Wolf was walking atop the manor’s outer walls. Two of his guards trailed behind him, only their soft tread marking their presence as he surveyed the recent repairs. After nearly thirty days, the aftermath of the battle had been cleared, and the fortification’s restoration was well underway. Stout boards with supporting braces plugged up the worst of the holes in the walls and manor, and the temporary gatehouse was fully up and running. With his family’s Earth-Shapers finally arriving within days, the rebuilding would only speed up. They were still a little light on warriors since Ardamas left with the last squad two days ago, but the manor had enough to hold against likely threats. Plus, with Boruta’s death and the resultant drop in local chaotic energies, monster attacks were less likely for a while.

Hearing the sound of distant conversation, Wolf leaned over the battlements to get a look at the trail. With bags and supplies stacked high on their heads and backs, a group of people slowly made their way up the switchback trails from the village below. Twice a day, the supply runs brought up the goods needed to return the manor to peak operating condition.

With the granary stocks nearly back to normal levels, he’d announced the long overdue Remembrance to be held in a few days. A combination of a memorial and a celebration of their victory, the event would include the manor’s people, his villagers, and local families from the nearby foothills. It would mean an extra day off for most, with plenty of food and drink to fill the hungriest belly. More importantly, there would be rewards and honors for the families of the fallen. The Alliance, likely with Aaric and his agents twisting arms in the background, had sent a good bit of treasure and resources in the airship that had picked up Ardamas. After all, it wasn’t every day that one of the region’s looming threats was eliminated.

Wolf didn’t have nearly enough time to manage the ceremony himself, but that’s why he had people like Gifted Anda to help. With the woman’s meticulous nature and organizational skills, she’d been a natural choice. He’d even caught her smiling a few times as she hurried about the grounds, pulling the hundreds of pieces together for the event.

A rumble of distant thunder pulled his eyes to the east and a shade north. He frowned, reminded of Boruta and that monster’s home within the haunted woods. The nearest edge of Eld Forest, where the trail tumbled down along the ancient escarpment near Herria, was over forty kilometers away. With the local weather in chaos since the monster’s death, the sounds likely presaged the newest storm rolling in to drench Northmarch.

Wolf rubbed his stomach, an odd bit of nausea arising out of nowhere. He couldn’t think of anything different he’d eaten after his morning training, but his stomach wasn’t listening. With thoughts of possible poisoning, he turned to his guards while holding a hand against his protesting gut.

“Pleeto, how do you feel?” Wolf asked, knowing she’d had the same food as him while his other guard Mehia had eaten his typical bland sludge.

“Fine, my lord. Is something wrong?” Her eyes filled with concern while she stepped closer. Mehia tensed beside her, his eyes suddenly tracking around them as if looking for threats.

Wolf paused before raising any alarm. The strange ache wasn’t getting worse, and it didn’t feel quite like any stomach pain he’d had before. It was almost remote as if dulled by medicine – or like it was happening to someone else. His head jerked back towards the thunder, but the mountains and horizon hid any sight of the distant forest.

He pulled out his farspeak. Selecting the lowest of the three bumps along the metal surface, he held the nub down while bringing the device up beside his head. With the increased security after Boruta’s attack, Ardamas had left Wolf with a handful of the expensive tools, one of which he’d given to his daughter. “Dara, how are you doing?”

“You feel it too?” Her voice sounded clear in his mind, coming back almost instantly.

“Where are you? I’m heading below.” He turned towards the closest stairs with a nod to his two guards.

“I just finished training,” she replied clearly, but her following words came through jumbled. “Do you thi-, could it, Eli, how?”

“Focus, Dara. Remember your lessons,” Wolf said with careful enunciation. She was new to using a farspeak, though Tanca and Eyonne had taught her the basic concepts years ago. Still, thinking thoughts clearly enough and sending them through the device took practice.

“I’ll clean up and meet you in your workroom,” Dara’s voice came through clear again, followed by the click of a closed connection.

Wolf turned to his two guards when they reached the open grounds, flashing them a sign with two fingers extended and pointing downwards. Mehia nodded, lifting his arm to make a gesture. Two more Talents, Yi and Ethan, jogged up to join them as the larger group continued into the manor.

“Anda,” Wolf sent through his communicator, holding down the top bump on his farspeak. He nodded briefly to a few random salutes before his group descended into the manor’s basement levels.

“Lord Wybert, how may I assist you?” Anda replied.

