Sylph inclined her head and Damien dropped his last spell. She flopped to the ground and rolled over, staring up at the sky.

“You weren’t kidding about holding back,” Sylph said after a moment. “Now I honestly feel a little guilty about the tournament. I don’t deserve first place.”

“Sure you do,” Damien replied, sitting down next to her. “The circumstances were different. If we were to repeat it, I’d lose every time. I just can’t use direct casting in front of other people yet. It would raise too many questions.”

“Yeah, but you’ve more than surpassed me in strength,” Sylph. She scooted back so her head was resting against Damien’s thigh. “It’s a bit embarrassing, to be honest. I’ve been training for years, and you’re already stronger than I am.”

“I kind of have a cheat,” Damien said, nodding to Henry. “Not to mention direct casting. I didn’t even learn that myself. Moon gave it to me. When I can’t use my unfair advantages, you crush me.”

“There’s no such thing as an unfair advantage in a fight,” Sylph replied. “There are only winners and losers.”

Damien pursed his lips. “There’s also the situation of the fight. Your skillset lends you more toward being a mobile fighter that zips in and out of a fight, while I’m more suited to an all out slugfest. If the location or circumstances we fought in were different, you’d probably have done much better.”

Sylph leaned back to look up at him. “That’s actually quite insightful. You’re not wrong. I’m just disappointed in my own performance. With all the training I’ve done and gotten, I should be able to do at least a little better against you.”

“Well, I don’t think any less of you for it. You’ll probably figure out what you can improve on and hone it to perfection before our next fight.”

Sylph’s cheeks reddened a shade and she sat up. “That’s sweet of you, Damien.”

Henry made a gagging noise across the clearing. Damien was actually slightly grateful for it, as he had entirely no idea what to follow that up with.

“Now that you’re done being weird,” Henry said, “I think I might be able to help you a little, Sylph. Damien was right about one thing. You aren’t using the full potential of your powers. In particular, you seem to have latched onto the Corruption’s ability to draw out Ether and ignored the other boons you gained from it.”

“You mean this?” Sylph asked, raising her arm. A curved blade sprouted from beneath the skin just below her wrist, running parallel up to her elbow.

“That’s one aspect of it,” Henry agreed. “The Corruption are deadly because of their tenacity, which might seem like it wouldn’t lend itself well to your fighting style, but I’ve seen the Corruption in other cycles, and it can be incredibly effective if used in the right way.”

“I don’t see how they’re much better than normal daggers aside from me being able to have a little more control over them,” Sylph replied.

“I can show you,” Henry said. “We’ll have to see just how many of the Corruption’s abilities you inherited before we can determine how far I can go.”

“That doesn’t sound fast. Damien also needs practice,” Sylph pointed out.

Henry snorted. “He can work without me. There’s only one more thing I need to teach him before he can start learning the real spell we’ve been practicing. I’ll do that and then see what I can do for you.”

Sylph glanced at Damien. “Are you sure?”

“Of course he is,” Damien said. “I’ll probably learn better without that asshole peering over my shoulder anyway.”

Henry’s eyes all rolled simultaneously, which was slightly nauseating to look at.

“Then I won’t refuse,” Sylph said. “I want to be able to get stronger. Half to fight the Corruption, and half for myself.”

“We should get to it, then,” Damien said. “Henry, do you think I can try to learn Storm yet?”

“Very, very carefully,” Henry said after mulling over his words. “And only while we’re next to a lot of this healing water. No using it anywhere else until I give you permission or you’ll take your own head off on accident.”

“I’m going to go practice a little on my own before Henry is ready,” Sylph said, standing up and helping Damien to his feet. “I’ll meet you back at our room.”

“Hold on, what about your companion?” Damien asked, cocking an eyebrow. “I think I won a bet.”

“Oh, right,” Sylph said. She pursed her lips and extended a hand, palm up. Wind twisted into a tiny white sphere above it, condensing and forming into small features. It turned into a tiny woman with translucent wings and two faint red pinpricks for eyes.

Damien burst into laughter. “I – you know, that kind of makes sense. You got a sylph?”

“Sylph got a sylph,” she agreed with a wry grin. “I didn’t have much room to get a companion with a lot of energy, so I’m lucky she showed up. Unfortunately, we’re in a bit of dispute over who can use my name, so she doesn’t have one.”

“You both want to be called Sylph?” Damien asked. “But her race is a sylph, not her name. That would be like you wanting to be called Human.”

The tiny figure jumped up and pointed at Damien, letting out a high pitched titter. Sylph’s eye twitched slightly. “I think she’s just decided on a new name.”

“Oops.”

The small fairy laughed, her wings fluttering as she took off and flew in a tight circle around Sylph’s head before bursting into tiny streamers of wind.

“Human seems interesting,” Damien hedged.

“She’s a bit of a handful, but I appreciate her nonetheless,” Sylph admitted. “Her magic is also very useful. I can’t quite fully understand her words yet, but I’m starting to get portions of conversation. I wish we could talk like you and Henry, though.”

“I am pretty great,” Henry agreed. “But not everyone can be as cool as I am.”

“Just keep telling yourself that,” Damien said.

Sylph shook her head, hiding a grin. “I’ll actually head off this time, then. Good luck training.”

