Lucas closed his eyes and tried to centre himself. It turned out that blocking out the world and focusing on his mana was a far harder task when the wind carried a chorus of spine-chilling screams, accompanied by the roar of a panic-fuelled magical fire. It seemed an unending noise, as if the world itself was crying out in agony, never stopping for breath.

  The screams were the worst sound Lucas had ever heard, and shutting them out was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. Especially when he realised the number of shrill, terrified voices drifting from the distant town was shrinking by the minute.

  Conflicting desires were at war within him. The noble part of him wanted nothing more than to sprint to their rescue. The part of him he couldn’t decide whether to name cowardly or pragmatic wanted to sprint in the precise opposite direction and never look back until he reached civilisation and could be relatively sure the monster causing those screams was far, far away from him.

  It didn’t matter either way. Valerie sat in the grass in front of him, mirroring his cross-legged position, and she’d promised to throw him over her shoulder and flee, not stopping for anything this time, if she got even a hint of danger directed at his person.

  Valerie had given him a time limit.

  “We cannot linger if your plan fails,” she had told him. “If we cannot save these people, we must use the demon’s preoccupation with tormenting them as a chance to escape.”

  Then her eyes had hardened, and she’d said to him: “If you take one step back towards the village, I will knock you unconscious and carry you the rest of the way to Dawnguard.”

  Somehow, he was sure she meant it.

  He tried to tell himself that he’d seek to help if she wasn’t there, that he’d put the safety of others over his own, but even he wasn’t convinced. The thought of facing that abomination again sent his body into a panic, and the knowledge that he—the chosen hero—was expected to face demons even more powerful than that in the future terrified him. The prospect made him want to run back to Pentaburgh and try to find a way to force the summoning portal to reopen and spit him out on Earth.

  But he couldn’t run away. Not here and not in the future. It wasn’t in him to. Not when he knew millions of lives were in the balance.

  Not when he knew his friends were out there somewhere. Jamie. Rian. Claire. Even Aarya. He had to find them all, discover what had happened to them for himself.

  There was no going back without them.

  Time was ticking away; he had to make this work.

  Deep breaths. In. Out.

  His mana roiled like a storm was raging within his soul. The demon was hundreds and hundreds of metres away—Valerie had insisted on putting more distance between them and Taunton, and now they were far enough that he could have blocked out his view of the town with his palm if he held it out at arm’s length—but its influence still lingered, even indirectly.

  As they’d gotten further from the town, it had lessened but never quite gone away entirely. Chaos plucked at his mana, and he had to maintain a constant conscious effort to keep his pathways from disfiguring.

  They’d stopped and sat down in a patch of rough grass once Lucas had explained his plan, and since then his hands had clenched tightly around his knees. Tension was detrimental to his focus, but he couldn’t seem to loosen the grip. His fingers ached from the stress he was putting on them, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he found bruises on his knees later.

  Focus, he thought, frustrated at himself. He needed to be better than this. The distractions didn’t matter. His inadequacies didn’t matter. So many people were counting on him, the big important bloody prophesied hero that he supposedly was. It was about time that he lived up to the title.

  Uncurling his fingers took force of will. His hand shook as he reached out, grasping the moonlight pendant that had been resting in the grass before him. Immediately, tranquillity settled over him. Not quite as total as it had been back in the town, when he wore it around his neck, but it numbed the edge of the frantic emotions that were trying to tear a path through his psyche.

  He closed his eyes, feeling the moonlight shine on his eyelids, a pale luminance that seemed to dim his emotions any time they threatened to rise. At the same time, it centred him, warding off the demon’s chaotic influence.

  He needed to figure out how it did that, and he needed to figure it out fast.

  “It was created by Lady Claire herself,” Valerie had told him, tears still shining in her eyes. She’d made no attempt to wipe them away, as if she didn’t even notice they were there. If she spent almost all her time under the effect of the pendant, Lucas thought, she probably wasn’t used to feeling so strongly.

  It was a pitiful existence, in his opinion, to live all her life so… muted. Not that he was ever going to say that to her. She probably thought of it as necessary, and maybe it was. He’d seen for himself the demonic visage she’d gained when her anger had threatened to peak through the deadening effect of her pendant, and didn’t want to imagine what she’d look like without the pendant to keep her reined in.

  Demon-touched, Jyn had called her. Lucas had been wondering what that meant, and he was accumulating dozens of theories about it. He hoped one day she’d tell him, rather than having to find out for himself the hard way.

  For now, though, all the information he needed from her was how the pendant worked.

  “It’s the effect of moonlight mana,” she told him, in the present. “Lady Claire told me it’s the rarest mana of all, because it can only be gathered during a full moon, and the vast majority of it dissipates before even reaching Aerth. Gathering it in a high enough quantity to create the artifact was the work of decades. It’s singularly unique.”

