Chapter 34:

  Once the break, and impromptu geography lesson was over it was time to truly begin instruction. Eli had Aria sit cross-legged by the stream as he took his place across from her.

  “Do you remember your first day of martial training?” Eli asked. They were sitting facing each other, their knees touching, the water providing a soothing backdrop to the conversation.

  “I remember,” Aria said.

  “What was the first lesson?” Eli asked, and Aria groaned.

  “Falling safely,” she said. Eli laughed.

  “Close, but even before that,” Eli said. Aria’s brows furrowed as she tried to recall the day that seemed so long ago.

  “How to breathe!” She blurted, her excitement infectious as Eli smiled and nodded along.

  “Yes, exactly. Breathing.

  “The first lesson in meditation is the same. If you are doing magic, martial arts, or just making it through the day, you must breathe,” Eli said. “Once you have magic, breathing becomes more than just breathing. Many meditation methods are private, secret, and eventually very personal. Everybody who learns makes the process their own. We all have different bodies, different needs, and our magic agrees, but the most important step to meditation is the foundation. That comes from the breath.”

  Eli had recently had some limited success with moving meditation. It had taken him a while to understand how to incorporate motion into mana replenishment, but after he’d gone back to the basics himself, it was easier for him to break down the meditative process and rework some of his failed theories into somewhat functional training methods. Now he had the opportunity to guide his friend, and it started with breathing.

  The academies had taught all mages and reservoirs a rigid form of mana circulation that began and ended with the sedentary replenishment that most mages learned. It required patience, stillness, and often a lot of time. Time and peace a mage simply wasn’t likely to get on a battlefield.

  Eli had been going in circles trying to reinvent the basics when he realized that perhaps he was building off a faulty foundation. The breathing pattern he practiced, the breathing pattern he had assumed most mages on Vereth practiced was built off of an assumption of stillness, peace, and time. Three things he knew for a fact the invaders were able to meditate without.

  What were they doing differently? Breathing.

  He wasn't dense or self aggrandizing enough to believe he had been the first person to figure this out, but if other people were using it they weren't sharing their discovery. And honestly, he figured most people didn't even think to try moving meditation. He wouldn't have thought to try it if he hadn't seen it in action himself.

  There was slightly more to it than that, but breathing had been the key he’d been missing. It seemed so simple, and yet, it was the foundation of martial practice, or magic meditation, of life. To incorporate meditation into movement, one had to first incorporate breath into movement.

  He was almost reluctant to teach Aria his meditation method. Firstly, because he knew she simply had no context for what she was learning. She was yet to awaken, and the world she would be entering was vast beyond belief. She simply didn’t have the perspective to recognize the what she was being taught. However, Aria had always been more remarkable than him. Where he was called clever, she was deemed a genius. Where he was fantastic, she was a generational talent. When the factions had formed, and society had crumbled – when even Eli had doubted himself and his place – Aria had remained steadfast. She deserved the firmest foundation he could give her, and he would provide it.

  Secondly, though, Eli feared for her. They weren’t bonded. His family had no legal or practical recourse for if something happened to her beyond the general recourse a liege had if one of their citizens was mistreated. Should someone of higher step nobility see Aria performing moving meditation and decide to simply acquire her as a means to tease out her secrets, there was very little Eli or his family could do.

  He didn’t want to stunt her growth, but he also didn’t want to put her in danger. Swearing her to secrecy and attempting to really drive home what that meant was the best he could do in the short term, but he would absolutely not be leaving her security to chance. Until they were bonded, he would be assigning Kara to protection detail.

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  He had figured it out. He had revolutionized meditation and mana gathering, and yet the fact that he couldn’t immediately shout his accomplishment from the rooftops, soar through the air in giddy delight, and teach his method to every person he cared about was simply a sign to him that he needed to get stronger.

  In this world, and beyond the stars, weakness was a sin. With moving meditation, he had effectively doubled his training time. He would get stronger, faster.

  Eli did allow a spark of pride to seep in as he guided Aria through the breathing patterns. Steady inhale, controlled exhale. They would begin with stillness first, but eventually he would help her incorporate movement.

