Year 1462 – Shersian Orphanage Yard
"Why are you glaring at a rock?" Rin asked.
Alaric didn't look away from the fist‑sized stone in front of him. "I'm not glaring. I'm… experimenting."
"You've been experimenting for ten minutes," she said. "If you stare at it any harder, it'll sprout legs and run away."
"That would be useful," he muttered.
They were in the back corner of the orphanage yard, half‑hidden by a patch of scrub and an old shed. Kellan was off helping Corwin haul firewood. Mira had vanished with a book somewhere quieter.
Alaric crouched and placed his palm lightly on the stone.
He'd been thinking about Confirma.
When he wrapped his aura around his own body, it made his muscles harder, faster. Corwin had said many knights also used Null strengthening on their weapons, simple things like, "Confirma ferrum meum, strengthen my blade."
But the Primer barely explained it, and most adults did it almost by habit, not understanding the structure.
Alaric wanted to see how far he could push the idea.
If aura can cling to my skin… can it cling to other things?
He closed his eyes.
"Confirma," he whispered.
The familiar tingle spread from his chest, but he guided it down his arm and out through his palm instead of along his muscles. He pictured it as a thin, invisible coat wrapping the rock.
It resisted. Aura wanted to stay close to his own body, like it knew who it belonged to. He forced it outward anyway, imagining he was stretching a tight cloth over the stone.
His hand began to tremble.
"Are you constipated?" Rin asked, genuinely concerned.
"Working," he grunted.
Bit by bit, the sensation changed. Instead of feeling aura hugging his palm, he felt it cling to something solid and rough, matching the rock's uneven surface.
It was strange. Wrong, almost. Like growing a new limb.
He opened his eyes.
The stone looked completely normal.
"Okay," he said, voice thin. "Hit it."
Rin brightened. "Finally, something fun." She grabbed another stone from the ground and hefted it. "If Corwin yells at us for breaking things, I'm blaming you."
"That's fair," Alaric said.
She swung.
The impact rang sharper than he expected. Tiny chips flaked off Rin's stone. The one under his hand… didn't even crack.
His focus wavered; he clenched his jaw and forced the aura to stay wrapped around it.
"Again," he said.
Rin obliged, enthusiasm rising. By the fifth strike, the stone in her hand had a web of fine fractures running through it. The "protected" rock only bore a few white scrape marks.
Alaric finally let go. The aura shell frayed and snapped back into him, leaving him suddenly light‑headed.
He sat back hard. "Okay. That's… that's enough."
Rin stared at the intact stone, then at her cracked one. "You're cheating at rocks now. That should be illegal."
Alaric flexed his fingers. They tingled strangely, as if half‑asleep. "It's the same energy I use on my body. I just… pushed it off me instead of on me."
"And it hugged the rock instead?" Rin poked it cautiously. "Feels like a normal rock."
"It is a normal rock now," he said. "The aura's gone. But while it was there…"
He let the unfinished sentence hang.
While it was there, it had made the rock harder than it should have been.
Not quite what he glimpsed in his mind, the idea of mana so compressed it could shake molecules apart or lock them in place but it was a start. A hint that what wrapped his body could be used to wrap other things too.
Dangerous. Draining. Messy.
"You're going to end up putting that stuff on your sword, aren't you?" Rin said.
"Probably," he admitted.
"And your armor."
"Probably."
"And your fists, and rocks, and maybe Lia's head if she doesn't listen."
Alaric choked on a laugh. "I'm pretty sure Null aura on someone else is… not how blessings are supposed to work."
"Too late," Rin said smugly. "You're already a heretic in Corwin's eyes."
"Only a little," he said. "He still feeds me."
Rin tossed the cracked stone aside and dropped down next to him. "Just don't break yourself trying to turn everything into super‑rock, okay?"
"I'll try," Alaric said.
He rubbed his palm, feeling the last numb prickle fade.