Page 67 of I Married Kayog
Yinric shook his head firmly in denial. I couldn’t say whether genuine conviction that my powers remained prompted that response, or if he simply refused to accept that possibility.
“I’m certain you still have your powers. Considering you didn’t even know you possessed them, it’s not surprising that you are struggling to invoke them consciously,” the Raithean replied in a soothing tone. “We just need to keep trying, and I have no doubt it will come.”
To my dismay, he demanded that I keep trying. After ten, twenty, and then thirty minutes of this nonsense, I was seriously starting to get irritated. I didn’t mind training to better myself at something challenging, but this was just a complete waste of time. How the fuck was I to ever make this happen when I didn’t even know how I was supposed to do it?
I emitted an angry growl and opened my mouth to tell Yinric that I was done with this, and that we needed to move on to something else. However, his victorious shout resonating through the speakers of the holodeck silenced me.
“There!” he exclaimed, pointing at something on the giant vidscreen. “Whatever you did, do that again!”
I blinked, baffled as my gaze flicked between him and the monitor. A visible spike indicated that I had indeed triggered orinvoked some sort of power surge. A part of me wanted to be excited, but I genuinely had no clue how I did this.
“I don’t know what I did,” I said in an apologetic tone.
Instead of being annoyed with me, Yinric raised his index finger in a manner that indicated for me to wait a moment.
“Hang on. Let me try something,” he said excitedly.
The Raithean swiftly slithered towards the central control board and started typing some instructions on the interface.
Seconds later, the most unpleasant zapping sensation went off in my head.
“Stop it!” I hissed. “Don’t do that again!”
But Yinric was too excited to worry about my displeasure. “There it is! You see that?” he asked, pointing at the spike on the graph of my brain waves on the giant monitor. “I’m sorry if it hurt you, but this is indeed the spot. Even your eyes are glowing. I’m guessing that this is a defense mechanism that triggers when you feel threatened.”
I wanted to glare at him some more, but his excitement was once again contagious. It annoyed me that I couldn’t see my own eyes glowing right now. I peered at my hands, but they still looked normal.
“Now that you see where it’s located, try to work on stimulating it. Don’t push too hard,” he added quickly in a cautious fashion. “We can wait until tomorrow or over the upcoming days to actually have you use the full force of your powers. For the time being, we can just focus on getting you comfortable with summoning or activating your ability at will.”
I understood his logic, but the curious side of me wanted to go all out as quickly as possible. However, considering I’d spent the past seven months—closer to eight—in partial stasis while they patched my brain, being cautious seemed like a wise approach.
For the next half hour, I followed Yinric’s instructions. Although slow at first, I quickly became comfortable stimulating the part of my brain that controlled my kinetic powers. By the time the Raithean called a break, I was able to make my hands glow at will. While I still couldn’t see my own reflection, I could now feel the very subtle tingling at the back of my eyes which indicated that they were glowing. The same sensation tickled my palms as my power was activated.
“That will be all for today,” Yinric said, taking me by surprise. “You can go back to your doctors so that they can give you another checkup before you can call it a day.”
“Already?” I asked, disappointed.
He gave me a knowing smile as he nodded. “Yes. As much as I share your impatience, I don’t want to risk bruising you. Relax for the night and return to me well-rested so that we can crank things up at our next session.”
“Right,” I grumbled.
He chuckled. “So long as Arafin gives you the all clear, expect me to push you hard tomorrow.”
“I look forward to it,” I deadpanned before heading out of the room.
As I made my way back to the medical section of the facility, I couldn’t help but wonder about the significant freedom they were affording me. Considering how much of a threat they seemed to think I could be, I would have expected to be constantly watched over—not to say spied on—and escorted wherever I went. Granted, they had security cameras everywhere and a variety of safety measures throughout the facility that could easily lock me in a contained area should the need arise. But I believed they were intentionally giving me more leeway to both prove myself trustworthy and show that joining them wouldn’t be the prison I feared.
Seeing Ellen waiting for me in the medical room I currently called home surprised me. Arafin had clearly been the main doctor in charge of my care. For her part, Ellen appeared more focused on my blood work and endocrine system. She was reading something on the monitor next to my bed, an air of intense concentration on her face.
She jerked her head up to look at me when I stepped inside the room.
“There he is,” she said in a friendly tone once recovered from her surprise. “How are you feeling?”
“Great,” I said in all sincerity. “Although also a little cheated that he cut everything short. I wanted to push my training a bit further today.”
“Patience is a virtue,” Ellen said in a slightly chastising tone. “Your therapist was wise in cutting things short. Based on the data he forwarded to us, there is some bruising occurring inside your brain. Therefore, we’re setting your circlet back to maximum intensity to reduce the strain and let you heal.”
She gave me a sympathetic smile when I loudly groaned the minute the circlet fully blocked my empathic abilities as well as my kinetic powers. However valid the reasons to do so, it systematically made me feel disabled and robbed of an essential part of myself.
