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  Summer 7 years after

  The trees I practice on are the old growth ones on the forest between the town and the coast. There aren’t many ships that come this far out, but there are still a few sailors in this town that take the waterways to get to Warling. I stay clear away from them so that my swordsmanship practice is more like myth and natural disaster than something they see a man do.

  It is deep into the afternoon. I do my best to give a wide berth to the fishermen on the dock, despite my knowing that they have their rods in the shallow water as an excuse to drink and nap on the dock. Even if they are awake, only my eyes are good enough to see a man in the long yellow grass.

  ‘Any fisherman worth his salt has long gone into the deeper waters by now.’ I think to myself as I leave the field of thick yellow grass and dash into the thicket of thin trees. The first trees I see as I move through the start of the forest are rather small, it is as if all the plant life here is limited in the size it can grow. As I head deeper in, I start to pass thicker and thicker trees before seeing clearings of these thick trees chopped into wood chips that fill massive carved lines in the earth.

  ‘I’m glad the kids don’t run off this far from town.’ I chuckle to myself at the devastation of wood chips and shattered logs. The forest floor is covered in wood chips, like a thick snowfall. The spots where there are carved lines are scattered around the floor from different swings of my sword.

  First I eye one of the trees on the edge of my zone breathing in to set my focus, grabbing onto the leather wrapped pommel of my sword, I pull out the thick purple blade. Its haunting dark hue glows a touch at my unsheathing it, as If it is eager for me to pull it out. The purple splotches and hues that cover the blade move across it, as if it is a thick liquid paint that is flowing on top resembling a monster's hide.

  ‘Night Caller was what he called you.’

  My heartbeat throbs in my chest as I squeeze the handle, the sword is fighting against me, worming its claws into my mind like a parasite. I stare at the blade, breathing in and out as I push its influence from my mind. As I feel it fall under my control, I let it push into my body, the glowing purple writhing subsides into what just looks like an indigo stain as I feel my body saturate with the majority of its dark curse.

  I effortlessly cut the tree, bisecting it the long way. The blade also cleaves deep into the earth with its dark magic, carving two meter deep lines in the earth.

  ‘I shouldn’t let it get to this point again’ I berate myself as I resheeth.

  Breathing in and out after my exertion, I sit down against one of the still intact trees. I focus on the smell of wood chips, letting the air fill my lungs and focus me.

  ‘Slow and steady wins the race’

  I gulp in lungful after lungful, feeling the miasma flow through me. The key is to keep a clear head before wrestling it out of control.

  ‘Focus is the blade that will cut through its control.’

  I push the mana into my bone, as far away from my soul as possible. Slowly driving the darkness until it’s manageable again.

  ‘Start with the bones, next the muscle, then the skin and organs, lastly the sensory organs and finishing with the brain.’

  I fill my bones, saturating another layer of dark mana into each of them one by one, taking extra careful precision with my skull. Once my bones are full to their brims, I move onto my muscles as I was instructed long ago. The advice my master gave was good, but when working with this much I have to divide and divide the energy, only allowing my body to drink a safe amount before resting.

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  I let the darkness pool in my core, preventing it from flooding into my stomach as I sit there and let my bones and muscles cool down. After the second round of flooding the more hearty parts of me I move onto the organs, having to split the remaining mana into small threads that I push into my stomach, liver, kidneys, and eventually lungs and heart. The heart is delicate but strong, it needs to get a lot, but to not overwhelm it, I spend twice the time of the rest of the organs to gently feed it.

  Going back to my bones and muscles with the remainder, then cycling through the organs until I have just a fraction of a fraction of the original amount, I finally move onto the sensory organs.

  Skin is the easiest, spread the energy thin like a sheet before layering it on. Immediately the itching starts all over my skin, the sensitivity, the pain. The focus I’m in is what’s holding me together. As the pain and sensitivity die down, I anchor myself, riding out the strain of my focus and readying myself for my ears

  Next, I take a thread of the dark magic and trail it down my ear. I let it connect when it hits my ear drum. Just the little touch I gave it has me grasping the side of my head in pain as I cope and focus. Slowly working through each bone and structure in my ears, I work until each part is lightly fed with the dark mana.

  Moving next to my eyes, I thread a thin strand right into my pupil. As soon as they touch, my vision is filled with more than eyes were meant to see.

  The surroundings around me immediately turn red and saturated, as if I now have lights in my eyes. Everything becomes more twitchy, more giving of information, more exposed. I can see through the trees even, my eyes being able to see every wave and every line of bark at once.

  After I use this double sight, a switch flips and I grip my face in pain. Closing them only makes it slightly better, my focus helps much more.

  Having let that die down for a while, I push through and thin the dark energy into smaller and smaller fractions. Holding such a small piece away from the whole takes all my focus. I slowly let this droplet into my head before diffusing it outward from the back of my brain outward.

  The future and the past come to me as possible worlds and the formulas to create them. My brain shreds through memories, creating and making different perspectives, thoughts and possibilities appear in front of me.

  The world tunes out, everything fades to black before I cannot breathe and gasp.

  Everything stops for just a moment.

  I gasp desperately for air as everything resets, like I have just woken from a nightmare.

  As I breathe in and out to reset my focus, I thin the magic to go again onto my skin.

  ===

  Dear Arthur, my old friend who I bled side by side with

  I ask you for help, because both me and you have the same upbring and the same goals. I do know that we must bring our sons with us to have a chance, but I ask you how young and how hard should I start my son’s training? I am overwhelmed by these issues, as you know my father never gave me much attention before I was found out to be talented with the sword, then he went straight to using me as his prized heir. I wish I could be gentle with him but with what is ahead I cannot be lax.

  He is already responding well to the dilute, there are no side effects as of this moment, and he is starting to show strength beyond kids years older than him. Of course there is that gloomy dark priest to ask and I already have his detailed plans, but that man has never raised anything but students and apprentices, please write me anything you have found and believe I should know.

  I am asking you for any advice or knowledge you have regarding these issues. I know you had a hard but better, more structured upbringing, so I would love to hear your advice. I have started playing games like tag or running with my boy, though he is only 5 at this time.

  Besides business, beyond your reports to our group, how is family life? It has only been so few years but I love it very dearly. The thing is, I doubt I would have appreciated them if I did not go to the top of this world. You, having already started a family before you left, should have an interesting perspective.

  I pen this letter to an old friend, a man I disliked when we first met, but a man who after braving death with I love like a brother. It has been 6 years since we separated, only having communicated and coordinated by letters since.