“Go to caution alert. I have a strange feeling, and I’m heading down to my workshop to investigate.”

“Understood. Caution alert status confirmed. I will relay to Gifted Eyonne and prep the ready team for immediate response if needed. Rotating squads will be informed.” Her message came back clear and concise, like right out of the Academy. Wolf wasn’t sure if Anda was truly as unflappable as she appeared, but he appreciated her professionalism.

The group stopped at the Ancestors’ Arch, the ancient stonework reminding him of the last time he’d been down here with Eli. Wolf had thought the young man had gone to meet his forebearers, especially with the state of his mangled body just before it vanished. Yet after the strange episode with Dara some days ago, he’d finally looked inside Eli’s workroom. Unfortunately, he’d only found a spare chair and no clues to the mysterious man’s whereabouts.

A burning ache below the waist abruptly pulled Wolf’s thoughts back to the present. “We’re at caution alert,” he said, addressing all four guards while covertly touching his stomach. He turned to Yi and Ethan, who had taken up their posts beside the archway, their backs to the stone wall with the entryway between them. “Only Dara or Gifted Anda are allowed through until I return.” With a slight nod in their direction after they saluted, he continued his descent with his two remaining guards in tow.

***

A little while later, Wolf was bent over his workbench, a large open codex in front of him. Two more were stacked nearby, ready for reference if he needed them. His hands moved quickly over the pale pages, his eyes barely registering most of the words as he skimmed the various passages. A few sheets of paper lay on his right, some of the comments already scratched out after his initial search.

Much like Eli’s, Wolf’s workroom was a giant rectangular space a little over ten meters in height and forty meters on the other sides. He had kept much of the interior empty, settling for a work area near the only door. His single long wooden table, two bookcases nearly full of multicolored tomes and scrolls, and some chairs completed much of the setting. The two closest walls were covered with diagrams, a few maps of the nearby regions, and a painting of a young couple with a toddler. A square space was marked off with chalk on the far side of the room where one of the training constructs sat, heavy leather armor buckled around its form. Various weapons and implements hung on the far wall, ready for testing.

A sharp knock brought his attention to the door, and his daughter opened it, wearing her everyday outfit of an embroidered dress over pants and laced sandals. Dara looked like Wolf felt; her normal dark complexion wan in the lightwells’ bright illumination.

“How’re you feeling, Little Flame?”

“Like I ate something bad, but it hasn’t gotten worse. How about you? Any problems with your wounds?” She looked over his workspace, her head turning as if to get a better view of his writing.

Smiling, he shifted the open codex to cover his notes. Shaking his head at his nosey daughter, he opened his mouth to point out how he’d almost fully healed, but a new sensation in his chest stopped him.

The two made eye contact, and her dark eyes flashed with a bright white light that vanished a heartbeat later. At the same time, upwelling energy sizzled in his mind like he’d been chewing on a dozen stimweeds. He leaned against the table just before a second pulse of energy struck, making his head swim. Feeling strangely light, his lab seemed to tilt sideways before suddenly rocking back. He reached out, one hand going around his daughter as she swayed beside him. Her own hands came down, grasping the edge of the table, leaning forward while taking deep breaths.

The nausea Wolf had been feeling for the past hour vanished abruptly, and he looked down in worry. Like miniature stars trapped under his skin, a show of lights sparkled within his hands. A glance at his daughter showed the same tiny pinpoints along her face and neck, quickly disappearing a couple of heartbeats later.

Concerned, he looked at his hands again, but the lights had vanished. Like a light tickle, a new feeling materialized within his chest, right where his two primary Gifts resided.

“What was that?” Dara raised her head, her unhealthy pale complexion rapidly darkening towards her normal coloring.

“An impossibility,” Wolf replied while his mind sifted through various theories, quickly rejecting all but one. His half-century of experience and training told him what the feelings and lights must be. Still, the same education also insisted on the idea's absurdity, especially for his daughter.

Dara straightened, the back of her left hand held up before her face. She frowned, turning her hand to look at her palm.

“What is it,” he worriedly asked. With all the energy flowing through him, he felt like he could run all the way to distant Galdish, but he wasn’t sure if she’d had some other reaction to the weird situation.

“My gift feels different. Not bad, but more intense, if that makes sense,” Dara whispered. She tilted her hand back, palm up.

“Wait, before you-” he tried to say, his hand reaching out to stop her.

Woooosh!

