I stand in the courtyard of the manor. It’s a large gravelled space out to the left side of the main house, bordered on one side by the barracks where apparently the guards live, and on the opposite side by the servants’ – and slaves’ – quarters. One side is open to the fields beyond, and the last is the side of the manor itself. There are few windows which open onto this space. Expected, I guess, since it’s not the most picturesque view – the buildings are far more utilitarian than pretty. But for the intended aim, it’ll work very well.

  I’m waiting for my Bound to come and join me here – Loran should be bringing them now. In the meantime, I’m taking advantage of the time to practise my new Skills.

  At Beginner one, the results I’m getting are not exactly promising.

  I could tell as much for myself.

  Same there.

  Or, for a round ball with interesting designs carved all over that is clearly enchanted but the purpose of which I have no idea:

  I think that Nicholas senses my frustration.

  “Just keep Inspecting everything you see. And where you can, handle the item first, make some observations about it. When we go to the village later today, ask the merchants how much everything costs – one of the upgrades of the Skill is to give an estimated value for the item based on other items you have Inspected. It’s worth the effort, I promise you.”

  I sigh, but I’ve seen enough about how my own Skills have developed to recognise that the early stages of Skills are not at all representative of what they will be able to do later in the ranks.

  Maybe my other new Skill will prove more immediately useful.

  It’s basically a privacy ward, allowing me to keep conversations private if I want. At Beginner one, I can extend it to cover myself and another person while not using more mana than regenerates naturally. The more I push the diameter, the faster the mana drains, meaning that I could potentially cover a group of up to ten people, but only for less than a minute.

  While I can see the use of that particular functionality, it’s the later rank ups of the Skill which draw me more – apparently the typical upgrade path starts controlling more energies than just sound. Sometimes it becomes an illusion type Skill – one where not only can the user prevent sound from escaping, but they can choose what light to allow through too. According to Nicholas, one of his family members got so good with it that by the time she raised it to Journeyman, she was able to essentially project an illusion of whatever she wanted, accompanied by the sound of it. The only downside was that it was immobile.

  Another family member went a different route – instead of expanding his control over a limited number of energies, he expanded the energies he was able to control. As a result, also at Journeyman, he ended up with a Skill where he could nullify the mana, stamina, and health regeneration of his enemies and prevent external Skills from functioning at all. The downside was that the Titanbend was affected too, but by using the Skill judiciously, he still benefitted significantly from it. Either of those Skill paths sounds exciting, even if they’re far away from me right now. At least in the meantime it’s a good way to keep my private conversations with non-Bound from making their way to unfriendly ears.

  We keep practising with Inspect and Seal until I sense my companions drawing near. It’s not long before the group of them enter the courtyard from around the house. With a quick nod to Nicholas, I stride towards them, Bastet already ahead of me.

  Noir and Fenrir are the first to bull into me, but Ivor, Lathani, and Trouble aren’t far behind. The rest are a little more dignified, but I make sure to greet them all with either a word or a scratch – depending on who it is. I even send a grateful glance at Loran for keeping them all safe while I was absent.

  “What have you guys been up to?” I ask curiously.

  Hunting, Lathani chirps.

  Gathering new herbs – there are so many new ones that I want to explore, River tells me enthusiastically.

  I was more interested in exploring the sounds of metal hitting metal coming from a distance, but Loran wouldn’t let me, Happy grumps.

  “Because Lord-” Loran breaks off with a quick glance over at the man himself standing not that far away. He continues in the Bond network. Lord Nicholas didn’t say we had permission to go to the village, he explains, looking and feeling anxious.

  “I mean, he’s right,” I answer with a shrug, pushing a sense of reassurance at Loran. I almost regret my reflex when he flinches – I guess he was startled by the sudden unexpected wave of emotion. “Nicholas said it was fine to go hunting, but he didn’t say anything about it being fine to go into the village. In fact, he said to be careful of villagers hunting without permission in the forest. But he’s told me we’re going to be heading into the village later – some of you can come with me if you want. Preference will be given to those who will actually gain benefit from the visit because you can’t all come. But first, we have something else to do.”

