Chapter 26
Gaeren had never felt so out of place in his own cabin. It had been five days since they’d set sail and experimented with Aeliana’s magic. Apparently Sylmar’s attempts to train her in noetic magic weren’t going well, so he was enlisting Gaeren’s help.
Aeliana sat in his desk chair with Riveran and Cyrus on stools beside her.
That left standing room only for Sylmar and Gaeren.
When the older man crossed his arms and frowned down at Aeliana, Gaeren uncrossed his own arms and smiled, not wanting association with Sylmar’s anxiety-inducing instructor stance.
Then he felt like a child, back with his parents and Enla, doing the opposite of what they wanted and expected just to prove some point.
“Are you sure you have time for this?” Aeliana asked.
Gaeren shrugged. “I may be the captain, but it’s often Larkos who runs this ship.”
Riveran snorted but made no other comment. A wise choice.
Aeliana’s hands twisted in her lap, and the motion made Gaeren feel oddly more at ease. Her nervousness allowed him to focus on making her more comfortable rather than examine his own discomfort.
“Gaeren is the best person to help you with this because his noetic skills are the most advanced in our group,” Sylmar grudgingly admitted.
“Why, thank you,” Gaeren said, placing a hand over his heart in mock surprise. “I think that might have been a compliment.”
Sylmar rolled his eyes and sat heavily on the bed, leaving Gaeren still hovering awkwardly over the other three. “Let’s start with Cyrus.”
“I thought we should start with me.” Gaeren might have been a little too eager to contradict Sylmar’s plans, but he rushed on anyway.
“It will be hard to tell whether she’s using her magic or I’m using mine, but it will give her a sense of what she’s aiming for since the other instances were more accidental. ”
Cyrus stood, gesturing toward his stool for Gaeren to take his place.
“Very well,” Sylmar muttered.
Gaeren sat beside Aeliana and Riveran, holding out his hand, palm up.
Still, Aeliana hesitated. “How do you keep yourself from getting memories people don’t want to give you? How do you stop yourself from invading their privacy?”
Gaeren winced, remembering his own fears when he’d first learned.
He’d hardly wanted to touch anyone for fear of seeing something he couldn’t unsee.
“It’s difficult to get someone to show you a memory they don’t want you to see, especially when you’re first learning.
And in your case, you’re going to focus on giving me memories since that should come easier to you if it’s your primary spoke. ”
“I don’t think it is,” Aeliana said. “I meant to test it yesterday by cutting out my brand on Durriken. If the magic had stayed, we’d know it was my magic, and if it didn’t, we’d know it was Durriken’s.
But…Durriken wanted to maintain the connection.
He called it a tether. He’s fine with me using his magic. ”
Gaeren whistled low and long. “A tether? I didn’t think those were possible anymore.”
“They aren’t,” Sylmar said.
“It’s not a real one,” she rushed to add.
“He just seemed to think we could treat the brand like one. For now. It’s the only reason I’m willing to train in magic I’m basically stealing from him.
Because he’s offered it.” A pink tinge came to her cheeks, one that made Gaeren want to tease her, but something about the topic felt off limits to him, at least if he wanted to maintain the growth in their friendship.
Besides, the idea that this skill came from Durriken made sense.
With her ability to receive so many memories, it would make more sense for her to be a destructive noetic, but he understood why the old man assumed she’d be a constructive noetic after seeing her light shields.
If Durriken gave her noetic magic, it didn’t have to follow the rules of the Wheel of Magic.
He tapped her knee, then held his palm up once more. “Then let’s get started.”
“What if—what if there are memories I don’t want to give?”
“Then you let go of my hand,” Gaeren said.
“Any memory you’re giving me will cut off if you let go.
At least for now, while you’re still learning.
If it’s your primary spoke, you’ll eventually be able to use it without touching.
Technically I could continue to take the memory from you with my own magic, but I’ve trained not to do that.
Losing people’s trust is not worth gaining whatever knowledge they want to keep secret. ”
She nodded but still seemed uneasy.
“Instead of thinking about the things you don’t want me to see, it’s important that you think of something you do want me to see. Shove those other memories to the background and bring the memory you want to share to the front.”
She nodded again and tentatively placed her hand in his.
Gaeren didn’t need to close his eyes, but he did so anyway.
She was already nervous enough without being watched.
