Blaize and the Maven: The Energetics Book 1 (6 page)

She nodded, understanding now why he was here. He had a job for her. "What do you need me to do?"

"How's your energy?"

She licked her lips and tried not to glance behind her. "F-fine."
 

"It's time for you to branch out on your own. I've found an energetic match for you who just happens to be someone who has the potential to cause me a lot of problems. If you can take her, you can have her."

Indigo's foot started to twitch. "Who? Where?"

"I need you to move to a town called Merrow and wait. In the meantime, I'm going to share with you the prophecy I've seen so far."

She tried not to whine. "You can just tell me. I don't mind if you just want to tell me."

He smiled again and spoke gently. "It's better if I show you, my dear. You know that."
 

He beckoned her forward and she shuffled towards him and bowed her head. He put his hands on her hair, and she closed her eyes and braced.

Agonising pain shot through her head, as images were forced into her mind.
 

She saw twelve energetics shining in front of her, their faces as bright as the sun.
 

She saw a red-haired woman tied to a bed, an IV drip coming out of her arm.

She saw a tall, dark-haired man fall to his knees in a forest, his face agonised.

She saw, in her own Haven, her safe space on the etheric plane, the red-haired woman tied to a chair.

His hands left Indigo’s head and she slumped down. Her head lolled and she felt something wet come out of her nose.

He clucked his tongue and put his right hand under her chin, lifting her head up. He put his left hand in his pocket and pulled out a pristine handkerchief, and wiped away the blood under her nose.
 

"The red-haired woman is your target. You're to move to Merrow, and to dreamwalk yourself to find what else you can of the prophecy. At the moment there is a possibility that the man and woman you saw may not even meet, in which case I will have other work for you. You will stay in touch." He let go of her head, which wobbled but she kept it upright. Her gaze was fixed on his knees again.
 

He picked up a black briefcase at his side, and pulled out a plastic wallet filled with papers. He leaned down and placed it by her side. "This is the information you need."

He stood up and looked down at her. "Now, get your mat. I'm going to make it so that no other energetic can recognise you with protection wardings. I don't want to spring the surprise early, after all."

She cringed, but got up and pulled her mat into position, and concentrated hard on ignoring the dead body that lay in the corner of the room. The blood from the corpse's nose had dripped past his chin and onto his chest but was now brown and dried.

"Lie down and relax," the man instructed. "You know it hurts more if you're tense."

 
She lay on the mat and screwed her eyes shut. This time, she tried to make her limbs slack as his energies
—
and the white hot pain
—
seared her every muscle and nerve.
 

It was for her own good, after all.

"Must you ruin a pleasant evening?" Cuinn kept his voice amiable, but the warning was clear.

He and Fintan had retired to the living space, and as expected, Fintan had continued the argument on Marius's behalf.
 

But Cuinn had had enough.

“The answer is no, Fintan. I don’t want another Adherent. I'm working on the prophecies. It’s too important to be distracted by some inexperienced girl.”
 

Fintan looked sombre, unlike his usual playful self. “I understand. Tierra tells me you've taken a sabbatical from the university to work on deciphering the prophecies you've seen. But it's time."
 

He sprawled in an armchair, his gaze on the fire that Cuinn had lit to warm the chilled room. Fintan raised and lowered the flames as rhythmically as some people stroked a cat.

Cuinn stood, his gaze on the fire, his posture stiff and unyielding.
 

Fintan's relaxed voice ignored Cuinn's reaction. “You're the right candidate. For her, and for you. The level of control that’s needed to manage one’s own energy plus an Adherent’s is difficult, and you have the energy, the power, to manage someone who has strong potential but no training. It might be a hard experience at first, but you need it to heal. What happened to Sophea wasn’t your fault.”

Cuinn's fists balled, but the anger was drowned in a bleak guilt that lay like ice water inside his chest. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
 

“I know you don’t. You never have. You’ve kept it inside you, where it’s eaten away at your personality like a poison. You’re becoming someone quite different from the Cuinn I knew of old. You were always serious, but at least then you had the capacity for a little spontaneity and play. That’s been leached away by the burden you carry about Sophea. A new Adherent, and a more positive, successful relationship will heal you more than you know.”

Cuinn was shocked by this speech though he tried not to let it show on his face. He took refuge in anger instead, sneering at Fintan. “If I’m not the person you want me to be, then piss off back to whoever’s bed you’re warming at the moment. I’m fine on my own. And anyway, I have Adam and Tierra keeping me company. I’m not alone.”

Silence stretched between them.
 

Fintan played with the fire.

Cuinn crossed his arms over his chest.
This is none of his business. They should all just leave me alone.
He didn’t want another Adherent, didn’t deserve another chance. And the girl certainly didn’t deserve him. She was better off somewhere else.
 

