I left before dawn. The barracks were still dark. Renn's breathing was slow and even two bunks over. Someone at the far end snored through his teeth. I pulled the bundle from under the cot, slung it over one shoulder, and walked out without closing the door behind me. The compound yard was empty. Frost on the flagstones. The watch fire near the gate had burned down to orange coals. The guard on duty — one of the 2nd Company men whose name I never learned — glanced at me. "Patrol?" he asked. "Personal business." He shrugged. I walked through the gate and turned south. The road out of Ashford was quiet at this hour. Mud frozen into hard ridges. My breath hung in the air. The waxed cloak kept the wind off my shoulders but not much else. I cut across the south fields where the stubble was black and stiff, past the last fence post, and into the treeline. From there I knew the way. I'd walked it enough times in the dark. Two hours south through the woods. The ground dropped into familiar terrain — broken rock, thin birch, the ravine cutting through grey stone. I climbed down the ledge I'd climbed a dozen times before, squeezed through the narrow passage, and came out into the main chamber. The cave was cold. Damp. The blue-white crystals in the walls gave off their faint glow, enough to see shapes but not details. My breath fogged. Home, then. If you could call a hole in the ground home. I dropped the bundle on the sleeping ledge I'd carved weeks ago and started unpacking. Blanket first — unrolled it across the stone. Cloak on top. Food into the niche. Flint and steel on the shelf that hadn't crumbled yet. The two goblins sat near the entrance, watching me with their heads tilted at the same angle. Clicking softly between themselves. When I glanced at them, they went back to sorting pebbles. I ate half a strip of the smoked beef, drank from the thin stream at the back of the cave, and sat down. Now what. * * * The smoked beef lasted a day and a half. The hard biscuit, two days if I rationed it. By the morning of the second day I was staring at an empty niche and a growling stomach. The goblins were eating. I watched them from across the chamber. One of them had a handful of fat grubs it was pulling out of a crack in the wall. The other was gnawing on something grey and leathery that might have been a mushroom or might have been a dead bat. They ate with the focused intensity of creatures who took food very seriously. I walked over. Crouched down. Pointed at the grubs. Both goblins stopped chewing. They looked at me. Then at each other. Then back at me. The one with the grubs clutched them against its chest and hissed. The other one shoved the entire grey thing into its mouth and turned away, cheeks bulging. "Right," I said. I picked up the hammer and went hunting. * * * The forest south of the ravine was dense and cold. Frost on the ferns. Thin mist between the trunks. I'd seen animal tracks near the stream before — small ones, rabbits or something like them. I followed the water downstream, looking for prints in the frozen mud. I found rabbit tracks. Lost them at a rocky outcrop. Found them again near a cluster of dead ferns. Lost them when the ground went hard. By noon I'd walked three miles and caught nothing. Then I heard the snorting. A bristleback. Big, low to the ground, covered in coarse dark quills along its spine. Like a boar, but smaller and meaner-looking. It was rooting through a patch of frozen moss near a fallen oak, its flat snout shoving dirt in every direction. I'd seen these sold at the Ashford market. I crept closer. Twenty feet. Fifteen. The hammer was in my right hand. One clean hit to the skull would do it. The bristleback looked up. It saw me and charged. I sidestepped, swung, and missed. The thing was faster than it looked. It shot past my left knee, quills scraping my boot leather, and disappeared into the underbrush. I chased it. Through brambles. Over a frozen creek. Around a boulder. The bristleback had short legs but apparently infinite stamina. I lost it near a thicket. Stood there panting, boots muddy to the ankle, a long scratch on my forearm where a branch had caught me. Then I heard it snorting again. Twenty feet to my right. Behind a fallen log. I didn't chase it this time. I stood still. Pulled the mana. Shaped the fire the way I'd been practising — small, focused, a point of heat between my fingers. An arrow made of flame. "Ignis," I said. The fire snapped from my fingertips. It flew crooked, hit the log, and set a patch of bark on fire. The bristleback bolted. I cursed. Stomped out the burning bark. Followed the tracks again. It took me three more hours. In the end, I cornered it against a rock face where the ravine wall rose too steep to climb. The bristleback turned, lowered its quills, and snorted at me with the fury of something that had been chased all afternoon. I raised my hand. Pulled the mana. Shaped the bolt — tighter this time, steadier. Aimed at the thick neck where the quills didn't cover. "Ignis." The fire bolt crossed ten feet of cold air and hit the bristleback behind the ear. It dropped. Twitched once. Went still. I stood there breathing hard, my hand shaking from the cast, looking at the smoking hole in the animal's neck. My first aimed fire bolt. At distance. On a moving target. On a day I was supposed to be training stone work or fireball magic. I dragged the bristleback back to