Two more days passed by as they found their rhythm, and on the third, an important milestone was reached. After training with Magnus and Dirk, Sinead was able to carve the Sigils into a polearm that Elliot had made.

  They were Sigils in the old style, so would be useless in the hands of the average person, but it was perfect for proving that Sinead was a Keeper.

  “So, what now?” Verdan asked once they’d returned to the secure room after watching Dirk test the weapon and confirm that it worked. “How many more of these should you make?”

  “I’m not sure,” Sinead said with a grimace. “It needs to be enough that I can show confidently that I can make them, yet not too many so it looks like someone else is doing it. I need to be able to explain the Aethite as well.”

  “Well, that part is easy enough,” Verdan said, shrugging as she gave him a questioning look. “Explain that you know what it is, but not where to get it. You encountered me, and I have some, which I gave to you at the request of my Apprentice.”

  “That should work,” Dirk said with a slow nod. “But I have a feeling that the other Keepers won’t call it Aethite.”

  “That will only play into the Aethite part being the one thing you don’t know,” Verdan said, rubbing his jaw. “That will be enough for them to decide to teach you the rest, right?”

  The two Kranjir were silent for a moment before Sinead laughed sharply. “Honestly, I don’t know. We’ve put all this work in, and I don’t know if any of it will matter. I was turned away before, so they might just turn me away again.”

  “If they do, then what?” Verdan looked between the two of them questioningly. This was their Clan, and the consequences of what they decided would fall on their people. He couldn’t make any decisions here; he could only support them and do whatever he was able to make things turn out well.

  “If they still deny her, then we take some time to try a political solution,” Dirk said with a look of distaste that Verdan could empathise with. “If that doesn’t work, then we declare her a Keeper ourselves.”

  “The rest of the Clans won’t take that well,” Sinead said, paling at the thought. “They won’t acknowledge us as a Clan.”

  “Then let us pray that it doesn’t go that far.” Dirk looked older than his years for a moment. “Our Clan will live on, even if we have to break away from the rest of them to do so.”

  Verdan winced at the very idea, keenly aware of just how much pride the Kranjir took in their Clan and their society as a whole. Breaking away from the other Clans might keep the Mhorgain alive on paper, but they wouldn’t be the same.

  Their pride wouldn’t let them leave the Clan to die, though, of that Verdan had no doubt. Hopefully, the Keepers would simply accept Sinead into the fold, and none of this would be a problem. If not, then, they would deal with it all as it came.

  “So, two more, then?” Verdan offered, drawing them back to the matter at hand. “For a total of three new weapons in the Mhorgain style?”

  “Three sounds good,” Sinead said with a nod. “I’ll add some decorative inscriptions to them as well, make them look more like traditional ancestral weapons.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Dirk nodded. “In the meantime, I’ll get some tests done to see if anyone has enough Aether capacity to wield one of these without endangering themselves.”

  “They still need to meet our standards, though,” Sinead said firmly. “Better that no one wields them than someone who will bring shame to the Clan. Right now, every Chosen matters.”

  “Agreed. You work on the Sigils, and I’ll start testing. Before we get started, though, let’s get the message sent north. The sooner it goes, the sooner they respond.”

  Sinead nodded, shifting her weight from side to side before giving a strained laugh. “Somehow, it all feels so real now. I know that this is what we’ve been building to, but the idea of sending the message makes me worry. What if it isn’t enough?”

  Dirk turned and reached out to rest a hand on her shoulder. “Then we keep going, just like we were talking about before. The world is changing, and what we’ve been able to figure out with Verdan will help us keep our people safe. Imagine if a Cyth Host were to form in the north and how many would die stopping it with only the Chosen wielding magic.”

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Verdan and Sinead both winced at the idea. It wouldn’t be pretty, that was for sure. The Clans were more united than the Sorcerers, and each individual Clan had dozens if not scores of Chosen, but that wasn’t enough to even the scales. The Host they’d fought recently had been difficult to manage, and that was with hundreds of Sorcerers working together.

  Ciaran was worth any five Sect Retainers in Verdan’s opinion, maybe even more, but against something like a Cyth Dregg, he was still just a man with an axe.

  “I hear you, but will they even listen if it comes to that?” Sinead asked, the worry clear in her voice.

