Chapter 386: Something to Build On [Bonus]

Chapter 386: Something to Build On

On Saturday morning, Brand didn’t say anything for the first ten minutes.

She just watched. Jin sat on the mat with the big new stone in his palm and drew from it the way he’d drawn all week: a thin thread on the breath out, held below the Core, the grit going out of it, sunk on the breath in.

When a thread came coarse, he stopped drawing and worked through what he already held. He no longer had to abandon his breathing rhythm to do it. Brand made a note, and he resisted looking over to see what she’d written.

Later, the rough sensation persisted despite his usual correction. Jin stopped taking energy from the stone and raised his hand. Under Brand’s eye, he settled the small amount remaining, then put the stone down.

"Why did you stop?" Brand asked.

"It stopped clearing the way it had before."

"Good." She turned the tablet toward him.

Monday’s line was there, and Wednesday’s, and today’s. It wasn’t dramatic, but today’s line was smoother, with fewer jagged corrections, and it ran longer before the end.

"Fewer corrections, less wasted effort," Brand said. "And you kept it steady longer. That was a good session."

She sat back.

"You can do this on your own now," she said. "Within limits."

Jin had been braced for another week. He tried not to look as pleased as he felt, and failed.

Brand wrote a short routine beneath his readings. "Stay within what we’ve practised. If you’re unwell or still recovering from a fight, wait and speak to me. Don’t try to make up missed sessions by taking more the next day."

She turned the tablet back toward him. "Keep a log. If anything starts feeling different, I want to hear about it before you decide to push through."

"Understood."

He wrapped the partly drawn stone back in its own cloth, separate from the others. In the box, the nine untouched new ones lay on one side and the two small untouched Thornwatch stones on the other.

The empty one was still sitting in Brand’s tray from Wednesday. He’d keep it, he decided, for no reason at all except that it had been the first.

At the door, he hesitated.

"Can I ask something? About bonding?"

"You can ask."

"The skill I got. Gravity Press. That came from Glitch’s awakening." He chose his words. "When Flicker finishes her own awakening at Rank 2, her full one, does she get a turn too?"

"Yes, after her full awakening is complete and stable. Up to two active beasts can each give you one compatible skill at the Rank-2 stage. Glitch gave you the first. Flicker can earn the second."

Jin turned back from the door. "Without waiting for me to reach Rank 3?"

"Correct. You don’t receive her contribution just because her slot opens, but you can receive it when she qualifies. Rank 3 has its own allowance: one new skill from each of up to three beasts that complete that stage."

Three Rank-3 beasts. Jin glanced at the stone box, suddenly aware of how quickly even his new supply might go with that many mouths to feed.

"Plenty of tamers never fill every allowance," Brand said, following his look. "Each beast has to develop. And changing the beast in a slot doesn’t let you collect an already-used allowance again."

"Flicker’s enough to think about," Jin said.

Brand smiled. "Then start with what she needs. She’s still got a way to go."

He went to the stables before lunch and sat with Flicker on his arm for a while, feeling the light, quick warmth of her through the bond. She was heavier than she’d been a month ago.

He checked the latest care notes, then watched her balance as she leaned toward his jacket pocket. There had been a sunberry in it yesterday. Apparently, she considered that a standing arrangement.

"Not today," he told her. She climbed to his shoulder and began investigating his collar instead. He let her, though the claws tickled.

In yard three that afternoon, Lucian came down the lane in a Stormstep and stopped dead on his mark, weight settled, stave up, without a half-step.

"Ha," he said.

They worked through their usual drills, resting between the short sets with skills. Lucian landed several more clean stops, though one still ended in a skid. He looked down at the mark his heel had left and moved back to try the final step at a walk.

Then it was Jin’s turn.

Lucian came in at a run, faster than any day that week. Jin set the patch at the six-meter post, small and square, kept his weight on his back foot and stepped out sideways as it formed.

He released after the brief pulse. Lucian had already committed to going around its edge; his stave swung through the space where Jin’s chest had been.

It wasn’t perfect. He was late on the next one, and leaned on the one after that. But the step was there more often than not now, and he could feel the difference in his legs.

For once, he had enough balance left to take another step when Lucian followed him.

"You’d still lose," Lucian said cheerfully, when they stopped.

"I’d lose slower."

"That’s the whole point."

They ate at the noodle place by the academy’s east gate, the one with the steamed windows and the cook who shouted orders through a hatch.

Lucian ate like someone who’d been running all afternoon, which he had, and spoke between mouthfuls.

"My instructor saw me on Thursday," he said. "Watched me stop clean three times in a row. He asked me who’d fixed it." He pointed his chopsticks at Jin. "I said a C-Rank appraiser had been standing exactly where I arrive and shouting at me."

"I didn’t shout."

"You pointed. It was worse." Lucian slurped. "He said to keep you."

Jin laughed into his bowl.

"Your back foot," Lucian said, after a while, more seriously. "That’s real now. Monday, I could tap you every time. Today, I had to work for it."

"I could feel it once you showed me." Jin pushed a piece of pork round his bowl. "Before that, I thought I just couldn’t get out of your way fast enough."

"You still need practice," Lucian said. "But now I have to guess which way you’re going. It’s annoying."

They ordered another round of dumplings. Lucian was comparing conditioning courses for Kite, waiting on the salvage assessment before deciding what he could afford alongside his Academy Points.

One had a morning slot that would clash with their practice. They argued mildly over whether an earlier start was reasonable. Jin offered to become reasonable after breakfast; Lucian suggested he try arriving awake first.

He was thinking about Flicker. He’d sat with her panel on Friday night after the ram, before he slept. He hadn’t pressed anything.

The development course was in its third week. He compared her recent care records with the avatar’s accumulated progress and noted the checks he wanted before choosing a transfer. Finishing the course alone wouldn’t tell him what she could safely take.

He wanted her attacks to trouble stronger beasts, to see her finish a pursuit without exhausting herself. He wanted the skill her full awakening could eventually bring him, too. For now, he had a stronger bird to prepare and no reason to hurry past the preparation.

His phone buzzed on the table.

Breeze ate the corner of my care leaflet. The bit about humidity. Pike sent another copy, and Aldous says this one should live in a folder. Apparently the desk is not a safe place because HE can reach it.

A second message followed.

Aldous says hi. Breeze is hiding under the bed. He knows.

Jin snorted.

"Sister?" Lucian asked.

"Her fox ate her homework."

"Literally?"

"The humidity section."

Lucian laughed so hard that the cook looked out through the hatch.

Jin typed back: A folder with a latch. You know what he’s like. He put the phone face down, picked up his chopsticks, and took the last dumpling before Lucian could.