the cave by its hind legs. Took over an hour. The thing weighed, I would say around 80 kilos. The goblins watched me butcher it with enormous interest. When I tossed them the offal, they fell on it like it was a feast. The meat was tough. Gamey. I roasted it over a fire, goblins even decided to help me and brought some branches for fire. I saved what was left for the next two days. * * * I trained. Earth in the mornings — the wall carving, the smoothing, the controlled pulls. The gestures were becoming steadier. Not natural yet, but my hands moved before I had to think about it. I finished the room. Flat walls. A proper corner for the sleeping ledge. Even managed a second shelf that held when I leaned on it. Evenings were fire. The bolt I'd used on the bristleback showed me something: fire worked better when I gave it a direction from the start. Not a sphere — a line. Push it forward, like throwing a punch. The gesture wasn't a squeeze. It was a thrust. I set up a target — a flat stone propped against the far wall of the main chamber. Fifty feet away. I stood at the other end and practised. First ten attempts: two hit the wall, one hit the ceiling, seven fizzled before they crossed the room. Next ten: four hit the wall within arm's reach of the stone. One clipped the edge. By the end of the evening, I put three bolts into the target stone in a row. The impacts left black scorch marks the size of my fist. On the third night, I heard footsteps in the passage. Silas walked in without warnings. He glanced around. Noticed the finished walls, the second shelf, the blanket on the ledge. "Not bad," he said. "For a mole." He dropped a leather sack near the entrance. Something inside clinked. Both goblins abandoned their pebbles and scurried over to inspect it. "Where were you?" I asked. "Out." He sat down on a flat rock and stretched his legs. "Miss me?" "I need to get into that state again. The one you put me in with the crystal." Silas raised an eyebrow. "Want a tour of the astral plane, do you?" "I want to understand what happened. The visions. The—" "You need a black crystal." He pointed at one of the blue-white stones in the wall. "Not like those. A proper one. Dark. Whole." He held his hands apart, about the size of a book. "One piece. No cracks." I waited for the rest. He picked at something under his fingernail. "And?" I said. "And what?" "How do I get one?" "Steal it. Buy it. Dig one out of a mine." He examined his fingernail. "Not my problem." "You're not going to help." "I just gave you the answer. You're welcome." The grin. Wide, crooked, useless. "How much would one cost?" Silas laughed. Head back, teeth showing. One of the goblins flinched. "More than you'll earn in five years of gutting goblins for your Guild. Fifteen, twenty gold? Maybe more if you want one without fractures. The Academy hoards them." He shrugged. Twenty gold. I'd nearly died on a barge for four. "Why can't you just use yours? You used a small one on me before." The grin faded. "That crystal cracked," he said. "I know. I was holding it." "It cracked because—" He paused, tilted his head, and pointed at my skull with both index fingers. "—whatever is in there didn't appreciate the visit. Imagine knocking on a door, and the door hits you back. With a battering ram." He wiggled his fingers. "My crystal was, shall we say, a polite little knock. You need something that can take a beating from the battering ram and keep knocking. A big, fat, rude knock." He leaned back and crossed his arms. Then the grin came back. "Besides. I just don't want to." "You don't want to." "Not interested." He waved a hand. "I had my fun with your skull already. Now I want to see what you do on your own. More entertaining." I stared at him. "Don't look at me like that. I'm a terrible person, we covered this." He stood up, dusted off his coat. "Now — are you going to stand there being angry, or show me what you learned while I was gone?" * * * I showed him. Earth first — the wall carving, the smooth pulls, the clean edges. He watched with his arms crossed and said "better" once, without elaborating. Then I stopped and looked at him. "I want the theory," I said. "Not exercises. How does mana stay in crystals? Why are black ones different?" Silas scratched his jaw. "Fine. Short version." He pointed at the blue-white stones in the wall. "Regular crystals just store mana. A bucket holds water — same idea. Mana goes in, mana stays, mana comes out." "And black ones?" "Black ones are strange." He held his palms parallel, a hand's width apart. "They create two barriers at the same time. One blocks magic going in. The other blocks magic going out. Two walls facing each other. Between them — a sealed pocket. Pure, isolated mana that doesn't touch the outside world." "A box." "A simulation. A little world inside a stone. You can connect your own channels to it — carefully — and use it to look inward. Or outward. Wherever the crystal has been pointed before." He dropped his hands. "That's what I did to you. Plugged your head into the crystal's pocket. Let the stored mana do the work." "And it showed me—" "Whatever is behind that seal. Fragments. Echoes. The crystal tried to open the door. The door won." I sat down on the ledge. "So I need a big crystal. Whole. To try again." "To try without killing yourself, yes." He pulled his coat tighter. "In the meantime — you have hands, mana, and a cave. Train." * * * I