CASSIAN AND THE INFINITE THRONE

CASSIAN AND THE INFINITE THRONE

Volume 2: The Road to the Academy

Chapter 36: Where the Maps Give Up

Nearly five years after the soldiers left Frostwood, Gareth discovered that losing arguments about his daughter’s marriage proposals was easier than accepting that proposals existed.

“The miller’s second son owns a house,” Lena said, while morning light warmed the expanded kitchen. “He works, saves money, and speaks respectfully whenever Elara enters the shop.”

“The roof leans,” Gareth replied from the workbench beside the hearth. His remaining hand guided a leather strap through a wooden brace he had designed for splitting kindling.

Darren swallowed bread before answering. “The cooper’s nephew has a straight roof, two goats, and enough confidence to describe both goats during supper.”

Elara aimed a folded cloth at him. Invisible ambient pressure caught it halfway, softened its spin, and carried it into the slow orbit of three folded pieces circling Cassian near the pantry.

“You missed,” Darren said. “Fortunately, Cassian’s household sorcery protects innocent brothers from approaching laundry.”

“I moved it because Mother asked me to stack everything,” Cassian replied. “Protecting you would require a stronger justification.”

Lena pointed toward the pantry wall. “The flour chest belongs beside the shelves, not above Darren’s head. Move your brother only after breakfast.”

Ambient mana spread beneath the heavy chest like an unseen platform. It crossed the kitchen without swaying, then settled beside the shelves so gently that the bowls beneath it did not tremble.

The original house now held a cellar, bathing room, drying room, reinforced roof, and heated-water pipes. Darren supplied timber and joinery, Elara planned storage and accounts, while Cassian performed most lifting, shaping, sealing, and heat control through magic.

Lena’s herbs, Darren’s hides, and Elara’s accounts turned those improvements into a small family business. The heated pipes remained unsellable because only Cassian understood their ambient-mana adjustments.

Elara tapped the household ledger. “The drying room earned enough last month to replace the west shutters. If Cassian lets us sell heated-water systems, we could replace the stable roof as well.”

Cassian shook his head. “The pipes still depend on adjustments only I understand. Selling them before someone else can maintain them would create expensive failures.”

Darren lifted his cup. “He means exploding failures. Cassian respects customers too much to boil them before collecting payment.”

“The early valve only cracked,” Cassian said. “Nobody boiled, and the wall required less repair than Darren claims.”

Lena looked toward the bathing-room door. “You may develop the business after you develop a version that does not require its inventor to live beside every customer.”

Gareth tightened the brace around the kindling splitter. “The academy will carry him away before that happens. Cities have a talent for taking useful children and returning expensive adults.”

“The academy is not carrying me anywhere,” Cassian replied. “I intend to apply because I want to learn, not because the academy owns me.”

“Then write home often enough to prove the distinction,” Lena said. “Your father becomes imaginative when information is delayed.”

Darren nodded gravely. “Three missed letters, and he will march toward Caeldor with one hand, six tools, and no reasonable plan.”

“I would have a plan,” Gareth replied. “The unreasonable portions would concern everyone blocking the road.”

Gareth inspected the leather brace. “The cooper’s nephew watches every woman who passes his workshop.”

“The road passes his workshop,” Lena said. “He cannot gouge out both eyes whenever someone uses it.”

“He could practice looking at barrels until his manners improve enough for people.”

Elara folded her arms. “Father, has any man survived your investigation with his character intact?”

“Several survived my questions,” Gareth answered. “None remained suitable after I learned their answers.”

Cassian exchanged a glance with Darren. “We should present candidates in groups. Father may become tired before discovering every defect.”

“I heard that,” Gareth said. “You are both young enough to discover additional chores before your hunting trip.”

Darren leaned toward Cassian. “Retreat remains the wisest response when a wounded predator guards its territory.”

Gareth’s expression tightened, although amusement survived beneath it. “I taught you tracking, not insolence. The distinction appears endangered.”

The laughter eased something Cassian never discussed. Gareth no longer hunted beyond village traps, yet he taught routes, repaired tools, dressed hides, and judged weather better than anyone in Frostwood.

Lena placed another piece of bread beside him. “Elara does not need to accept anyone this year. She should still consider what kind of life she wants.”

