Caen overslept again. It was a little worrying, but he’d started to note that his Mimicking ability strained body, mind, and spirit. So this felt to him like a given. Also, doing physical training with a boosted affinity yesterday had taken a lot out of him.

With bright sunlight pouring in from his window, Caen sat at the center of his room and began cleansing his spirit. It was so much harder than it had been any of the times he had Mimicked Zeris's Spirit-healing affinity. Whenever his spirit returned to its usual state of abjection, he noticed that practicing magic felt even more difficult than it had been before he'd found his third and fourth bloodlines.

Probably, because I've never had anything to compare abjection to, he thought.

Uncle Vai had once offered to give Caen a solid impression of what smooth and easy casting felt like to an eager spirit. As a skilled Dream-guardian, Vai could gift memories that possessed all the potency of a real experience. But Caen had refused after thinking it over for a few days. He'd thought at the time that having a clearer idea of what he intrinsically lacked would sooner greatly discourage than motivate him.

He smiled at the irony. He'd never felt more motivated in his life.

He sank into the procedure. He was starting to think of this as practicing forms very slowly while wearing weights. Caen knew of exercises that involved placing great restriction or strain on one's spirit and mind while casting spells in order to improve one's magical affinities. But for all the effort and toil exercises like these entailed, the results were never notable. Then again, training was all about tiny improvements over long periods of time.

Caen had never been able to do any of these exercises, of course. Abjection was its own curse, and adding extra restrictions to his mind and spirit, no matter how small, always resulted in spiritual injuries.

Now, though, with this gestalt ability of his, Caen had a path forward that wasn't open to him before. Every time he boosted an affinity, he got a little bit of insight into how to better execute spirit patterns when casting spells. It was a small thing, but he could see this stacking up in the future. He also highly suspected that he might be able to train his body, mind, and spirit with boosted affinities in any discipline of magic and reap the rewards in his abjection.

It all seemed so difficult to believe. An avenue to raise his affinities, to pull himself out of abjection. He wiped tears from his eyes several times.

Once he was done with cleansing his spirit, he went about his other morning routines, but was interrupted by Zeris.

“You're not even dressed! We need to leave soon if we're to catch the train.”

Caen rolled his eyes. The train wasn't due for another hour, but Zeris was obviously excited. They'd gone over the materials they borrowed from the library last night and learned much less about Passionfire than Caen had hoped they would. None of the other magical strains of fire they'd read about even hinted at Passionfire. So they'd ended up going to Uncle Vai's library, which they'd intended to do anyway. There, they found a few descriptions that lined up with Zeris's guesses and what Magister Fermien had shown them.

They’d also found a few mentions of Ardor in folktales and spurious lore. A lot of the descriptions were excessively flowery and frankly bizarre. One story in particular had spoken of a young five-thousand-troop commander of the Aialda bloodline who had ignited the passion of the defeated soldiers under him. Their army had been routed and ambushed, a great many of their number killed. This commander, according to legend, had used Ardor to fan into flames the dying embers of valor and resolve in his men, and as a result had temporarily imparted them with impossible abilities.

There were several other strange stories like this one, where Ardor was used to accomplish things utterly unrelated to Fire magic. In some instances, it was used as a simple and acceptable handwave for various ridiculous feats achieved by mages.

Passionfire, however, was said to be a strain of fire that burned hotter the more passionate the caster felt. Somehow, that seemed… underwhelming.

Years ago, Zeris had nearly burnt down the house when they'd started reading Fermien's Primer, and since the most informative book on Passionfire they'd found in Vai's library made several mentions of wildfires having been started by possessors of the Ardor bloodline, they'd decided to hold off on any form of practice till they could make use of the warded training grounds at the Valiants Guild headquarters in Drenlin.

* * *

After freshening up, he packed his bag—they wouldn't be sleeping at home tonight—grabbed a hefty breakfast, and then they headed for Drenlin.

The Valiants Guild headquarters was a complex of semi-detached buildings at the heart of the city. It was unornamented but imposing, with some of its buildings as high as three stories. The crest of the Valiants Association was emblazoned on the face of the tallest building.

