Chapter 17 #2
éadha remembered how entranced she’d been drawing on the silver threads for those first few days in Ailm’s Keep when she hadn’t known where—who—they led to.
The Masters weren’t wrong, she thought. It was addictive, that feeling of being superhuman.
Especially if you thought there was no price. She frowned.
“I know why Ionáin doesn’t know about the reality of Fodder—there were no Channellers in Ailm’s Keep. But surely these other Family apprentices do?”
Gry grimaced. “I mean, yes, some Families like Senan’s are known for being rough on Fodder, so he’s probably known for years. But you’d be surprised how far some Families go to hide the reality from their kids.”
“How do you mean?” said éadha.
“My guess is when they’re little, they’re told Daddy’s rich and powerful because of his great gift. But at the same time, they never actually talk about where that power comes from—and kids pick that up. That there are things you don’t ask questions about.”
éadha thought about Ionáin’s Family, the way they’d taught Ionáin everything about the Channellers’ history. Everything except that one crucial thing.
“So do the Channellers go the whole way through Lambay never facing the Fodder?” asked éadha.
“Second Island,” said Gry. “Hera says that’s when we can all see the Fodder—if you want to.
They think they’re hooked enough at that stage.
You’ll see though—some Channellers will instinctively avoid ever confronting reality.
They leave all the thread-keeping to their Keepers, so they never have to face up to it.
Then there are others who do realize, then try to draw as little strength as they can get away with once they understand the reality.
That’s really risky—the Masters come down hard on anyone they think sympathizes with the Fodder.
” He looked across at éadha. “You already know this. It’s the only way you can fight in a system like ours.
Invisibly. Never letting on you’re resisting at all because if they see, then they’ll destroy you. ”
éadha remembered Ionáin and his talk about hiding who you truly were behind a mirror self, carefully reflecting back to people what they wanted to see.
“And then there are the ones,” Gry finished, glancing across at Senan, “who think the cruelty is the point.”
So their training in channeling got underway.
Every day, as they stood outside Matins, éadha bent her head and sent her power into Ionáin, giving him the strength to do all the Masters demanded of him.
Learning, in a kind of shadow lesson to Fiachna’s, how much power she needed to give him each day.
In those first days, when she still had reserves of energy and training was relatively light, she thought her daily gift to Ionáin was something she could absorb.
But as the summer wore on and their training grew more and more demanding, she learned how wrong she’d been.
If it’d just been Ionáin, she could’ve managed it.
It was having to keep for Senan at the same time that made it almost unsurvivable.
Not naturally skillful, he made up for it with an enormous, bullish physical strength and a sadistic determination to draw every last drop of strength he could get out of the Fodder threads she held for him.
It took all of her skill in shielding to hold away his brutal power from draining her own life force in the process, and she quickly realized Fiachna had assigned her to Senan to protect the Family girls from his clawing, vicious draws.
At the same time, it broke her heart to see those silver Fodder threads weaken and fade as Senan drew on them day after day.
And so, as her skill in keeping grew, she began quietly shielding them too.
Substituting her own strength for theirs when she judged Senan was draining them too far.
It took everything from her, everything she had, to keep Ionáin supplied with power while also trying to shield the Fodder from the worst of Senan’s draws.
Week after week, she spent every spare moment either snatching sleep or eating, trying to find the energy to keep going from somewhere.
Even so, she lost weight, her cheeks growing hollow and her skin dull.
Her own performance as a Keeper suffered with everything else.
Where she’d started out at the top of the rankings, by the end of the summer she was permanently ranked last.
Gry and Ailbhe, meanwhile, were easily the strongest of the Keepers, both adept at judging threads and maintaining their flow.
Watching Gry calmly sustain the thread for Coll, one of the weaker Channeller apprentices, while he floundered in the air above him, a question started to form in éadha’s mind.
But this and any other thoughts were quickly blotted out again by exhaustion.