Elara, seventeen and only months from eighteen, let her teasing expression soften. “I understand that. I only prefer that the decision belong to me before the village decides it has waited long enough.”

“It belongs to you,” Gareth said immediately. “Anyone who disagrees may discuss the matter with me and whichever tool fits my remaining hand.”

“That reassurance became threatening halfway through,” Lena observed. “Still, the important portion was correct.”

Darren reached for his bow. At fourteen and almost five years older than Cassian, he had grown nearly as tall as Gareth. “I will take the eastern creek, unless Cassian frightened everything north again.”

Gareth checked Darren’s bowstring, then looked toward Cassian. “You said the northern ridge. Stay south of the black ash line, and do not follow anything clever enough to stop leaving tracks.”

“I will return before evening,” Cassian said. “I packed water, salt, cord, two knives, and enough caution to satisfy at least one parent.”

“One parent remains unconvinced,” Gareth replied. “Distance does not become safe because you can cross it quickly.”

Darren slung his quiver across one shoulder. “He means you should leave some danger for ordinary hunters. The rest of us require professional development.”

“You may develop professionally by returning with clean meat and every limb attached,” Lena said. “That instruction applies equally to both of you.”

In three or four months, Cassian’s tenth birthday would let him submit the academy application. Excitement carried the quiet pressure of a door preparing to close behind him.

Elara glanced toward Cassian. “You will need proper academy clothes before winter. Patched hunting coats may impress Frostwood, but city children will assume the forest dressed you.”

“My current coat remains functional,” Cassian said. “Function should survive geography.”

“Function survives,” Lena replied. “First impressions survive longer, and some people weaponize them.”

Darren grinned broadly. “Buy him a noble coat. He can float the buttons into place whenever manners become exhausting.”

Gareth looked between both sons. “Cassian is going to study, not perform household tricks for spoiled children.”

Cassian considered that promise less reliable than Gareth intended. “I will attempt to keep the floating furniture to educational situations.”

Elara may marry. Darren already hunts beside adults. I will leave for the academy, and this house will keep changing without asking whether I am ready.

Outside Frostwood, Cassian walked beyond every familiar observation point before gathering ambient mana. Air curled around his boots, grass flattened in a widening ring, and the ground fell away as the forest opened beneath him like a green sea.

His flight shell smoothed the air against his skin, equalized pressure through his lungs and ears, and held a clear pocket before his eyes. Ambient mana then pushed along his entire body, accelerating him without wrenching any single joint.

Concentrated thrust had once twisted his spine, while an unstable wind shell buried him headfirst in snow. Hundreds of hidden trials taught him broad turns, counterpressure, and whole-body braking.

Cedric’s spells had revealed stable instructions, while Earth knowledge helped Cassian separate cause from ritual. He repeated every learned spell until he understood how each spoken incantation moved, shaped, stabilized, and informed the mana.

Once he understood a spell’s complete response, he tried reproducing that information without speech. The first silent attempts collapsed, twisted, or dispersed, but measurement and repetition eventually let him cast every mastered spell without an incantation.

Modern mages treated spoken incantations as indispensable. Cassian had learned to reproduce their informational function directly, creating something nowadays civilizations unable to produce.

Direct manipulation remained separate. Silent spells reproduced structures he had mastered; direct control let him seize matter, pressure, heat, and moisture without relying on a formal spell at all.

By now, the fastest answers rarely required a spell. Ambient force could close around a skull from every direction, collapse a rib cage, or crush an entire body before most creatures understood they had been attacked.

He could seize the blood inside a living creature and rupture vessels from within, or drive a hair-thin water jet with enough propulsion to cut flesh, armor, and stone like a moving blade.

Knowing how to rupture a living body from within does not mean I should make the method familiar. Some weapons changed the person who became comfortable using them.

Those methods were efficient enough to make most hunts meaningless. Cassian reserved them for genuine emergencies, because effortless execution taught him nothing about movement, prediction, layered defense, or recovering from an unexpected attack.

Today was training rather than simple extermination. He limited himself to aerial control, silent spells, elemental combinations, terrain shaping, and measured recovery, allowing enemies enough freedom to expose habits he could study.

The hunt also served a practical purpose. Monster cores had paid for timber, tools, books, and part of the family’s growing trade, although rare cores remained hidden until he could sell them without revealing where he hunted.

