Liv was grateful that Airis and Saana’s servants had kept her guest room in order. She felt as if she’d hardly stayed there for a moment before rushing off all across the mountains and the jungles in a blur. Now that the immediate crisis had passed, she wanted nothing more than to soak in a hot bath, fill her belly with good food, and sleep away the day and a night besides in clean sheets.

Instead, she contemplated sitting down on the bed, then looked at her dirty clothes and the armor strapped over it. No, she couldn’t do that to whoever had been making the bed. Instead, Liv began to strip off pieces of armor and set them aside on the floor. Her grandmother, in the meanwhile, sat down in a padded chair off to one side.

“I can imagine what you might have been like as a child,” Eila said, with a smile on her face. “Constantly coming in from playing in the woods, filthy as a drowned rat, and needing to be hauled off to a bath.”

“I never had time for anything like that,” Liv told her. “When I wasn’t scouring pans or chamber pots, I was helping my mother in the kitchen.” She kicked off her boots, then sat on the end of the bed facing the other woman. “I thought you wanted to wait quite a while before talking about Dā,” she said, getting right to the point.

“I did,” Eila confirmed. “But things have changed. I’d hoped you would be safe for three or four years at Coral Bay. Instead, you’re snarled in Lucanian politics, while at the same time you’ve made yourself an enemy to the risen goddess in the west. We’ve entered a time of great changes, Livara, and not everyone is going to survive. I’d regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t do everything I could to prepare you for all the dangers coming your way.”

“I’ve imprinted four words already,” Liv told her. “Cel, Luc, Aluth and Cei. Of the four, the only one I feel I’ve really had enough time to master is Cel. The college was good for training Aluth, so that’s likely my next strongest word. Julianne showed me a few tricks with Luc, but I wouldn’t say I’m confident with it. And Cei I’ve only cast - twice, I think? I’ve got to admit, I’m a bit wary of adding a fifth word. Everyone tells me I’m going too fast, and to slow down.”

“They aren’t wrong,” Eila said. “Under normal circumstances. In times of peace, I’d put you off and insist you spend a few decades practicing with the words that you have. You’ve got an eclectic mix, as well, with no clear plan to the words of power you learned - you seem to have simply picked up what you could, at each opportunity.”

“And I’m getting the impression that isn’t how things are done in the north,” Liv said, unable to help but sigh. “In Lucania, it’s so difficult to legally acquire a word that most people never have two. Three is exceptional, and four unheard of. Archmagus Loredan is the only one I can think of that might have that many.”

“The natural consequences of restricting magic and attaching legal consequences to knowledge,” her grandmother said with a scowl. “What your mages guild calls ‘archmage spells’ - magic that combines two or more words of power - that is what we build toward, here. We encourage our most talented magic users to plan their path of study with those spells as a goal. Your friend Arjun, for instance, has developed closer to how we would train someone. We have records of healing spells that involve two or three words, and so those are the words he would imprint and practice, until he was finally ready to learn those advanced incantations.”

“Compared to that, you’re right - I’ve never had a plan,” Liv said. “Not in any larger sense. I couldn’t tell you how I’d combine Luc and Cel,” she began, and then paused. That wasn’t quite right.

“Yes?” her grandmother prodded.

“Well, Cel can be used to build a charge in clouds overhead,” Liv explained. “And then Luc draws upon that charge. Preparing the clouds with Cel ahead of time makes Luc easier and more effective.”

“And if one were to add Ve to summon the clouds in the first place, you would have a coherent strategy,” Eila pointed out. “As well as, quite likely, an archmage spell. Not that I’m encouraging you to go out and learn Ve as a sixth word, my dear. Merely theory-crafting.”

“Your father spent six years giving you as much depth as he could with Cel,” Liv’s grandmother continued. “So it’s no wonder that’s the word of power you feel most comfortable with - nevermind the fact it’s one you quite literally inherited. But you have the heritage of my family in you, as well. I would not be surprised if Dā comes more easily to you than something like Cei or Luc. I think it will also help that I can give you a spell to work toward which integrates both words.”

“An archmage spell,” Liv repeated.

Eila nodded. “We have records of Cel and Dā being used in conjunction going back to before the war against the Vædim,” she explained. “It was, apparently, a combination they found quite valuable. It is called, in most writings, cold sleep, or hibernation.”

“Like a bear?” Liv asked.

“Something like that, yes,” her grandmother explained. “The spell uses a combination of cold - which already can slow the body’s processes - with time manipulation. If you were trapped up in the mountains for the winter, unable to make it down, you could squirrel yourself away in some cave or beneath a crag, and use the spell to sleep until flood season. When you woke, it would be as if you’d only slept for a few hours.”

