Chapter 209: Reading

Forewarned by Detection, Rain looked up as Tarny opened the heavy door to the sitting-room-slash-office that formed the main room of his and Ameliah’s suite. Despite its weight, the door opened silently because of the Muffler sitting beside it. Rain still hadn’t gotten around to talking to Romer and Tallheart about integrating proper wards into Ascension’s meeting rooms, and it wasn’t as simple as painting them on the walls. To work on metal, the runes would need to be done in metal, and while Romer had slowly been making progress with that kind of thing by studying the Darkmane’s vault door, that was made from steel, not titanium.

“Captain, Officer Sana is here,” Tarny said in hand code, drawing Rain out of his musing. “She passed the test. Also, Vanna said to tell you we’re underway.”

“Excellent,” Rain signed back. “Send her in, please, and tell Vanna to handle everything until we’re done.”

Tarny nodded, retreating and making way for the young Watch officer to enter.

Sana was still wearing her fluffy woolen jacket, despite being out of the glacier and in Temerity’s heated heart. The overawed expression on her face told Rain all he needed to know of her opinion of the metal vessel. Making her way out of the Muffler’s influence, she paused, fidgeting awkwardly as if unsure whether she was expected to bow. Before she could come to a decision, a vibration through the deck plates as Tarny silently slammed the door made her jump, pressing a hand to her heart.

“Tea?” Rain asked with a smile, gesturing to the small round table in front of him. “You said you don’t like coffee, so I figured...”

“I…yes, thank you,” Sana said, visibly swallowing and taking the offered chair and teacup. “What is that thing?” she asked, glancing at the Muffler again. “Some kind of silence ward?” She looked around the room, then frowned. “Shouldn’t there be more of them?”

“That’s just in case someone opens the door,” Rain said, not wanting to get into it. “The walls are thick, and the ship is more or less immune to divination as far as we know.”

“Oh...” Sana said, looking up at one of the light bulbs jutting from the walls. “And those? Am I allowed to know what those are?”

“They’re called light bulbs,” Rain said. “They work by heating up a little piece of metal until it glows. You’re an Aspirant now, so you have access to the Uncommon Knowledge series on them, provided you agree not to discuss it with non-members. We haven’t decided if we want to try selling them or not.”

“Oh...” Sana said.

Rain smiled. “Welcome to Ascension, by the way, and sorry for wasting your time with the asshole test.”

“Does anyone actually fail that thing?” Sana asked. “Even if someone didn’t believe in what they’re putting down, it wouldn’t be hard to guess the answers. It’s just common sense.”

“It’s designed for Guilders,” Rain said with a shrug.

“Oh,” Sana said with a nervous giggle. “I get it.”

Rain inclined his head in silent acknowledgment of her appreciation for his tiny joke, but then the conversation lapsed. As the silence began to grow awkward, Sana shifted in her seat, looking around. “Ameliah was supposed to be meeting us, right? And, um, Tallheart, was it?”

“I’m here,” Ameliah said, emerging from the bedroom she and Rain shared. She was fully armored save her helmet, her beautiful blond hair brushed to a silky sheen and hanging loose to her shoulders.

Rain couldn’t help but stare a little bit as she made her way over.

“Some of us aren’t content to hide their bed-head behind a helmet all day,” Ameliah continued, smiling at Rain and using his shoulder for support as she slid into a chair between him and Sana. “Tallheart just stepped out. He’ll be back in a minute.”

“Oh, uh…” Sana said, drawing Rain’s attention back to her to see her blushing furiously and trying to hide behind her teacup.

“Let’s start with that,” Rain said, pointing between himself and Ameliah. “What exactly do you see when you look at the two of us?”

Sana choked in the middle of a nervous sip. “Leeka, it’s, uh...” She coughed, then took a deep breath, setting down her cup and not meeting his eyes. “Your affection for her is very…” she coughed again, “...public.”

“Oh?” Ameliah said, turning to look at Rain with a sudden mischievous glimmer in her eyes, like a cat spotting a canary. “Weren’t you the one who was supposed to be uncomfortable with that sort of thing?” she continued before honing back in on Sana. Her smile widened. Quick as a flash, she grabbed Rain’s hand from the table. “What about my affection for him, huh?” She rested her cheek on Rain’s shoulder, shamelessly nuzzling against him.

