Jace took a few steps down the hall, then activated the questforger card. He concentrated deeply on his target, thinking about what he imagined a massive, crust-delving elevator would look like, and desperately begging his Aes to mark it as a target.

  After a few seconds, it locked on.

  [Subquest available: Find abandoned Luminian Aes-Lift. Reward: None]

  A needle of blue hyperspace-aspect Aes projected from his chest, reaching forward down the hall, and slightly to the left. From his vantage, it was hard to tell, but it also had a slight downward angle to it.

  He followed it, taking a few steps down the hall, before Kinfild pushed in front and said, “Let me lead, please. You don’t have powerful senses yet.”

  “He doesn’t have senses at all,” Lessa chirped.

  “I…I’ve got five,” Jace muttered.

  “Well, Kinfild has six.”

  “How can I learn them?” Jace asked. “I’ll need to learn eventually, right? I can’t have you being the only person able to sense traps and Aes.”

  “Once your guiding light fades, then we can work on it,” Kinfild said. “How long does your tracking technique last?”

  “Five minutes,” Jace said.

  “Only five minutes?” Kinfild glanced at Lessa.

  “Well, don’t look at me,” she exclaimed, spreading her arms. “I followed the runes. If I pushed it for any longer, the technique would probably tear apart his Aes channels. At least, as it stands now.”

  Jace grimaced. “I can just use it in half-hour intervals, and we can hunt until we find it. As long as we keep a somewhat steady course, we’ll still be getting closer to the crust-lift, or Aes-lift, or whatever it’s being called.” The Split probably had a different name for the lift than Kinfild or Lessa.

  They followed the line as best they could for five minutes, but the hallway ran straight, and they couldn’t take the slight left turn that they needed. By the time it sputtered out and faded, Jace still had no idea how close they were. Within ten miles, sure, but it had to be.

  Still, they kept walking, maintaining the course slightly. Lessa held her tail out in front of her, lighting the hallway more fully, and Kinfild conjured a small sphere of flame on the tip of his staff. He swapped in a common, weak technique card to achieve it.

  And then, when they reached the first trap, Kinfild stopped. He tapped a set of holes in the stone floor with his staff. “Here is your first candidate,” he said. “We’re going to have you sense it.”

  “But…I know it’s there,” Jace said. “How is that a challenge?”

  “That’s precisely why it will be a challenge.” Kinfild tapped it with his staff again. “Everyone has a sixth sense, though it’s hard to describe. For candlefolk like Lessa, it is codified and rigid, something they’re born with and can use immediately, though it will never be as strong as a Wielder’s.”

  Jace inhaled slowly. “I…I don’t think I’ve ever felt—”

  “Yes, you have. What’s the feeling you get when you know someone is watching you, or when you just know that something is off, that you’re in danger?”

  “So it’s the same thing?”

  “Yes, but now you must control it. At the soul-circle opening stages, such a thing is now possible.”

  Lessa shrugged, then yawned and leaned against the wall behind. The walls weren’t even dusty, and Jace had half-expected some sort of spiderweb or other debris, but there was nothing even remotely close.

  “Keep watch,” Kinfild told her. “We may be a little distracted, so if you see any scavengers, shout.”

  “What’s up with the whole…soul-circle thing, anyway?” Jace asked. “Foundation was easy, but now what?”

  Kinfild snorted. “I’ll explain once you use your senses. It will start making more sense.”

  “But…how?”

  “You see the trap. Close your eyes and sense it. Without dragging your finger along the ground, tap each hole.”

  Jace knelt down in front of the trap. “Is it active?” But then he glanced up immediately. A set of metal rods stuck into the ceiling, having smashed through a couple feet of stone. It didn’t look like any scavengers had been trapped in it, but they’d triggered it, at least.

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  “How do you know he won’t cheat?” Lessa asked lightheartedly. “He could just open his eyes a crack.”

  “He could,” Kinfild said.

  “But that wouldn’t help me,” Jace said. “Lying about this isn’t going to make me stronger.”

  “Precisely,” Kinfild said. “So try.”

  Jace shut his eyes. Just sense it. Really helpful. How exactly was he just supposed to do that?

  But like Kinfild said, he had gotten the feeling before. In fact…there was a little bit of it right now. He knew Lessa was watching him, even though he’d shut his eyes. But was that his mind telling him, or something deeper?

  An evolutionary instinct. The ability of humans to detect Aes, even if they didn’t know it. Maybe earth had the ability to detect Aes, the ability to use the Split, but no one had even tried or learned. No one had taken the first steps without guidance.

  It was the ability to sense another being’s Aes? Or to sense the fabric of the universe itself?

