Caen made a show of giving Rithya’s offer some thought, but he knew that in truth, this was an opportunity he couldn't turn down.

  He had seen an all-round improvement to Mimicry when the core four disciplines of magic had risen out of abjection: Spirit-healing, Blood-healing, Dream-guarding, and Body-enhancement.

  This caused him to start thinking about what other disciplines of magic might be directly tied to his gestalt ability. Fire and Gleam were essential to two of his bloodlines, so Caen had hoped that raising them out of abjection would also have positive effects on Mimicry. But they had not.

  He had three other candidates in mind and had given them lower priority for the time being due to the trials.

  Divination, Transmutation, and Contract magic.

  He'd already found useful primers for all these in the restricted section of the Ser-gwu library and intended to slowly chip at them while he was here.

  Sh'kteiro had left him some basic Divination exercises, and they still met up in Vai's Astral domain to go over specifics from time to time. And regarding Contract magic, Hshnol talked him through some things whenever either of them could spare the time.

  Rithya's ability, like his own, possessed elements of Contract magic, which was a discipline that concerned magical bonds, ties, connections, and imposition, amongst other things. This was important to Caen.

  There were also more questions he had about ‘Xihx’ in general. He'd yet to Mimic a bloodline, but if and when he did succeed in doing so, perhaps these abilities could be replicated in himself as well.

  It was all so enticing that Caen couldn't help but nod his head to it.

  “I think I have a few ideas,” he finally said.

  ***

  The central district was alive with activity. Loud music resounded all over the district, banners fluttered in the night air, and clouds of glowing, multicolored particles streaked through the sky above the air traffic. The festivities were in full swing.

  On a nearby five-story building, a few dozen musicians skilled in Wind and Vibration magics played their instruments and used complex spell chains to intensify the effect of their sounds. Orissa, Zeris's older sister, was up there with her troupe members.

  Down here on the streets, performers stood on platforms and entertained small crowds of people with astonishing demonstrations of mundane and magical skill. Food vendors displayed exotic delicacies. All sorts of booths lined the streets with games and amusements. Droves of people loitered, watching performers, eating, buying, dancing, talking, and just having fun.

  Enforcers moved among the crowds or stood at street corners or on elevated platforms, watching out for public disturbances. They wore enchanted uniforms, and each of them was accompanied by floating elemental bonds made up of crystals.

  Caen could feel the press of presences and the constant grazing of his spirit.

  He and Zeris walked through the streets as she caught him up on family drama and gossip.

  While here on the island, she stayed at their great-grandmother’s mansion on the second stratum and thus was surrounded by many of their direct relatives.

  He'd made an adjustment to the magical contract between him and Rithya. He'd asked for her to involve Zeris in their oaths of secrecy, so that he could tell her about it. They knew better than to discuss any of that in public, though.

  The lesser portion of Caen's mind worked on an aura exercise Hshnol had shown him. It was meant to be used by peak Attuners who were on the very edge of advancing into the Percipient stage. It didn't quite translate for his situation, so Caen had adapted the exercise into something he could use. He carefully furled and unfurled his existence in such a way as not to agitate his aura. It still moved, but only barely.

  They stopped to watch a street performer pull his arms from his shoulders as though they were mere prosthetics. People clapped, and some called for him to remove his head next. His soul structure revealed no active thread clusters, which baffled Caen.

  As he and Zeris moved on, arguing about how the man had done that, Caen felt a presence hurtling towards him. He turned his head in its direction, and Zeris did too. Spatial acuity, no doubt.

  He no longer needed to close his eyes to see through his speculon. In an instant, he noticed a transparent glass bird trailing gold dust. Before it slammed into his face, Caen raised a hand and caught it.

  Zeris frowned at his hand, which, to her, would have looked empty. “Why does that feel bird-shaped to my Spatial acuity?”

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  “I think it's a Contracted bond,” Caen replied, opening his palm. The creature let out a very soft squeak, but just lay on his palm. It didn't look injured, though.

  Someone ran towards them, worry etched into her face: a young woman with red hair and various crystal ornaments in it. Caen recognized her. As before, there was a cord of connection between the woman and the glass bird.

