“I don’t think it’s normal.” Jori said, staring at Bernt’s arm. She was squatting o’s table, the result of one of his most ret stone shaping exercises. It was mostly round and level, which made it a great success as far as Bernt was ed, even if the supp legs weren’t all the same thiess yet. He could work on it ter, maybe.

  The imp poked a fi his arm and leaned back, as if expeg it to burst into fme. Nothing happened.

  Bernt frowned. “It’s fine, I think. It just activated my torch spell oddly.”

  “I don’t know.” Jrumbled. “It looks more like when I’m making fire. See?

  She held up her cwed hand and hellfire pooled in her palm, radiati into the room.

  As she summohe fmes, red streaks glowed dimly underh her dusky gray skin, following some kind of plex pattern, different from his own. It did bear a striking resembo his own arm, though.

  Bernt frowned. “That’s odd…”

  It wasn’t quite the same either, though. Hers was only visible while she was casting.

  “What does that mean?” Bernt asked, fused. ”Jori, are you a type of sorcerer? Do you know how yic works?”

  Jori shrugged. “It’s easy. I just let it go. It’s like moving my hand, or looking with my eyes. What’s a sorcerer?”

  Bernt khat Jori's fire was io her. It was tied to what she was– not something he could learn. But… well, if Pollock was right, then maybe there was some kind of overp here. He’d never really thought of it as sorcery, but it made sense.

  The problem was that he didn’t really know much about it. It was sidered a cruder, more primeval form of magic, used mostly by monstrous races with magi their blood – dragons, kobolds, satyrs, gelings and things like that. As such, it was barely addressed at the Mages’ Academy. Why teaething that students couldn't use?

  The only non-monstrous race Bernt knew of who were known to have sorcerers were the elves, but they were even more extreme than the guilds when it came to h secrets. Their entire culture viewed human mages with pt for reasons that Bernt didn’t really uand.

  But that didn’t mean he was out of luck. Bernt was a guild member now. He could ask the guild librarian – just because the academy didn’t teach it, didn’t mean the guild didn’t have information on sorcery. Pollock himself had at least ohat talked about it. He’d have to go and borrow it from the old man as soon as he could. Right now, he would just have to experiment and learn as much as he could on his own.

  He rummaged around in his bag, pulled out a bit of chalk, and drew a familiar rune circle on the ground. Then he cast the same spell one more time, holding his right hand directly over the circle. Once again, the spell activated prematurely, p fire out of his palm that aself into this new version of his torch spell before unraveling into a spell form over the rune circle.

  Something was different here – wrong. The spellform in front of him and the one he’d been trying to cast were very different. Most strikingly, the perpetual fme was there in its ey. The torch spell was woven into it, modifying its shape and power to shed more light, e less mana and hover in the air.

  Ber a queasy sensation i of his stomach. What did that mean for his other spells – ohat weren’t so simple or so readily patible with this new iure?

  “What if using the hellfire turned your arm into a demon arm?!” Jori specuted, going off on a pletely different line of thought. “Maybe you’re part immortal!”

  Bernt shook his head distractedly. “I don’t think that’s what happened, Jori. Let me try something.”

  He o see what happened if he tried to cast something else. Something that wasn’t as naturally patible with his iure’s spellform.

  Fog on one of the wonky table legs, Bernt reached in front of himself and sketched out a simple rune, visualizing the spellform for a spell he’d beeing a lot of practi tely: his earth shaping trip.

  Bernt’s arm warmed unfortably, but it didn’t work. He could sehat mana was being eled out of his right hand, but nothing maed. It dispersed into the air and the earth beh him, merging with the power that naturally saturated the world all around.

  Sweat broke out on his forehead.

  “Uh. Jori. It didn’t work. The spell failed.”

  Jori shrugged. “Are you casting it right?”

  “Yes!” Bernt threw up his hands in frustration, but aborted the motion halfway through. Was he?

  He turned back to Jori, thinking aloud. “No, you’re right. The spells are ing out wrong because the entire iure activates as a spell as soon as I try to el mana out through my hand. So… maybe Josie was on to something – I shouldn’t be using that hand for it. Should have been obvious, I’m too distracted by all this.”

  Ed had also mentioned something back whe his first iure a couple of months ago. That, eventually, he’d have to sider where in his work he drew his mana from – the exit point. He doubted the old archmage had anything like this situation in mind, but it was worth trying, at least.

  Bernt focused on his mana flow as he tried again. It circuted through the work normally, but this time, he stretched out his left hand, awkwardly sketg out the same tral rune for the earth shaping trip.

  The spellform took shape, clear to his sehe perpetual fme wasn’t there. In fact, the spellform was exactly as it had been the day before, as if he only had his first iure. Experimentally, Bernt cleared out the effect of the burning rain and activated it.

  He felt the spell take hold of the stone, a out a sigh of relief as he reached into the material of the table leg to remold it, thinning it down a bit and transferring the excess material down into the floor. It was difficult work – Bernt was never very good at stone shaping, but he’d beeing a lot better. That didn’t make it easy. In fact, it was straining his tration. He released the spell, sidering. He’d o test his other spells and find out which he could cast from his right hand, and what their spellforms looked like.

  It was going to be a long night.

  “Do you think I could make my other hand do magic, too?” Jori said, holding up her left hand in front of her face as she exami thoughtfully. “I wonder what it would take to grow that much.”

