The trip back to Pyrthet felt almost lighthearted, drawing a stark contrast to the feverish panic in which he’d left. Conversation fell into a pattern of both Elzio and Echo peppering each other with questions.

How do you determine which foods you do and do not like?

“Why do you care so much about what I feel?”

What feelings of loyalty do you still feel for Pyrthet Nexus?

“Do you remember the moment of your creation?”

Why did you become a hero?

“Are the emotions you express standard for nexi?”

For what reasons did you specialize in summoning?

The answers flowed in a river of ponderings and vague answers. Every question Echo asked, Elzio realized more and more how little he knew about himself. Or perhaps he was realizing just how little his own decisions were shaped by his own desires. What he ate, wore, read, so much of it had come from what would make him the best hero for his nexus. It was the goal every hero trainee set for themselves.

“It gave me more tools to play with,” Elzio said, after contemplating her last question for several minutes.

Play? You mean fight?

“I…” Did he mean fight? “No. Play. More tools to play with.”

Playing in battle? With lives, like toys. Rather macabre.

“I don’t think so.” It didn’t sting, her rebuke. “I don’t mean it like that. I relish the challenge of organizing and arranging and moving pieces. It’s like a game, I suppose. I could have gone into any field, but I picked summoning. Your tools shift and grow in power as your enemies do, and there’s something exciting about that.”

That answer differs from your previous responses.

Elzio didn’t have to ask how, because as he spoke, the difference became clear to him as well. Choosing summoning has been one of the only choices in his life he’d made for himself. He could have served Pyrthet as well, perhaps better, taking on a more aggressive role, but he chose a support role because he liked the puzzle it presented him.

Do you have a question for me?

“I do.” Most of Echo’s responses showed a degree of ignorance from her part. He asked things of her that she hadn’t contemplated herself. In that way, the two of them were alike. “Do you feel empathy or kinship with other nexi?”

I have never met another nexus. I imagine I may find a shared understanding in the futile nature of my fellow echos. I imagine I may find heavy contempt for true nexi.

“Contempt, hmm?” Elzio slowed Ylia up as the trees around them thinned. He needed to get close enough to summon food without attracting any eyes.

They chose to bond with the cores from the ether.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

It is how they reincarnate. Cores of energy. Her voice was colder than it had been all morning. They chose to not fall silently to death as is the lot of all mortal things, but rather merge with stolen magic to live again. They return to their lands a hero, worshipped for acts they achieved in a past life. People who were once their citizens are now their worshipers, and thus the subsequent generations of great fighters, thinkers, mages, builders, healers, and rulers instead fall into an assembly line of hero manufacturing. Any who have potential are snapped up and trained for one purpose only. Nexus Battles. The world does not grow. It simply stagnates around their heavy greed. I have come into being for no other purpose than feeding their distended jaws. Why would I not feel contempt for them?

More than any prior answers, Echo knew her response here well. She didn’t have to pause to contemplate or consider. This was, perhaps, the thing she knew strongest about the universe entirely.

“Well.” Elzio ran a hand through his hair, which had stood on end as Echo’s anger grew. “I mean. The nexi do more than just sit around, being spoonfed heroes.”

Do they?

“You wouldn’t understand.” The statement came off more dismissive than he meant. “Rather, you’re still learning a lot about human nature. It feels different for us, but it’s hard to explain. There’s a sense of duty that defies words.”

You spoke of your loyalty to the Pyrthet Nexus as being similarly complicated to explain. However, we both know that this loyalty has failed you. I think this sense of duty will as well.

“Maybe you’re right.” He pulled back on Ylia’s reins and held up a hand. “Hold here.” Gently, he gripped Ylia’s mane and shifted her aura to stealth. “We need to be quiet from here on. No talking.”

They cannot hear me.

He pressed his lips together. “Okay. No talking for me. You can’t hear me psychically at all, can you?”

Not at level 1, unless we bond

“Bond.” Normally only a nexus handler would bond with a nexus. The bond was for life, allowing them a psychic link that grew in strength and power over time. A mortal could only bond to one nexus and a nexus only one mortal. “Should we… I mean, can we do that? It might be helpful. At least, or especially inside the actual arena.”

Her light fluctuated in a way that gave Elzio a shiver of anxiety. I had never considered the possibility that I might one day bond with a mortal.

He shrugged. “You don’t have to. It could just be helpful while fighting. Worst case scenario, we die and it doesn’t matter.”

Worst case scenario, we survive and hate each other forever.

Elzio snorted at this. “You sound like an old married man. Just think about it. It takes more than a few minutes, so it wouldn’t link us while I’m running errands anyway. Let me know if you want to bond. It doesn’t give us permanent access to each others’ thoughts or anything. Unless you’re saving yourself for someone special.”

Echo certainly didn’t understand the joke Elzio was making, and just blinked her affirmation.

Enjoy gathering food. I will contemplate.

“I won’t be long.”