“To you as well,” Damien replied. Sylph headed out of the clearing, leaving him and Henry alone. The void creature melted into a pool of shadows and returned to Damien.

“Now then,” Henry said. “Storm works by casting hundreds of very miniature versions of Tear, interspersed with telekinesis to throw a bunch of shit around yourself. Simple in theory, difficult in practice.”

So the next step would be casting multiple small Tears, then?

“Exactly,” Henry said. “But you don’t need me for that. You can already multicast Gravity Sphere, so you’ll just have to apply that a little more and send the magic out of more spots on your body. I figure you want me to be able to help Sylph as much as possible, so I’m going to focus on the stuff you need me to show you.”

Which is?

“The full spell,” Henry replied. “Having a feel for how the magic should work in the end will show you what to work toward. We’ll go over it a few times, and then you can start to practice and I can help Sylph.”

That works for me. Let’s do it.

Henry took control of Damien’s body. He drew a large amount of Ether from the lines surrounding them, taking equal parts Dark and Space. Working methodically but quickly, Henry took several dozen of the motes of energy and started to shape them.

It was the most Ether Damien had ever felt used for a single spell. Even though the spells Henry was forming were just Tear and the normal telekinesis, the sheer amount of Ether and mental energy Henry was working with was significantly higher than anything else Damien had ever done.

Henry sent the Ether out through Damien’s body. Instead of just using his hands, the motes pushed out all over his skin, forming a faint haze around his body. The air around him crackled with power.

Clumps of dirt and rock tore away from the ground and floated up around Damien, starting to spin around him. Flashes of purple light tore through the air, growing in speed and intensity.

For the first time, Damien realized just why the spell was called Storm. The mixture of the impossibly sharp purple energy surrounded by hurtling stone formed a wall around him, tearing up the ground at his feet.

He walked up to a nearby tree. A series of resounding cracks split the air and the wood was simultaneously shattered and carved into tiny pieces. It tipped back, crashing to the ground with a loud bang.

Eight Planes. This is incredible.

Henry let the spell fade, dropping rocks all around Damien. The spatial magic had carved them up into tiny pebbles. “And dangerous. Imagine what would have happened if I lost concentration and you moved your hand just a bit.”

That sobered him up pretty quickly. His fingers weren’t any tougher than a tree. Henry let out a satisfied grunt.

“Just start by casting lots of miniature Tear spells. Once you can do that, mix in some telekinesis. This spell is too difficult to sustain far from your body, so you have to center it on yourself. Just sit really still when you start.”

Henry gave Damien back control of his body.

You make that sound a lot easier than it is.

“I told you it was a hard spell,” Henry replied with a mental shrug. “It won’t be easy, but you’ve got a healing pool right here. Just take things slowly and don’t chop off anything too important. Do you need me to show you it again?”

Not yet. I have enough to work with and there’s no point getting overwhelmed. I’ll focus on multicasting Tear for the moment. Who knows, maybe it’ll take me so long that you finish up with Sylph before I get on to the actual spell.

Henry snorted. “We’ll see. I’ll go find her, then.”

He split away, stealing Damien’s shadow and shooting off into the forest in the direction Sylph had gone.

Damien watched him leave, then sat down at the waterfront. He let out a slow breath and inhaled, drawing Ether into his core. Accessing the Dark Ether still wasn’t very natural to him, but he managed it within a minute.

He sent the energy to his hand, warping it along the way, and cast Tear out over the water while making sure to keep his fingers safely out of the way. The spell shot off along the water and faded a few feet later.

Nodding to himself, Damien repeated the process, but this time made the spell smaller and tried to use less energy. The result was a similarly sized yet considerably wobblier spatial tear.

Grimacing, he repeated the process. And then he did it again. And again. The sun traced through the sky and started its downward descent. Damien didn’t budge from his spot at the edge of the lake.

By the time night had fallen, Damien had lost count of the times he’d cast the spell. A powerful headache had built up multiple times throughout his practice, but the healing lake was enough to push it back into a slight annoyance instead of an insurmountable pain.

The fruits of his labor hadn’t been quite as much as he’d been hoping for. He’d managed to work his way up to casting Tear without cutting himself on accident, and he was able to do as many as three at once.

Unfortunately, Henry was using dozens when he cast Storm. Damien continued practicing well into the night before he felt weariness finally start to overcome his senses. Not wanting to seriously injure himself, he stopped for the day and headed back to his room.

Henry was at the door waiting for him. His companion silently slipped back into his shadow after he stepped through the door. Sylph laid in his bed, sprawled out in every direction.

Any luck?

“Some,” Henry said. “She’s got a lot to do if she wants to get a good handle on the Corruption. The connections I made to save her weren’t perfect, and I’ve reworked a few of them. There are more that I’ll take care of tomorrow, and she’ll have a lot of experimentation ahead of her. How did your practice go?”

I couldn’t get past Tear, but I’m getting better. I should be able to start on Storm in a day or two, if all goes well. It just depends how fast I can learn to multicast.

Henry let out a pleased grunt and receded into the back of Damien’s mind. Damien glanced at his bed, which was currently occupied, then mentally shrugged and climbed in beside Sylph as quietly as possible. She shifted in her sleep, crinkling her nose and throwing an arm over him. The endless ocean of sleep swallowed him shortly thereafter.