Several trials later, I feel like I’ve got a better feel for the two Skills.

  Disappear is actually a very simple mana-based Skill, consisting of an initial pulse of magic to distract those around, and then a light stealth that hides Noir from those who aren’t looking at him. But it has many limitations. The pulse only has a short range – when Sirocco is up in the air, she’s unaffected. It can also be resisted – it’s easy to do so when the pulse is anticipated.

  As for the stealth, it only covers Noir’s physical form in a sort of camouflage like my Fade, and even then only to light-based sight. Any magical sense picks him up easily, as do senses of smell and hearing. And touch. Which is where Quick Grab comes in.

  As I experienced when he nicked my pouch, Quick Grab uses stamina to boost Noir’s dexterity and speed, allowing him to snatch something without being caught. And he can use any body part to grab the item, though with varying degrees of effectiveness.

  I can definitely see why the pair are part of a Thief’s Skill-set – get the marks looking a different way, slip into a magically-aided stealthy movement, nab the goods, and then get the hell out of Dodge. But they are both quite niche Skills at present – Quick Grab, for example, only works when he has a target in sight and when he’s close enough to reach it while Disappear very much depends on his targets being distracted.

  I’d be interested in asking our resident former-criminals if they had anything to add, but Rory and Alyna are currently down in the kitchens – though the rest of my companions are used to lounging around in a garden and doing nothing, I thought it would be wise to give my two newest Bonded something to do to stop them fretting or plotting. As for Loran, he’s…somewhere in the house. And in a rather tumultuous emotional state. I hesitate about whether I should go to him, but in the end decide to give him a bit of space.

  The next experiment we do is to see whether Noir has any preference when it comes to Energy Hearts to absorb. My system seems to have a faint preference for fire-aligned Hearts, but that only translates as a slightly better absorption rate – I get about ten percent more from fire-aligned Energy Hearts than from any other element. But I figure that’s to do with my fire affinity – Nicholas hasn’t indicated that it matters much to him. I can’t say for sure, though, as it hasn’t really been a topic of conversation.

  As it turns out, Noir does have a small preference for shadow-aligned Energy Hearts, which is annoying because I don’t have many of those. I don’t have Shadow-Shaping, so I had to get Lathani to help me make the ones I do have, and her control over mana isn’t very good. Out of a whole batch of attempts, I got about fifteen usable shadow-aligned Energy Hearts, and the rest just ended up as unaspected or earth-aligned Hearts. Still, at least it seems that he’s more like me otherwise – he doesn’t take damage from absorbing Hearts that are aligned to other elements.

  More exciting – due to just how much Energy is given from each Energy Heart, and how small the pool of Energy needed to level up from zero to one is, just the testing gets Noir to the point of being able to level up. Unlike me, he doesn’t get a notification that he can level up, or a prompt to use his points, but he does know when his Energy pool is full.

  I don’t intend on getting him to level up more than once – he should try to max out his stats naturally first. But I do want to make sure that everything goes as it should while I’m here next to him. Everything else seems to have gone as it should, but this is still experimental ground.

  “Alright, so can you choose where to put your points?”

  Noir concentrates, even closing his eyes.

  I can. I have…two points? Where should I add them? To mind – increase my processing and memory? To other part of mind – increase my understanding of world or understanding of myself? To body – my power, or my speed, or my agility? To soul – increase my strength of self?

  It certainly sounds like he has the same six stats that I do – he just understands them differently.

  “Perhaps add them to the two parts of your mind – to increasing your processing and memory and to increasing your understanding.” He said earlier that his mental stats are the weakest, and his Disappear Skill uses mana.

  But which – to understanding of world or of myself?

  That’s got to be Breadth or Depth, I say to myself, remembering the sub-categories of Wisdom. “Well, which do you feel you understand less – yourself or others? And which could be the most useful?” I don’t feel like I can make this decision for him.

  He considers the question for a long moment.

  Wish to understand myself more. To understand why this feels not quite right and how to fix it.

  “Good reasoning,” I praise. If adding points to the Depth sub-category could improve how well the matrix fits him, it’s an excellent choice. “Alright, give me a moment, and then go for it,” I instruct a moment before I dive into his Core space.

  Noir gives me enough time to settle in his Core space before he triggers the level up. His Core pulses and Energy pours through his matrix, though in comparison to the flood I’m used to seeing pass through my own, this is a dousing with a bucket. It’s not even as much Energy as I’m used to seeing when I only increase my own stats by a single point. I guess that’s the difference between level one and level twenty-five. Still, the Energy rushes through his channels, extending and strengthening them noticeably – in comparison to the minimal channels he has, that is.

  I do notice that the two Skills are fractionally more developed than the last time I saw them – all the practice must have increased them by a level or two. I remember that the Beginner levels went by pretty quickly with my own Skills and we have been testing them a lot today.

  Pulling out of the Core space, I frown as a wave of intensely negative emotion washes over me. And, if the way my companions shiver, snarl, or hiss is anything to go by, it’s not only me.

  Closing my eyes, I follow the emotion back to its source. My eyes shoot open again.

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  Loran.

  ***Loran***

  Loran steps through the corridors of the manor feeling an odd combination of heavy and light. His feet trudge like they are formed of clay; his shoulders and head are so light they threaten to float away. Inside, he doesn’t feel the joy or happiness he had expected. Instead, it’s a numbness he’s felt a number of times in his life, usually when he’s been pushed beyond terror and pain into a sort of calm.

  He lifts his hand to his throat. It feels like he’s reached up a hundred times to feel the collar only to brush his bare, sensitive throat. The metal band that’s been shackled around his throat for two years has been snapped away, but part of him simply can’t believe it.

