Reid was frozen. His palms were clammy. His pulse thrummed in his ears as he hyperventilated, and he started to summon his knife.

Hugo was a good person.

Hugo could crush souls.

He could attack them directly, and that meant he had Reid in the palm of his hand. Reid's mind went through every worst-case scenario, and came to a simple conclusion. He couldn't run. He didn't need to run, everything was fine. Except if Hugo wasn't the person Reid thought he was, running wouldn't save him. Reid's legs tensed against the rock.

Hugo's eyes traced over and around his body, then softened.

The prince - or as he had just claimed himself - the king, raised his hands.

"I promise you, Serroc, I have no ill will, and I do not plan to fight you nor cause you harm. I ask because I have a responsibility to know - and because I personally care."

Seconds stretched as Reid watched the man's eyes and his hands. His gut told him Hugo was telling the truth - but his adrenaline told him a fight was still coming. The knife popped into his hand, and Hugo's face formed a disappointed frown. He slowly turned away from Reid, then stood and removed his worn and dirty shirt as he spoke.

"I have spent these past weeks of your recovery, imagining all the ways I wanted this conversation to go. Imagining things about you that you would willingly share. Idle daydreams are often far from reality, are they not?"

Hugo sat back down, facing slightly away from Reid. He touched two points on his back.

"I did not imagine you would feel so cornered and threatened. I realize now, the lower implications of my pressure for the truth amidst your ongoing recovery... A Vuxarinan's heart is here, and you could reach it with a blade by stabbing in at a twenty degree angle. An easier target, but slower kill, is to stab here and slice up, then over. You will puncture or open three organs whose contents mix and become a toxic combination that then irreparably damages the lungs and heart."

He moved his hands to his knees, and faced completely away from Reid.

"What I did imagine - well, it was wonderous. You are an arbiter of justice from the wider cosmos, whose mission was to see Vuxarina returned to its native rule. Your mission meant that you found and freed me intentionally, and your assistance to push my people forward was planned. That one was a little too indulgent and self-aggrandizing, I believe."

He let out a soft chuckle.

"I followed that dream with one of fantastic danger. You are a cosmic criminal, forced to hide your identity so justice cannot find you. You ingratiated yourself to me in order to use my nobility as a way to diplomatically hold off the law. But, if that were the case, you would have stayed with us after freeing us - and I do not believe you are a bad person."

"I spun many stories for you, Serroc. You were really a Vuxarinan lost, and I was wrong. You were a tragic existence, and the result of scientific experimentation. You were a Belar plant, waiting for some perfect moment to strike. Vuxarina had a twin planet in the cosmos, and you were part of a massive wave of people sent to ensure Belar does not take this world. In the end, I do not think any of those are correct."

He turned to face Reid again, and glanced at the knife.

"And I did not believe I was wrong about your character."

He picked his shirt off the ground, and put it back on.

"My final story for you is something of a mixture of the other ideas. You are disguised. Not from the law, but from some entities powerful enough to force you into hiding. Maybe one entity is Belar, but I do not think so. I am certain you are not Vuxarinan - and that means you have exposed yourself to scrutiny and danger on behalf of a world and people who are not yours. You are undeniably powerful - and your recovery leads me to believe power is not your only ability. I suspect it is related to your two souls, but do not know for certain. You have set out, alone, and used your strength to ceaselessly pursue more. So even with your might and recovery, you are not as strong as you need to be. That is why you are here. Meeting me... it was a coincidence. Your true goal has been and will continue to be power, and that means it will eventually take you away from Vuxarina, back into the cosmos."

Reid tried to not look surprised at how close Hugo had gotten to the truth. His grip had loosened on the knife. Hugo wasn't someone he knew well. But the prince - or, rather, the king - was a man of character. Adrenaline and anxiety faded as Reid stopped feeling like he'd been backed into a corner. He looked the prince in his glowing white eyes.

"The truth is dangerous, Hugo. I already have to worry about two friends who might get targeted because of me. I'd rather not worry about you - especially because you can't take your people and run away to a different planet when trouble finds me. It's better if I don't tell you anything."

Hugo seemed puzzled for a moment, then made a confident nod.

"I understand. We are not yet close friends, and so I will honor your desire for secrecy. Thus, my goal is to become your third friend, Serroc, and then we will more freely share secrets with one another."

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Reid's mouth hung open as Hugo stood and held out a hand to help him up. A smile was plastered on the King's face. It stayed there the entire walk back to their shelter.

#

#

Three days.

It took Reid three days to break under Hugo's relentless onslaught of ceaseless, open kindness.

He learned what had to be nearly every detail about the man's life. Hugo was attached to him at the hip. He opened himself, his 'secrets', and his fears. Talked Reid through every decision he had made, and every plan he held for his planet once they were both out of the tutorial. He proved himself to be an understanding and mature person in some ways, yet inexperienced and laughably naive in others. When it came to governing principles, or theoretical military strategy, or planning for infrastructure and social concepts, Hugo's mind shone with the same intensity as his eyes. But, more mundane pursuits eluded him. Day 2's afternoon had been entirely spent answering questions on relationship advice, when an offhand comment got Reid to admit he was, in fact, married. Hugo was also not very well versed in having 'friends of equal standing', and sometimes seemed to slip into a deeply engrained, overly-formal speech pattern.

