Durest:

  “Wow. Your life sucks,” Gareth says. He examines the paper I handed to him once more before, with a shrug, crumpling it up and tossing it to the side.

  I blink.

  Open my sleeve and, with my pen, slowly draw a number on the open palm.

  5. It's barely readable. Shaky lines.

  I take a deep breath. Even that can’t be heard. What a joke.

  Gareth wrenches one of his hatchets free from a dead cultist. He wipes the blood off on his bear furs and moves onto the next.

  I’m used to the crunch of the body now. Even the spasm.

  It's odd. I need to scream. But for a little while longer, while my saviors watch me, I can hold myself together.

  Just a bit.

  “You alright?” Nimra asks from behind. I turn to her.

  Give her a smile.

  I don’t think she buys it, because she just tilts her head. Curly black hair strands cover her left eye as she does so, and she has to tug them back behind her ear.

  I know what I have to do. I just don’t want to. It's easier alone. It’s always been that way. Even on the other continent, ever since the damn start, alone is my way. My only way.

  No matter how long it takes.

  No matter how many times…

  I will eventually win.

  But what if he calls on me?

  What if he wants to make another bet?

  No. I won’t let it get to that point.

  This is the last one.

  …

  When I scribble out the same excuse and scramble away from my saviors, I find a nice piece of bark to bite on before folding to the ground and screaming. The bark is really just performative—helps me think that I’m screaming louder, even though it doesn’t matter.

  I’m not in any particular hurry, mostly because I know now that my timing doesn’t make a difference. It ends the same way. Even when I stumbled and rolled my ankle last time, having to crawl my way towards the caravan, the knight only appeared after I started a slow trek down the road. I tried going the other direction that time—same result.

  So, what if I wait a few hours?

  Worth a shot.

  Absent-mindedly, I go through my ledgers. “Ledgers”. Half of the book is full of near incomprehensible Servanta scribbles. Numbers, algebra, calculus—the works. It's never been my strongest suit but to be honest, that’s par for the course. I’m shit at everything I touch. It’s only when I work like a dog that I become marginally less shit. Shit to manure.

  I chuckle to myself. You’re a fucking idiot dumbass.

  My breathing finally slows. My shaking halts.

  The sensation of being sundered and watching my guts spew like wet balloons is forgotten, if only for a few moments.

  …

  Three hours pass before I finally resupply my inner mana. Ki is what one of my old teachers used to call it, but he also mentioned that the name doesn’t matter. Voe, bax, ki, mana, magicks, elements, fial, and even miraaklis—all of it boils down to the same thing.

  Power.

  Some of it is ambient. Some innate. Rarely hereditary, mainly learned and earned through years of study. The cog that moves all—chores, travel, commerce. War.

  But right here? Right now?

  Salvation.

  I feel the energy flex from my soul—shaped as an hourglass of sand surrounded by a void of black. Often, I used to wonder what my soul might’ve looked like—had it not been for him. But that’s in the past.

  I take a stick and kneel down—thumb off some dried blood that cakes below my nostrils—then get to drawing up my plan.

  Cut down half a league back to the cart. Don’t set off. Wait.

  Wait for the purple snow.

  Then, immediately finish the calculation of soulfire and apply it to your hourglass.

  With this, I can hopefully prove my theory that the purple snow is some soul freezing phenomena—if such a feat is possible. Never seen it before, but I can say that about a lot of the bullshit I’ve faced.

  Don’t whine about it. Do what you usually do.

  Fight bullshit with bullshit.

  It's been a while since I’ve blown my magicks on my gifted power. But this knight is worth it.

  I’ll show them how it feels to be cut in two.

  …

  The breeze flows crisply along the crowns of the canopy, rustling their green spiked branches. I lean against my caravan; hear Qaswa snort for about the fifth time. No doubt, she’s sick of me taking so long. But, she doesn’t understand that I’m playing the waiting game now. In my ledger book are scribbles of jagged numerical calculations turned to rounded Servanta script.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Soulfire is all about instantaneous change. Two hundred years ago, back when math was all but limited to the primeval mechanics of my homeland’s algebra, Servanta could not conjure more than just the basic elements. First circle magicks. And, they had no mobility. Circles could be made, scripts could be forged, but unlike Incanta no one invested any time in learning Servanta.

  That is, until the Scholar Age.

  Mathematical discoveries came one after another—a chain of revelation and brilliance from all across the world. And thus, in normal maths, calculus was born. Then linear algebra, optimization, and more. Much, much more.

  Still, it takes time to learn how to first translate regular math to Servanta. Far more time than the translation of prose and poetry to Incanta—but that’s only the initial translation. The good thing about Servanta and the reason as to why it's catching up to Incanta is because, while Incanta often depends on the beauty and elegance of the user’s writing, Servanta only needs the requisite mathematical knowledge. The ability to produce answers.

  In this case, the ability to calculate the derivative.

  The point of instantaneous change.

  The tangent of my soul.

  I chuckle and shake my head. It's not that serious. There are kids who can pull off the shit I do. Well, the math of it at least—not the Servanta script.

