The drive back to Imara’s was uneventful. When we pulled the car into her driveway she was sitting on the veranda, reading a book. She looked up and smiled at our approach, signalling for us to meet with her inside.

We sat down at the living room table and talked for a while. Imara informed us that a cleaning crew had been dispatched to the empousa’s lair and scrubbed it. I have to admit that I hadn’t even thought about that aspect of our encounter, but it made complete sense when I considered it. Otherwise, anyone could walk in there and discover the monster and the bodies. The tally was twenty-six as Colson had said and they’d make sure the bodies were handled respectfully and cremated.

“Ethan,” she gestured for me to follow her, and together we went into the lobby holding her display cases. Walking to a small case on one of the shelves, I felt her draw a small amount of aether when she touched it, a small click sounding.

“I would like for you to have this,” she held up a small ring with more runic script engraved on the inside and held it out for me. The outside was smooth and neutral. “It is silver, a creation of my own design, imbued with runes carrying my intent and a facsimile of my healing abilities.”

Speechless, I accepted the ring from her. As with Colson it was a sweet gesture, something I was not used to, and it was humbling to me that they thought I merited their consideration.

“When you learn how, you can imbue the ring with your aether, though I recommend you wait until you’ve traced your Sigil completely. There is a small reservoir functioning like a battery running throughout the ring. It will trigger at your command, healing small to medium injuries, cuts, and bruises, and restore your stamina. It will not reset bones or restore flesh, but it is my hope that you will be able to avoid injuries like that in the near future. It is charged with my aether, at the moment.”

“Thank you, Imara. Th-this is too much,” my voice caught in my throat for a second.

“Nonsense. Colson can be a tough taskmaster and even if you are not in a fight for your life, you will find use of the ring if only to restore your energy at need. Do not rely on its power too often, however. You will feel refreshed and energised, but there is no substitute for a good night’s sleep,” she finished in a serious voice.

Nodding my understanding I threw caution to the wind and embraced her in a hug. She was startled for a second but soon returned the embrace. Separating, she patted me on the cheek a couple of times, looking flustered.

I put on the ring and even though it seemed too small to fit, it enlarged slightly and adopted to my left index finger snugly. I still had many questions, but I could get used to this magic stuff. It all seemed immensely practical.

“It suits you,” she beamed at me. “It cannot be removed save by you, unless you get your finger cut off.”

“Thank you again, Mother,” I said seriously. Her beaming smile became radiant, and I once again caught a glimpse of a beautiful woman who looked nothing like her, as it felt like the entire house responded to her delight. Colson stuck his head through the door to see what was going on, but retreated without saying anything when he saw it was just the two of us standing there.

“You are a kind soul, Ethan,” she started. “You will have many challenges ahead, and if you follow in Colson’s footsteps there will be things you will have to do, that will not sit well with you. I hope that you will keep in mind that we sometimes must do things we are not happy about, for the betterment of the many. But you must never lose that kindness. Should you feel yourself wavering, do not hesitate to come and see me.”

“I won’t,” I said simply. I’d already considered this several times during the day when my mind inevitably turned to the previous night and concluded that I could probably learn to live with it. Not immediately, perhaps, but in the future, when Colson had taught me ways to deal with the emotional backlash. I understood it was easier said than done, to force a shift in attitude on such a serious topic, but I knew it was going to be a gradual shift in my way of thinking so I may as well start the process now.

Colson and I talked to Imara for a little while as we had a bite to eat, and decided we’d better get going if we wanted to get near Oklahoma City before nightfall. We didn’t plan on driving the entire thing in a week as the road trip guide recommended. Instead, we’d periodically park the car and spend our nights in the wild, visiting towns and communities along the way. Then we’d maybe leave it entirely when I’d solidified the foundation in my Sigil, whatever that meant.

Around three in the afternoon, we packed up our things and put it in the car. I was a little sad to leave Imara, I’d come to like her quite a lot, but I was certain I’d see her again in the future. I took solace in that.

“Goodbye, Ethan,” she told me an hour later, taking hold of my elbows and kissing each of my cheeks. “May your journey be safe and fruitful. Remember what we have talked about, and you will be fine.”

