Chapter Four
I was on a training day, which meant boosting my physical and mental fitness.
I was up to date on all academic training, so I was heading for the fitness room when I heard my rank and name called.
Stopping, I turned to find Flight Captain Shi approaching, Fin at his side.
Was that a flinch in Shi’s step? His gaze roved over me, I wore only trousers and a towel around my neck.
Even that was blue so showed against my dark skin.
“Flight Captain, sir,” I greeted and offered a salute.
He stopped before me, a vaguely quizzical look on his face.
“I was on the way to the fitness room, sir.”
“I see,” he said. “I have another form of training in mind for you today.”
Fin moved to my side and automatically I reached down to take his hand.
“Follow me, Segasts.”
Again, Shi didn’t give us much choice. Swapping an uncertain look with Fin, I followed. We followed all the way to the far end of the fortress, and down more levels than I knew existed at this end of the fortress, and into — a cave?
“I can hear the sea,” Fin said.
“Correct, Mister Segast,” Shi said as he moved to the side and started lighting candles.
He placed the candles in front of curved mirrors and those reflected the light off other mirrors to illuminate the rest of the massive space.
It was clear that most mirrors had other candles so it could be lighter in here, but I had to trust that the captain didn’t require additional light.
The space wasn’t bright, but it was enough to see by, and it showed a large pillar, half the height of the tall cavern.
“That pillar is sunk into a natural fault in the granite, down to the sea below us. This fault is probably what made the beginnings of this cave, though this cave has been enlarged by hand. Or possibly magic. I can’t be sure, I wasn’t here all those centuries ago. ”
“Then why are we here now?” Fin asked.
“Because this is the safest place in all the Fortress to practise with magic,” Shi assured him. “Even for me.”
“The pillar is metal,” I observed. “You can hit it with electricity, and it safely conducts the power away, into the sea.” I blinked at Shi. “Sir.”
“Correct, Flight Sergeant, though as the sea is in constant movement, I can also use this pillar to bring up the electrical charge.”
“Wow!” Fin jumped up and down and clapped. “Can you? Can you do that? Can we see?”
Flight Captain Shi simply looked at him without expression. “No.”
Fin stopped and lost his smile.
“We are here today to look at how you can control your magic.”
“Mine?” Fin asked. “What’s to control? I either glow or I don’t.”
“Because you have not been trained to do any differently,” Shi said.
“Trained?” I asked. “When you said about training Fin’s magic, I thought you meant his mind magic, his talking to dragons.”
“That will come later,” Shi said.
“Why not now?” Fin asked. “I like talking to dragons.”
The flight captain walked back to us and knelt down with Fin.
“I know you do, Mister Segast, but the mind is a very sensitive organ, human or dragon. It is very easily damaged. If you were to do something accidentally, you could potentially cause serious pain or damage to a dragon, possibly even kill one.”
“I would never!” Fin pouted.
“You would never do so intentionally,” Shi agreed.
“That is why I used the word accidentally. So, before we start exploring your mind magic, I want to ensure that you have the mental discipline to fully control your light magic. If you hone your skill with your light, then you will learn the control necessary to work with minds. Do you understand?”
Fin looked up at me, his bottom lip out slightly. I raised my brows and nodded towards the flight captain. Fin turned back to him. “’Spose.”
“Fin,” I warned.
Fin huffed, glanced at me and then back to Shi. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. Then we will begin.”
Shi moved to sit cross-legged and invited Fin to do the same sitting directly in front of him.
Then Shi looked up at me. “You may sit or stand to watch this, but I would appreciate it if you could move at least two paces back. That way I can be sure that the power I am sensing is Fin’s and Fin’s alone. ”
I moved back three paces, folded my towel into a square and sat on that, not cross-legged, but with my knees drawn up so I could watch over them.
Shi sat, his back and neck very straight, and rested his hands, palms up on his knees. “Now, Mister Segast, would you show me your glow?”
Watching the two of them was incredible.
Shi was calm personified, he barely moved as he worked with Fin.
I noticed that as Fin’s glow showed, Shi’s fingertips wavered.
As Fin continued to glow, Shi’s fingers and thumbs came together, never quite touching, almost as if he were testing the quality of a fabric.
His breathing was slow and measured, and he encouraged Fin to follow his lead, to straighten his back, to measure his breaths, to concentrate.
That was not natural for a five-year-old, but I thought Fin did admirably well.
I also spotted Shi giving me the side-eye at one point, and I found myself shifting position to sit cross-legged, back straight, breathing controlled and regular.
It wasn’t the most comfortable position I’d ever sat in, but I could see, with practice, how it might become so.
Fin struggled and occasionally groaned as he tried to follow Shi’s instruction. But then, at last, he managed to concentrate all his glow into his hands.
“I did it!” he cried. At which point, the glow shone from every inch of uncovered skin.
“Yes, Mister Segast,” Shi spoke carefully. “For a moment there, you did. Next time, you will find it easier, and we will work on your levels of control some more. Good work, Mister Segast, you are dismissed.”
Fin leapt to his feet. My older bones took longer to lever me upright.
“Not you, Flight Sergeant,” Shi said. “Your training has yet to begin.”
Fin giggled. “Can I stay?”
