He couldn’t think.

  Well, he could. Just not properly. Because of Eleuthera.

  He had expressed his desire to be left alone, and the goddess was the sort to respect a wish not to be constrained—even by her. But there was always the chance that she might exercise her own freedom of choice to disregard his wishes entirely.

  Six years, he thought absently.

  That was his current record for avoiding divine notice. Considerably better than the first time, when he had lasted less than a week.

  Orestis sighed and got up. He might as well do something useful. For now, that meant focusing on Eirene.

  He had the rough outline of a terrible idea, and he needed to check the Consortium’s files to see whether it was at least a viable one.

  The fact that he was building on a regimen conceived by the Temple of Demerius left a bad taste in his mouth. Still, the parallels between their methods and Eirene’s situation were too close to ignore. He disliked the symmetry almost as much as the Temple’s confidence in its own permanence.

  Not that their permanence is as solid as they believe.

  On his way out, he found Eirene in the common room, engaged in what appeared to be a very calm disagreement with the inn’s proprietor over the price of her room.

  She wasn’t raising her voice. She wasn’t gesturing. She was simply asking questions—polite, precise ones—and waiting patiently for the answers to fail to satisfy her before asking another.

  Orestis paused to watch.

  The proprietor—he believed her name was Helena—was already on the defensive. She kept glancing toward the ledger on the counter as though it might intervene on her behalf. It did not. Orestis couldn’t help but smile.

  Ever the merchant’s daughter.

  Eirene wasn’t trying to win. She could certainly afford the price. No, she was simply trying to establish terms she could live with, and she would keep at it until the other party realized that conceding was the cheaper option.

  She noticed him after a moment and tilted her head in silent inquiry.

  “I’m going to work,” he said. “Consortium business.”

  “Will you be long?”

  He considered. “A few hours. If nothing needs revising.”

  She accepted that with a small nod and turned back to Helena. “In that case, we were discussing the nightly rate.”

  Orestis left them to it.

  By the time he reached the road, it occurred to him—a bit too late—that Helena was at a disadvantage in more ways than one.

  Poor Helena. She has no idea what she’s dealing with. Then again, neither does Eirene.

  He had seen this before. When a Chosen of Eleuthera refused to agree to something, the world itself tended to intervene. It was rarely dramatic or vindictive, but it was always persistent. Circumstances shifted, accidents accumulated, and efforts failed in small, inexplicable ways until refusal became the only stable outcome.

  Eirene was likely unaware of this particular mechanic. That mattered.

  He would mention it to her later. Not because he cared how the negotiation ended, but because he suspected Eirene would not want to bargain in a context where assent was optional and refusal was not.

  ***

  He read the files carefully.

  Kallistrate had never stopped reporting. Nearly a year into the arrangement, the country was still sending documents for review: training summaries, injury counts, recruitment estimates, doctrinal clarifications.

  And he had never stopped undermining their work.

  Surreptitious sabotage aside, the Temple’s training principles were sound—up to a point. Not everything in them was useful, but enough of it was. The Temple’s approach to physical conditioning, paired with recovery, would do what it claimed. It pushed the body hard enough, for long enough, that aura activation became guaranteed rather than incidental.

  Most importantly, as long as it was applied carefully, it would not cause long-term harm before aura activation. That was what mattered.

  He took notes as he read, stripping away doctrine and commentary as he went. What remained was bare structure: effort, strain, recovery, repeat.

  Crude, effective, and dangerous if handled badly.

  Which describes most things the Temple produces, come to think of it.

  Once he was done, Orestis closed the folders and returned them to their proper places.

  Before leaving, he checked the Consortium’s task board. They did not require his attention every day, and he was hoping this would be one of the quieter ones.

  It was. No pending reviews. No inspections. No urgent requests.

  Convenient. I can focus on what matters.

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  Orestis left the archives and headed back toward the inn, notes tucked away under his coat.

  He detoured through the market on the way back. He did not need anything obvious. Just a handful of objects for Eirene’s room that would look like clutter, because leaving it unwarded was not an option.

  In that time, he could think over how best to explain his idea of training to Eirene without making it sound quite as bad as it was.

  ***

  They were in Eirene’s new room, both seated at the table. Orestis had decided that placing the documents in front of her and letting her reach her own conclusions was the better approach.

  While she was reading, he had taken out a piece of processed mana crystal—the same one he had used when etching the runes in his own room—and had started working on one of the wooden carvings he had purchased.

  Eirene eventually lowered the papers and gave him a flat stare. “You can’t be serious.”

  “It’s the fastest method of activating aura I’ve seen,” Orestis said. “And it works—supposedly a hundred percent of the time.”

  “Supposedly?” she asked. “Who even came up with this?”

  “It’s what Kallistrate is using to train their recruits,” he said as he finished the suppression rune on the carving. “They don’t count failed attempts or fatalities.” He set it aside and picked up another.

  “Leave that bear,” Eirene said. “Use that ugly ceramic vase instead.”

  She paused, then added, “Fatalities… So they’re using the Consortium to refine these methods?”

  “Yes.” Orestis scrutinized the bear carving. Clearly, she liked this particular design if she didn’t want him damaging it.

  I suppose it does have a certain appeal.

  He took a mental note of her tastes and picked up the vase.

  “How many people have died so far?” she asked, looking displeased.

