Myrda finished sifting the dirt, tapping the sieve against the edge of the table again and again until only fine, clean grains remained. She was meticulous about it, discarding anything that clung together or looked even slightly impure. When she finally nodded to herself, I pulled a sheet of waxed paper toward me, rolled it into a narrow cylinder, and carefully poured the dirt inside. The grains slid smoothly, whispering as they settled. When it was full, I sealed the end with a quick fold and set it down beside the drafting table like a tool rather than a container.

  I ran the dirt marker lightly over the designs, letting the grains fall into the etched lines I had already drawn. The contrast sharpened immediately, the circuits darkening just enough to be unmistakable even at a glance. The runes looked more real once they were filled, less like ideas and more like something that intended to exist.

  “Do you know what to do next?” I asked, not looking up.

  “Of course I do,” Myrda said, studying the setup with a craftsman’s eye. “I’ve just never done it with dirt before.”

  “Most people don’t,” I replied. “They don't think that dirt is a far better conductor of mana than chalk. Chalk has a lot of resistance. It fights the flow. Dirt doesn’t.” I tapped the edge of the table once as I thought. “It's roughly a thirty-seven percent more mana efficient. Give or take.” I paused, then added, “It’s usually a tiny bit higher with purer dirt, but it is close enough for what we’re doing.”

  She let out a low whistle. “Good to know. I wish someone had told me that years ago.”

  Her gaze flicked to my carving knife, then she shook her head. “You want me to use my own blade. Yours is…” She hesitated, clearly trying to be polite. “Well. It’s a hand?me?down.”

  “That’s fair,” I said easily. “I wouldn’t trust it either for this.”

  Myrda crossed the room to another table and unfolded a small square of leather with practiced care. Inside was a precise arrangement of knives, each one cleaned, oiled, and placed exactly where it belonged. She selected one and held it up to the light, rotating it slowly.

  It was a beautifully sculpted piece of reverend iron, finely shaped, perfectly balanced, and as blunt as ever.

  “This one,” she said after a moment’s inspection, satisfied.

  She returned to the drafting table and lowered the blade directly over the dirt?filled lines on the parchment. Without looking at me, she held out her hand.

  I placed the vial into it.

  She uncorked it with deliberate care and tipped a single drop onto the small receptacle set into the back of the knife’s handle. The blue liquid settled there, luminous and perfectly still, as though it understood what it was about to be used for. She angled the blade downward so nothing could spill, then pressed the edge gently into the dirt.

  She began to trace.

  This was always the part I found most fascinating.

  Reverend iron remembered what it touched. As the blade followed the circuit, it carried the pattern with it, holding the shape in a way pure mana never could without guidance. That was why it was such a powerful tool for those without a mana grip, or for those who could not hold mana the way a wizard did.

  If you had both, the grip and the blade, you could do something special. You could funnel mana into precise points along the edge, feeding less where it was unnecessary and more where the circuit demanded it.

  The paper ignited.

  It was not a true flame. It did not burn the table or scorch the air. It was mana fire, brief and contained, consuming only the inscription itself as the blade passed over it. The dirt burned away last, collapsing into nothing as the circuit was lifted from the page. When Myrda finished the final line and raised the knife, the parchment beneath was blank, as though it had never held a mark at all.

  The blade, however, was white?hot.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  It vibrated faintly in her hand, a tight, restrained motion, as though something inside it were straining to escape and being forced back into place. In magical sight, wisps of octarine would have been visible, pressing outward, snapping back, seeking contact with something real.

  Myrda met my eyes, her expression serious. “This is your last chance to back out.”

  I shook my head without hesitation.

  “I’m starting with the eyes,” she said. “The fingers are easier. And we’re doing the whole hands. I don’t see any reason to stop at two fingers.”

  I opened my mouth to argue out of habit, then closed it again. There was nothing to say.

  “Let’s just do it,” I said. “I’m ready.”

  I wasn’t.

  I had never had runic tattoos applied before. I had never felt pain like this.

  When the blade touched skin, heat detonated through my face. It was not a sharp pain, not a clean one. It was consuming, overwhelming, as though something was being forced into me that my body violently rejected. I tried to grit my teeth. I tried not to scream. I tried not to pass out.