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  What’s that? Kalanthia asks warily.

  I grin at her.

  “See how we face off against Nicholas and a group of his Bound.”

  I can’t deny that I’m a bit nervous about this – I’m pretty confident in the group that we have, but I’ll be facing up against Nicholas who has years of experience over me and has had access to trainers while I’ve just been figuring things out for myself.

  I turn around just in time to see Nicholas call his Bound, and honestly, it’s a sight to be seen. He pulls off his overrobe and hands it to Sarran who’s appeared from somewhere and is accompanied by another man, this one wrinkled and white-haired. Then, as Nicholas holds his arms palms up to the sky, it almost looks as if dark smoke is rising from his body and curling out from under his tunic.

  The smoke drifts away from him and seems to condense until, abruptly, I realise that there are beings standing on the earth, not smoke at all. And as more and more step through the smoke onto the ground, I find my nerves increasing. I send out an Inspect, carefully avoiding catching any of the humans in it – but I get little information back. I suspect that Nicholas’ companions are protected in some way since my pulse hits a similar kind of brick wall to the one I felt earlier when I caught Nicholas in the wave. But I definitely get a sense of danger from most of them, particularly a group of four beings. Based on the sense now radiating off them and the way Kalanthia snarls quietly and her hackles go up, I have to guess that they might even be Tier threes.

  You don’t have to take part if you don’t want to, I offer to Kalanthia. She might be Bound to me, but it’s a different thing from my Bonds with others. She decided to Bond with me solely to follow her cub; why she hasn’t broken the Bond yet, I don’t know, glad as I am that she hasn’t.

  I’m with you. I fight with you, she responds shortly and then falls silent, her golden eyes fixed on the second largest of the Bound arrayed before us. It’s clearly a beast capable of flying, something rather like a griffin to my eyes – with the head and wings of a bird of prey, and the paws and tail of a lion.

  Alright, thank you, I accept gratefully, then expand my communication to include everyone. Remember, this is a spar, a practice fight. Nicholas has indicated that minor injuries are expected; major ones are not. I wait to see if anyone has any objections to that, but all I feel is a mixture of nervousness and eagerness. They’re all dressed in their armour and even the Pathwalkers have weapons in their hands. They won’t go down without a fight.

  Nicholas steps forward to the centre line and I follow his lead.

  “Now you will learn the purpose of this enchanted ball that would make an interesting paperweight according to your Inspect Item,” Nicholas says with a hint of amusement. He hefts the engraved orb between us. “Once activated, it will offer a shield to mortal blows, and highlight any who have sustained an attack which should have ended in a fatality. I suggest that we order our Bonded to retreat from the battle in the case of a ‘fatal’ blow. That way we will be able to see who remains on the field longest.”

  “Alright, fine,” I say, relieved that we shouldn’t need to worry too much about attacks accidentally going too far. Though the device sounds pretty damn impressive – I have no idea how I would replicate that with my own magic. “What happens in the case of poison or fire or magical injuries?” I check with him, the thoughts occurring as I consider my magic. It’s not like he doesn’t know I can Shape fire – I told him my Skills yesterday. Actually, in a way, that puts me at a disadvantage since he knows my Skills, but I don’t know his. Hopefully that won’t lose the battle for us.

  Nicholas hesitates a little there.

  “The shield is not so effective against those,” he admits, “though it does offer some limited damage mitigation. We will just have to keep an eye on our Bonded’s health levels.” He gestures towards the white-haired man standing off to the side. “Healer Jermaine is present in case of injury and will be protected from the fight itself by Sarran. If our Bonded’s health levels start dropping too far, we can send them over to Jerry to be healed. But that then takes them out of the fight, agreed?”

