The training had been going well. In the areas I was training in, that was. For the last twenty days, there hadn’t been a sign of Light or anyone else teaching me to master my ability.

My control over my core had been improving, although not at the rate I would like. The threads had thickened yes, but I still couldn’t get any closer to the core itself. The training was taking time but I could still feel my improvement as time went on.

My weapon training and combat training, in general, was where I excelled though. After getting over the initial shock of my weapon, I had practised with it diligently, not letting the fact that my weapon was literally a symbol of death get in my head or deter me in any way. Nova was an excellent teacher, his only drawback being that he was a little set in his ways. But the centuries of experience in combat shone through in his teaching and I was able to become quite proficient with my scythe in due course.

It was while I was going through this rigorous training that Light showed up. I wanted to strangle him but held myself for two reasons. One, I was sure I wouldn’t be able to do it. Two, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t get strangled myself in return.

Light greeted me with an exuberant smile on his face as if he hadn’t left me hanging for twenty days. I could barely keep my annoyance in check as I looked at his grinning face. All I wanted to do was knock the grin off his face with a well-placed punch. But my meditation had also helped me to get better control of my emotions.

But my irritation must have shown on my face as Light continued grinning sheepishly, saying, “I am sorry that I wasn’t here for twenty days. But something major came up. Hopefully, it’s taken care of. But now that I am here, I promise that I will leave no stone unturned in helping you get mastery over your ability.”

He continued, now with a serious look on his face, “I think you should be starting your ability training now anyways. Your pitiful control over your core when you came here would have made things much more difficult anyways. Why don’t you describe to me what happened when you used your ability the first time against the griffin?”

I did as I was instructed and described to him, in exact detail, what had happened when I had confronted the griffin. I told him how I had seemed faster than the griffin and how everything the griffin did seemed sluggish.

He thought over what I said, before stating, “So you were controlling the flow of time and making the griffin slower in its actions. Interesting. It sounds like an area of effect ability to me. wait right here while I bring some things to proceed with your training.”

He was gone for about ten minutes before he returned with what seemed like a bag full of leaves. I was looking at him like he lost some of his mental acumens while he was working on whatever he had been doing for the last twenty days. The look on my face must have been weird because Light burst out laughing.

“Don’t worry, I haven’t gone crazy. Just an experiment. What you have got to do is use your ability while I throw these leaves into the air. We will see how far your ability spreads when we see which leaves is falling regularly and which are not. Ingenious, right?”, he finished, the look on his face suggesting that he wanted a cookie for his efforts.

We proceeded with his idea and he was right! Till a certain point, the leaves were falling much too slowly, as if they had forgotten that they had to follow the laws of gravity. But after that threshold, the leaves were descending as they were supposed to.

Light shouted, excitement evident in his voice, “Bravo! Now we know how far your ability works. There’s one problem though. You weren’t concentrating on controlling your core while you were controlling your ability. Try the exercise again but this time work on controlling your core as well.”

We repeated the exercise, this time with me trying to control my time as well. But I found, much to my dismay, that controlling both at the same time was a nigh-impossible task. My control over one of those two things always seemed to slip away as I was focussing on controlling the other.

Light said that I would eventually reach the point where I could control both effortlessly, but it required a lot of trials and errors to split up my concentration in that manner.

So that’s how the next week went. Boring meditation, tedious ability control, and thrilling combat practice. Nova had even made me incorporate my ability in combat and weapon training, suggesting that focus on my weapon and ability at the same time would help me at the ability-control practice. And it did. I was beyond grateful to Nova the first time I could do both core control and ability control at the same time.

I wish that was how my time at the council headquarters ended. Boring but filled with learning experiences and me getting stronger. But it didn’t. And like it always seemed to be happening nowadays, the harbinger for this change was none other than Emma Turner.

It was the day before I was set to leave the council headquarters, my month-long stay complete. I was just coming out from the arena after my session with Nova when I encountered Emma. It seemed like the effect she had on me by her sheer presence hadn’t seemed to wane in the slightest. I was tongue-tied and unable to initiate any conversation with her. But this time, keeping up with her unpredictable theme, she took the initiative to engage me herself.

