“Oh no, of course not! Come, gather round,” Tomias said, sweeping his arm out before him, gesturing to the empty space at the foot of the stairs.
Kirheen looked to Garild. He shrugged. “What are you two arguing about?” Garild asked.
“Let’s just say we have differing opinions when it comes to your training. I, the logical one, think we need to start with the basics and set a strong foundation. Fenir, however, thinks we should just dive right into things, a strategy that worked so well for Herzin.”
Kirheen winced. “Do we have any say in the matter?”
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to involve you both in this. It is your training after all. Well, what do you think?”
Garild shrugged. “I think we’d be fine either way, but it might be good to start with the basics. It’ll slow us down, but we haven’t had any formal training at this point. Taking it slow might not be such a bad thing.”
Kirheen nodded along with his words. “Just what I was thinking. We’re already behind, so we may as well do this right.”
Tomias smiled, obviously pleased with himself. “I’m sorry, dear brother. It appears you’ve been outnumbered this time.” Fenir huffed in response, shifting his attention elsewhere. “Your training with Herzin didn’t last long,” Tomias continued. “Learn anything useful from her?”
“Just the basics, I guess. We spoke very briefly of what it all meant; our powers, the Allseer, the Darkness. It was something but I-”
“- Still have many questions. I’ll do my best to answer as much as I can, just don’t bombard me with your curiosity. We’ll get to it all eventually, I promise.”
“I suppose I can handle that,” she replied, but she knew keeping her curiosity in check was already challenging enough.
“At the very least, you have a basic understanding of what it is to have these abilities. Your bond is powerful, but what will be required of you once you’ve mastered your powers will be the most important thing to come of your union. You’ll be using your powers to save the world, to reclaim what the Darkness took.”
Garild looked skeptical. “If it’s just about strengthening our powers, why match us up?”
“A valid question,” Tomias said, eyes flicking to Garild. “Up until now, you’ve barely used your powers. Without training, it’s hard to focus that energy and use it for anything useful. However, each of you possesses some talent that has shined through over the years. The Council didn’t just match you based on your personalities, they also matched you based on your innate abilities, the strength of your gift. You are meant to work in tangent. Your strengths are their weaknesses, both in personality and in power.”
“So, what are our strengths?” Kirheen asked. “We’ve done so little with our powers, how can you even tell?”
“You use your powers a lot more than you think,” Tomias explained, a coy smile following his words. “You know how many times you’ve successfully blocked me out of your mind over the past week?”
Kirheen’s heart lurched to a stop. “You’ve been trying to get inside my head?” she asked, voice trembling. She felt betrayed by the intrusion, an intrusion she hadn’t even realized had been happening. She hadn’t expected Tomias to stoop to such a tactic.
His smile slipped and he regarded her wearily. “Woah, not in the way you’re thinking,” he explained, raising both hands as if it might block her anger. “I was scoping out your powers. If I have to teach you, then I need to know what I’m dealing with.”
“You should have at least told me,” she said and scowled at her instructor. “I can’t believe you’d do that!”
“Calm down,” he warned, lowering his hands to his side. “Look, if you’d known, it would have defeated the purpose. I wasn’t trying to dig through your mind and steal your thoughts. I just needed to see how you’d naturally react. If I’d told you ahead of time, you would have expected it and your reaction would have differed.” He smiled. “You, Kirheen, have the innate power of blocking. Your natural barriers are strong, and they were working to keep me out even when you weren’t aware of it.”
Despite his explanation, she was still unsettled. “Sounds useful. Means I can keep my thoughts to myself without any unwanted intrusions,” she snapped, glaring at Tomias as she said it.
To her surprise, he laughed. “With proper training, yes, but right now if Fenir wanted to break into your mind, you’d have a hard time stopping him. His strength lies in breaking barriers. Don’t overestimate your own abilities. Against someone skilled, you’d crumble.”
Before she could bite back, Garild spoke. “What happened with Herzin?” he asked. “She’s skilled, so how was Kirheen able to take her down?”
