"Okay, I think I see your problem," Ashe said quietly. "Though I'm at a loss as to what to do. To survive a storm of that strength would require titles far stronger than any of us possess. It's good that they are teaching you a method to survive, but we need to come up with another way, just in case." Ashe said as she bit her thumbnail.

Emily waited patiently for Ashe to come up with an answer.

"I could try rush a conversion for an earthen dome, but I don't know how much that would help," Ashe said quietly.

Emily had been thinking through this for the last day and a half, and there was one other option.

She recalled that Svent had been working on an item designed to protect them in case a storm arrived while they were out there. Whether he had finished the relic was a different story, but any protection out there was better than nothing.

"Ashe, I need you to retrieve something for me next time you go back," she said, explaining what she was looking for.

Ashe's eyes widened, and she nodded excitedly.

"I can do that," she said.

There was just one problem. From her talk with Svent, Emily knew it was not a problem having the item finished in time but of how to power it.

Svent had said their real limiting factor was the refined source they had available. The tiles were mostly drained of source, so even if she did get the relic, she would need a fully charged one to make a difference. Which meant she needed to solve that problem as soon as she could. But before she could put any conscious thought towards the problem, Ashe cleared her throat and sat down on the bed.

"Do you have any paper here? I'll try to get started on what I can," she said.

Emily paused and turned to the wall of scrolls, padding over to them. There was a recess with a stack of blank pages and a piece of wrapped charcoal. Grabbing a wad, she popped the pages and writing implement next to Ashe, which she took to right away. As she began converting the runes into a usable blood ward.

The spell she was trying to transcribe was one she was familiar with, but it was a more complex piece of magic, so it would require a decidedly complicated set of runes.

Which would take time.

Emily could only do so much, so as Ashe worked, she watched her closely. Now that they were finally alone, Emily realized just how pale Ashe looked. She had, after all, pulled her back from the brink of death only days ago, but there was something else. A deep weariness clung to her like a second skin.

She was either not eating or not sleeping properly. Judging by the dark circles under her eyes and the hollowness of her cheeks, it was both.

Emily watched as Ashe scribbled across the page, muttering about the runes. The cloak she wore covered nearly every inch of her, but as she lifted her sleeve to avoid smudging the ink, something caught Emily's attention.

Thin lines peeked out from beneath the material.

Frowning, Emily leaned in, her stomach twisting as she realized what they were—wounds.

Ashe had carved into herself during the ritual to serve as the focal point, and in doing so, she had left behind slow-healing scars. But these marks weren't from the ritual.

They were fresh. Too fresh.

Dread settled in Emily's chest. Before she could stop herself, she reached up and pushed the fabric back, exposing Ashe's right arm.

Ashe's pale skin stood in stark contrast to the deep, deliberate cuts crisscrossing her forearm.

Emily had feared she was harming herself. But that wasn't what this was.

The wounds weren't random, they were intentional. Runes.

Blood Mage runes, to be exact.

Emily's breath caught, and she pressed her lips together.

Ashe jerked away, ripping her arm free as a scowl darkened her face.

"Are you practicing blood magic?" Emily asked.

There was no accusation in her voice, yet Ashe still flinched.

"No… I was just testing a couple of things," she whispered, guilt bleeding into her tone.

"Does Selia know?" Emily's voice came out sharper than she intended.

Ashe clutched her wrist, holding her arm close as if shielding it—shielding herself—from Emily's scrutiny.

"I'm not doing anything wrong. I just wanted to understand what happened during the ritual," she muttered.

The way Ashe looked at her stung more than Emily expected. There was wariness in her eyes, a fear Emily had never given her reason to feel.

It hurt more than she was willing to admit.

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She brushed her tongue over her teeth, took a steadying breath, and sighed.

"Ashe, if you want to learn blood magic, learn it. I'm not the moral police. I don't care that you want to study it. But at least be honest with yourself."

She met Ashe's gaze.

"It'll help you recognize when you're about to go too far."

Ashe's expression was one of horror.

"I'm not doing blood magic. I'm just researching, and you know what? I can do this runic conversion on my side. I'll bring it to you along with the other thing as soon as I am finished," she said as she got up ready to leave.

Emily extended a hand, intending to pull her back down onto the bed, but she stopped herself. Ashe wanted to leave, why was she trying to stop her?

Emily lowered her hand and watched Ashe pack up the last of her things and briskly walk out of the room.

When Ashe brushed the curtains aside, Emily saw Ra waiting down the passage, but she didn't care anymore. Falling back on her bed, Emily placed the crook of her elbow over her eyes.

What was Ashe so scared of? Emily hadn't been exaggerating. If Ashe wanted to learn blood magic, then power to her. She was the last person to care about where one got their power, but still, Ashe seemed almost afraid.

The more Emily thought about it, the more frustrated she got.

Sitting up, she looked down at her open palms.

She'd seen that the two types of magic could coexist fairly easily.

Those Blood Mages from The Weeping had shown that Runic sourcery and blood magic worked fine together. Hell, they even complimented one another, so why couldn't Ashe just use what was offered to her?

