I don't care what your name is," she said. "Get moving or I'll leave you behind."

Liris grabbed the blank pad of paper and pen in front of her and ran.

Liris did not get her own skimmer.

Instead she stood on the small board with her feet spread apart, behind the caster who'd finally deigned to introduce herself as Jiechit. This was not what skimmers were specced for, but after Liris explained she didn't have any licenses yet because it was her first day, Jiechit wouldn't show her how to fly it herself or show Liris the spells she cast to increase her muscles' natural capacity to reach the realm of Thous faster.

Liris had to admit she didn't yet understand enough to know how that might be done or what the risks were, but now she knew it was possible.

In theory, anything was possible. A heady revelation.

Almost as heady as the sensation of flying.

A thing she never could have done in Serenthuar.

Opening a whole new world to her, in more ways than one as they flew through realms.

She focused on keeping her balance, moving as Jiechit moved while the caster spelled furiously, her pad magically linked to the skimmer they stood on to direct it.

They flew through the forest, zig-zagging between the trees. Over water. Through a Gate, even—Liris did tumble off the skimmer then, much to her embarrassment. Jiechit hadn't looked particularly disgruntled though, merely frowning at her thoughtfully.

Liris hoped that meant she was proving to be less of a hindrance than Jiechit had initially anticipated, but she could do better than that.

This was a chance to demonstrate that she could be more than a hanger-on to Vhannor; she could be an asset in her own right. No: she was.

So once she was confident she could keep her balance on the skimmer without all her focus, Liris spent the rest of the trip explaining in detail how Ceingpol floral arrangement worked, answering every sharp question Jiechit thought of, and then keeping quiet while she worked out in her head what that meant for dispelling.

Liris hadn't seen the whole pattern yet, but the spells they'd been deployed to deal with were situated near the Gate to Thous. Jiechit stopped suddenly, but Liris kept her balance.

Until she saw what was behind the Gate.

Sand below like some places in Serenthuar, but leading to water, more water than Liris had seen in one place in her life. Like she could walk away from the sand forever and never reach the end of it all—until she hit the edge of the realm.

A sea.

Jiechit didn't wait for Liris to pick herself back up.

"Ceingpol floral arrangement," Jiechit barked, striding forward with the skimmer as Liris scrambled after her.

A very dignified approach for her first field outing.

No one was watching her, though. Which ought to have been better but reminded her enough of her life in Serenthuar that it was worse instead.

Several people clustered furiously around the Gate groaned at the news—the field team, she thought. There were also officials in a blue and white uniform—Thous' Gate guard—and...

A whole series of portals.

"How did that happen?" Liris blurted.

Every official stiffened.

"Not our job," Jiechit said evenly, and the officials' tension eased minutely. "We're just here to take them down."

Right. Special Operations had a limited remit unless otherwise invited.

A woman wearing spelled corrective goggles issued instructions, and on her authority the team moved into action. Jiechit continued, "We have a minute, so since you're a student I guess we'll make this teachable. What are we doing?"

Liris' heart thumped. A test.

A chance.

They were close enough now for Liris to see clearly—the silvery spheres surrounding the black spells, the deadness concentrated within.

"Isolating with containment spells, so the only magic that gets eaten is inside." Liris frowned.

"You have a question?" Jiechit asked.

Liris considered, trying to think clearly and not let the feeling of soaring drive her to poor decisions. But submitting incorrect responses apparently wasn't punished, and the answer here would be educational.

She wasn't in Serenthuar anymore, and she should start acting like it.

So she asked, "Why, though?"

Jiechit raised her eyebrows. "Do you have another idea?"

Liris fumbled to pull out her paper and began sketching. "Why let the magic get eaten at all? If you transported the magic away first before sealing, like back to Special Operations—"

Jiechit smacked the pen and paper out of Liris' hands. While Liris stood there shocked, the field caster tore a spell from her own pad, and she suddenly found herself encased in a silvery sphere of her own.

