“Do you think that’s what I was doing?”
“I don’t know. What happened?”
“I really don’t know. I was freaking out because everything had slowed down and gone black and white. I got up, got close to that man, and stuck a knife to his side.”
“You did what?”
“He was about to tear off my face. Anyway… the sound and color came rushing back, and I was… well, okay, I was a bit frightened. I looked in his eyes and they sort of turned into tunnels, like a labyrinth. I followed it, and there was a place I needed to… push. I knew he’d tell me anything I asked him.”
Rowan looked up into Astrin’s eyes, his face drawn and puzzled.
“It’s a bit disorienting in the beginning,” Astrin said, “until you get used to it. I’ll help. It sounds as if your ability has more to do with gathering information than manipulating people as such. It’s a mental ability, though, so we might be able to use it to make a connection.”
“It would certainly be safer if we could talk privately.”
“Okay, let’s give it a go.”
“What do I have to do?”
“Nothing. Just open to me.” For some reason the words made Rowan shiver, and it took a few moments to focus on what was expected of him.
“How…?” He coughed, easing the sudden huskiness in his voice. “How do I do that?”
“Just relax. Focus on my eyes and—”
“You’re not going to read my mind, are you? That wouldn’t be—”
“Don’t worry. I’d never do that to you. I promise.”
Rowan nodded and tried to relax and steady himself, which was far more difficult than it would have been if he’d not been staring into those beautiful, clear green eyes. Swallowing hard, Rowan struggled to force the treacherous thoughts out of his mind. Astrin would not be able to help but see them if they were screaming at him from every side, and that was the very last thing Rowan wanted. He hadn’t figured out what they meant himself yet, let alone what they might mean to Astrin.
Without meaning to, Rowan got lost in his thoughts and almost jumped out of his seat when a voice spoke quite clearly in his ear.
“Boo.”
Astrin was grinning. Rowan glared at him.
“That wasn’t very nice.”
“What made you think I was nice? You try.”
“What do I do?”
“Do what you did before. Look into my eyes and see what’s behind them. Then project what you want to say.”
“What about when I’m not looking at you?”
“Let’s just see if you can make the connection first. If you can, we’ll expand on it. If you can’t, there’s no point taking it further.”
“Okay.”
Calming himself was slightly less difficult than before, so Rowan stared into Astrin’s eyes and beyond. As before, something shifted, and Rowan could see behind the eyes. It wasn’t a labyrinth like before but an elaborate tracery of interlocking tracks and bright points of light… like a finely spun spiderweb, which caught stars and trapped them in its silvery strands. It was beautiful.
“Thank you.”
“What?”
Astrin smiled gently, with a strange look in his eyes. “You said my mind is beautiful.”
“I did? I didn’t mean to. I mean I wasn’t trying to. Not that it isn’t, but….”
“I know what you meant, Rowan. Chill, and concentrate on saying something more constructive and deliberate.”
“Okay. What shall I say?”
“Oh, I don’t know… just any old thing.”
Rowan was completely oblivious to the fact that Astrin was no longer using his mouth to speak. He still heard Astrin’s voice, only perhaps a little clearer over the hubbub in the bar.
“Umm….”
“Is this working?”
“Seems to be working fine.”
“Hey… this is cool. You do it too.”
“I have been.”
“Really? Hell, so you are.”
Astrin grinned broadly over the top of his glass.
“I have a feeling this is going to come in very handy in the next couple of days.”
“I suppose my abilities couldn’t have triggered at a better time.”
“Well, they could have triggered a bit earlier. Then we would have had more time to explore and practice, but hey… who’s complaining?”
Astrin took a drink.
“So what shall we do now?”
he mused.
“Go get those papers sorted, I suppose. Wait… you never told me how to connect when I’m not looking at you. Much as I find I actually like looking at you, it’s not always going to be practical.”
Astrin looked a little taken aback, and Rowan wondered why until he replayed what he’d just said. His stomach dropped.
“I, er… I didn’t mean… It’s just….”
