Chapter Twenty-Nine

Robert listened to every word the professor said. She was a tall woman named Adairia, graceful in her Dreamer’s robes and wearing her hair in a tight bun. Her face was stern but very pretty. Her voice, on the other hand, galled his patience and threatened to pierce the prince’s eardrums. He preferred nails on a chalkboard. Worst of all, she droned on and on with every topic. Unfortunately, what she had to say was important, and he listened through the nasally contrived cacophony.

“The history of emotancy is ancient, from a time long before our own. Though records are limited, we have determined humans once desired to improve upon their minds while seeking ways to communicate—essentially creating what we discovered waiting for us in the Dream World.”

Robert wondered about that possibility, how humans could essentially change their bodies to adapt or become different over time. But Sippen had taught him basic evolution. “It’s like farming,” he said aloud.

Adairia did not welcome the interruption and glared at him as he went on.

“When a farmer discovers a plant has produced better than average yield or more desirable fruit, he chooses those seeds for the next year. Eventually his crops become bountiful and more resilient.”

“Crude to compare humans to farming, but I guess that’s all you’ve known before now,” she replied through her nose. She wasn’t intentionally trying to be mean, only stating facts as she saw them.

Robert wasn’t offended. “Well, animals then. Husbandry has long bred qualities into all domesticated beasts—for speed, greater quantities of milk or fatted meat, or even for strength at pulling a plow. It takes longer with animals than plants to achieve the traits you desire, but not at all impossible.”

“This level of class is not a seminar, Prince Robert. Please listen to the lectures without interrupting.”

He shrugged and made no promises.

“Since the great awakening nearly eighteen years ago, we’ve learned much more about controlling our craft, how to wield it, so to speak.”

“What caused that, do you think?” Robert asked abruptly. “The great awakening, I mean.”

“We know atmosphere plays a part, but also the Caldera of Cinder. There’s radiation left over in the crater from a catastrophic event that occurred more than twelve hundred years ago. When the caldera belches out a large scale eruption, it charges the air in much the same way a thunderstorm creates lightning. This stimulates the abilities existing in a latent—a person sensitive to a craft, and it eventually awakens in some uncontrollable fashion. We first Dreamers, many of whom were children during the great awakening, discovered our craft accidentally, usually during times of great anger or sadness.”

“So trauma plays a part in it?” Robert asked directly. “I heard many of you were from a town along the coastline leading to Fjorik. I heard about northern raiders who kickstarted your abilities. Where was it… oh yes, Ataraxia!”

“Very astute of you, and yes. Thank you for conjuring thoughts of my parents brutally murdered in their beds and us hiding in the forest, shivering, and whimpering.”

“Wait!” Robert thought of Cuyler, and how similarly stoic Adairia seemed. “You’ve mastered control over your emotions! That’s what’s changed and how you can modify and change your outcomes! I first felt my powers…”

“Craft. It is a craft.”

“When I first felt the craft, I was terrified. We were being hunted and I had no idea why. I sort of panicked, and there it was! But as I controlled my breathing and refocused, I could see the tendrils of air. I could almost touch the braids with my mind and so I did.”

“Yes. What you are describing is called Basal Abilities Manifestation. But you jumped into an intermediate level when you understood the need to focus.”

“Like when I travelled to the Dream World!” he blurted out. “I didn’t know what I was doing, but BAM! There I was!” He laughed at the acronym.

“What?” The look on Adairia’s face was anything but stoic, offense and even resentment seemed to radiate from her face.

“I’ve travelled to the Dream World twice now. Once with help, but the second time on my own.”

“Prove it. Describe our meeting place.”

Robert did, down to every last detail. He described the castle and its moat that curved around and entered a wondrous forest. He took care to describe the mountains and even the most prevalent flowers. It seems someone had a great love for tulips at some point, but the blooms were predominately wildflowers. He was about to mention the garden where he encountered Adam and Eve but clamped his mouth shut to keep his promise.

“I’m sorry,” Robert said, “I found it an amazing place.”

“You’re forbidden from travelling there,” Adairia suddenly scolded, “and will not travel there again uninvited. Even after you ascend to the monarchy, you will not be welcome in our private world, but especially uninvited.”

“I’m sorry, I…” But then Robert remembered what Adam and Eve had said. The Dreamers did not know everything about that world, and there’s many places for visitors to hide. “Yes, professor.”

