Chapter 31 Pain and Power
PAIN AND POWER
Iarrive outside the Runes classroom ten minutes early, heavily debating if I should go to Charms and pretend I forgot about the schedule change.
I startle as someone approaches.
“You realize you have to be inside the classroom, right?” Holden’s eyes gleam with awareness that he just scared the living daylights out of me.
Kai walks beside him, adding to my unease.
They follow me inside, crossing to Holden’s desk while I select a random seat in the front row.
Holden sets down his bag and continues to the corner where a fancy coffee machine has appeared over the weekend.
I watch absentmindedly as he hits a few buttons.
The aroma of freshly brewed coffee reaches my nose as he fills a cup. I turn my attention to my crystal link, searching for a distraction.
Footsteps at the edge of my desk have me looking up as Holden sets a cup of coffee in front of me.
I stare at it and then at him.
Our gazes clash.
“Is it poisoned?” I ask, apparently having lost my filter or developed a death wish overnight.
Holden fixes me with a piercing stare that only adds to my suspicion that it is.
“Truth serum? Something that will blind me?”
He rolls his eyes. “Miss Breslin, if I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t do it discreetly. I’d stare into your eyes as I drove a blade through your cindrel.”
The casual brutality of his words hangs in the air. He turns before I can reply, returning to the coffee machine to make two more cups, his threat of hurting my cindrel—the only way to kill an Elemental—hangs between us.
I expect him to hand a cup to Kai, but the door of the classroom opens, and Lochlan steps inside, dressed in another dark suit. He glances across the room, pausing on me only fractionally before joining the other two, leaning against the front of Holden’s desk, and taking one of the cups.
Cozy.
“Don’t forget, you’re coming here for lunch, and the period following,” Holden says.
“Let’s get started,” Lochlan says before I can acknowledge him.
Holden rounds his desk and takes a seat, while the other two remain at the front, their focus on me.
Why aren’t you shielding? Lochlan’s voice in my head is no less surprising than it was on Friday.
My eyes snap to his, but he doesn’t react, doesn’t speak. At least, not aloud.
What are you waiting for? Where’s your mental safe space? We don’t have all day.
Begrudgingly, I focus on my old bedroom, on the tie blanket, and the loose ends that sometimes needed retied.
Practice, will, or pure luck have me shielding and setting secondary, third, and more shields. Lochlan guides and instructs, helping me perfect the timing that allows me to evade Kai for thirty minutes, my confidence bolstered as we take a break.
The focus required for shielding is as exhausting as a physical workout, and I feel the prickle of sweat around my hairline.
Lochlan drains his second cup of coffee as Kai pulls out bags of snacks. He tosses me one before tearing into another. “Eat. You need the energy.”
“We just had breakfast,” I remind him.
“Let’s go again,” Lochlan says.
I close my eyes and picture my old room as I create shields, but my thoughts stray to unexpected memories: hours of basketball practice, weightlifting, traveling to games, and how I never fit in with the team despite spending hours with them daily.
The harsh edge of loneliness cuts straight into a memory of the courtroom, recalling the hours I waited for my parents to look at me.
Breathe. Lochlan instructs.
I do, but my thoughts only race faster, and suddenly, Geoff, the officer from the prison, is in front of me, his sour breath invading my personal space as he performs another pat down.
His hands are forceful against my breasts, squeezing and plying, making my teeth grit and muscles constrict.
A week before, I’d knocked his hand away when he felt me up like this, and he’d slammed me to the ground and pressed his knee to the back of my neck as he restrained and zip-tied me, only to then strip search me.
His gaze meets mine, catching the hatred I can’t conceal. “Report me again and see what happens.”
His aftershave makes my nose burn, but I refuse to flinch.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I pray he doesn’t hear the waver in my voice.
Focus on me.
“They know you’re a lying bitch. I can do whatever the hell I want to you. You’re disposable.” His hands remain on my breasts too long before a female officer arrives to swap him out, as policy mandates.
Geoff’s eyes remain on my breasts long after he moves.
My stomach knots as I race to shield, to move past the memory, but Kai tears my shields down before I can set them, caging me in the memory.
“What are you doing?” I demand, eyes flashing to Kai.
“Do you think Lyra or anyone will take it easy on you? Try harder,” Lochlan insists.
I grit my teeth, tempted to throw the questionable cup of coffee at his face as the memory continues.
In the memory, I turn, feeling the stare of the woman beside me with bleached-blond hair and several inches of dark roots. She stares at me blankly, as though the horror I just endured from Geoff wasn’t remarkable. Wasn’t wrong.
I try to set another shield but fail again as the officers continue down the line, searching more inmates. I had only been there a month, but was so mentally and emotionally exhausted it had felt like a decade.
“Give me your dinner tonight, or I’ll shove your pretty little face so far down the toilet, you’ll think you’re licking your own asshole.”
My spine goes rigid. “What?” It was the only word I could muster, my confusion getting the best of me as I tried to make sense of her bland expression and threatening words.
Her eyes narrow into daggers. “Since you’re Geoff’s new toy, he’s stopped giving me extra rations, so until he tires of you, your food is mine.”
“I’m no one’s toy.”
She flinches, embarrassed or ashamed. Then, proves I misread her completely as she swiftly rotates, jabbing a shard of plexiglass high into my stomach.
It takes every shred of strength not to buckle against the desk as pain ricochets through me, sharp and consuming as if no time has passed.
I shoot out of my seat as the memory continues: the slow reaction of the guards, alarms blaring, blood soaking my shirt.
I glare at Lochlan. “Get out of my head, asshole.”