Three years earlier, he had also begun deliberately emptying his reserves, then drawing ambient mana into channels still unadapted to foreign power. The first attempts caused fever, trembling, and a metallic taste lasting hours.

He reduced every dose and repeated it after recovery, treating adaptation like progressive training and controlled venom tolerance. Each depletion-and-refill cycle pressured his body to filter foreign mana and expanded his capacity slightly.

Each increase was small, but thousands of controlled cycles had expanded his reserves far beyond what natural growth alone should have produced. Ambient mana now entered automatically, like breathing, restoring him roughly twenty times faster during ordinary activity.

Most mages required one to three days while continuing work and other responsibilities. When Cassian concentrated entirely on intake and conversion, he could refill near-empty reserves in about twenty uninterrupted minutes.

The rate was not fixed. Cassian continued increasing the volume his body could safely absorb and convert, although faster intake still brought heat, pressure, pain, strain, and mana-poisoning risk.

The advantage was not infinite mana. Heavy combat could outspend passive intake, and focused recovery left him unable to fight effectively while his body filtered and converted the surrounding power.

Weather demanded the same restraint. Cassian could gather moisture until clouds darkened, peel pressure apart until they dissolved, or turn local rain into sleet and snow, but only by reshaping conditions already present.

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He accelerated until trees became green streams. His wind shell carried the nearest air with him and bled turbulence outward, reducing the roar, while he slowed before settlements and traveled routes.

Remaining below the sound barrier prevented a sonic boom; it did not make speed silent.

Speed is useless when every village hears me arrive. Control matters more than the final number.

He crossed the safer grounds within minutes and descended over a ravine where six emberjaw runners surrounded a horned grazer, their red mouths steaming through gray fur.

Cassian opened his hand, and three earth walls erupted from the ravine floor in showers of roots and ocher stone. The pack split around them as a rotating wind field screamed through the gap, lifted two runners, and smashed them against opposite walls.

The survivors scattered beneath an overhang and along both slopes. Creek water climbed in silver ribbons, raced across their paths, and froze white around three pairs of paws. Two uprooted trunks spun together and crushed a leaping runner between them.

Flame Lance formed without a spoken word, an orange-white spear drawing the heat into a hard, brilliant point. It entered one creature’s open mouth and burst behind the skull, scattering sparks across the stone.

Stone needles then erupted from both ravine walls and crossed in a gray blur. The remaining runners were pierced through chest and throat before their frozen paws tore free, while chips of rock rang across the ravine floor.

Farther north, a Low Grave-class shale boar erupted beneath a slope. Mineral plates armored its enormous body, and every charge shattered young trees into spinning splinters beneath its tusks.

Cassian climbed beyond its tusks and tore the earth from beneath both forelegs. The boar plunged chest-first into the collapsing slope, then hurled boulders upward that Cassian curved back through the air toward one armored joint.

Six redirected stones struck the same point with hammering cracks until the armor split. A transparent pressure hammer descended next, crushing two back plates inward and driving the monster deeper into the shattered ground.

A white-orange seam opened beneath the fracture. Molten stone surged upward through the wound, hissing against blood and armor until steam and black smoke rolled from the collapsed beast.

Eight ashback scavengers arrived while he removed the core. Cassian folded the broken slope into a tightening spiral, stone grinding against stone as the terrain rose around the pack like a closing jaw.

Compressed wind caught every leap and threw the scavengers inward. A ring of fire climbed around them in a bright red circle, shrinking until crossing stone blades swept through the pack in three gray passes.

The flames collapsed into harmless embers before reaching the surrounding forest. Beyond the northern ridges, trees gave way to red cliffs, volcanic vents, and broken mountains where maps surrendered to blank parchment.

A cinderhorn ravager found him above a sulfur valley. Layered black armor enclosed its massive body, and a furnace-bright throat sac pulsed beneath its jaw as crushing hooves cracked the mineral crust.

The ravager expelled a cone of burning ash that turned the valley orange. Cassian split the cloud with opposing wind currents, drawing it apart into two roaring streams that scorched the cliffs on either side.

Steam climbed from the vents in twisting columns. Cassian seized it, stripped away the heat, and froze it into blue-white lances that descended like winter lightning, hammering the ravager’s shoulder armor until black plates burst outward.

