Chapter 29

“You saw the look in his eyes. It’s the same one I saw when you touched me. You need to let me talk to him!” Kestrel begged Wallace as they walked up into the foothills that bordered Aris’s estate.

Kestrel hated that the gruff soldier, who refused help as they trekked up the steep mountain trail, insisted he keep his magic hidden. After what they had seen yesterday, Kestrel was sure that Aris held the same abilities as he did.

If Aris knew, and were to be trained in Memory Magic, maybe he would find a way to track down Cillia’s killers, who had disappeared.

Wallace huffed in pain as the climb jostled his injured shoulder, but bit down and looked over to Kestrel.

“I don’t know what I saw. It could be any number of things,” Kestrel knew that Wallace was lying. “Despite how young Aris looks, he’s seen worlds more than most people twice his age. It could have been any number of things that you saw in his eyes. And even if it were the selfsame MemoryMagic that you possess, I still won’t drag him into our mess.”

Wallace shook his head as if to reinforce his decision.

Kestrel caught the shift in his tone and jumped on it. “You know that what you just said is every bit as full of piss as a tannery.”

“You may be right. In fact, I’m almost certain you are,” Wallace sighed as his eyes caught Kestrel’s sharp hazel ones. “But it doesn’t matter, I’m not going to drag Aris into our mess. His brother made me swear to leave him out of this tangled net. I intend to keep that promise. You probably don’t know it yet, but it was this ability that we have that got Van killed. If I hadn’t taught him to be a memory mage, he wouldn’t have left young Sephira an orphan, and Aris brother-less.”

Once again Kestrel was reminded just how much Aris’ family, Sephira included, had lost. Kestrel didn’t corner the market on suffering.

“Even if I wished to let him know what happened to his brother. What really happened that is…I couldn’t. I took an oath, Van made me swear on my name I wouldn’t tell him.”

The rest of the walk up the steep foothill was done in silence. Both were caught up in their own thoughts. The sun had nearly rose in the crisp early morning sky by the time they reached the false peak they had been using as a training ground for their magic. Wallace pulled an apple from the small bag he’d slung around his uninjured shoulder and tossed it to Kestrel.

“Eat.”

Kestrel had already bitten into the fruit before Wallace had finished his one word command.

“It’s important to protect your mind at all times,” he said, stepping over to Kestrel and placing his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “You never know who may have our ability and when they may use it.”

Kestrel felt the slightest tingle. It wasn’t as much a physical sensation as it was a mental prickling warning him that something foreign was invading his mind. Wallace had trained him to recognize that feeling and set up mental walls.

Wallace insisted that it took years of training to get to the point that Kestrel was at, but Kestrel had a hard time believing his cantankerous teacher. He had to be exaggerating in his praise. The first time that the old man had taken his memories he’d felt that selfsame tingling. It just came naturally to him. It had to come naturally to any Memory Mage, right?

Despite Wallace’s warning he felt that the older man had taken a memory from him.

“You’re never going to be safe from a Taker like us. There’s just no way to escape our abilities,” Wallace said, taking his hand off of Kestrel’s shoulder. “But you can redirect it. You can make your mind like a maze so instead of taking whatever they came searching for, you guide them to the memories you want them to see.”

Kestrel grasped Wallace’s rough hand at the nod from the older man and immediately let go. He was sweating and shaking from what he saw.

“What was that?!” Kestrel dry heaved.

“I see you saw one my favorite memories to share,” Wallace chuckled. “Gruesome, isn’t it.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“If anyone wants to steal my memories I’m going to make them pay for their intrusion,” Wallace stated matter-of-factly.

“You really saw that?” Kestrel asked.

He shook his head at the memory Wallace had directed him too.

It had ate his still alive face…The screams…

How could Wallace stay sane with images like those dancing through his memory?

“Make your mind a labyrinth. Each branch leads to a painful memory. Make them pay for trying to steal from this,” Wallace jammed his finger to his skull.

He reached and grabbed placed his hand on the younger man one more time.

Kestrel felt the tingle again.

“You might want to keep those memories to yourself, I don’t know how Aris would react to those recollections of his niece.”

Kestrel blushed a bright red and Wallace laughed.

“There’s no shame in those feelings Kestrel. But remember, to a Memory Mage, especially a morally challenged one, anything can be a weapon. Love being the most effective one. But you already know that. I’ve seen what that young girl Cillia’s death has done to you.”