“She is skilled, make no mistake, but she underestimated Kirheen. Her reaction to Herzin’s forceful invasion of her mind was a particularly violent one, in part because her natural barriers are already strong. Herzin wasn’t prepared for that and it cost her.”
Garild nodded. “So, if her strength is blocking, what is mine? Attacking?”
“That would be the logical conclusion, but your power is far more subtle,” Tomias explained. “You don’t have the brute strength of Fenir. You don’t just hammer down their walls and let yourself in. You have the power of influence. You sneak into a person’s mind and change their thoughts and emotions without them even realizing you’re there.”
Garild looked concerned. “I’ve been doing this all along?”
“At times. You feel emotions more than others. Your power latches on to those emotions and you tweak them, ever so slightly. Most people wouldn’t even realize it was happening unless they were looking for it. You did it when you walked in here. You saw our tension and latched onto it, tried to change it.”
“How could you tell?”
“Because it’s my strength as well,” he replied, teeth flashing.
Kirheen eyed him suspiciously. Not only had he been attempting to get inside her mind, but he had the ability to manipulate her emotions, as did her bond mate. How was she supposed to trust her own feelings around people with abilities like that? “How do we strengthen our powers?” she asked, knowing that the only way she’d ever feel safe was to make her barriers as strong as they could be.
Tomias leaned forward, his chin propped up on laced fingers. “Practice, Kir. Practice.”
Kirheen stared at the cards she held. There were five in total, all painted with a different symbol. Tomias sat to her right holding his own set of cards, though his were numbered. Garild and Fenir sat across from them, cards hidden from view.
“The rules are simple,” Tomias said, holding out his hand towards Kirheen. She handed him her cards and he shuffled them together. “You are going to take turns figuring out which card your bond mate is holding. This isn’t a guessing game. I want you to know what the other person is holding. Use your powers to your advantage.”
He took the top card and flipped it over for Kirheen to see. It was a symbol; two blue vertical lines with a circle between them.
“Start out gently,” he stressed. “Concentrate on your opponent, study their mind, focus on the information you’re trying to get. Once your locked on, you’re going to feel pressure here,” he tapped between his eyes, “but don’t let it alarm you. That is the natural resistance of their mind pushing back against you.”
Kirheen swallowed hard, remembering the overwhelming pressure she’d felt when Herzin had entered her mind. Her mouth went dry, her palms becoming slick with sweat. She wiped her hands on her robe, grabbed a fistful of the fabric, and clenched as tightly as she could to still the trembling of her hands.
“Kir, don’t fret,” Tomias reassured her. He reached out to steady her hands, fingertips pressing softly against her skin. “It isn’t going to be like that.”
“How do you know?” she managed to squeak.
“We use these powers every day. You’ve been using them.” His fingers tightened ever so slightly. “Don’t let that experience control you. This will str
ain you, I won’t lie, but it won’t hurt you, not like that. Please trust me.”
She studied his face, searching the depths of his brown eyes for a lie hidden within, but she found nothing. If he was lying, she couldn’t sense it, and she needed so desperately to have someone she could trust, someone who could help her grow her powers. “I’ll try.”
Feeling as much under the scrutiny of his gaze as he was under hers, she quickly looked away, pulling her hand away from his. He gave her a brief nod before drawing back, his focus returning to the cards he’d shuffled. “Let’s get started. Pick a card, study it, plant it firmly in your mind. Once you’re done, put the card back in the deck and we’ll begin.”
Kirheen looked to the card Tomias had pulled from the top. She soaked in the details and buried them inside her mind where she hoped he wouldn’t find it.
“It helps to think of their mind as a wall. You’ll feel the resistance of it, how it pushes back. Just remember, every wall has a weakness,” Tomias explained. “Find that weakness and you’ll find your way in. You may begin.”