The ravager charged through the crystalline barrage. Stone pillars erupted along both sides of its path, and magma climbed their faces in glowing veins before both walls burst inward as the monster entered the corridor.

It leaped through the explosion and tore one horn across Cassian’s outer wind shell. The impact rippled through the air like struck glass, bruising his ribs as he rolled away above the sulfur smoke.

Cassian collapsed the heated pillars. Red-black stone poured downward in a roaring avalanche, burying the creature beneath molten fractures and grinding basalt until the light inside its core finally dimmed.

Cassian extracted the core and sheltered behind basalt. The fight had spent power faster than his automatic intake replaced it, leaving his reserves close to the emergency floor he preserved for escape.

He closed his eyes and focused. Ambient mana crowded against his skin as a faint silver haze, then sank inward in measured waves while his channels filtered the foreign pressure into something his body recognized.

Heat gathered beneath his skin, his pulse deepened, and the metallic taste returned faintly before fading. Approximately twenty minutes later, his reserves were full, although those minutes had left him motionless inside dangerous territory.

I can defeat these monsters easily, but distance and preparation carry part of that victory. I must never confuse advantage with invulnerability.

A vast shadow swallowed the sunlight across two ridges. Black crystalline wings descended through the snow, blue-white light burning along every feather edge as a narrow body twisted between peaks at impossible speed.

Its pressure, speed, and mana output placed it firmly within Middle Ruin. The Stormglass Razorwing spread wings spanning nearly fifteen meters, silver eyes fixed upon Cassian while independent tail vanes corrected every violent turn.

Three stone spears tore free from the ridge, each trailing ribbons of dust. The creature changed direction before they fully launched, slipped between their points, and answered with a compressed-air blade that peeled apart Cassian’s wind shell.

The blade struck with a thunderclap and hurled him toward stone. Cassian flared his propulsion across his entire body, braking two paces above the cliff while shattered fragments rattled below him.

It is not reacting to the projectile. It senses the pressure and mana change when I decide where the attack will go.

I could crush its skull or tear the blood through its vessels once I fixed its position. That would end the danger, but it would waste the only opponent here fast enough to expose weaknesses in my control.

Fire converged from four directions in twisting orange streams, but crystalline feathers bent the heat aside in blue ripples. The redirected flames carved glowing scars across two cliffs without slowing the creature.

Its return dive shattered the curved sheet of water Cassian had shaped directly. The barrier exploded into white vapor, and the impact bruised him through layered pressure armor while the Razorwing passed close enough to darken the sky.

Cassian silently invoked Reinforced Ward. Six overlapping planes of translucent blue light formed around his current position, each anchored to an ambient-mana frame that moved with him rather than the ground.

One talon raked across them at crossing speed, showering blue-white sparks and bowing every layer inward before the creature climbed again.

Cassian climbed into cloud cover and changed the battlefield. Moisture gathered in silver threads, rain thickened into sleet, and fine snow spread across the valley until every current became visible as moving white texture.

The Razorwing carved a hollow wake through the snowfall. Narrow vents beneath its feathers opened before every burst of speed, leaving brief blue-white scars where compressed air tore through the storm.

Cassian smiled through his racing pulse. “There you are. I only needed the air to betray you.”

Stone spires erupted from three ridges, each rising beneath a crown of shattered rock. Crosswinds pressed southward, while a rotating vortex roared above the valley and narrowed the creature’s turning space.

Six air blades flashed from the Razorwing’s wings, each a pale crescent that split falling snow. Cassian curved one aside, shattered two with compressed wind, and raised a slab of stone against the remaining three.

The impacts carved molten lines through the slab before one fragment sliced through Cassian’s coat and opened his upper arm. The mobile adaptation consumed more mana and weakened the spell’s absolute stability, but it allowed Cassian to carry a formerly stationary defense through aerial combat.

He heated the western current until the snow became rain and froze the eastern one until frost silvered the cliffs. Uneven lift tipped the Razorwing during its next turn, leaving one deliberate corridor open between the ridges.

The creature accelerated toward that apparent escape. Blue-white light intensified beneath its feathers as both vent channels opened, and the surrounding snow flattened into two streaming tunnels behind it.

