The process to become a Soulcaster was surprisingly quick, over in a breath. It wasn’t the process itself that limited most of the human population from ever becoming one: it was the prerequisite, the Soulcaster’s Will. Most in the world would never find something they could care about so strongly.

  Firnix still felt strangely human. He’d half-expected to lose his mind. Maybe set himself on fire, or combust one of his limbs.

  But this was just the first step. Even with the Umbra deactivated, surviving the Root Horror required more: an ability.

  A Form.

  No matter how much he didn’t want to proceed with this, he’d already made his decision. He would have to trust in himself, just enough that he’d use any ability he developed only to save Syra, and never again.

  Then he realized he had no idea what to do.

  “Pardon, but how do I cast ardor?” he asked, carrying his voice.

  His mind nervously made horrors of the darkness before his eyes. A monster stalking him, about to attack, unseen. He cursed his ignorance, and gave Syra’s response his full attention.

  “Uh, just tell the fireflies to go to your skin. That’s how I create lightning. But be forceful! Verbal commands can help out, in my experience!” Her words nearly ran into each other. As if spurred on by nervous energy, she added, “I’m curious what Branch ability you have, so let me know! I hope it’s teleportation, but Da says it's super rare. There’s also…”

  She continued speaking. Firnix was grateful for her eagerness to help, but he tuned her voice out to not confuse himself more than he already had been.

  He carefully sat down on the slimy root, settling into the familiar position he always used to meditate back in Fraela. He closed his eyes and distilled his thoughts. He did keep an ear peeled for the next screech or groan, or any indication he’d need to be back on his feet and feeling around for the next root.

  He tried to remember how his Soulcaster’s Will had made him feel. He’d sensed something deep within himself that time. He tried searching himself for where that sensation had come from… and he felt it. It was hard to comprehend, but it felt like opening an eye he never knew he had. He saw ethereal streams of water criss-crossing throughout his body, tinted gold, from his legs to his torso to his arms and his head. It reminded him of the flow of blood through arteries he’d seen in diagrams.

  Where were the fireflies? He wasn’t sure, but he was satisfied with the progress he made. This was something he’d never seen, or felt, before.

  He started to share his findings with Syra, but was entirely cut off by a ringing clamor.

  Curses!

  If last time’s pattern held true, there would be an attack in a few seconds. Firnix got to his feet as fast as his aching muscles allowed, and held his arms up at the ready to grab onto whatever root he could on the inevitable fall to come.

  But was it inevitable? He realized it’d focus its attention on either him or Syra, now that they were on separate roots. What would it do?

  The answer came as a series of strident groans and crashes. Like the entire cave was getting ripped apart.

  What!

  The root beneath him tilted violently, and he pitched downwards, further into the murky darkness. Blood rushed to his head. He flailed his arms around, desperately reaching for purchase. His hand scraped a root, past the thin layer of slime and digging into the brittle epidermis. With all of his energy, praying his grasp held firm, he pulled himself up and onto the root.

  Firnix hadn’t ever had that much grip strength before.

  Sudden fear gripped his heart as he recalled how expansive the latest series of crashes had sounded. “Syra, are you there?” he shouted.

  “Not pushing up daisies just yet!” she shouted back, above him this time. She sounded farther away.

  He didn’t have time to be relieved. The next attack would be coming soon. He described the mystical streams to her.

  “That must be your ardor!” she said. “I see fireflies instead, but I guess different people see ardor differently. Alright, just imagine bending it to your will! Your thoughts can shape it!”

  Right. Soulcasting is all about will and desires, he thought. That’s why they say talent in Soulcasting is just how ambitious you are. That’s why the strongest Soulcasters are all crazy and power-hungry, as far as I’ve seen.

  Am I even fit for this?

  I have to try.

  He sat into a meditative position, careful not to slip on the root’s slime, and looked within himself again. His ardor showed up easier this time, now that he knew what he was looking for.

  If he needed to bend the ardor to his will, he needed to define a desire first. His Soulcaster’s Will was his overarching goal, so he probably needed to find a desire more specific to the current predicament if he wanted to use his ardor for it. He thought of the most convenient solution. I want to teleport out of this cave with Syra. He has yet to figure out whether or not his Branch could suit such an ability, but trying something - anything - was all he had.