The memory fades, but the pain lingers. I press my hand against the spot instinctively, covering the wound I still feel.
Adrenaline has me shaking as I pivot toward the door.
“Brielle,” Holden objects.
I lift my middle finger and shove through the door, unsure where I’m going until I’m outside, gulping the fresh air though it’s cold enough that the single tear trailing down my cheek feels like it could turn into an icicle.
No one comes after me, a fact I’m all too relieved about. I don’t want to explain this memory or my reaction.
Slowly, the cool air carries some of the lingering horrors of my past away, but a traitorous ache forms in my chest, one that feels too damn similar to isolation.
I wait until students shuffle between classes before returning to Runes, finding my forgotten crystal link on my assigned desk. The coffee and Lochlan are both gone. My hands are steady, but my emotions aren’t.
“You’ll find a new book in your library.” I know Holden’s speaking to me, but I refuse to acknowledge him as humiliation, pride, and anger war inside me.
Instead, I turn in my digital essay, pull open the newly assigned book, and try to pretend I’m absorbing the words, though I can’t even read the title.
My following classes pass in a blur until Elemental Mastery, where Scarlet’s waiting for me. Despite my best efforts to force myself out of my detached state, she notices something is amiss.
“Did Holden do something?” she asks.
I shake my head and give a vague excuse about training that she thankfully accepts.
Rather than heading to lunch with her to meet Everett, Wynn, and Gideon, I return to the Odin Building, where Holden’s classroom is.
Kai, Holden, and Lochlan are waiting, sitting at desks that have been moved to the front, each with a medium-sized box. I wander closer, noting the arrangement of the seats. Two desks face the other two, loosely spaced, with no one’s back facing the door or windows.
No doubt it’s intentional.
The empty seat beside Holden and across from Lochlan is clearly meant for me. I don’t question or fight it, wrapping my chilled fingers around the mug of tea as I sit.
“Gwen made us lunch,” Kai says.
I open the box in front of me, finding enough food to feed three.
“This afternoon, we’re going to work on a different kind of shielding,” Lochlan says with his hands on both sides of his open lunch. “Aside from mindwalking, Lyra has the ability to both manipulate and mind control.”
“Like you did to Willow?” My tone is cold. Detached.
His silver eyes meet mine. I know they won’t eat without me taking the first bite—I’ve tested the theory too many times. “More or less.”
“How do you get away with doing that? Does anyone know?”
Beside me, Holden winces.
Lochlan merely watches me, not giving me the satisfaction of a reaction.
“Does Lyra do it to everyone, too?”
No one responds.
My irritation grows like a rash, consuming most of my thoughts and all of my words.
“We aren’t positive,” Kai finally answers.
“Soul Elementals are vulnerable to mental influence from other Soul Elementals,” Lochlan says. “Going forward, we’ll spend first period meditating, and then we’ll work on memory echoes, fabrications, cloaking, and awareness in the afternoon. We’ll practice shielding at Mysthaven.”
My relief is palpable, but rather than show any sign of gratitude, I admit, “I’m terrible at meditation.”
“You have to learn to suppress your emotional responses when someone sees a memory, because when you react, you lead them straight to your vulnerabilities.” His silver eyes slip between mine.
“We’re going to start with echoes. They can be done in two ways: mimicking a memory and changing details, or replaying a part of a memory on a loop. Both will buy time if necessary.”
“You do this naturally when you don’t want a memory to play,” Kai says. “Rather than pushing us out, you create echoes.”
I think of the times I’ve tried to change my memories, like moving the stacks at the library.
“Eat, and then we’ll practice,” Holden says.
My stomach still aches with the memory of the wound first period as I reach for my fork, picking through the pasta, that is somehow still warm.
We eat in heavy silence, the weight of too many words unsaid pressing on my chest. When we’re done, Lochlan collects the boxes, stacking them neatly on the corner of Holden’s desk.
His efficiency feels like a subtle reminder: there’s no room for mess here—not in this room, not in my mind, not in their Vestra.
He clears his throat, the sound like a knife, cutting through the fog of my thoughts.
I sit straight, curling my fingers in the hem of my sweater. “Will this involve mindwalking?”
Lochlan nods, glancing across at the other two men. “We all will. Kai and Holden are strong Soul Elementals, but since it’s my primary, I’ll be most likely to catch the seams of the echo.”
“Should I start by shielding?”
“No. I want you to replay a memory you’ve shown Kai, but this time, alter it. Hide key details.”
My mind empties as I try to recall all that Kai’s seen.
Finally, my thoughts settle on being beside the creek behind my parents’ house, layers of soggy brown maple leaves under my feet, silencing the shift of my weight as I move back on my heels.
The air mists with each of my breaths as I watch the stag.
I focus on the scent of decaying earth preparing for winter, the sound of the water, the icy breeze on my cheeks.
“Show them the real memory,” Kai instructs after a few minutes.
I release my hold, and a hunter appears opposite me, a crossbow poised to fire. I move forward with steps that are exaggerated and loud, startling the stag and the hunter who accidentally fires. The arrow whizzes past me, so close, I hear my near demise before it buries in the tree beside me.
“That was… insightful.” Lochlan’s gaze is calculating.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.
Kai rubs the back of his neck. “Echoes take years to perfect with that kind of precision. Yours was seamless. I saw the other version and still didn’t know where it was supposed to end.”
“Other version?” I repeat, struggling to know if his tone conveys accusation or just surprise. “You think I’ve been creating echoes?”
Lochlan lifts a shoulder. “You tell us.”