The Mana Takes Root
The woman with empty eyes reached for my face and I flinched hard enough to crack my skull against the stone floor.
Pain exploded through the back of my head, sharp and immediate, cutting through the deeper agony of whatever the hell was happening to my insides. The blue-white glow pulsing from my skin flickered, dimmed, then surged brighter. My teeth chattered. Not from cold. From the feeling of something trying to claw its way out through my pores.
"Do not touch him." Seraphine's blade was suddenly between us, the edge close enough to the woman's throat that I could see the reflection of my own glowing skin in the polished steel.
The woman didn't blink. Didn't move. Just stood there with her hand still extended, fingers spread like she was reaching for something precious and fragile.
"You cannot stop this, Seraphine val Astoria." Her voice came from everywhere and nowhere. "The summoning is complete. The mana has taken root. He will die in approximately four minutes unless—"
"Unless what?" I tried to sit up. Failed. Settled for rolling onto my side and immediately regretting it as my stomach tried to turn itself inside out. "Unless you do some creepy magic thing? Because I'm gonna be honest, the whole 'eyes like the void' situation isn't really selling me on—"
"Unless he learns control." Kross's voice cut through mine. He was still chanting, but quieter now, his hands moving in tight circles over a diagram I hadn't noticed before. Glowing symbols hung in the air between his palms, rotating slowly. "The human body was not designed to channel mana. It must be taught. Trained. The process typically requires years of—"
"He does not have years." The woman finally lowered her hand. "He has minutes."
"Three minutes and forty-two seconds," Seris said from somewhere behind me. Her voice was shaking. "The mana saturation is increasing exponentially. If it continues at this rate—"
"I am aware of the mathematics, apprentice." Kross's hands moved faster. The symbols spun. "I am attempting to stabilize the flow, but without a proper foundation—"
"Then build one." Seraphine hadn't lowered her sword. "You summoned him. You will save him."
"I summoned a hero." Kross's voice was flat. Clinical. "What arrived was a man. There is a difference."
The glow from my skin pulsed again, brighter this time, and I felt something inside me shift. Not physically. Deeper than that. Like a door I didn't know existed had just been kicked open and now something was pouring through.
I screamed. Couldn't help it. The sound tore out of my throat raw and animal and I didn't care because everything was burning and freezing and tearing apart all at once.
"Three minutes," Seris whispered.
The woman with empty eyes knelt beside me. Seraphine's blade followed her down, never leaving her throat.
"I can teach him." The woman's hair drifted across my face, cold and weightless. "But he must accept me first."
"Accept you?" I managed to gasp the words out between clenched teeth. "I don't even know what you—"
"I am Elara." She tilted her head, and for just a second something flickered in those empty eyes. Something that might have been sadness or might have been hunger. "I am the price of your summoning. The cost that was paid. The debt that must be—"
"Lies." Kross's voice cracked like a whip. "You are a manifestation. A construct born from the ritual's excess energy. You have no—"
"I have a name." Elara's voice dropped to something barely above a whisper, but it cut through Kross's words like they were paper. "I have a purpose. And I have been waiting in the space between summonings for seventeen years, four months, and six days."
The specificity of that should have been weird. Should have raised questions. But another wave of pain hit me and all I could do was curl into a ball and try not to vomit.
"Two minutes and thirty seconds." Seris's voice was higher now. Panicked. "Archmagus, if you cannot—"
"Silence." Kross's hands stopped moving. The symbols froze in mid-rotation. "There is one option. Dangerous. Untested. But given the circumstances—"
"Do it." Seraphine's knuckles were white on her sword hilt.
"You do not understand what I am proposing."
"I understand he is dying."
"He may die regardless." Kross turned to face us fully for the first time. His face was pale, drawn, and there was something in his eyes that looked almost like guilt. "The process I am considering requires a bond. A permanent connection between the summoned and a native of this world. Someone to act as a conduit. A filter. To teach his body how to process mana by sharing their own understanding."
"Then do it." Seraphine took a step forward. "Bond him to me."
"No." Elara's hand shot out, faster than I could track, and caught Seraphine's wrist. "He is mine."
The temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees in an instant. Frost spread across the stone floor from where Elara knelt, creeping outward in crystalline patterns.
Seraphine's sword came up. Elara didn't let go.
"Two minutes," Seris said, and now she was definitely crying.
"Stop." The word came out of my mouth before I'd consciously decided to speak. "Both of you just—stop."
Neither of them moved. Seraphine's blade was pressed against Elara's forearm now, hard enough that I could see a thin line of something that wasn't quite blood welling up along the edge. It glowed the same blue-white as my skin.
