Chương 127: Chapter 120

Ellara It started in Theory of Applied Expression, third period, when the girl two seats over leaned across the aisle and said, "Is your brother Cale Arcanus."

"Yes," I said.

"The one who fixed Petra's channels yesterday."

"I do not know who that is," I said, flat.

"How? It is literally all over the school?" She seemed to consider her words.

"Though granted, fixed is not even the right word." She turned fully in her seat, abandoning any pretense of attending to Instructor Callav's introduction of the day's material. Her name was Benn, I did not know her very well. But she had big eyes and sharp features, the kind of person who had an opinion on everything and shared it readily.

"Petra has had that blockage since she was eleven. The academy's Sanatio specialists said it would take months of treatment by someone at Level 7 Adept or above. Your brother cleared it in under a minute. In the middle of a practical exercise. Without breaking a sweat." I sighed. I was not even surprised anymore.

"Yes, that sounds like something he would do," I said.

"How? My father was a Mender for the Bureau of Arcane Restorations. He is in administration now so he does not take patients anymore, but even at his most practiced he could not fix Stagnant Mana Blockage, especially in the upper meridians, without at least the help of an Artisan-level Alchemist." She said it flat, reporting facts she plainly thought had been undersold.

"Focused Menders above the Journeyman class spend years developing that kind of interior thread work. I know that your brother is technically in the fourth year but I heard he lacks formal education. And as if it were a side project on a weekend he solved her problem, just like that." I kept my expression neutral.

"I am not really hearing a question in there." They had gathered something of a crowd, which was strange because we were still in class. Apparently the professor had finished his lecture and we had study time. Which was just dandy. I was going to kill my brother.

"How many cores does he have," said someone from the row behind. I did not turn around.

"Because what I saw in that footage, the technique, the output, the lack of mana bleed. That is not a two-core expert. It is not even a standard three-core application. Someone in my dorm said he introduced himself at the sparring session as a two and a half core practitioner and then just stopped talking mid-sentence." A small laugh from somewhere in the cluster of students who had stopped pretending to take notes.

"Two and a half," Benn said.

"I saw that too. What does that even mean."

"A half core is a measure for when you can access a core that is not fully formed," said the girl behind me, whose name I still did not know.

"When you have two full cores the partial one gets drawn along somehow. But that is not the important part. The important part is he did not want to finish the sentence. Because the truth is probably something scandalous." I looked at my notes.

"I saw the fight," said another voice, lower, from the far side of the cluster. A boy, Thomas, I think his name was, I always forgot, leaned down conspicuously as if he were sharing information he had stolen from the Luminary himself.

"The senior sparring session. We are not supposed to discuss it across year groups but it happened and people saw it. He was using the most potent mix of Aura and Elementa Arcanum I have ever seen. He beat like thirty seniors. Then after helping several of those other students, he took on most of the first-year class with Ventus only. Then Oswin Karst, who is legitimately good, and it was not even close. By the end of the class he was helping people with their application problems."

"Ventus only," Benn said slowly.

"That was the handicap he gave himself," the boy said.

"Young Master Valmor pointed that out afterward. He was not using his actual fighting style. He was using Ventus because it was what the class was covering." The cluster went quiet as that piece of information landed, everyone separately processing what it meant.

"And the Gala," said someone else. Multiple someones at once, which produced a jumbled overlap that resolved into individual threads.

"Kaereth Valmor uses Ventus Elementa Arcanum with Aura as his main fighting style, did you know that. Could Ellara's brother be secretly related."

"Prince Ardeshir's family apparently filed a formal complaint with the Church but Atillia is claiming they did not have anything to do with the Prince's death."

"There is no way the Ghost of the Wastes at a royal gala is a coincidence."

"Thessaly the Scion, did you see the footage, forty-three million, she called him Amore."

"Princess Talena has been in a mood all week, my cousin works in her court and said she has been asking questions about Valecis Isle."

