A figure waited, silent and still beside a table of bone-white alloy. The surface did not gleam. It was a flat, depthless void.

  Upon it, centered with unnerving precision, rested a single rock. It was a fist-sized lump of dark crystal, lifeless and plain.

  No word was spoken. The alchemist slid two objects across the blank expanse.

  A slender stylus and the crystalline rock.

  On cue, Dion stepped forward, the soft scuff of new boots too loud in the hush. He was clothed now, not in rags, but in rough-spun grey, a tunic and trousers that fit without a fold or a wrinkle.

  Clean and simple. They tailored to him with an intimacy that felt like a violation.

  The stitched-up creature had handed them to him at the foot of the stairs, an offering before this summon.

  "Describe it," the alchemist commanded.

  Dion blinked. A part of him had expected some torturous experiment or to be forced to use his power until he collapsed. Instead, he was being asked to describe a rock.

  Well, at least it wouldn't be difficult.

  He picked up the stylus. It was cool and heavy, perfectly balanced. Then he looked at the slate. At first glance, it appeared to be a smooth, dark grey stone.

  Until it woke up.

  A soft, inner light bloomed from within, causing him to squint. Lines of faint, blue-white illumination etched themselves across the surface, forming a grid, margins, and a blank field for text.

  The slate hummed faintly in his hand, less like rock and more like a dormant device that had just recognized his touch.

  He tapped the stylus to the surface, tracing a ‘D’. No ink was needed. A faint, silvery line of light appeared where the stylus touched, writing with pure luminance.

  How was it possible?

  It produced no pigment, only light. Dion had grown numb to the endless surprises. He had no reaction left to give, so he focused on the task.

  The silence stretched. He looked at the rock. How did you even begin to describe something as basic as this? Wasn't it just… a rock?

  Still, he proceeded.

  Black.

  Hard.

  Shiny.

  He pushed the stylus and the softly glowing slate back toward the alchemist.

  The latter hardly glanced at the slate. His hidden gaze remained fixed on Dion for a long, uncomfortable moment, a silence that thickened into judgment.

  Then, with a fluid motion, he picked up the rock. His long, pale fingers traced its surface, finding a nearly invisible seam in the dark crystal. He applied a minute, precise pressure.

  Click.

  A small flake, the size of a thumbnail, sheared off and landed on the white table with a faint, crystalline tink.

  “You described its shadow,” he stated. His tone held no reproach, no disappointment, only the pure, cold clarity of fact.

  “Again.”

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  He placed the main rock back in the center of the table, next to the newly exposed interior and the chipped fragment.

  Dion felt a familiar, bitter frustration rise within him, one he’d thought he’d left behind in the cages.

  He was the Prince of Lavos, trained in swordsmanship, educated in philosophy, and in high strategy.

  He could recite his lineage back seven generations, parse legal clauses, and command a cavalry charge.

  But this?

  This mute, dead lump of rock?

  How did one even start to describe something as stupid as a rock? It was no different from describing water as water.

  His jaw ached from the force of keeping his mouth shut. Every instinct screamed to lash out, to remind this hooded ghost who he was.

  But the memory of the cage. He had buried his pride there. Swallowed it whole, until only the instinctual need to survive remained.

  He would survive. That was all that mattered. That was his purpose.

  He reached for the stylus once more.

  He stared at the rock, trying to see anything he missed. His hand moved, etching words onto the glowing slate.

  Crystalline. Rough texture.

  It felt clumsy. Inadequate.

  Angular. Shiny parts. Other parts… not so shiny.

  His own words seemed to taunt him from the luminous surface.

  “You are no longer mundane,” the alchemist’s voice cut through his struggle, cold and precise.

  “Why cling to a mundane way of seeing?”

  The words struck a spark, not of anger, but of sudden, stark clarity.

  He thought back to the first time he had used Wither. He’d treated it like an act of pure destruction. But was it?

  He hadn't truly destroyed anything. Not in the mundane sense. But that was beside the point.

