Rune Mage [Fantasy/Adventure | Book 1 +2 | Complete]

Chapter 75: Smooth Talker

"Here."

Seiren looked up from the skewered rabbit leg she'd been munching over, her hands covered in its grease despite the cloth she'd wrapped around it. Halen Ashworth stood to her left and stared on ahead, a piece of paper held out in her hand.

"What is it?" Seiren said through a mouthful of meat.

"You wanted to learn blue runes, right?"

The shock of Ashworth helping Seiren of her own volition made Seiren inhale the last mouthful instead of swallowing it. Tears sprang to her eyes as her airway contracted and she coughed and spluttered, saliva spraying across the snow-covered ground.

Nice. So graceful, Seiren.

Ashworth waited without a word until Seiren had finished hacking a lung out and wrapped up the remains of her food. Seiren cleaned her fingers with another cloth before accepting the proffered rune. Her eyes widened.

"But King's always taught us to use eight-sided runes to lock in a blue rune."

"But nobody at King's has actually used one, though, have they?" There was a sneer in Ashworth's words. "They teach us the basics of the red, orange, and yellow, and yet none of us are capable of doing more than shake a table. And it's only when we have sufficient years' training under our belt, when we are truly in the throes of the magehood, do we get powerful -- and that's when we are fully under their control. Use this one. Six locking circles are all you need, provided you don't add any more lines to it."

Seiren studied the shape. She remembered this -- from their fight back in Recca Mirren's house in Iwade. Her limbs tingled, as if recalling the shock that paralysed her entire body. Six locking circles, four with a duration reduction sigil and two with an invisibility sigil within.

"It's the reduced duration that gives the explosion in electricity," said Ashworth, as if reading Seiren's mind. "The interlinking lines gives it the energy you need. You shouldn't need to add more lines. If you want greater energy, replace the invisibility sigils with time reduction, and similarly if you want less energy, add more invisibility sigils. The art is knowing how far to space out the broken lines and memorising the layout -- although I believe memorising shouldn't be a problem for you."

Seiren's eyes flicked up at her. She wiped her mouth.

"I saw you sketching runes that would take years of memorising when we raided that village. That memory of yours must come in useful when runing."

"It does."

"Well, this shouldn't be hard for you, then. Just practise."

"And the risk about electrocuting ourselves..."

"Oh, yes, that risk very much exists." There was a gleam in Ashworth's eyes that reminded Seiren of a cat toying with a mouse before it pounced. "I trust you won't be foolish enough to play too much with the rune. But then again, given what you've created, I might be asking too much."

Seiren thought of a bad word as the older woman turned around and stalked off to take the next watch over the still-unconscious Butterworth. Whatever rune Bellamy Southwark had put him under was working a charm to keep him unconscious. Southwark studied a map with Rowan and squinted up at the sky not too far away. Seiren stuffed the rest of the remaining leg into her mouth with her other hand and chewed; the meat had gotten cold during their brief interaction. She should have kept that orange rune burning for a while longer. Her fingers turned blue and tingled. She stuck them inside her fur-lined cloak and rubbed them together, shivering.

"Are you still sure you want to go to Benover, Woodbead?" Southwark said. Seiren could just about hear their conversation from where she was. Their breaths came up as puffs of mist. "A lot has changed since you left."