"No," Jiechit said coldly. "If you're really a student of Embhullor, stay there and try to learn. And either way, don't even think about doing anything."

Then she turned on her heel and strode toward the action, dispatching a messenger to the Gate and leaving Liris baffled and alone behind her, once again separated from anything that mattered.

One moment; one critical failure. Would she never learn?

Her confusion quickly gave way to fury as it sunk in that Jiechit had trapped her in a spell.

Liris might have already failed, but one thing she had learned was she didn't have to accept it.

Jiechit had said not to do anything, but she also hadn't explained why. So Liris wasn't going to accept her judgment or directive: she was going to learn and do.

She studied the sphere, remembering what Vhannor had taught her about escaping from the detection spell, and only then did she sit down. She kept an eye on the team so any time they looked over, she wouldn't appear to be drawing in the sand with her finger.

Carefully, carefully. While the team let magic be drained from the world, and Liris still thought this way was stupid, when hers would have saved the magic of this sea.

Which she couldn't even look at, because she had to watch Jiechit.

"Jiechit!"

Liris went still, her stomach turning. Was she relieved or mortified?

Because that was Vhannor's voice, advancing from behind.

Did he often join teams in the field? Or had someone told him she'd gotten on a field mission, and he'd come to observe what she could do?

Liris pulled her hands clearly in front of her, her heartbeat thundering.

Surely that was mortification.

Okay.

Liris took deep breaths, trying not to drown in embarrassment that he'd see her like this.

Her first day without him by her side, and she'd fucked it up after all.

But as Jiechit stalked over, Vhannor reached Liris' sphere.

His lavender eyes met hers, and Liris would have sworn her heart turned upside down.

Until he scowled. "What are you doing in there?"

"My call," Jiechit said.

"I meant," Vhannor said, meeting Liris' gaze with a challenge in his, "I'm surprised you haven't broken out."

"What?" Jiechit sputtered.

Liris narrowed her eyes and stood, revealing the lines underneath her in the sand, and Jiechit froze.

"I know all about biding my time," Liris said.

"What in the realms?" Jiechit looked between them. "I thought you said you were a first-day student?"

"As it happens," Vhannor said, "she's also a genius. Liris, that modification is sound—go ahead and finish. Jiechit, what were you doing, trying to trap a human caster inside this? The only reason it works on demons is they can't use magic."

Jiechit shrugged. "Those are the expendable spells I had on me. If she didn't know about demon portals, I assumed she wouldn't know anything else."

"A mistake," Vhannor said in a low voice.

"I'm a field caster, Lord Vhannor. My priority is the mission, not education. If you're taking charge of her and don't have further information for me, I'll get back to it."

"Do," Vhannor said in a tone that could have frozen the air between them. "I'll look forward to your report."

Jiechit paused at that, like it had finally occurred to her that she could fail a test too. But then she nodded sharply and walked away, and Liris dissolved her prison, and then Vhannor shoved a crinkling paper at her.

Liris took it, revealing strange dark green sheets.

He glanced away. "It's a snack Thous' seaside towns are known for," Vhannor muttered.

Liris' eyes brightened, her anger momentarily derailed. "Seaweed?"

"I thought you might not have tried any, so I snagged a package on my way through."

He'd thought of this specifically for her. Still thinking of her, even when she was out of sight. Liris didn't know what to make of that, let alone what to say.

"Go ahead," Vhannor said. "It's roasted and salted—"

Easier to eat than speak. It started dry on her tongue, then melted.

Once Liris swallowed, she asked, "Is this one of your favorites?"

"My—what?"

She paused, and chose her words with more care, wondering if she was about to blunder again. "You told me I could have preferences. Are you not permitted to have favorites? I just thought, since you travel so much, you must get to try everything."

"Ah." Vhannor looked nonplussed. "I like seaweed well enough, but no, it's probably not a favorite."

"Wait. You don't know your favorites?"

"Do you?" he shot back.

"Of the food I've eaten, yes," Liris said. "Just because I wasn't allowed to show my preferences doesn't mean I don't have them."