  Bernt suppressed the sudden arm he felt – she would be able to feel it through the bond. “It would take souls, Jori, lots of souls. Besides, you ’t afford to evolve any further – not any time soon, alright? I know the Solicitors don’t seem very threatening anymore, and Ed has been friendly, but they were very clear. They won’t let you stay if you evolve again.”

  Jori sighed grumpily. “You get to grow. It’s not fair! Even Gegrenoth is more powerful than me. I ’t save anyone like this.”

  Bernt bli her. What was she talking about? Jori was the one who would be in danger if she wasn’t careful.

  “Who do you want to save?” he asked.

  The imp didn’t answer, but he felt a gnawing sense of anger and fear radiate off of her. She curled into a ball o the hearth, shut her eyes, and preteo sleep.

  Sighing to himself, Bernt stretched out his right hand and cast a fire dart over his rune circle. The thumb-thick ball of liquid fme unraveled, and he bent to exami.

  ***

  The m, Bero work early in hopes of finding Ed before his shift on patrol started. He needed someone more experieo talk to about this. Someone practical and knowledgeable.

  Whe to Ed’s office, though, he found it empty. Frustrated, Bernt turned back to check the break room and almost ran into Dayle.

  “Whoa there, what’s got you up in such a hurry?” The older underkeeper ughed genially. When he saw Bernt’s expression, his ugh died. “What’s the matter?”

  Bernt ran a hand over his face. What did he look like? He hadn’t slept much.

  “I got my sed iure st night… It didn’t really turn out well, I don’t think. Do you have a minute?”

  Bernt caught Dayle up as they wandered back to the break room, rolling up the sleeve on his right arm to show him the glowing veins of his iure. A few people were already there, drinking various hot beverages and exging gossip before shift ge and watg the ward map that Kustov had installed there with the help of one of the military's abjurers to tracursions. Josie was sitting off to one side with Nirlig, and Jori and paused in her versation to peer curiously at Bernt’s exposed arm as they sat down. He gave her a quick wave and turned back to Dayle.

  “As far as I tell, I only cast pyromancy spells through the new iure. They also activate as I’m casting, so I ’t modify the spellform. That’s especially bad because the spells all e out wrong. The spellform for the perpetual fme is always there in its ey, it doesn’t just ie a few patible properties like it should. So, all of my fire spells are really just modified perpetual fme spells.”

  Dayle frowned, scratg at the stubble on his in thought. “That’s annoying. You'll o be careful, juring something like that. Perpetual fmes are dangerous, you know? Even those Illurian types are pretty choosy about which bits they leave in their spells. You don't go casting it at any mages, you hear? Not any you're not happy to have on your sce, that is. What about everything else?”

  Bernt wasirely sure what to make of that, but he nodded. “I cast almost normally if I el through my other hand to make the spellform. But it’s as if I didn’t have the sed iure at all. Worse, actually. As far as I tell, the spells are weaker. I ’t el mana from that part of the work fur spells anymore. It’s as if I were missing the arm entirely.”

  Dayle winced. “That's a real pickle. If the iure didn’t ie right with your mawork, then how’re you gonna fuse it into a nice, augmentation at the end?”

  Bernt frowned. “Yeah. But right now I’m worried about just casting spells properly at all. We have a job to do here, but I don’t know if I fight like this.”

  Dayle waggled his hand in a so-so gesture. “You'll get used to it. I meaual fmes do some incredible damage, if you're throwing them at the right targets. They burn ambient mana, not just yours, so they don't go out on their own – you have to cel the spell. You do pretty horrible things to enemy mages or anyone wearing ented armor, too, because it'll feed on their mana. Won't do more than a normal bit of fire tur person, though. Still, I'd practice your fire-trolling trip with your other hand if I was you first, just in case. Don’t want any surprises when it es time to put the fire out again.”

  “ you cast the spell by itself?” Josie’s voice asked from just behind him. Bernt jumped in his seat and turo find the warlock standing there, eyes glued to his now oddly veined hand.

  “Which spell?” he asked.

  “The one in your arm, obviously. Jori said it looks kind of like hers. You feel it in there, right? It stands to reason that you’d be able to cast it the same way.”

  Bernt squi her skeptically, but then held out his hand and pushed a small amount of mana out, unformed. It pooled there as liquid white psma that gave off a tiny, white fme. He could feel it pulling on the mana all around, growing slowly as it flickered there. It looked different than Pollock's version and he realized that the mana hadn't just shaped itself acc to his new iure. Oned, the spell had also incorporated elements of his burning rain iure to give it this liquid aspect.

  With a thought, he extinguished it again, g the effect. It was an iing application of his new els – casting it instantly like that – but it was a small sotion.

  “That’s goht?” Josie asked. “You do a lot with something like that, and you modify it however you want. That’s a lot better than what I do. Think of all the possibilities!”

  Bernt bli her, wrong-footed a bit by her enthusiasm. Was she trying to cheer him up?

  “Yeah. I guess there are some possibilities,” he allowed. “I’ll experiment around with it some more tonight.” He managed a small smile, though he didn’t really feel it. “Magister Polloe he’d help me develop myself further as well. He thinks I’m going to be a real wizard.”

  Dayle nodded encingly, though Bernt could see the worry in his eyes. “Sure, yeah. Old Pollock’s probably the most powerful pyromancer I’ve ever heard of, and he barely got past his first augmentation. Four iures I think, maybe five.”

  Bernt stood up, swallowing down his worries. Even someone like Pollock had stalled eventually, a couldn't imagihe old man had done anything this drasti his sed iure. “Right. Enough gloating about my iable rise to greatness, I’ve got patrol duty to get to.”