  He turned the milky white gem over and over in his fingers, feeling the smoothness of it, trying to tap into the feeling of the mana. It didn’t work like the vitality of plants or fire. It was more insubstantial, like mist. Hard to attune himself to—though he was fairly sure he was getting there. Each time he tried to probe his mana into it, it felt easier.

  But figuring out how to work with the moonlight mana was only half the battle. Maybe less. “And what about moonlight mana fights off the influence of a demon? Why does it calm us so?”

  Valerie took a moment to answer that. “Tranquillity,” she said, voice almost reverent. “Surely you’ve looked up at the man and beheld its placid beauty, Lucas? It’s the most constant thing in our world, besides the sun itself. Unchanging. Ordered. It stands, symbolically, in diametric opposition to chaos.”

  “I did. I have.” Lucas frowned. “But surely the sun is even more unchanging…”

  “Not necessarily,” Valerie said. “To us, yes, it’s constant, for certain. For all our existence, it’s been the bright spot in the sky, bringing us warmth and light… but it also heralds change. Lady Claire said the sun is an immense and chaotic ball of fire, constantly shifting, and its light alters our world. The seasons. Night and day. Warmth and cold. All are affected by the sun.”

  “And that brings chaos?”

  “No. In some complex magical workings, the sun is indeed used as a conceptual anchor. But for my purposes, the moon was superior. A light in the darkness.” She paused. “The moon is, in reality, an enormous sphere of rock that happened to get caught in our planet’s orbit countless centuries ago. But magic isn’t always so concerned with the reality of things, when you reach the level of wielding concepts and metaphors.”

  “And that doesn’t apply to the sun?”

  “It does, but in different ways.” Another pause. This one was long enough that the distant screams started to creep back into his perception. When she continued, her voice gained a strained edged to it. “Time runs short, Lucas. You must focus.”

  Lucas nodded. He knew what he had to do, and he was actually fairly confident it was going to work.

  He hoped that wasn’t just blind hope.

  Because actually doing it was another matter entirely.

  Especially when there was an eldritch abomination currently rampaging in the nexus of his very soul. It was mightily distracting, and no matter how much he tried, there was no blocking out the emotions the creature was sending to him. Even the pendant couldn’t handle them for him anymore, such was the beast’s distress.

  Jamie the monstercat no longer even vaguely resembled a cat. Through their bond, Lucas had always been aware that the ‘cat’ was an eldritch amalgamation of countless creatures, a feline outline containing a multitude of different skeletons and musculature mushed together.

  Now, the creature had done away with the facade entirely. Thrashing around as an undulating mass, it more closely resembled a beast. It snapped with hundreds of jaws, swiped with hundreds of claws. It never kept a single, simple form for more than an instant.

  Its rage and bloodlust flooded through the bond, and every iota of its attention was directed at the demon looming over Taunton, even with all the distance they’d put between them. Nothing Lucas tried got its attention. It was like the creature’s mind had been utterly overridden by the singular desire to fight the demon. Lucas wasn’t sure Jamie even acknowledged his existence now.

  And time was ticking. Every second that went by was potentially another death, or worse.

  Lucas breathed deeply and seized his mind in an iron grip, all his will dedicated to observing his mana pathways. Zooming in closer, he narrowed his attention on the area that mapped onto where his real heart was in his physical body. It was little different from the rest of his pathways, save for the fact there was a monstrous creature thrashing around in there, trapped for no reason that Lucas could immediately discern.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Casting his mind back, he tried to remember the times when Jamie had voluntarily escaped his chest, recalling the feelings and sensations. It had been painful, though the pain hadn’t lasted long; Jamie’s mass was too big to be contained in the form of a cat, and similarly the monster’s soul was far too large to live inside Lucas’. When Jamie had broken out, it had been like both their souls abruptly remembered that fact, and suddenly the monster had been too big to stay contained in Lucas’ soulheart. Yet, somehow, it had done no actual damage. Jamie had just… opened a gap and burst free. Simple as anything.

  But how?

  Lucas focused on the bond itself, feeling out the connection. In a way, it was hard to distinguish between himself and Jamie; he felt the monstercat’s soul almost as easily as he felt his own. There was practically no gap between them. They were, from a certain point of view, functionally one being, though they operated independently from one another and, as far as he could tell, couldn’t directly act on each other’s souls; there had to be reciprocity, permission.

  Regardless, it was hard to tell where he ended and Jamie began. Their souls were intertwined, woven together like a patch sewn onto a doll so perfectly that one had to hold it close and squint to see the stitches. He had no idea where he’d even begin trying to decouple them, and after everything he didn’t want to. If nothing else, he very much didn’t want to lose access to his heart’s flame.