“David. Your stay here must be coming to an end, right?” she asked, seeming to have genuinely forgotten that I was staying there.

“That’s correct,” I replied, seemingly losing all of my ability to have a normal conversation.

“So, how has your time over here treated you,” Emma enquired, a calm smile on her face.

“Great. Everyone has been great.” It seemed like my vocabulary had shrunk to about fifty words, fifty words I could say safely without embarrassing myself.

“Good. I hope you had the chance to see all that the council headquarters has to offer.”

I was flabbergasted. I had seen only the meeting room, my room and the arena. I didn’t know this place had anything else to offer.

I said, “Not really. I was busy with training this past month and didn’t really have the time.”

My answer seemed to surprise Emma. She said, “Really? Then there is one place you really must see before you leave.”

And without waiting for my response, she started walking away from me, as if she was certain I would follow her. She wasn’t wrong but it would still have been great to be asked.

We went through hallways completely new to me. There were dozens of rooms that I hadn’t seen before and big facilities I hadn’t had the chance to explore, facilities like a huge lab that looked straight out of a sci-fi movie. But we didn’t stop at any of these rooms, no, instead we kept walking until we came across a big jungle of sorts. The ground was massive, easily the biggest ever I had ever seen, with many resources and several sections it had been divided into. The whole area was bordered but the sheer vastness of the landscape would have been enough to drop my jaws.

But no, it was the occupants of this area that had me struggling to keep my bearings intact. You see, the whole area was occupied by miasma-monsters. Monsters who weren’t rushing to attack me the moment they saw me. Peaceful monsters, what an ironic concept. They were simply lazing about as if they were used to just having two Untethered walking amongst them. The whole thing had me at my wit’s end.

“Ehm, Emma, I don’t know if you have realised it yet, but this whole forest or whatever this is occupied by miasma-monsters. We are literally covered on all sides.”, I said, urgency apparent in my voice.

Emma looked back at me nonchalantly before saying, “Oh, I know. This is the familiar garden, after all.”

There were two problems I had with that statement. First of all, this was in no way, shape or form, a garden. Secondly, the familiars?

I decided to address the second question. I asked, “Familiars? As in animal companions, like in fairy tales and stuff?”

Emma responded with a light laugh, “Quite right. Just like fairy tales and stuff, as you so eloquently put it.”

Choosing to ignore her jab at my verbal acumen, I said, “Not sure if you have noticed it yet, but these are monsters. Not exactly prime familiar material.”

Emma laughed yet again as if she was being addressed by a four-year child who hadn’t seen the realities of the world. I would have been embarrassed if it had been anyone else but I was too busy being mesmerized by the sound of Emma’s laughter. Man, this crush would be the end of me!

“You are right, they are monsters, of course! But monsters, just like animals of the mortal world, have intelligence. And just like animals, monsters too can form a companionship with Untethered,” she said, the smile still present on her face.

I was still puzzled, “So, what you are basically saying is, even monsters are capable of love. Sounds like a cheesy movie line and a bad explanation, if you ask me.”

She responded, amusement still evident in her voice, “That is what I am saying. There are many tiers of monsters. Some monsters are inherently intelligent while some become intelligent if they have grown enough or have amassed enough miasma. You have to understand, miasma changes monsters from within. More intelligence, more strength and greater ability are the attributes Untethered are most concerned with, and they should be. But one other by-product of miasma is the ability to form emotional attachments, bonds and friendships.”

I was still puzzled though. “How would one even through the process of acquiring a familiar? I mean, all the familiars I have ever seen, their first instinct has always been to maim me. It’s not like I can ask them, ‘Hey, you want to be mates?’ in the midst of a battle, right?”

She gave out a genuine laugh at my attempt at humour and I found myself feeling giddy at having gotten her to laugh once more. She responded, unaware of inner feelings, “No, not exactly. Some monsters are capable of emotions since birth and have the ability to form a familiar bond with an Untethered after birth. But most don’t. So, once Untethered gain the ability to gain familiars, they usually set out in search of a perfect one. Most don’t find anyone young so they decide to form a bond with monsters they have defeated, provided the monsters are ideal enough to form a bond, of course.”

