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Epos (Maltia)
5 December 2355
Ethan’s 45th day on Tersain
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A self-satisfied smile forms on my face. Manifesting a few millimetres from my skin, the small flame keeps wavering, only slightly larger than what one would see on an ordinary candle.
“When did you…?” Dawn asks, astonished.
“After the fever passed,” I explain. “It seems the illness… spurred me on.”
“So you’ve understood how it works?”
“More or less,” I nod.
I realised it over the past few days. Among the remnants left on me by the delirium, there was one strongly tied to my sensations when I used the supposed mayea. Yes… it was as though those perceptions had become clearer in my mind: stronger, more concrete… not as elusive as I had felt them earlier.
So, when out of curiosity I tried to see whether I could use them… almost naturally, what I did in extreme situations happened again, albeit on a smaller scale. And soon enough, I noticed that it wasn’t only fire that was involved.
“Now I’m certain: I can manipulate both flames and the ilectron,” I reveal. “Generating them, though, is a bit taxing, especially for fire: I first need to raise my body temperature, which burns through a lot of energy. Is it normal for mayea to draw upon one’s physical strength?”
“It’s… unusual,” the rebel hesitates.
“Then I suppose it can be added to the oddities of my abilities. Moreover, if I overdo it, it seems I go into hypothermia. Essentially, I create fire by drawing heat from my body.”
“It sounds like a… mayea that’s risky to use,” Dawn observes.
“Exactly,” I agree. “Which is why I far prefer manipulating flames already present in the environment.”
I close my hand, extinguishing the flame. Not even for a moment has its heat burned me.
“Unfortunately, it seems I can only recreate a fraction of the abilities I displayed when we were in danger,” I add.
I place a hand upon my chest.
“It’s as though I still need to… awaken.”
“Awaken?” the Maltian repeats.
“I feel it’s the most fitting word to describe it.”
“Mmh…”
I bring my hands closer, a movement made a little difficult by the splinted arm. I half-close my eyes, thinking of a separation of energies… charges drawing apart, yet ready to bridge the distance forced between them. And as if giving shape to that concept, small electrical sparks begin flickering between my palms.
This is the other trick I discovered I could use after the delirium.
“Well then… congratulations,” Dawn says, clapping a few times. “It might be useful in the future.”
“Not while I’m confined here,” I reply. “And with my arm broken, it’ll be impossible for me to go on missions for quite a while.”
The rebel doesn’t answer. Instead, with a few steps she covers the distance between us, takes me by the arm and decisively drags me out of the room. There she lets go of me, and still without uttering a word she starts walking along the corridor, as though encouraging me to follow.
We walk in silence for quite some time, wandering around the ship without any clear destination. I don’t ask too many questions about Dawn’s odd behaviour: by now I’ve grown used to the young woman’s unpredictability. I imagine it’s her way of trying to avert another depressing speech from me.
Not that I wanted to complain, I think. But… it doesn’t matter.
Even if the rebel may have misunderstood, I appreciate the gesture.
“We’ll make sure to get you rehabilitated,” Dawn suddenly says. “Both physically and in the captain’s eyes.”
I smile without responding. I don’t know how easy it will be… but her confidence is comforting, if only because it makes me feel the rebel’s closeness.
All of a sudden, as we pass near the mess hall, someone draws up alongside Dawn.
“Hey there!” he says to the girl.
I eye the fellow who has just arrived. He’s a good-looking young man, with an athletic build, apparently a little older than me and also a bit taller, with thick black hair and eyes of the same colour.
The Maltian stops, and so do I.
“Hi,” Dawn greets him.
“I was just about to come look for you,” the young man goes on, paying absolutely no attention to me. “You didn’t come to the armoury today.”
“No,” she admits. “I was training with mayea.”
“Well, if you’re done, there’s still time,” he says, giving her a wink.
“Um…”
Dawn stares at me. I meet her gaze, then shrug.
“If you need to go, go,” I tell her.
“But… since we hadn’t seen each other for a while, I wanted to…”
“Huh?” the stranger says, looking at me as if he’d only just noticed my existence. “Hi, kid.”
“Kid?”
“You must be… fifteen?”
I know I look rather boyish for my age, but this is going too far…
“I’m afraid I’m two years older than that,” I point out, taking on an unintentionally cold tone.
Not that being mistaken for someone younger bothers me in itself… but there’s something I don’t like about the air of superiority with which this guy addressed me.
“Oh, forgive me,” the young man replies. “But you really wouldn’t think so. You’ve no objection if I get Dawn to train with some proper weapons, right?”
For some reason, those words irritate me. Even so, I hold back a displeased grimace and answer:
“If she wants to, I’ve no problem.”
“Then come on, Dawn,” the stranger urges, placing an arm around her shoulders. “Shall we?”
“Erm… all right,” she agrees.
The girl gives me one last glance, then follows the young man along the corridor. I’m left standing rooted to the spot near the mess hall door. I’m still staring at the two of them moving away when someone steps out of the doorway and comes over to me.
“Hey… you’re letting yourself get played like that?”
I lower my eyes. Jim is standing before me. He looks at me with an expression of disapproval.
“What’s with that face?” the rebel goes on.
“What face?”
