Rivers of the Night

The Law of Stillness. It was the fifth Law of the chilling path.

To be calm in the face of the world, not everything needing a reaction, not every reaction needing to be an action itself. It was the pinnacle of chill in both the mind and the body.

But it was deeper than that. Or, rather, shallower. Theron had an immediate heart-to-heart connection with the emotional side of the Law, but what about the more physical side of it?

That he understood as well.

Heat made the molecules of Mana agitated, faster, more erratic… but chill did the opposite. It was the absence of that agitation, the absence of that unfettered, unorganized state.

When chilled, Mana slowed. No, not Mana itself, but the structures formed within it.

To control this sort of chill, he had to be able to *still* more Mana in relation to itself in a macro sense, while keeping the micro identically the same.

If it was ice, this would be incredibly easy, but it would also be rigid. Ice had lattice, crystalline structures that it could take on—while Water Mana was far more fluid.

To force Water Mana to also maintain this unique lattice structure, but also maintain the fluidity it was known for… that was a feat of Mana Control beyond the vast majority of Mancers.

Unless one could apply the Law of Stilling…

…

The Law of Expansion. It was the fifth Law of the heated path, and much like the Law of Stillness, it was something that Water Mana should normally only be capable of when changing its state.

When turning from water to steam, the loose bonds that held water together would break apart and billow into the atmosphere, releasing a great amount of pressure and energy in its expansion.

To control that expansion, and yet to maintain the structure of Water Mana itself… that was maybe even more difficult than applying the Law of Stillness.

In the back of his mind, Theron was faintly aware that maybe this was because he couldn't resonate with the heated path like he could the chilling. He didn't have a deeper layer to go to for Expansion other than the science of it all.

But he understood it enough to use it. Maybe he couldn't trap as much heat in his Water Mana as he could chill… and maybe it wouldn't be as explosive as flames or molten rock…

But it would be powerful nonetheless.

…

The Law of Repression. The sixth Law of the chilling path.

Exerting control over one's self—to chill one's emotions, rein them in. It wasn't just suppression, but a subduing down to the deepest depths of one's soul, until it was hardly there anymore, until it was dashed into nothingness.

In practice, it was against heat itself.

It was said in the scholarly textbooks that there was no such thing as cold, that cold was simply the absence of heat. Understanding this made things so much clearer for Theron.

This was why the chilling path Laws were all about control, about reining things in and maintaining structure, while all the heated paths seemed to be about doing something.

Stillness was to resist Expansion, while Expansion was to shatter Stillness.

Repression was to subdue Intensity… while Intensity was to burst Repression.

…

The Law of Intensity, the seventh Law of the heated path.

It was the Law Theron understood the least—until now—and it took him the most time to grasp. In fact, it took up the entirety of his second session.

What did it mean to be intense? What was the value of it?

To not just Expand, but to do so violently, viciously, almost. To be heated was the opposite of being controlled… it was erratic, wild, the sort of thing that was antithetical to what a Water Mancer should be in the first place.

It was no wonder Theron struggled so much with it, and it was surprisingly the first time he had ever struggled in trying to understand a Law in the first place.

However, when he began to understand that instead of comprehending Intensity on its own, he should begin to do so in relation to the other Laws, it slotted into his comprehension seamlessly.

The Law of Pressure, the Law of Release, the Law of Friction…

It wasn't just to do these things, but to do them *intensely*.

It wasn't just about Pressure, but an agitated Pressure. It wasn't just about Releasing, but to do so with strength and an almost wild violence. It wasn't just about Friction, but butting heads, clashing Mana, and releasing them explosively.

The Law of Intensity was almost more fundamental than the other Laws of the heated path—almost to the point that he should have certainly started with it.

And yet, if he had started with it, he might have never understood the heated path at all…

It was the Law of Intensity that gave Theron's heat path something Water Mana was missing—what separated it from Mancy Paths that were so much better at attacking, killing, and maiming than all the others.

It was this Law that would give his heated path strength.

What Theron didn't expect was that there would be a Law of the chilling path that he had trouble with as well…

The Law of Control and the Law of Inhibition both came easily—too easily. Once again, it felt like fitting a glove to his hand.

But the **Law of Balance**…?

Theron didn't understand it. What Balance? What was he balancing? What was he missing?

Theron actually felt that he could grasp it after his third entry based on the linguistics of it alone, but he didn't just want the language… or the science—though he didn't quite understand that either.

He wanted the emotion, just like he had managed to grasp for all his other Laws.

He used up the entirety of his fourth entry on it, having used the third to grasp all the rest but it alone…

And when he entered for the fifth and final time, he still hadn't quite grasped it—the edge of his mind pulling on something faint, but just out of his reach.