Chương 112: Rebirth Ascendant

Eoin's workshop was immaculate when Miriam stepped inside the next morning. No trace of hay remained and Eoin already had an array of different colored fórsa gems on the crude table in the far corner. In the near corner Sol was still bound by her Entangle - she would need to refresh it this morning to make sure it didn't run out of power.

"You know we're going to get out of this, right?" The voice coming out of Sol's mouth was different today. Rougher, older.

"Ultán," Miriam said, winding more vines around her friend's body.

"I thought I might never hear from you again. Thought Solas had you locked down."

"Eh. Even if we're just Minds, we gotta rest some time. Really enjoyed the Fetch Forest, by the way. What a quaint place to visit," Ultán sulked.

"Miriam!" Eoin said, bounding up from a stool next to the table where he had been inspecting some gems.

"Good morning! Are we ready to get started?"

"Are we going to train here? In front of him?" Miriam gestured to the artificial man.

"What, you want to leave him here alone?" Eoin asked.

"It would be a risk. I'm certain they are not held as fast as they are pretending to be. Still, it's not like they could leave even if they wanted to."

"What?" Ultán whipped his head around.

"Why couldn't we leave?" Eoin shrugged.

"The path here was only safe because of my pact. You try to walk it and the Fetch will be all too happy to make your acquaintance again."

"You mean… I'd have to go through the forest again. With those… things." Ultán shuddered.

"Fine. Happy to stay then."

"No, you're right," Miriam said.

"We'll do it here. What first?" Eoin's lenses appeared in front of his eyes.

"First, let's put your Ascendancy through its paces. I have not studied many Ascendants - they usually move on to the Sixth Ring and don't come back. I'm a little curious to see what you can do. Then we'll figure out whether the normal methods for advancing Rings will work, and how we might tackle… our special project."

"He means getting rid of us," Ultán grumbled. Miriam ignored Ultán.

"Fine. What do you want me to do?"

"Go through some of your normal techniques. I want to see if there is any baseline difference in them." Miriam summoned a vine spear and held it out to Eoin. He looked at it carefully, humming as if it were very interesting.

"No, no difference really. The structure is better - it'll last longer with less fórsa, but that's the same I would expect from a Growth Adept. What else do you have?" Miriam went through a litany of her Water and Life techniques and the verdict was the same - no huge differences. Even in the Water manifestations the fórsa seemed to just be better woven than it had, but that didn't seem to be what Eoin was looking for. Eoin sighed.

"Ok. Let's try Blight. How can we test this without a living being, though?" Miriam shrugged.

"You can't, really." He shook his head.

"I am really going to regret this, but… do it on me."

"What?"

"Do one of your Blight techniques on me. Just a little! My Fifth constitution should shrug it off, as long as you don't overload it. Not the fire! The old stuff." Eoin grimaced. Miriam felt that familiar flash of temptation. She had killed Fifths before. She would likely never have a better chance to do so than Eoin actually asking her to use Blight on him. All she had to do was overpower her black flame and the doomsday that hung over her at the end of the Third Ring would be gone.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. No. She wouldn't do that. Whatever happened, Eoin had so far done nothing but help her. There was always a chance they could find a way out of his bargain with King Cianán.

"I'll do it as small as I can," she said, touching his throat. Liquefactive Necrosis. Instantly Eoin began to cough, hacking at the fluid bubbling up from the decaying flesh inside his lungs. Still he continued to look through his lenses until the coughing subsided.

"That is terribly unpleasant!" he declared, his voice hoarse.

"But very effective! Still, it's the same story as the others. It only seems a little better made."

"So what?" Miriam was confused.

"Ascendency is just the black flame? Not that I'm complaining - it seems very powerful - but I expected a bit more."

"Let me see the flame again," Eoin said. Miriam summoned it into her hand and watched it flicker. The idea of black flame was a sort of oxymoron - it gave no light at all. In fact, it seemed to suck light in, to consume it. It was almost more like a flame-shaped hole in the world, except it wasn't completely solid. Like flame, it was translucent. Eoin nodded.