  He tried commanding the ardor to move to his will.

  Nothing happened. The water continued flowing as it had before, inconsiderate to his thoughts. He tried again. And again.

  The effort felt as futile as standing by a river and trying to bend its water according to his thoughts. He remembered once trying to do that as a kid and his face heated. Was this just a foolish exercise? Was he doomed to perish here even after becoming a Soulcaster?

  The brief embarrassment shattered his careful concentration, and the flows of ardor disappeared from his senses.

  The screech came again.

  There wasn’t enough time between each attack, and they were only getting wilder and more devastating, by the sounds of it. He needed to concentrate better if he wanted to work with his ardor.

  But how?

  He’d come to the island prepared for almost any of the organisms that were known to be of some danger, like forest drakes and gorebears. But he was completely unprepared for this entire place — let alone a mysterious being apparently strong enough to snap greatwood tree roots like twigs.

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  But it wasn’t a complete mystery. There were common thought patterns to all beings in the world, and this one had to be no exception.

  No being was ever violent just for the sake of it. There was a reason it was attacking Syra and him. And not only attacking them, but wrecking the skein of roots that made up its habitat. It was protecting itself from a perceived threat. A disturbance.

  “Syra, stay silent and still after this next attack!” he shouted, hoping she would catch on to his reasoning. If the two of them concealed their presence, they might not get attacked.

  It was a temporary solution, as they couldn’t just sit on these roots forever, but it might give him enough time to concentrate on his ardor, and hopefully, he’d succeed in casting it into something useful.

  The groan of splitting roots came again, somehow more clamorous than last time. The root below him flung to the side, and his body lurched over its edge. The cold bite of rushing air prickled his face as he fell deeper into the unknown. He braced for eventual impact as best he could.

  Mercifully, it came a few seconds later, when he’d begun to foolishly worry he’d end up falling forever. The root he landed on hammered his body on impact. His left shoulder dislocated, and he almost cried out in pain — but he bit his tongue to cut off that potential sound.

  He shifted into a sitting position again, silently bearing the pain.

  He took a deep breath, which came out shaky, so he took another one. Then he cleared his mind of all worries and doubts, and finally focused on his soul.

  He saw the ethereal water again, his ardor, flowing slow as honey.

  Firnix tried a different will from last time.

  I want to live.

  Nothing happened.

  I don’t want to let Syra die if I can help it, he tried next.

  The water didn’t even tremble.

  He wondered if it was even possible to manifest a Soulcasting ability so soon after becoming a Soulcaster, but he pushed that worry away. There was no other option. He had to keep trying.

  Please, please, something!

  I want to be strong, he thought, but he instantly recognized that was insincere. Nor specific enough.

  I want to see.

  The streams of water shivered almost imperceptibly, but only for a moment. Perhaps he needed to dig deeper.

  He swallowed, blood somehow boiling hotter now that he knew he was close. Sweat beaded his temples as his mind raced.

  I want to see what cannot be seen. The thought came into his mind unbidden, but he let it. Even though he wasn’t sure why, it felt… right.

  His ardor seemed to agree. The streams of water began to flow a bit faster, and they appeared brighter, more real to his senses. Almost as though he could reach out and touch it, and feel it flowing past his fingers.

  His pulse quickened. He couldn’t celebrate yet; this still wasn’t enough to save their lives. How do I make it do something? He pondered for a few seconds, then decided if he wanted to see, he could try casting his ardor to his eyes. After all, Syra had said she cast her ardor to her skin, and her ability had been to create lightning all around her body.

  Firnix mentally requested his ardor to follow his will. The streams of ethereal water around his shoulders, upper chest, and head diverted and began to flow toward his eyes.

  At the same time, he felt a physical change; his eyes warmed. Unlike the hostile heat the Umbra had brought to his forehead earlier, this was cozy and pleasant, not unlike the warmth of a fireplace in the First Library.

  He opened his eyes to see what the result of his ardor had manifested as.

  The cave, once an empty void, had come alive. Ethereal flows of water ran above, below, and all around him, twisting and turning and criss-crossing like he guessed the roots of the cave did. The flows were more like rivers than the streams inside his own body.

  It was magical.

