‘How?’ ‘The same way you see the glow. Allow that to continue. Let instinct guide you from there.’ He could sense when the child had let her connection to the Fount drop. Byarsham closed his eyes and took a deep breath to quell his growing impatience. ‘Try again.’ ‘I can’t,’ the child apprentice said. ‘Yes, you can.’ Byarsham felt a ripple in the Fount, like the invisible vibration in the air caused by a loud noise, as she re-connected to the Fount. Of the children that remained at the nursery, she was the only one who could not yet manipulate the Fount in some way. The best of them could already coalesce a ball of the energy in enough strength for even a layperson to be able to see it. That was impressive, and Byarsham had very high hopes for that one. With this one, however, he was beginning to lose patience. Training a mage was as much guidance as it was instruction. The apprentices—he no longer thought of them as children—had all been exposed to the Fount for a number of weeks; long enough for it to permeate them and begin those changes within their bodies that were still not understood, even by the Twelve.
