Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities #8) - Shannon Messenger Page 0,215

she felt the tiniest tug in her chest, zinging down her arms, all the way to her fingertips, where…

… her enhancing flickered off.

“Whoa,” Sophie breathed, blinking her eyes to focus on Oralie, who was flashing the brightest, loveliest smile Sophie had ever seen. “I can’t believe that worked. How did that work?”

“Honestly, it’s a little abstract even for me,” Oralie admitted. “But I think it comes down to the raw honesty of the exercise. You separated yourself from all of the preconceived notions of what you wanted your abilities to be, or what you thought they should be, and found the pure, simple truth—that for every advantage they bring, they also carry a complication. And you can own the challenge of that without being daunted by it because the responsibility of each ability is something you were made to carry, made to control, made to overpower.”

“I guess that sorta makes sense,” Sophie murmured, dropping one of Oralie’s wrists so she could rub her chest. “Unless I just turned off my enhancing for good.”

Oralie shook her head. “Try turning it back on—without fear or doubt. Turn it back on because you want it to be on.”

Sophie wasn’t sure what that meant, but she closed her eyes and felt for that same fragile nerve, thinking of all the good things her enhancing brought, and when her heart stepped up a beat, she let that rhythm slide down that new nerve ending and…

Another soft tug had her fingertips buzzing with enough energy to make Oralie’s wrist flinch in her grasp.

“Sorry, should I let go?” she asked, but Oralie tightened her hold.

“No,” she murmured, “it’s fascinating to feel the emotional shifts you’re experiencing. Such confidence and wonder and confusion and pride. I strongly suspect that the more you focus on whatever you’re doing to affect the power, the more you’ll notice subtleties that will allow you to even decide how much you want to enhance someone, so that it’s no longer an all-or-nothing ability.”

“Really?” Sophie asked, rubbing her chest again.

“Is that where the control pulls from?” Oralie asked, pointing to Sophie’s hand, where her fingers massaged a spot close to the center of her ribs, just to the right of her heart.

“I think so.” Sophie switched her enhancing off again to test it. “Yeah, that’s where I feel the tug.”

Oralie smiled. “I knew enhancing had to rely on the same inner strength as empathy! It explains so much!”

“It does?” Sophie asked.

“Well… it at least explains why your enhancing is so much stronger on Empaths.”

“True,” Sophie agreed. “Though my enhancing’s also stronger on Telepaths—but that might be because of what Lord Cassius said. He said the way I use my telepathy reminds him of an Empath,” she explained when she saw Oralie’s confusion. “I pick up on emotions with my thoughts, I guess, without having to be in the emotional center. Have you ever heard of anyone doing that?”

“No,” Oralie admitted, turning her head to study Sophie. “But given your unique history, I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Yeah, neither am I,” Sophie admitted. “Though it makes me wonder…”

“Wonder what?” Oralie pressed when Sophie didn’t finish.

Sophie shook her head. “I’m not supposed to be thinking about that right now.”

“Well, I don’t know what you mean—but it’s clearly upsetting you.” She ran her thumb across Sophie’s wrist to remind her she could feel everything Sophie was feeling right now. “It might help to at least talk about it.”

Sophie sighed, reaching up to tug out an itchy eyelash. “I was just thinking about something that Lady Cadence told Biana and Stina. She said she thinks the Black Swan wouldn’t have given me the same abilities as my biological parents because that would make it too easy for people to figure out who they were. And if she’s right… their genetics would probably still affect me in certain ways, you know? And so many things about me are similar to Empaths, so… maybe that’s what one of my parents is.”

Oralie went silent.

“Don’t worry—I’m not going to get all distracted by this like I was before,” Sophie promised. “I told Stina and Biana and Keefe to stop coming up with theories and questioning people about whether or not they’re my biological parents until everything settles down with the dwarves.”

Oralie frowned. “Wait… does that mean… you thought Lady Cadence was your mother?”

Sophie’s cheeks burned as she nodded. “It’s not like I wanted to be related to her or anything. But… she’s a Polyglot, so it seemed worth looking into—but Biana and Stina