Stories which she presumably wouldn’t have, since normally people had their memories erased. It was a cheap shot.
She turned her head to me, still smiling. “Oh, I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time for that at the university. You look exhausted, Corin. You must have had a difficult time of things. Is that a burn mark on your tunic?”
I shrugged. If she thought that taking a hit implied weakness on my part, I could use that. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just a blast from a dueling cane in one of my first battles.”
Father turned, scratching his chin. “Which you fled, I take it?”
I scoffed, which seemed to catch them both off guard. “Uh, no, not a chance. I didn’t run from any monsters.”
Mostly true. I only fled from people. And beings of godlike power.
Okay, and the cat-rabbit thing. So adorable.
Father’s eyes narrowed, showing a bit of legitimate contemplation. Had I given him a hint of doubt? “You fought monsters, and yet you have a non-combat attunement? I find that somewhat difficult to believe.”
Good.
I shrugged the backpack off my shoulders, opening the back and reaching in. I retrieved one of the larger crystals that had been left behind when Vera destroyed the barghensi. It was common knowledge that monsters in the tower left crystals behind when killed; they were a form of stable mana, and could be used in some spells and enchantments. Some people believed that they were the crystallized souls of the monsters.
I tossed the crystal to him, and he caught it deftly.
A slight frown developed as he turned the crystal over in his hands. “Curious.” He raised his head toward me.
I showed him a handful of other crystals. “If you think that’s impressive, you should see the sword.” I tapped the hilt of the weapon at my hip.
Father didn’t take the bait. Instead, he turned to Sera and handed her the crystal. “You’ll need to retrieve something more impressive than this on your next trip in the tower.”
She nodded curtly.
I set my backpack on the ground, folding my arms.
Apparently, I was setting the low, low bar for being considered a child of Magnus Cadence.
Father probably expected me to fight back, to compete, to try to prove myself... and for Sera to have to try harder to measure up to that.
He’d never understood.
His approval had stopped being important to me the moment he’d written his elder son off as dead.
“Well, this is all very exciting.” I tried to sound as unenthusiastic as possible. “But, as you’ve both made it clear you understand, I’m an exhausted coward who wants nothing but luxury, so I’m off to bathe and bed.”
I gave Sera one last look as I walked past her. Her expression had shifted from playful to contemplative. I gave her an exaggerated wink.
I wasn’t going to compete with her for Father’s approval, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t find a way to make this into entertainment of my own.
Chapter V — Orientation
I had a couple weeks between earning my attunement and the start of the academic year, and I intended to make good use of them.
My first matter of business was trying to figure out how to use my attunement. We had a number of books on attunements in the library. Unfortunately, we didn’t have many on enchanting. To the best of my knowledge, I was the first Enchanter in the family. That wasn’t exactly an honor. We’d made our family name in battle, not as crafters or merchants.
From what I could glean from the more general texts on attunements, most people could use their attunements intuitively. If I was a Shaper or an Elementalist, I could already be hurling bolts of raw mana. According to a book called Styles of Spellcasting, the methodology would depend on where I received my mark.
Hand marks are the most common, which begat our tradition of wearing gloves to hide them. Those attuned with hand marks excel at accurately directing spells at distant targets.
Leg marks allow for instantaneous delivery of powerful spells through physical contact. They are the favored marks for Guardians and other physically adept attunements.
Heart marks can channel mana through the entire body before dispersing it through a spell. This requires intense focus and slows the casting of the spell, but increases its intensity.
Lung marks allow the attuned to fill the air with mana as they speak the words of an incantation, directing their spells across a broad area. They are exceptional in large confrontations, such as siege warfare.
Finally, mind marks enhance the attuned’s ability to sense and manipulate the mana inside their body. This can potentially allow mind-marked to construct spells inside their own bodies purely through focusing their minds. This is an excellent attunement location for Menders, who can heal themselves simply through concentration, as well as shadows, who can use it to cast illusions without any warning.
That description made my own mind mark sound pretty interesting, until I read a bit further and found out that Enchanters could only enchant items, not people.
That was disappointing. I’d been looking forward to permanently enhancing myself somehow. Maybe an enchanting-specific book would give me a better idea of what I could do.
I did pick up a few more things about enchanting from the few books we had, but not enough that I could actually practice it at home. They were more about theory and history, written mostly for non-Enchanters who wanted to learn about the basic concepts. That was frustrating — whenever I walked by Sera’s room, I could hear her practicing some kind of spell incantations, presumably already mastering her Summoner abilities.
Occasionally, I’d even see an icy glow emanating from her room or see water dripping down the side of her door.
Aside from studying my attunement without success, I had another thing to research: the symbol on the glove I’d found on the body in the prison. That, fortunately, was simple enough. We had a book on heraldry, and it was one of the first entries. House Cornell.