Legionnaire

After Tovan was done with me, I found Vale near the fire.

Two weeks earlier, I probably would have limped over like I was dying.

Now I was just tired.

Sore, sure. The fight had left its marks. My shield arm ached from catching the gnoll’s blade, my shoulder was tight, and the cut on my forehead stung every time sweat ran into it. But it was different than those first few nights.

My body was adjusting.

The training still sucked. The sword still got heavy. The shield still pulled at my arm. But I could feel the difference now. My feet found the stance faster. My arms lasted longer. My breathing came back sooner.

Progress, apparently.

Painful, annoying progress.

Joryn was asleep a few feet away, pale but breathing, his wrists chained in front of him instead of behind his back. Sella had checked him twice and finally seemed satisfied enough to leave him alone.

Vale sat with his back against one of the wagon wheels, a small cup in one hand and a book open across his knee.

“You survived.” he said.

“Been doing that a lot today.”

“That is also training.”

I lowered myself across from him and stretched my legs out.

Vale closed the book and set it aside.

“Tonight, we continue with Binding.”

I looked down at the bronze ring on my finger.

“Good,” I said. “Because so far, all I know is that it shocked me, stuck itself to my hand, and refuses to come off.”

“A crude summary,” Vale said. “But not inaccurate.”

He reached into one of the pouches at his belt and pulled out a short piece of cord. Maybe a foot long, dark brown, frayed at one end.

He laid it on the ground between us.

“We begin simple.”

“With the cord?”

“No,” Vale said. “With the ring.”

I looked from the cord to him.

“Then why the cord?”

“To show you the difference.”

He picked up the cord and held it out to me.

“When you hold this, your body understands it in simple ways. Weight. Texture. Shape. Pressure against the skin. Your hand knows it is there.”

I took it.

Rough. Light. Stiff in a few places. Nothing special.

“The ring is different,” Vale said. “You are already bound to it. That means there is a connection between you and the object. Tonight, you are not creating that connection. You are learning to notice it.”

“The thread,” I said.

Vale nodded.

“The thread is not the ring. It is not what you are practicing on. It is how your mind understands the bond between you and the ring.”

“So the ring is the target.”

“Yes.”

“And the thread is the connection.”

“Exactly.”

That helped.

I handed the cord back.

“And mana is what lets me touch the connection?”

“In simple terms, yes,” Vale said. “Mana is the force inside you that allows the work to happen. For a mage, it powers sigils. For a Binder, it lets you reach through a bond, strengthen it, shape it, and eventually command it.”

“Command it how?”

“In time, you will be able to bind weapons, armor, tools. Keep them from being taken. Keep others from using what is yours. Perhaps more, depending on the strength of the ability.”

I looked down at the ring again.

“And this thing?”

“The ring first,” Vale said. “Always the ring first. It is already bound to you, which makes it the safest place to begin.”

“Safest doesn’t mean safe,” I said.

“No,” Vale said. “It does not.”

He pointed at my forearm.

“Your mana is low. Seven. You have enough to learn. You do not have enough to be careless.”

“What happens if I use too much?”

“First, depletion,” Vale said. “That is when you spend what you have. You will feel pressure behind the eyes. Headache. Cold sweat. Shaking hands. Nausea. Heavy limbs. Sudden exhaustion. Perhaps confusion if you push too far.”

“That sounds like a warning system.”

“It is.”

“And if I ignore the warning system?”

“Then you risk mana burn.”

I looked at him.

“That sounds worse.”

“It is.”

Vale’s face stayed calm, but his voice changed slightly. Not dramatic. Just serious.

“Mana burn is not simple tiredness. It is injury. It happens when a person forces mana after they are empty, or drives it through a bond or sigil faster than their body can bear. The pathways that carry mana become damaged.”

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“What does that look like?”

“Pain,” Vale said. “Severe pain. Blackening under the skin. Sometimes along the hand and arm. Sometimes across the chest, throat, or face, depending on what was forced and how badly. In mild cases, the damage fades with rest and treatment. In worse cases, it can take weeks. In very bad cases, the damage is permanent.”

I looked at the ring.

“So if I start feeling like shit, I stop.”

“Yes.”

“No pushing through.”

“Not with mana,” Vale said. “Pain from training can teach you. Pain from mana burn means you were a fool several steps ago, but do not worry your mana is like a muscle the more you use it and train it the stronger it will become.”

