“Arise, Ethan,” Nydarth called. “You have cores to absorb and a new technique to master.”
I was smiling before I’d even opened my eyes. I stifled a yawn, jumped out of bed, and dressed. The cell didn’t have any windows, but I trusted the dragon spirit’s sense of time as I buckled the sword to my waist and harnessed the trident and the warhammer over my back.
My elemental channels flickered into life, and my replenished pool of Vigor shifted tirelessly at the center of my chest. I slipped out into the corridor, listened at a few of the doors, and heard Kegohr’s familiar snore. I rapped my knuckles against it, and he appeared half a minute later with bleary eyes.
“What is it, Effin?” he asked.
“Keep it down, big guy. You still have the cores?”
His eyes brightened. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. We going to absorb them now?”
“Sure are. Wake up Vesma and bring them to the main hall. We’ll train there.”
“What if we’re not allowed to?” he asked.
“Better to ask forgiveness than permission.” I winked. “See you in a bit.”
I retraced last night’s steps to the main hall. The Hierophant was nowhere to be seen, and there was no sign of the monks in the wings. I strode through the pillars to admire the artwork painted on the stone while I waited for my friends to arrive.
Kegohr and Vesma appeared from the corridor a few minutes later, both dressed for action. A familiar glint of excitement shone through their eyes as they joined me at the center of the glossy floor.
Kegohr pulled the bundle from under his arm and unwrapped it for us to see. Spinedrake cores glittered in the candlelight.
“Nydarth,” I said to the spirit weapon, “what technique do they give?” In all the bluster and excitement of reaching the monastery and training with the Hierophant, I hadn’t thought to ask her until now.
“That which you’ve seen before but never accomplished.” Nydarth laughed in her rich, deep tone. “You’re in for a treat indeed, my sweet man. And you’ve just the right number for the three of you. These cores will give you the power of Flight.”
Chapter Eleven
I laughed as adrenaline rushed through me. “Okay, hand around the cores.”
“What did Nydarth say to you?” Vesma asked with a nod at the Sundered Heart.
“Spinedrake cores give Flight,” I answered.
Vesma’s jaw dropped. “Seriously?”
Kegohr cheered, heard his voice echo, and clamped his hand over his mouth with a horrified look. He handed me a core, and I took up a meditative position to absorb it.
The core disintegrated as the energy within swirled into my pool of Vigor. New channels branched out, burned with fire, and wrapped around my skeleton.
Immediately, Vesma went green as the Augmenter’s Sickness took over, and Kegohr snarled to himself as the dizzying effect rippled through him.
“Poor dears,” Nydarth observed. “So fragile.”
I meditated and made myself familiar with the new channels while the others battled with the sickness of absorbing monster cores.
After 10 minutes or so, Vesma and Kegohr were ready.
“How about we give it a try?” I asked.
Vesma frowned. “Inside?”
I gestured above. “The ceiling will prevent us from flying off into the clouds.”
“A drop from that high will probably still kill us,” Kegohr said, unsure.
“Not you,” Vesma said. “You would only break a few bones, but you would leave a crater in the floor. I doubt the monks would be happy about that.”
I laughed. “You two should quit talking and start Augmenting.”
I unsheathed the Sundered Heart and held it close to my side. Newborn channels flared to life at the touch of my fresh Vigor, and flames whirled around me in tight ribbons. My feet didn’t budge from the ground, but my body’s weight vanished. I tried an experimental jump in the air, and flaming ribbons bunched around my legs, letting me float for a second or two. I drifted slowly to the ground, like I was falling through honey instead of air. My sandals brushed the floor again, and I regathered my Vigor to my center once more.
Even that small defiance of gravity had cost me a large amount of Vigor.
“Not bad,” Vesma said with a small nod. “But I believe I can do better.”
Vesma used Untamed Torch to blast herself upward, then activated Flight as she started to fall. Streams of flames chased around her as she struggled to maintain the technique, and it cut out halfway down to the ground. She grunted as she landed on the floor on her hands and knees. Sweat streamed from her face as she dissipated the magic.
“Hells but that’s difficult,” Vesma panted. “How does Yo Hin do it?”
“Better question is how he managed to kill a spinedrake and take its core,” I said. “He was doing this at our initiate trials months ago.”
Kegohr grunted as he tried to maintain Flight around himself but he couldn’t even get off the ground. “He never spent that much time in weapons training, that’s for sure. Must have taken him ages to get this to work for him.”
I took a running jump and activated Flight again. Fire twisted around me, brushed the floor, and carried me over the ground. I stayed level in the air, but I couldn’t turn from side to side or hover in place. I cut the technique short before I would have crashed into the main altar.
“So, we can glide, but we can’t actually go up?” I asked Nydarth as I skidded to a halt.
“You all seem very excited to run before you can even crawl,” she answered, “let alone fly. Gather around, meditate, and try to lift yourself into the air by an inch. Calm, measured, and most of all, intentional.”
I returned to the others, and we began to practice. The Flight technique was a lot more complex than we had first anticipated. Vesma was the lightest out of the three of us, but even she struggled to lift her
