The Onyx Vial (Shadows of The Nine Book 1) by Alexis Lampley Page B

he’d never heard about this. "What happened?"
    Bardoc grinned, in his strange way. “To understand the Great Unraveling, you must have a sound understanding of the categories of etâme. Can you name the elements?”
    “Earth, water, air, fire”
    “And the corresponding races?”
    “Eerden... Mervais... Aeriel... and Fyydor.”
    Bardoc nodded. Hunter felt a surge of pride. At least I know something about this place .
    “And?”
    The pride vanished. “And what?”
    Bardoc leaned back. “There are more than four races, Hunter.”
    This time it was he who said nothing, awaiting elaboration.
    “Are you familiar with the term Tieren ?”
    The word triggered a memory. “Ariana mentioned it. Something about rarer twins.”
    “Ah. Yes. I know the saying.”
    “What is Tieren?”
    “Tieren is the root name for persons of double race—who have full control over two elements. Ariana is a Tieren mar . A person with both Aeriel and Mervais races.”
    Interesting. He wondered if being Tieren—having dual natures—made Ariana more moody. He thought this must be the case. “So she’s, what? Half one and half the other?”
    Bardoc shook his head. “Oh, no. No, a Tieren is both races. Fully.”
    How could anyone be two complete, separate races? You were either fifty percent from both sides, or some wild grouping of small percents that added up to one hundred. You couldn't be one hundred percent of both if you could only be one hundred percent.
    “I think I may have confused you.” Bardoc stood and strode to the wall of shelves behind him. He ran a finger along the bottles as if they were library books, and snatched two clear, bubble-shaped bottles, one holding something blue, the other something white. “We’ll use Ariana as an example,” he said, returning to his chair.
    He leaned forward, balancing the blue one on his open palm. Up close, Hunter could see that the bottle was filled with beads the size of small grapes. “The bottle represents Ariana’s body. The beads, her etâme— but just that which is connected to water.”
    “Okay.”
    “Is this bottle full?”
    Hunter nodded.
    “And this one?” He pulled out the second bottle, brimming with tiny, milky-white spheres.
    “Yes.”
    “As they are, these bottles represent a normal Mervais and a normal Aeriel. Both, as you have seen, are filled with their particular etâme. Hold out your hands.”
    Hunter did so.
    Bardoc set the white bottle in Hunter’s open palms. “Now, what would have to happen for all of these beads, from both containers, to fit in Ariana’s tiny little body?” He shook the first bottle. The beads were stuffed in so tightly, they didn’t even rattle against the glass.
    “You’d need a bigger bottle,” Hunter answered.
    “Ah. But I’ve already told you. This bottle is Ariana’s body.” He uncorked the first bottle, gestured for Hunter to do the same.
    Hunter pulled the stopper out, then handed the bottle over.
    Bardoc took it and held the opening of it over the other one and slowly poured the beads in. “Were you to melt down the beads inside these bottles, their mass would be equal. One does not outweigh the other.”
    The white beads, at least four times smaller than the blue, rained through the gaps and slipped to the bottom, filling every crevice. Suddenly it all made sense.
    “I get it,” he exclaimed. "They're different, so they both fit."
    “Exactly,” Bardoc said. “And just think,” he set the bottles on the floor beside chair. “The Elders had two more sets of beads inside their bottles.”
    Hunter sat back. “So then, what happened? Was it the unraveling?”   
    “The Great Unraveling,” Bardoc corrected, getting comfortable in his seat once more. “During the Surgance period, more than four hundred years ago, the world systems started to crumble. People were lost between the pages of portal books for days—sometimes whole seasons. Sometimes permanently.”
    Lost in the books? In that awful tearing,