The cold night air bit at Tetsu’s exposed skin, but he barely registered it, his focus entirely on stoking the burning sensation in his lungs. He forced himself to take a few deep, measured breaths, attempting vainly to control the ragged gasps for air that threatened to escape. It wasn't that the white-haired girl sitting beside him, hugging her knees quaintly on the steps of his back porch, made him nervous – that was Roan’s kind of foolishness – but he found himself oddly unwilling to appear as winded as he truly was, in her presence. Her bright blue eyes, wide and brimming with a quiet curiosity, fixed on him, and an unfamiliar awkwardness settled in his gut. White-haired beauty… the arbitrary nickname Roan had given her played back in his mind. ‘What are you thinking about? Idiot,’ he was quick to shake the thought. It seemed as though the constant stream of nonsense spewing from Roan’s mouth had finally begun to poison his mind.

  “So… the Chief says you’re not ready for it yet?” Chase’s soft voice broke apart the gentle hiss of the midnight wind, snapping him back to reality. The memory of his earlier confession coming back to focus in his mind.

  “Yes.” He spoke curtly -the word ringing almost apathetically in the cold winter air. Yet as it left him, his hand tightened hard around the worn wood of his training stick, which lay limp at his side. “Next winter. Another year.” A restless, familiar impatience bubbled up inside him. ‘What are you doing? Stop wasting time.’ The feeling urged him to leap up, and swing the heavy practice sword until his thoughts were as numb as his arms.

  “That’s good.” Chase’s response was like a sudden dousing of icy water, extinguishing the feeling in a moment. He turned, his brow furrowing, as he found a strange, almost melancholic smile playing on her lips. “We’ve barely just met. If you left so soon, I might take it the wrong way, y’know?” Her tone was light, teasing, yet an undercurrent of something honest, something vulnerable, made the blood rush to his head.

  “Mnn…” He grunted, unable to form a coherent reply, and quickly looked away, his gaze falling to the patch of snow at his feet.

  As his eyes drifted, a small, blackened shard of wood, caught by a gust, fluttered across the white expanse before settling near a circle of smooth stones. The stones, stained with soot, encircled a small mound of charred wood – the remnants of a long-abandoned campfire. A few jagged splinters of unburnt brown timber were the only testament to its former life. It was small, uncouth even, but it was an arbiter of so many memories. This back porch, this small, fenced patch of ground that overlooked the sheer drop to the forest and the distant, moon-silvered peaks, had been his sanctuary. Here, he and Gin had sparred for countless hours. Here, their father’s voice, a low rumble against the crackle of it’s flames, had woven tales of faraway lands. Now, the pit was little more than a ghost. The memento of an unreachable past. Tetsu found himself nudging a loose stone back into the circle with the toe of his boot, a silent, almost unconscious acknowledgment of all that was gone.

  “What’s that?” Chase’s voice, still soft, pulled him from his reverie. He turned to see her gaze had followed his, settling on the dead campfire.

  “That…” Tetsu began, the word feeling heavy, insufficient. What kind of answer should he give? What would be enough? The worries swam laps in his mind. But eventually, he’d found where to start. “My father…” he spoke, his voice quieter now, eyes lingering on the cold ashes. “He wasn’t born in the Detas.” He saw a flicker of confusion in Chase’s eyes at the unexpected detour, but she remained silent as he spoke. “He was a traveling merchant. Came here to trade for oil. Met my mother that way.” He paused, the simple facts feeling inadequate. “Before that, he a mercenary. Traveled everywhere. The Southern Assyrs. Across the sea to the western plains. Always fighting.” A rare, dry chuckle escaped him. “He used to always tell me, ‘You won’t find a grain of dirt on your shoe, Tetsu, that your father didn’t fight a war for you to have.’” A ghost of a smile touched Tetsu’s lips as he repeated the words, his gaze lifting to the distant, snow-capped mountains beyond the cliff’s end.

  “When me and Gin were younger, father used to bring us out here. By the fire.” His eyes returned from the peaks, a spark of that old wonder, long dormant, rekindling within them. “He told us of the world beyond the Detas. The White Hull, the capital… but so much more.” Tetsu found the words coming steadily now, the memories vivid in his mind. “The Obsidian Gate – a city wall made of pure black-ire stone, each brick hand-forged, stretching the coast of an entire continent. Ancient, immortal mages who overturned countries with power from before The Great Fading. A vast dungeon, his father swore, lay hidden beneath the ruins of Geldria’s fallen capital.”

  Gin had loved that last tale the most. Tetsu remembered his brother’s bold declarations, how Gin would proclaim he’d be the first to brave Geldria’s shadows and emerge from it’s depths with enough relics to trade for a small castle. Tetsu recalled how he himself, small and deathly terrified of the dark, tearfully agreed to accompany his brother regardless.