  That could be an angle, Lucas thought, terribly aware of the seconds ticking by. Jamie was both the engine and the conduit for Lucas’ pyromancy. When Lucas was channelling fire mana, their connection went beyond a mere bond. Beyond them being one. The lines between them blurred, going past any ‘sewing’ metaphor; in those instances, it was more like a temporary heart transplant where the surgical scars were somehow perfectly healed.

  In his capacity as Lucas’ heart’s flame, Jamie became a being of fire, a fundamentally different existence from his strange base state. It was in those moments where they felt closest; the fire mana that coursed through Lucas’ system when he performed pyromancy was a part of Jamie, spreading the monstercat’s influence through his body, bringing them together, merging their existence.

  It was a frustrating state of affairs, having to rely on a thinking, independent being to perform pyromancy, but at the same time it was strangely comforting, looking back on it. The mental lag between thought and action was far from ideal, but Jamie had never denied him. Quite the opposite, in fact: Jamie had been maintaining Lucas’ firehand for weeks, allowing him to direct his attention elsewhere. He had no idea what he would’ve done if he had to keep up the firehand himself. Maybe he would’ve failed and ended up with a charred and blackened stump to deal with.

  The firehand, he thought almost absently, flexing his mercifully fleshy fingers.

  Restoring his hand had been a function of his mana’s memory. Even if he couldn’t possibly recite every detail of his mana off the top of his head, it was recorded in the annals of his soul. There, surely, would be the answer to his conundrum; somewhere in the archives of information within his mana would be the moments when Jamie had escaped from his chest. He just had to find it. His confidence surged.

  But here, Lucas stopped himself before he could go any further. A huge part of him, the instinctual, emotional, reckless side of him could think only of those people still trapped in Taunton. He was desperate to do something—anything—to help them.

  But he’d been thinking along similar lines back in Elwyn’s farm, and look at where that had got him. Much as it pained him, he had to stop and think, to consider the possibilities, the potential ramifications. Based on what he knew, what could go wrong if he released Jamie now?

  First and foremost, he had no direct control over the monstercat’s actions, and no certainty of what Jamie would do upon release. Their connection was a symbiotic one. There was no dominant half of their bond, and communication between them was rudimentary at best, vague feelings travelling forth along their spiritual link—well, not so vague right now. Nothing about Jamie’s current murderous rage was unclear.

  If Jamie went off the rails and started hurting people rather than the demon or rampaging through the countryside like a mad beast, Lucas had no guarantee he could stop the creature. Hell, Jamie could even turn on him, for all he knew. He’d already been unable to calm Jamie down while he was inside Lucas’ chest; Lucas didn’t fancy his chances of reigning Jamie in once he was out.

  But he had to if he was going to do anything to help. He needed to be able to concentrate on his soul without a monster thrashing around within. His plan depended on it.

  A sickening thought occurred to him: he didn’t have to help, necessarily. It was possible the townsfolk could make it out of this on their own, and his interference would only make things worse.

  He banished that notion before it could go any further. Those screams carrying on the wind didn’t sound like people who were mounting much of a resistance.

  Lucas drew in a shaky breath, feeling like his lungs were being constricted. He was in the open air, only the sky above and grassy fields stretching long in every direction, but he felt like there were invisible walls closing in around him. A cold wind brushed over his skin, making him shiver.

  There were other possibilities to consider. The demon could corrupt Jamie, thus corrupting Lucas through their bond. Or it could make Jamie change sides somehow. Or the demon could even straight up defeat Jamie; the eldritch cat seemed pretty chaotic, putting it squarely in the demon’s domain.

  The trouble was, he knew far too little about his bonded companion. The question of the monstercat’s nature and origin had been at the back of Lucas’ mind ever since he’d bonded with the bloody thing, but with no obvious direction to search for answers, it hadn’t been a priority. He regretted that now.

  Thinking back, he examined the interactions he’d had with the creature so far, and the behaviours it had exhibited. It had been there on his stomach from the moment he woke up, but what had it been doing there? Few if any animals had dared exist so far north, and especially not inside the city itself, so he didn’t think it was hunting. It had taken a liking to him immediately and showed no hostility to other humans until their final confrontation with Jyn, and it hadn’t been interested in the city itself, from what he could tell, so he didn’t think it was some kind of guardian left behind to protect Pentaburgh.

  It had immediately initiated a bond with him the moment he’d touched it with his mana, as if it knew exactly what to do and had been waiting for it. There was a feeling of intentionality to that, of purpose. Taking into account how it had also helped him sort out his mana upon the confrontation with that pack of beasts on the hilltop…

  Was that it? Was it some magical creature meant to bond with someone to help them fight against demons, somehow?

  It seemed implausible, but it was an explanation within the realms of possibility, at least. And even if his decision-making was suspect, he was still willing to assign some level of significance to his gut instincts and guesses.