“You idiot. I bet you don’t even know what’s going on, do you?”
“Why don’t you stop being so cryptic and tell me what you mean?”
“Come…”
The kid leads me through the passageway, in the same direction Dawn and I came from.
“That’s Jervis d’Arcady,” he explains to me. “You don’t know him, right?”
“No,” I admit.
“A real heart-breaker. He works in the armoury, so I’m not surprised you’ve no idea who he is: they don’t let you in there.”
As Jim talks to me, something stirs in my memory. Maybe it was hearing the name Jervis, I don’t know… but an image rises from the fog of recollection: that scene I glimpsed, in which Ehliana was ending her relationship with…
… Jervis… was that his name? Do I still remember it?
“All right, and so?” I reply.
“So, for days now that poser has been seeing Dawn to ‘train’ her,” the rebel says. “I notice it when he goes to pick her up at the storeroom she works in… you know, he passes through the engine room where I am.”
I look at him without showing any emotion.
“You could at least look a bit angrier, you know?” Jim says.
“Why?”
“What do you mean, ‘why’? He’s stealing your girl!”
“You’ve misunderstood,” I state. “It doesn’t bother me if…”
I let the sentence trail off. Suddenly, I felt that, had I finished it, I would have sounded incredibly false. Not so much to Jim… as to myself.
“Oh, but it does bother you!” the rebel exclaims. “Even though I’ll admit you’ve got options, between Nipria and who knows how many others.”
What on earth is he talking about?
I adopt an irritated expression. He’s embarrassing me: I’m not used to conversations like this, especially with Jim, who—besides being younger than me—isn’t even that close an acquaintance.
On top of that, he’s constructing who-knows-what picture in his head… does he really think I’m involved in that sort of relationship? I mean, it’s me we’re talking about! The one who, after years and years, couldn’t manage even a single concrete step with Lizzie!
“But I doubt an intrusion from that guy would please you,” the kid concludes.
“I’m telling you, it’s not a problem.”
The rebel stays silent for a few seconds. Then he suddenly turns around and heads back the way we came.
“That’s it,” he bursts out. “Do whatever you want. I can’t keep pushing you over things like this.”
I watch him walk away, puzzled and also annoyed by his brazen words. Or at least… I assume that’s what’s making me angry. Or is there something else?
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Epos (Maltia)
6 December 2355
Ethan’s 46th day on Tersain
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The following day, I try to look for Dawn, but I don’t find her in the training hall. According to our old habits, we should meet here around this time, but in truth—after being unexpectedly separated yesterday—we haven’t had the chance to confirm it.
To give her a little time to arrive, I decide to wait by practising mayea a bit. In reality, there is little I can do in that regard, apart from replicating the small tricks I’ve been able to access since the delirium. At least I’m making an effort not to forget again the sensations that allow me to use mayea, but for the moment there are no significant improvements in my skill with it.
Although, yesterday, with Archeos, out on the deck I tried moving a large flame produced by burning a good amount of fuel. That really was a sight: I was able to shift whole tongues of fire in the air, far bigger than the little flame I can generate spontaneously in my hand.
But in this enclosed environment I can’t allow myself exercises like that. So, after creating small fires in my palm several times—never managing to make them much bigger than usual—I grow tired of it and get ready to leave. That’s when Nipria enters the room.
“You were here,” she smiles, spotting me.
“Hey, Nipria!” I greet her.
“Dawn’s not here?” the artificer asks, looking around.
“Seems she didn’t come to train today.”
“She didn’t tell you anything?”
“No… maybe she didn’t expect me to be here.”
And I show the splinted arm. With a nod of understanding, the girl closes the door and stretches.
“Well, I wanted to take a look at how you lot train,” she says, “but never mind.”
She smiles at me.
“Do I bother you if I stay here a bit?”
“No… I was about to leave,” I reply. “I was practising mayea, but I’ve already got bored of it.”
“Can I see it?” Nipria asks, coming towards me.
I open my hand and make a flame spring forth. She brings her face closer to observe it.
“I don’t understand how you mages manage not to burn yourselves,” the rebel says.
I don’t know how the others do it, but I believe I instinctively manipulate the heat to keep it away from my skin. I can’t, however, say so for sure. Certainly, the more familiar I’ve become with this ability, the more the pain and discomfort caused by the heat I endure when using it have diminished, until they disappeared altogether.
I let the fire go out. At that, the artificer takes my hand and touches my palm.
“It’s warm,” she notes.
“I always get warmer than usual when I create fire,” I explain.
“Oh…”
Nipria doesn’t let go of me. She lifts her face to look at me. And it’s then, as our gazes meet… that I seem to read something unexpected there… something that unsettles me.
I’m not sure what it is. I can’t focus my attention on any particular detail, but the whole of it gives me a sense of intensity that those eyes are channelling strongly into mine. One I am not remotely used to.
My heart suddenly speeds up. Her pupils don’t leave me, and her hands tighten a little more around mine.
“Ethan…” Nipria begins.
She is interrupted by the sound of laughter in the corridor. A moment later, the room’s door opens and in come Dawn and the fellow from the armoury, Jervis. The girl is laughing, but freezes when she sees me and Nipria. The latter is still holding my hand, terribly close to me.