Garild glanced quickly in her direction, uncertainty clouding his dark eyes. He was fidgeting, eyes scanning the room, looking as nervous as she felt. Distracted. Taking a deep breath, she tried to reach out with her powers, feeling for the resistance she’d felt before. There was a slight vibration, a gentle tingle between her eyes, but it wavered, connection faltering as she tried to push further. That didn’t work.
It was clear Garild was unsure what to do, his focus wavering between her and Tomias. She sat quietly, studying him, her expression revealing nothing. Adding more power, she pushed again. The vibration returned, but this time it was stronger. The pressure was building, the thread connecting their minds pulling tighter and tighter. There was a sensation of being pulled, of falling, and then she was there, standing against the wall guarding his mind.
It was an odd feeling, like floating outside of yourself, and the sensation made her dizzy. She closed her eyes, blocking out anything that might distract her from getting what she needed. The wall was there, she could feel it, but she needed to see it. As she thought of it, thousands of glimmering blue threads appeared, binding tightly together until they formed a glowing barrier. It seemed to stretch on forever in either direction, an endless wall guarding a tangled web of information. There were no weak points that she could see, nothing that would make getting into his mind any easier.
Reaching out, she touched one of the threads that formed the barrier. It glowed brightly, sending a ripple of light dancing along the wall and out of sight. It returned a moment later, that same thread glowing where she’d touched it. She went to reach out again when the wall in front of her lit up, blinding her with dazzling blue light. Stumbling back, the vibration inside her head wavered, and with a snap she was back inside her own mind. She gasped and opened her eyes, looking around to reorient herself to reality.
“Are you all right?” Tomias asked.
She took several unsteady breathes. “I’m fine. That…is a very odd sensation.”
Tomias smiled knowingly.
Garild narrowed his eyes. “You were just in my mind, weren’t you?”
“She was,” Tomias confirmed. “Did you try blocking her out?”
He shook his head. “No. I couldn’t pinpoint where she was. It was all just noise and light.”
“You’ll need to focus harder. Envision your walls and find the intrusion. You’ll need to push her out, gently of course, or she’s going to break through. And Kirheen, his natural defenses were enough to push you out. Push back harder. Go ahead and try again.”
It was Garild that pushed first. She could barely feel him, a slight tingle, like a fingertip brushing across her skin. Closing her eyes, she envisioned her inner wall, and found him instantly. He stood before the threads that formed her barrier, hands hovering over them uncertainly. Reaching out, he touched the wall just as she’d done in his mind. It shimmered, bursts of light radiating out in all directions. There was an increase of pressure and a thread darkened, its glow fading. The darkness that had infected that thread spread to others around it, the glow of her barrier dying. A loud snap filled the air, and one of the darkened tendrils frayed. It held for a moment before it gave way, leaving behind the smallest of gaps in the walls. Others followed in quick succession, a loud series of pops sending Kirheen into a panic.
Think, think, think. You’re a natural blocker, so block him! She steadied herself, homing in on the gap quickly forming in her wall. Focusing on the healthy threads, she tugged them closer together, trying to seal the gap that had formed, but they wouldn’t budge. As the gap widened, her heart skipped a beat, fear flooding her veins. Her thoughts, her feelings, they were all she had, and only a wall stood between them and Garild, a wall that was disintegrating before her eyes.
She abandoned trying to fix the gap, turning her attention to the wall that remained. With an intense burst of energy, she pushed against it, forcing it towards Garild. It reacted, glowing brighter, the remaining threads coiling together into a strengthened barrier. The glow grew in intensity, so bright that Garild recoiled, covering his eyes with his hands. Though stunned, the hole in her mental barrier continued to grow. She needed to get him out of her mind, to remove him before he could cause more damage. Straining to keep a steady hold on her powers, she focused on moving the threads of her wall, forcing individual strands to snake forward, wrapping around Garild while he was still off guard. As gently as she could, she flung him backwards. There was a brief tug as he tried to hang on, but the thread between them snapped, leaving her alone in her mind.