"Ok. So, what this is, I think, is that each of your Ascendant Natures now work together. Remember, you're not a Blight Ascendant. Not a Water or Life Ascendent."

"Together?" Miriam said, amazed.

"Do you know how long it took me to figure out how to use them apart?"

"But this is different," Eoin said.

"Or that's my theory anyway. You're not blasting these out at the same time. Rebirth is a sequence. You're seeing the evolved form of only the first part of the sequence."

"Right!" Miriam remembered looking in the mirror the night before and experimenting with her flame on her horns - Death, Water, Life. She looked at her hand and summoned a vine spear.

"I'm going to try something here."

"Please, be my guest," Eoin said, but he did back a few feet away. Miriam focused on the spear, then set it aflame. The shape inside was like a reverse silhouette - an outline of white inside a black frame. She could feel the fórsa in it dying - her fórsa. There was an instinctive urge to pull back, the same feeling someone gets when they realize they've leaned too far over a bridge and were only seconds away from tumbling to their end. But she was too familiar with death now to turn away from it.

As the spear charred, she infused it with Water. A raging river in small thundered through the ashen, porous wood, washing away what couldn't be reclaimed and soaking into what was left. This water felt different - it was more like the flame, the concept purified to the base essence of what a river was - transport, transition. To move from one state to another. Finally she poured Life into it. The shaft of the spear, diminished from the flame and the water, bulked in her hand, swelling with new growth.

The sharp point reshaped itself wickedly. Tiny vines and flowers tied themselves around the blade. She could feel that it was done. Clenching her fist back, she thrust the spear forward, and as she did the flame roiled off of it, the water streaming away. In her hand was the product of a new technique only a Rebirth Ascendant could do - Reborn Spear.

"Incredible," Eoin breathed. The spear thrummed in her hand, almost crackling with power. There was a tiny vibration throughout, almost like a cat's purr. This spear was alive in a way that it hadn't been before.

"It's amazing," Miriam said in awe.

"Is there… can I hit something with it?" Eoin nodded, slack-jawed. Water droplets coalesced in the air into a gray wall of water.

"This is Mist Wall. It's not the strongest defensive measure, but it is the technique of a Fifth. It should hold up." Miriam nodded, and stepped back. Holding the spear in both hands she thrust it forward towards the wall of mist. She felt it impact the wall solidly in a way that she never would have thought Mist could be, but the spear seemed to shrug it aside. It pierced the wall, and once the blade was through, the spear bucked in her hand.

The Mist Wall shattered, a wave of force throwing Eoin back against his table.

"Hot damn," Ultán said.

"Maybe I shouldn't have stopped at Fifth!"

"Eoin! Are you ok?" Miriam rushed forward, but Eoin hadn't even come off his feet - just slid back into the table. Eoin started laughing uncontrollably. He collapsed back onto his stool and leaned on the table. Tears stung his eyes and he couldn't seem to stop.

"Eoin?" Miriam asked, concerned. She let the spear unmake itself - keeping it there was taking a huge amount of active fórsa.

"Are you all right?"

"I should have known," Eoin chortled, but when he looked up it was despair he saw in his eyes.

"You old son of a bitch. I thought you were setting me up for cruelty. But Solas was right. You're setting me up for death. No wonder you offered me freedom in exchange!"

"Eoin, you're kind of worrying me here," Miriam said. He managed to take control of his breathing and sat quietly for a moment.

"Miriam, you are a relatively untrained Second in a tiny village in the Second Ring. Without effort you just obliterated the defensive technique of one of the strongest Fifths you will ever meet. If I continue to train you, the chance that you kill me at the end of the Third Ring… at this point I'm calling it fifty-fifty. But here's the thing."

"Yes?"

"I don't think this is the end of you amazing me. I think that by the time we face off after the liberation of Shirren… my death is likely to be a certainty."