“I’d like to never be in that position,” Liv admitted, with a grin.

“The vast majority of your magic seems to be geared toward fighting,” the older woman scolded her, narrowing her eyes. “It will be good for you to practice something that isn’t, for once. But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. You need a great deal of practice with Dā before you’ll be ready to combine the two words. I do think - and you’re free to take my advice, or to disregard it - that your first attempt to combine two words of power needs to include Cel, and whichever word you’re most comfortable with at that point.”

“Now, I’m going to give you incantations for three spells, and that one is a goal to work toward, rather than something to practice immediately,” Eila said. “The other two I want you to drill regularly until you’ve mastered them. Give me your spellbook.”

Liv rose from her desk and went over to where she’d stashed her things - the few of them she’d brought away from Valegard, at least. Thora had packed up most of her belongings before they’d fled Coral Bay, but she hadn’t taken those things on the raid against Calevis’ forces at the foundry. Instead, she’d gone ready to fight.

Indeed, she’d done less and less spellwork in writing as her year at Coral Bay had gone on. Oh, Liv had copied down to incantations given to students to help them learn Aluth, just like everyone else - she wasn’t going to throw away help. But she rarely felt the need to work an incantation out in writing ahead of time, now.

Her grandmother had uncorked a small bottle of ink and prepared a quill pen, by the time Liv brought the book over and opened it to an empty page. “The first spell I’m going to give you is one you’ve already seen me use,” Eila explained. “I call it my packing list, but I’m certain you can come up with something more poetic if you care to. It will cause you to have brought along something that you find you need, in the moment. Particularly useful in your current circumstances, I should think, and it will provide you daily opportunities for practice.”

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Liv thought back to the first demonstration of Dā that she’d ever been given. “Isn’t it quite exhausting?” she asked.

Eila nodded. “Which is why I recommend you practice in the evening, when you’re getting ready to go to sleep anyway.” Her hand moved across the book, fingers moving quickly and confidently as she wrote. “Next, an offensive spell, since I know you’ll want one anyway. It’s what I used against the Iravatan warriors who tried to come after the children at the Hall of the Ancestors, and it will give you a chance to practice your Authority.”

“I didn’t even know there was an attack spell using Dā,” Liv mused. “What does it do?”

“It ages the target in an instant,” her grandmother explained. “You can adjust how much based on the numbers you use - I like to go with an even hundred for most humans, but a thousand is better if you’re fighting one of our own people. If you’re able to overcome their authority, it will leave nothing but dust behind - or a skeleton, depending on how closely you’ve judged the numbers.”

Liv felt her mouth hanging open, but she couldn’t manage to close it until after Eila had finished writing the incantation out. “That sounds horrible,” she finally managed.

“And it should give you a good lesson in why it is so important to train your Authority,” her grandmother said. “A spell like this - and don’t assume it is the only one of its kind among the many words of power - will simply kill anyone whose Authority you can overcome. That means most humans, Livara, will be as simple for you to defeat as an ant underfoot. It’s going to require a good deal of restraint on your part, and likely a shift in your thinking. Do not let me find you abusing this.”

Liv hurriedly shook her head. “I won’t. It’s actually a bit terrifying.”

“Good.” Eila nodded. “It should be. Only use it when you’re utterly certain your target is irredeemable, and an immediate threat. But you can practice it on other things - try using this to dispose of your refuse after a meal, for example. Makes cleanup quite simple, and it's good practice.” She corked the bottle of ink, and handed Liv the spell book. The ink bottle and quill, Eila placed on the desk of the guest room.

“Now, lie down,” the older woman said. “The entire reason we came to this room to begin with was so that you won’t hit your head when I do this.”

Liv nodded, and stretched herself out on the bed, getting a pillow comfortably arranged behind her neck. “I’m ready,” she said, and closed her eyes.

The floor creaked as her grandmother approached, and then the mattress shifted under the other woman’s weight as she sat down by Liv’s side. Kind fingers gently touched Liv at the temples.

“I can’t guarantee that I’ll survive what’s coming, my dear,” Eila Tär Väinis said softly. “So I’m giving this to you now, while I can. I love you. Dō Dā.”

Liv waited for the magic to hit her. Each time, it had been different - each word’s character somehow shaping the process of imprinting. It was only after an eternity had passed that she realized the magic had already begun. The word seemed to drag on, and then begin again. She lost all awareness of her body, and then found it again.

“I can’t guarantee that I’ll survive what’s coming, my dear,” Eila Tär Väinis said softly. “So I’m giving this to you now, while I can. I love you. Dō Dā.”

