Ashen Ascension: The Divided Flame-Chapter 63: Nara’s Plan

Brook returned nearly fifteen minutes later, moving with an urgent pace. The moment he stepped into the courtyard, he found Nara no longer seated but walking in short lines beneath the tree, lost in thought. Brook crossed the distance between them without hesitation and caught him by the shoulders.

"It’s him," he said, his voice low but charged. "There’s no doubt. He’s Lord Maelor’s grandson. And more than that, he awakened a high-grade core."

Nara did not pull away, but his expression hardened. "You’re certain?"

"As certain as I can be without seeing the core myself. The description matches. The timing matches. The disappearance matches." Brook’s grip tightened slightly. "You need to keep him close. Do you understand?"

"Brook," Nara replied carefully, "he isn’t someone you simply keep."

"You’re not hearing me." Brook stepped back, forcing himself to slow down. "You and that boy are standing on the same fault line. He’s Shrouded-born. If he truly carries Maelor’s blood, then he’s a bridge, one that could pull both of you out of this corner."

Nara’s thoughts drifted back to the boy in the clearing. There had been nothing noble about him at first glance. No pride, no entitlement. Only restraint. Hunger wrapped in discipline. The way he had stood instead of sitting. The way he had listened without offering anything back.

"They’re still searching?" Nara asked quietly.

"They are," Brook agreed, and now his tone grew colder. "If Lord Cilian sent awakened kids inside and they reached him first, they wouldn’t escort him anywhere. They’ll end it quietly and justify it later."

Brook released Nara’s shoulders but remained close, his mind clearly moving ahead of the present moment.

"Tell me everything," he said. "Not your conclusions. But real facts. How he speaks. How he moves. What he asked for. What he refused."

Nara hesitated only briefly before answering. He described the fight, the way the boy had observed before acting, the precision of his movements. He spoke of the deal, knowledge in exchange for crystals. No bargaining, no flattery. Just terms. He mentioned the wound on the boy’s back and how he had never once complained about it.

Brook listened without interruption. The more he heard, the more focused his expression became.

When Nara finished, Brook drew in a slow breath. "I’ll bring proper skills myself. Not fragments passed down by memory. I will bring them from the core district itself. He should not feel that we cheated on him if he later goes to the core district. And I’ll use my own funds to extend Lily’s guardianship while you build this arrangement."

Nara frowned. "You’re going to spend your own money on this?"

"I will," Brook said simply. "If he is who we believe he is, the cost is nothing compared to the return."

"We don’t even know if Maelor will claim him the moment he’s found," Nara pointed out. "He could be taken away from the Scar before anything stabilizes."

Brook’s eyes sharpened. "Then we act before that happens. We assume he stays independent until proven otherwise. If we hesitate, someone else will step in first."

Nara remained unconvinced. The boy had not seemed like someone who could be guided easily. There had been no eagerness in him.

Sensing the resistance, Brook lowered his voice.

"We’re not going to try to control him," he said. "We offer a partnership and incentives. And you don’t reveal more about yourself than necessary. Let him see value first."

He paused, considering something else. "Someone helped him enter the Scar early. That kind of access doesn’t happen by accident. I’ll find out who arranged it. They already have a head start. If you can, see what he knows, without pushing."

Nara nodded slowly. The path ahead was uncertain, but it was clearer than it had been an hour ago.

They remained in the courtyard a while longer, speaking in low tones, working through possibilities and risks until the night deepened around them.

******

In the Scar, Ivor stood face to face with the skeleton, his soul sense spread outward and his mind ready to test his slightly enhanced mana control, strengthened by his soul awakening, against the creature.

Ivor did not rush in.

He shifted his dagger into his left hand and let mana flow toward his right arm. This time, he limited the coating strictly to his knuckles and the front of his fist. The layer formed thin at first, barely visible, clinging close to the skin.

The skeleton reacted the moment he stepped within range. It moved with sudden, jerking speed, the bone sword cutting diagonally toward his shoulder. Soul Sense warned him before the blade completed its arc. He pivoted to the side, letting the strike pass through empty air, and stepped inward.

He drove his right fist toward the skeleton’s ribs, keeping his physical strength restrained. Even without mana, his body had grown stronger after awakening, but he did not want brute force to mask flaws in his control. He wanted the coating to carry the impact, not his muscles.

As his knuckles neared the target, the mana layer wavered. It thickened unevenly across two fingers while thinning along the outer edge of his fist. The punch connected, but the unstable coating dispersed at the moment of contact. The strike felt dull, more like a heavy shove than a focused blow. The skeleton shifted back only slightly.

He stepped away as the bone sword cut across in a wide horizontal arc. Soul Sense alerted him before the blade reached full speed. He leaned back and pivoted, allowing the attack to pass in front of him, then reset his footing.

The flaw was clear. The acceleration of his arm disrupted the coating. When he tried to keep it thick throughout the motion, the mana resisted and bunched. When he kept it thin, it failed to hold shape at impact.

The skeleton thrust forward with its blade. Ivor angled his body aside and tried again.

This time he adjusted the density before moving. He formed a slightly thicker layer over the center of his knuckles and thinned it deliberately along the edges, attempting to pre-shape the impact zone. He controlled his physical strength again, striking with measured force rather than full power.

The punch landed more cleanly. A faint crack appeared along one rib, but the coating still flickered at the instant of collision. He felt the instability ripple back into his forearm.

He withdrew once more, circling.

On the next exchange, he refined it further. Instead of coating the entire front of his fist, he compressed the mana tightly over three knuckles only, narrowing the surface area. He maintained slower arm speed during the initial half of the motion and accelerated only at the final moment.

The strike hit with a sharper sound this time. The rib cage fractured more visibly, though the skeleton remained standing. The coating held longer, but he could feel the strain of constant correction draining his focus.

Ivor jumped back, creating some distance between them.

The biggest improvement he could feel was the speed at which he could move mana out of his core. Next was the control itself, it had improved significantly as well. And finally, there was the feeling that he could now focus more precisely on two things at once.