  All Lord Nicholas needed to do was to write a simple statement of freedom on the service contract, sign it, and then press the signature to his collar. Loran has no idea of how the enchantments work, but the previously seamless metal band abruptly formed both hinges and a lock. An open lock.

  You have completed your sentence, the lord told him simply. I believe you have agreed to remain part of my heir’s household, at least for a time?

  Loran had been unable to respond verbally, his tongue as heavy then as it feels now, his mind as vacant of words. He’d given a nod, hoping that Lord Nicholas wouldn’t take it as a slight – Loran might have bought his freedom back but Lord Nicholas is still a Great Lord. If he wanted to see Loran back in a collar for an offence – real or imagined – Loran suspects that it wouldn’t take much.

  There had been a moment when Loran had wondered if Lord Nicholas would just refuse to free him. He’d stumbled through his request and had held out the coins – more money than he’d ever possessed before – but it was a long moment before the lord took them. Given Lord Nicholas’ words after unlocking his collar, Loran now wonders if he’d been speaking mentally to his master – lord? Pack leader? What is Markus to him now?

  Loran shakes his head, his thoughts scattering with the motion. In the end, Lord Nicholas hadn’t taken offence. Perhaps he’d understood that it was emotion that locked up Loran’s tongue, not insolence.

  If you choose to remain with Markus, remember that you now do so of your own accord. Loyalty, Bond or no Bond, is a prerequisite, the lord had warned him. And if you choose to leave, I strongly suggest that you remember how long the arm of Titanbend can reach – and thereby keep a sensible tongue in your head when it comes to speaking of what you have encountered in your service here.

  Lord Nicholas’ voice had been almost mild in tone, but the threat within his words had been unmistakable.

  His tongue locked up even tighter than before, Loran could only bow in acknowledgement, He’d been halfway to his knees before he’d remembered that he didn’t need to do that anymore. Instead, he’d turned it into an overly-deep bow, hoping that, once again, the lord would choose understanding over offence.

  He’d been dismissed swiftly after, to his overwhelming relief. It was only after that that he realised he didn’t know what to do or where to go.

  If he’d still been a slave, he would have checked in with his master first and then probably gone to help out in the kitchens as Alyna and Rory had been sent to do. But he’s no longer a slave. He isn’t a servant, either. Or a guard. If anything, he’s more like the three beasts who pad beside him, offering him their silent support – a pet.

  He knows that’s illogical – suspects that in his mas- Markus’ eyes, his status has hardly changed. But he can’t help feeling…lost. And part of him doesn’t want to go find Markus. Though he can’t quite work out why.

  All he knows is that the numbness which has carried him through so far is quickly eroding, and what is revealed beneath isn’t the joy or relief that he was expecting he’d feel when he dreamed of the collar coming away from his throat.

  Come on, Artemis tells him firmly. Let’s join the pack. You will feel better then. She sounds so certain, like she knows that that is what Loran needs. But is it? She’s a pack creature – the way she had pined for their companions and raged against the bars preventing her from physically making contact with them while they were in the basement together had made that very clear.

  But Loran…he’s been a loner for so long. Even his siblings pulled away from him a long time ago. Not that he can blame them – he started it.

  He’s free. And for all that the lack of definition to his relationship with his erstwhile master is disconcerting, in other ways, it’s liberating. He can go anywhere, do anything. Markus told him that his new Bond could be broken from either side and Loran can sense the truth in that. He could break it, walk out that door, and…and what?

  He has half a golder to his name, the change from the three gold coins Markus gave him so easily. Fifty silvers in a small pouch that Lord Nicholas granted him…two years’ salary for an experienced labourer. If he’s careful with it, lives in a shack, buys cheap food…Loran could live for at least two years on fifty silvers, maybe even three. If no one steals it from him. Or he could approach a craftsman, offer it in exchange for an apprenticeship, buy himself a future.

  Or…or he could stay here. With the man who saved him from the basement, and freed him. The man who he’d promised to stay with.

  The man who could have set me free the first day we met.

  When the thought voices itself, Loran realises that it’s been at the back of his mind for a long time. That it’s been in the back of his mind ever since his first master bought him. A sense of anger, of betrayal, of pure outrage at being treated like an object – one that has only got stronger with time.

  He’s unconsciously pushed it away for years, never even allowing himself to recognise its presence. Because acknowledging it would have made deference and subservience to the bastards who owned him to be so much harder. And he’d seen what happened to those who lost themselves in their anger: sold to the mines, or the mages, their lives to be measured in tendays or months rather than years. Far better to bury it, to tell himself that he’d come to terms with his punishment, to recognise that he deserved it.

  And now…now the collar has been removed from his throat, it’s like a cork has been removed from a bottle. And he finds he can’t control the fury that rages within him.

  His mouth twisted in a snarl, Loran whirls and punches the wall next to him. Startled by the movement, the three beasts, who have done nothing but kept him silent company, leap to the side and watch him with wide eyes.

  Loran is lost in his rage, hurt fueling its fire as it consumes him from the inside out. For every master who didn’t see him as worthy of freeing and treating as a real human being. Even Markus, for all that a part of Loran knows it’s unfair to think that way. That there was no reason for why Markus should have freed him on the first day, that he didn’t even need to have freed him now.

  But his rage is not rational and instead he continues punching the wall of the manor until a hand settles on his shoulder.

  Flinching, Loran whirls around quickly and punches at whoever is accosting him.

  His fist is caught by a strong, yet gentle hand. Loran feels his blood drain from his face and his knees go weak as he sees his erstwhile master’s face – and the forbidding expression on it.

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