Liam eventually conquered the entire playground and got bored, so I brought him home. He proceeded to regale Gran with an entire epic of his adventures, and she seemed quite into the whole thing, surprisingly. Or maybe not. Gran had a fiery streak in her, after all; she'd probably be leading the charge to assault the ramparts if she had her way.

I left them to their fun. My brain was still turning over the conversation with Alex - we'd left off in a state that left me with more questions than answers. I wanted to know who he worked for, but clearly he wasn't about to be forthcoming with that information, which was disappointing, to say the least.

He had said he'd connect with me again once he knew more. Clearly he had some boundaries he wasn't able to cross, even if he'd exceeded a few by talking to me without permission. I decided to just leave it as it was and let him do what he needed to do.

For my part, I had a few things I could do. One of them, I was working on right now.

I sat cross-legged on my bed and rested my hands on my lap. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, noticing the gentle rise and fall of my chest, and tried to feel inside myself, toward the core I knew was there.

Concerns about my interaction with Alex, about what had happened to Alessa, and what to do about my mother all flooded down on me the second my eyelids winked shut—I'd expected that. Rather than resisting them as I normally would, there was an inkling of inherited knowledge, or instinct, that guided me to do differently. Following this, I acknowledged each worry, gave it a name, and let it drift by on my exhales, keeping my focus on my inner center.

What I didn't expect was that a few moments later I could feel a small current of calm wash out of my Core—and I could definitely tell it was the source. I wrinkled my brow, trying to wrap my head around the sensation, to gently hold the tendrils of calm I felt rise inside of me and coax them out further, like a spinner teasing yarn from an unwieldy lump of wool. Eventually, I was able to bring some loose ends together into a string inside me, then guide it up my centerline. I could feel it pulse in a few spots that stayed static while the end continued to move. I could tell that some power remained there even as the rest flowed on, and my imagination treated them as mooring points for the flow.

I really needed to ask someone about what was going on here, but Celistar was incommunicado at the moment, and presumably would be for some time.

Still guiding the flow, I brought it to my head. The instant it entered, it felt like a cool breeze washing over me, carrying away much of the anxiety I had. I followed the wave back down, relaxing my neck, then my shoulders, chest, the area around my core, downward to my feet.

A feeling of utter calm and complete stillness descended over me. The space around my Core, what I'd come to believe had something to do with my soul, swam into focus inside my head. In the center, above the Core, I could see a fuzzy figure I was pretty sure was Celistar. I wasn't sure why, but she was indistinct compared to everything else. Maybe as a foreign entity I couldn't resolve her correctly or something.

As with my other concerns, I let this one slide off into nothingness, concrete in the knowledge there was nothing I could do to deal with it now. Looking around the space in my mind's eye, there were very faint currents of light I had not noticed before - I'd been distracted speaking with my "soul mate" last time I was in there, so they very well could have been present before.

Focusing on them, I saw they shared the same warm and pure quality of the light in the Core itself. I followed them out until they disappeared, coming to some intrinsic realization that these represented flows of this new energy into the rest of my body. A particularly dense one grew up from the center of the Core into the nothingness above, branching out almost imperceptibly near the top like a tree. I could feel more than see little Motes of it as they floated back down like flower petals.

This had to be the calming current I had created earlier. It seemed that once it was established, it would run on its own so long as nothing disturbed it. I left the flow in place. I appreciated the tranquil clinicality it was giving me as I worked on settling this new command I'd been given. Or perhaps obtained for myself.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Yet another problem for future me, I thought, letting it slide away. The internal vision warped a little when I thought of the phrase, so I let go of the sense of self, the ego, and pushed deeper into the space in my soul.

What I really wanted was to do more with this power than just calm myself. The incident with the extractor let me know that it was usable externally, and that inherited will I had felt earlier returned, nudging me ever so gently. I could tell that without the waves of calm and inner silence I'd never be able to notice it.

Externally, I brought the tips of my fingers and thumbs together, resting my forearms on the knees of my crossed legs. I took another flow from of the well within me and started guiding it up and into my right arm. It lit up more foci as I went, creating something that looked a lot like a map of a constellation in my mind's eye; there were bright, fluffy clouds connected by thin lines. The clouds were diffuse and thin when I looked at one up close.

My curiosity cost me a bit when the concentration slipped, and the flow dispersed. It fell back three or four foci before I was able to wrap my control around it again. I pushed it back into place, lighting up the same set again. I took it up to the shoulder, than slowly pushed it down the arm. Or maybe I pulled it? The feeling was hard to describe - it felt like my efforts were piloting the end of the flow like a little ship on an ever-changing river. I was the vessel, and it was a constant battle just to stay between the shores.

It reached the palm of my hand - I took the idle power and realized it was slowly growing as more followed the channel down my arm. I'd need figure out what to do next, and quickly. I tried taking it through my pointer finger, but something felt off, like there was a constriction and the flow wouldn't work. That said, I knew I wasn't good enough at whatever this was to do all of them at the same time. So I circled the power in my palm a bit, trying to figure out what to do.

I was on about the fifth rotation when suddenly the swirl brightened up and started rotating on its own. I'd made some sort of foci in my palm, but this one was very special. Unlike the dispersed, dusty clouds at the other ones, this one was compressing the energies into a bulge in the center, with a disc of swirling dust around it. It seemed like it'd stay that way for a while, so I left it to itself.

Maneuvering the power through my thumb, my thickest phalange, I brought it over the other palm. The flow was anemic, so it took a while swirling there before I got the flash of light and another dim foci appeared. It looked pretty sad compared to the sibling in the other hand. But it'd hold things together.

I went back to the right hand foci and brought one finger over after the other. It was tricky work, especially with the little fingers. I lost the pinkies twice, making the foci uncomfortably flicker.

Finally all the paths were connected and I felt that the flow had restored to the full width. I saw something interesting happening between my palms but I'd come back to that. I still had work to do.

Originally I intended to draw up power from my core the same as I'd done on the right arm, but something told me that'd be a bad idea - I'd have two flows both terminating in my hands. Like a traffic jam, but for mystic bullshit.

So I piloted my little ship away from my left palm. Going was much slower now, as the flows had less and less reason to obey my commands, without the push from my Core. Even with the calming flow, my vision and control were startling to slip from the sheer effort of managing all the details. I just barely made it to the shoulder, and then had to rest. I tried the circling method there as well, but the flow wasn't enough to make it coalesce, so it just wiggled around like a ribbon instead.

I steadied my breathing, then made one last big push to unite everything back in my core. At what seemed like the very last second the tiniest wisp of flow connected. My consciousness briefly teetered as a huge wave of something washed over me. It was tingly and ecstatic, but also kind of congested.

Getting my bearings back, I watched as the flow whooshed through, widening out the 'riverbanks' and making itself at home. The congested feeling slowly reduced at the widening. My whole body felt warm, even through the blanket of calm over me.

I suddenly remembered my hands, and pushed my focus back at them. Between the outstretched fingers, I saw little petals of power falling into the center, where a small ball was floating. It reminded me of the effect from calm in my core, only all of the petals were swirling into a ball in the space between my palms. I could still see the individual ones, but they were streaks and blurs. Pushing a little, I increased the amount of energy precipitating out of my fingers.

At this moment, a voice cut through my calm with all the tender care of a truck crashing through a wall.

"Char! You're on fire!"

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