Caen's entire existence coalesced into a whole. Restored.

  Terror. Dread.

  I just died. I just died.

  AND NOW YOU ARE WHOLE.

  OF WHAT USE IS POWER IF I CANNOT SAFELY EXAMINE THE THINGS THAT INTRIGUE ME? IT IS WISE FOR YOU TO FEAR, BUT KNOW THAT I SHALL DO YOU NO HARM.

  At these words, the terror abated. Caen was floating before a great presence that dwarfed even his wildest imaginations of how powerful Parthra might have been.

  Its soul structure was exceedingly complex and profound and utterly boundless. Caen did his best to commit it all to memory, but it was like trying to scoop up the sea with a cup. His sense of scale was completely addled. Were all archmages this powerful? He knew instinctively that he should have felt fear and awe and a hundred other emotions, but something was keeping all that at bay.

  Also, that strong and immutable assurance of safety encompassed him. He could sense a consonance between this and the prominent Binding magic affinity in his soul.

  “This humble supplicant greets you, Great One. The—”

  DO NOT BE SO FORMAL, LITTLE SUPPLICANT. YOU HAVE, AFTER ALL, SPENT WEEKS BLATANTLY INTERACTING WITH MY EXISTENCE.

  Caen's mind reached instinctively for panic, then embarrassment, but he could grasp neither. He felt only a persistent… tranquility.

  SO FEW HAVE AMUSED ME TO SUCH A DEGREE IN CYCLES PAST.

  Would this influence how well he was rewarded? Perhaps he'd performed much better than he'd assumed.

  A wave of alien and external amusement crashed over Caen, and he could feel echoes of it through the connection between him and Parthra.

  YOU ARE THE 609,385th.

  Caen blinked. Ah.

  DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE YOUR PERFORMANCE, HOWEVER. YOU HAVE EARNED YOURSELF A FRAGMENT OF ACCEPTABLE QUALITY. MOST DO NOT ENJOY SUCH A PRIVILEGE. AND EVEN FEWER HAVE RECEIVED MY DIRECT ATTENTION.

  Caen's mind grasped for something he could ask. A question. A request. But he was also tempered by caution. Could he even ask something of a being this vast? Did he dare?

  “Parthra, if I may speak so freely.” He felt none of the trepidation that a distant part of his mind insisted he should be feeling. “Are there fragments beyond ‘acceptable quality’? And how can I earn the best one?”

  THOSE OF YOUR KIND NEVER FAIL TO ENTERTAIN.

  My kind? Humans? Mortals?

  YOU ARE TENACIOUS, LITTLE SUPPLICANT, BUT THE BEST POSSIBLE FRAGMENTS I OWN ARE ALREADY SPOKEN FOR. EVEN SO, I GRANT YOU SOMETHING KINDRED TO YOURSELF. FRAIL AND SMALL, BUT WITH THE CAPACITY…

  TO GROW.

  Almost as though he'd imagined it all, Caen was suddenly returned to his previous location by the pond, and time resumed its flow. His mind reeled from his interaction with the ancient tree, even as the word ‘grow’ echoed all around him. No one else seemed to hear it. The black-skinned dryad was still speaking.

  The middle of the pond rippled as its surface was broken by seven fragments. Each one was shaped like a branch, black in color, and as smooth as a pebble in appearance. They all came to hover over the pool.

  Then an eighth branch joined them. This one was jagged, crooked, and much smaller in size, with swirly grain patterns that shone softly with the bioluminescent lights of Parthra.

  Caen had spent these past months paying such close attention to soul structures and their connections that he could feel a pull towards this jagged fragment. An inevitability.

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  A cord of connection sprang into place between himself and the fragment, even though he had not yet extended his existence towards it. When he did do this, Caen felt a stronger connection to that gnarly-looking branch than he'd felt with anything else before now.

  He'd missed everything the dryad had said as he stared intently at his own fragment hovering at the center of the pond.

  The smooth fragments split off midair and hurtled towards the other climbers. Caen's own moved last.

  It shot quickly through the air and reached him in a heartbeat, coming to land across his open palms. It was very light in weight but rough to the touch and was about a sixth the size of the smooth fragments, which were nearly six feet tall.