"Is it possible the Ghost is like here now? Settled on the island?" It was a throwaway comment but it stuck with me as I considered it. I kept my face neutral, exactly how Gran had taught me. I was proud of myself. I did not show a thing underneath. The Ghost of the Wastes had stormglass-violet eyes. I had been thinking about this for a week. Often enough that it was living rent free in my head. I tried not to focus on it.

I had learned from Gran that constant thinking about a thing was a way of broadcasting it, and some things you kept quiet even inside your own head. But it was there, and I could not stop coming back to it. The Ghost of the Wastes had stormglass-violet eyes with red underneath them, and Cale's eyes did that, had always done that, the violet going deep and a red coming up beneath it when he was holding something still inside himself. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

Strange things kept happening around my brother. Cale who had been gone for years and came back to Vera with a mercenary's instincts and a bodyguard's situational awareness. Cale who introduced himself as a two and a half core practitioner and stopped talking. Cale whose mana, when I was standing close to him, made my own expression feel stronger than it should, like standing in better light. I did not know what it added up to. I was not sure I was supposed to know yet.

But I knew the outline of something, even if the center was still dark. I put my pen down and looked at the instructor and tried to pay attention. I did not do a very good job of it. I found him in the east study hall after lunch. He was at a corner table with Rade, who had three different Technica interfaces open and was cross-referencing something, locked onto a thread worth following. Cale was also watching a swimsuit competition out of Azurea, so there was that. He grinned when he saw me.

Cale was eating an apple and reading, which was either genuinely relaxed or a very good performance of it, and I had spent enough of my life around both to know I could not always tell the difference. I dropped into the chair across from him. Rade looked up, assessed the situation, gathered his interfaces, and said something about needing a different source document. He had barely cleared the table before I leaned forward.

"How many cores do you have," I said. Cale looked at me over his book.

"My entire Theory of Applied Expression class spent the period talking about you," I said.

"Someone ran an analysis on the Petra footage. Your purity reading was off the standard scale. A third-year said you fought the entire sparring class on a handicap. You fought with Sarien and she is apparently really strong according to Rade and Aiden wanted you to demonstrate some mystery task for the foreign delegation. My classmates are asking me questions I do not know how to answer." I kept my voice low and even.

"So. How many cores." He set the book down.

"The cores question is complicated," he said.

"What does that mean."

"It means just what I said."

"Cale." I looked at him.

"I am not asking so I can tell anyone. I am asking because I live on this island with you and strange things keep happening and you are my brother and I would like to understand what I am looking at." He was quiet for a moment. I waited. I had learned from Gran that waiting was sometimes the only useful thing you could do with Cale.

"Core count is a shorthand," he said finally.

"It is what people measure because it is easy to measure. It is not the whole picture. Purity and application matter more than count. A single-core practitioner with exceptional purity and technique will outperform a three-core practitioner with mediocre development in most situations."

"So you are not going to tell me the number."

"I am telling you the number would not mean what you think it means." I absorbed this. It was the most honest deflection I had heard from him since he arrived on the island, which meant he was at least trying.

"Fine," I said.

"How do I get stronger." Something shifted in his expression.

"You are getting stronger."

"Faster. How do I get stronger faster. Everyone here has years of formal training on me. I feel the gap every class." I looked at my hands for a moment, then back at him.

"At the gala, Kaoru stepped in front of me. He should not have needed to. I could not have protected myself and I knew it." I said it without flinching.

"I do not want that to happen again." He was quiet again, but differently. The kind of quiet that meant he was thinking rather than managing.

"Your foundation is solid," he said.

"Gran made sure of that. What you are missing is application under pressure. You do not develop that from drilling technique without resistance. You need to spar regularly against people who are better than you." He paused.

"And your upper meridian chain is misaligned. Not blocked. Misaligned. It is costing you around fifteen percent of your effective output." I stared at him.