Fair enough.

Vale pointed to the ring.

“Close your eyes. Feel the ring first as metal. Nothing more. Weight. Shape. Pressure.”

I closed my eyes.

At first, that was all it was.

Metal around my finger. Smooth on the outside. Slightly uneven on the inside. Tight enough that I always knew it was there, but not tight enough to hurt.

“Now breathe,” Vale said. “Slowly. Let your attention settle beneath the metal.”

The camp moved around us. Karroks shifted near the carts. Someone coughed. A low conversation passed behind me and faded.

I kept my focus on the ring.

For a while, nothing happened.

Then I felt it.

Barely.

A tiny pull under the skin of my finger. Not pain. Not heat. More like a thread drawn tight somewhere deeper than my hand.

“There,” I said.

“Good,” Vale said. “That is the bond. Do not pull on it. Do not force it. Just notice it.”

I tried.

The feeling vanished.

“Lost it.”

“That will happen. Again.”

So I did it again.

Most of the time, I felt nothing. Just the ring, my hand, and my breathing. A few times, I found the thread for a second before it slipped away. Once, I felt it a little clearer, like the ring was not just sitting on my finger anymore.

Like it was connected to me.

Then that was gone too.

I opened my eyes.

Vale was watching me closely.

“What did I do?”

“You noticed the bond on purpose.”

I looked down at the ring.

It looked exactly the same.

Plain. Bronze. Useless.

But it did not feel quite as dead as it had before.

“Again?” I asked.

Vale studied me for a moment.

“One more time.”

I closed my eyes and found the ring again.

Metal first.

Pressure.

Shape.

Then beneath it, that faint thread.

This time it came a little faster.

Not much. Just enough to know the first time had not been luck.

I held my attention there.

A dull pressure started to build behind my eyes.

I opened them.

Vale nodded once.

“Good. You stopped.”

“Pressure behind the eyes.”

“Then that is enough for tonight.”

I rubbed my thumb over the ring.

Still nothing.

But for the first time, I had felt something on purpose.

Not much.

But something.

After training with Vale, I got a plate of food and found Tovan sitting near the fire.

Eating with him had become something of a routine, so I sat down beside him and started in on my own plate.

I had just lifted the first spoonful toward my mouth when Tovan motioned for me to stop.

I paused.

He finished chewing, swallowed, then pointed at my belt.

“You should take one of your cores before you eat.”

I lowered the spoon.

“Why?”

“It will help with the indigestion.”

“The what?”

“Indigestion,” he said. “As the mana saturates into your body, there are side effects. Low-grade cores usually cause stomach trouble. Indigestion. Cramping. Sometimes nausea. Grade III cores can cause fever-like sickness. Chills, sweating, aches. Grade IV and V cores...” He shrugged. “I have only heard stories, but they are said to be painful.”

I stared at him.

“Great. Love that.”

“It is better with food.”

“So I just put this in my mouth and chew it up?”

I dug the two cores out of my pouch and held them in my palm. One was dull red, the bigger of the two. The other was smaller and more brown, with a faint glow buried deep inside it.

Tovan pointed at the brown one.

“That one.”

I picked it up between two fingers.

“No chewing,” he said.

“No chewing?”

“No. Once it is in your mouth, you will feel it start to dissolve. It is more complicated than that, but that is the basic of it.”

I looked down at the little brown stone.

It had come out of a dead gnoll’s chest.

Now I was supposed to put it in my mouth.

Of course I was.

I set my spoon down, took one last look at the core, and popped it onto my tongue.

For half a second, it was just a stone.

Hard. Smooth. Warm from my hand.

Then it softened.

Not melted exactly. More like it stopped being solid all at once. The outside turned slick, then the whole thing began to dissolve across my tongue in a slow gritty rush.

It tasted like dirt, copper, and old pennies.

I gagged once.

Tovan laughed.

“Do not spit it out.”

“I wasn’t going to,” I said, though I absolutely had been thinking about it.

The core kept dissolving until there was nothing left but a strange warmth in my mouth and throat. I swallowed.

A few seconds later, that warmth dropped into my stomach.

Then spread.

Not like whiskey. Not like food. More like heat moving through my blood, slow and heavy, settling into my arms, my legs, my chest.

My stomach twisted.

I grimaced.

“There it is,” Tovan said.

