Blaize and the Maven: The Energetics Book 1 (4 page)

“It’s not possible.” Cuinn gripped the phone receiver in his hand and forced himself to keep his tone even. He kept his eyes on the stunning green view from the window of his workroom.

“Cuinn, please, reconsider. She has spectacular energies,” Marius said. Fai’s husband, he had called Cuinn from Thailand. Again. “Her Manipura is one of the strongest her Aunt has trained, and we think her Ajna energy is almost as strong—it’s unusual for an auxiliary energy to be that powerful.”

“I know,” Cuinn’s reply was dry. His own energies were also abnormally strong. He was one of the strongest Ajna energetics in the Guild. And much good had it done him. He rubbed his face, feeling the stubble that had grown there while he’d been immersed in his books yet again.
 

“You’d be a perfect Maven for her Ajna. She needs someone strong but grounded. It’s hard to find a Maven with Ajna and Muladhara.” Marius’s Irish brogue had been dulled by time and travel, but could still be heard by Cuinn, also born there, many years ago.
 

“You know better than most that I can’t take an Adherent. I’ve told you and Fai both for months. Why are we having this conversation again?” Cuinn felt a wash of heat across his chest and put a palm against the cool glass of the window.
Why are they still pestering me about this?
If his friendship with Marius hadn’t been so old
—
and Marius and Fai were two of the small number of people in the world he cared about—he wouldn’t have even taken the call. As it was, the temper that others rarely saw was now close to the surface. He took a deep breath to slow the pulse that had sped in reaction to Marius's harassment.

“Her trial’s going on now. She’ll pass, but her anger is still strong. She can be hasty, proud, quick to flare up. Rogues, in particular, have an … incendiary effect on her.”
 

“It’s understandable, given what happened to her parents.” Cuinn knew the girl’s history. It was a hard one, and he of all people knew how tragedy could change and influence a person. He didn’t blame her, but that didn’t mean he wanted anything to do with her.

“It was fine when she was young, a Dormant, but she’ll be a Manipura Practitioner after the trial. If her Ajna isn't well developed by a grounded Maven, she could easily go off course. She may be a straightforward Warrior now, but one day she could be a Guild Leader. She needs to develop the power of the mind, especially her farseer powers. It may seem as though her leadership won’t be required for many years, but the death of her parents shows us that even the most experienced and longest lived of us can be taken by surprise. We want to be prepared.”
 

“Her Grandmother is strong, cautious, and adaptable. She’s going nowhere. And the girl would have to be voted in by her Guild, which is unlikely. She’s ridiculously young for the politics that would be involved. Which is something I can’t teach her.”
And wouldn’t want to even if I could.

“Please. For us. We need your help.” Marius wouldn’t budge.
 

Cuinn sighed. If this was a competition for the most stubborn energetic, he was happy to oblige. And it wasn’t as if he was pretending, either. His plate was full. His brain buzzed with the glut of information he'd been taking in recently in an attempt to decipher the prophecies. “There are other things going on. I have things that I’m working on for the Circle.”

“You’ll always be busy. Your work ethic and your sense of duty determine that.” Marius hesitated for the slightest moment. “But it’s time for you too. Time for you to take another Adherent.”

 
“That’s for me to decide.” Cuinn’s tone became clipped. The heat now washed through not only his chest, but his neck and head. His forehead joined his palm against the window. “I value your friendship, you know I do, but don’t presume to discuss matters with me that are my business alone.”

“It’s not only your business. You’ve cut yourself off for too long. Just because you won’t take a leadership role for the energetics, doesn’t mean you can’t do important work elsewhere.”
 

Why won’t the man take no for an answer?
“I
am
doing important work elsewhere.”

“Part of being strong is working with others.”

“That’s enough.” Cuinn's voice had a dangerous edge now. All he wanted was to be left alone, and Marius knew that. Surely that wasn't too much to ask after more than two hundred years of service to the Guild?

He kept silent, reining in the anger, kept staring at the green view, and Marius didn't break that silence.