  “I don’t know.” Dirk fell silent for a moment as he stared off into the distance. “But we can’t let them stop us. I refuse to let our people suffer when we could do more to protect them. This knowledge has existed for countless generations, and yet, the survival of our entire society is built on the sacrifice of our bravest and strongest.”

  Sinead took a deep breath before nodding. “Then let’s send that message and get to work.”

  -**-

  With all the progress they’d made recently, Verdan had gone back to some of the older examples they had and tried his hand at deciphering any new Sigils. Most of these were old, damaged or otherwise incomplete, so it was difficult, but it was worth a try.

  Any potential Sigil went onto a piece of wood and inside a shielded area before being activated, just in case. He’d spent a few hours on these Sigils here and there, and was finally confident that he’d actually found a workable Sigil.

  It had come from the metal box that Verdan had received from Clan Thrain, what felt like an eternity ago. It had come with a book in Low Imperial about the civil war that had destroyed the Grym Imperium, a book that he’d used to help teach Ciaran, Dirk and Sinead the language.

  As far as he was aware, Ciaran had settled for a very basic understanding of the language, while Dirk and Sinead had gone on to become close to fluent. It helped that they spoke regularly with the Fwyn, he supposed.

  Still, with how useful it was, the book had been his main focus from that trade. It was only recently, when he’d gone back over what they had that he’d investigated it more closely. The box held a number of Sigils, most of which he already knew, or looked like fragments of them, but there was one that he didn’t.

  Putting it together had been difficult, but Verdan had finally got a working Sigil. Now he just needed to figure out what it did.

  Running some Aether into the wood, Verdan felt the Sigil take hold and activate. There was no outward display of magic, but he could feel the Aether being slowly consumed by the Sigil.

  Picking up a piece of scrap metal with cloth wrapped around one end, Verdan employed the time-honoured tradition of poking it to see what would happen. Not exactly the most scientific or intellectual approach, but it would work well enough if the Sigil was a reactive one.

  The moment the piece of metal made contact with the wood, the Sigils that Verdan had carved into it flared with light, draining all of the Aether he’d provided in a flash and pushing against the metal in his hand. Then his poke moved the wood slightly to the right.

  Verdan frowned, unsure if he’d imagined that delay or not. It had felt like the metal had touched it and then, a heartbeat later, the wood had moved. Had the Sigil held it in place somehow?

  Setting up the test again, Verdan gave the Sigil a little more Aether this time before giving it a firm poke with the metal stick. Once again, there was an almost imperceptible delay before the wood moved.

  Intrigued, Verdan tried a few different ways to interact with it, but all of them had the same result. Whatever he did, there was a slight delay as the Sigils consumed all the Aether and then it would happen.

  Returning to the box he’d found the Sigil in, Verdan examined the Sigil triad it had been part of. There was the mystery Sigil, along with the conditional one that limited the area to be affected, along with one for projecting and one for activation.

  So the interior of the box would project whatever this mystery Sigil was on command. As he understood it, the projection wouldn’t extend past the other Sigils to the exterior of the box thanks to the conditional Sigil, so it would just be on the interior.

  The exterior held a single activation Sigil as well, which would turn the interior effect on and off, much like how the Brotherhood wands worked. A single touch of that Sigil, alongside the intent to activate or deactivate it would work. A minute amount of Aether would be needed as well, but nearly all living things carried that within them.

  All that being equal, the box seemed designed to store something and….

  Verdan’s thoughts trailed away as he went back to his experiment and paused, unsure how to actually test for what he was considering. He needed something that would change naturally.

  Eventually, Verdan settled on heating the wood before feeding the Sigil with Aether and keeping his hand close to it, but not touching. The moment the Sigil activated, no more heat was given off. Verdan grinned, knowing he’d finally figured it out.

  Still, the test had to be done carefully, so he waited for a full thirty seconds before poking the wood and then carefully touching it. The warm wood felt exactly as it had before the Sigil activated.

  The reason the wood had been resisting being moved was that this was a Sigil of stasis. It was just like the spell he’d developed, albeit more difficult to use. The box setup made perfect sense now. By keeping the effect to its interior, the box could be moved, while whatever was within was kept unchanged.

  A fascinating Sigil, and a clever way of using it. More importantly, Verdan had everything he needed to be able to recreate it.

  “Boss!” Alden’s voice came from the corridor, the door opening a moment later as he leaned in with an excited look in his eyes. “You said you wanted to know the moment that the machine stopped working. Well, it just finished the last batch of Dryd and won’t activate again.”