"Give me your hands." His entire demeanor shifted. He had become as cold as ice. I couldn't explain why, but it was almost frightening. My instincts were telling me not to. If it was anyone else, I might have just run away under the pressure. The familiar roughness of his palms scratched against my skin as he grabbed my wrists.

He closed his eyes, and soon enough his cold hands began to glow, heating up until they began to feel like freshly baked bread, still a little too hot to touch. "It's hot…" I muttered, shifting around as it became uncomfortable.

He stayed completely motionless as his hands grew hotter and hotter. "It burns…" I made sure to make my words clear, hoping he would let go, but again he remained motionless.

The heat continued to grow until I couldn't take it. I clenched my fists and tried to pull away. "It hurts." I groaned, but my tugging hardly even made him move, as though I were pulling against iron.

His hands grew hotter still until it felt like I was trapped in scalding iron gauntlets, and the heat quickly became too intense for me to fight it. My nerves tingled from the pain just before the heat began to spread through my entire body like a pressure valve that burst from holding back a flood. The blood running through me began to pound and all my veins and arteries ached from the intensity of each heartbeat. I couldn't scream, or make any noise at all, and then my mind went blank.

He let go and in an instant, everything returned to normal. I sharply inhaled, not realizing I had been holding my breath. My eyes were open, but a strange sensation of my mind coming back to me ran through my body, and only then was I able to process what they were showing me.

My veins had a faint glow that slowly vanished as my blood pressure dropped and the intense heat drained from my fingertips. My hands were fine, albeit a bit slow to move from shock. I wasn't burned, but I was still left with the obvious question.

"What… was that?"

"You should be able to sense manna much more easily now, having experienced so much being forced into your own body. Your senses will sharpen even further, you might feel disoriented, though, so take it easy. Even if I didn't hurt you physically, your body won't forget the pain."

Everything in my line of sight began shining like I was looking through a lens of water, refracting light from the sun. It all blurred together until eventually I closed my eyes, thinking it would be easier to balance that way. Before I knew it, I could feel I was lying on the ground.

"Just give it a moment."

All of my senses dulled, feeling like I was wandering through a lifeless void. Suddenly it was dark, even after I opened my eyes. I was cold and alone.

With another gasp of air, my senses returned to normal. I wasn't sitting next to my father anymore, instead, my head was resting on his leg.

"You feel better now."

A piercing headache kept my thoughts from racing as he moved me to the side, offering me a hand to help me stand up. 'Having experienced so much manna being forced into my body… But isn't that what Finlo talked about? No, whatever he went through was probably a lot more intense… That's insane though right?'

My mind lagged behind, still trying to process the words he had spoken several minutes ago. "Not… Just…" I raised a hand to my head and closed my eyes. "Just, one moment… please."

He grunted, but then sat back down.

My entire body tingled as if my nerves were firing off at random, desperately trying to find the path back to my brain. I could still speak, but the movements my mouth made felt foreign. "I still don't understand…" I muttered, lying down on my side. "My body feels so heavy…"

He raised his left palm, staring at it. "Right, an explanation. I suppose now would be a good time for one."

'It would have been nice to have one before… But better late than never I suppose…'

"Let's start at the most basic level of understanding. Although I only know the most simplified version. It's easy to think of it like this. You have two bodies and one mind. One body is responsible for physical movement."

He grabbed a knife, flipping it up into the air and balancing its tip on one finger. "Balance, correcting, reaction. Even breathing, every time a muscle contracts it's because of a signal from your brain, conscious or subconscious. This is the same for your second body, your magic body. The flow of manna, regulation, pulses, movement, recovery. Everything is done subconsciously or consciously. Your subconscious operates both at once, but your conscious mind usually connects to only one body at a time.

His arm fell limp, the knife crashing to the ground. "In other words, you lose the ability to control your physical movements and go limp."

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

I slowly managed to sit up, feeling an intense, comforting warmth dissipate as it ran through me like blood. "So that's why it felt like everything just turned off…"

He nodded.

"Wait, how will it help me if I can't even move while casting it?"

He smirked. "There are two kinds of mages." He said, picking the knife back up off the ground. "The first is immobile, training to enhance their magical body, while the second tries to combine them."

He paused as if waiting for me to ask how they did that, but it was such an obvious question I thought he would just continue. Finally, he did.

"Obviously you will be the second type. Usually this is accomplished by linking physical actions to coincide with magical ones, for instance, my body might shoot out fire when I throw a jab, and then electricity if I throw a cross. In your case though it's a matter of just generating more power with every movement, so it will be much simpler."

My breathing finally fully returned to normal, but the warmth still hadn't faded. 'I wonder if this is the feeling of manna then…' "Ok, so then what's this training going to be like?"

"Since we have such little time, there are many shortcuts we will have to take, but you have already done several of them."

"But… wasn't this the first time we've done anything with magic?"