A level 1 Stealth Aura was pretty pitiful in the daylight. They were quieter, yes, but the visual modifiers were borderline non-existent. But Elzio didn’t need to sneak past guards or race down the street unheard. He just needed to get in vision of the city Citadel, which was easily accomplished.

The Citadel housed everything important to the city, but right now, Elzio only cared about one specific room.

His eyes trailed down the Citadel, counting windows until they landed on the sixteenth floor. This was the prepared foods granary. The raw goods granary was much larger and filled with grain, butchered cows, and all other sorts of unpleasant to eat things that Elzio lacked the time or facilities to cook.

Instead, his eyes drifted shut as he pictured the room, full to the brim with food. He could either try to summon a specific food item or summon all items from a specific location. Both ran risks. If the thing he tried to summon wasn’t in the room, the spell would fizzle and he’d be down a small amount of mana. If the location he summoned from wasn’t occupied, meanwhile, the spell would again fizzle.

However, the risks for the first were worse, because they also added the danger that the item he was trying to summon was being held or otherwise managed by kitchen staff. A serving page suddenly finding their arms empty of the freshly baked bread they’d just been carrying might be a bad sign. After all, everyone in the city at this point likely knew there was a rogue summoner on the loose.

So instead, Elzio focused on a location. He pictured the dried fish pantry, the one with the salted, smoked wildfish trapped from local streams. The fish often stayed in a cool, dark room that was only disturbed when people were taking or depositing fish for the stockpiles. Since fish was often trapped for the winter, no one would really be looking for it right now. And they only gathered and smoked fish one day a week. Elzio happened to know that day was two days ago, so few people should have any reason to look in there.

Besides. Smoked wildfish was one of Elzio’s favorites. He’d told Echo as much.

He casted the spell at level 3. Why not? That way he could just grab from the room in general and not specifically picture a shelf. Not to mention, he’d get more fish this way.

The spell went off without a hitch and a moment later Elzio found himself suffering a deluge of salted fish. He coughed as ten pounds of fish rained down on him, plonking off his head and into the bushes and dirt surrounding him. Failure of imagination, but he’d been hungry. Incredibly hungry. His body seemed to have been taking additional nutrients to fight off his soreness.

Without any fanfare—or dignity, really—Elzio sat down hard and bit into one of his prizes. Each fish was about half a pound, and he munched through three before any part of his body began to protest. First was his mouth, stinging from the salt and begging for water. As he began gathering the rest of the dusty fish into his small sack, his stomach began complaining too. He’d eaten too fast, he hadn’t chewed properly, he’d eaten too much too early, whatever the complaints, Elzio definitely agreed with his mouth; water would be needed and soon.

How did your—

“Water,” Elzio said as he hurried past Echo, kicking Ylia on. “Did we pass any on the way up? Do you remember?”

Water? We followed a brook down for miles. You must not have been paying much attention.

“Not now, Echo. Just lead me that way.”

If you insist. Follow me.

It took a lengthy ten minutes to get to the stream, but soon Elzio and Ylia were drinking their fill. Elzio even had another fish while Ylia moved on to some local grass.

So, Echo said, floating by his side.

“So.” Elzio looked up at her, brushing fish crumbs off his fingers. “What?”

I have decided. She didn’t take a deep breath, but if she could have, Elzio was sure she would have. I would like to bond. I clearly never have, and I think we would both find it interesting. New. Useful.

He grinned, climbing to his feet. “Agree absolutely. It’ll take a few hours. I don’t think there’s a lot of ritual, just a spiritual oath that gets stronger over time.”

Of course. She was quiet for a second. The another second. Then a minute. Were they linking, or was she having second thoughts? Did she know how or did she—

A shudder ran up Elzio’s body so fast his legs gave out, and he fell to the ground, winded.

There. Did you feel that?

“Yes.” He coughed, wind knocked out of his chest. “Yes I did.”

Good. She settled next to him, smug. Soon you will feel the link in our minds. And I will no longer have to hear your voice out loud.

This was either a jibe at his voice or a comment on stealth. Elzio wasn’t going to ask, though, and instead he explored the new feeling in his mind. A Nexus Bond was a spell only accessible to nexi, so only Echo could have done it. It still interested him, how different nexus magic was compared to mortal magic. Elzio needed to research his spells extensively before he could unlock one. Even Invisibility, which he could only technically now cast, had been researched for months. The only spells, the only level of spells he even had access too while leveling were spells he’d spent hours reading about, studying the theory of.

But Echo could just cast things. It was as fascinating as it was alien.

He wanted to ask more about it, but the morning’s light banter had given away to a mid-afternoon that would grow far more tense. So instead, he pushed himself back up to his feet and took a deep breath, regaining his composure.

“So,” Elzio said, stretching his shoulders.

So, Echo repeated, fixing him with a stare. What?

“With that handled, we have to think about the future. The evening. We’re on a tight schedule,” Elzio said, his smile grim. “The longer I’m gone, the more time they have to replace me, so let’s not give them the benefit of the doubt. We’re going to spend the day planning out the arena. Then, come nightfall, we issue our challenge.”