Sechen looked up from the pages of her borrowed book as a buzzer sounded, the white Issi dissipating into insubstantial mist as it started reforming. Paui had been going for almost three hours now, none of the absurdly telegraphed events proving so much as an annoyance to her inexorable march, the Issi provided by the ball more than enough to keep her going for as long as Paui wanted. Even as the newly formed course shot forward at a pace at least ten times faster than it had begun, Paui didn’t so much as stray from the trail unless it seemed impossible to follow the ball’s exact path. That had probably been intended to trip up a less experienced hopeful, but to Paui? It was one extra vault to a hanging bar and a mighty leap.

“She will continue until supper at least, I suspect.” Thana said, offering Sechen a cup of water. She accepted with a nod of thanks. “Has Paui’s Issi always been a mottling of blue and yellow? I held my tongue yesterday as I explained it to myself as her own Issi showing through the stopper Runfree afflicted on her, but I had forgotten that Paui’s bond was one of fluidity, not of fast Issi.”

After a moment of recollection, Sechen’s frown deepened. She couldn’t remember a single time where Paui had brought out her Issi. The first time she’d seen Paui with that bright blue Issi was yesterday. “I don’t know, actually. Shouldn’t you know this better than I do, since you lived with Paui for a few years?”

“I never saw her produce Issi in those few years. She could use techniques, yes, but they were never accompanied by an expulsion of Issi that is normal among practitioners who have not specialized in combat.” Thana explained. “I suppose her mental blockages could have caused difficulties with properly circulating Issi, but there is little chance it would have completely negated her ability to properly wield her bond.”

“I dunno, Paui seemed pretty shaken after she opened up to us.” Sechen took a long drink of what she’d assumed was water, almost gagging at the sugary liquid that coated her tongue. “I think she’s been dealing with this since the moment she got her bond, so she never actually learned how to use her Issi. And it didn’t come instinctually to her since she didn’t feel like it deserved to be hers.”

“Hmm. If I am remembering correctly, Paui avoided each and every class we put on with the excuse that she was teaching herself just fine. She also managed to pass every check-in we subjected her solstice of practitioners to, so we had no reason to disbelieve her claims.” Thana tapped a finger to her lips in thought. “She then went to Hoalt’s employ, and she never returned. Until now, of course. Could it be that Paui herself wasn’t the lone outlier in this equation, and that the bond Runfree supplied her with was improper from the start?”

“Can that even happen?” Sechen asked, shaking her head in disbelief. “I mean, Runfree’s had a century of practice, so there’s no way they could’ve messed up something that important. Right?”

“Everything is unheard of until it is documented.” Thana responded, rising from her chair and producing a small, silver bell with carved yellow symbols ringing the lip. “If Paui completes her trial, ring this and I will cease whatever I am doing and return to my duties.”

Sechen nodded and pushed the bell out of her elbow room. “Where are you going?”

“To search the records of all Runfree’s bondings. The answer to Paui’s mottled Issi could potentially be found there, or records of similar experiences. There are one-hundred and fifty-six years of records before my time, and I cannot fathom finding nothing within their massive legacy.”

“Alright. Good luck.” Sechen said, knowing her words wouldn’t reach Thana. She was already gone.

“Thank you.” Thana said, startling Sechen so badly her face slipped off her hand and smacked into the table below. Sechen swiveled as she cradled her cheek, but Thana was already gone.

“She’s gotta know what she’s doing.” Sechen grumbled. Thana didn’t seem to be a very expressive person, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have her own quirks. Sechen tapped her finger on top of the bell as she diverted her attention back to Paui, who was having exactly the same amount of trouble now as she was at the beginning.

Her eyes tracked Paui as she dropped to her knees and slid under a low wall, bending backwards so far that her shoulder blades almost scraped the ground. She left a trail of Issi as she slid to keep her momentum, swinging forward the moment she was free of the wall to jump back up to her feet. It was such a natural motion for such an absurd act, almost as if Paui had practiced it a hundred times before, but for the woman who couldn’t run a hundred yards without stumbling that was an impossibility. No; this had to be Paui’s natural ability with Issi, unhampered by her guilt and mental blockages.

It was entrancing. Sechen couldn’t take her eyes off Paui obliterating Runfree’s trial, not a single obstacle so much as slowing her down on her undeterred march onwards. A storm wind buffeting her for five minutes straight pushed Paui back a dozen feet, and it took her maybe fifteen seconds to retake her comfortable following distance. A sudden stop, followed by jerky and unpredictable bursts of movement from the platforms didn’t so much as shake her, and Paui continued on as if nothing had changed. The trial picked up speed until Paui was continually running at full-tilt, then it picked up speed once more and Paui somehow ran faster. There was a well of Issi within her that ran deeper than Sechen thought possible, and after a while Sechen found her eyes drifting to things other than the trial.