"And they are?"

Liris took another bite of seaweed, crossed her arms, and didn't answer.

Vhannor snorted. "Fine. I'll think on it. Why does Jiechit think you don't know about demon portals?

Her good humor evaporated. "I don't know. I thought it was okay to ask questions."

"It is."

Liris gestured around her where the sphere had just been. "Evidently not!"

She turned away, back toward the sea. Took a breath.

"Can I touch the water before I have to go back?" she asked, and her voice sounded smaller than she'd hoped.

She didn't know how to keep people from trapping her. How to keep from trapping herself.

"Of course we can touch the water," Vhannor snapped. Like he was angry she felt like she had to ask.

But she did have to ask, apparently.

Liris didn't ask more questions or wait for more permission, because who knew how she'd step in it next? She just strode straight for the water without another word.

She'd dared take him at his word when he'd offered her freedom outside Serenthuar, after her mere suggestion there of doing anything differently had nearly gotten her killed. But apparently what she'd asked had been too far to go even when she was supposedly "free," so where was the invisible line, and how was she supposed to balance on it? She wouldn't go back to not acting.

She would not.

Vhannor caught up to her and looked at her as they walked, waiting for her to stop focusing on the water and look back at him.

"Liris."

Fine.

She glared up at him.

And then he proved again how well he already knew her by saying, "I promise not to lock you in a spell or a prison cell, but I need you to help me understand what set Jiechit off."

Not what she had done wrong, but what agentless action had caused a professional field caster to react in a particular way. That framing made her foolishly hopeful, but Liris still didn't speak until they'd reached the edge of the water.

She crouched and, hesitantly, reached her fingers out.

At the first touch, her eyes pricked with tears. She ran her hand through while Vhannor stood patiently at her side like a guard.

It was water, just water, she knew that, but there was no just. There was so much, and Liris didn't know where to begin.

Vhannor bent down and removed his boots.

Liris wasn't sure why that action was so shocking to her, but she couldn't help staring at the sight of him standing barefoot in the sand next to her.

All his attention on her.

"Try this if you want." His voice was low, emotionless. Like he didn't want her to know he cared one way or another whether she tried it, but that he really, really did. "Stand just inside the shallow part and feel what happens when the tide laps at your ankles."

Liris followed suit silently, no questions. And stood there next to him, and then felt the rush of sand between her toes.

Watching him watch her, she saw the moment he saw her feel it, saw the gold in his eyes burst at whatever he saw on her face.

She didn't know what to make of that and turned her gaze quickly to the sea, watching the water cover her feet, then run back out.

Liris knew seas were supposed to be teeming with life, and the deadening effect of the portal had probably killed the same seaweed that made the snacks Vhannor had brought her, that there were fish and all kinds of things she'd only heard of before that had not survived the magic draining out of the realm.

But she stood in water making waves, and it still felt like magic to her.

Liris closed her eyes; opened them. Took a breath. Explained to Vhannor what she'd asked.

"Ah. That makes sense." He gazed out across the sea.

"What I was asking, or why Jiechit thought I needed to be trapped?"

"Both, but both of you lack context. Your only fault in this case is lack of information, easily fixed. What you proposed would have resulted in a demon portal."

Liris whipped to face him. "What?"

"When you try to transport magic but can't adequately specify an anchor for its destination, the magic opens a portal to the void," Vhannor explained. "It was once possible to transport between realms, but since the Sundering there's no way to locate them—specifically, we can't specify a realm's location in a spell.

"The question, especially given the circumstances, would have caught Jiechit off guard, since anyone else enrolled at an elite spellcasting university should have known that."

Liris gaped at him. "I don't know whether to be more embarrassed or angry. If this is such basic knowledge, why has no one mentioned it? Why didn't it come up in my very first class?"

"It would have, if you'd stayed for the whole thing," Vhannor said dryly. "Frankly, you know so much of politics and history from your training it didn't occur to me you wouldn't know this too."

