I felt a rush of relief. “Stop them? You can really do that?”
“Of course,” he said, smiling.
“But after he has his Awakening, he will have a weakness? What will that be?”
“Well, in normal instances, he would have the same abilities and weakness as Jocelyn. I don’t know if you would remember, but Jocelyn’s Sciath is actually a ring.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered. “That huge red one?” I did remember. It was an enormous – or at least seemed enormous to a little kid – gold and red gemstone ring that I could never remember seeing him without.
Alex nodded, “That’s it. It’s actually a ruby, and that’s his Sciath. Without it, he can still read minds, but he has no choice but to hear everyone’s thoughts all at once, like a never-ending flow of noise in his mind. But with his Sciath, he hears nothing at all unless he wants to and even then he can choose whose mind he wants to read and hear only their thoughts. He can also sift through past thoughts and memories, and even control the mind – making people believe things that aren’t real, or creating or erasing memories. Though he never does that, as he is strongly against having any sort of control over a person.”
As I listened to him talk I could hear the underlying respect and admiration for the man he spoke of. The man whom I could barely stand the thought of without grinding my teeth. Alex seemed like such a good man. I wondered what Jocelyn could possibly have done to earn his respect, though this obviously wasn’t the time for such a question, so I let it go. Then I realized something. “Wait, you said ‘in normal instances’. Will Ryland be different?”
“Remember I told you Ryland was special? Well, it plays into that.”
“And when do we get to that part of the story?” I asked with a grin.
“Soon,” he said, smiling.
“So what about you? What’s your weakness?”
He looked away and cleared his throat, looking suddenly uneasy. Almost as if… Oh God, I’d embarrassed him! I felt so comfortable around him that I never stopped to think that he wasn’t sharing in my crush-driven delusion. “I-I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I didn’t… it’s no big deal. I’m-I’m sorry.”
“No,” he said, glancing at me, then down again to his hands, “it’s fine. It really is no big deal. I project emotion.”
“Emotion? Like feelings?”
He nodded with a shy wince. “When I’m not wearing my Sciath, anyone who can see me can also see everything I am feeling at that moment.”
“Oh,” I said, “and you can’t control it?”
“I can’t even see it. If I think about it, I can hold it in, but it’s hard; like tensing a muscle. I can’t keep it up for long.”
“Casting emotions doesn’t seem so bad.”
“No?” he challenged, raising his eyebrows. “Would you want the whole world to know exactly how you are feeling, all the time? Every single little emotion, not only the most present ones. You wouldn’t mind it if everyone that you came across knew exactly how you felt about them, with nothing more than a glance?”
“Oh… no.” I hadn’t considered that. “No, that would be bad.”
“Yeah.”
I started to think about what everyone would see right now if they could read my emotions, and of course my mind immediately went to the ridiculous crush I had on the man sitting right next to me, and I realized that he would be able to see it plain as day. Suddenly I felt my cheeks grow warm and I quickly looked down, pretending to adjust my shoe, praying he didn’t notice the blush.
“I should probably get back to my seat and start packing up, looks like we are going to land soon.”
“Sure,” I said, only allowing myself a short glance at him, not yet ready to trust the color of my face.
“There is one more thing I wanted to tell you,” he said as he stood.
“What’s that?”
“It’s about our ageing.”
Curiosity trumped my embarrassment and I looked up. “Your ageing?”
“After a Holder is awakened, the ageing process slows considerably.”
“OK…” I said, not sure where he was going with this.
“At some point I’m sure you’ll meet with Jocelyn, and I wanted to prepare you.”
“My Mom already tried,” I said, with an eye roll. “She’s convinced I’m going to freak out and put him in the hospital or something.”
“No, no,” he said with a smile, “I meant prepare you for physically seeing him. I know it’s