He closed his eyes and memories assaulted him. An ethereal woman, her face lit up as they discussed philosophy and literature. Watching her Ajna energies blossom and develop. Her Haven in the dreamscape a labyrinth of books. Keeping up with her as she switched languages depending on the topic, from English, to Latin, to Greek, to her native Italian when she was truly excited. The moment she had shown him the hidden room in her Haven, and his wretched handling of the situation.

He swallowed to reduce the thickness in his throat, and fought to keep the feelings off his face.

But Cuinn wasn’t trapped yet, whatever Fintan thought. The cage door still had to close.
 

One word would determine whether it would.

 
He asked the question he had been dreading since Fintan came through the door. “Is Marius calling in my debt?”

Fintan looked grave. “Yes.”

That's it.
With that one word, the cage door slammed shut, and Cuinn felt light-headed.
 

“I need some time alone Fin. We’ll speak tomorrow.” He spun around before Fintan could answer and left the room.
 

Marius calling in his debt was the last straw. Cuinn could no longer refuse.

He would have to become a Maven again.

Cuinn walked through the door of his workroom and shut it behind him. He leaned against it, limbs heavy with fatigue. The idea of taking another Adherent made him feel sick to his stomach. His last experience had ended in horror, grief, and shame, and he couldn’t face that again.

After the conversation he'd had with Fin, Cuinn’s energy was unstable, and the room felt too dark. He pulled the armchair to the windows, which he opened as wide as they would go. The light of the moon relaxed him, and he added some candles to supplement its gentle light.
 

He pushed hair away from his face and sat in the worn and comfortable armchair. He leaned back and tilted his head towards the sky. With few artificial light sources such as street lamps or cars, there was little light pollution and it was easy to see the stars.

Ah, Tierra.
He felt a stab of guilt. One of Fintan's best placed blows had been a claim that Tierra was lonely. Tierra was loving and sociable, and Cuinn had thought that with himself, Adam, and visits to and from her best friend Cara, who lived on an island off the west coast of British Columbia, Tierra had enough interaction to nurture her. And she seemed to enjoy looking after Adam's Husky, Argus, when Adam travelled to a country where foreign dogs weren't welcome.

But Fintan had told him the last time Tierra had seen Cara had been months ago. Adam seemed to be away more than usual at the moment, taking Argus with him, and Cuinn was locked in his rooms more often than not.

Tierra herself had never mentioned feeling lonely, though she wouldn’t. She was kind, good-hearted, and meant the world to him. She was the sister he’d never had, and since his mother had died long ago, had been the main woman in his life for decades. Since … the last one. Sophea.

His hand worried at the arm of the chair, at a worn patch his nervous gesture had created over years. The feel of the material under the pads of his fingers comforted him. Cuinn’s gift sometimes meant he was ungrounded, and reconnecting with the environment around him brought him back to the physical world.
 

His energies also meant he spent a lot of time in his head. He blew out a breath, and closed his eyes.
 

Perhaps the girl wouldn’t be too useless, and could help him. Dreamwalking and prophecy work was a critical part of mind training
—
it might be that he had to train her in a rather unusual order, but he could work it out.
 

He fell asleep in the chair minutes later, halfway through rearranging the typical Ajna training in his mind to suit his new purpose. But at the back of his mind, one thought kept intruding.
 

His world was about to change again.

Blaize arrived at her family’s cluster of traditional-style bungalows and parked underneath her own wooden-framed raised house. Instead of going inside, she walked across the hard-packed earth to Nixie’s bungalow and shouted her name.

As Blaize started up the stairs, Nixie appeared on her balcony, wiping her hands on a towel. “Hey! How’d it go?”

Nixie’s dominant energy was Svadisthana, or water, the energy of fantasy and imagination—and sexuality. Combined with her auxiliary energy of Vishudha, or ether, the energy of communication and creativity, it meant that Nixie tended towards sexy, a little spacey, and loved to chat.
 

A year or so younger than Blaize, Fai’s daughter, Nixie had the petite frame, dark hair and eyes of many Thai women, combined with her father’s Gaelic paler skin. Her looks were striking, and many men—and sometimes women—fell over themselves to talk to her.

Blaize, who saw Nixie as a sister, didn’t notice her sexuality. In their teenage years, there’d been a time when Blaize had been unsure why the boys in their class flocked to Nixie, but seemed scared of Blaize. Nowadays, Blaize had her own share of attention, and just found men’s regard amusing.

Blaize reached the top of the stairs and held out her arms to Nixie for a hug. “I passed! I’m officially a Practitioner of the Manipura Guild!”