I absorbed what she had just said and one thing stood out to me. I asked her, “You said ‘once Untethered gain the ability’. Does it mean not all Untethered have this ability, to begin with?”

Emma replied, “No, they don’t. It requires a major event to happen in the Untethered’s life to form a familiar bond. What do you think the event could be?”

I thought about what she had said. And then it struck me. “The unlocking of our ability! That’s the event you mean.”

She responded, seemingly pleased, “Yes, exactly. A man can form as many familiar bonds as he has unlocked abilities.”

I was curious now. I asked, “How does one go about getting a familiar?”, hoping my curiosity was not too evident.

It seemed that I had failed though. She asked, “Thinking of getting a familiar, are you?”

I couldn’t but let out a smile, “Yeah, kind of.”

She nodded, before responding, “There’s no exact science to it. Any seemingly random event might have an impact on the two involved in the formation of the bond. It can be initiated by both sides, of course, but both parties have to accept the fact that they will be tied together for an eternity before the bond can be formed.”

I asked her, “Has it ever happened that a monster has initiated the bond? I can hardly imagine a scenario where this could happen.”

She said matter-of-factly, “Oh, yes. Many times. In fact, Shadow got her first familiar just like that. Her familiar initiated the bond before saving her life.”

I nodded at that, thinking it probably had to do with the incident where she made shadows explode. I asked her, “Are there any advantages to having a familiar?”

“Several, too many to state, in fact. Greater control of your core, your abilities, shared abilities, larger core and many more which I could spend a day telling you about and the list would still be only half over. Many of them may seem trivial but are no less important. But the most important advantage, in my opinion, at least, is that you gain a faithful companion for life. One who will always have your back, who will always put your concerns above everything else and will never, ever betray you. You will find that that is a luxury few have in this world.” She ended her words on a solemn note as if the words held personal meaning to her.

I didn’t pry in her matters though. Instead, I allowed her some space while I looked around this so-called garden, I had found myself in. I hadn’t noticed while chatting but we were near a lake where a griffin was meandering, looking at its reflection in the water. The sight reminded me of the last time I had encountered a griffin. That had been an eventful night, with me unlocking my powers and the confrontation with the grim reaper.

“Thinking about that night?” I was broken out of my reverie by Emma asking me that question.

“Yes, it’s strange seeing a griffin that’s not rushing to attack me,” I said, trying to pass it off as a joke.

Either my attempt worked or Emma decided to ignore my unease at being so near a griffin. She proceeded as if our conversation had never stopped, “Griffins are marvellous creatures, actually. Highly intelligent from birth and extremely territorial. They don’t like someone invading their territory but conversely, they are mindful of not entering others’ territory as well. They also seek to avoid Untethered, not liking the prospect of confrontation with another intelligent species.”

“You could have convinced me otherwise that red Luna night,” I joked.

But it seemed Emma wasn’t amused this time. She said sternly, “I am quite serious. Griffins don’t meander around in cities, David, not until they have a reason to. That griffin must have come to your area of patrol because it was made to.”

I was flabbergasted by her declaration, “What? How could anyone control a griffin’s actions? Your words make no sense.”

Emma responded, her tone stoic now, “The same way you control a human being. By giving the griffin an incentive to be there that night.”

I was still not convinced though. “Why would anyone do that? You know, why would have a griffin appear in that area on a red Luna night when the griffin would be at its strongest?”

Emma looked at me as if I was the bluntest tool in the box. “Really? You can’t think of any reason? Not even the fact the first third-slotter of our planet, in god knows how long, was patrolling that area that night?”

I laughed at her, although my laugh sounded hollow even to me. “Who would even have known I was patrolling that area that night?”

Emma looked at me, a grave look on her face. “The entire council knew as they were the ones who made the plans and assigned the teams into their respective areas.”

I looked at her, not knowing what to say. After a few moments of tense silence, I finally gathered my voice and I asked her, my voice barely louder than a whisper, “Emma, what you are saying... it’s making it sound as if....” I didn’t finish the sentence. I couldn’t finish the sentence, afraid of saying what I was thinking out loud.

But I needn’t have worried because she finished what I was trying to say. “Yes, your assumptions are correct. I believe that someone in the council tried to arrange your death that night. I think that there’s a traitor in the council!”