Bone-deep, heavy-headed, scratchy-eyed weariness that stalked her from the moment she woke until she collapsed onto her narrow bed each night.
Standing beside her every day on the sidelines as they kept for their Channellers, Gry was clearly baffled by éadha’s exhaustion.
More than once he tried to talk to her, whispering over his shoulder, “éadha, what’s going on? Is it your thought-wall? Is that what’s wearing you out? Because I know some tips…”
But she’d just stare back at him blearily, as if from a great distance, locked deep inside the misery of having to keep going when her entire body was ready to collapse.
It was a hot afternoon in early autumn. The Channeller apprentices had just started training in aerial combat out over the sea north of Lambay in preparation for their eventual Westport postings.
While the Channellers flew over the water, their Keepers had to follow them in their coracles, small one-person rowboats, so as to stay within reach of their draw and send it on to the Fodder, still hidden out of sight on First Island itself.
éadha had sent power into Ionáin that morning as usual, then rowed out to where Senan was already waiting for her, high in the sky above.
The sky was cloudless, but there was a stiff breeze from the west, meaning she had to keep sculling with her oars just to hold her boat in position underneath Senan and stop her drifting farther from First Island.
Along with Linn and Coll, he was learning to create nets of power in the air, each apprentice taking a point and weaving a net between them with golden lines of power.
They were meant to trap dragons in battle.
Irial, though, had easily ripped apart their first two nets, and Senan was in a foul humor, shouting down at her, “Hold steady, you idiot! You’re slowing my draw. ”
Over and over, he drew power through her, and as the afternoon wore on, she grew steadily more tired, her arms aching with the effort of holding the boat steady while the sun beating down on her exposed head left it pounding.
Even after Linn and Coll had called it a day, Senan stayed flying above her, still practicing drawing lines of power in the sky while she sat half slumped over her oars in a daze of tiredness.
Without realizing it, she’d fallen into a doze, and as she did, the thought-wall she’d built so carefully that morning loosened, letting slip the small reserves of energy she’d shielded behind it.
Moments later, she was gripped by a savage, scouring sensation.
It was Senan. She stared up at him, furious.
Channellers drawing directly on the life force of Keepers was frowned on other than in emergencies.
But Senan only smirked down at her. “If you will be so pathetically slow, you leave me no choice. I need it for the flight back. You wouldn’t want your Channeller in danger, now would you?” And with that he flew off toward the shore.
As he disappeared into the distance éadha let out a shout of rage and frustration, but there was no one and nothing to hear her apart from a passing seagull.
Slowly twisting in a half circle on her seat, it dawned on her she was truly alone out on the water.
All the other Keeper boats must’ve headed back to the jetty a while ago; she’d just been too tired to notice.
All the Channellers had flown back to the island too.
She was also, she realized, much farther out from land than she’d ever been before.
At the same time, it was sinking in just how much energy Senan had drained from her with that vicious draw; she could barely lift her oars.
Meanwhile, the wind, which had been blowing steadily all afternoon, was beginning to strengthen.
Even in the few minutes since Senan had gone, she’d drifted farther from First Island.
Fighting down a rising sense of panic, she forced herself to grip the oars, but her strokes were shallow and ineffectual, her arms shaking as she tried to lift the paddles clear of the water.
What a stupid way to die, she thought, the wind simply pushing her out to sea faster than she could row back.
Her throat was dry and her skin raw from sitting under the hot sun all afternoon.
Her stomach heaved with the effort of forcing the oars into the water, but the wind was too strong, and she was still going the wrong way.
Her boat began to rock alarmingly as the waves around her grew stronger, water starting to slop over the gunwales, soaking her.
She’d drifted fully out of the shelter of First Island now, out into open water, where she was exposed to the full force of the wind.
Her hair was whipping so hard around her face she could hardly see, her hands slipping and struggling to grip the suddenly slick oars.
She reached down inside herself for her power, but it barely flickered.
She was too weak—Senan had drained the last of her strength.