By the following morning, I had returned to my spot by the low wall, right by the grass. This patch of earth now bore several holes from my earlier failures. It was my throne, such as it was.
I moved gingerly. My ribs still ached when I breathed too deeply, and my skin pulled in places where the new growth had not quite settled. None of this stopped me. I had trained through worse, though admittedly not in a very long time. The egg was inside the hut -on a secure shelf. I had checked on it before leaving. Only once, this time.
I raised both arms and examined them. The lines were there, no longer Sparks, each mark had stretched into a thin stroke along my forearm.The Requiem was black and sharp, like a cut in the skin that someone had filled with ink. The Cradle was white, with edges that seemed to glow faintly in the light.
I tested the Requiem first. I extended my right hand toward a large stone three paces away and pushed mana through the mark. The air shimmered. The hiss of black flame crossed the distance and struck the stone’s surface. Grey bloomed where it hit and cracks spidered outward. The decay spread across the stone’s face and ate into it, turning solid rock to powder. It took little time for that powder to become nothing at all. The impression came with it. The feeling of a thing that had been still for so very long, and had quite liked it, before I had erased it. I stared at my outstretched arm. I would not feel something for a stone.
I tried the attack on another stone, only stopping when the rock turned into powder. The result was no different.
This new attack was far, far stronger than when it had just been a Spark, and far more useful. I tested the range. It was three meters. By four, the black simply did not go further. It felt as if the space beyond held a resistance that did not yield to the Requiem. I tested the duration and the mana cost and the rate of decay against different materials. It was better in every conceivable way.
There was one problem. It was taking too much mana. Far more than it had before. I only had this world's thin mana left inside me, and it drained like water through cupped hands. The Requiem drank twenty times the amount it had before. My mana core had been absurd in my time, and it might have been absurder still here, but there were still limits. It hadn’t even fully refilled yet -even that was slower now.
I turned my left hand toward a dead patch of grass nearby, pushing mana through the Cradle. Warmth left my palm -a blazing white that would, and did, make the sun look dim. It crossed the gap and settled onto brown stalks. There was nothing for three seconds, then, there was green -a small circle of it, spreading outward from where I had aimed. The dead grass straightened. Color returned to it in a wave, a little pale at the edges and deepening toward the center.
With this, came another impression. Of a thing that had been whole once, and had wanted to be whole once again. It had accepted its eventual death, and wasn’t sure what to do with its new life.
“Tsk,” I clicked my tongue. Was this how it was always going to be, whenever I used these powers?
I stared at the greenery. Then, I used the Cradle again, forming a second circle of green, adjacent to the first. Then I formed a third, then a fourth, and then a fifth, for no reason at all. The range was just as long as the Requiem, but the mana cost was higher. With this world’s mana, the cost was roughly twenty five times what it had been before the phoenix. Damn it.
Still, I could now project both of my marks beyond my hands. Some part of me had known this when the marks had grown. Only a fool didn’t confirm gut feelings.
The mana aside, I now had two new techniques and now I was at something of an impasse. In the old world, the System had named every ability. Every spell, every skill, every passive trait bore a title in brackets that told you exactly what it was and exactly what it was worth. There had been a certainty to that. It was one of the few things about the System I might have liked.
There were no labels now. There was no blue screen to tell me what I had earned. This would not do.
“Requiem's Torch.”
I said the words aloud, testing them. The syllables sat well enough in my mouth. The Requiem was the mark’s name and torch described the function. It was accurate and functional. It was also deeply boring.
Every great power deserved a great name. This was not a matter of vanity. It was a matter of principle. When I had been Queen, every spell in my arsenal had carried a name that demanded respect. [Oblivion’s Decree]. [Balefire]. [The Ending Sky]. [Dirge For The Sun], [The Truth That Lies Beyond Death].
These were names that made armies break formation. These were names that made Gods flinch. 'Requiem's Torch' made nothing flinch. A tavern keeper would not flinch at 'Requiem's Torch', even if he understood what it meant. Also…I just simply did not like it.
I sat cross-legged in the grass and began to deliberate. “Black Ruin.” I tested the name and shook my head. It was too simple. Any brute could name their attack “Black Ruin.”
“The Unmaker’s Touch.” That was better, but it referenced touch, and I was no longer limited to contact. The entire point was the range, was it not?
“Entropy’s Lament.” I tilted my head. That one had a certain weight to it. A Lament implied sorrow, which implied depth, which implied that the power was not merely destruction but destruction with meaning-
I sighed deeply. It was pretentious. Even by my standards, and I had once named a military campaign “The Scouring of False Light.”
“The Requiem’s Reach.” That was functional and pedestrian. Surely the greatest Demon Queen in history could manage more than “Reach.”
“Void’s Verdict.” I paused on that one. “Verdict. In other words: judgement passed. My power decays doesn’t it? And is decay not a kind of judgement upon all things? There is a poetry to it that even Za-”
“Who are you talking to?” I froze and turned. Sara stood behind me, holding what appeared to be a bundle of wildflowers. She was staring at me with a very perplexed expression.
“I am naming my techniques,” I said, with as much dignity as the situation permitted. “It is a matter of some importance.”
Inwardly, I wished for the ground to open and swallow me whole. One did not get caught while naming their techniques. That somewhat defeated the purpose of the whole endeavor.
“Oh!” Sara sat down beside me without invitation. She placed the wildflowers in her lap and began to pull the petals from one. “What’s a tech-nique?”
“A…power. Something one does with mana.” I gestured at the broken stone ahead of me. “That. I did that. It was a great boulder once.”