  “Sounds good,” I agree, anticipation starting to combine with my nerves. Although this battle isn’t risk free, it’s certainly less high-stakes than most other battles I’ve been in. from the glint in Nicholas’ eyes, he feels much the same. “Healing during the battle is fine though, right?”

  “If it comes from one of the combatants, I don’t see why not,” Nicholas answers decisively. Then he turns to eye my Bound speculatively just as I do the same to his. I see him stiffen out of the corner of my eye and look at him inquisitively.

  “Is that…a fire elemental?” he asks, disbelief in his voice. I follow his gaze to see Aingeal. He’s bouncing around Lathani’s head, playing keep-away as she snaps playfully at him.

  “He is,” I reply, guarded. “What of it?” Nicholas is silent for a long moment, then shakes his head.

  “Why am I surprised?” he mutters under his breath – perhaps I wasn’t meant to hear that. Then he looks up at me with an odd expression on his face – something between incredulity and resignation. “It’s just one more of your incomprehensibilities,” he huffs with a hint of amusement. “Binding a fire elemental is beyond the reach of most Tamers – only those specialised in capture of magical energies generally have any success. Or those who hunt with specialised gear which you should have had no access to. But elementals are rare enough that the chances of you even encountering one without searching were slim enough to be almost impossible…. But then, impossibilities seem to be your everyday achievements.” He shakes his head.

  “That’s a good thing, right?” I ask him semi-jokingly.

  “For my House, yes. For my sanity…not so much,” Nicholas admits. “In this case, however, the orb may not be able to keep up with the damage that an elemental can put out. I’d ask that you limit his actions to my most powerful Bonded – that way if they start being overwhelmed, they can retreat rather than risk dying before they can be healed.”

  “That’s fair,” I agree. To be honest, looking at the forces we have arrayed against us, that’s probably what I would do anyway. Which of the Tier threes I should throw him at is another question.

  “You’ll tell me the story of how you managed to find and Bind an elemental later, yes?” Nicholas asks, but I get the sense that he’s not going to drop this until I do. Still, I don’t mind sharing.

  “Sure – over lunch, maybe?”

  “I’ll hold you to that. For now, if you don’t have any questions?” He waits for a moment and then when I shake my head, continues. “Then let’s get started.”

  Nicholas manipulates the ball in his hand. I watch in fascination as he presses certain carved areas and makes different lines on the ball become lit up in green light. I don’t know how he knows which parts to press – maybe he’s memorised the manual for it or something. I use Inspect Item on the orb again, pleased to see that it’s taken my new knowledge into consideration.

  Finally, Nicholas places the ball down in the very centre of the courtyard.

  “Please try not to stand on or kick this,” he requests. “It is fairly hardy, but too much force will break anything.”

  “We’ll try,” I say, making no promises. “Now, how long do we have before we start?”

  “We have one flare. When the orb activates, it will flash brightly and that will be our signal.” No countdown? Alright. It’s not like we usually have a countdown for our fights unless we’re the ones ambushing our targets. I nod at Nicholas and then stride back to my Bound – I understand a ‘flare’ to be approximately a minute, and if we only have that short time, we need to use it wisely.

  I’ve taken the opportunity to eye Nicholas’ Bound, at least the ones he has present, and do my best to estimate how they might fight. He only has nine beasts with him while I have twenty; I don’t make the mistake of thinking that outnumbering him will ensure my victory. If I’m right and four of those beasts are Tier threes, then just facing them would be hard enough.

  But ultimately, I need to remember the main purpose of this exercise: it’s a spar, not a true battle. Win or lose, the point is for Nicholas to get a better sense of my capabilities in order to be able to give me advice and offer trainers. And he’s a far more experienced Tamer than I am – losing is probably inevitable. But I can’t go into battle with that attitude or it will be decided before we start.

  With little time remaining before the orb signals the start of the fight, my Bound and I quickly set out a strategy.

  And then our time is up. The orb flashes brightly, and chaos erupts.

  here!

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