Stealing a glance at Henry, I saw the dark smudges still beneath his eyes, but the anger had melted away. Or, at least, been put aside for the time being. From his relaxed manner, he seemed near sleep and occupied with pleasanter thoughts, judging by the faint smile. Even without the benefit of Cate’s calming touch, he had accepted all my news in his usual stride. To be sure, I heard more than a few exclamations in response to the various details, but in the end, nothing exceeded his belief. The revelation that his almost-former mistress was my aunt brought the greatest shock, followed by a sudden burst of laughter. This earned him a sharp cuff to the chest. In turn, I found myself on the bed, my arm pinned between us, and his mouth hard on mine. My other arm went around his neck, and it mattered not that I lacked breath to protest, for I had none to offer.
Now watching him, curiosity stirred as to the source of his smile. He looked the picture of contentment, and I preferred not to disturb his rest by asking outright when it took so little effort to tap into his emotions. At the first drop of power, my whole body grew flushed from the sensations that flooded back. Breaking the connection, I stared at him through narrowed eyes, my interest piqued to new heights.
What are you thinking about Henry Fitzalan?
My fingers twitched impulsively. During our lesson, Cate had warned against excessive prying. “Tread lightly, Selah,” she said on the heels of my first success, “and only when necessary. Otherwise, you may learn something best left unknown.”
Unbidden, a jealous thread wove through my heart. Could someone else have caused his desire? What if our brief talk of Justine had dredged up a memory, one long repressed that crawled to the surface the moment his defenses were down? Henry didn’t mention whether or not he had experienced anything unusual with Justine, anything related to her being goddess born.
I hesitated for a split second. Then Henry gave a contented sigh, and all doubt vanished. I absolutely wanted to know the dreams flitting around his head. Any quandaries of unwarranted snooping and prodding could be addressed later, just as soon as I got a look at what so clearly pleased him.
Impatient for answers, it was no small feat to hold Brigid’s fire at bay to better concentrate on Cate’s instructions. “For the most part there are two sorts of thoughts available to us, visual and auditory. They can form alone or together. Either can be read, though images are by far the easiest to discern. While emotions flow outward, thoughts tend to pool inside the brain. You just need to know where to find them. Practice will enable you to dig deep into someone’s memories, but stay to the surface if you want to see what’s being thought at that precise moment.”
With a measured breath, I closed my eyes and released the slightest trickle of power. Once more, Henry’s emotions flooded into me. I pushed them aside, ignoring the swell of heat in my stomach as I started to wind a path upward into his head. Years ago, my mother taught me to identify the different parts of the human brain. Today, my great grandmother had shown me how to look past the brain and into the mind.
The complexity of tissue, vessels and nerves proved stubborn at first, refusing to budge under the gentlest of prodding. Not to be outdone, I willed patience to subdue the budding frustration, and focused again on Cate’s guidance.
“You see what you expect to see, Selah. Consider a face, if you will. An initial glance yields the usual nose, mouth and eyes. Look a little closer, and these features reveal the intangible layers residing beneath the flesh and bone. Expect only the physical, and that is all that will appear. The mind is there, no less real than the gray matter that holds it.”
My years of training had prepared me to see a brain, healthy or weak, large or small, but a brain all the same. It took every ounce of will to overcome this habit and force the physical image from my mind’s eye—in essence, to snuff out the internal candle and plunge my mind into a state of darkness without breaking the link.
At first, there was nothing. I waited, having gone through a similar exercise numerous times with Cate this afternoon. A stubborn minute passed when something finally shifted, prodded by another trickle of power, and I found myself staring at what resembled the blackest night sky alight with a million stars.
A swirl of color spun across my thoughts, there one moment, then gone. When blurred images appeared, I pushed a little deeper. The edges tightened into separate forms, and I started at the sight of Henry and his father. The two men stood facing each other, expressions contorted and bodies rigid with rage. A sword hung at Henry’s side, the very sword the duke had sent Henry to fetch from the family’s ancestral home as a red herring to conceal his real purposes. Studying the image, father and son seemed frozen in a still life until enough time passed, and I realized that every movement proceeded at a fraction of normal speed.
By no means could this be responsible for his present mood. Obviously I had gone too deep, which would explain the slowness of their actions; Henry may have suppressed his anger for the time being, but the memory continued to play out on some level in his subconscious.