Theron didn't sleep well that night.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the circle. The triangle. The way the fire had shot out like it had been aimed. He kept turning the numbers over in his head. 1.618 to 1. Over and over. Like a song stuck in his mind.
By the time dawn crept through his window, he had already made a decision.
He was going to try it himself.
The problem was simple. He had no idea how.
Watching someone do something and actually doing it were two completely different things. He knew that. He'd watched blacksmiths hammer steel for years before his apprenticeship, and the moment he picked up a hammer himself, everything fell apart. His swings were wrong. His timing was off. His hands didn't know what to do.
Magic would be the same. Watching Kyros wasn't enough. He needed to test things. Make mistakes. Figure out what worked and what didn't.
So that's what he planned to do.
He spent the afternoon preparing.
First, he needed a crystal. Every mage he'd ever seen used one. Kyros had his copper pendant. The nobles in training always held something — a stone, a ring, a rod. Theron had no idea why crystals mattered, but he wasn't stupid enough to skip them.
He went to the market and found a small stall selling cheap trinkets. The vendor had a handful of rough crystals in a wooden box — quartz, mostly. Cloudy, ugly things. Nothing like the polished gems the nobles wore.
But one of them caught his eye. A fire crystal. Small, the size of his thumbnail, reddish-orange and slightly warm to the touch. It cost two days' worth of bread money.
He bought it without hesitation.
The second thing he needed was space. Privacy. His room was small, but it had a door that locked and a shuttered window. That would have to do.
That night, after dark, Theron locked the door and shuttered the window. He lit his oil lamp and set it on the floor in the corner — far enough away to not interfere, close enough to see by.
Then he pulled out his charcoal and got to work.
He drew three circles on the wooden floor. Each one was the same size — about two hand-spans across. But the triangle inside each one was different.
Circle A had a triangle with the ratio he'd measured at the duel. 1.618 to 1. He spent ten minutes on this one, measuring with string tied to a nail in the center point. He wanted it precise.
Circle B had a different ratio. 1.5 to 1. He picked it because it was simple and different enough to notice a change.
Circle C had a ratio of 2 to 1. Again, simple. Again, clearly different from the first.
The idea was straightforward. If the ratio mattered, then only Circle A should produce a result. Circles B and C should fail. That would prove the ratio wasn't random.
He wrote this down in his notebook before starting.
Hypothesis: The circle ratio of 1.618 is required for fire magic. Different ratios will not work.
Test: Try all three circles with the same technique. See what happens.
Simple. Clean. Honest.
He started with Circle A.
Theron knelt in front of it, held the fire crystal in his right hand, and placed both hands on the circle's edge. He tried to match Kyros' hand position — somewhere around 144 degrees apart, though he had no protractor and was mostly guessing.
He took a deep breath. Held it for a second. Then spoke the words he'd memorized from the duel.
"Φλόξ, καῦσον, πῦρ ἀνάπτω."
He focused on the center of the circle. Imagined fire appearing there.
Nothing happened.
He waited five seconds. Nothing. Ten seconds. Still nothing. The crystal sat cold and dead in his hand.
He tried again. Same position. Same words. Same breath. He really concentrated this time, pushing all his focus into that single point above the circle.
Nothing.
A third time. He said the words louder. Gripped the crystal tighter. Squeezed his eyes shut and tried to will the fire into existence.
Nothing.
He moved to Circle B.
Same process. Same words. Same effort. He tried three times.
Nothing.
Circle C. Three more attempts.
Nothing.
Nine tries total. Not a single spark. Not a flicker. Not even a warm crystal.
Theron sat back on the floor and stared at his three circles.
Failure. Complete and total failure.
He could have given up right there. Most people would have. He'd spent money he couldn't afford on a crystal that did nothing. He'd spent an hour on an experiment that produced zero results.
But Theron didn't feel defeated. He felt confused. And confusion, for him, was just another word for "something to figure out."
He picked up his notebook and started writing.
Results: All three circles failed. No effect from any ratio.
Why?
He thought for a long time. Then he started listing possibilities.
1. The ratio doesn't matter. (But then why is it always the same when nobles cast?)
2. The ratio matters, but it's not enough. Something else is needed too.
3. My technique is wrong. Hand position? Words? Breathing? Focus?
4. The crystal is too weak. (Possible. Mine is cheap.)
5. Only nobles can actually do this. (Reject. No evidence for this. Just tradition.)
He looked at the list for a long time.
Option 2 made the most sense. He'd only tested one variable — the ratio. But when he watched Kyros cast, there were dozens of things happening at once. The hand position. The specific breathing. The words. The way he focused. The crystal he used.
Any one of those things could be the missing piece. Or all of them together.
He had tested the ratio in isolation. But magic might not work in isolation. It might need multiple things to be right at the same time.
New hypothesis: Magic requires multiple components working together. Ratio alone is not enough.
He underlined it twice.
Then he wrote his next steps.
Tomorrow: Watch the nobles train again. This time, pay attention to everything. Not just the circle. The hands. The breathing. The words. The crystal. Everything.
After that: Test one thing at a time. Isolate each variable. Find out which ones actually matter.
He closed the notebook and put it back under his mattress.
The crystal sat on the floor next to the circles, still cold, still doing nothing.
But Theron wasn't looking at it anymore. He was already thinking about tomorrow. About what he might see. About what questions the next observation might answer.
He blew out the lamp and lay in the dark.
Nine failures. Zero successes. And not a single shred of doubt that he would try again.
End of Chapter Two