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In The Emperor's Blades, magic-users called leaches are able to draw from a 'well' to perform magic. Most of the time, this is called 'kenning', as in:

A leach's kenning is a dangerous thing.

Sometimes however, magic is referred to as a 'delving', as in:

A week later, I had my first delving.

I have only read the first book, and I cannot ascertain the difference between the two. Is there one, and if so, what is it?

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    As far as I can tell from a glance at the three novels, delving simply means going into your well (typically when young and inexperienced) whereas "kenning" or "dipping" involves drawing power out of the well and using it to affect a change.
    – Valorum
    Commented Aug 5, 2017 at 19:15
  • Notably, the term delving is only used twice in all three books; Once to describe the character's first occurence of magic, the second time when Valyn asks "“Kaden,” Valyn gestured, “you’re with me on the bird. It’s the safest place for now, especially if Yurl doubles back. Talal, can you delve yet?”". Those are literally the only occurrences.
    – Valorum
    Commented Aug 5, 2017 at 19:17

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Kenning is derived from Ken: a noun meaning range of knowledge. Thus, the use of Kenning in the book suggests, use of the knowledge. Further, the suggestion is that the mage has a mystic type knowledge that gives him/her a special ability.

It makes sense then, that the related term, delving (a verb, meaning to reach into) is rarely used in the book (as noted in the comments) because mages took great pains to keep their ability a secret. This also limited the author's ability to use the term since few people in the UhT-verse had ever seen or detected an actual delving.

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