“Do you not have homework to complete for the morrow?” I asked.
His little face grumped. “Yes, Dad.”
“I’ll see you for dinner.”
“Are you cooking?”
I frowned and turned to him. “For the fortress, yes. I will see you in the dining hall.”
“Yes, Dad.” Then his footfalls were ratter-tatting up the stairs into the distance.
“Flight Sergeant.” Shi indicated the position Fin had vacated.
Swallowing, I moved and eased myself down.
“How do you begin when you wish to heal someone?” he asked.
I didn’t immediately have an answer. Mostly because I didn’t think about it. “I just … do it.”
Shi sighed. Shifted and pulled his dagger from the sheath on his thigh, then sat back and sliced open his hand.
“By the Gods, what are you doing?” I reached out, grabbed his hand, placed my own over it, reached inside and healed him. When I lifted my hand, I looked, and the cut was completely healed without a scar. I breathed a sigh and let him go.
He looked at his hand. Then he returned it to his knee. “Now I understand.”
I frowned. “You do?”
He nodded. “When you reach out, you do so with all your strength. You hold nothing back.”
“I should not want to restrict the help I can give.”
“It would not be a restriction,” Shi assured me. “At the moment, you pour all your energy into your healing. That, I believe, is why after you healed your son’s back and fought with Eustace, you had no energy left to heal your own hurts.”
I shrugged. “It’s the only way I know.”
“Then we will find a new way together,” said Shi.
“I will not have you losing more time out by wasting energy that need not be wasted. Should a seafarer attack occur, we do not know what injuries or how many the men here might suffer. You may be needed a great deal, and I would have you ready for that.”
* * *
The lessons continued for some months. I lost count of the times that he cut open his hand to make me heal it, to discipline me to use less and less magic.
But with the flight captain’s guidance, his patience and persistence, I found easier and less costly ways to channel my magic.
In the end I barely had to channel magic at all to heal a small wound.
Though the time he slashed into his femoral artery, I hesitated in shock and he nearly bled out.
I stopped the bleeding, closed the wound, and he was fine — mostly.
I read nothing in the way that he had sagged against me after that event.
It wasn’t like I especially enjoyed holding him. No. not at all.
“Forgive me,” I held him and begged.
“This is why one must always control one’s emotions,” he said. His back was against my chest, his head resting back on my shoulder. My hand remained on his thigh where he’d cut himself. That he wasn’t pulling away was a sign I supposed of how poorly I had done.
“I am certainly not as competent as you in that matter.”
It was only when he tensed his shoulder to reach up to me that I realised how relaxed against me he was. The warmth of his palm on my arm focused my blood.
“My control comes…” His voice slid away, but he took a fortifying breath. I felt the air he drew in and blew out flutter on my neck. “It was hard learned. I hurt someone. Someone I cared — no — someone I loved.”
His admission of a past love tasted slightly sour.
I could not help but remember how it felt to lose my beloved.
Ang Shi lay in my arms and I careful poured more of my magic into him hoping to boost his blood and energy levels, just not so much he pushed me away again.
The heat I felt in his groin was just the result of my magic.
“My magic responds to my emotions,” he whispered.
“Good or bad emotions. I learned control when I realised how much damage I could do. The effort came as such a cost it nearly killed me. It drove all others away.” His head turned more to me, as his spoke, his lips lightly kissed my skin.
“I am not heartless because I wish to be, but because I must be.”
My grip around him tightened. I relished that his heartbeat was stronger, and his skin less pale now. “You are not heartless.”
But if he could learn such control, I would learn the lessons he taught, because I would not risk hurting another by my inaction again. I would not risk him or Fin that way.
Fin took a lot longer to learn his control, and as my flight captain spent more time focused on my son, I knew that he was helping Fin, but I found my jaw clenching and my stomach burning because he was doing more for my son than I was. Than I could.
Eustace’s replacement arrived. The new stable master was Fenwick, a man in his middle years, who enjoyed life, took his job very seriously and adored dragons.
Lord Aurexian wasn’t impressed when Fenwick first tried to pet him.
Lord Aurexian preferred a bow and some deference, something that Fenwick had the sense to learn.
Punishments in Unkea were harsh, but that was the Rider way, the way of the Church. What I saw reassured me that Flight Captain Shi listened, judged and showed fairness, or at least reasonableness.
Life became a matter of routine. One routine that I noticed was how often Rider Jimny came to me with red, itchy hands.
“You did your washing yesterday, didn’t you?” I asked on the fourth visit, after I’d healed his skin.
“Yeah, so? I’ve been doing my washing for years, this is new.”
Yes, it was. And when we went to speak to Quartermaster Ibrahim, we discovered that the clothes washing soap we were supplied had changed. That was what Jimny was reacting to.
“Look, I can ask them to change back,” Ibrahim said, “but you know what the service is like. They’ll take what they can at the cheapest price. We’ve got at least six months’ worth of this stuff, so it’ll be a while.”
Given the difficulties that Jimny was having, and the fact that I never enjoyed ironing, we agreed to a mutually acceptable swap.
Over time, Salvadora even found a way to get along with Lord Aurexian. Which was more a way to not be constantly aggravating each other.
But at least they didn’t hiss every time they passed.