It stings, but it's bearable.
Ashan flexed his right shoulder, working the joint back into place with a soft, painful pop that echoed in the sudden silence of the room.
The pain was bright, immediate, but he had learned to measure pain in degrees, to weigh it against other things, to decide what was worth feeling and what was not. This was not worth feeling.
He turned his attention to the object in his hands—the 'gift' thrown by Kumar Taevor with the casual ease of a man who had never needed to consider the weight of what he gave.
The weapon was neither too large nor too small. It fit in his palm with a balance that felt deliberate, considered, as if it had been waiting for his hand specifically. The blade was double-edged, leaf-shaped, the kind of weapon that had been used by warriors in stories his past self had read, in games his past self had played, in dreams that had not been dreams.
He held it in his right hand and gave it a few experimental swings. The air parted around the blade with a sound like silk tearing, and the weight of it was not a burden but an extension, a part of him that had been missing and was now restored.
A one-handed blade. He turned it over, watching the light slide along the edge. This looks like a xiphos.
The metal gleamed with a cold, metallic silver shine that seemed to drink the light rather than reflect it. There were no markings on the blade, no inscriptions, nothing to tell him where it had come from or who had made it. It was simply there, waiting, ready.
"This blade is a peak-grade rare-tier weapon." Kumar Taevor's voice was light, inscrutable, the voice of a man who gave gifts the way other men gave orders. "It conducts the user's prana seamlessly." He gestured, a small, dismissive motion. "Give it a try."
Ashan heeded his words. He focused, letting a controlled surge of his prana flow into the blade, and the metal responded like a starved newborn, eagerly accepting the energy, drawing it in, making it part of itself.
Shimmer!
The blade hummed lightly in his grasp, the sound low, resonant, alive. The air around the edge wavered with latent power, and for a moment, Ashan could feel the shape of what the blade could become, the violence it was capable of, the things it had been made to do.
That's quite a weapon. He let the thought surface, cold and clear.
"Thank you for your generous gift, my Kumar." He bowed deeply, the motion hiding his face, hiding the expression he could not quite keep from his features. "I will strive to live up to your expectations."
"Good! Good!" Kumar Taevor closed the distance between them in a few easy strides, his presence suddenly too close, too large, too much. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper that slithered into Ashan's ear like something alive. "Your sweet time on this island is about to end." A pause, heavy with meaning. "I advise you to prepare yourself."
What!
A cold current, like a splash of glacial water, ran over Ashan's entire body. He stood frozen in the wake of the words, his mind racing, his thoughts scattering, his carefully constructed composure cracking at the edges.
"Praise the Lord of Greed!" Shikshak Yaren's salutation and bow broke the moment, the words sharp, deliberate, a door closing.
Kumar Taevor exited the room without a backward glance, his footsteps fading, his presence receding, leaving behind only the memory of what he had said and the weight of what it meant.
"Why are you still standing there in a daze?" Shikshak Yaren's voice jolted him back to the present, sharp, impatient.
Ashan hurriedly schooled his expression, forcing his bearing back under control, forcing his thoughts to still, to focus, to be present in this moment and not in the future that was already rushing toward him.
What is he planning for me? The thought was a poison seed in his mind, but he refused to let it take root. He would not let fear guide him. He would not let uncertainty make him weak.
"Then continue your practice." Shikshak Yaren snorted, a sound of profound exasperation, and sank into his own state of sadhana, his presence receding, his attention turning inward. "You missed a day, so work doubly hard today."
Ashan sat down, grabbing a quill and a sheet of paper. His hands were steady, his focus absolute. Though his control over his urja flow had improved, he still destroyed a few quills before managing a stable connection to draw—the nibs snapping, the wood splintering, the fragments scattering across the table like the remains of something that had been broken beyond repair.
Now I understand why I failed drawing classes. He let the thought surface, darkly amused. It bored me. This, however, was a battle of focus, will, and precision.
The sound of scribbling, tearing, and frustrated sighs became the only remnants of activity in the room.
After achieving Bodh in his mantra, Ashan's sole focus shifted to charmcasting. The training facilities could wait. The Chaturanga hall could wait. The endless, grinding pursuit of mastery that had consumed his days and nights could wait. He stopped visiting them entirely, his world narrowing to three things: his hut, his teacher's workshop, and the path that connected them.
In his hut, he divided his time between deepening his sadhana, perfecting his newfound understanding of [Combat Bolt], and practicing basic forms with his new blade. The hours passed in a blur of motion and stillness, of energy rising and falling, of the slow, patient work of becoming something more than he had been.
And then, unknowingly, he turned twelve.
Ah. The realization surfaced as he sat in his hut, the candlelight flickering, the shadows dancing. Today is my birthday.
