As soon as he stepped through the Aperture, Caen felt painful pinpricks all over his skin. This was common enough and happened every time he entered a Plane.

What never happened, though, was this pull, something tugging at his being—and his spirit, even suppressed as it was, churned like a troubled sea.

If the urgent need he'd felt at the temple was severe, this was downright unbearable. All his limbs trembled, and it was all Caen could do to stand upright.

The cotton band beneath his helmet kept the sweat out of his eyes. This plane was actually quite cold, but he felt like he'd run a mile nonstop. Still, he shivered beneath his gear.

Ankle-high, black grass blanketed the hilly terrain around him, swaying soundlessly. Redshadow had no clouds overhead, just a bright grey sky with streaks of black that were reminiscent of claw marks.

A shadeling with a general canine-like physique prowled some yards away. Its coating was black and glossy, making it look like a silhouette with substance. It was nearly three feet tall. A single large tail hung up from behind the creature, seemingly disconnected from its body. The tail swayed and coiled about, looking like an inky shadow which had been painted directly onto the canvas of the world.

These were the weakest kind of shadelings. The number of tails a shadeling possessed determined how much of a threat it posed.

The creature retreated when it spotted them, and since their destination was in the opposite direction, the party didn't follow. Bigger parties tended to scare off lone shadelings this close to the Aperture. Packs of shadelings were another matter entirely.

That tugging sensation within Caen seemed to worsen with each passing second, and he figured that keeping his spirit smothered was no way to make sense of whatever was going on with him. Hesitating for only a moment, he released his hold on it.

His spirit seethed like a frothing pot. Scanning it would utterly dull his physical senses, so he refrained from doing that for now.

As Ellu led them east into a cluster of blackened trees and down a very steep decline, Caen just focused on putting one foot in front of the other. He could hear his own breathing, though he tried to control it.

“Anything yet?” Zeris asked in a whisper. She'd been watching him cautiously since they stepped through the Aperture.

“Nothing for now,” he replied in Olden Vishic. “Once we stop, I'll take a look.”

She nodded. “I'll keep watch when you do.”

Ellu soon halted by a clump of purple bushes and began inspecting them with Dari. Binam and the others kept alert, looking out for danger.

Out the corner of his eye, Caen noticed movement on a distant outcropping high up above them. He turned to look at it, and at first, all he saw were the swaying branches of a cluster of large trees.

Those aren't branches, he thought, terrified and awed.

“Up there,” said Affen, his hoarse voice trembling. “On the outcropping.”

What had seemed at first to be unnaturally colored foliage revealed itself to be tails of writhing shadow. Paling, Caen counted six.

“Seven,” said Affen, a whimper in his voice.

Caen noticed the seventh tail. Shadelings didn't have eyes, but somehow, he felt like the humongous creature was watching them. Watching him. Everyone in the party seemed to be holding very still.

Anecdotal wisdom claimed that shadelings with four tails and higher rarely ever attacked anyone unless they were confronted directly. Caen wasn't sure what to believe. His aunt had told him about how she'd once been chased by a four-tails. The only reason she'd survived was because the creature had suddenly lost interest in her.

Binam took a step back. “What's something like that doing all the way here?”

No one answered him. They were probably all thinking the same thing. Creatures with that many tails didn't often roam so close to the Drenlin Aperture.

There was a collective exhale of breath when the shadeling turned its gaze away, and a moment later it retreated out of view.

“Second tensest moment of my life, I'm telling you,” Binam said, chuckling.

“What was the first?” Dari asked, mopping his brow with a small towel.

“Oh, please, don't ask him that,” Hez said, groaning. “It's a trap.”

Caen tuned them out as he leaned against a tree. He nodded to Zeris and delved into his spirit. If it had buzzed with Fermien, now it sang. The intensity of that tugging, that pull, was far greater.

Locating his bloodlines had always felt like carefully trying to chart a course to him. Now, he was a leaf pulled along by the strong currents of a raging stream.

Every bloodline of his, the three he now knew he had, flashed through his spiritual perception, located with the ease of objects stowed in his pocket.

A green blob moulded from the substance of his spirit.

A shimmering cluster of flowing mirrors.

A mottled pink flame.

And then finally, a mass of intertwined darkened strips with the consistency of ink squirmed in his mind's eye.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Years of mental discipline helped Caen dampen his excitement.

Quickly, he called Klaver's Variate to mind. Not a teardrop or a crescent. For so long, he'd thought it was a triangle, but it wasn't that either.

He envisioned a rhombus. Equilateral on all sides.

The visualization didn't just hold; all four glowing points on the ghostly mental construct glowed brighter than they ever had.

Before his mind's eye, it solidified and shifted angles. This had never happened before.

A transparent speck began forming within the rhombus. The depth of its dimensionality strained Klaver's Variate to the point that it shuddered. But it did not collapse like it had at other times.

Everything visualized in Klaver's Variate was always 2-dimensional, but this was something different.

The speck expanded into a transparent sphere that quickly grew to encompass the rhombus.

Caen gasped, his eyes snapping open.

He'd been blind for so long, but for the first time in his life, he saw.

Several things happened at once, and Caen failed to keep track of it all.

Every part of his existence shuddered, and he felt a harmony of self. Something unfolded in his spirit. No, not his spirit; his entire being.

A… connection of some kind clicked into place between himself and Zeris, who stood closest to him. A razor-thin, black line ran from his midsection to hers.

