"See, dear, my daughter's bonded is fine," the Queen said after tapping the crystal embedded in my hand a few times. "Our work is done. We should be off; her new teacher can pick it up from here."

  I wasn’t sure what they actually did. Did she just want to be here to witness the Ceremony?

  Her bonded sputtered something out in his stupidly sexy voice, but quieted when she pulled him away. I never even got his name.

  Did Aelira even know it? Where was the King? Did we have a King? Why didn't I know these things?

  Servants came in droves to replace their presence and navigated us back inside.

  Other crystalline creatures started rising from the ground in the garden, but would suddenly vanish the moment they left my sight. Someone was obviously taking care of them, but that individual didn’t want to be seen for whatever reason.

  After that, a lot of things happened all at once, and my social metre rapidly tapped out. Aelira had to tie a rope to me at some point so she could drag me along through the air, handling the whole talking to people thing.

  While I dissociated, I checked my messages from Aisling.

  Aisling: Magic levels are increasing to the point of spontaneous formation. Just wanted to give you a heads up.

  Aisling: Increased magic saturation has sped up my measuring instruments considerably. I should be able to get you the results in… oh, they’re ready now, one moment.

  Reciprocal Thaumic Conduit Corrupted

  Type: Subservient (Bound by Contract)

  Note: Species has changed into [Redacted]. Changes will be updated upon reaching maturity.

  I let out a laugh. She was a little late to the punch with all of that.

  Aelira glanced back at me, an odd expression on her face. I made an effort to look her in the eyes. She puffed out her cheeks in response, let out a huff and turned away.

  Aww, she’s trying her best to project authority! That’s so cute.

  Aisling: Okay, so the metamagical system in this world is derived from bonds. These bonds can exist between anything: people, objects, ideas, places, it doesn’t matter. As long as the two share enough overlap to be treated as part of the same idea.

  Aisling: But all bonds have friction. That friction can’t be removed, only reduced. And the only thing that reliably reduces it is affection.

  Aisling: There’s also something relating to perception, but the analysis gets so noisy at that point that I can’t tell what’s real and what’s outside influence.

  I almost dropped out of the sky at that message.

  Ren: What?!

  Aisling: Well, Iyora came here for a reason. We don’t know what that reason was, but… the magic here isn’t acting normal. That's at least a hint that something is off about this dimension.

  Aisling: Now that could just be the giant eye in the sky interacting with physics oddly. It does seem to be the source of all magic if your messages are correct. Objects like those aren't necessarily impossible to find in Tier One worlds. They're just rare.

  I had no recollection of sending her any messages like that. But looking back, there was a log of me detailing everything I knew about it, and more, about the eye.

  That was enough chat messages for now.

  The world came back into focus around me. Aelira was sitting on a chair in the middle of a circle carved into the ground. While I floated upside down above her like a party balloon.

  “Did I miss something?” I asked, flapping my arms to flip myself the right way up.

  Aelira glanced up at me and shrugged.

  It was getting annoying, floating constantly, so did what felt natural. Closing my eyes, I took a step downward, my boot landing on what felt like a staircase. From there, I walked down to the ground, then hopped to check I was planted firmly.

  The door to the room slammed open while I was midair, surprising me. I went flying back up into the air.

  Letting out a sigh, I accepted my fate floating here and turned to look at who had entered… wherever we were. I had never seen this room before, but then I hadn’t seen most of the greathome, so that wasn’t a huge surprise.

  Mistress Celeri stood in the doorway, a haggard look on her face.

  “What have you two done this time?” Celeri asked with a groan.

  “I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mistress Celeri,” Aelira said, her voice the picture of innocence.

  “The crown decided in their infinite wisdom that I would become your teacher as soon as your bondkind was discovered. Yet despite the Ceremony taking place, I was not given any information on what your bondkind was. In fact, I was told it was unknown,” she announced while marching up to me to examine my chest again. I found myself floating away from the weird woman who kept looking at me like a piece of meat. “It should be obvious, you’re channeling magic through your bonded. So you’re a Relay. Yet they didn’t give me that information? Why? Also, Aelira, why are you holding him in the air?”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Oh, I’m not doing anything. He just… got stuck like that,” she replied, before asking in a quiet voice. “Why couldn’t Mother teach me…?”

  Celeri looked away, chewing on her lip, “Your mother is very busy protecting the realm. Especially during a time like now. I’m sure she would have loved to be your mentor, My Highness, but that wasn’t possible.”

  That didn’t sound quite right… But looking at Aelira, I didn’t want to crush her view of her Mother.

  “What are the different bondkind? We can narrow it down to one if need be,” I interjected. Celeri glared at me, but given what I saw of the station that the Queen’s bonded held, I was absolutely above her in rank.

  Did she still think of me as the little boy she brought as Aelira’s magic playtest subject? I would have to disabuse her of that notion if that ends up being a problem.