His eyes shone with a spiral of grayish-white hues, the familiar panel surfacing before his vision.
[Name: Ashan]
[Age: 12]
[Race: Human]
[Birthday: 9 Julvan, 304 DC]
[Rank: Bodnir (Great Perfection)]
[Anumapah Siddhi: Viksana]
Oh. He let the information settle, turned it over. There's a new detail.
[Bodh: Combat Bolt (Sravana)]
Twelve years. He stared at the words, at the number that represented a life he had lived twice, a journey that had taken him further than he had ever expected to go. It feels like a blur. I still think I'm in a dream, or a hyper-realistic projection, or a very realistic delusion I've created for myself.
He looked at his hands—bruised, calloused, the fingers crooked in places where bones had broken and healed, the palms scarred from shattered quills and broken glass. He smiled a faint, wry smile.
The pain is also real.
He shook his head, the motion sharp, dismissive. Being immersed in these thoughts won't help me achieve immortality.
He moved out of his hut. Same day. Same sun. Same sky. The same routine, the same streets, the same faces. Nothing was new but the steady, silent passage of time, the accumulation of days that added up to a life that was beginning to feel like something he was building rather than something that was happening to him.
He headed straight to his Shikshak.
Knock! Knock!
After a few raps, a voice answered. "Come in!"
"Praise the Lord of Greed!"
"Praise the Lord of Greed!"
After the obligatory greeting, Ashan sat and grabbed his two trusted pieces of equipment: Quill and Paper. The quill was new, the paper fresh, and the smell of them—ink and fiber and the faint, clean scent of something that had not yet been used—filled his nostrils.
After so many days of practice, his control over his urja flow was significantly better. The thread of power that connected him to the quill was steady, reliable, a thing he could depend on. As for his drawing...
He moved the quill with focused, steady movements, his hand following the shape he had traced a hundred times, a thousand times, a number he had lost count of long ago. Beads of sweat dripped from his forehead, tracing paths down his temples, his cheeks, his jaw.
"The temperature has sure risen," Shikshak Yaren commented idly, not looking up from his own work. His voice was distant, distracted, the voice of a man who was somewhere else, doing something else, thinking about things that had nothing to do with the room he was in.
"Yeah—" Ashan started to reply, turning his head for a moment, just a moment, just long enough to see what his teacher was holding. His concentration wavered. The quill jerked, piercing straight through the paper with a soft rip that seemed louder than it should have been.
"Why are you gawking?" Shikshak Yaren now held a glass of a clear, shimmering liquid that seemed to have its own light, its own gravity, its own presence in the room. Even from a distance, Ashan could feel the wave of cold air emanating from it, could see the condensation forming on the glass, could almost taste the sharp, clean scent of something that had been distilled from ice and stone and the breath of mountains.
He licked his dry lips.
Shikshak Yaren took a few slow, savoring sips, letting the liquid rest on his tongue, letting it work its way down his throat. "You want some of this."
Ashan nodded his head repeatedly, the motion automatic, unconscious, the motion of a man who had been working for hours without water, who had been pushing his body and his mind to their limits and beyond.
"Not going to happen." Yaren's voice was flat, final. "For your information, this is a highly intoxicating glacial spirit. Not suitable for children."
"I turned twelve today."
Well, I don't know the legal drinking age here. He let the thought surface, darkly amused. Hell, we're an evil organization. Why would we respect legal boundaries?
Shikshak Yaren continued his drink, unperturbed, his pale yellow eyes fixed on something in the middle distance, his expression unreadable. "How about this? You cover the cost of destroying my quills and paper, and you can have a sip."
Ashan didn't reply for a long moment. He let the words settle, let them turn over, let them reveal their edges.
"Cost..." His voice was slow, deliberate. "For destroying them..."
"Yes." Yaren's gaze sharpened. "What? Did you think it was free?" His pale yellow eyes glinted, and there was something in them that might have been amusement or might have been the first stirrings of something else. "The total you owe is forty-nine and a half bronze coins."
Fuck. Ashan let the thought surface, cold and clear. Looks like I'm playing Chaturanga for a while now. He paused, the absurdity of the number striking him. And how the hell did the cost reach forty-nine and a half? A half-coin?
"And one last bit of information to make it clear." Shikshak Yaren's voice was leisurely, almost lazy, the voice of a man who had all the time in the world. "Only the money you earn by selling charms in the market counts towards the debt. Understood?"
FUCK!
Ashan's hand clenched tightly around the quill, his knuckles white, his arm trembling with the force of his grip. The wood snapped in his hand, the sound sharp, final, the sound of something that had been pushed too far and could not hold.
Shikshak Yaren didn't even blink. "Fifty bronze coins." He took another long, leisurely drink, and the silence that followed was heavy with the weight of a debt that had just become much, much larger.