  Whatever the case, he knew the reality of the situation: he wanted to let Jamie out, and was just trying to convince himself it was the right decision. It was a risk. A massive risk.

  But one he had to take. Using his mana in this situation wasn’t viable, and his plan hinged on using his Gift to bridge the gap between the novice mage that he was and the master he needed to be for this to work.

  And then a thought occurred to him. Could he solve both problems at once?

  Opening his eyes, he looked at the spot on Valerie’s chest from which she’d drawn her mighty white sword. “Remind me: how do you bond with a magical object?” he asked, his words coming out in a rapid tumble.

  Valerie blinked slowly. “It’s a matter of attuning yourself to it, feeding mana to it over time until it becomes indistinguishable from your soul. We’ve been over this.”

  “And that lets you put store in your soulheart?”

  “Yes,” Valerie said even slower, eyeing him with suspicion.

  “But there’s something already in my soulheart. What then?”

  “You’re a Star,” Valerie replied. “There’s room in a Star’s heart for all four of the other disciplines, and the Great Star, I imagine, will surely grant you even greater capacity.” Her eyes flickered to the moonlight pendant, watching it rotate slowly through Lucas’ fingers. “You’re going to try to bond with the pendant?”

  “After a fashion,” Lucas said. He paused. “Do I have your blessing?”

  “Do what you must,” Valerie said.

  Lucas nodded.

  Something settled in him, hardening. Resolve. He had a way forward, and he was going to snatch it with both hands.

  Lucas delved deeper into his mana than he ever had before and searched back through his memories at the same time, focusing on the sensations of the bond, cataloguing every instance of interaction between his soul and Jamie’s. The task was a monumental one, and he wouldn’t have been able to even try it without his gift, but in moments the information was there at his mental fingertips, ready to be perused.

  Except he didn’t need to reach into any individual memory, he needed to tap into the whole. Everything he knew about the bond flooded from his memory into his conscious mind, and he held it all there, relying on that feeling as a guide.

  Concentrating with all his might, he started to draw little tendrils of mana out of his pathways. They curled through the air like ribbons in his mind’s eye, tiny little wisps seeking out the soothing light of the moon. He directed them to the surface of the pendant, and where they touched, the mana gained a luminescent sheen.

  For the first time since he’d felt the demon’s chaotic influence, Jamie went still, freezing in the form of an undulating beast with a million eyes on each of its thousands of tentacles. Its attention split, part remaining fixed on the demon, and more zeroing in on the pendant.

  You recognise that, don’t you? Lucas thought. You’ve seen it before, but not here. And not so weak. It’s tranquillity. The power of a celestial object that behaves in predictable patterns, day after day, month after month, year after year, and it can help us—you—face the monster that you hate with more vitriol than I ever imagined was possible.

  It will let you do what I’m pretty sure you were made for.

  The pendant turned weightless, carried by magic, and Lucas released his grip on it, letting it rise from his fingers and float towards his heart as if drawn by a hungry maw. Harsh white light shone on his eyelids, and he opened his eyes to see the pendant glowing greater than it ever had before, like the power within was expanding out of the puny gem that contained it. At the same time, the illusory moon high in the sky seemed to be growing, getting closer.

  He could feel Jamie’s mana digging deeper and deeper into the pendant with every moment. The monstercat was laser-focused on the lunar mana, its attention falling away from the demon entirely. Lucas could feel it as if it was own—because, in a way, it was. The lunar mana started to mix and mingle with the fire, spreading throughout his body at a flex of Jamie’s will. There was an endless depth to the creature’s power, and it was willing to share every drop of that strength with him for the sake of defeating its hated enemy.

  Hours or days could have passed, though it couldn’t really have been more than seconds. Cracks spider-webbed across the gem. A shriek tore through the air. Could air blew over his skin, freezing his sweat into tiny icicles.

  And yet, he felt warm.

  Warm, yet tranquil as the full moon.

  The moonlight pendant shattered with a deep hiss as the last of the lunar mana speared right into his heart, consumed both by his bonded companion and the natural gift imparted on his soul by the ritual of the Great Star. He felt it course through him, somehow remaining placid despite how it surged through his pathways. The moonlight fought against the chaotic influence of the demon, and, with Jamie’s help, it was winning. It wasn’t immunity to the chaos. It wasn’t a perfect defence. But it was greater than what he’d had before, and with it, along with Jamie’s newly calm state, he could act. With purpose.

  Lucas took a deep breath, calmer than he’d felt in hours. Days, even. He was ready. They were ready, united more than they ever had been, their purpose utterly aligned.

  Back to the plan.

  All he had to do now was combine his newly learned magic with his floramancy abilities to create a novel plant network technique that could fight the demon off from hundreds of metres away semi-autonomously. Preferably within the next few minutes, before the demon could finish tearing every living creature within Taunton apart.

  And that was only part one.