They stood atop the plateau. Mirian faced her father and gave him a salute with Eclipse.

“Don’t hold back,” her father called.

Mirian took a deep breath. Her heart was pounding in a way that had only been matched by her confrontation with Ibrahim. She had thought through her strategy for a confrontation with Atrah Xidi before she’d realized that was her father. Her usual strategy would be to cast total camouflage and levitation, using her near-invisibility and speed to first catch her opponent off-guard, then swap to prismatic shield if a spell might actually hit her. Meanwhile, she would use direct attack spells, coating them with soul energy to pierce spell resistance if needed.

She already knew that her father had techniques that could modify the energy type not just of his own spells, but those of his opponents. Mirian didn’t know if that was merely an enchantment or if it could be wielded as an active spell, but she had planned for both contingencies. From her observations two cycles prior, she also knew he was capable both of soul-drain and mana-drain style spells and possessed a powerful soul repository. That would act both as a defense and a way to empower him. Then there was the black shield he used. She wasn’t sure exactly how it worked, only that it was at a minimum equivalent in defensive capability to Luspire’s prismatic shield.

Her father had of course agreed not to endanger her soul. He had helped dispel the fragmented remains of Westerun’s curse like it was nothing, so she had no doubt his finesse was as potent as his raw power. Gaius had refused to discuss his spells until after the battle, not wanting to “spoil the surprise.”

Mirian still didn’t like surprises, but nevertheless could admit that practice against an opponent of unknown capabilities was useful.

Her plan assumed her father could easily pierce a prismatic shield. Instead, she’d rely on overwhelming his senses by using greater illusionary army. With high spell resistance from all three of her soulbound items, her soul would be harder to see amidst the illusions, especially at a distance. She would use beads of soul energy in several of the illusions to further complicate picking her out. Meanwhile, she’d be ripping up chunks of the plateau to hurl, avoiding the problem of spell resistance altogether.

If the battle came to attrition, she would try spells that detonated near the target, like Luspire’s cascading inferno, and if that failed, direct attacks with soul coating while using mana drain.

Mirian lowered her blade and began. She cast her illusion spell simultaneous with levitation, then had herself move in a criss-cross pattern with the illusions as she deployed the beads of soul energy so that he’d have trouble tracking her. As she lifted her first boulder to hurl, though, her spell was interrupted.

Her plan of using indirect attacks had been too obvious. He’d been ready for that specific spell. Then, while she was reformulating, he hit the entire region of air she and the illusions were in with a widened force blast—but one that targeted the air. Mirian was blown back, but she wasn’t ready to move the illusions the same way. As light constructs, they weren’t moved at all by the blast of air.

Mirian snapped up a prismatic shield just in time to deflect a disintegration ray. Needing to alleviate the pressure, she cast cascading inferno as planned—only to look on in horror as something sapped mana from the spells as they were airborne. Mirian cast detect life so that she could see what had just happened and repeated her attack. He’s using some sort of net defense that traps the spell in a binding then saps it

, she realized. The net would take a great deal of soul energy, but that didn’t matter if he knew where the attack would come from.

Then, Mirian saw her prismatic shield was getting sapped as well. She cut with Eclipse, disrupting the spell, only for it to reform at the back of her shield where she couldn’t easily get at it.

Shit. She used force drills to break up the rock in front of herself, then manipulate stone to harden it into a temporary barrier and dismissed the shield.

The mass fireballs still might work, but they need to avoid his nets, she thought. Here, her work with Jei on four-dimensional paths would be critical. She could move the path of the cascading inferno beads first through four-dimensional space, then route them around to his back. Mirian flipped back and forth between her page of attack spells and her page of pathing glyphs. As she launched the spell, she predicted her father would be using some sort of spell to bombard her hiding position. She flipped back to her utility page and used blink, just in time; a spell severed the connection of the rock wall to the plateau, then sent it crashing into the spot where she’d just been. That was then followed by a fire beam.

Mirian saw that Gaius’s black shield spell was up now. She blinked again, nausea rising in her, just in time to dodge another fire beam. There was a brief moment of hesitation. Hah! I know a spell he doesn’t, she thought triumphantly.

She raised another prismatic shield a moment later, not knowing how else to defend herself. Immediately, the claws of some spell were digging into it. She couldn’t tell how the siphon worked, just that she had to pour mana into the spell to keep it from falling apart.

He wins by attrition, she realized. Her aura was vast, but she’d been draining it the whole time. Meanwhile, his auric mana was probably untouched. Mirian attempted her own mana siphon spell, but whatever the black shield was, her spell dissolved against it. She tried to counter his siphon spells, but he started recasting the spell every few seconds with a different pathing, so by the time she’d enacted her counterspell, he’d already moved it so that her spell landed on nothing. In a burst of inspiration, she tried siphoning mana from the spells he was attacking her with, but got no result.

Then, she saw tendrils of soul energy burrowing into her shield.

