In a hurry, he returned to his room, like a child excited to have a new toy, and began to read them non-stop. In the middle of the night, he already felt that he had advanced enough to begin his practices, but he still had a lot to review.
Before the sun rose, he went to the practice room. Dyan sat in the quietest corner of the room, with his legs crossed on the rough carpet. Beside him, Elgrin's two volumes rested open, with notes and small bookmarks improvised with strips of paper. The exercise he was supposed to try was described in terms too abstract for his liking: "Extend consciousness toward the roots of your being, like a tree seeking deep water." That was all. No diagrams, no practical examples, no clear warnings.
He closed his eyes and slowly took a breath. The first step was to feel the natural flow of his magic, that faint, warm thread that ran from the center of his chest to the rest of his body. Easy to say, difficult to isolate. His breathing synchronized with his heartbeat, and little by little he pushed away the noise of the world: the creaking of the wood, the hoot of the wind outside hitting the walls of the tower, even the light tapping of a drop against the window.
In his mind, he imagined a cracked vessel—his current mana well—and tried to visualize how those fissures could close. Elgrin spoke of "expanding the vessel" and "fortifying its walls," but he never explained how to do it. Dyan decided to experiment: he focused his energy, feeling each pulse of magic like a wave crashing against the inside of that mental vessel. He pushed carefully, as if he wanted the clay to expand without breaking.
At first, nothing changed. Then, a slight pressure built up in his chest, like a muscle he hadn't used before that was starting to complain. The temptation to stop was immediate. But he remembered the notes he had written in the margin: "Pain is not always harm."
He tried again, this time alternating moments of tension and relaxation, allowing the mana to gather like rainwater before throwing it against the invisible walls of his well again. The warmth grew in his hands and in his fingertips, accompanied by a tingling that ran up his arms.
When he opened his eyes, more than two hours had passed. His whole body felt heavy and his stomach was growling. He didn't know if his well had expanded even a little, but he felt that something had changed: a persistent echo, as if the magic was closer to the surface than before, waiting to be called.
He smiled, tired but satisfied. Maybe Elgrin didn't give all the answers because, deep down, every mage had to write their own.
Returning to the palace every morning soon became a more pleasant routine than Dyan had expected, especially after he had found a way to strengthen his magic. However, the shadow of the battlefield was always there, suspended like a premonition that followed them in silence with every step.
"Are you sure you want to have tea with me every morning?" he asked as one of the maidservants filled his cup. "I imagine the nobles aren't very happy about it."
Silvania smoothed a lock of her coppery hair behind her ear with a serene gesture; every movement of hers seemed frozen in time.
"And what does it matter what they think? I'm the queen." She smiled with slight irony. "At least in these small things, I can indulge in doing what I please."
Dyan looked down.
"I suppose being queen isn't as easy as you make it seem."
"Why do you say that? Are you worried about your queen?"
"Of course I am." A blush covered his cheeks. Who was he to worry about her? Just an inexperienced boy, still an apprentice. "I've noticed that sometimes your gaze is sad, other times it's tired, and on occasion you seem to worry about things I don't know about. When you're like that, your words sound sharper... or you try to appear serene all the time. Of course I'm worried."
Silvania closed her eyes for an instant and let out a light laugh, tinged with weariness. How was it possible that a young man she barely knew worried about her more than all her advisers?
"You know...? Being queen is a hard... and very lonely task." She raised her teacup and took a long sip before continuing. The sun's rays passed through the window, igniting her hair like red-hot copper. "I won't say it's been bad, but I also have ambitions that will never be fulfilled, dreams that will never come true, desires that will remain incomplete. And when war calls at the door, I wonder even more what I'm doing." She placed the cup on her saucer. "Will you take care of your queen until the end?"
Dyan felt a pang in his chest. He replied immediately, instinctively, but also with conviction: "Until my last breath."
Silvania's smile, serene and warm, seemed to lift a weight from his shoulders. "I'm glad to hear it, though at the same time it pains me a little. Don't you resent me for having sent you to war?"
"Never." He looked down for just a moment. "I have suffered the consequences, I still suffer them, but I never felt resentment toward you, or toward my master, or even toward my destiny. If anything, only toward myself, for my weakness."