  He mulled over the questions for a few more seconds, trying to recreate that subtle sense of warning radiating from Lessa’s direction—except from in front of himself.

  “You can sense dangerous objects much better than you can sense your surroundings,” Kinfild said. “But the source of the danger often comes from something moving through the world, interacting with the Split.”

  “I don’t sense you,” Jace said. “Even when you’re watching me.”

  “You don’t view me as dangerous.”

  “And Lessa?” His stomach dropped. He thought Lessa was dangerous?

  “She elicits a certain fear in you,” Kinfild said. “Subconscious or not.”

  “I tend to have the opposite effect on people,” Lessa commented.

  “Fine. It’s kinda…I dunno.” Jace sighed. He took a deep breath, then blurted out, “Alright, I want to prove myself. You’re different. Whether you hate me or like me…it doesn’t feel like a huge difference, not that I wouldn’t prefer to be liked. But for Lessa, it’s different.”

  “I’m not judging,” she said. “I don’t know what it’d feel like to have to learn an entirely new sense.”

  “No, no, I’m not accusing you of judging. But ever since I got here, I’ve sorta been stuck in a loop of looking for purpose,” Jace said. “Hell, before I even got here. Probably moreso. But you guys gave me the purpose, of something to protect and care about. If I can’t be strong enough to even sense a trap, can I really help protect you guys?”

  “Not me?” Kinfild said.

  “Well, you’re more powerful than me,” he said. He swallowed. “Sorry, Lessa, I know that sounds kinda bad, but—”

  “I get it,” she said. “Really. The marksman can’t do her job without the front-liner. And you’ve made me feel useful too, you know. With you, I know I’m needed, if it’s just for my calligraphy and shooting.”

  Jace smiled a little, and the sense of warning radiating off her faded. “You are important, Lessa.”

  He directed his focus again, and now, in a void, empty of personal sources of danger, he became distinctly aware of the trap in front of him. At first, there was just a little well of dangerous strength embedded in the floor. Some sort of mechanism with wires and conductors reaching into the depths of the dungeon, conducting Aes into a machine. It seemed to be…force-aspect? He wasn’t sure what to dub it, but the Aes wasn’t pure.

  The machine didn’t have a technique card. Or at least, nothing that he could sense. Only a container of tiny filaments, each with a little glob of Aes on their tip.

  “Are you picking up on the presence detector?” Kinfild asked. “It’s a simple rendition of the Green Call Systems’ Aes detector,” he said. “Though Green Call likely developed their detector well after the Luminians did, for the express purpose of hunting Aes Wielders. Light-aspect Wielders, too.”

  “I think I’m detecting it,” Jace said.

  “Follow the wires up to the launch tubes,” Kinfild instructed. “It’s similar to pushing your presence within and viewing your channels and core.”

  Jace did. Thin tubes extended from the launcher, reaching up to the launch holes, and a sudden warning of danger erupted in Jace’s mind. It stemmed from the top of his neck, spreading out through his head, and racing through his body, as if following his Aes channels.

  He tapped each tube with his finger, in sequence, proving to Kinfild that he could sense them, then stood up and opened his eyes. “What was that…explosion of danger?”

  “That was your soul screaming out in warning. A much more refined reaction to danger. But the more you practice with your senses, and the more you progress through the Soul-Circle opening stages, the stronger your senses will be.”

  “So…can you tell me what the Soul-Circle opening stage is?” Jace asked.

  “I can,” Kinfild said. “But first, I need you to try to sense the trap again, however, this time focus on the starting location of the flare of danger.”

  “Alright…” said Jace. He knelt down and went through the same process, until his soul cried out in warning, like Kinfild had suggested.

  But he focussed on the point it erupted from, on the locus at the top of his neck, and instead of following the pulses of warning, held his attention steady. Intertwined in his Aes channels floated another void of emptiness, and at the very center of the void was a ring of gray material. Or immaterial. It probably wasn’t physical.

  It was smooth, markless, and seemed only as thin as a noodle you’d get from Chinese takeout.

  “Your Soul-Circle,” Kinfild said. “Do you see it?”

  “I think so?”

  “You will be learning to support it and build it up with Aes throughout the stage,” Kinfild said. “Then, you will advance into the realm of the Nascent Heart, where you will use the Soul-Circle’s resonance to solidify your foundation pillars, melding soul and core. There will plenty of other benefits that come with it, like condensing your titles, and improving your deck storage, but those will come later, and only if you strengthen your soul-circle properly.”

  Jace nodded, but he only half understood. “I’ll keep working on it.”

  “Very good,” Kinfild said. “Now I want you to lead. If there is a trap, you must sense it.”

  “Don’t you think—”

  “I think you’ll learn best under pressure. Onward.”