How many breaths had it been? How many heartbeats? Liv tried to count, because it seemed the only way to actually be certain time was passing. She was detached, separate: if the world was turning, somewhere, she was not a part of it. Even the bed and the pillow beneath her body had entirely vanished. Did she have a body, at all?

“I can’t guarantee that I’ll survive what’s coming, my dear,” Eila Tär Väinis said softly. “So I’m giving this to you now, while I can. I love you. Dō Dā.”

Liv opened her eyes and sucked in a panicked breath.

Her lungs worked again, her body was once again of a whole with her mind, and the mattress beneath her shifted as she rolled over, curling into a ball in blind panic. “Is it over?” she gasped, and then Liv felt her grandmother’s arms wrap around her.

“It’s done,” Eila said. “You should be able to feel it now, with your other words of power.”

Liv hesitated to close her eyes, out of the fear she’d once again be lost in darkness, slipping away from her body and the entire world - but she told herself that was a silly thought. At least this imprinting hadn’t been physically painful, like Luc had been.

There - five words of power, each slumbering within her. The furious storm of Cel, waiting to be unleashed. The raw destructive power of Luc, the dreaming slumber of Cei - and now, next to the other four, the utter strangeness of Dā.

“It’s there,” Liv confirmed.

“Good.” Her grandmother stroked her hair. “When you feel able to walk, we’ll go out to House Keria’s training yard and you can show me what you’ve learned at that human college. Bring your spellbook.”

☙

Aira Tär Keria was waiting at the practice yard when they arrived.

Unlike most of the homes and buildings in the city of Al’Fenthia, the yard had been situated on the ground. Liv supposed it was harder to set packed earth on fire than the wooden platforms the local Eld liked to secure about the red trunks of the massive trees that made up so much of the city.

It didn’t look so different from the training yard at Coral Bay, in fact, and the thought made Liv look, for one forgetful moment, for Master Jurian. Professor, later, and then archmage, but it had been as master that Liv had first met him. She forced herself to swallow the tears that threatened to leak out onto her cheeks at the thought that she’d never see him again.

There were wooden stands surrounding the yard, for observers, with benches polished by the long passage of time and the thousands of people who must have sat on them over the years. There were practice dummies of wood and straw, like those Liv had used in Whitehill before she’d ever gone away to the college.

“I told Aira that we’d be coming down here shortly,” Liv’s grandmother explained. “She has a few things she wants to teach you, as well.”

Liv nodded. She followed the older woman over to the stands, and set her spellbook down there on the bench. “What do you want me to do first?”

Her grandmother settled in next to the elder of House Keria. “I believe that the last time we saw each other, I told you I wanted to see a silent spell when next we met. Let’s begin with that.”

Liv nodded, and took a few steps back. “Could you throw a shard of ice at me, then?”

Eila thrust her hand out, and a needle-thin spike of adamant ice flew toward Liv.

The reflexes she’d trained, day in and day out with Wren, let Liv snap into action without even stopping to think about her response. Her arm moved, and a blade of ice cut the projectile out of the air with a clang. The spike whistled off to one side, then sunk into the packed earth of the training yard. Liv was left holding a sword of ice in her left hand.

“Good,” her grandmother said, with a grin. “Look at that,” she said, turning to Aira and nudging the other woman with her elbow. “You see what my granddaughter can do?”

“Yes, yes, very impressive,” Aira told her, but Liv saw the elder rolling her eyes. “Test her Authority, now.”

“Reach for your wand, Livara,” Eila instructed. “If you can draw it, even this old prickly thornbush will be impressed.”

Liv dropped her right hand to her waist, where her wand rested in the leather sheath attached to her belt. It was a motion nearly as automatic as making the parry had been - until a crushing pressure hit her with all the force of an avalanche.

Her legs buckled beneath her, but Liv didn’t fall - nor did her hand touch the grip of her wand. Everything slowed, then stopped. The breeze no longer rustled through the canopy overhead, no longer teased strands of her hair out to dance around her head. She couldn’t even finish a breath, caught in an endless exhalation.

Her grandmother rose from where she’d been sitting on the wooden bench, and strolled across the dirt of the training yard as easily as Liv had done only a moment before. It’s only affecting me, Liv realized. Eila Tär Väinis had cast a spell silently, without either wand or staff, that had trapped her with casual ease.

“I’ve used Dā to slow the passage of time within a small area,” Eila explained, circling Liv at a distance of perhaps ten feet. The older woman dragged the toe of her boot through the dirt as she went, marking out a circle. “This is a spell that relies upon using my Authority to crush your own, of course. If you can fight back my Authority, Livara, you’ll be able to draw your wand. If you can’t do it by my count of two hundred, I’ll release you - but we’ll all know that you aren’t ready to face that archmage who attacked you at Coral Bay - nevermind someone like Ractia.”