By the time I turned seven, the cosy novelty of farmhouse life had worn off.
Don't get me wrong, living with Martha and Jason was good. They treated me like a real son, and I loved them for it. But there were only so many reading lessons and writing exercises a person could take before wanting to shoot lasers out of their fingers.
My body was still small, but lately I'd been feeling a strange pressure in the middle of my chest. Heavy. Restless. Like something sealed up too tightly. I knew what it was: Ethernano. I could feel it sitting inside me, waiting.
I just hadn't been allowed to touch it yet.
That changed one morning after breakfast.
Jason pushed back from the table and stretched until his spine cracked loud enough to make me wince. Then he looked over at me with a rough little grin.
"All right, Merlin. You've done your letters, you haven't burned the house down, and you've mostly behaved yourself. I think you're ready. Come on. Out back."
Finally.
My stomach dropped in the best possible way.
We went to the flat patch of dirt behind the house. Jason lowered himself onto the grass with a grunt, crossed his legs, and motioned for me to sit across from him. I dropped down in front of him, trying very hard to look calm and composed when I was actually one breath away from vibrating out of my skin.
"Listen carefully," ...and his whole face changed, suddenly looking like the veteran instructor he used to be."Magic isn't just words in books. It's real. It's in the air, in the ground, in everything around us. Most people let it pass through them without ever noticing. Mages don't. We pull it in. We hold it. We make use of it."
He reached forward and tapped me lightly in the centre of the chest.
"Everyone's got a container. Yours…" He gave me a long look. "Yours is bigger than it ought to be. I can feel that much just standing near you. But having power and controlling it are not the same thing. If you force too much through your body at once, you can do real damage to yourself."
Then he unbuckled the sword at his hip and drew it free.
It was old and worn. The scabbard was scuffed, the wrapping on the hilt a little frayed. But the moment he took a breath and settled himself, the whole thing changed.
Because of the Eyes of Gilgamesh, I didn't just sense what he was doing—I saw it.
Sha Naqba Imuru lit the pattern up for me in an instant. Magic flowed from inside him, down through his arm, and into the blade in a clean, steady line. The sword didn't burst into light or flame. It didn't need to. The iron gave off a low hum that seemed to vibrate in the air.
Then Jason rose, turned, and swung at a boulder near the edge of the yard.
Crack.
The rock split cleanly in two.
There was no dramatic explosion. No shower of sparks. Just a smooth strike, and then the upper half of the stone slid off and hit the ground.
I stared.
"Okay," I said, because that was all I had. "That was cool."
Jason snorted and held the sword out to me, hilt first. "Your turn."
The moment I took it, the weight dragged my arms down so hard I almost pitched forward into the dirt. I had to lock my knees and cling to the thing with both hands just to stay upright.
"Eyes closed," Jason said. "Find the warmth under your ribs. Don't grab all of it. Just move a little. A drop. Then guide it into the hilt."
I shut my eyes and took a slow breath.
Sage, help me line this up.
[Notice: Accessing internal Ethernano reservoir. Warning: High-pressure density detected. Reducing output parameters to minimum threshold.]
I found the warmth almost immediately.
Except "warmth" wasn't really the right word for it.
It felt enormous. Dense. Like something far too large had been forced inside a body much too small to hold it. A sun packed into my chest.
I tried to do exactly what Jason said. Just a tiny nudge. Just enough to let the edge of it move.
The second I touched it, everything went wrong.
The Essence of Blank ignored the limit Sage had set.
The power didn't flow, it burst.
My eyes flew open. I couldn't even see the sword anymore. My hands had disappeared into a blast of pure white light so bright it swallowed everything around it.
"Merlin!" Jason shouted.
The calm teacher's voice was gone.
Grass under my feet shrivelled black in an instant. The heat rolled out hard enough to make the air feel like an oven. My hands shook so violently I thought the bones in my wrists might crack. The sword gave off a horrible, high-pitched scream, metal protesting under pressure it had no business surviving.
Sage! Stop it! Cut it off!
Everything died at once.
The light vanished. and I fell backwards onto the ground, gasping for breath, while the sword dropped out of my hands and hit the dirt beside me. Its blade glowed a dark, angry red. The middle had warped so badly that it was bent out of shape.
Jason stood there frozen, staring at the scene.
A second later, the back door slammed open, and Martha came charging outside with a wooden spoon in her hand like she meant to fight the apocalypse herself.
"What was that?" she yelled. "Is everyone alive?"
Jason looked at the scorched patch of grass, then at the ruined sword, then at me sitting in the dirt, trying not to cough up a lung.
Then, somehow, he laughed.
It came out thin and stunned and a little breathless. He shook his head once. "Martha," he said, "I think we're going to need a bigger yard."
He walked over and carefully picked up what was left of the sword by the hilt. "Kid," he said, still staring at the blade, "what in the world are you?"
I rubbed the back of my neck. My whole body felt drained and a little unsteady. "Sorry. I think I got carried away."
"Carried away," Jason repeated, looking at the twisted iron. "You nearly melted my sword just by holding it."
Martha stared at me, then at the burnt ground, then back at Jason. "Is this bad?"
Jason let out a short laugh. "I honestly have no idea." Then he looked back at me. "Next time we practice with something cheaper. A stick. Maybe a rock. Definitely not steel."
I grinned in spite of myself, wiping soot from my cheek.
It was the first time I had touched magic since the void.
Even with the ruined sword, the burnt grass, and the fact that I had almost blown up half the yard, it felt amazing.