“It’s okay…. Um….”
Astrin turned his eyes away, looking embarrassed.
“It’s not hard. Once you know what my mind looks like, all you have to do is get a clear picture of me in your head, then go through the picture into the mind behind. You’ll know if the connection is made. Something… clicks.”
“What does my mind look like?”
“Sorry?”
“Your mind looks like a mass of silver spiderwebs with stars trapped inside it. What does mine look like?”
Astrin looked at him, his face serious and unsmiling.
“It… it’s like a… like the heart of a star, full of fire, bursts of color, and shooting stars, and… to tell you the truth I’ve never seen anything like it before. Most people have paths of some kind—mazes, labyrinths, city streets, country lanes. A few have stars, but nothing like yours. You’re unique, Rowan Gabriel.”
Rowan grinned, but Astrin still didn’t smile.
“What’s wrong?”
Astrin shook his head and finished his drink. “Come on. Let’s get those papers sorted out.”
The port exchange was a squat, ugly building, brooding at the end of a pleasant promenade that overlooked the beach. The entrance was through a set of huge brass doors, which, during business hours, were constantly open. It wasn’t as if there was a fear of the marble-lined hall within getting chilly, since it was always hot here. Even in the winter, temperatures rarely required more than a light jacket.
The large, airy foyer was peppered with people who didn’t seem to be doing anything, unless lounging could be considered an occupation. They all looked shady, although, to be fair, those behind the glass screens didn’t look much better.
Astrin and Rowan made for the window manned by the least unpleasant-looking person on display.
“Good morning,” Rowan said, trying to sound less scared than he was feeling.
“What do you want?”
“We want to travel to Port Home and need papers.”
“What is your purpose for traveling?”
“Um….”
Half an hour later, with the help of both Rowan’s and Astrin’s mind-bending abilities, they walked out of the port exchange with their papers and the information necessary to use them.
“When I am who I am again, I’m really going to have to pay some attention to things like this. I’ll have a word with Aunt Sophia about security—and courtesy—here.”
“Courtesy would be wasted on most of the people who use the exchange. They’re usually traders who are in too much of a hurry or mercenaries who don’t care. How often do you think a crown prince of the House visits?”
Rowan frowned. “That’s beside the point.”
“Well… good luck with that.”
“Shall we get lunch here, or in Port Home?”
“I’d say here. There’s less chance of it poisoning us.”
Rowan gave Astrin a hard look, but Astrin’s face was serious, although there was a certain twinkle in his eyes.
They found a nice café that sold reasonably edible food, and passed a pleasant hour watching the world go by. It was a world that scared Rowan a whole lot more than it scared Astrin.
Rowan pondered this. He’d always considered Astrin to be a pampered, spoiled prince, the cherished child of two doting parents, and a precious little pretty boy. Nothing he’d heard about Astrin had disabused him of that opinion. He now realized that he might well have been laboring under a significant misapprehension all this time.
“How come you’re so at home in this kind of environment?”
Astrin had been gazing out over the sea, so he was somewhat startled by Rowan’s question. Nevertheless, he smiled and considered it.
“I was brought up to be aware of what was going on for the people of my House. Father often took me on trips into the towns and villages around the Heart. We have a coastal home, too, and busy ports. Father often had business to attend to in places similar to your port exchange, and as I got older he’d allow me to wander as I wanted. I got to see a lot of people and how they work.”
“Wasn’t that dangerous?”
Astrin shrugged. “Possibly, but once I had full control of my abilities and knew how to use them properly, he wasn’t really concerned, because there wasn’t much trouble I wouldn’t be able to get out of. And of course, I’m Crown Prince and inviolate. All I had to do was get close to a guard or port official, and they’d protect me with their lives.
“I usually threw up a shield by making everyone who came near me feel either affection for me… or fear of me, depending on my mood. I rarely had to run or fight.”
“Fight?”
“Yes. Father made sure I was well trained in both weapons and hand-to-hand combat, pretty much as soon as I was old enough to follow instruction. I’ve been training for almost thirteen years, so I’m pretty good when I have to be.”