He leaned over, shifting his weight to one knee. "The first step was when you ingested poison. Th-e ne–"

My mind went blank, all of his words fading into the background. 'That was… The first step? The first step in my training to use magic… But Catherine is the only other person who would know something like that, since magic is forbidden… That means the only person that could have poisoned me was… Him… Right? In preparation for…'

My breath caught in my throat as the warmth I had been feeling all turned ice cold, my hair standing up on end.

"Siya… Are you feeling sick?" His voice bellowed like that of a drum, but hearing it only made me feel more nauseous.

The air felt like it was thinning. My stomach twisted in knots as a layer of sweat started to cover my skin. 'I don't want to ask… I don't want to. "Father…"

He watched on intently, waiting for me to continue as my eyes began to feel heavy, my body lacking oxygen. "Were you the one that poisoned me, then?"

He tilted his head. "Well, yes, of course. As I said, that was the first step. No, I suppose the first step was actually when I used magic to heal your wounds. This both helped you physically, aided in your body's ability to feel manna, and tested your will. Of course, only someone capable of surviving the reaping could withstand what's next. The poison brought you too near death, which in turn–"

"Couldn't you have told me?" I was still calm, at least on the outside, but my mind was in so many places at once, not even I knew what words were going to come out of my mouth next.

His eyes narrowed slightly. "It's not like I was trying to hide it from you."

"I was unconscious! You weren't even there when I woke up! Mara had to give me the antidote so I didn't die!"

His brow furrowed as I raised my voice before flinching back at his intense glare. "Of course she did." He took his knife, pointing it at his neck. "The thyroid, along with other glands located in the neck. These swell moments before death. She would have placed her hand around your neck, waiting for that to happen, before she gave it to you. Those were her instructions."

"But… Why…" 'Why you of all people… Why did it have to be you…' I sank, my shoulders falling forward as I sat on the floor against the chair. 'So even if I didn't put filler in the poison… They would have upped the dosage until it almost killed me…'

Suddenly everything felt meaningless, as if all my efforts resulted in nothing but a facade of my "clever" efforts to survive.

"Between your two bodies, physical training only strengthens one." He raised his knife, slashing his wrist. "When the body is wounded you react, your body closes the wound, and sends vital nutrients to repair the damaged tissue and generate new tissue."

The blood ran down his arm, clotting before it even dripped to the floor.

"Poison is the exception, it doesn't just affect your skin and muscles, but the body as a whole, and the mind. When you were brought to near death, your mind bridged the gap between the two in a sort of last attempt to save your life. That was when Mara gave you the antidote."

I paused as we stared bullets into each other's eyes. "That's not what I meant…" My voice cracked. 'If he was the one that gave me poison, then what else…' A memory of Mara's voice rang through my ears. 'You don't want to know…'

"The healing magic, it almost killed me because my body didn't have enough energy to keep up with it…"

"Yes, it tested your mental capacity to force yourself to continue going, if you're will broke you would have died, but it proved to be strong. Like I said, and in the process also strengthened it further. No ordinary child would have survived, but you were mine, so I knew you could make it through."

I gulped. "Why didn't you just teach me magic the normal way? Without the shortcuts?"

He gritted his teeth, letting out a low growl. "I thought your training would have been enough. I see now that Mara went too easy on you though, so here we are."

'Too easy?' The scene of her beating me in front of my sister until I couldn't stand vividly replayed in my mind. It almost made me laugh. ' Wait… No… The balcony. Was he the one watching? When Mara yelled, I thought something seemed off…''

The entire room felt suffocating, my eyes began to burn, and everywhere I looked I began seeing faint outlines of status screens. My eyes began tracing the movements of my father, each motion, every breath, even before he took them as time slowed.

'No not this… If this keeps up…' I shut my eyes.

"Siya?"

I felt blood begin to drip from my nose, but it wasn't nearly as severe as all the times in the past. 'Is it because of what he just did to me?'

I heard a low grumble bellow from his lips as he gently took my head in one hand, reaching behind my neck and fiddling with the small pouch I had hidden in my hair.

'He knew? About… So it really was all pointless then…'

"Open your mouth."

'Of course, he knew… It's not like it was actually that well hidden anyway…' I took the last pellet, and my nosebleed stopped shortly after on its own. 'It's all… pointless…'

"Rest your head on the table for a while. I'll cover it to block the light. You're still not used to manna circulating through your body." I may not have been able to see, but somehow I still knew exactly where everything was. It was like my memory of the room combined with my senses of touch and hearing giving me an image in my mind of exactly where I was. My head spun, trying to make sense of it all, and I quickly lost my balance, falling to the ground.

My father let out an annoyed groan as I hit the floor, only bending down to pick me up after I had fallen.

Every footstep only sounded farther away, despite the wood under me shifting as he stepped right next to me before picking me up, and before long everything echoed so distantly that I was left with no senses at all.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.