A column of flames gushed out, snuffed away almost instantly as Dara gasped, backpedaling away for a moment and almost tripping backward. Wolf engaged his Sprint gift, his body almost flashing forward to catch her before she could fall onto the stone floor.

With his arm supporting her, Dara got her feet under herself again and turned wide-eyed to him. “Dad, what’s happening to us?” she asked, her voice shaking.

Reminded of the scared little girl he’d held and sung to sleep for weeks after Nazani’s death, he stepped close, looking her over for injuries. The brief flash of flame hadn’t ignited her clothing at least, even if there was a smudge of dark soot along one sleeve. “Let me look at your hand,” he murmured. Gently grasping Dara’s wrist, he turned her palm towards him, but there wasn’t even any redness from the incinerating heat. “Your skin looks fine as if it was protected by your gift.”

“But how did I do that?” she asked, staring at her hand. “How did my flames grow so strong? I can barely light a lamp with my power – I’ve never been able to do that!”

Wolf stepped away, momentarily distracted as he worked through the available data. His inner researcher, a side he showed to only a trusted few, reared its head. He tried to push down the excitement that welled up, tempering it with reminders to take things slow. He didn’t want to do anything that could hurt Dara. After all, the strange feeling in his chest, and her powerful blast of flame, might have a different explanation.

Taking another deep breath to quiet his racing heart, he figured there was an easy way to test his theory but hesitated. “How do you feel?” he asked instead, unsure of the risk.

Dara frowned slightly, her eyes going distant. “It’s strange but somehow wonderful,” she murmured. One of her hands was pressed against her breastbone, her fingers pushing as if feeling for something. “Within my quintessence, there’s a pressure waiting to be used, like a new gift never tried….” Her words trailed off, and she turned to look at him, confusion and excitement at war within her expression.

Wolf smiled in return but held out a hand in caution. “Much the same for me. But wait a moment, Little Flame. Just to be careful, I’ll shift and try it first.”

Dara’s lip jutted into almost a pout, his little girl still hiding somewhere inside, but her expression firmed a heartbeat later. She nodded, though she didn’t seem precisely happy with him. He almost snorted, guessing at the thoughts racing through her head.

His sandals came off, and he tossed them on the ground nearby. Releasing the metal clasp on his thick belt, he shook out his arms and stamped his legs to settle his billowy outfit. Since Boruta’s attack, Wolf had followed his old campaign rule around only wearing something that would always fit him, even in his other form. It wasn’t exactly fashionable to be in clothing that more resembled a sleeping gown than something a High Gifted would typically sport, but he also didn’t have anyone he had to impress out here on the far end of civilization.

Forcing away the distractions, he sought his quintessence, the place within his chest where his powers resided. Like his first teacher had taught him more than half a century ago, he focused on the familiar point of tension that had been with him since puberty. Like dropping a weight he’d held for days, the sudden release sent a rush of energy pulsing within his chest. The room lit up almost blindingly to his new eyes, and his view shifted until he towered over his daughter.

Dara grinned while he changed, her eyes lighting up as they followed his growing height. She suddenly frowned, her eyebrows furrowed while she looked him up and down.

“Is something wrong?” he said, the words coming out slightly garbled around his two long, curved teeth.

“Did you get taller?” she asked, her eyebrows arching in amazement. A look of excitement flashed across her expression, likely realizing what it might mean for her.

He glanced surprisedly at his clawed hands, but they seemed the same. Noticing the tightness across his chest and shoulders, he looked down to find that his clothing was far too tight, his fur underneath distorting the fabric. He released the top catch below his neck, his dark, thick coat seeming to erupt as the two sides of the garment were forced apart. The second catch followed, the neckline of his outfit widening further. Since he’d shifted earlier in the day for some light training, he thought it unlikely that his clothing had shrunk in the last few hours. The evidence supporting his preposterous theory was only growing.

He moved a few steps to the side, making a small gesture to keep Dara back, just in case. He tried to ignore the rush of excitement bubbling up within his heart, taking a few breaths as he thought through what he wanted to do. After a semblance of calm returned, he reached internally for the new sensation within his chest. Like a new muscle never used, it almost spasmed when he first tried to relax it, to trigger the ability. A second try met with the same result, his heightened emotions probably disrupting the activation. Finally, he felt the minuscule tension relax, and a new flood of energy flowed through his body, even as a slight ache settled in his eyes for a moment before disappearing.

