Chapter Fifteen

The sky was only just beginning to lighten at the edges when Elenn woke Keri from her slumber.

“You may have had a nice, two-day rest, but the rest of us need some sleep,” she mumbled groggily, turning over in her pallet.

Elenn, undeterred, shook her again. “I know it is early, but we need to continue. I know where the Diamond Sea is, but I’d rather waste as little time as possible.”

“Fine, have it your way,” she conceded grouchily, rising.

By the time the sun poked its head over the horizon, all of their meager belongings were packed, and they were twining through the dead, ashy gray trunks. Elenn told Keri their path as they munched on some dried fruit. It would take two more days, if they kept good pace, to get out of the Dead Woods. Then they would travel through the three towns that lay between them and the Desert. The Diamond Sea rested on the other side.

A comfortable silence enveloped the pair as they traveled, one that Keri wasn’t keen to break. For one thing, she kind of liked the easy familiarity that seemed to hang in the air; for another, Elenn didn’t look in the mood to talk. She watched his face with interest as she chewed her breakfast. His face was slightly creased in deliberation, his eyes thoughtful. It was best, Keri decided, not to interrupt, even though she was practically writhing with curiosity.

“What are you thinking about?” Keri burst out mere minutes later, her interest getting the better of her.

Elenn looked up in surprise. “I? I was just wondering…how did the assassins know where to attack? It was a well-placed ambush…” he trailed off, gazing ahead as he thought.

“Did you dream that night we spent in the barn?” he asked abruptly, turning to her.

Keri raised her eyebrows. “Why?”

“Just think back.”

She stared upwards as she searched through her memory. “Yes…I think I did.”

“And?” Elenn prompted her.

“I dreamed of…aqua eyes,” she remembered, eyes widening. “Just like the first time, when you made us leave Gaenior.”

Triumph flashed through Elenn’s eyes. “I thought as much,” he said, nodding knowingly.

“Well, enlighten the rest of us, will you?” Keri replied irritably.

Elenn smiled playfully. “Considering ‘the rest of us’ is only you, I do not mind keeping it to myself.”

The look of irritation was quickly replaced by a murderous glare.

“I am joking, Keri,” Elenn laughed, but then he took on a much more serious tone. “I believe that there is a connection between you and this aqua-eyed man,” he explained. “Blue eyes haunt the mind, penetrating the layers of dreams, a connection between two portals, blue and grey.”

“Hem’s Reading,” Keri breathed, beginning to understand.

Elenn nodded. “Exactly. Penetrating the layers of dreams-that would be why you have the vision of blue eyes in your sleep. And the other part-a connection between two portals, blue and grey- confirms my thoughts now.”

“So is this person with blue eyes, like, reading my mind or something?” Keri asked, half skeptical, half believing.

“Far more subtle than mind reading, but essentially, yes,” Elenn conceded. “It is my belief that this man has realized the connection between you and him and has learned to enter your mind during your dreams.”

Keri felt shock seeping through her veins like an ice cold rain, numbing her. My fault, she thought dully. All of these attacks are my fault. Elenn almost dying was because of me. I’m a danger, she realized. I’m going to cause both our deaths because I’m a mine of information for the enemy!

“Elenn,” she cried desperately, “what am I going to do?”

--

Unease passed through Elenn as he watched Keri’s face freeze in shock. What else did I expect? he berated himself. She just found out that a man can flit through her mind at ease.

“Elenn, what am I going to do?” Keri said frantically.

An edge of panic was present in her voice; that Elenn expected. What he did not expect was the overwhelming guilt that seeped into the words. “Look at me,” he said firmly, grabbing her shoulders and looking into her eyes. They were large with fright, standing out in her pale face. A he gazed into the diamond grey, the silver depths drew him in, and for a fleeting moment he felt a crippling guilt take hold of him. His own face, pale and unmoving on the ashy earth, flashed before his eyes, and suddenly, he understood.

Keri blinked, and he was able to wrench his eyes away. “It was not your fault,” he told her softly, still slightly shaken from what he had experienced.

“Don’t try to comfort me,” Keri said bitterly, "by telling me lies. We both know nothing would have happened to you if it hadn’t been for me.”

About to protest, Elenn paused. Perhaps she had a point. She wasn’t truly to blame; it wasn’t something she had known about and could control. But there was truth in the statement. She was the means that the man used to find them. “Alright, it was your fault,” he conceded. A look of savage triumph darted across Keri’s face. Ignoring this, he continued. “But instead of wallowing in guilt and self-loathing, you should be focusing on how you can change it for the future.”