Cassian flash-froze the right vents. Ice flowered across the crystalline channels, cracked beneath the pressure, and trapped one side’s thrust long enough to twist the Razorwing violently sideways.

A crosswind struck its exposed belly and drove it toward the mountainside. The creature’s core flared blue-white beneath its breast, and heat began burning through the ice before the collision arrived.

Cassian tore iron-rich stone from the ridge. The fragment spun before him, its center turning white-hot as molten veins spread through the darker shell and a rotating pressure sheath tightened around it.

The improvised spear crossed the valley as a white-orange line. It pierced beneath the breast armor, tore through the vessels and mana channels surrounding the core chamber, and erupted from the creature’s back in blue fire and molten fragments.

Black crystal feathers scattered through the snowfall with blue flames trapped inside them. The Razorwing broke through an outcrop, and the mountain answered with a rolling collapse of stone that swallowed its final movement.

Cassian hovered until every movement ended. Adrenaline, pain, and the strain of maintaining his self-imposed restrictions left his hands trembling when he finally lowered them.

I could have ended it sooner. I chose the harder path, and one mistake inside that choice would still have opened me before healing mattered.

I keep winning from positions I choose. The academy may place me inside rules, crowds, and dangers chosen by other people. I do not know whether control will follow me there.

Cassian wrapped the Razorwing’s core, the shale boar core, six intact feathers, and the cinderhorn core inside a reinforced hide bundle. Passive intake had begun replacing the cost, but another Middle Ruin encounter would end the training. Cassian would retreat if possible and use an immediate execution method if pursuit made retreat unsafe.

The lesser cores from ordinary hunts could be sold through trusted merchants. The Ruin-class materials would wait inside the distant cave until he could move them through a broker without inviting dangerous questions.

He flew south to the distant cave he had chosen two years earlier, after deciding that the old hollow remained too close to Frostwood for dangerous materials.

A gigantic stone sealed the entrance. Ambient mana spread across its broad surface like an invisible net, and the cliff groaned as the immense mass rose slowly from its fitted bed.

Dust rolled outward in heavy curtains while pebbles danced across the ground. Static weight was easier than a living target because the stone offered a broad, predictable surface and several breaths for balanced movement.

Accelerating the same mass at combat speed would multiply the cost, reduce precision, and strain his control. Cassian moved the stone only far enough to reveal the black opening behind it.

He entered, stored all three cores and the crystalline feathers among his hidden materials, then cleaned and bound the cut beneath his sleeve.

When Cassian left, ambient mana lowered the stone with deliberate slowness. The mountain shuddered as it settled, and earth flowed into every seam until the entrance became an unbroken cliff again.

Moving such weight had once required preparation and complete concentration. Now it was controlled work, although he still tested the balance before trusting more than a thousand tons above the entrance.

After reaching the safer hunting grounds, Cassian brought down a red deer. During the final flight, he wrapped the carcass in a thin veil of controlled cold.

Pale frost silvered the outer hair, and a faint mist streamed behind him while the meat remained chilled without freezing. He cleaned most of the mineral dust from his clothes before following evening smoke toward Frostwood.

He landed beyond Frostwood’s final observation point at evening. Invisible pressure settled beneath the deer like a broad supporting hand, leaving only a believable fraction of its weight across his shoulders before he entered the village.

Darren met him near the sheds with a smaller buck across his shoulders. “You took the northern ridge and returned with better meat again. I suspect geography favors you personally.”

“The deer made an unfortunate decision regarding its route,” Cassian answered. “I merely respected the consequences.”

Gareth examined the carcass, then rubbed a dark red grain from the stitching at Cassian’s cuff. “The northern ridge has acquired volcanic soil since morning.”

Cassian looked at the stain. “The wind carried it farther than expected.”

“The wind has become ambitious around you.” Gareth held his gaze. “Bring the deer inside. We will discuss how far north it carried you after the meat is stored.”

Inside the meat shed, Gareth closed the door while Darren carried the smaller buck toward the hooks. “How far beyond the black ash line did you travel?”

Cassian kept his attention on the deer’s bindings. “Farther than I originally intended, but I preserved a clear return route and enough mana to retreat.”

“That answers whether you believed yourself prepared.” Gareth’s voice remained quiet. “It does not answer why you crossed a boundary I gave you.”

