The Shadow Games, page 9
As the words left my lips, I vowed that I would not use my powers. I couldn’t, wouldn’t, kill again. Whatever it took, I’d find some way of escaping this city.
Marcus seemed strangely nonplussed by my outburst. “It is rather a lot to come to terms with, but given it was the Royal Academy who threw you down here in the first place, are you sure they are the paragons of virtue you believe them to be?” His accent was smooth. If we were in New Vegas, I’d have assumed he was an upper-leveler.
“At least the Academy doesn’t enslave people,” I retorted.
No, they just throw them down here to die.
I quashed the thought and scowled at Marcus.
“We will teach you how to control your powers so you don’t end up killing yourself and other people,” Diana said. “Each of you will have a session with Marcus today. You’ll spend the rest of the time with me.” Her lips curled into a cold smile. “We have a lot of work to do to get you into shape.”
“What is this? The Shadow Academy?” Cayden asked, scowling. Clearly, the prince wasn’t used to being ordered around.
The corner of Marcus’s mouth twitched. “In a sense. If you don’t learn to control your powers, they will control you, and that rarely ends well.” He turned to me. “Vesper, I’d like to work with you first. Follow me, please.”
I trailed him down corridors and through doors. As we walked, my anger and grief subsided, leaving me feeling numb.
“How big is this place?” I muttered under my breath.
Marcus had sharper hearing than I thought. “It was once a huge entertainment and hotel complex, back before New Vegas was built on top of the old city. Millions of people from all over the world visited every year. Now it houses the people who align themselves with Caesar and look to him for protection.”
“Protection from who? The other factions?”
“Yes, as well as other people and creatures in the city. Most feel life is safer under the protection of one of the faction leaders.”
He set a surprisingly brisk pace, and I hurried to keep up. “But there are people who live outside? In the city itself?”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t recommend trying it. Most people don’t survive very long. It’s not just criminals who are thrown down here to die.” He stopped so suddenly, I nearly ran into the back of him. “Here we are.”
He pushed open a nondescript door. I followed him into a room that was dimly lit by a single flickering light. “I believe this was once some kind of bathing area. Give me a minute to light some candles. You may have noticed that electricity is limited down here. Unfortunately, we lost one of our leccies last year. That was one reason Caesar was so keen to buy your friend.”
“Marissa?”
Marcus nodded. “Leccies are one of the most sought-after talents, along with water-weavers and growers. Water is always in short supply, and growers are essential for food production.”
“So we’re not just going to be used as weapons?” I asked, more sharply than I’d intended.
Marcus’s hand paused above the wick of one of the candles. “Is that what you thought?”
When I didn’t reply, he glanced over at me. “Jules’s first priority is to keep his people alive. Yes, that sometimes means fighting, but it’s also about making sure we have the basics we need to live. Leccies help power machines and lighting, burners create furnaces for us to mold metal and glass, growers help our crops grow, and water-weavers can draw clean water from the most unlikely of places.”
“And me?” I swallowed. “Why did they want me?”
Marcus moved between the thick candles, lighting each one in turn. They gave off a strange, unpleasant odor, but the flickering light was kind of comforting. The room was split into two, with two sets of stairs leading up to the higher level that was mostly taken up by a deep hole cut into the floor. At the back of the room was another sunken area, shallower than the first. The floor and walls seemed to be made of some kind of stone or marble, but they were chipped and cracked.
“Mind-talkers are rare, Vesper. Particularly ones with your strength.” Marcus hesitated, then added, “Jules also thinks you have a second talent—empathy. It’s not unheard of for people to have more than one talent, but it’s unusual.”
“Jules? You mean Caesar?”
Marcus nodded. “Caesar is more of a title. His father was Caesar before he passed away, and Jules took over from him.”
It was hard not to like Marcus. His manner was open and honest, and he was the first person we’d met down here who seemed to treat us like human beings rather than an object to be bought or sold. Back in New Vegas, I wouldn’t have hesitated to trust him.
The brand on my arm burned.
We were not in New Vegas now. Trust was something I was going to have to learn to live without. Still, Marcus seemed to be the only one willing to answer questions, and the more information I had, the better armed I’d be to escape.
But first, I needed to understand who—or what—I was.
“You called them talents, Diana called them powers, and at the Academy, Sas—” I cleared my throat. “The Guardians called them abilities. But no one’s told me what they are or why we suddenly got them.”
“Sit down.” Marcus waved me over to a long stone lounger next to the sunken area in the floor. “I don’t know when the talents first emerged. Perhaps there are historians at the Royal Academy who may know, but I was never privy to that information. As for how you got them . . . Well, your power was always there, dormant inside you. For a talent to manifest, something must happen to trigger your brain into activating it. The most common method is to put the subject in a terrifying situation where they believe they are fighting for their life.”
“Which activates the fight or flight response,” I murmured, remembering my biology classes at school.
Marcus nodded. “That’s right.”
“So that’s why we were put in the Colosseum? The slaver was trying to kill me?”