  The corner of Tetsu’s mouth twitched, almost a smile, before the memory soured. Gin had gone off on an adventure, ascended the mountain. And yet here Tetsu was, far removed from the struggles he was surely facing there. His promise to join him unkept. The familiar restlessness surged, his hand instinctively tightening on his training sword as the wood groaned faintly in his grip. The urge to train, to fight, to do something, was a physical ache.

  “But father… he’s gone now.” His voice turned flat, edged with a familiar coldness. “And Gin… he’s fighting alone now, up the mountain.” He went to stand, grabbing his heavy practice pole. “Sorry. I need to train-”

  “Gin… is that your brother?” Chase’s question, direct and unwavering, cut through his rising agitation with a casual ease. He looked at her, at the bright blue eyes that never so much as flinched under his own. He’d always found her… different. Most of the villagers were wary of his size, his blunt speech. They always kept their distance at the slightest hint that he’d preferred it that way. But Chase wasn’t so quick to scare. She had a quiet relentlessness about her, and he suspected she wouldn’t be easily put off. It was this, more than anything, that made him answer.

  “Yes.” After a few beats of silence, he answered.

  “You must like him a lot. If you’re training this much just to see him again.” Chase mused, her voice soft, directed more to the moonlit snow than to him. A quiet sadness clung to her words. “A brother… That must be nice. To have someone like that. Someone you can look up to.” Her white eyelashes fluttered under a passing breeze as she pulled her knees closer against her chest. Tetsu felt an unexpected, subtle pang in his own chest at the sight.

  “Unless…” Chase’s head tilted, a spark of her usual curiosity returning, “you aren’t taller than him, are you? Then it’d be him looking up to you, I guess.” She paused, then a doubtful glint entered her eyes. “Not that I can even imagine someone being taller than you—there’s no way… right? Wait, is he?” She suddenly inched closer, her bright blue eyes now boring into his with a fiery intensity. The abrupt shift was enough to make Tetsu momentarily question if he’d imagined her earlier melancholy. The pressure of her unwavering gaze was far more immediate.

  “Ahem… that…” He began, turning his head slightly to avoid the full force of her stare. “Gin. It’s been a few years since I last saw him.” Tetsu’s voice was low, thoughtful. “I guess I’ve grown a bit since then.” He glanced down at his own broad frame as he spoke. Anyone who'd seen the boy would know that this was a definite understatement. “Gin was always the tallest in the village. For as long as we’d started training anyway.” A wry, almost imperceptible smile tugged at his lips before he spoke next. “But I guess there’s a chance… I might be a little bit taller than him now. Just a little bit, though.” He quickly added, lest she think he was boasting, “But Gin, he was always stronger. Faster, too. And he was always better at using his Elja.” As he spoke the last words, he instinctively raised his palm, and for a fleeting instant, a glint of something bright, like light catching an invisible blade, flashed between his fingers before vanishing.

  Chase’s eyes widened, the earlier passion reigniting. “WOAH! What was that? Was that the Shiiing thing you did at the shed too?” she exclaimed, leaning forward again as her hands formed a childish cutting gesture in front of him. “Can you show me again!? What is that?”

  Tetsu hesitated. He wasn’t used to such open admiration, especially for something he considered rudimentary. He thought for a moment she might be making fun of him, but the honest reverence in her eyes convinced him otherwise. “It’s an attribute. Gin and I… we were both born with it. From our father...” He picked up one of the smooth, fire-blackened stones from the edge of the dead campfire. With a sharp, focused exhalation, he brought his hand down. The stone split with a clean crack, the two halves falling silently onto the snow. Chase gasped, her eyes shining.

  “Amazing!” she exclaimed as she leaned in to get a closer look at the split stone in his palm.

  Tetsu felt a flush creep up his neck. “It’s nothing great,” he said, his voice flat, trying to deflect the praise. “Gin was much better. He could split a stone like this from two feet away. He'd barely even have to swipe his hand.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “What about your dad, then? Let me guess, he could split a whole boulder or something?” Chase pressed, her curiosity insatiable.

  "No.” Tetsu shook his head. “Father didn’t have an attribute himself.”

  Chase frowned. “But you said you got it from him didn't you?”

  “It’s… complicated.” Tetsu admitted, a little uncomfortable with explaining what he himself didn't yet fully grasp. “Father said it was a gift. From an Uldin commander he fought under, many years ago.”

  “An Uldin?” Chase echoed the unfamiliar word.