“Swear it! I shall also report that you’ve been warned to Master Cuyler. He won’t be happy with this news.”

“I swear!” he lied. He had every intention of returning.

His second professor was much more tolerable to listen to, even if the information was less eye-opening. He was a small man, slender and unassuming with large spectacles. His name was Galayn and his topic was Relational Emotancy.

“The crafts are divided by season. Autumn is the most prevalent found in Andalon, granting its wielders control over air. Spring is next common, though half, if not more, as likely to occur at all. The Springs can tap into living things or anything organic in nature.”

“What about rock?” Robert asked.

“It depends. Granite, no. Obsidian, no. But limestone and other sedimentary stones like sandstone and shale can be manipulated. On a cellular level they very much remember how they formed.”

“What about organic stones, like coal?”

“That is favored by the Summer Emotants.”

“The Pescari…”

“Yes, that craft has so far been found exclusively in the Pescari people. Their history forbade intermingling with outsiders and, until recently, no known unions occurred. Besides, it is the rarest chance of occurrence, roughly one in one hundred thousand latents.”

“But it’s possible an Andalonian and a Pescari could produce offspring of the Summer craft?”

“Yes,” Galayn agreed. “But highly unlikely. Even then, we don’t know which would be dominant.”

“What about the Winter Emotants?”

“Those with affinity for water are as rare as fire. There have only been a handful discovered since the awakening, and we have only one currently working within the Dreamers.”

“I’ve heard they’re quite dangerous,” Robert said, thinking of the legendary Braen Braston and what Cuyler had said, discouraging a possible marriage with Fjorik.

“It is. A single Winter Emotant can take on a squad of any of the others and win without effort.”

“Do you ever combine crafts? Blend your teams to unite an effort?”

“That’s a question I will not answer,” Galayn replied.

“Oh, so that’s the higher level training Cuyler promised I won’t receive.” Robert’s mind went to work at once, charting out possible combinations of Air + Fire, Organic + Water, and Air + Organic. The outcomes were endlessly stimulating and he found himself running scenarios in his mind. He almost missed the professor mention familiars.

“… a bonding can be forced or natural, the strongest being when the animal is drawn to and chooses you.”

Robert snapped out of his musings. “I’m sorry, professor. Did you say we can bond animals?” His mind went at once to the Falconers and Jaguars he and Sebastian had encountered. “I thought Falconers and Jaguars practiced a different craft.”

Galayn shook his head. “Not at all. The Falconers of old mimicked our craft by digesting a substance derived from our bodies and were capable, if not much weaker, of every ability we might possess. Your father bonded an eagle.”

Robert froze. “So, any Falconers encountered now also draw that substance from emotants?” He thought again of the large room with strange lights and weird tubing, and how he and Sebastian had been stripped and laid upon stone slabs. “They meant to farm us?”

“I beg your pardon?” the confused professor demanded.

“Cuyler. I need to speak to Master Cuyler right away!”

“I’m very busy, Prince Robert. What’s so important that it interrupted your first day of lessons? Did you find it so dry and boring you needed to distract me as well as you?”

“No, not at all,” Robert protested. “I enjoyed it very much. Cuyler, there’s …”

“Master Dreamer. I’d prefer you address me by my title and not my given name.”

“I’m sorry, Master Dreamer. There’s something you need to know. I’ve been so sidetracked by becoming a prince and all, I never thought to tell you what happened to me in the forest.”

“Marita told me. You were taken by a small band of Falconers and Jaguars and she and her South Continent friend rescued you. I know all about it. We already freed the captives and are reintroducing them to society. Some of the latents may even attend the Academy soon.”

“Well, yes, but…”

“See?” the lead Dreamer pointed out dryly, “you did wish to distract me after all. There’s nothing you can tell me I don’t already know.”

Robert felt his stomach churn, the result of anxiety wringing his heart. But then he paused. This man is separate of the government, but he is not elevated higher than me. Sitting straighter in his chair the prince spoke with newfound authority. “You are arrogant, Master Dreamer, but I hope that lack of respect is not displayed openly in the throne room or behind my back once I’m king.”

Cuyler’s eyes snapped toward him, less with anger and more filled with curiosity. “So, you have a backbone as well? I’d wondered if I’d be able to force it out of you.”

“You’ve done nothing to bring it forth, I’m simply tired of your arrogance. Sebastian earlier raved about how great of a leader you are, but I’ve seen no evidence to agree.”

