The rest of the evening was uneventful as I had dinner in the lower cantina with Hotoe. This time I actually went inside the building. It was a place of chaos, laughter, and good food. And for the first time since I’d come to Ethia, I was truly able to feel like a normal person as Hotoe and I sat down to a large circular table full of other recruits.

There was an air of nervousness and excitement that electrified the entire place as the newbies filed through a food line that had hot and fresh food served to them from aproned workers behind an L shaped counter. Dozens of large tables in the center of the room quickly filled up, so that people had to go eat in the courtyard or take their food elsewhere. Hotoe and I were lucky to have gotten seats at all.

I then spent a very pleasant hour eating and conversing with the others at the table. I got the names of every person there as well as an idea of their schedules as everyone wanted to see who they might be sharing their time with in the upcoming weeks and months. It was a very good start in feeding my need for normal socialization that I’d been craving for weeks.

After dinner, was free time, so Hotoe and many of the people at our table decided to walk the College to get used to the grounds as well as to make sure were could find the location of each of our classes easily. We also happened across an alehouse, which quickly made our numbers dwindle. Hotoe and I decided to opt out and retire. It had been a long day, and we wanted to make sure we got enough rest for our first full day tomorrow.

I had to admit that I was exhausted. By the time I reached the residence hall, I was ready to crash. In fact, I barely got my boots and coat off before I laid my head down and was out. I surprisedly slept right through the night and any noise anyone might have made. I was a little surprised about that, but then the day had been a long one.

A loud beeping woke me up the next morning. Apparently, it was the alarm for the entire barracks. After that, I crawled out of bed to hit the showers. It seemed that half the people in our barracks had their hygiene time scheduled just before sleep last night, so I was able to get a shower stall without much of a wait.

Once all fresh and clean, which felt heavenly after all the sweating I had been doing since yesterday afternoon, it was breakfast time. Hotoe and I headed out to the cantina once more, but this time the atmosphere was a lot quieter. There wasn’t as much talking or excitement. I think everyone was nervous about the day ahead, and if I was honest, so was I. My schedule was full for the next ten hours and I just hoped I could get through it all without messing something up.

Hotoe and I showed up at the assembly area with a few minutes to spare, but we didn’t say much as we waited for our activity hour of the day to begin. We didn’t have long to wait as Pledge Tau-mine showed up and began to give us instructions. I noticed that she didn’t look my way even once, even though Hotoe and I found ourselves in the first line this morning.

In moments, Tau-mine had us running laps around the field that started out slow and eventually had us running full out. After that, she only let us catch our breath for a few minutes before leading us through a rather intense thirty minutes of aerobics. By the time our hour was up, I was soaked in sweat and was definitely feeling like I need another shower.

But there was no time to even think, because as soon as Pledge Tau-mine was through with us, Chief Winters marched into the center of the field. Then our ears were blasted for the next thirty minutes about how we needed to do our best, show up on time, and obey any orders given from the teaching staff or officers of the College. If we did all that, then we might survive long enough to make Disciple, and then maybe even Pledge.

He did mention that the search for the Heir was still in progress and that if anyone knew anything about his disappearance, or whereabouts to report to him or another officer of the College immediately. I attempted to look as blank and clueless as everyone else on the field as he made that particular statement.

Eventually, we were dismissed, and Hotoe and I parted ways as he went to his Advanced Endurance class and I went to the Advanced Master Bender class. I had to admit that I was more than a little nervous as I walked into the auditorium. I wasn’t exactly sure how this was going to go, since I definitely wasn’t a Mind Bender. But Master Kiev knew that, so I decided maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

There seemed to only be about fifty of us, so we only took up the first three rows of the auditorium. It seemed kind of a waste of space to me, but I wasn’t the one organizing all this, so I took a seat in the first row and waited patiently with the others.

Master Kiev walked out into the center of the stage. He didn’t say a word. He just stood their ramrod straight with hands folded in front of him as he waited for the chatter to die down. It didn’t take long, I suppose everyone was curious as to what the Master had to say. Only when the auditorium was completely quiet, did Master Kiev speak.

“Welcome Cadets to the Protectorate and to Advancement in the Mind Bender Dome-ni. I am Master Kiev and I will be your Mind Bender instructor and evaluator for the remainder of your time at the College. I have already taken the time to reach out to your previous Master Teachers and know each of your abilities and potentials.

