The silence in the hospital room settled not as an absence of sound, but as a presence. It was thick with the weight of Renn's final word: apart. The hum of Solamen's sky-traffic was a distant drone, the world outside continuing its business, oblivious to the fact that a god's fractured soul was resting on sterile white sheets.
Sorrin dragged a hand through his hair, the motion stiff. "Train," he repeated, the word tasting like ash. "Renn, the last time I used it, I grew a forest out of a stone floor somehow and drained a monster that you couldn't scratch. I didn't command it. It just… happened. Because I was desperate." He looked down at his hands. They seemed alien to him now. "How do you train desperation?"
Renn's faint smirk remained, a ghost of his usual confidence. "You don't. You train stillness. Your whole life, you've operated on the surface of the world, relying on what you could see and touch. Now you have an ocean inside you, and you're trying to punch it into submission. You need to learn to float." He shifted, wincing as his ribs protested. "You need to learn how to feel the current before you even think about trying to steer."
A cold logic settled in Sorrin's gut. Renn was right. That feeling in the throne room hadn't just been power; it had been a release. A lifetime of being empty, suddenly and violently filled.
"Alright," Sorrin said, his voice low. "Where do we start?"
"Here," Renn said simply. He patted the edge of his bed. "We start with you learning to feel it when you aren't about to die. Close your eyes. Don't search for the power. Don't try to call it. Just… listen. The way I listen to the world."
Sorrin hesitated, then pulled the visitor's chair closer and sat. He closed his eyes, the sudden darkness feeling useless. He was immediately aware of the scent of antiseptic, the scratchy wool of his coat, and the faint thrum of the building's systems. He heard his own breathing. He felt the phantom ache in his chest where the root in his vision had pierced him. But there was nothing else. No hum, no inner light, no whisper of a sleeping goddess.
"Yep, nothing," he said after a long minute.
"Not surprised," Renn replied, his voice calm. "You're trying to hear a symphony by listening for a drum. This isn't about power. Not yet. It's about presence. You have a soul sharing space with your own. It has a weight. A temperature. Find that."
Days bled into a week. Renn's leg was set in a polished brass-and-wood frame, and the medics spoke of steady recovery. Sorrin spent most of his time in that chair, trying to chase a feeling that wasn't there, the frustration a coiled knot in his stomach. He was a man of action, a man who solved problems with a well-oiled revolver and a steady aim. This quiet, internal searching felt like a strange kind of hell.
They left the hospital on a grey afternoon, the sky the color of old steel. Renn leaned heavily on a cane, his movements still stiff, but he refused any other help. They couldn't return to the Marrowlight; Arven's warning had made that clear. They were on their own. Sorrin used a portion of the coins from their terminated contract to rent a small, two-room apartment in a lower district, a place that smelled of old wood and fried oil, where the rattle of the steam trams below was a constant companion.
It was anonymous. It was perfect.
That night, in the dim light of their cramped living space, they tried again.
"It's no use," Sorrin said, opening his eyes. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, a position that felt unnatural and foolish. "There's nothing there. Maybe the voice was a one-time thing. Maybe the power is, too. A defense mechanism."
"No," Renn said from his armchair. He was facing the grimy window, but Sorrin knew he was watching him all the same. "It's there. I can feel the edges of it. It's like standing next to a forge that hasn't been lit. There's a residual warmth, a promise of heat." He paused. "You said she gave you a blessing… and a curse."
"The curse of insanity," Sorrin muttered, the words chilling him now as they had then.
"Maybe you're looking at it wrong," Renn suggested, turning his head slightly. "You keep thinking of it as a weapon. A tool. What if it's a sense? Like my sight. I don't command it. I open myself to it. The Flow tells me the shape of the room, the heat of a body, the fault lines in a stone. Stop trying to take."
Sorrin closed his eyes again, his jaw tight. He let out a slow breath, forcing the tension from his shoulders. Stop trying to take. He thought of the branch in the dungeon, the way it had pulled him in. He hadn't taken anything then. He had simply… touched.
He didn't think of the World Tree as a source of power. He thought of the vision. The meadow. The soft grass, the warm air. The feeling of life, rich and sweet, just before the horror of the root. He focused on the memory of that single, perfect breath.
For a moment, there was nothing. Then, something shifted.
There was a change in pressure, deep in his chest. A subtle resonance, like a distant bell struck once. A faint warmth spread from the center of his palm, a tingling heat that had no source.
He opened his eyes. In the gloom of the apartment, a soft, pale light was emanating from his hand. It was no brighter than a candle, veined with a faint, golden tracery that looked impossibly like the patterns on the walls of the dungeon. It cast strange, dancing shadows on the floorboards.
Renn went utterly still, his head snapping toward Sorrin. His cloudy eyes widened, the pupils dilating as if he could see the light itself. "Sorrin…" he breathed, his voice a mix of awe and terror. "There it is."
The light flickered, and as a wave of dizziness washed over Sorrin, it vanished. His hand was just a hand again, the room plunged back into shadow. His heart was hammering against his ribs.
He stared at his palm, flexing his fingers. It had been real.
"It felt…" Sorrin began, his voice hoarse. "...quiet."
"I'm pretty sure you are the first person ever to have circulated their life flow," Renn said, a slow smile finally reaching his eyes. "Six months. We have a lot of work to do." He leaned back, the worry not quite gone from his face. "Just try not to go insane from anything she does while you're practicing. The curse, remember?"