“Your castings don’t burn at all. You cool aether down from that”—I gesture in the air with my left hand—“to this.” I point to my wrist, wrapped in shining silver-blue fluid.

“The aether I call is nowhere near as hot as yours to begin with. And I certainly don’t call it in the amounts you do.”

I frown. “What does that mean?”

“It means what we already know. That you are unusual. A new type of power—or rather, a new combination of powers. The invisible energy we call aether is a mutable ambient element manipulated by will, but that manipulation is somewhat defined by the user. Scions and Squires are limited by their knights’ inheritances. I can cast Gawain’s swyns and I can forge armor—not the exact sixth-century variety, no plates back then—but it must be a variation that works for Gawain’s gifts. The only weapon we can cast is our knight’s chosen weapon. With their demon heritage, Merlins can cast anything they wish: a staff, a hound, a protective barrier. You yourself have wielded aether in its mage flame state to burn demons in battle—something the Legendborn cannot do.” He pauses. “What about your Bloodcraft abilities? Can you call the aeth—root—you create from within, then forge it into solid matter?”

I shake my head. “My Bloodcrafted root doesn’t work like that. It’s defensive, not offensive.”

What the Legendborn have named “aether,” Rootcrafters refer to as “root.” Instead of forging weapons, typical Rootcrafters commune with ancestors to request access to ambient root—and there doesn’t seem to be a limit with how they use it after that, from healing to memory walking.

But Vera’s Bloodcraft spell takes it one step further. In the cave, red root flames ignited within me and flowed from my body, down my arms and hands. I breathed crimson fire that scorched isels and burned through their demon flesh—but only after they’d attacked me first.

William hums thoughtfully and switches his aether-drenched fingers to my left arm. The stinging burns on my right have already faded to a horrible itch. “What you did in the ogof… that was far more powerful than any Legendborn weapon casting could ever be. You didn’t need a weapon; you were the weapon.”

William’s words remind me of Vera’s. You are my lineage, at its sharpest and strongest. I breathe through the memory of her voice, every syllable its own type of cut. “All that power—Arthur’s aether armor, Vera’s Bloodcraft root—was out of my control. Just like now.” I face him again, voice firmer. “And I need to get control before the Regents find out I don’t have it.”