“Follows the tree line. I’ve checked.” I jerk my chin to the other side of the open field. Sel’s third and outermost ward starts a few feet from the ditch where I’d once hidden with Sydney, a Page, during the tournament. From there, it stretches in a wide curve to make a massive circle of Battle Park with the Lodge at the center.

William nods, satisfied. “All right. Show me what you’ve got, newbie.”

I know what he’s doing. Teasingly reminding me that even though I—not Arthur—succeeded in the combat trial using my own hard-earned skills, the other Scions are still years ahead of me when it comes to knowing how to fight with aether. They’d started preparing for the possibility of inheriting their knights’ aether abilities when they were six years old. Began training with rubber and wooden practice versions of their knights’ preferred weapons at seven. I’m sixteen—ten years behind everyone else and just getting started.

William is reminding me, I think, to be kind to myself. To remember that even as adept as he is, he is human, like me. And humans must learn to wield aether, one step at a time.

Mediums can’t control the dead. Even if I could contact Arthur at will, I can’t—and won’t—rely on possession to wield his power. If I am to lead, I have to be able to access and control aether on my own, like the others do.

My own breath is loud and raspy in my ears. My heart kicks at my rib once, twice. I close my eyes. Try to slow it down. Take another breath. Open my palms to the sky.

“Aether is all around you.” William’s voice is soft in my ears. “Already at your fingertips.”

Aether is all around me. It’s already here.

“A whisper. That’s all you need.”

I grin. “Sel doesn’t whisper for power, he pulls.”

William snorts. “A model you don’t have to follow, not here.”

I breathe deep and reach without reaching until warm air—aether—begins to dance along my skin. Then, I open my eyes—and call for that aether. Invite it to transform from its invisible gaseous state to the energy I can see and manipulate—and blue fire ignites around my hands and arms.

“Good,” William murmurs, “Calling aether to mage flame is the first hurdle. Now, forge it….”

The mage flame grows hotter. I hiss but hold steady and imagine the whirling wisps falling into the solid mass of Excalibur. I craft Arthur’s hilt in my mind and push the flames into my image. I visualize a swirling storm of aether collapsing into the length of Arthur’s blade, then layering over and over itself until thin sheets of magic become a sharp-edged weapon.

But my will isn’t enough to cool the mage flame into a solid. My images don’t work.