A glance at the armored construct didn’t reveal anything new, and he felt no other changes inside him. He frowned, turning to look at his daughter to ask if she’d noticed anything, but stopped in surprise. A blue cloud of light hovered within her body, somehow there but not. He blinked a few times as if to fix his vision, but the glow remained.

“Are you okay?” Dara asked, stepping closer again. The blue translucent shape remained locked within her, keeping pace as she approached.

“There’s a colorful cloud inside you, like a fog, maybe?” Wolf said, confused by the apparition. He wasn’t sure what the new gift could be, but it didn’t seem dangerous. Apparently some kind of sight ability, but he still wasn’t sure what he was looking at.

Dara’s eyebrows climbed up, a flash of recognition passing across her features. “What’s the color?” she asked, excitement infusing her words as she stepped to his side.

“Light blue?” he replied with a frown, almost questioning whether what he saw was real.

“A visual aura power, like Eli’s!” she gasped, one hand almost covering her mouth while her eyes danced. Her other hand grasped his forearm, squeezing for a moment.

His mind in a daze, Wolf tried to understand how such a thing was possible but kept coming back to the same theory. There was still another test to try, but it might be dangerous for his daughter, and he hesitated again. Still, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop her from experimenting once out of his eyesight. No, better to try something potentially dangerous here with him, just in case something went awry.

“Want to try it out on the construct?” he asked, nodding toward the testing dummy across the room.

Dara followed his gesture, a smile lighting up her face, before looking back at him. “Really? But I don’t want to burn the armor. I know how you feel about waste,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes.

He snorted. “Just this one time, to test a theory.” Waggling a finger at her and playing along, he continued, “But don’t think this means that you can go about trying to burn the manor down.”

Dara snorted herself as she walked towards the magical construct across the room. She stopped a few meters away, her toes near the chalk outline drawn around the target. Before he could suggest it, his daughter rolled both sleeves up above the elbows, getting them out of the way of any stray flames she might produce. With her shoulders thrown back and head high, she stared at the armored form with serious eyes.

Moving to a safe spot nearby but out of her way, Wolf tried to dispel his worry, injecting a bit of seriousness into his voice. “Alright, Little Flame. Test your fire again, but please be careful,” he cautioned. “If you feel anything wrong, stop immediately.”

One side of Dara’s mouth quirked up into a grin, a mirror of her mother, sending a pang of loss and sadness through his heart. He ignored the familiar feeling, concentrating on his daughter as she turned to face her target.

Her left hand rose, palm open and facing the armored construct. A sudden line of yellowish-red flames blasted and poured over the dummy, accompanied by a low roar while bright light lit up the space around them. Her hand remained steady while the fire covered the target, but her other hand rose to join it a moment later. Another stream of flames leaped out, a new blue fire blasting forth as the two jets somehow intermingled, swirling around until a shape started to form.

Wolf stepped back, shocked at the catlike shape out of legend, just like the one Nazani had created when using her Divine Flames. At least two meters tall and well over three counting its lashing tail, the burning manifestation let out a screeching roar. As if truly a cat, it leaped forward and played with the armored construct, its massive paws repeatedly flashing over the heavy leather, bathing it in blue and red fire. The feline’s head, swirling flames defining its edges, dashed forward to bite the target, leaving behind several holes glowing with incandescence. The scene blurred for a moment, and Wolf rubbed away the tears, not wanting to miss his daughter’s moment.

The flames suddenly stopped, and Dara closed both hands, swaying in place. Before he could help, she straightened, turning to him with wide eyes. She had to know what the manifestation meant, which confirmed his theory, even if he didn’t understand how such a thing was possible.

“How?” she asked, mirroring his thoughts as tears welled before spilling down one cheek, then the other. “Why now, after all these years? What is happening?” she finished, slowly shaking her head as if struggling to understand the changes inside her.

Instead of answering immediately, his eyes returned to her recent target. The construct continued to burn, soon collapsing into a blackened heap. Built to take blows from powerful Gifted, the magical form could not withstand the mighty inferno that had bathed it moments ago. Thick smoke soon filled the high ceiling, the environmental filters he’d installed working hard to clean the air. But since no alarms sounded, they were apparently up for the task.

“I don’t know how this is possible,” Wolf started, finally meeting his daughter’s eyes. “But somehow, I think we’ve been Blessed,” he finished with almost a whisper. His worldview, and place within it, shook at the implications.