Chapter 505: It Was Time
Tala and Rane were about to go test some of their new theories in regards to shared authority and enacting their magics through them when a wolf appeared beside them.
For a fraction of a second, Tala thought that the wolf was massive, fur black as the endless depths of space, the tips of each piece of hair glowing with light like a star within that infinite night.
But when she focused on the wolf with her threefold sight, the creature was barely bigger than a large dog with fur almost wool-like in nature and cloud gray in color. Sparks of intelligence—and likely lightning—danced in the brilliant yellow eyes.
“Greetings, Mistress Tala, Master Rane. You may call me Lerra. My mother has requested that I discuss the nature of your existence with you both, if you are amenable?” Her voice was precise—almost clipped—as she spoke. Unlike other members of the pack, her mouth didn’t move in the slightest as she spoke. Instead, Tala watched in fascination as the wolf carved spellforms to create each sound from raw power, forging a sequence of tiny workings that would produce each desired syllable before they each burned out.
It was so inefficient that it was almost insulting. Except…
She was carving spellforms at the speed of speech. It would have been so much more efficient to create a single working that would generate any word the wielder desired, otherwise waiting unused but ready. That’s essentially what Tala did when she spoke, while fully encased in armor. It wasn’t even that difficult of a spellform, and the magic-in-air spellform was widely known. It should have been trivial for any of the Pack to do, but this one didn’t.
Rane’s mouth was hanging open, seemingly pondering the actual implications as well.
Tala swallowed. “Are you… Is that an illusion? Or are you actually generating individual spells for each syllabic sound of our speech?”
“I am. It is excellent practice for rapid spell creation, don’t you think? It was tedious for the first hundred years or so, but I find that I am quite good at it these days. I find it much more tenable than sacrificing the biological structure of my face, teeth, throat, and neck in order to mimic bi-pedal speech, and it is much more precise than any of the generic workings I could utilize.” Lerra yipped happily, looking rather pleased with herself.