“Sebastian would look up to a sand flea if it treated him nicely.”

“Sebastian is a greater man than you and a stronger emotant as well.”

“Please. He cannot even split his mind more times than me.”

“I’ve seen him do it eleven times,” Robert lied, watching close for a reaction. It worked. The stoicism wavered and a bit of shock worked into Cuyler’s face.

“He’s a coward.”

“No. He’s a protector. Though he shies away from direct combat, he does so because he can’t stand to watch people he loves die around him. He saw enough of that sailing with Braen Braston.”

“He’s never fought in any battle, much less sparring.”

“Not true. He valiantly defended me against both Falconers and Jaguars.”

“They took you despite his efforts otherwise,” Cuyler argued.

“They had help. You said Marita told you of our rescue, but she did not know details of our taking.”

The lead Dreamer sat taller, listening with curiosity.

So, Robert thought. I’ve information he needs after all.

“Tell me,” Cuyler demanded, trying hard to regain his stoic demeanor. “Tell me everything you know.”

“First, catch me up on these new Falconers. I know you believed them defeated after the war, but they’re obviously back.”

After weighing the benefit of the trade, Cuyler finally agreed. “I’ll tell you everything that’s public record. We’ve only had a few encounters with the Falconers themselves, but people have been going missing across Andalon. At first, it was a problem for constables but, as the numbers increased, we realized a large number of Academy dropouts had joined the list of disappearances. That’s when I sent out several teams to investigate, and two Dreamers reported encounters with Falconers.”

“But none with Jaguars?”

“No,” Cuyler agreed. “Not until yours.”

“Where do they come from, these new Falconers. Marita said they all died at the end of the war.”

“Falconers are not bound by death, they are born from it,” the lead Dreamer explained. “When you fought the Jaguars, you watched Parumba resurrect the fallen beasts and turn them on their masters?”

“I did.”

“That is an unnatural resurrection, part of the Spring Emotant craft, one that leaves the subject under complete control of whoever raised them. They may feel normal, even have their own thoughts now and again, but they are never truly self-motivated. Everything about them is compromised.”

“How long does the connection last?” Robert asked.

“For as long as the controlling emotant lives. Upon their death, all subjects they control die with them.”

“But the Falconers wield emotancy…”

“Stolen emotancy. Those beads they make from our bodies fuel their powers.”

“Powers? Not craft?”

“What they do is no craft.”

“So someone is killing people and raising them again as Falconers.”

“No,” Cuyler corrected, “someone is killing people sensitive to the beads made from our bodies and raising them. Then they’re stealing emotants to farm more beads.”

“And you’re looking for the source? The single person responsible for building an army capable of defeating your Dreamers.”

“Yes. Now tell me what you know.”

“The source is a man who calls himself Camp. He told us his full name was Campton.”

Cuyler’s eyes grew wide with surprise and all pretense of his stoic nature fled.

“You know that name? Who is he?” Robert demanded.

“Campton Shol is the former Chancellor of Eston, your grandmother’s chief advisor and your uncle’s after her. He fueled the war against your father.”

Robert and Cuyler discussed Campton long into the afternoon, even bringing a sketch artist up from the constabulary to draw his likeness. Robert described everything, how he walked, the pitch of his voice, his build, and even habits while he ate.

“Thank you, Prince Robert,” Cuyler finally said. “You’ve been most helpful in our investigation.

Robert stood and reached to shake hands, but the Master Dreamer surprised him with a respectful bow.

“How was your first day?” Sebastian asked.

“Remarkable,” Robert replied, slumping into his chair exhausted. He filled Sebastian in on every detail of his lessons and his conversation with Master Cuyler.

“I don’t trust him,” Sebastian admitted, revealing what he had overheard.

Robert sat up straight. “They conspire against the king? Even after agreeing to his decree?”

Sebastian nodded. “They seem to hate Fjorik, even more than the Pescari.”

“I don’t know. Percy really despises them. Could you imagine how much it would gall him if Tara and I managed to elope?” Robert let out a laugh.

“Robert,” Sebastian warned, “be careful talking like that. Galling Percy Roan is one thing, but you have to think how many more in your kingdom think like him or worse. If you married the wrong type of woman, you could anger thousands of your people, losing their support and even prompting a revolution.”

Robert paused. He hadn’t thought of the effect on the people. “My life isn’t my own, anymore, is it?”

“No,” his concierge agreed, “it most certainly isn’t.”