The Collector grunted as he took all his might not to fly backwards from Inle’s sidekick. He clutched his side in discomfort.

Inle removed his mask. “I heard a rib or two break with that one.” He walked over to the shadow-mist walls that enclosed around the training room and whispered ‘towel’. Then he reached into the darkness and pulled out a white towel. He tossed it to his sparring partner. “Clean yourself up, you’re done.”

The towel fell short of the Collector’s feet. “I’m a yikahti, I don’t sweat.” He stepped over it and sheathed his two blades.

The bloody puddles that were splattered across the floor seeped into the ground as thin, ethereal tendrils wrapped around the two men. Their long gashes mended shut. Welts were returned to a normal fleshy color and the Collector’s broken bones set back into place.

“Six months ago you could barely keep up with me, now your skill exceeds my own.” The Collector bowed graciously before the shadow elf. “You held the title of the Silent Master, but now you are just as adept as he was.”

“You flatter me, I will never be at Ryjin’s level.”

The Collector clasped Inle’s shoulders. “I trained you and I trained him. You are better than him. Not even Malady is a match for you now.”

Inle raised his eyes to the cat’s. “What of Elucard?”

“Elucard continues to push his training beyond even me, at this point you two are on equal footing. But continue to learn from the lessons we each teach you and Elucard will be but a plaything in your hands.”

The Collect clapped Inle’s shoulders. “You have Draak’Terran language study with Sable now, yes?”

“Angelic tongue today,” Inle sighed. “I almost wish I hadn’t mastered Draconian. Angelic tongue is too complicated. How did anyone communicate with such a nonsensical language?”

“Elucard can speak it.”

“Not fluently,” corrected Inle.

“The more you advance your mind, the deadlier you will become.”

Inle chuckled. “A blade is only as sharp as the Rabbit wielding it.”

“Wise words to live by, my friend.” The Collector looked up towards the room. “Library,” he commanded.

Within moments the sparring room’s sand bags and rows of spears, axes, and swords dissipated into a mist, vanishing as a maze of book-stuffed shelves surfaced from the floor. Desks readied with parchment and quills, and lanterns lowered from the ceiling, illuminating the newly formed atheneum that appeared before the elf and yikahti.

A man draped in regal midnight-blue robes appeared before Inle. He stroked his silvery goatee and adjusted his clockwork-gold monocle.

“Strife? Isn’t Sable supposed to tutor me today?” asked a befuddled Inle.

“From this moment on, if you are to address me by name, it shall be Stryneth Squall… but here in this hall, I answer to no other title but Master.”

The Collector turned to the hydro mage. “Why the unnecessary formalities? You speak to our Silent Master, not some pathetic knave.”

“Yesterday he was a Silent Master, today he is my Hydro Shroud.”

“Hydro— On whose authority?” Inle blurted both confused and angered.

“Whose do you think?” hissed Strife.

“What is this all about, mage?” asked the Collector.

Inle placed a hand on the yikahti’s chest. “I can speak for myself. I am just as much a member of the council as the both of you. No longer am I some whelpling trainee.”

The Collector lowered his head in Inle’s presence. “Forgive me, Silent Master.”

Inle turned to the mage. “Why does Wraslyn wish me to serve you? What cog am I in his new plans?”

Strife lifted his fingers and three droplets of liquid swirled around his hand ending at the tip of his index finger. Inle watched as the water merged into a singular gobbet before Strife snatched it exploding between the gaps in his fist.

“This I still wish to know as well, Strife,” The Collector said.

“Since when do we question the ways of Wraslyn? Has he ever, once, steered you astray?” Strife looked to the Collector. “When you were still a kitten called Ashire, who took you in and gifted you with your first sword?”

“Wraslyn,” The Collector sneered.

“Who taught you to speak without that ridiculous yikahti accent?”

“Wraslyn,” The Collector said again.

“If Wraslyn wishes for our Silent Master learn the ways of Shroud magic and combat, who are we to question his decision?”

The yikahti narrowed his eyes, annoyed by the lecture. “No one.”

Strife turned his attention to Inle. “Who are we to question Wraslyn’s decision?”

Inle was quicker to answer than the cat. “No one… Master.” He was still curious about the need to be a ‘Shroud’ and what that would entail, but if he knew one thing about the Dead of Winter, their lessons were always a new and exciting venture.

“Come, we travel to my mage school in Jhoone. Perhaps dress lightly, Dragon Realm Abyss’s climate is tropical and humid.” Strife smiled.