“Thank you, Mother,” I told her sincerely. “For everything. I’ll make sure to stop by when I’ve got the opportunity.” She smiled at me and moved to Colson and repeated her goodbye. Colson told her to expect my credit card in the mail, and if nothing else we’d come by to pick it up at some point.

Getting in the car, we headed out. It was an almost eleven-hour drive, and we’d do it in two stretches, stopping somewhere along the way when the sun was going down.

The drive was pretty dull, and we spent it talking about everyday things and listening to more music. I tried steering our conversation towards what he’d planned several times, but Colson was persistent and told me to wait and see. He also told me how valuable that ring actually was, and that I’d need to be careful where I used it.

At some point while there was a lull in our music, I fell asleep. “Wake up, kid, we’re almost here,” Colson’s voice interrupted another nightmare I was having, being disembowelled by the empousa.

“We’re here? Already?” I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and blinked at the road. Dusk was settling and we were about to park near a hotel.

“Yep, you’ve been out for a while,” he kept his eyes on the road. “Did a bit of twitching there at the end. Nightmare?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I keep reliving the fight with the empousa. Sometimes I kill it, sometimes it kills me, it’s more or less a tossup. Feels pretty real too. I swear I can feel phantom pains where it nicked me." I rubbed at my neck absently.

Colson was silent for a moment before he replied. “Pretty normal, all things considering. Hell of a thing to go through on such short notice. It’ll get better with time, but we’ll try to hurry it along with some techniques I’ll teach you.”

“Where are we?” I asked him, changing the topic. I hoped we’d get around to it soon.

“Smaller city called Paris. We’re in Texas, and we’ll hit route 66 some time tomorrow after noon, if we get an early start. I’ve been at this hotel before, it’s fine accommodations. We’ll get a couple of rooms, then go about consolidating your Sigil before we get some shuteye.” Excitement bubbled in my stomach at the prospect. Finally, I’d start working on my aether.

Grabbing most of our stuff from the car, we headed to the reception area and Colson got us a couple of neighbouring rooms. My room was relatively simple, a living room and kitchenette, a single bed, desk, a chair, TV, and bathroom. Settling my stuff, I’d only just sat down on the bed when there was a knock on my door.

“Candygram!” came a high-pitched squeaky baritone. Rolling my eyes, I stood and opened the door.

“I am the one who knocks,” he said as he entered the room.

“Too easy, Walter White. Just don’t throw our lunch on the roof. Tied at five,” I told him. Colson had pilfered a six-pack from someplace and he came in and set it down on a desk under the wall-mounted TV along with our packed lunch.

“Damn. Alright, kid. May as well get started! Hop on the bed and sit in the lotus position.”

Abruptness notwithstanding, I did as he asked and situated myself comfortably on the bed, crossing my legs under me and looked at him expectantly.

“Here’s the rub,” he sat down in a chair opposite me. “To get your Sigil activated properly we need to ‘fill the lines’ so to speak. You’ve got three base foundations so it’s probably going to take a while. It’s easier when you start out with less, but that doesn’t really matter right now since it’s gonna pay dividends down the road.”

“Okaaay, I understand some of those words,” I replied with a frown.

“Can you enter tranquil mind?”

“Easy,” I said. I closed my eyes and sank into in my soul space. It looked the same as ever, but while I normally had to walk to reach the middle, I found myself sitting inside the circle inscribed on the ground immediately.

“Tranquil mind is a technique some people use to visualise themselves inside their soul. There are several different techniques to do this, but it’s commonly used by humans. You’ve been using it as a battle trance to avoid emotional influence when you fight, but that’s not something that’s normally taught to beginners. It’ll give you a leg-up in the future, but you won’t be consolidating on the move, yet. Honestly, I was really surprised when you told me how you utilize it.” I heard his voice reverberate in my soul, almost as if there were speakers installed in the sky.

“You in the circle?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m sitting in it. Normally I’ve been appearing a bit further away and had to walk to where the mirror was.”

“I think that’s because the mirror was in the way. Since there was block on your Sigil, you kinda got bounced off and appeared elsewhere.”

“What now?”

“Now we get to the fun stuff. In the beginning, most find it easier to start tracing their Sigil – that’s the technical term – if they touch it in their soul space. Can you reach the outer edge from where you’re sitting?”