  “By the gods!” She came to a stop when she saw the bird lying in Caen's palm. “I'm so, so sorry. This is my summon, and she's such a handful. I hope she didn't cause you any trouble. I—” She tilted her head at him and Zeris. “You’re both… able to see my summon?”

  “Spirit tendrils,” Caen said. “Ereshta'al Bloodline. And she wasn't a bother.”

  He extended his palm out, and the creature flew off it and went to land on the woman's shoulder.

  She made a strange clicking sound, and the bird chirped back at her. She let out an exasperated sigh and turned to them with an apologetic smile. “She says you broke her fall. Thank you so much.”

  “It's no trouble.”

  She waved at them and left.

  “Were those mana crystals in her hair?” Zeris asked.

  “Mhm.”

  “Crazy.”

  ***

  In Vai's Astral domain, Caen sat on a cushion, across from Hshnol and Uncle Sh’kteiro.

  He would connect to one of them, disconnect, then connect to the other. They both had their auras expanded.

  “Have the Divination exercises been giving you any trouble?” Sh’kteiro asked.

  Divination was profusely heavy on Interactance. For the most part, Caen memorized charts, made several calculations, and interpreted them. He'd yet to start casting any spells.

  “Not at all, Uncle. I'm still getting acquainted with the first portion. If I start to struggle, I'll let you know.”

  Caen connected to Sh'kteiro again, then deactivated Soul-sense and frowned slightly as he thought through his current problem. “My existence isn't exactly like my spirit, mind, or aura, even,” he said. “In some ways, all these feel like parts of me. My existence, though, feels like… the entirety of me.”

  “It might help to pay more attention to where exactly your ‘existence’ wants to go each time,” Uncle Teiro said in the calm voice he often used when leading group meditations.

  He'd told Caen some days ago that new Percipients were often advised not to move their aura directly, but to understand how it wanted to move, or be moved.

  “When constructing a mind palace,” Hshnol said, “the… Dream-guardian takes the role of a guiding hand, at best. Mind palaces have a predetermined structure. There's no reinventing or creating in the process. Only gently directing or, in the most heavy-handed cases, coaxing.”

  Caen nodded at their words and took a moment to deeply consider the entirety of his being.

  Auras generally had no preference in terms of what they chose to interact with. Caen's existence, though, was only inclined to souls.

  He tended to zero in on one specific soul. His goal, now, was to increase that number, to connect to more than one person at the same time.

  When he slowly unfurled his existence this time, he felt… something. There was a brief delay, but it only connected to Hshnol.

  “I think I'm on to something,” Caen told them. “Let me hop back into the Material Realm to check.”

  He could sense his existence so much better there.

  “Of course,” Sh'kteiro said.

  Hshnol simply nodded.

  The next instant, Caen opened his physical eyes in his room in Vai's Ser-gwu mansion.

  “Any luck?” Zeris asked, looking up from her book. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, a bowl of diced fruit on a tray in front of her.

  “Maybe,” Caen replied, cracking his neck and sitting upright on the chair he'd been slouching in.

  Vensha was sitting at the large table off to the side, her eyes glazed over as she went over a memory crystal.

  His armor was held up on a coat stand, and Stormsong leaned against the wall behind him, humming softly.

  He could feel the press of three presences in the room. Zeris, Vensha, Stormsong.

  Caen slowly unfurled his existence without any goal in mind and noticed how there was a potential for connecting to any of these souls.

  He did not consider connecting to any specific soul; instead, he guided this potential with ethereal gentleness, and again, there was a sort of delay, but it connected to Zeris alone.

  He deactivated Soul-sense, smiling. He was just on the verge of cracking this.

  As he unfurled his existence, he once again nudged that potential towards all its available options.

  A lessened version of Zeris's soul structure bloomed around her.

  Same also for Vensha and—

  “—the indignity of being placed against a wall like some wooden club—”

  Caen let out a laugh. Three separate soul structures.

  He could feel the weight of maintaining these connections, which were all weaker than if he'd connected to one person alone.

  Zeris raised an eyebrow.

  Caen nodded, smiling.

  Vensha blinked, exiting the memory she'd been viewing. “Successful?”

  He described it to them.

  “Great, great. Testing?” Zeris asked.

  “Definitely. Let me inform Uncle Teiro and Hshnol first.”