Sara looked at the pebbles and then looked at me. “You broke it?”
“I decayed it. There is a significant difference.”
“It looks broken.”
My left eye twitched. I took a calming breath and returned to the matter at hand. “The point is that a technique requires a name. A worthy name. The System once provided them and it no longer exists. Therefore, I must name them myself.” There was little chance this child understood. Truthfully, I did not know why I had even bothered to explain myself in the first place. Just to show her, I showed off a wisp of black fire. The tiniest amount flicking at the air.
Sara pulled another petal. “What about ‘the black thing’?”
I paused. “Absolutely not.”
“The zappy thing?”
“It does not zap.”
Sara considered for a moment, her brow furrowed. “Ruin?” She said. “Like…you ruined that poor thing!”
I opened my mouth and closed it. Ruin. It was one word with no flourishes. It was also one syllable. It was not grand enough. It lacked weight. A proper name needed gravitas. Needed syllables like my own name. It was not- Damn it.
“It is…acceptable,” I said. Sara beamed. “Do not look so pleased with yourself. I said acceptable -not good.” The girl was already pulling petals again, smiling at her flowers.
Fine. If the destructive technique was to be Ruin, then the Cradle’s ranged attack needed its counterpart. Something that matched it and was equally simple. I extended my left hand toward another dead patch of grass. The Cradle shot white fire and green spread.
Sara watched, eyes wide. “Ooh!”
“This one creates,” I said. “It is the opposite of the other.”
Sara’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Bloom.”
I stared at her. Bloom was a very simple word. It was also only one syllable. Ruin and Bloom. My throat did something inconvenient. I swallowed past it. “Adequate names,” I said.
Sara smiled again. This time, I did not discourage her.
I found Ash beyond the treeline, in that clearing I had seen her in before. She was sitting on a flat stone, her sword across her knees. The blade caught the dappled light that filtered through the canopy. Around her, two dozen split stones lay in neat halves, their surfaces smooth as glass. She had been busy.
“Ruin and Bloom,” I announced.
Ash looked up. “What?”
“I have named my techniques. Ruin, for the Requiem’s black flame.” I raised my right arm. “Bloom, for the Cradle’s white.” I raised my left. “They are excellent names.” I said, folding my arms.
Ash stared at me for a long moment. Her lips pressed together. One corner of her mouth twitched, and then the other. “Did you come all the way out here to tell me that?”
“I came to inform you, yes. It seemed courteous. Given that we are, regrettably, allies of circumstance.”
“Ruin and Bloom.” Ash repeated the words slowly, as if tasting them. Something in her expression softened. “Sara?”
My silence was answer enough. The corner of Ash’s mouth twitched further. She looked away, toward the river. I could see her composing herself. “They’re good names,” she said smirking, and I chose not to acknowledge the strain in her voice. Then, something shifted on her face. “Cradle and Requiem, huh? That’s what…that thing told you?”
“Yes.” I said, matter of factly.
Ash held my gaze for a long moment. “Those….” She took a breath. “Those make sense.”
I did not argue, though I wished to. I did not feel pleased, though I did. I moved closer and my gaze settled on her arms, and I paused. The black mark on her left forearm had changed. It was no longer a Spark. It was now a thin, dark line that ran from the mark toward her elbow. The Cypher on her right arm had changed too. It was still a Spark, but the edges were softer.
“You advanced,” I said. Ash looked down at her arms, as if she had not decided whether to show me. Then she nodded. “When?”
She paused. “After the phoenix. While you were....” She shrugged.
While I had been unconscious then. While she had been… doing whatever it was she had been doing for three days. Had there been combat? There had been no mention of such. Still, I supposed there was now a greater question. “And?” I pressed. “Have you named your techniques?”
Ash ran her thumb along the flat of her blade. The gesture was slow and thoughtful. She did not look at me. “Parting.” She said.
“Parting?”
“For Sever…my mark.” Ash lifted her sword. She extended the blade toward a stone at the edge of the clearing, one of the few she had not yet split. Without moving from where she sat, she drew the tip through the air.
The stone fell in two. The halves slid apart and settled in the grass. There had been no contact. Just a line drawn in the air, and the stone had obliged. It seemed all marks grew along the same general direction. At least, so far. “Parting,” Ash repeated. “Because that is what it does.”
Sever. So that’s what her mark had been, though naturally I had assumed it had something to do with cutting. That did sound like a Hero’s mark. Parting, however, was a truly simple name, for a truly simple woman. Ruin and Bloom were decidedly better, as was to be expected. “That,” I said carefully, “is a very boring name.”
Ash smiled. “I know.” There was something different to her gaze now when she looked at me. It was a slight thing, a softening of her eyes. Odd.
“And the other one?” I asked, pointing at the purple Spark.
Ash hesitated. She hesitated for so long that I did not think she would answer me at all. “It’s called Veil.” She said finally. “Or at least, that’s what the System called it.”
Veil. The power to conceal then. Ash’s shoulders had tightened, and she pressed her left hand over her right, as if to block the purple Spark from the world.
"It does not suit you," I said. Ash's hand pressed harder over the mark. "A veil is for those who have something shameful to conceal. You are not-" I stopped. The sentence had more words in it than I had planned for. "You are not that," I finished, and it came out quieter than I intended.
Ash stared at me. For a moment, I wondered if perhaps I had offended her. Then, she laughed -the same sound as when she’d run with those children. I found myself looking away from her. It should have felt like she was laughing at me. My lips twitched upwards, just for a second.
We stayed in the clearing for a time.