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Excitement stirred inside me.I am ready to learn my powers. Once the dragon and protector have been dealt with, I’ll start my mission.
I moved to stand, helping Clawdia up too. "I need to rescue my brother and my sisters."
Baelen turned from a desk, where he had been picking up and pocketing items, to look at me. "You know where they are?"
"I don't know where my sisters are. But I know my brother is on Drakor under a master called Creath. He is protecting a human female, Emily, who is also a slave."
"How do you know that?" Clawdia asked. Her hand paused brushing dirt out of my braid, and she stared at me with curious violet eyes.
"Before I was in the nightmare with my master, I think I was in Thos's dream. I spoke with him, met the human female, and we talked for a while. I told them about you," I added quietly, and she beamed up at me.
“Zaide, that's incredible. I’m so glad you got to speak to him and check he was all right. I know how worried you were.”
“I was.” I swept a finger over her forehead to move a piece of hair behind her ears.
I love you, Little Cat, I told her with my eyes.
Baelen coughed slightly, drawing our attention back to him. "I will send troops to look for your brother and his human female. I have noticed more humans in the slave markets."
"You rescue titans from slave markets?" Clawdia asked.
The term “akari-freed” echoed in my mind.Is Baelen the one freeing the titans?
"I am rescuing as many as I can until I have task forces to continue the work and eventually reestablish the society." He shrugged modestly, as though it were an everyday task, not heroic or honorable.
"If you are doing this, why did your fathers save Clawdia to make me help them?" I asked, remembering how desperate they had seemed.
Baelen coughed and shifted uncomfortably. "They don't know. We are … estranged. We hadn’t spoken in years before they told me to train you."
I raised an eyebrow. "I bet that conversation went well."
He grimaced but said nothing further on the subject. "You got lost in the dreamscape and found the nearest connection to you—your brother—which only emphasizes how much we need to begin your training. Especially now that you'll gain access to my powers too."
"Pardon?" Clawdia questioned, surprise making her voice higher.
"We are soul mates. Like your connection to your soul pair, we can share our gifts."
"Can we? Daithi and Savida didn't mention that, did they?" Clawdia asked me with her head tilted back against my chest.
I pursed my lips. "Daithi likely doesn't know. He abandoned his people before he finished his schooling. He likes to pretend he knows a lot, but about his own powers, he is mostly clueless."
"If we can share our gifts, you'll be able to heal, and we'll be able to manipulate blood?" Clawdia asked Baelen.
"That is the idea."
"And you'll teach us about the dreamscape? That's something you can do?" I asked, hopeful that if I could master the skill, I’d be able to find my sisters as easily as I found Thos.
"A product of my akari heritage. Yes. I'll teach you that too." He played with a ring on his finger, drawing my attention to it. It was a golden band, thick and masculine.
A gift from a lover? A commitment band? Is that why he is so distant? Why he didn’t want to tell us we were soul mates?
Unaware of my spiraling thoughts, Clawdia noted, “This is a lot to learn.”
"You have already discovered how to channel power into the threads and manipulate them to heal. Once you’ve begun to use your power, picking up the other skills will be simple." Baelen placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Don’t fret.”
“A lot depends on how quickly we can learn and how well we can use our gifts, Baelen. It’s a lot of pressure. I’m nervous,” she whispered, her head bowed.
Her concerns were valid. My own fear was hidden behind the excitement and prospect of saving my family. Yet she voiced her concerns to Baelen because my excitement added pressure. She wanted to help me and worried she’d fail.