  With all my calculations nearly complete, save for one, I wait for the advent of the knight.

  And I get my wish when violet snow rains down from a cloudless sky.

  I work quickly to finish the last calculation. My quill presses hard against the paper, nearly bleeding through it. But, I’ve done this part quite a few times. So I don’t need to think about it.

  When I scratch off the last number, the edges of the page fray into charcoal black and gray as blue fire slithers to the center. I rip the page out and, with a deep breath, punch it against my sternum.

  Nothing.

  Then, all breath gone, all sensation numb, all falling, all dead, all roaming, all end, all seeing, all knowing, all reaching, all snowing—

  I keel over. Qaswa whinnies.

  Breath comes back slowly.

  I close my eyes and envision my soul. Blue fire glints off the hourglass. Yet, it doesn’t eat into it.

  Rather, it surrounds the glass.

  So I was right. This isn’t just any snow. Its soul freeze.

  There’s a numbness now as I stand, legs wiggling like worms. I take laborious steps towards my horse and unlatch her from the wagon—probably should’ve done that before all of this but it slipped my mind. Too worried about the calculation.

  I rise into the stirrups like some haggard pilgrim and trot down the road, hoping against all hope that the knight is coming from the opposite way.

  I keep my hands pressed against Qaswa’s nape, feeding some of the soulfire into her. Her movement also becomes wobbly, but she carries forth. God, I love this damn horse. Every other creature in this universe would bitch and complain, but not her.

  When my eyes flick up, I sigh.

  The whistling comes again.

  And the knight with armor like flared stalactites, with frostless breath, with a visor of black nothingness—they come marching down the path like every other time.

  Inevitable.

  But I’m not frozen this time.

  I halt Qaswa and slide off the saddle. Take slow, stumbling steps towards my foe.

  The knight’s fingers curl around its zweihander as it approaches.

  I sniff. Raise my trembling hands.

  Utter the soundless words.

  ‘Aether.’

  The realm doesn’t matter really. Whichever one takes the least energy to summon. Not that it really helps, considering how much mana the soulfire used up.

  This is my last move.

  The knight marches on, unabated. Even as I stand there, hand outstretched, looking like a poor hunched man begging some rich noble to not run him over, the knight gives no indication of feeling regret nor pity.

  Makes my job easier.

  Because as the knight takes its next step…

  A circle opens up below it. A window in the shape of an oval mirror, beholding the neon blue realm of Aether.

  When the knight’s foot comes down, it simply falls through the hole.

  But I won’t let it go all the way through.

  After all, I still need it to feel my pain.

  So just as the hole reaches up to its torso…

  I lower my hand.

  In the blink of an eye, there is no more hole. Just the upper half of the knight’s body, still holding the zweihander, its cut-off torso now bleeding a strange mix of purple and red.

  No more whistling.

  I squint at the knight. The snow still rains, but I assume that too will vanish.

  Crouching down to the knight’s level, I try staring into its visor. But there’s no eyes to stare back. I try hearing any cries of pain from its form, but it remains silent now.

  Gritting my teeth, I take a few steps to the torso and kick it over.

  The knight falls flat on its back with a metallic wheeze. The purplish blood stains my boots.

  I kick it again. Nothing.

  Well, I thought that would be a lot more satisfying. But, I guess when I go and use that “gift,” everything is a bit anticlimactic. I can’t even curse at this thing.

  It doesn’t stir my anger like the blubbering fool that was the Green Shore Dev.

  I turn around and start walking back to Qaswa.

  What a waste of pain. Of time. Why did it even come after me? I’d be willing to take off its visor and examine the thing, if it wasn’t for the soul freeze snow that persisted. I just need to leave. Before the soul fire runs out. I can come back later.

  I hope my tormentor is amused. Hopefully he can lighten up on me. It's been a hard few runs.

  I saddle up once more and touch my hand to Qaswa’s neck, resuming the flow of dwindling soul fire.

  Whistling.

  My eyes snap up. You can’t be serious—

  It's like a bad dream. One in which, no matter what you do, you always die in the end.

  The knight is marching towards me once more, torso still bloody but lower body reformed. And its fucking whistling that fucking tune.

  I try spinning Qaswa around and setting her to at least a canter. But she’s too slow in the soul freeze. As am I.

  The knight doesn’t even have to change pace.

  First, he cuts off the legs of my horse in one swift strike. She falls to the side, toppling over my left leg and trapping it.

  It bends the wrong way.

  I scream.

  The knight presses one of its armored legs onto the horse as he rears above it. The pressure destroys my leg. He raises his sword.

  Just end it end it end it you fucking piece of—

  He obliges.

  …

  “Wow. Your life sucks,” Gareth says. He examines the paper I handed to him once more before, with a shrug, crumpling it up and tossing it to the side.

  I blink.

  Tears well. I try wiping them off. Doesn’t work. Try writing the number. It doesn’t even look like a 6.

  This time, I can’t hold back. Not even in front of my saviors.

  A hand touches my shoulder. I turn to see Nimra’s eyes furrowed in worry.

  “Are you alright—”

  I crumble to the ground. Clench the grass.

  And scream.