“Fuck me.”

“Eat.”

I picked up the spoon and forced myself to take a bite.

The food helped.

A little.

My stomach still felt wrong, like I had eaten too fast after a long run, but it did not get worse. The warmth kept spreading in slow pulses, fading each time until it was almost nothing.

I pulled up my sleeve and looked at the numbers on my forearm.

48 | 52 | 36 | 44 | 84 | 7

For a few seconds, nothing changed.

Then the fourth number shifted.

44 became 46.

I stared at it.

Tovan leaned over and looked.

“Reflex,” he said. “Good. Gnolls are quick.”

I rubbed my thumb over the number even though I already knew it would not smear.

“Two points,” I said.

“Two more than you had.”

“Take the second one tonight before bed,” Tovan said, “or in the morning with breakfast. But try not to take two at once. The side effects compound.”

I paused with my spoon halfway to my mouth.

“Compound how?”

“I watched a man take three at once.” Tovan shook his head. “He ended up with crippling stomach cramps. Shit himself. Vomited all over his own boots. It passed within the hour, but I would never try it.”

I lowered the spoon.

“Thanks for the warning. That sounds rough.”

“It is.”

After that, I finished eating and checked on Joryn.

He was fine. Sleeping again, pale but steady, his breathing even enough that I decided not to bother him. Sella had done what she could, and waking him up so I could ask if he was still alive seemed like a good way to get cursed at by everyone nearby.

So I left him alone.

I went back to my bedroll and pulled out the books Vale had given me a few days earlier.

One of them was basically a dictionary. Not English, obviously, but same idea. Words matched to other words, little marks beside them, simple examples I could barely follow.

The second was a children’s book.

Honestly, I wanted to be offended by that.

Then again, I couldn’t fucking read.

So there was probably no better place to start.

I spent the next few hours working through it like a slow child. Sounding out symbols under my breath. Checking the dictionary. Forgetting half of what I had just learned. Getting pissed. Starting over.

The worst part was that it worked.

Not fast. Not clean. But every once in a while, a word stuck. A mark I had seen three times finally meant something. A sentence that had looked like scratches and nonsense turned into a stupid little line about a boy, a dog, and a red ball.

Progress.

Again.

Apparently, that was the theme of my life now.

When my eyes started crossing, I finally gave up and packed the books away.

The camp had quieted down. The fire was lower. Someone snored near the carts. The karroks shifted in the dark, big shadows breathing steam into the cold air.

I crawled into my sleeping mat, then remembered the second core.

The larger one.

Dull red, faintly glowing under the surface, smooth as polished bone.

I held it between my fingers and stared at it for a second.

Then I put it in my mouth.

For a heartbeat, it was hard and cold against my tongue.

Then it began to dissolve.

This one tasted different than the first. Salty and sweet at the same time, with an aftertaste like iron. Not good. Not exactly bad either. Just wrong.

I swallowed as it softened and broke apart.

The warmth hit faster this time.

It slid down my throat and settled into my stomach, heavier than the first core had. A few seconds later, my gut clenched.

I shut my eyes.

“Yep,” I muttered. “There it is.”

It wasn’t crippling. I didn’t puke. I didn’t shit myself, which put me ahead of Tovan’s idiot.

But it was not pleasant.

The warmth pushed outward in slow waves. Stomach first. Then chest. Then shoulders and arms. My muscles tightened like I had just finished a hard set and my body had not figured out whether to cramp or recover.

I breathed through it.

After a minute or two, the worst of it eased.

Not gone.

Just less sharp.

I pulled my sleeve back and looked at the brand on my forearm.

48 | 52 | 36 | 46 | 84 | 7

I watched.

Nothing happened at first.

Then the first number blurred.

Not the whole thing. Just the first mark.

The black lines shifted under my skin, smooth and silent, like ink moving through water.

48 became 51.

I stared at it.

51 | 52 | 36 | 46 | 84 | 7

Physical.

I flexed my hand.

I did not feel stronger.

Not really.

Maybe a little heavier in my own body. More solid. Like my muscles had been tightened one notch while I wasn’t looking.

Or maybe that was the indigestion talking.

Either way, the number had changed.

I let my sleeve fall back down, rolled onto my side, and tried to ignore the slow twisting in my stomach.

Tomorrow, Tovan was absolutely going to notice.

And then he was going to make my training worse because of it.