They could be combined without all the need for this guilt and social pressure. Ashe was…

It was at that moment that this thought occurred to Emily; she made a connection.

It had nothing to do with Ashe or even blood magic but with her matrix.

"Have I tried combining them?" she whispered to herself.

The thought was so far removed from what had just happened with Ashe that she welcomed the distraction. Hopeful Ashe would keep her promise and bring her the things she needed; they could talk then.

The current problem Ashe was having with her new technique was that she couldn't switch between the shapes fast enough.

When green and red energy melded together, they became something else completely. Tao had said this himself, so it stood to reason that blocking the two sources separately wouldn't work.

What she needed was a new mesh that was designed to block their combination.

Pushing all the thoughts of Ashe deep down, Emily focused on how she would go about this.

Releasing two shapes at once felt impossible; that was why she had thought she just needed to change faster, but what if that was the trick? What if she needed to release the two shapes at once? Or perhaps a new shape entirely.

Emily started releasing lines of grey source at once, and when they reached her bridge, she began to try and overlay a secondary shape.

The change of shape was surprisingly easy, the hard part was finding a way to reconcile the two. They didn't necessarily fight each other, but they certainly didn't want to merge.

The thing Emily could equate it to was drawing two different shapes on a page, one with either hand. It was difficult at first, but with practice, she got the hang of it, and the muscle memory kicked in.

Only it was made harder by the fact that even when she managed to get them to join, they still wanted to separate.

Meaning using the matrix like this was a constant tug of war and took her full focus to keep going.

Like two opposing magnets, Emily drew them together painstakingly slowly, and at their point of contact, they merged. Like the final piece of the puzzle falling into place, the mesh's shape stabilized, and the matrix settled. That entire endeavor took her over an hour to do.

Strangely, while it still took a decent amount of mental energy to keep releasing the source at the appropriate rate, it seemed to take less raw power to maintain. Almost as though the two shapes were more stable together.

The only thing left would be to test it.

"Ra, are you out there? Can you get me some coals?"

A couple of seconds passed, and a set of footsteps got nearer.

"My brother has left for the night, but I will call for Tao," Mo's voice returned through the material.

She heard footsteps receding but had to concentrate on keeping the shapes together, so she didn't move.

Luckily, the curtain swished aside after a short time as Tao entered with a metal pot.

He looked sheepish as he entered.

"I was surprised to hear you were working at this hour. I thought you would need some time, but from the sounds of it, your friend did not leave happy."

Emily grunted and filed away the fact that they'd been eavesdropping; there were more important things at the moment.

"Not now, Tao. Hand me the coals. I think I figured it out," she growled.

Tao's eyes narrowed, but he didn't dwell and opened the pot, extracting a fresh coal.

All the while, Emily focused on maintaining her composure. If she lost it now, it might take her a while to get it again, and she wanted to at least see if she was on the right track.

Taking hold of the coal was without ceremony; one moment it was in Tao's than,d and the next it rested quietly in Emily's palm.

Right away, she could tell it was different this time.

Before, if she blocked red, then green source would carry the other type through her defenses. If she blocked green, then the reverse would happen.

Now, she felt nothing even after a minute, which had been her earlier limit.

She'd done it.

Tao glanced up at Emily with interest.

"Well done…"

Emily nodded.

"Now I just need to figure out the winds," she said.

Tao wore a wistful expression, but he just nodded.

"Holding three energies in alignment puts a lot of pressure on your 'eyes,' so keep that in mind. We only have tomorrow to get you ready, so I recommend we start right now."

Emily nodded. She started saying she could find keep going on her own, but Tao shook his had.

"If you are learning to block the yellow source, then I'd rather be here."

Emily didn't understand what he meant by that until she managed to create the new matrix.

Like the others, she started by just blocking out the winds, and unlike green and red, she didn't need props to sense the source, just the air around them.

If red source was lines, then yellow was the opposite. It took the shape of interconnected spirals that were in constant change, and Emily also noted how much easier it was to feel this energy than others.

She realized why Tao hadn't started her on this type of source when she attempted to block the light draft passing through the room.

In retrospect, she should have seen it coming.

The yellow matrix that she covered herself in stopped the air around her from getting to her.

Not only did she Emily enclose herself in a skin-tight seal that allowed no new air to get to her. The space filled up with carbon monoxide the moment she breathed out, and the next breath felt slightly harder. Emily's eyes narrowed at the danger, and she immediately released the matrix.

Glancing up at Tao, she saw him watching her closely. He'd expected this, but he'd let her run into the obstacle. That probably happened to every Shaman the first time they attempted to close out the wind.

It was only Emily's knowledge from her world about carbon monoxide poisoning that had helped her.

Granted, she wasn't in any real danger, as when she passed out, the matrix would fail, but still, it was a harsh way to train someone.

Emily shot him a stink eye and refocused. Now she had another problem: how did she block the wind if she couldn't breathe when she did?

Blood points: 630

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