"You can see that from here."

"Yes."

"By looking at me."

"Yes, but I could also read your mana and body flow by taking your pulse." I opened my mouth and closed it again.

"Can you fix it."

"Yes. But not in the middle of a study hall. We will try to find some time at home and then I will work on a different system with you. I will show you something neat. It will make you stronger." I grinned at my brother and just went for it.

"So. Are you the Ghost of the Wastes." Cale's face did not change.

"What a strange question. What makes you ask that."

"Your eyes," I said. I did not feel like beating around the bush.

"What about my eyes."

"Your eyes go crimson when you are upset. From what I can see the Ghost does the same thing."

"So you think I am the Ghost of the Wastes because my eyes change color."

"Pretty much." Cale gave me a soft smile.

"You have heard of magic right."

"That is not an answer, big brother."

"Would you believe me if I said no."

"Probably not." Cale's grin turned cocky.

"Then why ask." My brother was so sneaky. He did not actually answer the question. So was he the Ghost? I was almost positive he was. Which made zero sense, like a mountain troll that could talk. The Ghost was like a thousand years old. How did that work? I narrowed my eyes. Then I smiled.

"Have you contacted Akemi Yamato." His expression changed, then a raised eyebrow. I was not even sure he realized he was doing it.

"No," he said.

"Why would I do that."

"Of course you did not. Did you even know that she wanted you to accompany her to the Gala." Cale, who had turned back to his crystal interface, looked back up and gave me a sharp look.

"Wait. What. Why. What are you saying right now."

"Akemi Yamato. I think she is interested in you. You had no idea?" I looked at him, his face blank, and almost laughed. My brother looked almost distraught, like a rabbit in a spotlight.

"She came to our house and had tea with Gran. She asked if you would accompany her to the Gala." I pulled out my interface and started a new message thread with Kaoru.

"She is really nice, Cale. She was kind to me in a room where she did not need to be and she is super pretty, even-tempered, and I think into you. You should contact her. Spend a little time with her. You could go on a date." Cale looked at me.

"What is a date." I stared at him.

"Wait, how old are you again," I said.

"Funny."

"You are eighteen but you do not know what a date is."

"I know what it means when someone says the fourteenth of Gildrest," he said.

"But clearly that is not what you mean because that does not make any sense in this context. So explain yourself, little sister." I pressed my lips together, trying not to laugh.

"Not what I mean, obviously." I looked at my incredibly strange brother.

"A date is when two people who like each other agree to spend time together on purpose. In a place. At a time they both agreed on. Dates can be anywhere from walking along the beach to going to a fancy dinner."

"Why would anyone walk along the beach."

"Do not tell me you hate the beach."

"Sand in your toes. It is awful." I rolled my eyes, but he was smiling.

"So, back to dating. You show up to a place with somebody else with the understanding that they are there because they like each other."

"That seems like a lot of work." I glared at my brother.

"It is normal, Cale. Not everyone just skips straight to the marriage proposal stage like Thessaly the Scion." Cale's expression went blank like he had no idea what I was talking about.

"What a strange thing to say. I do not know what you are referring to," he said.

"The Gala footage has forty-three gajillion engagements, Cale. Even if you are not the Ghost of the Wastes you would know what I am talking about."

"I was watching the Quidditch invitational. I do not know what you are talking about," he said, in exactly the same voice. I stared at him. He looked back pleasantly and said nothing. Fine.

"The point," I said, "is that you contact Akemi, you suggest a time and a place, she says yes or she says no, and if she says yes you go and you talk to her like a normal person. And if something tries to kill you it has gone wrong." He considered this like it was a tactical problem.

"That seems like a low bar."

"For you it is a reasonable bar." I held his gaze.

"Contact her, Cale." He looked at me for a long moment, filing the instruction away under consideration.

"Fine," he said. I straightened my jacket as Gran did when a conversation was finished.

"Good," I said.