Liris slumped, sitting all the way down on the edge of the sand with her feet still in the water. Story of her life: smart enough to get herself in trouble. "So I didn't do anything wrong, but I still managed to fail in a way that merited trapping me in a spell."

"Liris—"

"You wanted me to be honest? I tried. So here's some more honesty: I am really tired of being judged by rules when people keep claiming they don't exist."

Vhannor was quiet for a minute, and then blew out a breath, crouching down next to her and scowling at the water. "I thought the lecture would be the easiest way to introduce you to the university, but I was wrong. No, don't look like that, it's not your fault, it's mine."

That was worse.

But when she met his gaze again, she saw that hint of gold in the center had flared again.

"You do realize," Vhannor growled, "that we are asking a lot of you?"

Liris frowned, unclear why that was relevant. "Yes."

Vhannor studied her for a moment, then blew out a breath. "Of course. You just consider that your baseline."

If he tried to convince her she couldn't do this after all—

He picked up a rock and threw it as hard as he could at the water, and took a deep breath.

Great, now he was mad too.

"Let's look at it this way," Vhannor said tightly. "I think this incident proves both that we need to tailor your curriculum from the start, because you're capable of too much too quickly, and also why you're going to need to keep taking some basic classes anyway. It won't always be obvious to me or anyone else what you don't know."

Liris nodded slowly.

"So let me back up and explain that codified, regulated advanced spellcasting education in our current era has two primary purposes: teaching people not to open demon portals—because, as you've just learned, it is remarkably easy for a curious person to stumble on the principle, and it was indeed accomplished in the first place by accident after the Sundering."

When he didn't immediately continue, Liris asked, "And the second?"

His gaze was serious, and Liris suppressed a shiver, curling her toes into the sand.

"The second is to teach casters the consequences of harnessing ley magic. Because it was also too easy for casters to accidentally sunder the realms with it."

Birds Liris had never heard before called from above.

She didn't even look up.

"I have so many questions," Liris said.

Vhannor cracked a faint smile, lying back on the sand with his hands under his head. "Of course you do. The first is about ley magic?"

His shirt rode up at the motion, exposing defined abs below, and Liris forced herself to bring her gaze back to his face. "We can start with that one, sure."

"Various languages have different terms, but essentially there are invisible lines, concentrations of magic, connecting the world."

It was ridiculous that he still sounded perfectly poised with sand in his hair.

"Now, or before the Sundering?" Liris asked. "And isn't magic ambient?"

"Both, and yes, and those two questions are related." Vhannor coolly lifted an eyebrow. "May I presume that another of your questions has to do with the Sundering itself?"

"Yes," Liris said. "I wasn't aware we knew what had caused the Sundering, and I have read a lot of history books—though if it was related to magic—"

"The information available to you might have been circumscribed to prevent you from experimenting with spellcraft," Vhannor muttered. "I should have guessed that might be the case. So let me summarize:

"Before the Sundering, the world was at war. Casters at the time theorized that all magic in the world was in fact dispersed from nodes, intersections of ley lines. They were incorrect: we now know different amounts of ambient magic in different places isn't connected to the proximity of ley lines."

"How do we know that?" Liris interrupted.

"Because realms with few Gates don't necessarily have less magic. And that's relevant because the world shattered along ley lines. Any realm a single ley line passed through has one Gate. A realm where a node was located has multiple Gates. Any place too far from those was lost—there was still ambient magic there, but no anchor the magic recognized to connect to."

Liris gazed out across the sea again as far as she could see—where the end of the realm must be.

She'd never touched the end of a realm before. She wondered what it felt like, the barrier that held in the sea. The sky was the same as Serenthuar, the same as it had been before the Sundering, magic keeping their weather and views of the stars the same, as if the world were still in one piece.

Just, not the same dimension anymore.

"The thing you have to understand about magic is that it isn't limited to three dimensions, which is presumably why the world was able to shatter into multiple dimensions. Ley lines have always been difficult to locate—more so than nodes—because they're not straight. The pattern isn't organized in any recognizable way to humans for that reason." He paused. "Please don't take that as a challenge."