Even now those words were like a punch in Kestrel’s gut. He did his best to keep thoughts of the young girl from his mind. He didn’t want to relive seeing the blood spraying from Cillia’s head while her young body fell limply to the ground.

Wallace saw the pain reflected in Kestrels eyes and seized it. “Take that memory, make a room around it, separate it from the rest of your mind and make it like a shield.”

Kestrel nodded. He hated the feeling of helplessness that overwhelmed him as he recalled Cillia’s death, but with an effort, he separated that memory in his mind and all the feelings of terror and helplessness that surrounded it, then walled them off, creating a mental lockbox.

“You have your memory isolated?” Wallace asked, knowing the answer.

Kestrel nodded. He wiped the tear that had gathered in the corner of his eye, betraying him and showing his weakness.

“Good.” Wallace grunted, ignoring his student’s watering eyes. “Now take that memory that you created a home for and create pathways to it.”

Kestrel raised his eyebrows at his injured tutor, unsure of what Wallace meant by his instruction.

“Take everyday things, like the smell of bread, or the weather, or even the color of a girls hair, doesn’t matter what it is. Just take all those memories and tie them to whatever traumatic event you chose. Tie it to Cillia’s death,” Wallace explained.

Kestrel nodded.

“Let me ask you, when you took my memories, what were you looking for?”

“I wanted to see how you were connected with Aris and Sephira. I wanted to know why you wouldn’t bring the General in on our mutual secret,” Kestrel said shyly, afraid of being admonished by the silver haired Memory Mage.

“Thought as much,” Wallace grinned, pleased to see Kestrel’s discomfort. “You see, I figured you would look for something like that, and I took every memory of young Sephira's father Van and tied them to our time spent in the freezing mountains fighting those monsters. I used one of the most vivid memories from then and tied each memory of Aris or Van to that war. You see, the stronger the connection with the traumatic memory with whatever is being searched for, the easier it is to direct them to the defensive memories.”

Kestrel nodded. He took the color of Cillia’s hair —red— and formed bridges in his mind, each instance where the color featured prominently in his memory now connected to her death. “Now try me,” he told Wallace. “Try taking a memory of the color red.”

The old man obliged and the moment he grasped Kestrel’s sinewy forearm the former street beggar felt the familiar tingling indicating the touch of a Memory Mage.

Seconds later Wallace released his grip and smiled at Kestrel. “Good,” he said, his eyes were covered in a light mist, overwhelmed with the sorrowful memories that Kestrel had tied together with the target memory. “You let yourself release too much information, but you were able to connect the memories. That’s an admirable start for such a late bloomer like you.”

Kestrel allowed himself a little grin. This had been one of the most painful lessons he’d had so far under Wallace, but it was well worth it. If he could learn to use his abilities to protect those precious to him, he would shoulder the pain of the whole world.

By the time they finished their lesson, Kestrel felt exhausted, hollowed like a tree eaten by termites.

“That’s enough for today. We’ll meet again soon,” Wallace told the young man who nodded and left.

What could Kestrel have been if he had been taught magic from a young age? What if Kestrel had been raised like Wallace?

Wallace hadn’t been forced to live on the streets like the younger man, but he’d been alive before the purge, and his mother, a Memory Mage herself, had trained him since he was young.

She had seen what was being done to those of her kind under Vealand’s new leadership and she hadn’t spared her young child from anything.

Wallace remembered the brutal beatings at her hands and her explanation that it was for his good, that the beatings would keep him alive.

He had felt nothing when the Emperor’s men had taken his mother and put her to death. It wasn’t until much later that he realized the thrashings administered by the harsh hands of his mother had indeed saved his life.

The strain from the whippings had consumed every other memory in his mind and had kept the Memory Mages who had pledged to serve the new Emperor in exchange for their lives from recognizing the touch of magic in him as they hunted down those of their own kind.

Even all these years later he had a hard time dealing with those memories, and chose to focus on the horrors he saw in his time spent in the military rather than the much closer and deeper cuts that had been carved into him by his own mother.

Her instruction had been Spartan, but it had saved Wallace’s life.

He would make sure to not let his trauma go to waste. He wouldn’t fail Kestrel like he had failed Van.