Mirian only had a moment to react. She blinked away again, but this time, her father was ready for her. The tendrils appeared again where she’d moved and cracked open her shield. Then she was hit by a series of spells she didn’t recognize. Glancing at her soul, they appeared to be curses—at least four of them. She fell to the plateau, paralyzed, and her connection to her catalyst fizzled entirely.

Her father approached her, face beaming. “Wonderfully done!” he said. “You lasted a full fifteen seconds longer than the Archmage Tellicus, and I daresay he had a few decades of experience on you. The repathed fireball barrage was a nice trick, but unfortunately, you’re not the first to try it. Now the short range teleportation spell—that’s new.” He raised his hand and the curses around Mirian dissolved.

She gasped for breath, then dismissed her rapier and spellbook.

He reached down to help her up off the ground.

Mirian took his hand. “It’s not true teleportation. It’s a jaunt that pushes me through the fourth dimension briefly.”

He was still smiling, but there was a sorrow in it now. “Your mother would have been proud. You weren’t just my little soul mage, you were her little mathematician.”

The pain of her death was still fresh. She wanted to embrace it. She wanted to feel the waters of grief wrap around her until the torrents boiled, and then she could become a creature of rage and scour the Praetorians and Deeps for what they’d done to her.

No. There’s work to be done

. “Your mana siphon spell doesn’t work the way mine does. And there’s versatile versions that can attack the mana fueling the spell.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Yes, I was meaning to ask about that. Who taught you to siphon?”

“I deduced it. Soul siphoning is only a short step away from capturing a myvite soul in a repository, but since mana is soul energy at a lower frequency, I figured out how to force the step-down process.”

“Really! Well then you’re brilliant. But yes, necromancy has seen a great deal of refinements. Though I’m not surprised you haven’t encountered any of the last cults hiding about—they’ve learned to stay very well hidden.”

He put a thin finger to his lips. “Some advice. First, without knowing the spells that can counter siphoning, you can still refine your casting technique to avoid it. All of your pathing glyphs for your shield are completely standard, which is what I’m relying on to sap them. It’s the most efficient path for the arcane force to take, but an less efficient path would mean I couldn’t predict where to sap. Siphoning an active spell is an exercise in targeting the place where the arcane force is still going through the transformation process. You’ve wisely shrouded your catalyst and book in adamantium, not just enchantments, so I can’t sap mana prior to the transformation. But arcane energy knows no ownership, just as the sun’s rays know no ownership. Catch it, and it’s yours.”

Mirian nodded. “So you’re using nets to capture energy, then energy transformations. But you can turn arcane force back into mana?”

“No. Theoretically, the alchemists are convinced it’s possible to ‘unbake’ bread, but in practice its never been done. In our analogy, it’s more like I’m taking the baked bread and crumbling it up, then using it as a poor substitute for flour.”

Her mind spun. “So you’re using someone else’s arcane force for your own spells? But that would mean… but it’s already left the shaping glyphs.”

“Yes, so I’m just casting a simple energy transformation spell at the coordinates where the arcane force is. Hence why you using standard pathing is a vulnerability. By transforming your arcane force into bursts of kinetic energy prior to the resolution point of the spell, it weakens the construction of the shield while also attacking the shield at the same time.”

“I see,” said Mirian, furrowing her brow. Gods, I’ll have to redo all my combat spells. And figure out a way to modify Luspire’s prismatic shield. That won’t be easy. “That was how you countered the shield, though. What about that net that was trapping my spells?”

“Ah, Masikatt’sweb. Yes, that uses a necromantic binding. Using a stronger force to contain a weaker one, and then redirect its purpose. Similar concept to what I just described. Not a true mana siphon either.”

“I’m guessing there’s runes involved I haven’t even seen. The Luminates know very few runes, and I only discovered a few more. But the key to most of it is mastering post-glyph energy transformation. Like what you did with your mummy soldiers.”

“You’ve examined those?”

“In a different cycle,” she said, waving a dismissive hand. “Was a pain in the ass to dissect while it was trying to kill me. I had to bury it in rock first.”

Her father stroked his chin. “Yes, energy transformation and its associated runes might be the best place to start. Then, I suspect if you’ve only been learning from the Luminates, there’s several necromantic bindings they wouldn’t have taught you. Next, a comprehensive review of the known runes and their categories. After that we can move onto curse structure…”

***

For a week, her father pushed her to the edge of her capabilities in a way she hadn’t experienced since her fight against Apophagorga. Since the instruction would take multiple cycles, they worked together to plan out a curriculum for Mirian to follow, as well as exercises in each area. Together, they poured over her spellbook and Mirian noted down the changes she would make when she was back in Torrviol and able to use Torrian Tower’s advanced scribing equipment.

Then, Mirian visited Falijmali so she could send word to the other Prophets that Ibrahim was considering joining their efforts, but it remained to be seen if he actually would.