  No doubt, this was the ardor of living beings around him. All living things had souls throughout their bodies, even plants. He remembered he could look for Syra with this vision and began to turn his head to search, but then he realized his vision already covered every direction around him. It was disorienting, being able to see as if he had eyes in the back of his head. Disorienting and inhuman.

  He shook the thought away.

  He had to stretch his perception out to look for Syra among the skein of massive ardor rivers. He half-expected to need to look for fireflies, but then he found her; a web of thin streams, arranged like arteries within a human-shaped form in a sitting position. Just like the way his own ardor looked to him. She was far, fifty or sixty feet away, but now that he could see her and the roots, he could map a path to her then run away. He’d theorized the Root Horror was acting on defensive instinct, so it likely wouldn’t give chase if he fled its territory with her.

  That reminded him he could likely see the Root Horror with this new ability too. Part of him was afraid to see what it would look like, but he quelled that feeling. He cast his perception all around him, extending his sight as far as he could, which extended until the rivers of ardor became hazy just within around a few hundred feet away.

  He couldn’t find it. Either its body was out of his range, or he wasn’t capable of discerning it from all of the massive roots around him.

  He couldn’t run away from it if he didn’t know where it was. The best plan would be to get to Syra and think about what to do from there — perhaps just silently walk in one direction until finding an exit to the cave?

  Firnix took a step forward — and perhaps it was the fatigue, or the hunger, or the thirst, or the stress, or the disconcerting effort of walking just above a river of ethereal water, or any of the other dozen things plaguing him — but he slipped on the slime. He didn’t fall off the root, but he gave out an involuntary yelp as his sandals scraped against the root, both sounds echoing around. In the silence of the cave, they rang as stealthily as a struck gong.

  The screech came, and he knew what that meant. He abandoned his short-lived attempt at stealth and half-ran-half-slid as fast as his aching body allowed across the slimy root. He jumped to a nearby root that would take him closer to Syra.

  Then he saw it.

  A large, snaking tendril rose above him, or at least that’s what it likely was; its ardor was much like the roots, only its shape bent and twisted as if it had a mind of its own.

  What size! He couldn’t see the Root Horror, only a tendril of it — and really only the ardor of its tendril — but its sheer size was incomprehensible for something that lived in a dark cave likely devoid of life besides tree roots like this. A mystery of a being. If only it wasn’t so hostile!

  The tendril rose and straightened, and head-splitting fear returned in full force.

  It rocketed downwards.

  “Syra, jump to your right!” Firnix shouted. He ran down the length of his root to avoid the incoming tendril.

  Roots groaned as they sheared apart, and in his vision, their flows slowly vanished entirely, like a river drying up under the summer sun. Cut off from the tree, they were no longer alive, no longer infused with a soul. Just like that.

  He saw her making the jump, landing on another root — right next to the series of impacts — and she scrambled to stay on top of it.

  He made haste toward her.

  “I can see ardor!” he shouted as he approached. “I can see yours, and the roots’ ardor, and even what the Root Horror’s attacking us with!”

  “How do we take it down, then?”

  “Take it down? We’re running!”

  “Oh. Alright.”

  The screech came again, but he had reached her. He spoke quickly. “Stay right behind me, Syra, I’ll lead the way out along the roots, since I can see them. But you know this part of the island better than I do. Do you know which general direction should we head for?”

  “No, but I’m sure anywhere’s fine as long as we keep going straight. This cave can’t stretch on forever. Let’s just go this way.” She pointed, and this time, he could see it in the ardor that roughly formed the shape of an outstretched forefinger. Then she put a hand on his back. It was cold and wet, like Firnix’s clothes and skin and everything else in the cave. “To know when you’re turning to stay on a root,” she explained.

  A tendril rose above Firnix, catching his attention, but Firnix knew the pattern now. It rose to a peak slowly before descending quickly — which confirmed the area of impact was telegraphed.

  He shuffled in that half-run-half-sliding movement he’d done earlier, his heart pounding as he tried to compromise speed with taking care to not slip off.

  The tendril fell, like a guillotine’s blade, but they were well out of the region of impact.

  Firnix didn’t have the breath to sigh in relief, nor the mood to feel relief at all. Only a tired focus to keep on moving.

  He verbally guided Syra whenever he was about to jump to an adjacent root and where. A minute passed, and then a few more, but another screech didn’t come.

  It wasn’t following them.

  They were out of the Root Horror’s territory.