“What’s your specialty?”
“I’m rare in that I can do all things equally well.”
“How rare?”
“Before the ambush, there were four of us. After…” He stared into the distance. “It’s just me and Ximen now.” Grief thickened his words and dragged them through the air.
“How many people could wield magic before?”
“Twenty total.”
She stared at him in shock. “That’s it? I thought the Invisible Sword had—”
“We don’t. While there were dozens of people in the different levels of our organization, we didn’t have many that could wield magic.”
And there were only eleven of them left. Twelve if she counted Zhek. His ability to heal had to be magical. Then there was Mojag and his sensitive nose. Which made her wonder… “What are the ‘things’ you keep mentioning?”
“Magical skills. There are three of them—influence, manipulation, and movement. You already know about influencing a person’s perceptions, making them see or not see what you want them to, making them smell an odor, fall asleep, or sit down, things like that. Influence also allows us to ‘sense’ a person like we did when we were at our old headquarters.
“Manipulation is more advanced as it goes into a person’s thoughts and emotions, changing their memories, causing fear or happiness. Movement is what we do with the sand.” Jayden smoothed out Gurice’s small pile. “Reverting the sand to its undisturbed state is a lifesaving skill. You already know how to erase tracks in the sand, but there are a few other skills that are essential. Remember when we ambushed you and Rendor on that dune?”
“Hard to forget.” Her tone held an edge. Rendor had almost died.
Jayden ignored it. “When you crested the dune, the sand was undisturbed. But just under the surface were twelve Invisible Swords.”
She perked up. Was he going to teach her how to travel through the sand?
“This is how we did it.” Jayden stepped a couple meters away. He pulled the hood of his sun cloak over his head and down so it covered his face as well. He gestured. A thick cloud of sand rose up in front of him, leaving behind a shallow depression. Shyla moved back, instinctively covering her nose and mouth. But the grains remained near Jayden.
Then he stretched out in the dip in the sand on his stomach. Resting on his elbows, he held out the edge of the hood. It resembled a tent around his head. The sand cloud settled over him and dissipated.
She stared at the sand. It was smooth, pristine. Jayden had disappeared. Nothing happened for an angle, then the sand exploded into the air, obscuring her view. When the sand settled, Jayden stood there. The spot around him was once again undisturbed.
“That was impressive,” Shyla said. “How long can you stay under the sand?”
“It depends on how deep you are. I was pretty close to the surface and you saw that I trapped a pocket of air with my hood. I could have stayed under for about ten angles. Once you go deeper, you have less air and less time.”
Fascinated, she asked, “How deep can you go?”
“Only as deep as the loose sand. Once you hit the hard stone, that’s it.”
That didn’t add up. “But when they captured me, we traveled through the ground.”
Jayden gave her a wry smile. “That’s what you were supposed to think. It was a bit of a show.”
“A show?” She tried and failed to keep the outrage from her voice.
“Remember fear and desperation trigger magic. Come on.” Jayden strode away, heading for a large dune.
She followed. They climbed to the top.
Jayden faced her. “When I disappear, look over the side.” He pointed. Then he pulled his hood down. A cloud of grains spiraled into the air. It wasn’t thick enough to block the sight of Jayden sinking into the sand.
Even though she’d seen it before, it still startled her and she had to stifle the desire to rush over and grab his arms. When any other person sank, it meant the poor soul had stumbled into a patch of unstable sluff sand, which, if he was alone, meant he would soon suffocate and die.
Once Jayden vanished, the cloud settled and the sand rushed to fill the hole, leaving behind no sign he’d been there at all. Shyla hurried to the dune’s edge and peered over. After a couple heart-pounding moments, sand poured from the side as if the dune was bleeding. Then a man-sized slit opened and Jayden sauntered out. The grains reversed direction, plugging the gap.
He turned toward her and held his arms out wide. “Ta da!”
Show-off. But she had to admit it was impressive. She slid down the side of the dune until she reached him. “Why did the sand run out of the dune before you exited?”
“My body took up space inside the dune. The sand will compress to a certain point, but the rest has to go somewhere. When I sank, the sand moved to give me room. Some of it went into the air so I could cover my passage, and the rest went out the side.”
“So, after the ambush, I was taken through the dune?”
“Yes. Payatt took you with him, then he erased your memories of the trip to the testing chamber.”
A nice name for what it really was—a prison—but she kept quiet. Instead she focused on the fact Payatt had erased her memories. It was strange to think she had an experience that she no longer remembered. Unease grew, knotting her stomach. “Was that the only time my memory was altered?”
He hesitated and a longing to read his soul gripped her. She studied him, searching for any indication he was about to lie.
“I think so,” he finally said.
“Think?”
“I wasn’t with you the entire time. Plus you moped in your room those three sun jumps after we rescued Banqui. Someone could have visited you to find out how much you knew about our organization.”
Shyla recalled the events after Banqui’s rescue, but something nagged at her. A detail that…didn’t quite fit. It clicked.
“Why didn’t you erase my memories?” she asked him. “You can do manipulation as well as the other two skills. But you told me it wasn’t your specialty.”
“I lied. I was furious at you for that stunt you pulled with the Water Prince. If I’d accessed your memories, there was a very good chance I would have wiped everything.” He swiped his hand through the air in one harsh chop. “Clean slate. Baby fresh.”
Stunned, she grappled with his admission. So much there… She’d known he was angry, but this was on an entirely different level. Also the fact that a person’s mind could be obliterated back to infancy… Scary.
She regained some of her composure. “I don’t regret that stunt. It saved us all.”
“So you say.”
Yes, she did. The Water Prince had been wearing armor under his tunic. But she hadn’t woken The Eyes yet, so Jayden hadn’t believed her. Obviously, he was still upset. It explained why he argued with her on everything. And why he didn’t fully trust her. It occurred to her that Jayden was the only one who hadn’t witnessed her sacrifice for The Eyes. Hanif had been right to invite the Invisible Swords to watch. It’d made a difference in how they treated her.
“Do you think The Eyes made a mistake choosing me?” she asked.