Declan headed back to House Ariloch and began by closing the doors he’d thrown open. Chen Rivers lay asleep in the common room, so he wasn’t going to warn anyone of anything, but it just wasn’t anything Declan could put his finger on. He closed the back doors, did a walk through and found the house largely empty. It wasn’t surprising, having been stuck in the house, everyone wanted out.

  The house sense wasn’t deeply useful. It told him, for instance, that someone had entered the front area, but not who or why. He ran to the front door, opening it and frowning. Coming up the steps were three ArCore members. That was welcome, since he had no way to kill the blazed beasts. These three, though, felt odd.

  “Rohan, Tegan.” He stepped out, meeting them at the porch. “How can House Ariloch be of help?”

  “You remember Alister Rush?” Rohan said, stressing the ‘remember.’

  “Fifty rin? That should ring a bell,” Alister said. “We’re hunting a blood-mist spider I wounded. They’re tricky. Turn your back and they’ll slip away, but we were battling six. Step aside, let us search. Comply and we’ll be done sooner.”

  “What Alister means is we’d feel better if we can be sure everyone’s safe,” Rohan said.

  “What Alister means is that while I killed four, he only wounded his one,” Tegan added. “I’m here to see Lake.”

  Declan let them in. “I’ll accompany you. The mana locks can be balky.”

  “Oh, no. I wouldn’t want a civillian in danger,” Alister said. He activated a glyph that looked like someone had blended force and maybe air? Maybe wind. It let him skip the stairs and rise to the second level. “Rohan, keep up. You’re already behind on kills.”

  Tegan let them go, then headed straight to Lake’s door. The lock activated for her, which told Declan a lot about their relationship. Despite Alister’s attitude, his presence was welcome. If it came with fewer comments, even more welcome. A few moments later, Declan flinched as a shock ran down his spine.

  “Got it!” Rohan shouted. “I’m ahead! Who’s the best? It’s not you, Alister. It’s almost never you. Tegan! Next house!”

  She emerged from the room and locked it behind her. “She needs to eat more and she needs help getting to class tomorrow. That’s on you. The class thing, not the eating. Just get her to class in the morning, be there to bring her back in the afternoon, I’ll have an junior assigned to help her between. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Good. And congratulations. Mana stone’s the first step, now you need to bind and orbit a rune, doesn’t matter which one. This whole place is filled with rat-fuckers who will judge you by your runes. That’s ash and shit. All ash, all shit.” She headed to the door and a moment later, it shut behind her.

  Declan still felt a deep unease, something he couldn’t quite put into words. Another walkthrough and still nothing, left him chasing shadows. Instead he headed outside and watched. Days had passed, and Ariloch loved to begin their abusive schedule with workouts. The scab was covered with ArCore being ordered through exercises, and each capstone was covered in arcanists clinging to them. He watched until the class change, confident he had a decent idea of what was required, and confident that House Ariloch had everything he needed.

  The runnning was simple—he could run anywhere in the academy. The routes where they ran up the bowl-shaped scab and back down could be aproximated by the house stairs—or by running in the scab itself. Pushups, situps, all of these were well known to foundry workers.

  The stretches seemed evil, designed to rip muscles and tear tendons, and he’d need time to work up to those. The ones he truly didn’t understand were stances, not motions, where the ArCore held specific positions. He could imitate them, but getting them right would take more.

  He began by running up and down the stairs, sprinting the halls and back down only to loop and do it again. Next, he shouldered his pack, put most of the tools in, and went for a second run, this time with a destination. The Ariloch Library. Unlike the house library, there was no mold, there was no rain, there were only dozens of book tables per floor and four floors that he could see.

  “Can I help you?” asked one librarian as he entered. “Repairs are downstairs in the conservatory.”

  “I’d like to read a book. I don’t know what book I need, I just know what I need to know.” Declan proceeded to explain in detail. Since the detail was ‘I have no idea what I don’t know,’ it didn’t take long. A group of librarians convened, and finally delegated one to help him.

  “You don’t have privileges to remove books. That’s the first problem,” she said. “The second problem is that we don’t keep the kind of books you need. Private students come with tutors who have their own materials. Normal students don’t need what you do. I can make a book list. You can have them pulled each time you come.” She waved as another librarian approached with a cart. “Rather than give you a stack, how about these three? The first three chapters review the understood state. Everything else is a treatise into what might be.”

  “Thank you.” Declan took one of the three and sat at a table. Formation, Activation and Expansion of the Arcsoul, was the title. The arcsoul represented potential to perform magic and was the center of almost every other activity an arcanist performed. Mana for mastering runes was refined in the arcsoul. Runes which were mastered could be stored in the arcsoul, which would grow over time. Spells could be channeled by envisioning the rune stored in the arcsoul and using it to channel mana.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  And that was as far as Declan could understand. It was written in common. The words could be parsed and pronounced, but they didn’t make sense. He switched books, instead reading a treatise on Inscription. For low tier runes, the lines themself shaped mana. The angles altered and recombined it for different effects. At higher tiers, runes tapped into intent to form emblems, which embodied concepts and at higher levels, truths. Everything afterwards debated if concepts could be forced to manifest as runes, if intent during inscription altered the rune.

  “Sir?”

  Declan looked up at the assistant. “Yes?”

  “Library’s closing. And you really shouldn’t be out late with the afterswarm active.” She slowly claimed the books and passed his a slip of paper. “For tomorrow. I took the liberty of marking off the ones you’ve done. Should I pull the same set tomorrow?”

  “No, thank you.” Declan sprinted all the way home, the pack a weight that fought him. But he was a workman, the son of a workman and born to it every day since he could hold a hammer, follow along, listen and watch. Maybe the nobles who came here started off sick and weak. Declan needed a harder workout.