trained. Every day. Wake up, eat whatever was left, drink the iron-tasting water from the stream, and work until my arms shook and my core ran dry. Earth was getting better. I could smooth a section of wall in minutes now instead of an hour. Pull a stone block free without shattering it. The turning-key motion and the slow press were becoming reflex — not thought, not effort, just movement. Fire was a different problem. I'd been trying the fireball for a week. Every attempt went the same way: pull the mana, push it into my palm, say the word — Solaris — and try to compress the heat into a shape. But the fire wanted out. It wanted to expand, burn, eat everything it touched. And without the right gesture to cage it, the mana slipped out of my grip like a hot coal. First attempt: the mana slid sideways and scorched my forearm. Third: the ball formed for half a second before popping. Sparks everywhere. Seventh: almost. The sphere held for a full breath. I could feel it rotating in my palm, bright and alive. Then my focus drifted and it blew apart. Burned a black circle into the cave floor. Tenth attempt. The mana came up clean. I said the word. The fire coalesced in my palm — tight, dense, glowing orange-white. I held it. One second. Two. Three. I tried to throw it. The motion broke the gesture. My wrist turned wrong. The sphere collapsed inward and detonated — not forward, into my hand. The crack echoed off the stone walls. A sharp, wet snap. Then the pain. My right hand went white, then screaming red. Two fingers bent the wrong way. The palm was blistered raw. I screamed. I don't remember ever screaming before. The goblins scattered. One of them hit the ceiling and hung there, clicking. I sat on the cave floor, cradling my hand against my chest, breathing through my teeth. Each wave of pain bigger than the last. * * * Silas found me two hours later. Still sitting against the wall. Hand swollen to twice its size. He didn't say anything. He took my hand, turned it, felt the bones through the swelling. His fingers were surprisingly gentle. "Two metacarpals," he said. "And a sprain. And burns." He set the bones. I bit through leather. He wrapped the hand in strips of cloth soaked with something cool and sharp-smelling. "You won't move these fingers for two days," he said. "Maybe three." "Thanks." "Next time, don't throw it." He stood up. "Press. Push it the way you push stone. Fire listens to the same gestures — you just need to learn which ones." At the entrance he paused without turning. "You're getting there," he said. Quietly. * * * Two days with one hand. Couldn't train. Couldn't carve. Could barely hold a cup. I sat in the dark and thought about what went wrong. I tried to throw the fireball like a ball. But fire isn't a ball. It's pressure. Compressed heat. The same pushing motion that works for Earth — the slow press, the controlled release — should hold fire too. Same principle. Different material. On the third day I tried with my left hand. Small flame. Tiny, the size of a candle. I pressed it between my fingers and squeezed. It held. Not a sphere. Not a fireball. Just a hot, dense point of light between my thumb and forefinger, burning steady. Ten seconds before my concentration broke and it fizzled. But it held. * * * The hand healed. Slowly. By the end of the second week, I could grip again. By the third, I was back to full practice. Earth mornings. Fire evenings. But it wasn't fast enough. Every night I sat on my stone ledge and counted the things pressing in on me. Greyve waiting. The Guild I'd walked away from. The seal in my head that wouldn't crack. The Inner Voice that hummed behind my eyes every time I stopped moving, whispering things I didn't want to hear. The crystal. I needed the crystal. Without it I was blind, groping for answers that might not exist. Silas wasn't going to help. "Not interested." Bastard. Steal one from the Academy? From a noble vault? With what, my charm? Buy one? I had maybe six gold to my name. Needed twenty. That left one option. * * * I brought it up over the campfire that night. Silas was roasting something small and unidentifiable on a stick while the goblins watched with hungry, clicking interest. "Greyvein Mine," I said. "The one east of the city. Miners pulled dark crystals from the deep shafts before the walkers moved in." Silas turned the stick. "Might have. Might not. Those tunnels collapsed months ago." "The Guild cleared the walkers. Nobody's been back since." "Nobody's been back because the lower shafts are unstable and there are things down there that the sweep missed." He bit into whatever was on the stick and chewed. "You want to crawl through a mile of collapsed tunnel on the chance that maybe some miner left a black crystal the size of a book just lying around?" "You have a better idea?" "Several. All of them involve you not dying in a hole." He threw the stick into the fire. "But since you don't listen to me anyway — yes, there might be uncut crystals in the deep veins. Dark ones form in pockets where the rock has been soaking up ambient mana for centuries. If the miners hit a vein and didn't strip it clean, there could be fragments." "Fragments?" "You'll need to dig. And probably fight. And probably regret going." He wiped his fingers on his coat. "When?" "Tomorrow." "Of course." He leaned back. "Try not to die. I just got you house-trained."

Chapter 25: Grounded