Without Mimicking its spirit receptor, Caen sent an impression to Chasma. He’d practiced this with the fragment earlier. It peeled away from his face, just as he took off the remains of his helmet.

Grand Elder Fenendis seemed disappointed, but he squinted at Caen as though trying to decide if he knew him or not. But there were no looks of recognition in any of the other elders.

Except one.

Grand Elder Qobesh gasped. “Tet’s tits!” the man declared, eyes widening.

Qobesh was a wereperson with dark blue scales on his face and a single horn curling backwards from the top of his head. He was an expert in Filiation magic. He’d taken an interest in Caen’s condition nearly thirteen years ago, but had no longer been available for consultation after seeing the results of Caen’s third affinity testing.

This was the elder that Caen was most worried about. Qobesh was far more likely to ask difficult questions than the others.

And Caen could not lie.

Panic surged in his chest, but he seized it and crushed it immediately. He cast a slew of Dream-guarding spells on himself to sharpen his focus and keep him calm. These ancient Percipients would notice this upon his aura, but who wouldn’t be nervous when standing before their betters?

Qobesh’s peers turned to look at the man.

“You know who this is?” asked Grand Elder Dowdn in that whispery voice of his that left mental echoes.

Still watching Caen with surprise, Qobesh said something so quickly that Caen could not make out what was said.

Grand Elder Gahairis, a wizened woman with an elaborately tied scarf on her head, said something else just as quickly. Dowdn spoke at the same speed, and soon they were all talking over each other. Except for Hera-Lienixur.

Caen’s improved processing speed didn’t help him much in making out their conversation, but he caught familiar words in Thermish.

Auras and spirit tendrils interacted with him the next moment as they all brought their attention down on him.

“You’re the abject boy, aren’t you?” Qobesh finally said at comprehensible speed. “Ar’Caen, was it?”

“Yes, Grand Elder Qobesh. I found my missing Bloodline. And as Grand Elder Gevrid predicted, I am no longer abject.”

Abjection described a condition where a person’s magical affinities were all below 1 on the Peilker scale. That no longer applied to Caen.

“What bloodline is it?” Qobesh asked.

“Ardor, Grand Elder,” Caen said, already casting a spell. Impassioned ribbons of fire bloomed around Caen, dancing with the swirling strips of purple, pink, and red.

The elders began to speak very quickly among themselves again as they watched the flames dancing around him.

After a few more seconds, Caen dismissed the flames, and in the same moment, he paired Chasma’s spirit receptor with Dream-guarding.

“Who helped you locate it in your spirit?” Qobesh asked, leaning forward. “Surely, you couldn’t have achieved this in abjection.”

“About six months ago, a traveling mage from the Imperial Citadel of Magic incited the bloodline in me. Magister Fermien Aialda. He called it bloodline resonance.”

Recognition lit up in the eyes of several of the elders. Fenendis stroked his beard thoughtfully, while Qobesh frowned and muttered, “Six months?”

Gahairis, the only person here who probably looked her age, chuckled. “Child, Fermien Aialda is not a ‘mage’.”

Caen blinked at that. He’d never been sure, but this confirmed that Magister Fermien was in fact an archmage: above the stage of Percipient.

“And this cured your condition?” Dowdn whispered. The reedy man had a thin mustache so long that it fell behind the table and out of view.

Caen smiled fondly. “On that very day, Grand Elder, the problem of my abjection was solved. I experienced passive augmentations for the first time in my life. There were—”

“Did it activate your Edict bloodline?” Qobesh cut in, his eyes brimming with interest.

“Regrettably not, Grand Elder.” Caen tapped his forehead, a frustrated look on his face, as he exercised his mental discipline to its very limit, choosing his words carefully. “I cannot see through my speculon. It has been dud all my life. I’d hoped that finding Ardor would resolve this, but that was not the case.”

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This was true. Mimicking Chasma’s spirit receptor cut Caen off from all his bloodlines, thus his speculon was not working right now. Also, Caen had needed to discover Ardor, then his fourth bloodline, then Mimicry. And only hours after he’d learned how to use Mimicry properly had his Edict bloodline awakened.

Grand Elder Qobesh pursed his lips, the dark blue scales on his face glittering. Caen could feel an aura pressing down on him. It did not seek to intimidate him, but rather, to scrutinize.

Caen let some of his nervousness bleed out.

“So, you’re saying right now that you do not have three activated bloodlines?” Qobesh asked.