"He speaks." Elara's lips curved into something that might have been a smile if smiles were supposed to make you want to run screaming. "Tell them, Jake Mercer. Tell them what you see when you look at me."
I didn't want to look at her. Didn't want to see those empty eyes again. But my head turned anyway, like someone else was controlling it, and I found myself staring directly into that void.
And I saw.
Not with my eyes. With something else. Something that had opened up inside me when the mana flooded in. I saw past the armor and the floating hair and the empty eyes, down into whatever Elara actually was, and—
"You're not lying." The words fell out of my mouth. "About waiting. About having a name. You're not a construct. You're—"
The vision cut off as another wave of pain hit me, worse than before. My back arched. My hands clawed at the stone. The glow from my skin was so bright now that I could see it through my closed eyelids.
"Ninety seconds." Seris's voice was barely audible over the sound of my own heartbeat thundering in my ears.
"The bond." Kross's voice was urgent now. "It must be formed immediately. Seraphine, if you are willing—"
"She cannot." Elara's grip on Seraphine's wrist tightened. "The bond requires truth. Complete honesty. No secrets. No lies. Not even the ones we tell ourselves." Her empty eyes found mine again. "Can you do that, Seraphine val Astoria? Can you stand before him with no armor? No walls? Can you let him see every part of you, even the parts you hide from yourself?"
Seraphine's teeth ground together. Her sword hand trembled.
She didn't answer.
"I thought not." Elara released her wrist. "But I can. I have no choice. I was made for this. Made for him. The ritual that summoned Jake Mercer did not just pull him from his world—it created me to serve as his anchor. His guide. His—"
"His chain." Kross's voice was soft. "You are describing a soul bond. A permanent connection that cannot be broken except by death. You would bind him to you before he even understands what that means."
"He will die in sixty seconds if I do not."
"He may wish he had died if you do."
The pain was constant now. Not waves anymore. Just one endless burning freezing tearing sensation that made it impossible to think or breathe or do anything except exist in agony.
"Forty-five seconds," Seris sobbed.
"Jake." Seraphine's voice cut through the pain. "Look at me."
I forced my eyes open. She was kneeling now, her face level with mine, close enough that I could see the gold flecks in her green eyes.
"You must choose." Her hand found mine, squeezed hard enough to hurt. "The bond or death. There is no third option. But know this—if you accept her, you will be bound to this world. To her. Forever. You will never return home."
Home. The word hit me like a physical blow. My apartment. My job. My life. Everything I'd left behind when that circle had lit up and pulled me through.
Everything I'd been trying not to think about.
"Thirty seconds." Seris's voice cracked.
"I accept." The words came out before I'd finished thinking them through. "Elara. Whatever you are. Whatever this costs. I accept."
Elara's smile widened. "Then let me in."
She pressed her palm flat against my chest, directly over my heart, and the world exploded into light.
The pain didn't stop. It changed.
Instead of burning and freezing and tearing, it felt like someone had taken every nerve in my body and plugged them directly into a live wire. Information flooded in. Not words. Not images. Pure sensation. Pure understanding.
I could feel the mana now. Not as some abstract magical energy, but as a living thing flowing through channels I hadn't known existed. Channels that were currently trying to tear themselves apart because they'd never been used before and didn't know how to handle the pressure.
Elara's presence was there too, wrapped around mine like a second skin. I could feel her thoughts bleeding into my own, her memories mixing with mine, her—
Focus. Her voice in my head was different from her spoken voice. Warmer. More human. The mana is wild. Untrained. You must learn to guide it or it will consume you.
How? I thought back, because apparently that was something I could do now.
Like this.
She showed me. Not with words or explanations, but by doing it herself and letting me feel the process. Taking the raw chaotic energy and shaping it. Directing it. Giving it purpose and form instead of letting it rampage unchecked.
I tried to copy her. Failed. The mana slipped through my mental grasp like water.
Again. No judgment in her mental voice. Just patience. You have time.
Seris said I had thirty seconds.
That was before the bond. Now you have as long as you need. We exist outside time while we are joined like this.
I tried again. Failed again. The mana scattered, reformed, scattered again.
You are thinking of it as something separate from yourself. Elara's presence shifted, moved closer. It is not. The mana is you now. Part of your body. Part of your soul. You do not command it. You simply... are.
That made absolutely no sense. But I tried anyway, and this time instead of reaching for the mana I just... let it be. Stopped fighting. Stopped trying to control it.
The mana settled. Not completely. Not perfectly. But enough that the channels stopped tearing. Enough that the pressure eased from unbearable to merely excruciating.