The way Paui’s legs flexed when she slid under a bar and instantly transitioned into a long jump, showcasing her long and muscular legs that thundered forward with the power of an avalanche while dexterously landing on the smallest platforms with the grace of a dancer. How she twisted in mid-air to grab a passing stalactite, toned abs showing through her sweat-slicked top while powerful arms hauled her up to follow the trail. The brilliance of Paui’s smile shone through the shadow of the pillar and the gloom of the Gilded Night itself, straining under the effort she put in yet still showing just how much she was enjoying every moment. Sechen would have loved to say that she was better than noticing Paui’s curves, but she was a healthy young woman herself. She did have the decency to blush at the thought, and tried to push it out of her mind as quickly as it came.

“Too bad I’m definitely into guys.” Sechen muttered as her eyes stayed glued to Paui’s form. Her beautiful, athletic, powerful form. “Totally into guys. Not into girls at all. Revel said that wasn’t normal. Wait.”

Sechen leaned down and planted her forehead on the table, running her fingers through the hair on the back of her head. Was Revel the only reason she wasn’t chasing after something more with Paui? Hadn’t she just learned that almost everything Revel did was rooted in selfishness? Hells, she could easily imagine Revel pushing her towards guys just because Revel’d be guaranteed another practitioner if and when she had kids. Well, having a kid in the storm that was coming wouldn’t just be irresponsible, it’d probably end up traumatic. So why not make sure that could never come to fruition?

She kept her head down on the table for a little too long, trying to come to terms with which of her holdups were her own and which she’d learned from Revel. She ended up imagining Prisoner finding out that she was dating Paui, and couldn’t imagine him saying anything but congratulations and lecturing her on the importance of finding someone strong enough to fight through the deaths of all the eternals. She smiled to herself at the thought, lifting her head from the table with resolve and resting her head on an upturned palm. She leered openly at Paui for the rest of the trial, her face burning red under the force of her mind unbound.

Thana returned before Paui gave in. The projected Issi was moving so quickly Sechen couldn’t imagine keeping up with a straight sprint, nevermind the twisting mess of horizontal and vertical obstacles Paui thrived in. The course’s speed hadn’t increased in half an hour, having reached some sort of hard limit for the trial, and Sechen relayed as much to Thana once she realized there was now a woman sitting next to her.

“Then we must call this trial now.” Thana said plainly. “The Issi will continue sustaining Paui until her body’s processes can no longer be delayed, which could take days in a worst-case scenario. Though I suppose it would be a best case scenario for her, to so utterly defeat the trial that she finds her own body’s hard limit before finding her Issi’s limit. Do you have anything else to report?”

Sechen shook her head. “Nothing, really. None of the challenges challenged her, she ended up touching the ball every time the course shifted, and she never fell to the back half of the clearing even at this speed.”

“I would say that is something to report, but you must have assumed I was looking for negatives alone.” Thana pocketed the bell with a soft ding, a cloud of pollen-like Issi remaining where the bell had sat untouched for hours. “Before I announce that the trial is over, I have something to confide in you.”

That caught Sechen’s attention. “Did you find anything about Paui’s Issi?”

“I scoured the records of every single practitioner Runfree has bonded with since the beginning, and I found absolutely nothing cataloguing a double-bond like Paui’s. You may say that means I found nothing, but in that nothing I am sure there is great meaning.” Thana stood and motioned for Sechen to stand as well. “Keep an eye on her, please. I can assume what my brother showed you in that room, as he emerged with his true colours showing, and you must know that there is a chance Paui is in great danger. If she does have a double bond, and we were not hallucinating her twin Issi types, manifesting her colours could cause her permanent damage. If that comes to pass, you must find a way to remove one of her twin bonds.”

If what Wix had told her was true, Sechen wouldn’t have to deal with that for a long while. If getting married was the first thing to bring out a colour from him, then Paui would have a long while until she found her first, and maybe second, colour. But losing a bond that far on would be disastrous, and might do harm beyond just losing her Issi. Sechen shook her head. That was a conversation to have with Paui, not alone in her mind.

“I’ll keep a lookout. Anything I should do if she starts showing another colour?”

“If she only shows a single colour, there are no problems. It’s if she shows two at once that there will be a problem.” Thana reiterated. “And as I said, you will have to find a way to remove one of her twin bonds. There is nothing else you can do, aside from breaking that which we know about Issi.”