“Bobo probably gave him orders to make it look that way, though he would have been ordered to avoid killing you if at all possible.”
I looked down at my hands. “So he wouldn’t have strangled me to death?”
“No.”
I remembered how the spear had missed me, even though the slaver had been close. How he’d thrown away the spear and the sword—the two weapons that could have seriously injured me—and used his hands, so he could control the pressure.
I shivered. “But I killed him.”
Marcus placed his hand over mine. His skin was worn and lined, like a piece of paper that had been crumpled, then pressed flat again. “It wasn’t your fault, Vesper. Sometimes it happens, particularly when a person has a very strong talent.”
I threw his hand off me and stood. “Don’t call it that! Like it’s something . . . something good. It’s horrible. I—” I snapped my mouth shut.
“A talent is like anything,” Marcus said quietly. “It can be used for good or evil. But until you learn to control it, you do not have a choice over what it does.”
I closed my eyes and sucked in air, trying to calm the anger raging inside me.
I don’t want this power. All I want is to go home.
When I opened my eyes, Marcus was wincing and rubbing his head. “The first thing you need to learn is how to stop projecting your thoughts.”
My jaw dropped. “You heard what I just thought?”
“That you don’t want your power? Yes. You practically shouted it.”
My knees felt weak and I sank back onto the seat. Does that mean everyone can hear what I’m thinking? All the time?
“No,” he said, then smiled at the scowl on my face. “And that was just a guess at what you were thinking. Your expression gave it away. I can only hear what you’re thinking if you actively project it. I’m receptive to that kind of thing. Most people wouldn’t be able to hear it at all, unless they were mind-talkers. But you need to understand when you’re doing it and how to use it effectively.”
I bent over and massaged my temples. It was hard to focus through the pain in my arm and the aches from my bruised and battered body. To cap it off, my headache seemed to be returning.
“Let’s back up a minute,” I said. “So my experience in the Colosseum activated this mind-talking ability I have?”
Marcus shook his head. “No. The tests they did at the Royal Academy activated your talent. You just didn’t realize it then. What happened in the Colosseum forced you to use it. Do they still use a virtual reality simulation?”
I nodded.
“The simulation is designed to induce fear. A scanning device then picks up whether the part of your brain where your power resides has been activated.”
I glanced at him suspiciously. “How come you know so much about the Academy and its tests?”
He smiled sadly. “Because I used to conduct them myself, a long time ago.”
My jaw dropped. “You were a Guardian?”
“Yes, for a time.”
“But how did you end up here?”
“That is a long story, and we have limited time. We need to get on with assessing your ability and seeing how I can help you control it.”
“Wait!” I held my hand up as he stood. “One more question.”
He sighed patiently. “Fine. One more.”
“Marissa didn’t take the Academy tests—she’s a year or two younger than the rest of us—but her ability was already active. That was why they threw her down here.”
Marcus’s eyes widened a fraction. “Ah, that’s interesting. She likely experienced some traumatic event. Abilities can be activated at any time during childhood, though they usually come to light during the teenage years. New Vegas is such a safe place to live that most young people would never have an experience strong enough to activate their talent. That was why they introduced the testing system.”
“But why didn’t they take her to the Academy to train her?”
Marcus shrugged. “Why did they throw you down here? They see you as a threat.”
I opened my mouth, but Marcus shook his head. “No more questions. Now, we’re going to start with shielding, for my sake as much as yours, then we’ll move on to look at how you can use your talent.”
He calls it a talent. But it’s not a talent. It is a curse. A curse that made me a murderer and could make me kill again.
A dreadful thought struck me. Even if Cayden was right and our test results had been mixed up, would the Academy even want someone with my power? What use would I be to New Vegas society?
“Everyone has a natural mental shield,” Marcus continued, oblivious to my blank expression. “Your shield stops your power from leaking out and inadvertently affecting others, as well as protecting you from those who might use their powers against you. For example, it would stop a fellow telepath from getting inside your head.”
“Telepath?”
Marcus smiled. “That’s the scientific name for it. You’ll find most people down here refer to you as a mind-talker. I mentioned that we also think you may have a touch of empathy, which means you can sense people’s feelings and emotions and may be able to influence them.”
I opened my mouth to dismiss the suggestion, then closed it again when I remembered the waves of fear that had washed over me when we were caged in the room under the Colosseum. Had I been sensing my companions’ fear as well as my own?
“When you feel a strong emotion, your feelings and thoughts can leak through your shield,” Marcus continued. “That’s why it’s so important you learn to control your talent. Only then can we move on to using it proactively.”
That sounded sensible. “Okay, where do we start?”
“First, I’d like your permission to run a little test. I will attempt to block your talent. This will tell me how strong your natural shield is and how much work we have to do to improve it.”
“You want to get inside my head?”
“In a sense. Not in the same way you would—I wouldn’t be able to read your thoughts, for example—but for the test to work, it’s really important you don’t make an effort to push me away.”
“Surely you don’t have to ask my permission,” I snapped. “I’m Caesar’s slave, after all. I’m surprised you haven’t jumped in already.”
