Just a Bystander

Spillage

'I can't.' Ambrose was still grinning as he said it, even as my hand tightened around his. He didn't seem to have grasped the gravity of the situation. It took only a few heartbeats for me to strike with my arcana.

If I had to credit my 'Top Scorer' title to anything, it would be the flashes of insight I enjoy as a side-effect of my intense bouts of deep thinking. With enough discipline, anybody can study hard and memorise wreathes of information, and given enough time it's possible for most people to tease patterns and connections out of mounds of data. But for some reason, when I withdraw from people and take the time to just sift through what I've learned and experienced, these connections get made much more quickly even when I'm not actively thinking about things. I suppose you could call it intuition, and it happens pretty often for me.

One such flash of intuition came to me at that moment when I wanted very much to wrest every ounce of information out of Ambrose. Reeves had influenced everyone to do something the first time he met us, and he had already taught us how he had done it.

'...ambient arcana can be used as a channel for your auric arcana as long as you exercise enough mental discipline and precision.'

And apparently that was all it took - sheer force of will, coupled with extremely fine arcanic control. I had plenty of the former right now.

As for the arcanic control, I had just been given a glimpse of what was required during the fight with Kant. If understanding a glyph in a different way changed how it behaved for you, then it followed that the glyphs themselves were not entirely important. Your very thoughts and intentions could provide enough direction for the arcana.

And that was how Reeves had made some people stand involuntarily without using glyphs at all. His will could shape arcana. It was a simple realisation, and I wondered why I hadn't made that connection sooner. After all, arcanists shape simple forms of arcana all the time without using a single glyph. And even children are taught simple exercises so they can play with the flow of it. Why wouldn't people be able to exercise precise control without glyphs? It'd just be harder, and take a lot more practice.

I knew that for this, all I needed was for my intention to be crystal clear. An impulse, like Reeves had used, without language, just visceral response that transcended conscious thought.

I thought back to that inexplicable surge of wanting to confide that I had experienced when I had told Ambrose about my sister. Now that I recognised it for what it was - a skewing of my own will because I was interacting with the Chosen One - it somehow seemed more distinct to me; a strong emotion that had stirred inside me, but was clearly not my own.

I found that since I could think about it clearly, I could copy it right out of my memory and bring it into the present moment. I allowed the feeling to fill me, not just as an emotion in my mind and heart, but also as something spilling into the pool of my internal arcana, my aura. From there, I pushed it out into the ambient arcana, willing it to spread like blood poured into water until it filled the air around us. And since Ambrose's hand was still grasped in mine, I found myself also instinctively pouring that intent-laced arcana directly into his aura.

I saw his eyes widen in surprise and confusion. He was probably experiencing the same disorientating feeling we had all felt when Reeves had first done it - a senseless and almost overwhelming desire to simply do something. Except this time for Ambrose it was probably much worse, since we were so close, and I had actually directly manipulated his aura.

'You-!' he choked, rising out of his chair and trying to withdraw his hand. I held on and pulled him back down.

'Tell me,' I growled.