"Your words bring some peace to my heart. I would like to believe that everyone who goes to war thinks that way... the children who lost their parents, the husbands who mourn their beloveds, the mothers who will no longer see their children... But I know well that it's not so."
Dyan looked at his bandaged arm. He had seen many die, and he knew he would see many more. "You are not the one who brings war, Your Majesty. I prefer to think that they died defending those they loved, and not that they did so in vain. You are a good queen who protects her own, not someone who throws people to their deaths like dogs for a piece of land."
"In the end, a death is still a death, and nothing changes that." She took Dyan's hand with a gentle, almost imperceptible gesture. "But your words... they make me feel a little better. I thank you for it... more than you can imagine."
After breakfast, Dyan accompanied the queen on a walk through the palace gardens. An escort of maidens followed them at a short distance, attentive to their lady's every need. They stopped under the cherry trees. Their pink and white petals carpeted the path, while some floated in the air with the warm breeze. They walked side by side, without haste, as if time had slowed down just for them.
"Have you managed to improve your magic?" Silvania asked, as she occasionally inquired about Dyan's progress.
"I think I'm on the right track. These past few days I've noticed a tangible improvement, although it exhausts me a lot." He scratched his head, remembering the previous night's practice.
Silvania was silent for a few moments. She didn't want to tell him that the request for reinforcements had already arrived. Part of her wanted to give him more time, another part didn't want to send him back to the battlefield. With each passing day, that desire to keep him nested more deeply in her chest. Edictus had already insisted that she send him, arguing that those practices were pointless and contradicted the canons. But she... she wanted to believe. Why was she so lenient with him? She didn't know. And, at that moment, she didn't care either.
"I hope you achieve results soon..."
Dyan perceived the slight inflection in her voice. "Don't worry, Your Majesty. I promise I'll achieve visible results soon."
"Don't rush, Dyan. You must take care of yourself."
But despite the queen's words, that night his practices intensified. He knew too well what was happening on the front. Even in the tower, a bastion of study and magic separate from the outside world, when comrades were in combat, everything changed: it was the topic of free hours, the constant rumor in every hallway.
The library was in absolute silence, save for the distant creaking of old wood and the rustle of the pages that Dyan turned with nervous hands. Beside him, Elgrin's two manuals remained open: one with simple diagrams about breathing and mana flow, the other with more cryptic notes about how to expand the capacity of the inner well. The candles had already burned down more than half their length, casting restless shadows on the dust-covered walls.
Dyan closed his eyes and took a deep breath, following the rhythm recommended by Elgrin. "Focus on calm. Mana is a river that makes its way in silence. Don't rush its course," the sage had written. But calm didn't come. In his mind, images of Lena, of his comrades at Fort Frontier, perhaps fighting at that very moment against beasts or invaders, intervened. His chest tightened and his pulse quickened. "I don't have time," he muttered through his teeth. "I can't stay here playing at breathing when out there they are risking their lives!"
He forced the visualization. Instead of gently guiding the mana flow to the edge of his inner well, as the manual taught, he pushed it violently, forcing the current to crash against the invisible walls of his limit. He felt a shudder throughout his body, as if his veins were burning with liquid fire.
The pain first appeared as a pinprick in his temples, then as a sharp blow to his chest. His hands trembled and a bluish spark ran through his fingers, uncontrolled. The book shuddered under the discharge and the letters seemed to vibrate in the gloom.
Dyan gritted his teeth, sweating coldly.
"Haste is never a good adviser," Edictus's grave voice echoed in his memory, as if the old man were right behind him.
But the young man didn't give in. Another wave of energy exploded inside him, tearing apart the calm he had achieved. He felt the well expand, yes, but like fracturing glass.
Finally, unable to sustain the flow, the mana burst outward in a luminous jolt that extinguished the candles and left the room shrouded in smoke. Dyan fell to his knees, panting, with blurred vision and a stabbing pain running through his body.
In the darkness, with his heart pounding against his chest, he understood: he had opened a crack in his well, yes, but at the cost of hurting himself. Elgrin's path required patience, not desperation. He stayed there, with the manuals by his side, aware that a single night of impatience could cost him more than weeks of discipline.