The truth was, Reid wanted to trust Hugo. He wanted the man to be aware of the danger his secrets could pose, and the entities he needed to be suspicious of. He wanted to break his self-set rule about not getting too attached and growing roots here, because he honestly enjoyed the company.

It still took 3 days for him to follow through - even after Hugo's 'I trust you won't stab me in the back' speech, which he now felt quite guilty about. That would be a story neither of them needed to tell anyone.

Reid took the prince back to the same spot on the mountainside, and started with the highlights. Blasdej were the ones he was hiding from - a company similar to Belar. He was hiding his identity because one of their beacons had nearly killed him, and it was their fault. He hid because he'd been frozen for a millennium and then came back to life. He was hiding in general because people had a bias in the cosmos about how he gained power, with self-affixation. That one, specifically, had sent Hugo into a fit of laughter, followed by a reminder to Reid that Hugo quite literally tore apart people's souls to win fights and gain power. The perspective was welcome, and Reid continued on with a half smile as he dove deeper. Salamanders. Sanctuary. His wife, and daughter. Waking, and a sad exit from his home planet followed by imprisonment, then teleportation to Vuxarina.

The only things he didn't share were Win and Lycra's powers. Those were their secrets, and they could decide who to trust on their own. He did talk about Lycra as a person, his bright personality and his unwavering spirit and his drive to learn. Saying Lycra's name out loud made him realize how much he'd been avoiding thinking about his friend - and how much he missed him. He felt sympathetic emotions from Nyx - who, despite being 'awake' for a day and a half, had chosen to stay silent until now.

"We'll see him again, Reid. And I'm glad you have another friend."

"Glad you're awake, and I've been missing you as well, and thanks for that." Reid had spoken internally, but Hugo was staring at him intently. "Can I... uh... tell him about you?"

"I'll be honest, Reid. I have some damn good reasons to not trust Soul Mages, and I didn't expect you to run into one. They usually don't last very long, or they get whisked away. But I've seen him over the past few days, and I'm going to make an exception for the little prince. He seems like a good oyster, too."

Reid swallowed, and addressed his friend - who was still intently staring. "Nyx - um, that's her name - she's the second soul you see. She's an ancient mage who had her soul used and changed, and then she was attached to me, and now she's herself again, and she's still attached to me."

Hugo nodded as if the information Reid just shared wasn't completely insane. "Can you tell her it is my pleasure to make her acquaintance - or, can she hear me. Oh, she can, can't she!? Hello, Nyx - it is good to meet you!"

Reid flinched. "How do you know that? And why are you yelling?"

"I did not intend to yell. I can see her - she moves, like other souls move when they are excited. But she is oddly... muted. Is she damaged? Does she require repair? Is she weakened from granting you power?"

"Reid, you're certain he just started using his powers in the past few months, right?"

"I mean, he said so and I believe him, yeah." Hugo started a question, but Reid held up a finger. "Why do you ask?"

"Because understanding how I'm feeling, and then figuring out I'm being suppressed is pretty advanced stuff. Suppression is often difficult to notice, even at higher grades. Learning the currents of a soul, or gaining enough understanding to accurately peg emotions to a nonfamiliar one, should take more time. Or action. How many...."

Reid waited patiently as Nyx counted. "He's good, and he's lucky. Baby soul mages die because they can't do well in normal fights, and they don't last long enough to grow themselves a power base. Our little prince here has knocked over enough Belar bases at this point to even give us a run for our money if he attacked."

Reid frowned. "So he couldn't just reach out and, you know, crush us? Or our souls?"

"You once asked me about growing bone into someone's brain as an attack. My lesson from then still stands. Attacking or manipulating someone else's body or mana directly has permanent, often awful consequences. Hugo's eyes, for instance, are permanently damaged. He doesn't seem to mind, because he enjoys Soulsight more than his traditional vision - but Reid, he can't see color properly anymore. I expect he has a hard time distinguishing fine details more than twenty feet away from himself. If he was ever suppressed or his skill restricted, that would still hold true - his eyes are never going back to the way they were."

"He's also permanently altered the shape of his own soul, by using his power as much as he has. The good news is he's personally strong enough that using a skill related to soul magic hasn't driven him insane. He's also lucky he hasn't gotten into a fight with greater souls than his own. If he did - he could suffer direct, potentially permanent damage. In a fight against multiple foes with stronger souls... death is highly likely. So no - he could attack us, cause us pain and damage, but we would come out of it alive, and he wouldn't."

Reid took a long breath.

"But, those troublesome details all go towards proving my original point, that Hugo is strong, he possesses a tremendous character, and most importantly, he has natural talent..."

Reid's concern melted into a wide grin as Nyx continued. He finally lowered his finger, and spoke out loud.

"Hugo, Nyx wants you to know that you're a talented and perceptive soul mage, and your assumptions are not wrong."

His face lit up as he looked at Reid, then he bowed. "Thank you, Elder Nyx."

"How would you like to try Soulsmithing?"

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