Better. Elara's approval washed over me like warm water. Now we return.
The light faded. The world came back in pieces. Stone floor beneath me. Cold air on my skin. Voices shouting.
I opened my eyes.
Seraphine was standing over me, her sword raised, pointed at Elara. Kross had his hands up, symbols spinning between his palms again. Seris was backed against the wall, her device clutched to her chest.
And I was still glowing, but softer now. Steadier. The light pulsed in time with my heartbeat instead of flickering randomly.
"It is done." Elara stood slowly, her hand still pressed against my chest. "The bond is formed. He will live."
"At what cost?" Kross's voice was sharp. "What have you taken from him?"
"Nothing." Elara's empty eyes found his. "I have given. My knowledge. My understanding. My—" She paused, and for the first time since she'd appeared, she looked uncertain. "My truth."
"Your truth." Seraphine's sword didn't lower. "What does that mean?"
Elara's hand fell away from my chest. The connection between us didn't break—I could still feel her presence in the back of my mind, warm and constant—but it faded to something manageable. Something I could ignore if I tried.
"It means he can see me." Elara's voice was soft. "All of me. The parts I show and the parts I hide. The parts I remember and the parts I have forgotten. The bond does not allow lies. Not to him. Not to myself."
She turned to face me fully, and I saw it again. That flicker in her empty eyes. That hint of something human buried under whatever else she was.
"I am not a construct," she said, and her voice was shaking now. "I am not a manifestation. I am—" She stopped. Swallowed. "I was human once. Before the ritual. Before I was changed. Before I was made into this."
The room went silent.
"That is impossible." Kross's hands had stopped moving. "The summoning ritual does not require a human sacrifice. It draws power from ambient mana, from the ley lines, from—"
"From the summoner's greatest desire." Elara's laugh was bitter. "You wanted a hero, Archmagus. Someone to save your kingdom. Someone to fight your wars. But heroes do not come willingly. They must be called. Compelled. And the price of that compulsion is always the same."
"No." Kross's face had gone white. "I studied the ritual for years. I checked every component. Every symbol. There was no mention of—"
"Because you were not meant to know." Elara's empty eyes fixed on him. "The ritual hides its true cost. Buries it in layers of misdirection and false requirements. By the time you realize what you have done, it is too late. The price has been paid. The sacrifice has been made."
"Who?" Seraphine's voice was barely above a whisper. "Who were you?"
Elara opened her mouth to answer.
And then the door exploded inward in a shower of splinters and stone, and a man in golden armor stepped through the smoke, a sword that burned with actual fire held loosely in one hand.
"Seraphine val Astoria." His voice was deep, cultured, and absolutely furious. "You will explain why you are in a forbidden ritual chamber with a glowing peasant and a dead woman walking."
Seraphine's face went carefully blank. "Prince Aldric. I was not expecting—"
"Clearly." The prince's eyes swept the room, lingered on me for a long moment, then moved to Elara. "And you. I know what you are. What you were. The treaty forbids your kind from—"
"I am bound now." Elara's voice was flat. "The treaty no longer applies."
"Bound to whom?"
Elara pointed at me.
The prince's gaze swung back, and I saw his expression shift from anger to confusion to something that looked almost like pity.
"You bonded a soul anchor to an untrained summoned?" He turned to Kross. "Are you mad? Do you have any idea what you have done?"
"I saved his life," Kross said, but his voice lacked conviction.
"You have doomed him." The prince's sword lowered slightly. "A soul anchor bond cannot be broken. Cannot be transferred. And when the anchor's true nature is revealed—when the summoned learns what his bonded partner actually is—" He shook his head. "Forgive me, boy. But you would have been better off dying on that floor."
"What is she?" I managed to push myself up onto my elbows. The glow from my skin was fading now, settling into something barely visible. "What aren't you telling me?"
The prince looked at Elara. Elara looked at the floor.
"Tell him," the prince said softly. "He has a right to know."
Elara's hands clenched into fists. "I am engaged," she said, and each word sounded like it was being torn out of her. "To Prince Aldric val Theron. To be married in six months. To seal a military alliance between our kingdoms."
The room spun. Not from the mana this time. From the sudden understanding of exactly how complicated my life had just become.
"But the bond—" I started.
"The bond does not care about politics." Elara's voice was hollow. "It does not care about alliances or treaties or promises made before I was changed. It only cares that I am yours now. Completely. Permanently. And that means—"
The prince's sword came up again, and this time it was pointed directly at my throat.
"That means you have just stolen my fiancée, summoned hero." His smile was cold. "And I am not a forgiving man."