At the back of Cuinn’s mind lurked the debt he owed Marius. A debt that he gratefully acknowledged; Marius had brought Cuinn back from the brink of madness after Cuinn’s horrific experience with his last adherent. But surely Marius would never call in the debt in this way? He of all people knew how unsuited Cuinn was to be a Maven.

After a handful of moments, Cuinn relented, shaking his head. The girl was unlikely to pass her trial this fast. And even if he simply managed to postpone this conversation, at least he’d be able to get back to work now.
 

“She has to get through her trial first anyway. It’s never a given. It would be rare for an energetic to pass their dominant energy’s trial with only five years of training. Come back to me when
—
if
—
she passes, and we can discuss it again.”
 

Cuinn hung up, slung the phone onto the desk and strode back to the window. His hands clutched the windowsill as he stared out, willing the view to ground him as it usually did.

The gentle hills, at this time of year still dusted with snow, reminded him of the Ireland he’d left many decades before. This kind of view was less common in Canada, his adopted home. But he’d found it in this area to the south east of Vancouver, Fraser Valley. Of course, Ireland didn’t have the huge, white-capped mountain that was Mount Baker behind the valleys, but that just added to the view.

Not in the least soothed, he spun around and paced across the spacious room, stepping around the piles of books heaped on the floor.
 

Damn him. I don’t want an Adherent.
And not because he wasn’t prepared to be responsible for a beginner’s mistakes like many Master level energetics who chose not to become Mavens.
 

My reasons are far more important.
 

Cuinn’s Ajna energy, the energy of the mind, gave him the power to dreamwalk. To visit the ether, and to use farsight to see slivers of the future. His recent dreamwalks had terrified him. So much so, he’d already reported them to his Minor Guild’s Circle member. Over recent weeks, day and night, he’d explored the prophecies to try to understand more, but they were patchy, and the feelings of fear and trepidation that came with them had increased.
 

Cuinn stopped pacing and sighed. He pushed his hair back from his face. He hadn’t been sleeping and his body felt as if it had gone three rounds in the practice ring with Adam, his extremely well-muscled and well-trained cousin.
 

Cuinn didn’t want to have to deal with some fiery Adherent on top of everything else. He wasn’t cut out to teach. Time had shown that.

He opened the door and went downstairs towards the house's huge kitchen, where, if he was any judge of the smells wafting down the corridor, Tierra, Adam’s sister and Cuinn’s other cousin, was baking. Adam and Tierra were all the family he had left - he didn’t count his father - and they were the two most important people in the world to Cuinn.
 

He came through the kitchen door and saw her, humming along to the mellow sounds of a saxophone coming from the radio. Her dark hair hung around her face as she bent over the oven and took a mouthful of something from a baking tray. She looked up when he came in, eyes wide, guilt on her face.

“I was just having a taste!”

“Good?” He frowned. Had he missed something?
What was she talking about?

“It was a small taste. It doesn’t count against my diet.” She had a smear of chocolate on her forehead. He walked over to her and wiped it off.

“You’re on another diet?”

“Yes, yes, I want to lose a few pounds. I saw this beautiful dress in town, and I’m between sizes at the moment. I need to lose a few more pounds to get down to the next one.”

“Why don’t you enjoy whatever you’re eating and go up a size?” He pinched a bit of brownie from the baking tray for himself and tasted it. Hot, a bit squishy, but good. Very good.

Her mouth dropped open. “What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with you?” He poked her in the arm and grinned at her.

She smiled back, shaking her head, and he gave her a quick one-armed hug. “I will never understand women. You’d have to go a long way before you found a man who wouldn't appreciate your curves.”

“Not much chance of finding a man to ask given the luck I have in that area.” She pushed the brownies back into the oven. “They need a few more minutes anyway. What have you been up to today?”

Cuinn tried to keep his tone casual. “I just got off the phone with Marius. He’s trying to push his niece on me as an Adherent.”

“You’re talking about taking a new Adherent? That’s big.” She shut the oven and straightened.

“I’m not talking about it, he is. I’m not taking her. I told him no. Again.”

Tierra rubbed her forehead and smudged more chocolate on her butterscotch skin. Cuinn suppressed a smile.