  Caen's eyes prickled with tears. He clutched the fragment gently but firmly and whispered, “Thank you, Parthra. Thank you.”

  All around Caen, the other supplicants started acting strangely. One of the trio of women who looked alike dropped on her knees, hugging her fragment and wailing. A man fell to the ground, a dazed look on his face. A green-skinned dryad climber was convulsing on the ground. Caen looked about, confused.

  He was the only one standing. He turned to the black skinned dryad. “What's going on?”

  “Parthra expresses its approval and affirmation to all successful supplicants. Each person's reaction is different.” The dryad smiled. “I see that you have already communed with the ancient one. Rest here. Recover with your fellow supplicants. We will speak tomorrow after the effects have cleared.”

  Caen nodded, thanking the dryad. The procession left through the waterfall in the same manner as they'd arrived.

  Caen moved away from the pond and walked towards the patch of moss where he'd left his bag. He sat and contemplated everything that had happened in his interaction with Parthra. Revisitation worked best when one had a good recollection of the memory they sought to revisit. So he went over what parts of it he still remembered and carefully committed it all to memory.

  He'd died. That hadn't been an illusion, had it? He'd actually died. But more importantly, he'd experienced his own existence unraveling. Caen could not wait to revisit that experience. It was sure to give him insights about his soul.

  Half an hour later, he was done utilizing his memory techniques. Caen looked down at his fragment, which he'd been cradling in his hand all this time. There was a cord of connection between him and the fragment, even though he wasn't currently connected to it.

  Caen extended his existence towards the fragment. Its soul structure bloomed around it. He'd never felt so strongly connected to anyone or anything. Its soul structure felt comfortingly familiar, and all its elements were not as alien as he'd feared they'd be. There was a prominent Flora magic affinity cluster in its soul, as well as a faint Vibration magic affinity cluster. There was something else.

  A secondary cord of connection ran from the fragment to Parthra. The primary connection––the one between himself and the fragment––gave him the impression of ‘curious observation’. While the secondary connection––the one between the fragment and Parthra––was a lot harder to glean anything from. It gave the vague notion of ‘apportioning’. He would examine these later.

  Caen Mimicked his fragment’s Flora affinity and could immediately tell that this was quite a bit stronger than that of the vine he'd used here in Parthra, but much weaker than the awakened trees’ in the Odaton Plane. It came as no surprise that the fragment lacked passive augmentations. What did surprise him, though, was that the fragment's affinity wasn't much stronger than his.

  Using his own Flora affinity and then a Mimicked affinity from the fragment, he tried casting Flora spells on the fragment, but not a single one of them had an effect. He checked to verify that he could still affect his vine and other plant matter just fine. It seemed that Saffronan spells couldn't be used to control fragments at all.

  Caen spent the rest of the day observing his fragment’s soul structure. As he did this, he thought about something Parthra had said.

  “OF WHAT USE IS POWER IF I CANNOT SAFELY EXAMINE THE THINGS THAT INTRIGUE ME?”

  Caen found these words so deeply impactful. Almost as though they'd been spoken specifically for his benefit. For Parthra, power involved keeping the subjects of its interest safe. But for Caen, power meant keeping himself safe so that he could continue doing the things he enjoyed.

  The contrast here did not seem to him like a contradiction at all. Safety was something Caen wanted. But right now, he was too weak to enforce safety for himself and for anyone else.

  Caen needed power. He needed to get stronger.

  He worked till his pocket watch told him it was night on Saffron; the sun was still up here in the Parthran Plane.

  The other climbers kept to themselves, recovering from their… Caen wasn't sure what to call it. Encounters with Parthra? The three women Caen assumed were sisters had huddled in a group hug, crying and consoling one another for hours. It was surprisingly heartwarming, if a little concerning.

  Caen went to sleep on his bed of moss, and the next day, a dryad came to retrieve the supplicants. As they were leaving, a woman climbed out of a hole that had formed in the ground.

  “Yes! I made it!”

  Caen winced. She was going to have to wait till the end of this new cycle. Nine days.

  She yelped as the Parthran dryad shifted from treeform, startling her.

  Caen turned away and headed for the opening in the waterfall. He was eager to learn how to use his fragment.