Sana squeaked and almost knocked her teacup off the table. She began nodding vigorously, studiously inspecting the ceiling.

“Ameliah!” Rain protested, busy adding spoon after spoon of crystallized honey to a fresh cup of tea. “Stop hazing the recruit. You know we have rules against that sort of thing.”

Ameliah laughed, settling back into her chair as Rain slid the now sickeningly sweet beverage to her, though she didn’t release his hand to take it. “Sorry, sorry. I was just trying to lighten the mood. She blushes like you used to.”

Rain sighed, glad his visor was down to hide the fact that he wasn’t as over his shyness as she seemed to think. “Is it really so obvious, Sana?”

“Um, yeah,” Sana said, still furiously scarlet, looking like she wanted to sink through the floor. “Most officers can tell if people are close friends or, uh, lovers, from how their souls reach out to each other. It’s easier with unawakened. They aren’t strong enough to reach out very far, but they’re also kinda…squishy…so…” With an effort, she met Rain’s eyes. “Your soul is both. Um. Strong and squishy. Because of the cracks.”

Ameliah stifled a snort, squeezing Rain’s fingers as she quaked with suppressed laughter. Still not releasing him, she set down the spoon she’d been using to stir her tea, then took an enormous gulp before breathing out a sigh of blissful satisfaction. “Oh, that’s perfect.”

Is she talking about Sana’s description, or the tea?

A tremor ran through the deck as the door slammed, interrupting Rain before he could think of a way to salvage his dignity. He looked up, having missed the door’s opening but already knowing Tallheart to be the culprit from his solid awareness of the cervidian’s soul.

Sana yelped and whirled as if she’d been caught with her hand in a cookie jar. An instant later, she whipped her head back around again to stare at Rain, her mouth making a perfect ‘o’ of surprise. She practically gave herself whiplash in her haste to look back at Tallheart again.

“We’re just friends,” Rain said swiftly.

Tallheart looked like he was going to say something but paused to glance at Ameliah. The barest hint of a smile flickered across his face before it went completely impassive. He took the open seat beside Rain, fixing him with a granite-eyed stare. “You wound me.” With uncharacteristic speed and no warning, he snatched Rain’s free hand, much as Ameliah had done before. “Does our love mean so little?”

Rain sighed, hopelessly trying to pry his fingers from the smith’s vice-like grip. It would have been slightly less impossible if Ameliah hadn’t still been imprisoning his other limb. “Damn it, Tallheart. Ameliah, stop feeding him lines.” He looked up at Sana helplessly. The young officer was quivering like Dozer at this point. “Sorry. They’re just messing with you.”

Ameliah beckoned for Tallheart’s hand, reaching for it over the teapot. “No need to be embarrassed, Rain. I’m tired of keeping it secret.”

Tallheart rumbled, locking hands with Ameliah to complete the triangle. “Agreed. It’s time for the world to know how close we three truly are.”

There was a dull thunk of metal striking wood as Rain’s forehead slammed into the table.

A very long five minutes later, Rain inhaled deeply, closing his eyes and muttering under his breath. “Scene one, take two.” Releasing the rest of his captured air in a huff, he opened his eyes to address Sana. “Thank you for coming, officer. We’re here to have a very serious discussion concerning what the Warden asked you to teach me.”

Sana nodded, more than a hint of flush yet lingering in her cheeks.

Rain nodded back. “As I said in my note—did you burn the note? Good. Anyway, as I said in the note, Warden Vatreece left me a message. She wants you to be my Reading instructor, and she said she didn’t mind if I shared what you told me with these two, provided that we’re careful about it. Did she tell you something similar?”

“She did,” Sana said.

“And did she say why she wanted you to teach me?”

Sana responded with a shake of her head.

Rain nodded, then offered her his hand. “Okay. Take my hand, please, and Read me as I say this, because it’s going to sound pretty far-fetched.”

Sana hesitated, glancing at Ameliah, who nodded at her encouragingly. Only then did she take the proffered appendage with a nod. She closed her eyes, then opened them, meeting his gaze. “Ready.”