“Maybe it’s time,” she said. “It’s been decades since …”

He stopped smiling. “I know how long it’s been. There are others who can help her. It doesn’t need to be me.”

She leaned one elbow on the counter, resting her chin in her palm. “Hmm. It doesn't have to be, but it could be. Have you talked to Adam about it?"

He shook his head. "I haven't heard from him for a few days."
 

Tierra sighed. "The last message he sent said his team took a contract hunting some Rogue in Russia, so he's probably off the grid. I hope he looks after himself. And you, too—how's your work going? Have you made much progress with your dreamwalks? Are the prophecies any clearer?”

“Yes, and no. They’re blurry, much blurrier than my farsight is normally.” He shook his head and realised he was grinding his teeth. He relaxed his jaw and circled his head. “All I can tell is, trouble’s coming, and it’s coming for all of us. The energetics. But I don’t know how, who—even when. I have only fragments, not enough to piece together yet.”

“When did you last get a full night’s sleep?”

“I don’t know. A while.”
Weeks. But she doesn't need to know that.
“I’m spending all the time I can on this. When I’m dreamwalking, my physical body’s lying down, so it’s a sort of rest.”

“It won’t help your farsight if you don’t stay healthy.”

Cuinn gritted his teeth and tried to change the subject. “How’s your work?”

Tierra wrote nationally syndicated gardening and agony aunt columns. “Good. I sent off both this week’s columns early. Let’s have a proper dinner tonight, at the table. I’ll cook something you like. Stop working by six, and come help me set the table.”

Tierra was always ahead of her deadlines, whereas Cuinn felt like he could never catch up with his. “I don’t have time.”

Tierra waved a hand. “You can stop for an evening. Another good reason to get an Adherent—an Ajna will make a perfect assistant—she can spend her time with all of those dusty books of yours.”

Cuinn raised his eyebrows. “Those ‘dusty books’ are the history of our race. And probably the future too, if only I can decipher the farseeings of those who’ve gone before me.”

“The books can wait for you to have a good meal and a proper night’s sleep. You’re too thin, you’ll waste away.”

“You’ve been saying that for decades, and I still eat twice as much as you. It’s my metabolism. My energies. But,” he put up a hand to forestall yet another argument, “I’ll keep you company at supper. And I’ll only do a couple of hours afterwards before I go to bed. How’s that?”

“I’ll take it. You can tell me all about this Adherent of yours when we eat.”

“She’s not …” Cuinn gave up as Tierra chuckled and pushed him out of the kitchen. He shook his head and gave a small smile, and as always, he felt lighter after spending time with his cousin, whose combination of earth and heart, Muladhara and Anahata, made her one of the most nurturing people he knew. He was lucky to have her in his life.

***

When Cuinn came back down again to dinner a couple of hours later, he was in a more relaxed mood. He’d found reference to a text that he thought might provide some suggestions about a way forward with the prophecies. He felt he had made some progress for the first time in days. He shut the door of his study area behind him for the night and took just the one book with him to read in the library after supper with Tierra.
 

As he walked towards the kitchen, he heard Tierra scolding someone who answered back in amused, lazy tones, “Don’t pretend you’re not pleased to see me T.”
 

Cuinn’s eyebrows rose at the faint European accent that told him who she was scolding.

Cuinn came through the door and grinned. “Fintan! Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?”

A tall, broad-shouldered, strawberry-blond man stood talking to Tierra’s back. He turned. “What, and miss the opportunity to piss off your cousin here by adding an extra person to dinner?”

There was a ‘hfft’ from Tierra, who slapped at Fintan's hand, which was reaching for the spoon in her pot of sauce. It did smell great.
 

Cuinn walked to Fintan and they hugged like brothers—which was the way Cuinn felt about him. Fintan wasn’t family, but after growing up in Scandinavia, he’d spent decades with Cuinn in Ireland when they were younger energetics, just as Marius had.
 

 
Marius. Of course.
So that was why Fintan was here. He was backing up his phone pestering with a personal visit.
 

Frowning, Cuinn pushed away from Fintan.