The quiet of Samantha's apartment was a cocoon, but within it, Mordecai was metamorphosing into something harder, sharper. The trauma of his past was a cold ember in his chest, and he would not let it be extinguished by the mundane comforts of this new world. It was his fuel. His purpose. The long quiet was not for healing; it was for preparation.
On Earth, magic did not flow like a river. It was a trickle, a subtle current beneath a world of concrete, steel, and deafening noise. To tap into it here was not an act of graceful persuasion, as his mother had taught him; it was an act of desperate, clandestine theft. The humming energy of Aethelas was replaced by the grimy, complex symphony of the city—the growl of combustion engines, the thrum of power lines, and the metallic echo of subway trains deep underground. He had to learn a new language of power.
His classroom became the network of dank alleys behind his building, where the overflowing dumpsters and scurrying rats were the only witnesses. Here, beneath the sickly yellow glow of security lights, he honed his skills. At first, his spells were loud, clumsy things—bursts of force that scattered garbage and sparked off brickwork, leaving behind the smell of ozone and his own frustration. He was trying to play a symphony with a hammer.
Kaiphus was his constant, silent tutor. When a spell misfired, sending a painful jolt back through his arm, the cloak would tighten around his shoulders, a steadying pressure. When his concentration wavered, a corner of it would brush against his cheek, a tactile reminder to focus. It had acquired the ability to sense the gathering energy of a spell before he cast it, rippling with anticipation.
He learnt subtlety. He learnt to draw power not from some pure, external well, but from the dissonant energy around him. He taught himself to weave wards by tasting the static-charged air of the subway and by listening to the rhythmic, percussive chaos of construction sites. His protections became not shimmering shields of light but distortions in the air, misdirections that encouraged the eye to slide away, and suggestions of "nothing to see here" whispered into the fabric of reality.
But magic alone was a limb without a body. He had seen how Ra'Zul's soldiers moved—a fusion of brutal physicality and devastating sorcery. His mother's precise, almost academic art was not enough. He needed to be a weapon in totality.
He found a boxing gym a thirty-minute bus ride from their apartment. It was a place of sweat, liniment, and raw, honest effort. He used the little money Samantha gave him for books to pay for lessons. He was small for his age and lean, and the other boys, with their swaggering confidence, initially saw him as an easy target.
They learnt quickly. The boy who called himself "Mordi" was unnaturally patient, unnervingly focused. He took punches—bruises blossomed on his ribs and face like dark punctuation marks marking his failures. But he learnt. His body, trained in the precise geometries of spellcraft, adapted swiftly to the geometries of combat. Footwork, balance, kinetic transfer—they were all forms of applied physics, a language he understood.
He learnt the language of impact. The jarring thud of a glove meeting a heavy bag. The sharp, breath-stealing shock of a punch to the solar plexus. The satisfying crack of a well-executed jab on a mitt. His hands, which had only ever known the delicate motions of guiding steam and drawing runes, were now taped and calloused.
And always, Kaiphus adapted with him. In the gym, it would shift and compress, braiding itself into a tight headband to soak up sweat and steady his posture, or wrapping around his wrists under the gloves for added support. It was in these moments of purely physical exertion that a new synthesis began to dawn on him.
The precise pivot of a boxer's step could be the exact same motion needed to channel a force-reversal spell. The explosive torque of a cross could be the catalyst to unleash a concussive blast of energy from his palm. He began to experiment in the alleyways after gym sessions, his movements becoming a deadly dance. A feint with his left hand was followed not by a right hook, but by a whip-crack of telekinetic force aimed at his opponent's feet. A duck under an imaginary punch became the launching point for a low, sweeping kick augmented by a gust of wind that could topple a man.
He failed. Often. Spells fizzled mid-motion, leaving him off-balance and vulnerable. Kinetic energy meant for a target would backfire, wrenching his own shoulder. Once, attempting to blend a blocking manoeuvre with a defensive ward, he misjudged the flow entirely. A thrown knife (launched by a practice dummy he'd rigged) was meant to be deflected by a hardened plane of air. Instead, the ward formed a fraction too late and in the wrong shape. The blade scraped along his forearm, drawing a line of crimson.
Before he could even gasp, Kaiphus moved. A section of the cloak—usually so fluid—snapped out with the rigidity of a blacksmith's apron, not to block the knife, but to catch it, wrapping around the blade and hilt with a soft thud. The cloak then shuddered, a full-body flinch, and flung the weapon away, clattering against the opposite wall. It then immediately curled back around his bleeding arm, applying a gentle, constant pressure.
Mordecai slumped against the brick wall, breathing heavily, clutching his arm. The failure was bitter, but the protectiveness of the cloak was a balm. He looked at Kaiphus, which had relaxed back into its usual form, though a faint tremor still ran through it.
"I know," he whispered, his voice rough from disuse and exertion. "I have to be better."
He kept at it because the alternative was unthinkable. Softness meant death. Incompetence meant loss. Every bruise, every cut, every failed spell was a lesson paid for in pain, and he was a diligent student. He had to be harder than the world that had broken his own. He had to become a paradox: a sorcerer who could break bones, a fighter who could bend reality. He was building himself into a living weapon, not for conquest, but for a reckoning he knew, in the cold ember of his heart, was still to come.