“No, Grand Elder, I do not have three activated bloodlines,” Caen said, and the geas did not stop him. This was not a lie. None of Caen’s bloodlines were active right now. In fact, they might as well not have existed.

“Do you have any other dud bloodlines?” Qobesh followed up immediately.

“No, Grand Elder.”

Caen had no dud bloodlines.

“Four activated bloodlines?”

The geas clenched tightly.

Caen shook his head. “No, Grand Elder. I do not have four activated bloodlines.”

By Mimicking Chasma’s spirit receptor, Caen had changed his soul so severely that he no longer had any bloodlines. At the moment.

“Five, then?” Qobesh pressed.

Grand Elder Franzoa rolled her eyes.

Caen told the man that he did not have five bloodlines either.

“Your affinities,” Qobesh said. “What are your affinities?”

“Average,” Caen admitted. “Dream-guarding and Body-enhancement are my highest affinities, and they both sit at a potency level of about 5 on the Peilker scale.”

Caen’s phrasing was intentional. His Dream-guarding and Body-enhancement affinities registered as 2s on the Peilker scale, but they were both as potent as a rating of 4 or 5. This was not a lie.

“Flora and Blood-healing are at potency levels of about 4,” Caen continued. “And my—”

Qobesh seemed to lose interest immediately, leaning back in his seat. “That’s enough.”

It was only through supreme effort that Caen did not let out a sigh of relief.

“Interestingly, he’s just a mid Attuner,” Dowdn whispered, shaking his head.

“Well,” Fenendis chuckled, “I certainly handled my fair share of peak Attuners back when I was that weak.”

“To be young again,” Gahairis muttered fondly.

“I’m still lost on how he accomplished all that he did in the trials with such… average affinity ratings,” Grand Elder Franzoa said. The dark-skinned woman was fiddling with the golden rings on her fingers.

“Years of training as an abject have greatly helped my spellwork, Grand Elder. But I would say that one of the greatest advantages was my fragment.” At these words, Caen bid Chasma to peel off his armor in an instant. He molded the fragment into a sphere, levitated it above him, and caused it to glow with bioluminescence.

It was Gahairis’s turn to look very startled by this. The ancient woman was a Nurturing mage. Nurturing was not a discipline, but a field of magic that mostly included Flora, Liquid, Earth, and Blood-healing, in some cases. Gahairis had a fragment of her own, which she kept in the form of a staff.

“How in the Mother’s—er… tendrils,” Fenendis said, “are you doing that?” He adjusted his monocle and peered closer.

“I drew Parthra’s direct attention when I entered the Plane, and the great tree gave me a special fragment as a result. Mine can grow in size and durability the more it feeds on magical and physical matter. And I can express my desires to the fragment directly.”

Gahairis was paying very rapt attention to him.

“You do this using spells, correct?” Franzoa asked, her eyes looking over the hovering fragment. He could feel the faintest brush against his aura.

“No, Grand Elder. During my bestowal ritual, Parthra summoned me before its presence and spoke with me.”

Gahairis huffed in amusement, but Fenendis’s face grew slightly pale.

“Then, after I had received my fragment,” Caen continued, “Parthra communicated with me in another form, conveying its thoughts and intentions directly to my being. Once this happened, I instinctively understood how to do this and could repeat the same mode of communication with my fragment.”

The elders wore varying degrees of incredulity on their faces, though Gahairis’s expression was simply thoughtful.

Qobesh turned to Gahairis and said something to her in that hastened speech they sometimes used.

Caen shaped Chasma to cover his breastplate, expressing regard and fondness to it through the spirit receptor. Chasma expressed regard and fondness in turn, and that grounded him.

“There are many grades of fragments,” the old woman said at regular speed. It seemed as though she did this for Caen’s benefit. “There are more than have been documented. Parthra makes them on a whim. I have never heard of this before, but in truth, it does not surprise me all that much.”

“Alright, this brings us to the question we’ve been stewing over for weeks,” Fenendis spoke up, and several of his peers nodded at his words.

Qobesh glanced sidelong at the member of their panel who had stayed silent all this time.

Stormsong immediately vanished from its place on the carpeted floor and appeared on the table before Hera-Lienixur. The woman’s sharp, gray eyes had never stopped inspecting Caen.

“What,” she asked in a quiet voice that carried over to him clearly, “did you do to my sword?”

“I am honored, Grand Elder, to have used your gloriously forged weapon in this trial,” Caen said, bowing at the waist. “The simple answer is Ardor.”

“Explain,” the woman said dispassionately.