I leave Loran reluctantly because I sense that he needs some time to process without me there. I haven’t got far before I hear my other companions starting to offer him comfort and understanding. I stay silent, though my heart wrenches as I feel the grief from Bastet and the misery from Ninja. I have to pause a moment and lean against the wall as Kalanthia’s emotions briefly flood the network in an overwhelming wave.

  And then Loran starts to speak. Halting at first, and then in a flood. Despite my curiosity, it doesn’t take me long to feel like an interloper. To know I’m eavesdropping on a conversation not meant for me. I consciously pull myself out of the Bond network as much as I can which, as the ultimate nexus of it all, is surprisingly complete. When their voices are but a murmur on the edge of my hearing, and their emotions are muted to practically nothing, I relax.

  Part of me doesn’t want to hear the stories – even the little that I heard made me sick to my stomach. A much bigger part of me doesn’t want to hear them unless Loran tells them to me directly. Unless he feels safe enough with me to share his pain.

  It hurts, I’m not going to lie to myself, that he didn’t want to share this with me – clearly the reason for him punching a wall and not even realising he’d broken several bones. And that was a surprise – I’d expected him to be happier than he is at finally getting his life back.

  When I think about it, though, I realise that it’s not so surprising – he’s had to bottle up a lot of emotions over the years for his own survival. It’s not as if the average master is going to have any patience with their slave having a breakdown, well, ever.

  I should probably appreciate the fact that he feels safe enough with me to reveal his emotions at all – if he didn’t trust me at least a bit, I don’t doubt that he would have continued suppressing them until they either overwhelmed him or he left us. Permanently.

  I sigh and push myself away from the wall I’ve been leaning on, continuing to walk purposefully through the corridors. Hopefully he can get what he needs from our companions, if not from me. We’re a pack and several of my companions are far wiser than I am, regardless of what our stats might say.

  It’s not long before I realise I should have asked Loran where Nicholas is before I left the garden; I’m not going to disrupt the therapy session going on to ask now. Fortunately, the first servant I speak to is able to direct me.

  I knock on the door and wait for the summons. When I step inside, I see it’s a well-furnished and cosy sitting room. It seems to have undergone some recent alterations, though – the chairs which had been set around a fireplace have been pushed off to one side, and a large desk now dominates the other half of the room.

  “Markus,” Nicholas greets me. “What can I do for you?” He eyes me. “This isn’t about your slave is it?”

  “Former slave,” I point out with a slightly-raised eyebrow. He nods fractionally in acknowledgement. “And no. I’ve come about Tempest.”

  Nicholas’ fingers still briefly before resuming their paging through pieces of parchment.

  “What about him?” he asks, guarded.

  “I thought that I might have a look at him – see if I can identify any reason for why he hasn’t Evolved. I have some time on my hands right now…would you like me to try?”

  Nicholas is silent for a moment.

  “Do you think it will make any difference?” His words are carefully chosen, but I hear the hint of vulnerability they hide.

  “I don’t know,” I tell him honestly. “But it won’t hurt him for me to look. Though you will need to break your Bond with him so I can Bind him.”

  Nicholas’s eyes narrow fractionally.

  “Is that truly necessary?”

  “To look at the internal matrix of another? Yes,” I answer bluntly. “And it has to be a Dominate or Dominate-derivative Bond too.”

  “I see,” Nicholas acknowledges, sounding surprisingly troubled.

  He must be very attached to this horse, I note to myself. It shows more concern than I’d expected considering what he’s previously said about his Bonded.

  “I’ll break the Bond with him as soon as I’ve finished the inspection – or after I’ve done what I can. You’ll be able to reBind him afterwards.”

  “If there’s nothing you can do, I’d better not. Breaking the Bond once will be hard enough on both of us,” Nicholas dismisses. I just shrug – his choice. Nicholas gazes at the pages on his desk thoughtfully. “Would you be willing to give me a few flames to finish my current task and tidy up?”

  “Sure,” I agree, moving over to sit in one of the chairs. I’m disappointed to realise that they look far more comfortable than they actually are. Sitting down and doing nothing makes it almost impossible for me to resist tuning into the conversation that is still going on at the edge of my mental hearing, so I decide to work on a bit of magic instead. Pulling out a bit of metal, I play with it, hoping to get Metal-Shaping to rank up to Novice.

  It doesn’t take me long to get into my task. I’m working on both speed and precision – my battle with Valence has inspired me to figure out how to make a sharp spear in an instant. It only worked so well then because it was mostly my earth-magic aligning the metal shards to strike point-first – if I’d needed to use Metal-Shaping, it would have taken a lot longer for less effect.

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  The improvement is fractional. Little by little, I feel my understanding solidify. When I pull out a chunk of iron and compare it to the steel lump, I feel a sudden flash of insight. I can feel the difference between the metal and the alloy – though even the “pure” iron carries a scatter of other elements. I can’t see its atomic structure – perhaps one day – but I can sense how carbon stiffens the steel, making it harder and more resistant. And I can feel how whatever makes cast iron workable also leaves it more brittle.