They walked past the front desk, at which there was a queue. Valiants, armed in all sorts of combat gear, stood smoldering or in groups chatting among themselves. There was a large noticeboard off to the side with postings, party requests, and paid assignments. Caen usually came here to make a few pomms.

At the entryway to the training grounds, an attendant took Zeris's money and gave her a cylindrical key with three holes on the top.

“Segment 13,” the attendant said, pointing to the aisle by his left. “Mind the wards.” Each cylinder was specifically designed to slot into a hole in the floor and activate the embedded wards.

The training grounds were a large courtyard with many sectioned-off square areas, marked by neat grooves in the concrete. Each of these spaces was enclosed by mostly transparent walls of force warded into the stone. These prevented Valiants from harming others while they practiced.

Caen could see a few other Valiants dueling or assaulting warded dummies within their own segments. Each segment was marked with an Ortrilian glyph on the concrete to denote its number.

They walked through the aisles between segments and found their rented space: a thirty-foot by thirty-foot area. A wooden dummy warded against physical force and elemental damage had been erected in a corner. Inserting the cylinder into a hole in the ground, Caen activated the wards. A cube of force, thirty feet high, sprang up on all sides and formed a protective pane overhead, cutting off sound.

Caen sat cross-legged on the floor while Zeris paced, which felt to him like a reversal of some kind. He had mimicked her Fire affinity on the train ride here and was currently still connected to her.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Nothing they'd read described Passionfire with any level of rigor. The books thought of it as an effect that was applied to ordinary fire, though Fermien had categorically insisted that Ardor was not an effect.

Zeris conjured a shifting ball of orange flame over her palm. “Oh, and did I mention,” she said conversationally while staring at the flame. “I'm so passionate about using our bloodline. Very passionate!”

“I don't think raising your voice makes it work,” Caen said.

“I'm only raising my voice because of how passionate I am!” she yelled at the flame in her hand. “Brimming with passion even!” She huffed. “Yeah, that doesn't look like it's doing anything.”

“Magister Fermien said to just do it,” Caen mused. He conjured a small orb of fire that hovered over his palm. Caen hadn't yet gotten over the thrill of casting simple spells so quickly and easily, and he honestly didn't think he ever would.

He curtailed his excitement and sharpened his focus. “Alright,” Caen said. “His exact words were ‘what things do you burn for, and what actions are you willing to take in service to that?’”

Zeris hummed. “He called Ardor a state of being.” She transferred her flame to her other hand. “The thing I'm most passionate about is Spatial magic, but how,” she said, staring into the flame, “do I convey that?”

Caen nodded. He’d been thinking about this all morning, and for several hours before he slept last night. He'd been thinking about it since Fermien asked the question. And at each of these times, the answer had come so easily to him that he'd dismissed it.

A part of him insisted that an answer to a question this profound needed to be complex and thoroughly thought through.

But the rest of him had settled on an answer years ago, even before his spirit had first stirred. After his awakening, that answer had been even truer for him.

He was always so ill and fragile. His parents would tuck him into their bed at night, and his mother would tell him stories of powerful archmages while using Gleam magic to illustrate the wonders of the arcane. He remembered—in the way people often recalled their earliest memories—how he would lie awake afterwards, thinking how amazing magic was because it could make him normal. His spirit tore itself each time it moved, and his body was incredibly susceptible to injury and disease.

Recalling all that made him smile sadly even now. Years of being constantly healed by his grandparents had helped him build up some bodily immunity and spiritual resistance.

In the depths of his abjection, his love for magic had continued to blossom. He had grown to yearn for magic with the desperate longing of a starving man. Years of fighting with his own spirit just to perform the most rudimentary spells in various magical disciplines. A mind reluctant to hold visualizations, a spirit uneager to contort into spirit patterns. Just days ago, Caen fully intended to go out into the world on his own and find solutions for his problem.

He remembered how he'd felt in Redshadow when Soul-sense had activated for the first time. How scared he'd been. Scared that none of it was real. He remembered how he'd felt days after, when he'd activated the ability himself. How he'd cried on that tree.

That was it, simple and easy. The thing Caen's heart ached for, the thing he burned for. Magic. Learning about it, thinking about it, practicing it. He—

Caen hissed, feeling a sharp sting on his hand. The orb of fire still hovered in place, but its color had changed. Streaks of purple, pink, and red swirled within the orb of fire. The colors were so bright that the whole thing looked unnatural. He could feel the warm air on his face.

