By the third morning, I had learned how to sit on a floor. Apparently, I had been doing it wrong for twenty-two years.
The primer wanted a straight back, loose shoulders, and an even breath. Keeping any two was easy. Adding the third made something else tense up. Whenever I checked my shoulders, I found my teeth pressed together.
I loosened my jaw and tried again. Cold gathered beneath my ribs.
Not much. Enough to recognize, then enough to make me want to stop.
The memory of my first attempt helped with that. According to the book, beginners learned to feel their core before moving anything out of it. A diagram showed a pale circle inside a human outline. Lines ran from it through the chest and along the limbs.
Useful, except bodies didn't come with labeled lines.
I touched the page with a finger.
"Here. Start here."
Speaking made my breath uneven. I stopped speaking.
For a while, I listened to the clock.
Something shifted inside me.
My shoulder dropped before I decided to move it. Air slipped out through my nose. The cold turned along the left side of my chest, and my fingers curled loosely against my knee.
I knew the next breath. That was the strange part.
I hadn't read ahead. The next page was still under my palm, but my body was already waiting for a slow breath in and a shorter one out.
I followed it. A thin chill reached my elbow. Then my concentration broke.
"Wait."
The feeling withdrew. I leaned forward, breathing through the dull ache it left behind.
For several seconds, I watched my hand.
Nobody had spoken inside my head. No image had appeared. I hadn't suddenly remembered a teacher or a lesson.
My elbow had simply known where to go.
I turned the page.
The second diagram showed the wrist resting at a slight angle, with the forearm turned outward.
I looked down.
Close. Not identical, but close enough to make my stomach tighten.
Cedric had practiced this. Of course he had. The Ledger called it Basic Void Circulation. Whatever else had happened to this body, seventeen years hadn't vanished from its muscles because I woke up inside it.
I flexed my hand.
The cuff fastening had been the same. My fingers had found the little catch before I understood how it worked.
Useful. Also a good way to get myself killed if I mistook familiarity for skill.
I made myself wait until the ache settled before trying again.
This time, I kept my eyes on the diagram. Breath in. Shoulder loose. Let the cold move instead of dragging it.
The primer repeated that instruction three times in different words.
I had disliked it on the first reading. Now I understood why the author kept saying it.
Trying harder made everything worse.
The chill reached my elbow again. I held it there for a breath, then let it recede.
My hand stayed steady.
I almost smiled. Almost, because I still needed to stand up, and the floor seemed much farther away from the chair than it had before.
A knock came while I was using the desk to pull myself upright.
"Young master?"
"A moment."
I pushed the book under a folded cloth. Too late, I noticed how obvious that looked and pulled it back out.
Reading a book wasn't a crime. Hiding one badly might become a problem.
I sat before telling him to enter.
The attendant brought fresh water and a small plate of sliced fruit. His gaze moved from the chair to the cushion on the floor.
I waited for a question.
He put the tray down without asking one.
"Leave the water."
His hand stopped beside the jug.
"And the plate," I added.
"Yes, young master."
After he left, I ate a piece of fruit and looked at the cushion.
In the game, Cedric didn't sit on floors. He stood in expensive rooms and said things that made me want to skip his dialogue.
Maybe he practiced in a chair. Maybe the game had never bothered showing anyone learning how to breathe.
I finished half the plate before returning to the book.
The next step was release.
A beginner was supposed to let a small amount of Aether travel into the palm, then ease it out. No shaping. No technique. Just a controlled release into open air.
There was a warning beneath the diagram.
Never close the circulation path while maintaining pressure at the core.
I read it twice.
Then I did exactly that.
Not on purpose.
The cold moved farther than before. My wrist turned, my fingers opened, and for one brief moment I felt something thin and cool resting against the center of my palm.
I got excited.
My breath caught. I tried to hold the feeling still so I could examine it.
Pain snapped across my hand.
"Ah, fuck!"
I jerked back and struck the chair with my elbow. The book slid off my knee. Cold rushed toward my chest, followed by a sharp heat that didn't belong anywhere near it.
I bent over my arm.
For a few seconds, breathing was work.
When I opened my hand, a narrow red mark crossed the skin beneath my middle finger. It looked like I had grabbed something hot.
Nothing had left my palm.
The room was unchanged. No broken window. No black fire. Not even a useful hole in the carpet.
I held the injured hand away from my shirt. Even brushing it against the cloth hurt.
Footsteps stopped outside.
"Young master?"
I swallowed the first answer that came to mind.
"Bring cool water and a clean cloth."
"Shall I call the physician?"
I examined the mark again. Small. Painful, but small.
"For my hand. Bring the water."
He left quickly.
I moved the cushion away from the chair and retrieved the book with my good hand. My pulse still felt too fast.
The warning sat there, completely unhelped by the fact I had read it.
When the attendant returned, I let him see the palm.
Hiding every ordinary injury would take more effort than I could afford. Explaining a damaged core was different.
"A failed release," I said.
He lowered his eyes.
"Yes, young master."
No surprise. No useful reaction either. He might have seen it happen before. He might have been afraid to look surprised.
I held my hand in the cool water until the worst of the sting eased.
"Leave the cloth."
Once alone, I sat at the desk instead of returning to the floor.
The paper from yesterday still held my list of problems. I took a fresh sheet and drew three lines across it.
Remembered game fact.
Observed fact.
Untested guess.
I left more room beneath the last heading than either of the others.
Under the first heading, I wrote that Cedric used Void Aether and entered the academy as a D-rank heir.
Under the second, I wrote that the Ledger listed my current core as F, and that moving Aether hurt. Then I added the burn, the wrist movement, and the cuff.
Under the third, I started writing: The body remembers all of Cedric's training.
I stopped halfway through.
All was doing too much work.
Some movements remained. I didn't know which ones, how reliable they were, or whether they belonged to a healthy body stronger than the one I had now.
I rewrote the line.
Some practiced movements may remain. They are not safe instructions.
My hand throbbed as if agreeing.
I went back through the earlier notes and moved two lines. The pain wasn't proof that all magic would hurt this much. The ease of the cuff fastening wasn't proof that I could hold a sword properly.
Both had felt obvious when I wrote them.
I scratched them out slowly, trying not to smear the fresh ink with the damp edge of the cloth. Paper was cheap here, apparently. Good conclusions were taking more work.
There was another problem.
I turned back through the primer, looking for the first circulation diagram. The book told a beginner to guide the first thread along the right side of the chest. A note allowed the other direction for certain affinities, but the explanation came later, in a chapter about adjustments after stable circulation.
My body had turned left immediately.
That alone proved nothing. Void Aether might need it. Cedric might have been taught a different method.
Except the movement at my wrist hadn't matched the printed version either.
I opened my hand slowly.
At the point where the cold had reached my elbow, my body had angled my palm inward, away from the ordinary path shown on the page. Almost as if it had been avoiding something.
I hadn't been doing that during the first painful attempt by the washstand.
And the leftward turn had hurt less.
Less didn't mean safe. I had a wet cloth and a burn to remind me.
Still, I copied the two paths onto the paper. The printed one was easy. The other took three tries before it looked like what I remembered feeling.
According to what I knew from the game, Cedric had no reason to practice around a damaged core before coming to the academy.
According to my hand, he might already have learned how.
I placed the page under the third heading. Then I closed the primer for the day.