‘You set the pace, my Lady,’ said Aronaar, inclining his head slightly.
‘Then we’d better make it quick.’ They started towards Ephemere. ‘We’re following you, Ephy. Is she in bed still?’
Ephemere had dragged the door back open and braced it with a foot. She nodded.
‘Sitting up but still asleep, Ana says. This could be trouble. She’s in danger of becoming uncontained.’
Cleress felt fear shift through her, tensing tired muscles and catching her breath.
‘Faster, Aronaar. Much faster.’
It was the flow of the mana they had to assess. The depth of any flaring and the vortices it produced. Without that knowledge, they could do Lyanna incalculable harm, shutting off streams that, with no escape, would disperse themselves inside her mind. Hurrying down the corridor, towards her room, Cleress wondered if that wasn’t already happening.
Outside, the orchard was largely still, but every window overlooking it had smashed outwards, leaving jagged spears of glass and warped frames swinging on the wind that gusted strong into their faces.
Above it, Lyanna’s wails ran like acid through Cleress’ veins and she could but imagine the torment of the young child as she fought a desperate battle to bring her burgeoning power under control.
For days now, the four elderly Al-Drechar had kept unflinching vigil over Lyanna as she descended into her Night. At no time was she left alone in her mind; it was the only way to monitor her acceptance of the mana as part of her being and discern any hint that she was understanding control.
Only now would the Al-Drechar find out whether their terribly short time of teaching had given Lyanna the knowledge that would save her life. But what nagged at them all was that, though Lyanna was obviously bright and a talent with no bounds or equal to her potential, she shouldn’t have had to deal with her full Awakening until her teens. Not just her mental wellbeing but her physical state too had to be monitored.
The Al-Drechar did everything they could, though in truth it wasn’t much. They kept her exercised and fed during the moments she was awake and shielded her from the excesses of mana strength while she lay semi-conscious. But so much of the battle was within her undeveloped psyche and they were helpless to aid her there.
The lucid periods were shortening dramatically and, more and more, Lyanna either lay on her bed or walked the corridors of the house, oblivious to all around her, Al-Drechar shadowing her every step of the way.
A keening cry split the whistling of the wind and with it, a jolt in Cleress’ brain as Aviana’s tenuous grip on Lyanna’s mind slipped again.
‘Hurry, please,’ came the exhausted thought. ‘She’s breaking me.’
‘Almost with you,’ pulsed Ephemere. ‘Be calm, Ana.’
Aronaar reached out with his free hand and pushed open Lyanna’s door. Ephemere strode in first, with Cleress unwrapping her arm from the elf’s shoulder before following her in while he stayed outside.
Lyanna was sitting on the bed, legs not touching the ground. Sweat matted her hair and ran down her face and across her tightly closed eyes, dripping from her cheeks and chin. Her mouth hung open and she dragged in great breaths, moaning for her mother or whimpering, her brow creased by some savage inner pain.
In a chair near the bed slumped Aviana, her face white in the gloom and drooping to her chest. Her arms were gripping the sides of the chair and her legs were tucked hard under it. She was shivering, her eyes restless as they searched the mana spectrum.
Immediately, Cleress and Ephemere attuned their eyes to the spectrum, revealing the full enormity of what they had sensed on walking in.
Rippling and shimmering, unstable but holding, Aviana’s mindmana shield played like a hood around Lyanna’s consciousness, its deep brown cut through with a brilliant emerald green that was Aviana’s alone. Beneath it thrummed the chaos of Lyanna’s desperate fight to accept and control the mana flow coursing through her head, drawn there by what she represented as if it was alive.
And what the Dordovans had done was there for them all to see. Dominating the gentle brown that gave them cause for hope, indicating as it did her Drechar capabilities, was the poisonous orange of the Dordovan College. Here was where the fight would take place.
Looking deeper, Cleress could see striations of deep green, pale yellow and dark, dark blue assimilated in the streams. Much of it appeared calm but at the centre of the helical structure was the pulsing orange that signified Dordovan Awakening.
Like a lunging animal, no, a snake preparing to strike, the rogue Dordovan mana bunched and coiled before expanding explosively, ripping the gently modulating brown as it did so; and punching outwards as flares or, intriguingly and worryingly, part-constructs.
Aviana, with minute adjustments to her shield, accommodated her instant decisions, letting the flares and stronger constructs escape or, if she could, containing them, allowing them to disperse harmlessly away from Lyanna and almost certainly taking damage in her own mind in the process. It was impossible to see how she could do otherwise.
Cleress’ pulse quickened. It was an onslaught, unintentional and quite without malice, but one under which Aviana, even Aviana, was beginning to wilt. The power it represented was quite without precedent. Should Lyanna complete the miracle and survive, she’d be a mage with no peer. It was something for the Al-Drechar to cling onto. At least they wouldn’t be surrendering themselves pointlessly.
‘Cleress, apply yourself to the shield,’ said Ephemere. ‘I need to calm the inner structure.’
‘Be careful,’ urged Cleress, already plucking at Aviana’s mana strands to knit together the shield and provide a fresh and safer outlet for the flare. ‘She’s attempting to cast.’
‘She’s trying to contact Erienne,’ said Aviana, relief in her voice as Cleress accepted some of the brunt of Lyanna’s outpourings.
Through the jolt she felt and the concentration she partitioned to help Ana, Cleress had enough about her to be irritated she hadn’t spotted it straight away.
‘Of course,’ she muttered. Though Lyanna hadn’t been taught even the rudiments of Communion, her innate knowledge led her subconscious mind to attempt it. Her constructs were ill-formed and impossibly unstable, lasting a few heartbeats at most, but they were there nonetheless as she attempted the flow across the spectrum that would lead her to her mother’s mind.
It was lucky she had no hope of success. The base power of her casting occasionally reached dangerous peaks which would have slammed into Erienne with the force of a MindMelt. It was these Aviana had been filtering through the shield to dissipate away from that young, helpless mind. Even so, the pain must have been at times intense. Small wonder Lyanna cried out for Erienne so often.
‘Aviana, let go if you need to,’ said Cleress. Despite her tiredness, she felt able to sustain the shield while Ephemere cut off the source of the flares.
‘I’m all right. I’ll just pull back a little,’ she said. ‘Ephy, you’ll have to talk her down quickly. The Gods only know what this is doing outside.’
‘No, I’m not going to talk. I’ve got a better idea. I’m going to mana meld with her.’
‘Risky,’ said Cleress. The mass of trapped mana in Lyanna’s mind coiled and sprang, spitting out another embryonic Communion. It was weak as Lyanna began to tire and Cleress was able to disperse it within the shield; a containment that represented a small victory for the seas around Herendeneth.
‘She needs to understand how to bind the Dordovan magic into the One at source. She may be able to stand the reaction in her mind of not doing so but I don’t think we or Balaia can.’
‘Then do it, Ephy, if you believe you can,’ said Aviana. ‘Just hurry.’
Cleress watched closely as the smooth brown sphere that represented the calm of Ephemere’s mind began to reach out, all the while never letting her concentration slip on the shield.