  His mana pressed into Aria. Tracing her pathways and seeping into her body as it followed dormant channels to an empty, unawakened pool.

  Aria did not struggle at all. It was like her channels were primed for mana, even though he knew that she was a reservoir, and not a mage. It was obvious why she had been one of the strongest as her channels were like dry riverbeds, greedily drinking in the mana, and helping to reinforce what he could feel were naturally robust channels. He wasn’t going to be giving her much, as despite an obviously well developing network, she was still unawakened, but the little he did feed into her was easily accepted. Eli found it simple to trace through the pathways as he carefully guided the mana around.

  It was as though meditation was in her nature, and she simply needed to be shown something once before she instinctively understood it. Throughout the whole process he barely needed to correct her, and when he did it was due to posture and speed, not rhythm or energy direction. She was using his borrowed energy, but even with the foreign mana, she was a quick study.

  “Follow me,” he said, letting his breath slow into even rhythm. Aria did. Her breathing, her cadence, her rhythm, and even her subconscious energy circulation became a mirror for his own meditation.

  Gently, carefully, he pushed the energy outward from her core. With each inhale, the flow contracted; with each exhale, it branched further. Ever so slowly he guided his own energy into and around her unused channels. Over and over, the loop continued. With every cycle she was able to channel and contain a little more mana. The process of the meditation helped the energy to seep into her body. With every round, her unawakened physique improved. It was almost like body tempering, but for the magical channels.

  Aria’s eyes opened slightly. “It feels strange. My body feels… more.”

  “More,” Eli murmured. “Yes, that is a good description.” Eli sat up taller, and paused the meditation as he entered lecture mode. “Mana is the distilled and condensed energy of the world around us. Mana is that which is. The more you channel it, the more it begins to change and shape you. The more you let it move through you, mana in turn makes you more than you are.

  “That is why meditation is so important. The way you circulate energy changes how much you get from the process. Everyone is different and everybody’s energy is a little different too. When you awaken, this will all make more sense because you will be using your own energy. However, it is important to start with a good base.”

  “Like in combat training, when the instructor talks about a how not everyone will be good with a sword, or a spear, but everyone can train better if they start with a strong body?”

  “Exactly. The way you begin matters later when you are working with more energy, and with your own energy.”

  Eli didn’t realize how close his explanation came to truths others would about ‘cultivation’. For him, it was simply how mana worked. Cycling, meditation, finding internal harmony. It was all made manifest with mana, and mana was an energy that wanted to be and to do. It all had a rhythm. Why act in opposition to the energy, to force it into channels and pathways, and to cycle against that flow when you could act in concert with it?

  “Ready to start again?” Eli asked, and began to channel a trickle of mana into her when Aria nodded.

  As they breathed together, Aria’s shoulders relaxed. The tightness in her face eased. For the first time since they had left the keep, her posture was steady.

  Eli’s own breathing deepened. He felt the flow loop through her body, then back into his own. His core resonated faintly with the rhythm. It was subtle, but undeniable. She wasn’t his reservoir, and yet whatever they were doing, it was affecting him too. His mana pulsed differently. Denser, steadier.

  He pressed a hand briefly against his stomach. Something had definitely changed.

  Not enough to dwell on now. Not with Aria still finding her rhythm. But the realization stayed with him, quiet and firm.

  They stopped the exercise when the shadows stretched long across the clearing. Aria blinked as if waking from a dream, surprised at how calm and relaxed her body felt.

  “You did well,” Eli said.

  “Really?” She asked,

  “Really,” he promised.

  On the walk back, he pointed out the landmarks again, slower this time. The ridge line, the fallen tree, the angle of the sun. She listened carefully, repeating landmarks and geographical features until they were both satisfied that in the most abhorrent of circumstances, she could at least make her way out alone.

  By the time they reached the keep gates the sun was setting in the sky, and the lamps had been lit. The scent of supper drifted in on the evening air. Aria’s steps were still weary, but her eyes were brighter than when they had left.

  Eli glanced at her once as they crossed the threshold. Her silence was still armor, but he had seen the cracks in it today. He could wait for her to open up. If he wanted to help her, she needed to trust him. Patience and safety would break old habits better than pressure.

  And tomorrow, they would return to the clearing again.