  I failed.

  When I came back to myself, the pain was still there, blinding and absolute. My face felt like it was burning from the inside out, every nerve screaming in protest. My hands felt as though they had been plunged into boiling oil, from my palms to the tips of my fingers, the sensation deep and relentless.

  My eyes watered uncontrollably. Every breath sent a fresh wave of fire across them, as if even the air might ignite them if it lingered too long.

  I had wanted this. I had chosen this.

  That did not make it hurt any less.

  Myrda crouched over me, her shadow falling across my chest as she leaned in close. Sweat darkened the collar of her shirt, and I could see the tension in her shoulders as she adjusted her stance. Her voice, when she spoke, was low and steady, the tone she used when something had to be done carefully and without hesitation, even if it hurt.

  “Hold still,” she said. “I still have the other hand to do. We’re almost done. Try not screaming again... Please.”

  I nodded, or at least I tried to. My jaw was clenched so tightly that my teeth ached, and my neck felt stiff with the effort of keeping myself from shaking. My breath came out in shallow, uneven pulls, each one scraped raw by pain that had not yet faded from the last cut. I braced myself as the blade touched my skin again, knowing exactly what was coming and powerless to stop it.

  This time, I managed to keep hold of myself.

  I stayed conscious. I stayed present. I refused to let the pain take that from me.

  The agony was still glaring, blinding in its intensity, a white-hot pressure that crowded out everything else, but I forced it into the background through sheer stubbornness. The blade traced the circuit into my hand with deliberate precision, and I felt the cut even though no actual cut was being made in the way flesh understood it.

  It cut into my already fractured and damaged soul, sliding along fault lines that had existed long before this life, finding every weakness I carried and prying them open.

  The sensation was like being split open and set on fire at the same time, a deep, invasive agony that bypassed muscle and bone entirely and went straight to whatever part of me was still whole enough to hurt. My hands spasmed despite my efforts, fingers twitching and curling as if they were trying to tear themselves free from my body.

  Agony tore through me in relentless waves, rising and falling but never easing, each surge leaving me more hollowed out than the last.

  I tried to distract myself. I tried to focus on anything other than the blade, the pain, the heat crawling through my veins and pooling behind my eyes. Without fully thinking it through, driven more by instinct than reason, I reached for the new sense I had just branded into my own face. I tried to switch my sight.

  That was a mistake.

  The world went black.

  Not darkness born of pain or tears, but the sudden, total absence of sight. For a brief, disorienting instant, I saw something. A flicker. A hint of color struggling to resolve itself into meaning, as though the world were trying to remember how to exist. Then it collapsed in on itself and vanished.

  There was nothing.

  I reeled, my heart lurching as panic surged up my spine.

  I should have realized what was happening sooner. The problem was not the space itself, not really. It was me. The circuits were new. Freshly imprinted. They had not stabilized yet, not in the way they needed to.

  Runic tattoos were not like spells or other enchantments that answered immediately to will and intent. They were marks on ones soul. They needed time. Time to integrate, to settle into the body, to align with flesh, nerve, and soul. Only after that could they begin drawing and circulating mana on their own.

  Until then, they were frameworks. Empty patterns. Capable of holding a design, but not sustaining it.

  When I reached for the sight, I emptied what little mana the circuits had managed to gather while I was unconscious. The initial catalyst had been enough to imprint the runes, enough to burn them into place, but not enough to leave them charged or ready. I had drained them dry in an instant, driven by impatience and pain.

  Instead of forming a lens, instead of translating flow into color, they gave me nothing.

  A black field.

  Empty. Absolute.

  The sight flickered once more, a weak, aborted attempt at function, and then died completely, leaving me blind and reeling. The sudden loss of vision was jarring in a way the pain had not been, cutting through me with a sharp edge of fear. Panic flared, hot and immediate, before I forced it down with effort.

  There was an integration phase.

  I simply had not accounted for it.

  The realization settled heavily over me even as the pain continued, grim and unavoidable. I had rushed. I had assumed. I had reached before the foundations were ready.

  It had worked.

  So, you can look forward to seeing the usurper’s side of the story soon.

  Reign