Marcus grimaced. “I would much rather do this with your cooperation.”
“What if I refuse?”
He sighed. “I beg you not to. This is for your safety, as well as everyone else’s. If you can’t properly shield your power, there’s a risk you could project too strongly if you become emotional.”
He seemed about to say something else, then stopped himself. But I could put the pieces together myself. “Was that what happened in the Colosseum? How I killed him?”
“When you screamed at him to stop, almost everyone in the Colosseum heard you, even those of us who have strong shields. But that was just the scatter effect. Think of your thought projection as a beam of light. The focus of your fear was the man attacking you. What we got was just the faint glow around it.” Uncertainty clouded Marcus’s expression. “I’ve never seen it happen before, so I don’t know for sure, but my theory is it overwhelmed his senses so completely that it disrupted the synapses in his brain.”
I frowned. “I zapped him?”
Marcus winced. “That’s a rather crude way of putting it, but yes.”
“And if I can’t figure out this shielding thing, there’s a risk I could do it again?”
“I’m afraid so. I can teach you the techniques, but without probing, I won’t be able to tell if the lessons have any effect.”
I stood and walked to the back of the room, needing a moment to think without his kindly "trust me" expression in front of me.
You can’t trust him. You can’t trust any of them.
But I didn’t want to accidentally hurt, let alone kill, anyone else. And learning how to shield my "talents" wasn’t the same as actually using my power on someone. Besides, I wouldn’t be able to escape if I projected my thoughts every time someone made me jump.
“You definitely can’t read my memories or thoughts?” I asked, staring at the cracked stonework in front of me.
“No. I don’t have that ability, Vesper.”
I turned to look back at him. “What ability do you have?”
“Stop changing the subject.” Marcus gave me a warning look. “We only have ten minutes left. Let’s at least attempt to start trying to improve your shielding.”
“Fine.” I returned to take the seat opposite him.
“Close your eyes and relax,” Marcus instructed. “You may feel an odd sensation inside your head, but it shouldn’t be painful. Whatever you do, don’t push back at it and don’t shout.”
I did as he asked, trying not to think about anything important, just in case he was lying about reading my thoughts. Instead, I focused on my breathing and the pain in my arm. After a moment, I sensed a slight pressure inside my head. It was uncomfortable, but not painful. Then the pressure spread, as if a thousand fingers encircled my skull.
Just as it became unbearable, the pressure disappeared.
“You can open your eyes now,” Marcus said. He looked at me with a thoughtful expression. “That’s not as bad as I feared. You do have a decent natural shield . . .”
“Why am I sensing there’s a ‘but’?”
“It’s not really a ‘but’. You’re just stronger than I thought.” Marcus flicked his eyes to a strap on his wrist and frowned. “Five minutes. Right. I want you to try a simple strengthening exercise. Close your eyes.”
I obeyed, stifling a groan. If I am that strong and important, surely he can spend longer than an hour training me.
“Empty your mind and search for the source of your power.”
My eyes flew open. “What?”
“Search for the source of your power,” Marcus repeated. “You’ll know what I mean when you find it.”
I closed my eyes again and tried to empty my mind, which was next to impossible given all the questions I had spinning around my head.
“Focus on your breathing,” Marcus advised.
I sucked air in and out. In and out.
This isn’t working. What kind of stupid exercise is this?
I gritted my teeth and tried to push the negative thoughts from my mind. And then I felt it.
A faint pulsing that was so much a part of me, I hadn’t even known it was there. Noticing it was like trying to remember how to breathe, yet once I knew it was there, I became hyperaware of how the energy swirled around my head.
“Have you found it yet?”
Marcus’s voice seemed to come from a distance, as if I were underwater.
“Yes.”
“Good. You should be able to sense a barrier around it. Something that stops it from spreading out of your head.”
Now that he mentioned it, the power swirling around my head was contained by something. Not a hard, rigid barrier, but something flexible . . . like water swirling around inside a plastic bag.
“You need to strengthen that barrier. Imagine you’re inside a sphere and you need to defend yourself from attackers. Build layer upon layer of armor around the whole surface.”
“How?” I already felt drained trying to hold onto the energy pulsing in my mind. I squeezed my eyes shut as my concentration began to slip.
“Let it go, Vesper, and open your eyes.”
But I didn’t want to let it go. The power swirled inside me. If I let it go, would I ever find it again?
“Vesper, let it go!”
Marcus’s voice broke the gossamer thread that connected me to the energy source and my eyes snapped open.
I was back in my body, suddenly aware that my heart raced. Sweat trickled down my forehead.
Marcus smiled reassuringly. “You need to build up your strength gradually. Never get to the point where you’re too tired or afraid to let go of it.”
“I thought . . .”
“That you would lose it?” Marcus shook his head. “It’s part of you, Vesper. But it takes a lot of energy to build a shield and control a talent, particularly a powerful one. That’s enough for today. I want you to practice finding your power and see if you can start to strengthen your shield. Only try it for a few minutes at a time and only two or three times a day. You’ll make progress faster than you think.”