Rain nodded back. “Right. In a nutshell, which means ‘in brief,’ Vatreece wants me to learn to protect my mind because I come from another reality, one without magic, but with things like light bulbs and the engines that power this ship.”

Sana’s grip suddenly tightened, jerking his hand so hard it almost upset the teapot.

“Some of those things are very dangerous,” Rain continued heedlessly. “While the Warden seems to trust my judgment in what I share, she wants to make sure that I have the mental defenses to stop people from lifting anything nasty out of my head. As I’m not a Mentalist and can’t build defenses directly, I’ll need to go in through the back door, that being my soul. I already know how to enter my inner world, and even how to project myself into the Liminal Void, but apparently, I’ve just been flailing around in the dark. Vatreece says Reading will let me see what I’m doing—or rather, that’s what the memory construct of herself she built in my brain says. Once I’ve mastered Reading, the construct will teach me what comes next. If I don’t meet her standards within three months, she’ll turn my brain into peach jelly. So...yeah.”

Sana said nothing, doing a passable impression of a carp.

“And you told me off for hazing,” Ameliah observed lightly.

Rain decided to ignore her.

After several long moments, Sana took a deep breath, starting slightly as she looked down at their clasped hands. She quickly pulled away. “T...true, but...” She took a deep breath. “I need to... I need to ask... I have questions.”

Rain smiled warmly at her. “I made sure we’d have all day, so unless Velika finally wakes up or something, we’ve got plenty of time.” He reached for the teapot. “More tea?”

An indeterminate while later, Rain watched Sana firmly slap her cheeks three times with both hands.

“Okay,” the young officer said, opening her eyes. “Before you can Read, you need to See, and before you can See, you need to Feel. When Guardian Nem came to Orman to train us, he said it would take us about four months.”

Rain frowned. Nem? Wasn’t he the one most likely to succeed Vatreece?

“That’s not good,” Ameliah said, shooting Rain a concerned look. “We don’t have that long.”

“I’m quite motivated to try,” Rain replied. He looked back at Sana. “It sounds like I have a head start if ‘Feel’ means what I think it means, at least. Am I right about that?”

“I think so,” Sana said, gesturing to Tallheart and Ameliah. “What you said about sensing their souls sounds very much like Feeling. Linksight, not so much, but...” She bit her lip. “I should probably go through Feeling anyway, just in case it’s not the same. Some extra practice wouldn’t hurt, besides, and Ameliah and Tallheart probably don’t want to pop their souls like you did. Shortcuts are a bad idea.”

“You don’t need to worry about us,” Ameliah said. “We’re not the ones on a time limit.”

“Mmm,” Tallheart rumbled, taking a sip of tea.

“All the same,” Sana said, holding up a hand and taking a deep breath. “The right way is...” She paused, her expression becoming distant for a moment before she took hold of herself. “Sorry, I’m not very good at this. I’ll just tell you how I learned, okay?”

“Sure,” Rain said with a shrug.

Sana nodded. “To teach us to Feel, Guardian Nem had us all wear enchanted hoods that blocked not just sight, but hearing and smell too. Then he just walked through the room between us. We were supposed to raise our hands when he was near, and if we didn’t, or raised our hands when he wasn’t there, he’d tap us on the forehead. After a week of that, he started using a switch instead. After a month, he moved up to a dagger. I got the hang of it faster than the rest, but I still got stabbed a lot. Once he discovered how gifted I was, he started controlling his soul to make it harder for me, Leeka knows how. That’s Guardians for you.”

“That’s horrifying,” Rain said, aghast. “He just stabbed his students until they learned?”

“It’s not all that unusual,” Ameliah said with a shrug. “I’ve heard of people subjecting themselves to that kind of thing, particularly if they’re trying to learn a melee kata without spending the point.”

“Pain is the best teacher,” Sana said in an imitation of a gruff man’s voice, tugging her jacket tighter. “Guardian Nem said that a lot.”

Rain grimaced, making himself a to-do item to add ‘therapy’ as one of Ascension’s standard services. Surreptitiously, he also added a tiny sliver of Immolate to his newly improved modulation script. Sana seemed uncomfortable enough without being cold too.