  What mattered was the connection, or, more accurately, the intrusion he felt toward anything he designated.

  Calling it a bond was too generous. It felt more like being a voyeur, witnessing an intimate, inner truth moments before forcing it apart.

  Back at the shore, just before dissolving the prod, he had felt it, a visceral understanding of the thing he was about to unravel.

  He had sensed the iron’s granular structure, the brittle lattice of its crystal core. With the Skollynx’s tail, he had glimpsed the complex weave of sinew and metal.

  He had known its potential.

  Wither did not just dissolve.

  It comprehended.

  In that case…

  His amber eyes shone with the sudden, sharp clarity of an eureka moment.

  Dion picked up the rock once more. He didn't think about describing it.

  He called to it.

  The familiar sapphire light bloomed, coating his fingertips where they gripped the dark crystal.

  And then

  The result came almost immediately.

  He felt the dense, interlocking lattice of the dark crystal, a geometric prison of pressure and time.

  He felt the minute fractures. He felt the dull, inert weight of its core and the brittle, glassy potential at its edges.

  This was its makeup, its structure.

  Its foundation.

  He was lost in the moment, taking in everything, every secret the stone held.

  Then it hit him.

  A familiar wave of exhaustion. He slumped, barely catching himself on the edge of the table.

  When he came to… the rock was gone. In his palm lay a small, viscous puddle of black tar.

  Surprisingly, he had not actively willed it to dissolve. He had been focused only on trying to understand its makeup.

  This was a flaw. He had thought he was in complete control of the process. The realization that he had merely initiated something he understood almost nothing about was horrifying in its own right.

  The process, it seemed, once started, would complete itself. His desire had nothing to do with it.

  The Alchemist observed everything from start to finish, never commenting. As if waiting for Dion to realize on his own.

  He watched the puddle of black tar fall from Dion’s dazed palm.

  Then, his hand simply extended.

  The tar flowed toward him as if alive. It gathered, pooled, and began to reform, gaining structure, gaining shape before Dion’s eyes.

  Dion came to, his awareness sharpening just in time to witness it.

  The substance reverted. Or tried to.

  It was half-reverted, half-solid. A frozen moment between liquid and stone, caught in an impossible state.

  The Alchemist performed one impossible feat after another, feats Dion still couldn't wrap his head around.

  He chalked it up to whatever distinction separated an Alchemist from a man

  Severing the head of a Skollynx without a physical cut. Killing Pello with just a command.

  Dion wasn’t stupid. He knew there was something else at work, something he couldn’t see or comprehend. But just now, for the first time, he could instinctively feel it.

  A familiar resonance. A cold, deep hum in the marrow of things.

  Brine touched.

  He’s just like me.

  The thought flickered and died almost immediately. No. He was more.

  “Describe the rock,” the alchemist’s voice cut the silence once more.

  This time, Dion didn’t hesitate. He turned back to the stylus. His description was raw, but it meant something.

  Hard cage… made of tiny walls. Cracks inside… like frozen cracks in ice. Heavy middle… dead feeling. Outside parts… sharp, could break.

  His words were clumsy, almost childlike, but they were the best he could do.

  The alchemist didn’t seem to mind. In fact, his hood tilted in what might have been a nod of approval.

  “A first step. Now you understand the structure. You understand the story behind its formation.”

  “What is the point of this?” Dion asked, his frustration seeping through. Honestly, he didn’t see the need. He could dissolve its structure regardless.

  The Alchemist fell silent for a moment. Then he replied.

  “You can burn a book without knowing how to read,” the Alchemist said, his voice low and deliberate. “That is destruction. Simple. Empty.”

  He lifted a hand, and the half-solid, half-liquid mass on the table quivered in response.

  “But to edit a single word within it… to translate its meaning into another tongue… to understand why the author chose one phrase over another, that requires knowledge of its structure. Of its grammar.”

  His hidden gaze felt heavier, pressing down on Dion.

  “You wish to wield the Alkahest properly? Then you must first learn to read what it writes upon.”