Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
The dress materialized on her figure, and she beamed. “I did it.”
“Yes, and that is quite a dress,” Cleora said with wide eyes.
“It was for a winter holiday.” She ran her hands down the sleeves.
“If I hadn’t already known you were from another world, I would have with that attire.”
Kerrigan laughed, and then a second later, the dress vanished, and her black pants returned. “What?”
“The plane belongs to whoever is the strongest in manipulation. At present, that is me. If you want your dress back, then you have to fight me to regain it. Or else you will always be subject to another’s whim.”
Kerrigan concentrated, at first feeling nothing. Then, she fought harder for the image of that dress. The last dress she had worn for Fordham when he still loved her completely, without fear. It was that emotion that made her feel the seam of Cleora’s working. She had no idea how to unravel it and went for blunt force instead. She imagined a knife in her mind and ripped it down the working. The thing popped like a bubble, and her dress appeared again.
Cleora gasped and rocked back in her chair. Her eyes were wide. She clutched her chest, as if Kerrigan had actually used the knife.
“Oh gods, did I hurt you?”
“No,” Cleora said after a minute. She eyed Kerrigan suspiciously. “How did you know how to break the working?”
“I didn’t. I just sort of attacked it.”
Cleora was silent as she assessed Kerrigan. “That was quite advanced for having never done that before.”
“I’m pretty good with knives.”
She chuckled. “I see. There are more subtle means to achieve what you just did, but your way was most effective.”
“Subtly isn’t my specialty,” she admitted.
“No, I could see that.” Cleora cleared her throat. “Well, we’ll leave that for now. You have the basics down. I would continue to work on developing your ability to control the plane in my absence … maybe with this dragon of yours.”
“Tieran would like that.”
Cleora looked faintly sick at the thought, but she pressed on. “We’ll move on from spirit plane manipulation then. The second tenet is dreamwalking. What do you know of it?”
Kerrigan shook her head. “Nothing. Though I’ve had prophetic dreams before.”
Cleora raised her eyebrows. “Visions?”
“Yes.”
She pursed her lips. “I want to hear more about these visions, but we’ll have to wait until next time. The emperor knows, bless him, that it’s impossible for me to teach the tenets out of order. Dreamwalking is dream manipulation. Have you ever done something like that before?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Good. It’s dangerous without proper training.”
She was finding that everything was dangerous without proper training, and Kerrigan had just been fumbling around in the dark with this stuff since her visions manifested.
“There are two types of walking. The first is pulling someone into a dream, and the other is falling into someone else’s dreams. Entering a person’s dream is easier but more dangerous, and pulling someone into a dream is harder but safer for you.”
“And … how do I do that?”
“It’s a lot like entering the spirit plane with someone else. Have you ever done that before?”
“Yes,” Kerrigan admitted. “It wasn’t too difficult.”
She’d had one spirit trainer before Cleora. Mistress Zahina had been the daughter of the last spiritcaster in Alandria. She had been the one to show her how to safely enter and exit the plane. Though when she realized exactly what Kerrigan was, she had dropped their training. Only another spiritcaster could properly train her.
“That’s good. The same principle applies, but instead of thinking out of your body, you think into the mind.”
Kerrigan’s eyes widened. “You can enter people’s minds?”
“Yes. Some incredibly powerful spiritcasters of the distant past could manipulate minds and change the course of history with the power, but you should never do anything that violates free will while using your abilities.”
“Yeah, that isn’t the plan.” Kerrigan shivered.
“Good. We focus on a code of ethics here.” Cleora nodded her head approvingly. “We’ll begin by dropping in and out of dreams first. It’s much easier, but you do not want to stay for more than a second or two at a time, or you risk being pulled deeper into someone’s dream and not being able to leave. If you are injured or killed here on the plane, you will be injured or dead in the physical. Do you understand?”
Kerrigan gulped. “Yes, I understand.”
“It’s best to begin with people you are close with.”
“Why?”
Cleora laughed softly. “Well, some of them tend to remember you randomly appearing in their dreams. It makes more sense for them to explain that you showed up in their dream. It is another thing entirely for a complete stranger to recognize you from a dream. That can get very messy. And again, we have a code of ethics.”
“Understood.”
“Plus, friends and family are safer conduits.” Cleora nodded at her. “Now, think about your closest friend or family member, link your minds the way you would pull that person onto the plane, and instead of out, think in.”