“There was some theory,” she continued after a moment, raising a hand and pinching two fingers just barely apart. She deepened her voice, quoting again. “’Adventurers’ intuition’ is but the fool’s version of what we will learn here. The stronger a soul, the easier it is to sense. The more harm a soul wishes upon you, the more it will draw your attention. And so, I wish to hurt you. If you do not wish to be hurt, you will learn. If you do not wish to learn, the Watch has no use for you.”

“Okay, I take it back,” Ameliah said, reaching across to touch Sana’s shoulder. “Nem sounds like a total asshole.”

Rain nodded in agreement. And he’s going to be Warden after Vatreece is gone. Shit.

“He wasn’t that bad,” Sana said with a weak smile. “He apologized to us after we got our plates. I just never knew what he was apologizing for until I got the memories back.”

“About that,” Rain said, struck by a thought. “You seem to be reacting pretty well to having all that knowledge dumped back into you. I’m curious. Is it disorienting at all?”

Sana shrugged. “Why would it be? They’re my memories. Besides, I’m used to the shock of them coming back. Oh, I didn’t mention how the Memory Cube works, did I?”

“Memory Cube?” Rain asked, deeply unsettled by her casual tone. “I just assumed the Warden was responsible.”

“She still might be,” Sana said, wiggling a hand. “There was a rumor that she made the thing, but I’m not sure I believe it. Reading’s supposed to be older than she is. Anyway, other than when we were in the room with Guardian Nem, all we knew was that he was teaching us to Read. Each day, we’d touch the cube to get our memories back, train for four hours, then touch it again to seal them again.”

“Huh,” Rain said. “I guess that’s better than losing the entire four months.”

Sana nodded. “Anyway, that’s about it for Feeling. Seeing is next, and it’s kind of like... You need to send out a pulse, then listen to the echo you get from Feeling, except with your eyes.”

“Hmm,” Tallheart rumbled, then raised his hand.

“What, uh?” Sana asked, looking at him. “Do...do you have a question?”

Tallheart blinked slowly, returning his arm to the table. “Would not the raw sense be better than sight for discerning truth?”

“I asked the Guardian that exact question,” Sana said, nodding. “Feeling just gives you an overall impression—whether someone is tired, stressed, angry...hungry...whatever. It’s pretty...vague...I guess?”

Tallheart rumbled, unconvinced.

Sana shook her head vigorously, making her short black hair whip around. “If you’re good at Seeing, you get way more detail.” She waved her hands excitedly, her passion for the subject increasingly evident. “Besides, it’s not like Feeling stops working just because you’ve learned to See. That’s actually the point. When someone lies, Feeling and Seeing won’t match up!” She made a curious gesture, touching the points of her index fingers and pinkies together, then looking through the resulting window. “It’s not easy, spotting the differences, but that’s why Reading is such an exciting puzzle!”

“I see,” Rain said, settling back in his chair. “I guess it’s like watching a person’s body language and comparing it to their words.”

Sana nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly, some of us do that too, but it’s not reliable. A normal person can control their face, but not their soul.” She gestured to Rain. “Or they can wear a helmet. Even if they can control their soul somewhat, their instinct is always to push the lie up to the surface. That just makes it more obvious! The best way I’ve found to block Reading is...um...” she looked at Rain, biting her lip. “Guardian Nem liked using the word ‘aura,’ but that’s going to be confusing with you. What was that word you used before? The thing for the space around you?”

“Domain,” Rain said. “The physical and/or metaphysical space controlled by an entity’s soul. In the Void, it’s directly visible. Out here, not so much, but there’s still a distance component that matters for skill opposition. We’ve even got a class for our Mages on the subject.”

“Right,” Sana said. “I’m great at Reading, but I’m also better at magic than I should be for my level. It’s because I know how to control my Domain.”

Rain blinked, only now realizing that he didn’t actually know what Sana’s class was.

“I’m classless,” Sana said, seemingly Reading his question right off him. She held up a hand, and a bright purple orb appeared, hovering motionless above her palm. “Arcane Bolt is my only real spell. My cohort had a really unlucky awakening, so I’m only level two.”

Rain’s jaw dropped, but not from the magic.

Holy shit! Some of the SENTINELS had trouble Reading me, and she’s doing it at level TWO!?