  When he arrived, he was shocked to find the commons occupied.

  “We’re the water bodies!” Chen Rivers shouted as Declan entered. “Rivers and Lake. We should get married and have a baby.”

  “That’s not happening,” Lake said. “Ever. Ever-Ever. What had you so busy?”

  Declan explained about his exercise. About his observations. “I don’t get the stances.”

  “You won’t,” Lake answered. “They align the mana channels and they have to be perfect. I hated every moment of that class and you would hate it too. You have the easy job. Why would you want what we go through?”

  Before he could answer, he had the same sensation. The tingle down his spine. “I’m not feeling great. I think I’ll lay down for a bit.”

  “If you did get a stance right, that’ll happen. You want me to watch the commons for a while?” Chen asked. “I can’t sleep at night and I can’t stay awake during the day.”

  Declan fell asleep quickly, but woke just as quickly, unable to dream, unable to rest. The crawling feeling was back. He slung his pack over his shoulder and took a hammer, creeping through the halls. Every shadow was a blazed beast, every creak death.

  Chen slept in the common room, proving again his dedication. If anything did come in, it would eat him first, and Declan appreciated the sacrifice. The second floor held nothing. Most of the rooms were occupied, and life was the best antidote to empty spaces. The third floor, less so. The arclights here didnt’ function, and when they did, they flashed and flickered, which was worse. His ladder lay where he’d left it because the roof repairs were not done. Would not be done. Might never be done.

  He moved on, checking the unoccupied rooms all the way to the front. And froze. The front room had its window broken open, the planks ripped off. The guards had even told him, they would have just gone out the window. He rushed to hammer planks back into place and relaxed as he blocked the opening further and further.

  At last the rain was blocked, the night kept out.

  He would never be able to say what drove him to move. Maybe it was the house-sense, maybe it was the slightest noise, but Declan threw himself back from the window. From under the bed, a blood-red spider crawled. Three legs were missing but spiders were remarkably resillient in that way. Blood mist spider, they’d called it.

  He understood the reason, as the air around it turned scarlet, and the arachnid monster gathered itself to pounce. Declan struck first, not with the hammer he’d dropped by the window. He swung the pack overhead, driving it like a maul down into the abdomen of the spider. It had just leaped, and instead of flying up, it squashed down and squealed, high pitched and filled with a slurry of pain and rage.

  Though injured, it wasn’t dead, and skittered forward. Declan leaped to one side and brought the pack down again, this time crushing two more legs. It wanted to turn. It wanted to chase, to bite and poison. All it found was death. Declan smashed it over and over until the abdomen burst and the body went limp.

  The rush of relief in house-sense accompanied the death of the spider. But even more fascinating was the stone that dropped from the abdomen’s gore. Declan picked it loose, joy surging in his heart as adrenaline crashed. It was the size of his fist, light, and a single straight line bisected the stone. Strike.

  Strike: strike a blow. Mana cost: Light, Fixed. Tier Zero Rune

  He left the corpse where it lay and walked downstairs, hands trembling, knees weak. In his apartment, he sat cross legged and dropped the pack. This time there was no audience. This time, there was no time limit. This time, there could be no failure.

  Declan wrapped both hands over the stone and prepared. Then forced will downward. The stone resisted for ten heartbeats. Then his will snapped down, suffusing the rune.

  Progress at 100%: Rune (Strike) Bound

  Unlike when he’d tested, there was no force pulling back. Unlike Harris’s attempt, it held firm against his will.

  Without even trying, the stone began to orbit and a bright blue rune began to glow, a single line. He barely noticed when the rune completed its orbit. It wasn’t that it didn’t produce mana, it was simply that he’d grown more resistant to it. Declan sat back on his bed, too excited to sleep and yet weary, so weary. Every moment, he watched strike orbit. He reached out mentally as it passed, and the rune locked—then sputtered, fizzing, and fell to the ground.

  It didn’t matter. He’d done it. He was on his way to being an arcanist, and tomorrow, he’d find Instructor Skinner and show him.

  ###

  Morning came, and Declan hadn’t slept much. He couldn’t store strike in his arcsoul, but he could keep it in a pocket, and for this day he left the pack, heading straight for the campus ring of Ariloch before first class. His memory wasn’t fantastic, but finding the same classrom was a matter of determination and asking a dozen people for directions.

  Instructor Skinner had dressed in smooth black silk this morning, and a long black cloak, and even as he worked, an cloud of runes circled him, dropping away while others took their place. He looked up as Declan. “Young man. You’re out and about early.”

  Declan didn’t trust himself to speak. Instead, he held up the strike and focused on it. Nervous as he was, the orbit was uneven and erratic, but it completed, locking the rune for an instant before it fizzled.

  “Well indeed.” Skinner’s scarred face fought the smile the old man wore and lost. “It is a very busy day for me, but you want to see the registrar on the third floor. Tell her I sent you. Show her the orbit.

  Declan sprinted through the halls, up the stairs and through the offices until he found the registrars office. A middle aged woman with flaming red hair, she worked surrounded by runes that felt like organize or total recall. “Yes, House Arcanist?”

  “Instructor Skinner sent me.” Declan held up the strike and this time, completed a near perfect orbit.

  She didn’t react with surprise or pleasure, just acceptance. “Very well. No arcsoul, no soul-rune, but you do have a rune-stone and can orbit. That—and Skinner’s approval—are enough. Let me see the rune.”

  Declan handed it over and waited.

  The registrar passed her hand over it and frowned. Then she repeated it. And again. “It seems there’s a problem, Arcanist Thorn. This rune isn’t yours.”