"Too late," Liris said, and Vhannor snorted. "But since you mentioned the war, I'm guessing where you're going with this is casters attacked a node?"

"Yeah. Casters from an alliance of countries thought that if a node in an enemy country was untethered, the source of their magic would vanish. By harnessing ley power, they succeeded at this attack once, and there was an incredible backlash—there are accounts of everything from natural disasters to reality itself warping. All the spellwork within miles of the node was erased, along with civilization. One of the largest cities in the world literally crumbled. The specific reasons for this aren't fully understood, and it's not as though we can test. Once was enough that many of the attack's original proponents believed that it should never be used again."

"Not all, though," Liris murmured.

"No," Vhannor agreed grimly. "But where they would have fallen on that point became moot, because in retaliation, an alliance of their enemies launched a coordinated counterattack. The same idea, but scaled up: multiple nodes, all untethered simultaneously.

"The magic that held the world together couldn't.

"After the first attack, the ley lines rearranged to stabilize, but after the second, that process was too confused, because there was too much to do at once. The world fell apart, and the magic held it all back together... differently. Ever since then, because people can find out what harnessing ley magic can do, and we cannot count on even people who know the consequences to not choose destruction, ley magic is forbidden to casters."

"So you don't teach people not to use it, then," Liris said slowly. "You prevent knowledge of how."

"To be honest, Liris, the only reason I'm telling you this much is because I don't know what else you've read, and what you might be able to put together on your own once you know more, if you don't know enough."

Liris nodded, still trying to see if she could visually pinpoint where the sea ended and the barrier began. "That's why Jadrhun dropped out of university, isn't it?"

Vhannor propped himself up on his elbows. "Why do you think that?"

How to put this that wouldn't get her in trouble? "He didn't strike me as the kind of person who would be denied."

Vhannor looked out over the water. "Once upon a time, he thought he was going to save the world. I don't know what happened that he thinks helping demons will fix. Demons are antithetical to magic. They certainly couldn't teach Jadrhun spells for harnessing ley magic."

"You've said he was a genius," Liris said carefully. "What if he's found a way?"

"Then I'll stop him," Vhannor said, his gaze steady and unyielding.

I. For all his comments on Liris taking on a lot, he once again defaulted to taking everything on himself. Not counting her. Not counting on her.

The dry salt air suddenly felt brittle on her skin, the scent of it breathed in like inexorable failure. Liris felt the beginning of panic. She'd been lucky he considered her special at the beginning, but if he stopped—

"I didn't see any Thyrasel in these spells, but Jiechit didn't let me get close," Liris said. "Was the handwriting Jadrhun's?"

Vhannor shook his head. "There are lots of demon portals in the realms, and that one in Etorsiye is the first and so far the only one that's ever been Jadrhun's handiwork."

"It could be a distraction," Liris tried, "or a test to see what we know, to decide what to use in—"

He sat up. "Not everything is part of a mass conspiracy. Not everything fits together neatly. Humans are pattern-making machines, so we have to be extra wary of finding patterns where there aren't any."

Liris gripped the sand with her toes even as it slid out from under her feet.

Of course the one thing he needed her for, he didn't actually need her for.

Patterns were what she was trained for. But even more than that, she'd learned young to look for them. Because when a person could always be punished for not following a rule that no one would tell her existed, it followed that they became hypersensitive to noticing everything and anything you might be judged for with no explanation.

Liris had been partway reassured by Vhannor's explanation, right up until he went on to claim that the one thing that made her valuable and kept her safe was a liability.

She was aware, when they left the realm, of Jiechit watching her suspiciously, no matter what Vhannor had said. And it only reinforced how clearly she'd failed today, that Vhannor had had to rescue her.

Before today, he'd viewed her with potential. Now she was a liability to be managed, contained. Her first attempt to rise in his estimation had accomplished the exact opposite.