Bruce decided it was time.
He had awakened his soul talent perhaps an hour ago. He had read the imprint, felt the power bloom, named the thing privately. But he had not yet used it. He had not yet held it in his hands and made it do something.
There would be no better moment than this one.
"Let's go," he said.
He and Kael rushed forward together.
As he ran, Bruce reached inward, and here his old life served him. He had spent decades in the physical realm learning to manipulate mana, to draw it, shape it, condense it, push it out through his body in the exact form he wanted. Soul energy was not mana. It moved differently, felt different, answered to different rules.
But the motion of controlling it, the inner gesture of taking a formless power and giving it a shape, that was the same. His instincts knew this work even if the material was new.
He drew the soul energy up out of his core and pushed it out through his hand.
It came out as something he had not expected.