  Tetsu paused, searching for the words to explain the term. But in the end, he himself didn't understand more than the bare minimum. “A really strong mage,” he said finally. He noticed her slight surprise at his simple explanation. “They have… different eyes. Colored. They glow.” He unconsciously touched his own eyelid. “Father’s eyes were brown. Mine are just… gray.” He looked down. “Gin’s were clearer. Silver. He probably inherited a purer version of it.”

  “So… you’re jealous of him, then?” Chase asked, a teasing note in her voice.

  Tetsu’s head snapped up, his expression turning stoic, almost cold. “No.”

  But Chase’s smile softened, and she tilted her head, as if she could see right through his denial. “Still, that's amazing.” She insisted.

  He looked at her, at the genuine warmth in her gaze, and felt that strange confusion again. “Why?” he asked, the word blunt. “What you did… for Usra’s baby. That golden light. That was… more.”

  At his words, the light in Chase’s eyes suddenly dimmed. She pulled back slightly, her expression clouding over with a sudden, deep melancholy. Her gaze dropped to the ground, and she began to trace an invisible circle in the snow. “Do you… do you think it’s weird too, Tetsu?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper. “That I can do something like that? Am I… weird?”

  Seeing her so suddenly forlorn, a powerful sympathy emerged in him. Strong enough to break through his usual reserve. “Weird!? It's not weird at all!” he proclaimed, his voice louder, more forceful than he intended. Chase’s head snapped up, her eyes wide with surprise at his outburst. “Rather than that, I think it was amazing!” He insisted before registering her shocked expression in front of him. Realizing his sudden outburst, his face flushed red with embarrassment as he began to pull back, clearing his throat whilst trying to regain his composure. “ Ahem - I just meant… Usra’s baby… even Llana couldn’t do anything. But you… you saved him.”

  He awkwardly scratched the back of his neck, avoiding her gaze. But then he heard a soft, stifled giggle. His eyes flickering back up to see Chase, her fingers pressed lightly to her lips as a gentle smile crept up her cheeks.

  “I see…” she said, her voice still carrying the faint tremor of amusement. “Thanks.” She looked back up at him, her smile wide.

  His eyes wandered again as he tried to avoid her honest gaze, the blood once more beginning to rush to his head. “Ah, that’s no good,” he heard Chase’s voice suddenly ring out. “I should thank you with more than just words.”

  “Huh?” Tetsu’s mind went blank at her words, his head snapping back towards her. She was standing now, looking down at him with those same bright blue eyes.

  “Do you mind if I try something, Tetsu?” she asked, her voice soft, almost hypnotic. He maneuvered his eyes every which way in an attempt to avoid hers.

  “What… What are you talking about?” he managed, his voice barely a whisper.

  “I think it could make you stronger,” she said simply.

  Stronger. The word cut through his embarrassment almost immediately. It was a lodestone, the singular point of focus in his rigid life. He looked up, truly meeting her eyes now.

  Tetsu sat criss-cross on the frigid soil below, Chase walking slow laps around him as she appeared to inspect every side of his frame. “What is it exactly that you want to ‘try’?” he asked, his voice still a little rough. “Can you really make me stronger?” He couldn’t help the skepticism that laced his tone, but as he thought back to the golden light she’d produced in Llana’s shed, he wondered if it were truly possible. Could she really make him stronger?

  Chase tilted her head. “I’m not… quite sure myself,” she admitted, and Tetsu’s nascent hope dimmed almost immediately.

  “What does that mean?” he asked, his blunt tone returning.

  “It means,” she said, a simple expression painting her face like a lost child, “that I have a strong… feeling that this will work. But I'm not sure exactly what it is." Tetsu's confusion only grew at her words. "It was the same in the shed." She added in a quiet voice, as if talking to herself. Tetsu didn’t understand what she was talking about.

  “Anyways,” Chase continued, her voice regaining a more stern quality, “just stay still, alright?”

  Before he could agree, she moved. Her hands, small and pale in the moonlight, slid under the rough fabric of his training tunic before coming to rest on his bare back. He nearly jumped at the unexpected contact, a jolt going through him. “What are you–”

  “I told you sit still.” she chided, her voice close enough for Tetsu to feel her breath tickle his ear. He found himself thinking about how surprisingly soft her palms felt against his skin before he suddenly caught himself, shaking away the thought as he focused on remaining still. He felt her palms suddenly begin to move with purpose, appearing as if they'd found their destination with one settling on his lower back while the other moved higher up into the space between his shoulder blades. He felt a flush creep up his neck again, an unfamiliar warmth spreading through him that had nothing to do with the cold. He reminded himself to focus, remembering suddenly something Llana had told him long ago. He recalled how she'd told him about the reserves of mana in a human body laid along the inner spine. The two central points through which they flowed out into the body lying coincidentally close to the two points in which Chase now rested her palms. The thought was fleeting, however, quickly overshadowed by the strangeness of the situation.