“Ancestor’s bones,” Zeris whispered, stopping in her tracks.

“That's starting to hurt quite a bit.” Caen cut off the spell instantly, flapping his hands. His temporary resistance to fire and heat was definitely helping here.

The books had said that Passionfire usually manifested in various tones of color, but he hadn't supposed it would be so hot, which in hindsight should have been obvious to him.

“How did you do it?”

“I …” he shook his head, “just did what Fermien said to. I thought about the thing I desired most.”

Zeris gave him an incredulous look. “Wait, what? You mean like… like magic?”

“Mhm.”

She turned a betrayed glare on her own ball of flame. “Are you serious?! I literally just told you how much I love magic! Ugh!”

Caen's palm was fine; it just stung quite a bit. He looked it over just to be sure. “Wow. This thing is dangerous.”

“He says while smiling.” Zeris shook her head.

Caen tried casting a Blood-healing spell for soothing burns. The spell fizzled out after every attempt. It was just a little harder to execute the gesture components of the spell with a smarting hand, but that wasn't the real problem.

“I was reminiscing about my general experience with spellcasting,” Caen said. “Mostly just evoking a portion of the complicated feelings I have about magic.”

“Ugh! Feelings,” Zeris said in faux-dismay. “It's literally called Passionfire. I should have expected this.” She continued pacing, focusing intently on her ball of fire.

Caen conjured a small fireball over his palm. He'd been trying to hold on to that mess of emotions from earlier, but the flame materialized in its typical orange colour. A moment after, though, swirling streaks of purple, pink, and red appeared within it. Caen immediately modified the spell base, moving the fireball a few inches higher. Then he moved it some inches higher still. In spite of this, it warmed his face, his neck, his entire hand, and part of his arm. This time, though, the heat didn't feel quite as intense as before.

He began rotating it around his palm in a wide orbit. Beyond the obvious changes, he felt a demand on his willpower.

When he sent the fireball at the warded dummy, it left a noticeable scorch mark on the deep brown wood of the dummy's bodice. Normal flames wouldn't have been able to do that. He immersed himself more deeply in his memories.

The first time he'd worked himself into avolition—the most severe case of will fatigue—and had been sick for an entire month afterwards, feeling the crushing weight of his inadequacy.

When Caen conjured a fireball this time, he could feel the waves of heat washing over him, but strangely, it didn't hurt. Bright colors of purple, pink, and red seared themselves into his vision.

The fireball hit the dummy with a loud whump. It clung to the wooden frame, spreading over it as though the dummy had been covered in fuel. Then it suddenly died after a second, clearly suppressed by the wards. Though the flame hadn't eaten into the wood, it left behind a char that covered the entirety of the dummy's bodice.

“Three realms!” Zeris swore. “Was that still just from ‘magic’?”

“Had to dredge up some unpleasant memories for that one. But yes.” Caen shivered. The echo of his inadequacy in that memory still lingered. He'd come to terms with those emotions years ago, but there was a certain rawness to them now that hadn't been there before.

He practiced dispelling Passionfire with regular extinguishing spells. He was able to smother the working quickly, but Zeris couldn't. Though the demand on his will increased significantly whenever she tried to.

He felt emotionally exhausted, but he still had mana left. Untor's Boulder revealed that his will wasn't close to fatigue, but it felt somewhat strained.

He took some time to rest and meditate on how he was feeling. Even with his eyes closed, his speculon allowed him to still see Zeris, thus maintaining their connection. Not being able to close his eyes ever again was less disturbing than it should have been.

He felt like he'd spent an entire day on Ser-gwu Island, entertaining the rude and probing questions of certain kinds of family members.

“It's affecting me somehow,” he said to Zeris. “I think it uses emotions, and leaves me rung out afterwards.”

Zeris frowned. “Will fatigue?”

“Not yet. Just emotional exhaustion. I'll lay off it for now, and maybe work on some exercises instead.” This was as good an opportunity as any to start training his Fire affinity.

Zeris sighed. “Well, I'll keep trying myself. I can already tell that I'll love this as much as I hate it.”

They worked in silence for several hours longer.