With him gone, she turned her attention to her mental barrier, ignoring the gasp from Garild as he settled into his own mind. With him gone, the corruption spreading through her barrier ceased its advance. There was a sizeable hole where the wall had been eaten away, a hole that she needed to repair before his next attack, or she’d risk him breaking through. She drew on her power, focusing on the edges of the breach, drawing energy from the surrounding barrier and pulling it towards the center. The rim of the gap began to glow faintly, renewed by the power she fed it. Slowly, so slowly, new threads began to appear, weaving back and forth across the gap left by Garild’s attack.
The process slowed, but the drain on her power increased. She felt tired, her vitality seeming to drain with each new thread that formed. It was becoming harder to focus, the sporadic bursts of her power causing several threads to break before they could fully form. As she drew closer to the center of the breach, the entire wall flickered, the blue glow becoming unstable.
A glimmer outside of her barrier caught her attention, and she watched Tomias materialize inside her mind. He studied her progress, brows knit as he looked over what she’d managed to fix. “You’ve done well, Kir, but you’re at your limit. Much more of this and you risk losing your barrier entirely,” he explained, expression grim. “If that happens, anyone could step into your mind with ease. Give it a rest.”
“No,” Kirheen said, unable to tear her attention away from the hole in her defenses. “If I don’t fix it, the next time he attacks, I won’t be able to stop him.”
“If your entire wall crumbles, will it matter? Leave it be and let your mind rest. We’ll resume training once it’s sealed back up, but it needs to rebuild on its own. Rushing it will only hurt you.”
She hesitated, filled with unease as she studied the break in her defenses. It was a weakness, an uncontrolled variable, and she didn’t like leaving it open. Just a couple more threads. Straining against her own limitations, she drew more power, forming several glowing threads across the gap. She regretted it immediately. A loud crack reverberated through her mind and her mental wall quivered. A section gave way, sending a cascade of blue sparks shooting into the air. The rest of the wall flickered, the light of the barrier cutting in and out. She held her breath, afraid one wrong move would bring it all tumbling down.
Tomias sighed loudly. “You really aren’t one
to listen, are you? Very well. Allow me.” Raising his arms, he pressed his hands against the empty space where her barrier had just crumbled. Her mind was flooded with power, and she watched in astonishment as her wall began to heal at an alarming rate. In mere seconds, it was as if the damage had never been done. The barrier was whole once more, shimmering with icy blue light.
“Out. Now,” Tomias demanded, fading from her mind.
Slinking after him, she left her mind, returning to her body in a daze. She blinked, momentarily blinded by light flooding the room from a nearby window. Across from her, Garild looked like he was about to be sick. His skin was pale, forehead slick with sweat, dark eyes glazed over. “You look terrible,” she told him.
“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” he shot back. “By the Allseer, I’m dizzy.” He groaned, putting his hands over his face.
“I’m…tired,” she admitted, though it felt like a vast understatement. She felt exhausted, every ounce of energy spent. Her limbs had become dead weight, her eyelids drooping as she fought to keep them from closing.
“You both did well,” Tomias said. “You’re catching on quickly. It’ll take some practice before you can use your powers without exhausting yourselves every time, but you’ll get there. As you may have noticed, some things, such as blocking or repairing a damaged barrier, take a surprising amount of energy. Learning to conserve that energy and work smarter is one of many skills you’ll need to learn.”
“What happens if you push too hard?” Kirheen asked, her words slurred as she struggled to get them out of her mouth. She wished she’d listened to Tomias. Not listening, as he’d kindly pointed out, was a weakness of hers. While it was easy enough to recognize that in herself, it was a different matter entirely trying to actually control it.
“That depends on how far you push it. Exhaustion is just the start. Beyond that, you risk losing your defenses, your barriers forever broken, and your mind open to all. I’ve also heard rather harrowing tales of people falling into a deep slumber, never to awaken.” Kirheen watched him raise his hand out of the corner of her eye and, before she could react, he flicked her hard on the cheek. She flung her hand up, palm pressing against her stinging skin.
The Allseer Trilogy Page 7