“Also know that while you are with me, I will be pushing your potential to see how far we can take your Dome-ni. By the time we are done here, all of you will have a deeper understanding of your talents, but also know how to effectively attack others in defense of your client and also defend against others who try to use the Mind Bending Dome-ni on you.”

This got a stir of motion and chatter from the Cadets gathered. I looked around curious about the looks of shock on some of the people’s faces around me.

Master Kiev held up a hand as if to settle everyone. “I know that one of the first rules of the Mind Bender creed is that you should never use your Dome-ni to hurt or harm another person, but as a Protector, you will find yourself in extreme situations with people doing exactly what they aren’t supposed to be doing, because they are trying to cause your client harm. You have to be ready for any eventuality, even being attacked by a fellow Mind Bender.

“That being said, if I ever discover that any of you have used your abilities to hurt or harm another without that person first trying to do you or your client harm, I will personally see that your abilities are sealed away behind a closed lock. Is that clear?”

Replies of “Yes, Master,” echoed loudly through the auditorium. I muttered a low “Yes, Master” to try and fit in, but I had to admit I was feeling anything but like I was fitting in. While the information was interesting, I really had no idea what the Mind Bender ability was all about, expect for my limited experience with my own locks and my time with Master Kiev.

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“Excellent, then let’s get started. I won’t bore you with the basics. You have all reached your first and second standards, which deal with clearing mental blocks and memory manipulation. So I will get into the third standard of the Mind Bending Dome-ni, which is all about giving one word commands for mental persuasion. I will need someone to help me demonstrate this. Do I have any volunteers?”

The next thirty minutes was filled with Master Kiev giving instruction on how to send out a mental command to make a person do something. It was always one or two words, but it wasn’t the word that was used that was as important as the intention of the Mind Bender.

Master Kiev used the word bend, which then he showed how with a simple change of intention, he could get a person to either bend at the waist, bend an arm or leg, or even bend a single finger of his choice. He demonstrated the use of the one word command on a handful of Cadets, and then switched to having the Cadets trying to use the word on other Cadets. Some managed to be successful. Most of them were not.

I think he expected this, because he simply asked each person who couldn’t manage to make their command to work to keep practicing and that it might take some time to get the intention correctly focused. Master Kiev’s calm and supportive demeanor seemed to hearten some of the ones who were getting especially frustrated.

After he was sure everyone understood the process, he asked the entire class to come up on stage, pick a partner, and to practice sending the bend command. I stood up from my seat as everyone else did, but I hesitated to follow them up to the stage.

“Cadet Ruloc, why don’t you come practice with me,” Master Kiev’s voice echoed down to where I stood.

I felt a wave of relief wash though me. I moved up to the stage and over to the side where Master Kiev now stood. He pulled me close as if he wanted to give me some instruction before we started.

“First of all, I want to apologize for how things happened at the Hall of the Renowned. I wanted to warn you before hand, but there simply wasn’t time to explain it all to you, and I couldn’t let the Pledges protecting you know what was going on. I wasn’t even sure I was going to go through with it, but then Pledge Gunther showed up to be your guard when I had specifically told Captain Dexter to take him off your detail just the day before.

“Then there was that incident with Master Meh-len. It made me realize that maybe I couldn’t trust the College to keep you safe like I had hoped. I’m not thrilled about this plan of Nadors, but I do trust him and Pledge Tau-mine, and I agree that if your brother is behind all this, that sending you back to Dyniss isn’t going to do you much good.”

I looked at him in surprise. “So you know about all that?”

Kiev nodded gravely. “Yes, Pledge Tau-mine and Nador came to me the day after your attack and confided in me about their concerns about Pledge Gunther and Pledge Hinamor. Apparently, they both have close ties to Kaller Hame, and are on your potential list of Protectors. Nador and Tau-mine wanted me to talk to Dexter to have them both pulled from your list. That’s why I was so shocked to see Gunther guarding you yesterday.”

Sudden understating rushed through me as some of the pieces I’d been missing clicked into place. But I was deeply disturbed by what Kiev said about Dexter. “You think Captain Dexter is in on the attack?”