  “The four categories of bondkind are Armament, Relay, Projection, and Infusion. Based on how your Freal crystal reacted during the Ceremony should tell us the category your bond lands in. Since I was not there to witness the formation of the bondkind, and whoever was there to witness it refused to record the reaction, we will have to base your bondkind off of its effect. Which isn’t strictly within procedure, but we’ve already long since left procedure… so maybe that doesn’t matter,” Celeri explained. It sounded like she was recounting something she had recently learned. Was that where she had been? Learning how to teach us to use the bond once we gained a measure of control over it.

  I started silently prodding at her mind, trying to see what would fall out on its own volition. Her mind was a table full of books, so I could open the ones at the top of the stacks to prep her for being forthcoming. Our bondkind wasn’t one of the ones she listed, and she was obviously going to react to finding out what it was. I wanted to know why people saw aberrant bonds as bad.

  Besides the name, of course.

  “You’re obviously not Infusion; that bondkind involves the transfer of theric directly from the core established in the bonded to the bearer. I doubt it's Projection either, as the effects for that bondkind manifest not from either user but are generated in the air at the bearer's desire,” Celeri said as she walked around the edge of the circle on the floor. “It could be Armament, there is precedent for bonded being able to use the arms manifested by their bearer.”

  That one sounded like the Queen's bondkin. She manifested tools made of light from her bonded's chest that were likely to be the reason she could move faster than my perception allowed me to perceive.

  “Finally, there’s Relay,” Celeri continued, stopping behind me. I spun in the air to face her. “That bondkind doesn’t move theric at all. Instead, the bearer routes their intent through the bonded, using them as their magical instrument.”

  “And the fifth?” I asked, grabbing the book that her mind had focused on when I spoke and threw it open at the reading spot, covering the book she had once been reading from.

  Aelira glanced my way, only to jump when Celeri let out a hiss.

  “The fifth is what happens when a commoner attempts to become a bearer. Aberrants, we put those mororik down the moment they are found,” she said, her jaw clenched, and her fists balled. I may have pushed a little too hard.

  On the plus side, I had a picture of what other aberrant bondkind looked like, pulled from her recollection. Hulking monstrosities covered in the crystal, she had a vivid memory of crawling away from one in the ruins of… somewhere. The memory had faded with age, but I could still taste the fear she felt, and feel the warm blood dripping down her forehead in it.

  The point about commoners didn’t make sense. There was nothing inherently different about frenthai, or what nobles were called in this world, from everyone else. Besides the roles they filled in society.

  Was it the way bonds formed? Did the perception of there being a power differential and the separation of magic from its user prevent the bond from aberrating? If I hadn't tried to force us into an equal bond, we probably would have ended up with one of the regular types.

  I sent my thoughts on the subject to Aisling so she could sort through them before turning my attention back to the room.

  “But Celeri, Mother's bonded said our bondkind was aberrant,” Aelira said.

  Did she not know his name either? That's kind of sad.

  Celeri's expression shifted into one of forced enthusiasm, and the book I had opened in her mind slammed shut.

  She then began going over the different ways that Aelira should have been able to access the theric within me. With each method, I could feel the light shift, but the first few attempts produced no results.

  While they screwed around to no result, I had nothing else to do. My role was supposed to be just a battery or tool that Aelira could use to express her magic.

  Something about that felt wrong to me. We weren't a traditional bondkind. I had made sure of that fact during the Ceremony. Theoretically, I should have some degree of control over the theric myself.

  Pulling strands of theric from my core, I could manipulate them inside myself with ease. Which had never been possible until now.

  I was distracted with that when, suddenly, Aelira tugged hard on the theric inside me. I felt it rush out towards the crystal embedded in my hand that glowed with an amber light as the theric made contact with it.

  As it hit the crystal, it was pulled out of me into her, and I had the weird sense of being able to sense where she was physically in relation to me.

  Aelira had let go of me, and I had floated off while she was doing the exercises. But turning to look down at her, I saw she had been reduced to a glowing silhouette of herself and was floating a couple of feet off the ground. Her arms spread, and out of her body grew a golden dress with black highlights that almost looked scribbled on.

  A ribbon tied her ears back, and her long hair wrapped itself into a braid. Reaching out, she grabbed a handle from the air and pulled a rapier into existence. Her eyes shone as she examined it.

  Then gravity reasserted itself, and she collapsed to the ground.

  Was that a magical girl transformation sequence?

  I felt like my taste in media was being judged by the universe itself.

  “Look, Ren! I did it!” Aelira called out, using my name for the first time instead of just calling me her bound. As soon as she realized what she said, she blushed and looked away.

  The light within me burned at a prestigious rate. I felt myself drifting to the ground as the energy that had once suffused me poured out, as if a dam had burst.

  “That doesn't… okay, well, My Highness, it appears your bondkind is Infusion! We'll have to arrange training for your… manifested weapon,” Celeri said, her tone falling off at the end while she gave the princess a polite clap before shooting me a side-eye. “Shall we test your capabilities?”

  It was clear she didn’t know enough to identify that our situation wasn’t a standard bond, but could tell something wasn't right.

  Running her hands up the sides of her dress, she was suddenly wearing a pair of dainty white gloves. Those gloves thrummed with indigo light to my sight.

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