  The nagging feeling of a notification is hardly surprising, though I don’t check it immediately, too enraptured by what I can now feel – and how that affects my capacity to manipulate the metal.

  I’m pretty sure that I could make steel from scratch now, assuming I have a source of iron and carbon available to me – I don’t think I could create either of those from pure magic yet. And something tells me it would be a good idea for me to ‘feel’ other metals and alloys too, to get a sense of their internal structures.

  Opening my eyes, I glance over at the desk, and start slightly when I see Nicholas looking at me curiously.

  “You looked quite deep in concentration there,” he comments. “What were you doing?”

  I shrug.

  “Getting Metal-Shaping to Novice." I answer nonchalantly – I’m as certain as I can be without checking the notification that that’s what I’ve done.

  “Just like that?” Nicholas asks, slightly incredulously. “Just by…staring at a piece of metal.”

  “By exploring it with my magic until I learned more about it,” I correct. Nicholas gets a thoughtful expression on his face. “Is that not what happens here?” I ask curiously. I’m not going to change what works, but I’m always willing to learn.

  “I’m not a mage,” Nicholas prefaces, “but from what I’ve heard, I believe that with such wide-application Skills such as Shaping Skills, it’s common to be only theoretical learning until at least Novice, and often Intermediate level.” He hesitates. “I believe it is partly for safety’s sake, and partly to not end up channeled down a route without knowing where it ends. That’s in contrast to professional Skills, of course.”

  An interesting point. I’ve certainly seen how my choices at each level have affected the next rank up. But I don’t feel like that’s been a disadvantage. Maybe if I knew what I had passed up I’d think differently, though.

  Nicholas continues, “But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised – it’s not like you had a library of books to draw knowledge from or a teacher to ask, yet you’ve still clearly advanced in several Shaping Skills. Now, I’m ready – are you?”

  “Let me just check my rank-up message and then yes.”

  Mostly as expected – and already experienced. It is interesting that I can pull the elements out of the metal too – that would have come in useful in the other world when I was trying to prepare the iron oxide for smelting. I make a mental note to talk to Happy about the new development – I wonder if she’s already experienced something similar.

  I want to experiment a bit, but I’m aware of Nicholas waiting on me.

  “Alright, I’m ready,” I tell him, standing up with a little reluctance.

  He nods, tucks a piece of parchment he was writing on into his Inventory, and then leads the way to the stables where Tempest is housed.

  I see the moment he breaks the Bond – his expression clenches briefly before he manages to regain control. Tempest is far more expressive. He whinnies and half-rears, then backs off to the back of the stall. I see the pain in Nicholas’ eyes as a long-term companion suddenly can’t stand his presence.

  My chest aches in sympathy. The holes where my previous Bonds used to be are still painful, but have improved significantly since coming to this world. Now, I only feel flickers of half-remembered pain when I think about it consciously. And none of them had been a companion for more than a year.

  After the initial shock passes, Tempest stamps forwards with a snort and nudges at Nicholas – hard. The man makes a choked off sound that might have been a sob in a less-controlled man, but the hand that buries itself in the horse’s mane shakes slightly. I hear Nicholas quietly murmuring to Tempest, but I make a conscious effort not to listen to the words. I’m uncomfortable being an observer in this intimate moment.

  Instead, I think about how Tempest’s reaction to Nicholas is a good indication that their relationship is far deeper than just a Bond would make it. I also start trying to guess what might be the issues that are holding Tempest back from Evolution – I wonder if they will have any similarities to those that limited some of my other Bonded.

  “Markus?” Nicholas’ call brings me out of my thoughts. I turn to look at him. “Will you form the Bond with Tempest now?” His voice has a touch of reluctance to it – understandable.

  “Sure,” I agree, deciding to get it over with. I look Tempest in his eyes, invoking Dominate.

  I’m struck by a presence that, while weak against my own, is still surprisingly strong for a being who’s still Tier one. As I walk closer to the large horse on the other side of the grey space, I feel a sense of resentment, sadness, and resignation. Interpreting the emotions, I have to guess that Tempest resents the idea of creating a new Bond with another Tamer, feels sad at having had his one with Nicholas broken, but is resigned to it being necessary nonetheless. Nicholas must have explained.

  “I’ll release you as soon as I can,” I promise him. I can’t promise that he will have his Bond back with Nicholas, though.

  I don’t spin the Battle of Wills out – there’s no point. I stride forward quickly and complete the Bond.

  When we both return to the ‘real’ world, I see Nicholas watching us with pain in his eyes. I wonder how it feels to watch a dear companion being Bonded by another Tamer. Then I think about how it would feel to have to break my Bond with Bastet and watch Nicholas take over, even if I know that it’s for her own good. I shudder. I wouldn’t take it nearly as well as he is, I suspect.

  “I’ll have a look straight away – see if there’s anything I can do to help at all,” I tell Nicholas and he nods briefly. Lie down, please, I request from Tempest and the horse ponderously descends to the straw-covered stable floor. It seems to have been mucked out recently, at least. I move to sit cross-legged next to him and touch his shoulder, closing my eyes.

  here!

  here!

  here!

  here