Kiev pause a long minute before he spoke. “I hesitate to make such an accusation without hard evidence, but if he did help with the attack on the chalet, then that has me deeply concerned. I honestly thought Captain Dexter a trustworthy person, and so it has me questioning everyone here at the College.”

“Then how do you know you can trust Pledge Tau-mine and Markus Nador?”

“Because I happen to know the Nadors well, including Markus. That family always considered you one of their own. They would never raise a hand against you, especially not Markus. That you can trust. And if Nador trusts Pledge Tau-mine, then she’s trustworthy as well.”

I nodded, and I felt a large feeling of relief course through me. I mean, I did feel like I could trust Markus, and I had long ago learned the benefit of trusting my instincts. But I can’t deny that some of my reason was because I didn’t feel like I had any better options at the moment. Even still, it was good to have validation that my intuition had been correct all along, and even that of my original good vibes I’d gotten from Kiev. “Thank you for confirming that. I mean, I don’t remember my time with the Nadors, but still…”

Kiev looked at me knowingly. “You felt an echo of that time and that connection when you talked with Nador, didn’t you?”

I was startled at his words. I had been trying to figure out how to explain what I had felt when I had first laid eyes on Markus, and why it had been so easy to trust him, even though he was a complete stranger to me and maybe a little on the crazy side, but Master Kiev had been able to express it perfectly.

“How did you know?”

Master Kiev smiled. “It is a common feeling to have when memories are locked away. If a person runs across a person or place from the locked away memories, it can trigger a resonance of connection. That resonance you felt with Nador will only get stronger, until the lock finally decides to release.”

“If that’s the case, then why didn’t I get that resonance of connection with Aragon and my mom? They were in those locked away memories too. Shouldn’t have being around them unlocked my childhood memories long ago?”

Master Kiev got a thoughtful look on his face. “That is the truly puzzling thing. Either they changed their appliances so greatly that you didn’t recognize them as the same people in your memories, or Aragon really is a prodigy in his Master Bender Dome-ni. That sort of memory manipulation can only be achieved at the highest level of what a Mind Bender is capable of.

“It simply astounds me that I did not catch that potential in him. I had thought myself a better evaluator than that. I suppose that reminds me that I should not overestimate my own talents. But we digress.

“I told Pledge Tau-mine and Nador that if they wanted my help in this plan of theirs that I had to be included. That’s why Pledge Tau-mine made sure you had my class. It was the best way to include me, otherwise we would have no reason to be seen together, not this early in Program. But it is impossible to take this class if you don’t actually have the Mind Bender talent, so I will mark you down as needing remedial training.

“This will allow you to skip the Advanced Mind Bending class until you’ve, in theory, completed your remedial training, and given us an opportunity to spend some time alone together. So temporarily, half of your free time will be switched to your Advanced Mind Bending slot, and your remedial training will take up the first half of your regularly scheduled free time. I will make the change as soon as class is over and your schedule will reflect that.”

I raised an eyebrow as I remembered the no exceptions that Chief Winters had said toward our schedules. “You can do that? Just change my schedule? I thought that wasn’t possible.”

“Instructors have the power to make changes as long as there is a good reason for doing so. Remedial training is quite common for first years, especially in advanced Dome-ni classes. In fact, I doubt you will be the only one doing remedial training from this class. But I will have them meet me at another time. At least, I hope you don’t mind spending an hour with me?”

I gave the Master a big smile. “I look forward to it.”

The other man looked relieved. Maybe he thought I still held a grudge from the Hall of Renowned, and I was happy to discover that I didn’t. I realized that he had only been trying to help me after Markus and I had talked, and the anger I had toward him had vanished entirely. It would have been nice to get a heads up before hand, but I understood he had been in a bad position. What would it be like to question the very organization and people you once believed in? I hope I never found out.

“Excellent, I will see you this evening then. We will also take care of that little problem Tau-mine told me about, so make sure to bring your chip. Meet me here at the entrance, and we will go from there. In the meantime, I want you to try the word command exercise. You will fail, of course, and then I will suggest the remedial training. We have to make this look good after all.”

I nodded. “All right.” I walked a short distance from Master Kiev and I began to attempt an exercise I knew I couldn’t do. Ten minutes later, I made sure to look the appropriate amount of disgusted with myself as I made for the exit. Many of my classmates looked toward me with sympathy. I tried hard not to chuckle on my way out.