She looked up at him, hope shining from eyes sparkling slightly from unshed tears. “I suppose that means you have an idea,” she commented wryly, smiling none-the-less.

Elenn found himself smiling in return. “Actually, I do. You must learn to shield your mind.”

“How do I do that?”

Elenn hesitated. “Well, it would normally be a simple matter of using your magic to make a mental wall, but I have a feeling that it will be a rather more difficult task than that.”

“Why?”

“Can you use your magic consciously?”

Keri was startled. “What do you mean?”

“The only time I have seen you use magic was in Escuridade Forest, when you destroyed the spell keeping us lost. Actually,” he paused, thinking back to when he had first met her, “I believe you used your magic to hide yourself the night I took you from the orphanage.”

“Yeah, right,” Keri snorted derisively. “I was scared witless. I could barely think straight enough to try and get to the door.”

“Perhaps, but you did not mean to break the spell in the forest either,” Elenn pointed out.

Uncertainty passed across her features. “That’s true,” Keri said slowly.

“As far as I know, those are the only two times you have used your magic, and on both those occasions you were unaware of the fact,” Elenn concluded. “I want you to try to use it now.”

“Well, how do I, umm, use it?” she asked nervously.

“You focus your mind,” Elenn instructed. “Concentrate completely on what you are trying to do.”

“And what am I trying to do?”

“I do not know,” Elenn replied, slightly irritated. “Just choose something for your magic to do, and then try to do it.”

Keri squeezed her eyes shut, her face contorted. Elenn watched as her face became steadily redder before she opened her eyes.

“Did anything happen?” she asked, turning to him.

Elenn sighed. “No. What were you attempting?”

Keri sighed as well. “I was trying to make myself invisible. You said I had done it before, so I figured I should be able to do it again. I guess not.”

“Invisibility is a difficult feat to manage at the best of times,” Elenn said doubtfully. “You need a superior focus to succeed in it, something you would not have at this stage.”

“So why was I able to do it before?” Keri shot back.

Elenn frowned. “Your magic seems to be very…unique,” he replied slowly. “Most people have many restrictions to their magic. The spells must be within the caster’s physical and mental limits, and then there is, of course, the limits of the magic itself,” he told her. “Very few people have the kind of all-purpose magic you appear to possess, and those who do hold it do not have it in any great strength. Most powers,” he continued, “are specific, like my power to fly, for example. I can do nothing else with that magic. It has one purpose only.”

A mixture of excitement and fear seemed to take hold of Keri. “Are you saying that I can do anything, anything I want with my magic?”

“Every power has some limitations,” he countered. “Somewhere, I am sure, there is an end to your abilities, even if we have not discovered it yet. Besides,” he added, “you cannot even control your magic yet.”

Keri’s face fell. “But how do I get control of it then? I mean, we know it’s there, so there has to be a way. Just teach me how to use it.”

Elenn shook his head. “Your first attempt did not succeed, and even if you did not have enough focus, you still should have had some kind of result. A flicker of invisibility, or a fade at the edges. But you came up with nothing. Your magic is, for some reason, locked away. Only you have the means to release it.”

“You can’t do anything?”

Again, Elenn shook his head. “I can attempt to teach you to focus your mind, but nothing more, and nothing that deals directly with your magic. Somehow, you must learn how to use your magic. But we have digressed,” Elenn said with a little smile. “The issue now, I thought, was to make sure you do not continue to give the enemy our whereabouts?”

“Oh yeah,” Keri blushed slightly, looking sheepish. “But you said that I needed to build a mental wall with my magic, and we just established that I can’t actually use it on purpose.”

“I said that you would normally use magic to build a shield for your mind,” Elenn corrected her. “I did not say that was the only means of doing so.”

“Will you get to the point, Elenn?” Keri asked exasperatedly.

“You can build a mental wall with your mind, but it is more difficult to construct, and more difficult to hold. With magic, once it is in place, you do not have to think about it or continue to hold it there. It simply stays there. However, with a mentally built shield, the strength of it, and its endurance, depends solely upon your continued strength of mind.”

“That sounds fun,” said Keri dryly.

Elenn smiled. “We will start now.”

Alright, I finally finished the chapter. I was actually planning to do more, but I decided to go ahead and cut off here...I'm kind of suffering from writer's block . Please, let me know what you think. Drop a note, I don't bite, I promise. Peace and love, until next time!