In the same moment, her physical features grew faint and were overlaid by a jumble of information far too confusing for his mind to interpret. Sounds, textures, sensations, impressions, and nuances pushed into his perception. Before him was a Zeris-shaped mass of intertwined threads. Threads made of glowing lights. Threads of spiralling smoke shifting through several hues. Threads of dark and muted tones. Each of them winding together and vibrating and pulsing in alien rhythms.

His body, too, was overlaid with a similar tapestry of threads and sensations and sounds. A flurry of impressions flooded his perception. His entire being hummed, numerous parts converging into one absolute note. It was the most beautiful sound Caen had ever heard in his life.

A portion of Caen's existence stirred. It curled, remolding itself, moving as though in conformity to some unclear instinct. Something fundamental changed in him.

The razor-thin, black line between him and Zeris felt firmer.

He raised his arms, marveling at the structure of complex colors and dizzying patterns overlaying his body. Was this a vision?

Beneath the assault of ethereal sounds, colors, and rattling vibrations, he could vaguely hear something. Zeris's voice?

She reached out to him and shook his shoulder. His entire being shuddered, and the whole ordeal vanished along with the black cord connecting them. Caen snapped back to himself as if waking from a trance.

“—en,” Zeris was saying, voice low. “Caen.”

He blinked at her, deeply baffled. “I've found it,” he said in Olden Vishic. “The fourth bloodline.”

The worry on her face instantly gave way to relief, then excitement. “By the Eye,” she swore. “Are you serious?” She punched him very lightly in the arm. “Don't keep me in suspense. Tell me what it does.”

“I'm still trying to figure that out.” Caen wrestled down the hope surging in his chest. He wanted so badly for this to mean… something. His spirit felt ‘alive’ in a way that it never had before. It couldn't be this easy, could it? He still didn't know what the fourth bloodline even was. To say nothing of that other strange sight with the sounds and all.

His mind spun as he tried to make sense of all this. In just the span of a few hours, he'd discovered his third bloodline and a fourth he never even knew existed. Fermien had incited his bloodline, engaged it somehow with his presence, due to the phenomenon he'd described as bloodline resonance. There was little doubt in his mind that this same phenomenon—albeit a far stronger instance of it—had smoothened the path for him to find his fourth bloodline. But what had been responsible? The seven-tailed shadeling?

Even the mere thought of it seemed bizarre. Was the shadeling a shifter? Were there people bonded to shadelings? Ridiculous as it was, he couldn't just dismiss it.

Mind still whirling with possibilities, he tried to cast a Spirit-healing spell on Zeris. His spirit moved with far more speed and smoothness than it ever had; a willingness and eagerness that was utterly unfamiliar to him. And the spell took immediately. Caen blinked in shock.

Zeris's eyes widened. “How did you do that?” she asked.

“I… I don't even—”

“Quick,” Zeris said. “Try scanning me.”

Caen complied. His spirit moved swiftly, responding to his will. He examined her spirit, his physical senses dulling. There was nothing new to his awareness, but the strain that often came with casting this spell was completely gone.

Caen dismissed the probe, too shocked to feel exhilaration.

“Ancestors!” Zeris exclaimed in Olden Vishic. “Is this because of the bloodline?”

“I… don't think so. I don't know what it is. I have to try something else,” he said, already contorting his spirit into the patterns of another spell. While still difficult, there was an uncharacteristic simplicity to the action of moving his spirit that he hadn't ever experienced before. With the visualizations, however, he struggled as he always had.

It was a very basic Gleam spell, he'd begun learning at six. His fingers moved in concert with a muttered incantation. His spirit didn't quite lumber as it often did. There was a little more vitality than usual, but he could still tell that something was wrong.

Though terribly unstable, the spell took. Small specks of barely visible light manifested on his palms. Then they fizzled out as the spell construct collapsed.

Binam glanced at him, squinting, but said nothing.

“Let me try a few more spells,” Caen told Zeris quietly.

He tried the first Fire spell he'd ever learned, slightly heating the air around his hands to warm them. His spirit strained to perform the patterns, though it did move more easily than usual, but the visualization trembled in his mind. After a little over a minute, the spell took, warming his hands.

Was his proficiency with Spirit-healing the only thing that had improved? This was clearly a passive augmentation of his spirit.

Using a spell, Caen examined Zeris's spirit once more, and the ease with which he did so far exceeded either of the other spells he'd cast. But it wasn't nearly at the level of the first spell he'd tried.

He scanned his own spirit, and at first didn't find much else amiss. Beyond the fact that he was somehow able to conduct his scan with more ease than usual, he'd apparently lost about half of what little mana he had left. Had this… ability drained that much so quickly?

Caen suddenly felt something change in him. Something fundamental. It was so subtle he nearly didn't notice it.

Immediately, he abandoned his examination and tried to cast a Spirit-healing spell on Zeris. As he moved through the spirit patterns, he was hindered by the familiar resistance that had plagued him all his life. Moments ago, he'd been able to do this with unparalleled ease, but now his spirit strained to perform even the simplest movements. The spell took. Then collapsed.

These events should have crushed Caen. Filled him with disappointment. But he smiled, a manic exhilaration bubbling out of him as his shoulders shook in barely contained mirth. He’d gone far too long with nothing.

Whatever this was, it was something.

And he could work with that.