“I’m going to reach out for your memory now.
For me, it’s like tuning in to a specific note on an instrument.
” His starlock warmed as he said the words, and he felt the thrum through his arm and into his palm.
“At first the images will be blurry, but just like an instrument can be tuned to the perfect pitch, I can find the right note to make the memory clearer.”
Even as he spoke, the image came to his mind.
It was a fleeting moment with all of them on horseback, long before they’d reached the Myndren Mountains.
Maybe even before Aeliana and the others had found Gaeren in Islara.
Sylmar was instructing Aeliana on the Wheel of Magic, and Velden was behind him, mimicking the way the older man spoke by overexaggerating his gestures and pompous expression.
Then the half-Sayhleen shifted into a bored listener, falling asleep and nearly tumbling from his horse.
Cyrus snorted from beside Aeliana, and he felt her turn to hide her own smile.
Gaeren pulled his hand back and let the memory snap closed. He and Aeliana grinned at each other.
“What did you see?” Sylmar asked.
“She just showed me a memory of Velden being Velden.”
Aeliana’s eyebrows rose, as if challenging him to admit the full scene.
Sylmar grunted. “That man needs a leash.”
Aeliana burst out laughing, the sound stunning Gaeren with the same mesmerizing power of a winex’s chime. He tore his gaze away from the dimple in her cheek to find Sylmar grumbling.
“It wasn’t a joke.”
Gaeren turned back to Aeliana. “Did you sense how the memory could be tuned in to? Sort of singled out from the others in your mind?”
Aeliana’s smile faded. “Maybe?”
“This time I’m going to give you a memory. Instead of just taking it in as your own, I want you to focus on where you sense it. Use your starlock to feel where it’s coming from and how to grasp it so you can then pass it to someone else.”
Her face clouded over as if his words held no meaning. He remembered the sensation all too well from his time with his earliest mentors.
“Think of it like a game. In fact, it’s one we played often in school.
All the noetics would train together and we would transfer one memory through the entire group.
It was meant to test our accuracy to see how much the last person’s interpretation of the memory matched the first person’s original memory.
” He grinned. “It usually ended up being more of a game for who could throw in the funniest alterations to irritate our instructors.”
Sylmar’s hum from behind Gaeren showed the older man’s lack of surprise, but Aeliana’s shoulders relaxed, and she smiled as she closed her eyes.
“Secretly, I don’t think the instructors cared,” Gaeren added. “It’s much harder to falsify a memory than it is to keep it accurate, so we ended up pushing our magic harder than we would have otherwise.”
He studied her a moment longer than necessary, watching the way a little V formed between her brows as she focused.
Her hair swung across her cheeks and neck, practically inviting him to brush it back and feel its silkiness once more.
For the hundredth time he worried she might catch a glimpse of the braid on his wrist, then berated himself for caring.
It was a reminder of promises he’d made, nothing more.
Despite the becoming way Kendalyhn had fixed his poor cut to frame Aeliana’s face, he missed the way it used to brush her elbows. Why were Vendarans so eager to cut their locks anyway? Was it really such a shameful thing to have long hair like the Stars when it was a reflection of their beauty?
Sylmar cleared his throat, and Gaeren squeezed his eyes shut but not before catching Riveran’s smirk.
He tried to push the image of Aeliana’s hair out of his mind, but instead it brought him back to the idea that Orra’s short hair didn’t match her history as a Star.
Instead of completely shoving the thought aside, he pulled up his memory of Orra and her admission at being Sheen.
Did the details Orra had given him match the ones she’d given Aeliana? This was an opportunity to test it.
When Aeliana gasped, he opened his eyes, curious at which part had shocked her. Her grip on his hands tightened. “She’s—
“No!” he cut her off. “I don’t want you saying anything out loud about the memory. Not yet.”
She frowned, glancing at Sylmar.
It wasn’t that Gaeren wanted the information kept secret.
It was that he wanted to test her ability to transfer the memory to Cyrus.
He pulled his hands away from hers and stood, the absence of her soft skin leaving his hands feeling awkwardly empty until the mark of his bond twinged its irritation.
He scratched at it, then gestured for Cyrus to take his seat.
“Can you still feel the presence of the memory?” he asked Aeliana. “Not just the knowledge of it but the thread it hangs on?”
“I think so,” she murmured, closing her eyes once more.