  “Are you ready?” Chase asked, her voice a breath against his ear.

  “Ready for what?”

  “I’m... not sure,” she whispered back, and a renewed sense of lunacy washed over Tetsu as he wondered what the hell he was doing. He wanted to tell her to just get it over with so he could get back to his training. But that's when he felt it.

  A dull throbbing which began at the base of his spine, where her lower hand rested. It wasn’t quite pain, but a deeply unsettling sensation, a trembling ache as if his spine were being pulled in all directions at once, like it was expanding -yet somehow without moving. Then, a low, equally trembling heat began to suddenly flare, the sensation mirrored on the other side of his back under her other palm.

  Tetsu tensed, instinctively trying to pull away, but his limbs felt locked, his own hands frozen where they rested on his knees. Panic began to rise, hot and sharp, as the burning intensified, spreading outwards from the two points of contact. They felt as if two plates of searing iron pushing against his back from the inside out. The heat pulsed in short, agonizing bursts, as an electrifying energy began racing to his extremities. Then, with a terrifying swiftness, the same energy suddenly shot up his spine snaking up through the back of his head. The searing pain painted his crown as what felt like remnants of it’s heat began to exit through his nostrils. His teeth clenched, a wordless groan tearing from his throat as the space behind his eyes erupted in an unbearable, flaring heat. For a moment, the agony overpowered any semblance of thought, and he tasted the metallic tang of blood wash over his tongue as his lip split under the pressure of his own jaw.

  Just as his consciousness begin to fray, the impossibly searing pain vanished all at once. A sudden, shocking coolness washed over his body, as if he’d been plunged into the heart of a volcano, only to be pulled back into the frigid midnight air. Sensation, sharp and immediate, flooded back into him in waves.

  He lunged forward, a ragged gasp tearing from his chest, staggering through the snow as he reached for his discarded training sword a few feet away. But as he moved, his body felt… different. His limbs felt as though they held more weight, but not in size. It was a strange, unfamiliar feeling, as if they had grown denser, more solid.

  “What! What did you…!?” Gripping the sword, Tetsu spun to face Chase, raising the end of training sword instinctively towards the perpetrator of his torment.

  But the expression on Chase’s face held no malice, nor triumph. Only a strange, dumbfounded surprise. Her eyes, those bright blue pools, were wide as she stared back at him, directly into his eyes.

  “You… your eyes…” she stammered, taking a step forward.

  Tetsu raised his free hand almost without thinking, a warding gesture. “D-Don’t move!” he demanded, his voice hoarse. But as he did so, a sudden light flashed over his eyes. In an instant, his own gaze locked onto his outstretched hand. Under the pale moonlight, it was… glinting. A thin layer of dark gray, like a perfectly fitted metal sheet, coated his skin. It moved subtly, taking on the shape of the grooves and lines of his skin as it appeared to suddenly ripple. He turned his hand, watching as it slowly began collapse back into itself, and finally vanish, revealing nothing but the pale, calloused skin he possessed before. His eyes remained locked on his palm long after it'd vanished, speechless.

  Recalling Chase’s words, he stumbled towards a nearby puddle of recently melted snow, its surface reflecting the sky like a dark mirror. At first, it looked as though three moons hung in the inky blackness. But as he peered closer, he saw that two of the glowing spheres had been his own eyes. They were no longer the dull, flat gray he was accustomed to. Now, they shone with a robust silver, a silver which appeared to glow in the dim reflection of the water. The clear, pronounced glint reminded him of his brother. His eyes appeared just like his now... No, perhaps they were even brighter. He was taken aback, his reflection staring back at him with an intensity that felt both familiar and utterly alien.

  He turned back to Chase, a thousand questions swirling in his mind, ready to demand their answers. But the sight which met him as he did so was somehow more shocking than what came before. Inspecting her own hand, her expression a mirror of his own befuddlement, Tetsu watched as a similar, shimmering glint appeared to cover her palm. Chase's eyes remained glued to it, the steel-like layer on her skin moving with somehow more fluidity, appearing more alive, than his. The gray material morphed into various intricate shapes in her palms as she appeared to control it with the subtle shift of her fingers.

  Finally, she looked up, her eyes meeting his in an expression of both astonishment and pride. “Tetsu! Did you see that!? I… wait… what’s…” Suddenly, her words slurred, her knees appearing to buckle beneath her as the amorphous metal on her palm retreated just as swiftly as it had come. The strange silver glint in her own eyes, which he hadn’t noticed before, dulled back to their usual pale yellow. Then, without another sound, she toppled forward into the snow.

  “Chase...? Chase!” Tetsu, his own transformation momentarily forgotten, kicked against the stringent snow below as he rushed to her side.