“Impressive control,” Ameliah said, nodding to the perfectly stationary orb.

Sana shrugged. “It’s just Guide Sending.” Casually, she tossed the orb from one hand to the other, the projectile following a perfect parabolic trajectory, as if it were actually subject to gravity.

Ameliah whistled. “Now you’re just showing off.”

Sana smiled, blushing slightly as she ran through an increasingly elaborate series of tricks with the captive spell, making it hover above a single finger, sending it spinning around her head, then shrinking it down and sending it through the handle of her teacup.

With an effort, Rain closed his mouth.

“Um, I can’t actually dismiss this,” Sana said after a few more demonstrations, bringing the orb back to a neutral position. “Normally, I only do this outside, so...”

Leaning over, Tallheart poked the magical orb with a metal finger, popping it like a soap bubble and letting his armor greedily drink up the disrupted magic.

“Thanks,” Sana said, folding her hands back into her lap.

“Mmm,” Tallheart rumbled in acknowledgment.

“Sorry, I think we got a little distracted,” Sana said. “Where were we?”

Ameliah scoffed. “Distracted? This barely counts as an aside when Rain’s in the room.”

Tallheart rumbled again, this time in agreement.

Rain sighed, refusing to take the bait. “We were talking about Seeing, Domains, and blocking Reading.”

“Right,” Sana said. “So to See someone, you need to cut through their Domain with a pulse of your own Domain, then sort of...record the echo on your eyeballs. You can’t block Feeling—well, unless you’re Guardian Nem or something—but you can block Seeing by puffing up your paling so the pulses just glance off. It’s like making yourself seem stronger without being stronger. It’s hard to explain.” She tugged at the collar of her jacket. “Wow, it’s really warm in here all of a sudden.”

“My bad,” Rain said, canceling Immolate. “You looked cold, so I used a spell. I can cool the room back down again, hang on.”

“No, this is good,” Sana said, loosening her jacket but not taking it off. “I’m always cold, so this is nice, thank you. Anyway, pulsing your Domain is the easy part, at least if your target isn’t stronger than you, and it’s another thing that becomes automatic the more you practice. Recording the echo is harder. It’s like...tricking your brain into seeing sounds instead of hearing them.”

“Synesthesia,” Rain said, nodding.

“What?” Sana asked.

“That was Rain’s language,” Tallheart rumbled.

“Oh, we called it synesthesia,” Sana said, using an unfamiliar word in common. “Um, well, anyway, to learn it, they gave us Velvet Cap potions, then—”

Ameliah sat up sharply, interrupting her. “What?! They gave you Dream!?”

“No,” Sana said, shaking her head firmly. “Not Dream. Less addictive, and not nearly as strong.”

Rain grimaced. Dream was a potent hallucinogen said to transport you to a waking fantasy. It was one of a few illicit narcotics he’d heard of since he’d gotten here—and one of the tamer ones, at that. Awakened Chemists could make some truly nasty things if they broke bad.

Tallheart rumbled unhappily. “Should we seek Reason, then?”

Sana tilted her head as she looked at him. “What?”

“Reason is our top Chemist,” Rain said for her benefit, though he was looking at Tallheart. “I doubt he’d just happen to have deadly mushrooms in his pockets, though. That seems irresponsible.”

“Mmm,” Ameliah said. “Perhaps we should stop in Fioe after all.”

“Um,” Sana interrupted. “The Warden told me Rain already has a way to trigger synesthesia, but she didn’t say what it was.”

Rain slapped his forehead. “Oh. Duh. I have a skill called Detection that does that if I use it too strongly. It didn’t even cross my mind.”

“Good, that should work,” Sana said. “First, though, you need to learn to send the pulses. I know a few exercises.” She abruptly stood, then spread her legs and thrust her palm over the table at Rain’s chest, releasing a high-pitched “Ha!”

There was a brief silence.

“Gods, that was cute!” Ameliah said, raising a hand to cover her mouth.

Sana flushed pink, quickly lowering her arm and dropping back into her chair. “Um...”

Rain smiled behind his visor, fully in agreement. Careful to keep his voice level, though, he cleared his throat professionally. “Right, then. Shall we begin?”