There was also another problem: the Praetorians. She had questions for them, but at the moment, she didn’t want to deal with any of it. She worked with Thaseem and the Junudasun to use their informants to create fake information that spread through the city. In both batches of rumors, Atrah Xidi had learned of the Praetorians’ pursuit. He’d either fled west to Rambalda, or he’d fled east towards the storm coast. Mirian made sure the information made it to one of the Deeps informants. They’d be happy to pass it along; as long as the Praetorians were bogged down and far away from Palendurio, they were happy. When the boat with the Praetorians arrived in Falijmali, Mirian headed back south to continue training.

For the next month, she continued her lessons in necromancy and runes.

One night, as she ate a perfectly spiced lamb stew atop the plateau, she discussed Ibrahim.

“Why haven’t you been putting sigils on his soul?” she asked. “Troytin’s soul was covered in them.”

“I’m sure it occurred to me in previous loops. I imagine I insisted I would be allowed to do so to track any bargains we made. I’m also certain he’s just scrubbing them off. It might not even be on purpose. Repeated applications of that Last Fires stance would destabilize the surface of the soul used to anchor the bindings. Soul-writing was used to track debts during the Triarchy, you know. It’s essentially a benign curse, too shallow to disrupt anything.”

“Makes sense,” Mirian said. They sat in silence. There was another thing that had been bothering her. “I can save Ibrahim’s wife.”

Gaius nodded. “I deduced as much,” he said. She’d told him of her journey, so she wasn’t surprised he’d figured that out.

“He just needs relicarium. He’ll have no problem finding a focus to bind.”

“But if you tell him this information, you’ve revealed one of your advantages. And then there’s a scramble to consume an irreplaceable resource, either to deny the others it, or to gain advantage. But the same thing that grants you an advantage in the short term may destroy you in the long term.” Her father paused, then sighed loudly. “I have, in short, just described human civilization.”

“You’ve seen it before.”

“When you live as long as I have, you start to see patterns. When you study history, they become more explicit. The same armies King Attah used to reconquer the Uru Coast became the destabilizing factor that killed his heir three generations later. The silver mines that fueled the rise of House Argentus led to them overexploiting both the rock and the peasantry, so that their finances collapsed as anger against them came to a boil. I watched as spell engines were invented. Fossilized myrvite went from being a nuisance to the foundation of civilization. And as people scrambled about to control it, it split apart a fragile peace, and all the other problems of the world that had been writhing under the surface erupted. I thought the Naasqual here were too small to matter. I hoped the foundation would crumble before the shackles of empire came to bind us.”

“Mom was Naasqual,” Mirian said. “Falijmali is, too. They all get lumped in as Persamans, now, though.”

“Yes. ‘Persaman’ is a useful word for the Baracueli to use, because then they can punish, say, Falijmali for violations of the treaty in Rambalda.”

“Or use it as an excuse to occupy Mahatan,” Mirian thought, remembering what she’d learned of that city.

“I could see the wheel of history turning. Fool that I was, I acted too late. And then so much blood was spilled. It came to a point where I couldn’t stand seeing another drop. I failed to see that there is a kind of person who cares not how much blood drenches the sands. They would spill an ocean of it and flood the world if only it meant they could claim dominion over a lashed together raft that floated atop such a crimson sea. ‘Peace’ to them just means a chance to rearm. Then, after the treaties are signed, they ignore them and do as they please. They only understand one language: violence. And they only understand it if it’s enacted against them, personally. But they surround themselves in castles and armies.”

Mirian thought of the gala atop Aurum’s tower. None of them would be on the front lines of any war.

Her father continued. “If your enemies demand war, they demand the most terrible thing. And yet, you must fight, for they will wage the war even if you don’t.”

He sounds like Ibrahim. It’s no wonder he could ally with him. They’ve both come to the same conclusion. “As you learned. How many mummy soldiers do you have?”

“Two thousand. Give or take a few.”

Mirian did some math. “About one every three days since I was taken.”

“I had a few hundred left over from the war that I refined. But yes. It has taken up the majority of my time. It helps that I don’t have to sleep anymore. Though I do miss sleeping.”

“If I could find another chthonic needle in the Vaults… the extra time would be invaluable.”

“They’re incompatible. Because I have a chthonic needle, I could never use a temporal one, since removing the needle would unbind my soul from my body. You could use one, but only if the temporal anchor was removed.”

“Ah. Pity.” Then Mirian blinked. “They return to the Ominian…” Their body is full of temporal anchors, but then they were distributed to the Prophets. Troytin’s anchor returned to the Ominian. The chthonic needles are also an Elder magic. Could that help? She finished her thought out loud. “But where is the Mausoleum?”

“Never could find it. The scholarly consensus was that it was destroyed by the triarchs when Mayat Shadr was destroyed. Or possibly razed afterwards as people attempted to destroy necromancy. There was an immense magical detonation in the center of the city, but it wasn’t an explosion. Otherwise, the damage would look different. The Sixth Prophet was also looking for the Mausoleum. Obsessed with it.”

She felt a hunger in her to know more. “You haven’t told me about him yet.”

“In the morning. I need to spend some time sorting through old memories. And then… I’d like to visit Leyun’s tomb with you.”