Rolan sighed.
“As Arcanists,” Luc went on, “we can use Arcana to make ourselves stronger, faster, more alert. Sometimes it is the difference between surviving a fight or not.”
Rolan thought back to the time he’d seen Luc crack a relic, pulling its power through his dagger and then into himself. Then the fight in the woods, when Luc’s eyes had burned with blue fire.
“How?” he asked simply. “Do you just… suck it in, somehow?”
“Try it,” said Luc.
Heart pounding, Rolan nodded and tightened his grip on the dagger’s hilt. Then he tentatively inhaled—but nothing happened.
He tried again. And again. He imagined the Arcana flowing outof the dagger and into his hand, as he’d seen it do when Luc used it. He triedpullingat the magic with his mind. He even raised the dagger and shook it, as if that might loosen the stuff and make it flow into him.
Still nothing.
“What am I doing wrong?” he asked, exasperated. Why couldn’t this Arcanist stuff be easy, just for once?
Luc’s lips twitched. “What waits at the center of the world?”
“Ugh, that again?” Rolan moaned.
“What waits,” Luc repeated, “at the center of the world?”
“An apple?” Rolan shrugged. “But what does that—”
“Find it,” Luc ordered.
Grumbling under his breath, Rolan shut his eyes. He stood up and balanced on one leg, and once again let himself sink into the dark. It was easier this time. It still took several minutes, and twice he lost his focus and had to start over. But it was like following a trail he’d already walked before. The first time, he’d stumbled to the end. But now he knew the way. He couldrun.
Finally he saw it: the apple, suspended in darkness, as bright and red as before.
“Do you see it?” he heard the Arcanist ask. It sounded as if Luc were standing far away, across a vast field. All his senses of the world were muted, like he was standing at the bottom of a deep well.
Rolan nodded.
“Good,” said Luc. “Now,grab it.”
Swallowing, Rolan imagined his hand reaching out into the darkness, fingers outstretched. He imagined them closing around the apple—and he felt asurgego through his body.
Rolan’s eyes snapped open.
A sensation like fire and storms rushed through him, stronger even than the time he’d stolen an ill-considered sip from his pa’s tankard. Arcana flowed from the dagger in his hand and sank into the skin of his arm, rushing upward and outward across his body. His veins pulsed with blue light. His heart thundered. Rolan felt he could inhale the whole of the sky. Strength bloomed in his muscles. His fingers twitched with it, as if he could tear up a tree by its roots and hurl it a hundred feet in the air. His soul seemed to expand and expand, his consciousness spreading over the earth like vines, burrowing into the dirt, sending back signals:A mouse scurries here. A leaf falls there. Water pools beneath this rock.
Rolan felt as if his head had been split open and the entire world had poured into his skull.
Trembling, Rolan looked at Luc, who was watching him closely, his jaw hard.
“Wh-what is this?” Rolan stammered. His teeth were chattering. He felt he needed to break something or he would burst.
“The power of secrets,” said Luc.
“Is this what the wobbly pole thing was about?”
Luc nodded. “We call it the ‘Hollow Path.’ It helps the mind enter a state of total emptiness, a surrender of all control, just long enough to let Arcana in.”
Rolan shook his head. “But I’ve seen you use it in a blink! What if a Cryptic pops out of the dark? Am I supposed to say, ‘Sorry, pal, could you give me ten minutes to imagine an apple before we start stabbing each other?’?”
Amusement sparked in Luc’s eyes. “With time and practice,you will find the Path in a blink, too. It is why I practice every morning—so that when I need Arcana, I can draw it instantly.”