Rowan remembered the speed with which Astrin had moved in the dining hall at home.
“Is speed part of your abilities?”
Astrin smiled. “No. It’s part of my training, and I… enhance it with my abilities.”
“Enhance? How?”
“The human body is made up mostly of water, so I can use the water to help me ‘flow.’ I can also enter the mind of my opponent and make them think I’m moving faster than I am. In actual fact, they are moving slower.”
“But you didn’t have your abilities in the dining hall. You barely remembered your name back then.”
Astrin winced. “Just because I didn’t remember my abilities doesn’t mean they weren’t there. I’ve trained with them for so long, they’re part of my fighting instinct. I use them naturally, without thinking about it.”
“Will you teach me to do that?”
“I can try. First, you have to work out precisely what they are. I can’t teach you to use an ability you don’t have.”
“How do I find out?”
“Well… most people have two or three abilities, and for most of them they’re weak—just a slight enhancement to their personality or skills they already have. Abilities are much stronger among the royal family. I don’t know why, and they don’t seem to dilute when nonroyal blood is added to the mix. Anyway, our abilities are stronger than most people’s.
“We already know you can enter someone’s mind. By the sound of it, what happens next is that they tell you whatever you ask and don’t remember it. That makes sense, with the general nature of your House. House Raphael is known for its healing and calming energies. My abilities enhance that by allowing me to affect the way people feel—lessening their stress, fear, and resistance—manipulating their thinking to promote healing and, of course, the healing itself.
“House Gabriel is better known for its diplomacy, so it makes sense that your abilities would tie into that with focus on information gathering and stealth. I’d be inclined to think what you saw as the world slowing down was you either speeding up or fading.”
“Fading? I don’t like the sound of that.”
“It just means you enter a different state—a higher energy state where, essentially, your atoms are vibrating faster than those around you, so you move through space more easily and quickly. It’s a very rare ability. It can allow you to move through people and objects if you use it right. Of course, you have to have absolute control over the ability, or you might fade back encased in stone or halfway through a wall, and that would likely be fatal.”
“Oh, great. You have healing, and I have life-threatening walking through walls.”
Astrin smiled. “The abilities are suited not only to the House but also to the person. You’d be useless at healing, and if you had influence over emotions there’d be chaos, because your emotions are often chaotic. It makes sense that, if your energy is unstable to start with…. That’s not a criticism,” he added, to head off the explosion he could feel building. “But it makes sense to use the instability positively, for example to increase the vibrations to pass through more stable and solid energy forms.”
“Hmm. Do you think that’s it? The um… walking through things and making people give me information.”
“It’s a lot more subtle than that… and who knows? Maybe you have other abilities that haven’t manifested yet or just haven’t been used. We don’t have time to examine it in detail now. We’ll just have to learn as we go.”
Rowan pondered this as they paid for lunch and strolled out in the warm afternoon sunshine.
“Do you want to leave right away? Or would you prefer to have another drink or a walk along the beach?”
“Scared, Gabriel? Afraid to step into the brave new world?”
Rowan looked at Astrin with a frown on his face, but it faded. Instead of his usual sharp retort, he simply said, “Yes.”
Astrin’s mocking smile also faded, and he reached out to take Rowan’s hand in a completely natural gesture. He squeezed it and said earnestly, “It’s okay. I’ll look after you.” Then he let go and started to run along the promenade. “If you can catch me,” he shouted over his shoulder, so Rowan sprinted after him.
Dodging some people, and failing to dodge others, Rowan and Astrin chased each other helter-skelter through the town, past the beach, and toward the adjacent cove, which formed a natural marina. It was here that the boats, water scooters, and hovers were moored.
Running along the narrow path that led from the beach to the cove, Rowan caught up with Astrin. Catching him around the waist, Rowan wrestled him to the ground and pinned him down. Although Astrin was of similar height to Rowan, he was slighter and, especially as he was laughing so much, completely helpless, so he could not throw Rowan off.