“I can yeah, but just barely.” I kind of scooted closer to the edge and put my right hand on it. “I’m touching it now.”

“Very good. Now what I want you to do is submerse yourself in your Sigil. You have to visualise pulling aether out of the air and deposit it inside the outermost formation,” he told me.

“But I haven’t been able sense anything in the air so far. I’ve only felt it when Dina and Annie drew on their own Sigils,” I said.

“That’s not an issue, we'll get to it in a second. Like Imara said, your Sigil will also start pulling in ambient aether by itself at one point. After a while, the aether would start tracing your foundation at as well. That's a very slow process, however. We’re kinda kickstarting everything right now. Take a deep breath and try to visualise a fluid running from your hand and into the line. Same as when you’re in the shower and water flows around your body and into the drain.”

Concentrating, I closed my eyes inside my soul space as well. After a while I felt the sensation pooling around my hand, as though it was under an open faucet, visualising lukewarm water running down the sink.

“I think it’s working,” surprise tinged my voice.

“You’re a natural, kid. Just keep at it for a little while, tell me what happens.”

Keeping the sensation going, I started to feel a bit woozy at one point. I don’t know how much time had passed, but I felt weaker. As if I’d been exercising hard. “It feels like… it feels like I’m draining myself into the circle,”

“Sweet, then it’s working. Right now, you’re slowly pooling your own energy into it. Since you’re not actively drawing aether, you’re substituting your lifeforce.”

My brows furrowed in the real world and doubt at what we were doing started creeping around the outer edges of my meditation.

“Lifeforce? That doesn’t sound particularly healthy,” I commented.

“Eh, lifeforce may be the wrong word to use. It’s the energy being produced by your body through biological processes. It’s not like you’re shaving off your lifespan to fuel it,” Colson reassured me.

“Oh, I see. If I keep it up for long enough, I’ll feel super tired?”

“Exactly. If you’re sitting with your eyes closed, try to open them and peek at your Sigil where you’re touching it,” he instructed.

Opening my eyes in the soul space, I looked down and saw that there was a miniscule trace of rusty red, a couple fingerbreadths, in the spot where I’d touched the circle.

“There’s… kind of a red smudge on the circle. A rust-red colour. Almost looks a little like blood,” I provided.

“Everyone has a different colour, that’s not important. What’s important is that it’s working. Now instead of pouring energy into your hand, I want you to close your eyes and focus on pooling it around them, c an you do that?”

Obliging, I tried to imagine fluid running down my head and getting stuck around my eyes. Soon, it began to feel like a much milder version of the pounding I’d experienced if I had a headache, a pulsing sensation right behind my eyeballs.

“I think it’s working,” I told Colson.

“Natural born prodigy, kid. You’re doing good. Now when I tell you, I want you to open your eyes inside your soul space. Don’t be shocked at what you see, try to keep tranquil mind running if you can. Now.”

Opening my metaphysical eyes, I was bombarded with a lightshow. “Whoa, what the hell. There are tiny white balls of light or something floating in the air all around me.” They were ranging from golf- to tennis balls in size.

“Don’t think I’ve had anyone getting the hang of this as quickly as you, kid. Congratulations, you’ve just opened your inner eye, or aether sight, as it were.”

Enjoying the sense of accomplishment and Colson’s praise, I marvelled at the small motes of light hanging in the air.

“The lights you’re seeing are a visual representation of the aether in the air around us. Notice how even though they’re present, they’re kind of faded? That’s because they’re not actually present in your soul space, but in the real world. When you get better at this, you can keep your aether vision running while walking around in the real world and see them ‘live’, but right now you’re limited to seeing their soul space equivalent when you concentrate on it actively,” Colson told me.

Now that he mentioned it, I could see how the lights were kind of spectral. Ethereal, almost like they would vanish if I tried to touch them. Amazing. I was seeing aether – magic – in the air all around me. It was beautiful. “It’s wonderful. I- wait, what’s that?”

“What? What do you see?” Colson’s voice was curious.

“There’s a bunch of faded white light like you said, but there’s also a small blob of green in here. It’s slightly bigger than the individual white ones, about the size of a baseball. It seems more… real,” I informed him.