  “None since three months ago. That’s when they fixed the last of the issues that caused fatal strain. I’ve fixed the rest in the document you have now.”

  It took him a while to notice the silence. When he glanced at her, she was watching him with an unreadable expression. It had been a while since he’d seen that look on her face.

  Before he could ask, she said, “Are you even allowed to show this to me?”

  Why do I get the feeling she had something else on her mind?

  ***

  Eirene was quiet because she was thinking.

  When she asked how many had died, she had not meant it as an accusation. Not exactly. It was simply that the choice stood out now that she was paying attention.

  What unsettled her was not the training itself. Pain was familiar enough, even if this kind was new. What unsettled her was how easily he set limits around concern. Fatalities had existed. Then they had stopped. That, to him, seemed to make no difference.

  His remark about having fixed the remaining issues made that quite clear. The solutions had existed for some time. Applying them had apparently never been difficult. He had simply chosen not to.

  Orestis was capable of that kind of distance—of treating harm as acceptable as long as it occurred at arm’s length. It was not accidental. It was controlled. And that control was what made it unsettling.

  It did not even feel like ruthlessness. It felt more like indifference.

  That should have frightened her more than it did.

  And yet, when his attention settled on her, it was precise rather than invasive. He was careful with her. Meticulous, even. He took steps to protect her without asking, without announcing it, as though the decision required no discussion.

  He did not crowd her; he did not push. She did not feel threatened. That, too, was deliberate. His care was selective—and she was clearly inside the circle.

  Eirene watched his hands as he worked—one holding the vase, the other a mana crystal. He was channeling a single, careful thread of mana to suspend the etching stylus in the air, holding it steady as it engraved the rune into the ceramic. The control behind it spoke of long habit rather than effort.

  After a while, he looked up at her inquiringly. He seemed to be wondering about her silence.

  She wasn’t ready to untangle the implications of his thinking yet. So she changed the subject.

  “Are you even allowed to show this to me?” she asked.

  “Of course not,” he replied, going back to his work.

  That answer was about what she had expected. Then he added, “But then again, what you have is structure, not doctrine. That distinction matters.”

  “It still looks painful,” she said, glancing at the notes.

  “It is. That’s the point. You push hard, recover properly, and repeat.”

  “I’ve never trained like this before. Or at all, really. I even rely on my focus to avoid strain,” she said, lifting her bracelet. She had made it herself, tuned over weeks to compensate for what her body could not.

  His eyes moved over the bracelet, probably assessing the enchantments. She had imprinted two spells: one to boost movement speed, another to reduce fatigue.

  “Your enchanting has improved,” he said, making her smile. “It’s good work. But you really should learn rune crafting. They’re more efficient, and they scale better.”

  Of course he couldn’t stop at a compliment.

  “I will. After my spellwork reaches satisfactory levels.” She paused. “While we are on the subject—why are you using that mana crystal anyway?”

  He looked at her like she was being deliberately dense. “The wards aren’t ready yet. If I use divine power, the whole city will go on alert.”

  That wasn’t what she meant. She had wondered before why he had always avoided developing his mana. Now, knowing he could call on something far more dangerous, his stubborn refusal made more sense.

  “Then why aren’t you working in your room?” she asked.

  “You’re here,” he said simply.

  The answer landed more heavily than she expected. Not because it was dramatic, but because it was so matter-of-fact.

  Eirene rose abruptly and caught his sleeve, tugging him toward the door. “We’re going to your room. There is no need to waste the mana in that crystal.”

  He did not resist. As he stood, he drew more mana from the crystal. The remaining unetched objects—small, ordinary things he had brought with him—rose from the table and drifted after him, floating on invisible hands.

  Eirene watched with undisguised interest.

  This was the same kind of unstructured spell he was using to hold the stylus—no sigils, no visible framework, just direct manipulation. The difference lay in the scale. It was several levels higher in scale, and yet his control was precise enough that nothing rattled.

  That level of control should not have been possible for someone who had never even reached the First Circle.

  More secrets, then. At least he had promised to explain later.

  Shifting her attention from the spell, she noticed what he had left behind. The cute little wooden bear still sat where he had put it, untouched. Beside it, just as unetched, was a small cat figurine of similar design.

  She smiled despite herself.

  So he was paying attention.

  She drew on her own mana and mimicked his spell, copying the shape of it as best she could. The objects wobbled as she took hold of them.

  “I told you to stop wasting it,” she said, concentrating. “It’s far too expensive to use so carelessly.”

  The spell was harder than she’d expected. Unlike structured spells that produced static effect once the sigils had been arranged in the proper sequence, unstructured spells relied more on active mana manipulation. Everything depended on constant adjustment—pressure here, balance there.

  Her grip slipped once, then again, before she managed to stabilise it. Only then did she notice the weight had lessened.

  Orestis had released his hold.

  She glanced at him in time to catch the faintest hint of a smile before he looked away.

  The realization followed a heartbeat later. He had shown her the spell fully expecting her to try it herself. Not as a test. Not as a lesson announced in advance. Just an opportunity placed where she could reach it.

  And practising it—properly practising it—would be an excellent way to strengthen her basic spellwork.

  Her smile widened. It was precisely gestures like these that made trusting him feel reasonable. Not because they were kind, but because they were deliberate.

  She shot him a mock glare to let him know she had noticed.

  He did not comment. He never did, when he thought he had been subtle.

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