“The safer grounds no longer challenge everything I need to test,” Cassian replied. “I cannot prepare for the academy or another Ironclaw by repeating hunts I already understand.”

Gareth’s remaining hand tightened around the worktable. “Preparation does not grant permission to make your family ignorant of where your body may be found.”

Cassian looked up. The anger in Gareth’s face was smaller than the fear beneath it, and that fear carried the memory of a forest that had already taken his hand.

“I should have told you I intended to cross farther north,” Cassian said. “I did not because I knew you would refuse.”

“Then you understood the rule and chose secrecy over trust.” Gareth exhaled slowly. “Your strength changes what you can survive. It does not erase what your disappearance would do to us.”

Cassian lowered his gaze. “I will give you a route, an expected return time, and a signal point before the next hunt. I cannot promise never to cross the line again.”

“I did not ask for a promise you would break.” Gareth studied him for several breaths. “I am asking you to stop treating concern as an obstacle that must be bypassed.”

“I understand the difference,” Cassian said, although the words felt heavier than admitting how far he had flown. “I will do better before the next hunt.”

Gareth opened the shed door. “You will also clean both carcasses tonight. Darren may assist after he finishes laughing at your lecture.”

Before the stew cooled, Darren pointed his spoon toward Elara. “I still recommend the cooper’s nephew. Two goats guarantee entertainment, and his roof possesses Father’s approval.”

“Father said the roof was straight,” Elara replied. “That is not approval. It is the single accusation he could not support with evidence.”

Gareth set down his cup. “A straight roof proves someone in that family understands measurement. The nephew himself remains under investigation.”

Lena sighed over the stew pot. “Elara is choosing a husband, not appointing a quartermaster for a winter campaign.”

“A husband should understand winter stores,” Gareth answered. “He should also understand accounts, tools, courtesy, and why wagering with Darren is evidence of poor judgment.”

Darren pressed one hand against his chest. “My wagers reveal courage, arithmetic, and the ability to recognize dishonest dice. Those are excellent household qualities.”

“Your last wager revealed that you cannot estimate how long a goat will tolerate a ribbon,” Elara said. “I refuse to build a marriage around that education.”

Cassian cut another piece of bread. “I could inspect every proposed house for structural defects before you consider the occupant.”

Elara pointed her spoon at him. “You will not inspect any suitor with magic. I remember what happened when you tested the old chimney.”

“The chimney contained three hidden fractures,” Cassian replied. “Its collapse occurred earlier than expected, but the direction remained controlled.”

Darren leaned away from him. “That explanation should reassure every future brother-in-law. Their houses may fail, but only according to Cassian’s calculations.”

“Marriage is not a siege inspection,” Lena said. “Nobody needs to test roofs, interrogate goats, or examine a young man’s winter grain before Elara decides whether she even likes him.”

Elara’s smile softened. “I may decide that I like none of them. Eighteen is not an order to leave home before my birthday cake cools.”

“That is an excellent conclusion,” Gareth said. “We can reconsider the matter when every candidate reaches maturity.”

Lena gave him a level look. “Several candidates are older than you were when we married.”

“Age and maturity have never maintained a reliable partnership,” Gareth replied. “Our sons demonstrate that principle daily.”

Darren turned toward Cassian. “You should defend us. You are almost an academy applicant and therefore our nearest available scholar.”

“My application becomes possible after my birthday,” Cassian said. “Until then, I remain academically unqualified to dispute Father’s observation.”

Elara studied him across the table. “You joke now, but the house will become quieter when you leave. Darren spends half his days hunting, and I may eventually choose a different roof.”

Cassian glanced around the expanded room. “The house will keep changing. I only hope everyone waits until I return before removing my workshop.”

“Your workshop survived two explosions and one indoor rainstorm,” Lena said. “Marriage proposals present less danger to it than you do.”

Gareth disputed the word explosions, Darren supplied witnesses, and Elara nearly spilled her drink laughing. Cassian listened while every familiar voice remained beneath the roof he had helped raise.

Later, worn academy primers waited beside his bed, crowded with years of notes, questions, and corrections. Their printed rules still promised certainty from people who understood less than they believed.

In several months, the academy will decide whether I am ready to enter the wider world. Today, I gave the wider world enough freedom to show me how it would try to kill me.

End of Chapter 36