“Ah, that’s the sole exception. I was counting on that. That’s part of the empousa’s Sigil, kid.” A sense of revulsion tore through me at his words. Part of that thing was inside me? My disgust must’ve shown on my real face because Colson quickly continued.

“Hold on, don’t let it get to you. Let me explain, please. There’s one exception to aether absorption. Normally we only pull in aether from the air around us, but when you kill another being, your Sigils connect briefly. You absorb some of their accumulated aether into your soul. This means it’ll float in your soul space until use it. Don’t do anything with it.”

“It’s disgusting, Colson. I want it out of me,” I protested.

“Hang on, kid. Just a moment, okay? Imara said your soul is inviolate, and it is. If you want to, you can expel it easily, but please don’t do that.” I was tempted to do so immediately but held off at his words. I’d give him time to explain it first.

“This is another way to advance your Sigil. You can see it so clearly in your soul because it actually exists there. The aether you can absorb from it is more potent as well.”

The ramifications of his words hit me. This meant that you could basically go around killing other living things and gain more potent aether that way. I asked if that was true.

“Bingo. This is the downside of aether, kid. Some creatures can only gain it through reaping the lifeblood of others. That’s what the empousa was trying to tell you when you asked why it was killing people. They’re one of many species that can only advance through slaughter. To some beings, humans are no different from the herd animals we get our meat from. Killing humans makes them stronger, but eating them, drinking their blood and what have you, is just a side perk,” Colson explained.

“And you said all beings have a Sigil. So that means it was killing completely normal people to become stronger?” I asked, to prove my train of thought.

“Got it in one. This is the dark side of Sigil advancement. As I said, some creatures can only advance through killing, but plenty of beings who can absorb ambient aether boost their intake the same way.”

“Like us,” I concluded.

“Like us, yeah,” Colson agreed. “Our way is sanctioned and approved of, since we rid the world of veritable killing machines in the process. Self-defence is another since it’s involuntary, but you have to report it – every time. If the Board finds out that someone’s going around executing everyone around them, they send people to investigate and punish the perpetrators. That’s what our bounty was about. Find and kill the thing that was taking people off the streets of New Orleans.”

“But why?” I asked, genuinely confused. “Why does a part of their aether enter our souls?”

“Nobody knows, kid. People have been researching it for thousands of years, but I don’t think anyone’s closer to an answer. It’s one of life’s great mysteries.”

This was startling news. It meant that by proxy I had parts of twenty-six people’s Sigils inside my soul. I didn’t feel comfortable at the notion and told Colson so.

“They’re gone, Ethan. I know it seems harsh, but you can look at this in two ways. Either you expel the aether and let the last remnants of what’s left go to waste, or you accept this is the way things are and let their aether bolster your strength so you can help prevent it happening in the future,” he said the last part with ironclad conviction. It was his opinion that we were using what remained of their Sigils for good. I wanted to believe that.

“If I kill more of those things in the future, will more of those green orbs appear in here?” was my next question.

“Not quite,” he began. “The green orb you have now will gradually get bigger and bigger. It’s probably not just the empousa’s aether in there. You’ve been out hunting right?”

I had and I knew where he was going with this. I’d been on several hunting trips to learn how to use guns, rifles, and bows, dressing the kills and donating the meat and pelts. While that realisation should perhaps have revolted me further, it actually did the opposite. I’d always been taught that hunting is a part of the life, as natural as anything. “There may have been a green orb in here before I met you,” I stated.

“Exactly. The aether you gain from killing wildlife and small animals is miniscule compared to sentient beings, but it all adds up,” he confirmed.

“You said that the empousa can only advance that way, so what makes it okay for us to hunt it when that’s the natural path for it to take?” My original disgust had disappeared gradually but while I could follow to the whole “circle of life” element, that seemed like a logical question.

“I like the way you think, Ethan. Because any who advance that way chooses to do so. The empousa could remain as it was, from birth, but it chose to slaughter innocents. It may seem like a fine distinction, but it makes all the difference in how we view these things.”

That seemed sensible. It was tough luck, that some were able to advance through normal means and some weren’t, but if I’d found out that was the case for me, I’d like to believe I would choose to abstain. Even if it meant not getting stronger.

“Also,” he added. “There are some who justify the murder of innocents in their pursuit of power, but many of the creatures who don’t conform to the treaties are new to this world."