Chapter 69 Hidden Power

Chapter 69 Hidden Power
The first lesson started at dawn.

Ondine cleared out a training room in the east wing, away from where servants might overhear. Just Thessaly, the healer, and a space that smelled like dust and old magic.

"Sit," Ondine instructed, pointing to a cushion on the floor.

Thessaly sat. Her whole body ached from not sleeping. Every time she'd closed her eyes last night, she felt the pull of the Dream Realm waiting.

"We're starting with the basics. Mental shields. Every mage learns these, but for you they're critical." Ondine settled across from her. "Close your eyes. Breathe. Feel where your consciousness ends and the rest of the world begins."

Thessaly closed her eyes. Breathed. Felt nothing except tired and frustrated.

"I don't understand what I'm looking for."

"The edge of yourself. Where you stop being you." Ondine's voice was patient. "For most people, it's a clear line. But Dream-Walkers blur that boundary. You need to rebuild it deliberately."

Thessaly tried. Focused on her breathing, on the sensation of sitting, on anything that felt solid and real. But her mind kept wandering. Worrying about Malachi's army. About the Unity Ceremony. About whether she'd accidentally walk into someone else's nightmare again.

"You're not focusing," Ondine said.

"I'm trying."

"Try harder."

They sat there for an hour. Then two. Thessaly's legs went numb and her back started screaming, but Ondine wouldn't let her move.

"Again," the healer said every time Thessaly thought she'd found something. "You're grasping at the surface. Go deeper."

By the time Ondine called a break, Thessaly wanted to throw something.

"This is pointless," she muttered, stretching her aching legs. "I can't feel anything."

"Because you've spent nineteen years suppressing your magic. Your mind doesn't trust itself anymore." Ondine handed her water. "We're teaching it to trust again. That takes time."

"We don't have time. Malachi will be here in days."

"Then we work faster."

The second session was worse. Ondine made her visualize walls. Mental barriers that would keep the Dream Realm from pulling her in accidentally. But every time Thessaly tried to build something, it crumbled.

Like learning to walk on a broken leg. That's what it felt like. Trying to use muscles that had atrophied from disuse, stumbling over techniques that should have been instinctive.

"I can't do this," Thessaly said after the fourth failed attempt.

"You can. You're just fighting yourself." Ondine leaned forward. "Stop trying to control the Dream Realm. That's not how this works. You can't control it any more than you can control the ocean. But you can learn to swim."

"I don't know how to swim either."

"Then it's a good thing I'm teaching you."

Day two was marginally better. Thessaly managed to hold a mental shield for almost thirty seconds before it dissolved. Ondine called it progress. Thessaly called it pathetic.

Day three, she slipped.

They were in the middle of a meditation exercise when Thessaly felt it. The pull. That familiar tug toward the space between sleeping and waking.

"No," she whispered, trying to anchor herself. "Not now."

But the Dream Realm didn't care about her schedule.

One second she was sitting in the training room, the next she was standing in that place of mist and stars. Threads everywhere. The pulse beating steady.

Panic clawed up her throat.

She'd slipped in accidentally. Ondine had warned her this would happen, that until she built proper shields she'd be vulnerable. But knowing didn't make it less terrifying.

Thessaly tried to remember the exercises. Find the edge of herself. Build a wall. Get out before something pulled her deeper.

A thread pulsed nearby. Red and black, twisted together like a scar.

Don't touch it, she told herself. Don't reach out.

But the thread was calling to her. And before she could stop herself, her fingers brushed against it.

The nightmare hit like a fist.

Fire. Screaming. A city burning while a man watched from horseback, face blank with shock. His city. His people. And he'd given the order that started it.

Davorin's nightmare.

Thessaly knew it immediately. Felt his guilt like it was her own, tasted smoke and ash and the terrible understanding that some mistakes couldn't be unmade.

She tried to pull back, but the nightmare had hooks. Showed her every face of every person who'd died. Made her feel Davorin's horror as the Void moved his body, spoke with his voice, destroyed everything while he screamed silently inside his own head.

Get out. She had to get out.

Thessaly grabbed for the technique Ondine taught her. Visualized a wall between herself and the nightmare. Imagined it solid. Real. Impassable.

The wall crumbled instantly.

Wrong approach. She couldn't fight the nightmare. Had to flow around it instead.

Thessaly stopped resisting. Let the horror wash over her without trying to block it. And in that moment of surrender, she found the thread that led back to herself.

She followed it.

The nightmare screamed again, but this time she was ready. Pulled herself along the thread hand over hand until the mist and stars resolved around her.

Then she dropped back into her body gasping.

Ondine caught her before she hit the floor.

"Breathe," the healer commanded. "You're safe. You made it out."

Thessaly's whole body shook. She could still feel Davorin's guilt burning in her chest, still smell the smoke from a city that burned years ago.

"I saw his nightmare," she whispered. "The invasion. What the Void made him do."

Ondine's expression tightened. "Did you touch his thread deliberately?"

"No. I just brushed it. I didn't mean to."

"Intent matters less than you think in the Dream Realm." Ondine helped her sit. "What did you learn?"

"That I'm terrible at this."

"No. What did you learn about getting out?"

Thessaly thought about it. About how fighting the nightmare had trapped her, but surrendering let her slip free. "I can't force my way through. I have to find the spaces between."

"Good." Ondine's voice held approval. "That's the key to Dream-Walking. You're not meant to control the realm. You're meant to navigate it."

The training got harder after that. Ondine made her practice entering the Dream Realm deliberately. Taught her to find her own thread and follow it back before she got pulled into someone else's consciousness.

Thessaly failed more than she succeeded. Spent hours lost in nightmares that weren't hers, drowning in other people's fears until Ondine pulled her out.

But slowly, painfully, she got better.

By day five, she could enter the Dream Realm and leave again without getting trapped. Could recognize which threads led to nightmares and which to pleasant dreams. Could even build walls that lasted minutes instead of seconds.

The magic that had been killing her was starting to feel like an extension of herself. Like breathing. Natural.

And that was somehow more terrifying than being powerless ever was.

Because powerless meant invisible. Safe. Nobody cared about the broken princess who couldn't do magic.

But this? This made her dangerous. Made her matter in ways she'd never wanted.

"You're improving faster than I expected," Ondine said on the sixth day. "Another week and you might actually be able to use this in the Unity Ceremony without killing both of you."

"That's comforting."

"It's meant to be honest." Ondine studied her. "How does it feel? Having your magic finally accessible?"

Thessaly thought about it. About the years spent believing she was cursed, broken, less than everyone else. And now discovering she'd been powerful all along. Just different.

"Lonely," she said finally. "I spent nineteen years thinking I understood myself. Turns out I didn't know anything."

"Welcome to having magic. None of us know what we're doing. We just pretend better." Ondine stood. "Get some rest. Tomorrow we work on shared dreaming. If you're going to bind yourself to Davorin, you need to be able to navigate his mind without getting lost in it."

After Ondine left, Thessaly sat alone in the training room.

She could feel the Dream Realm now. Not pulling at her, but present. Like a door she could open whenever she wanted.

The temptation was there. To step through. To practice on her own. To see what else she could do without someone watching over her shoulder.

Her fingers tingled with the urge to reach out.

Thessaly clenched her fists.

Not yet. Not without guidance. She'd seen what happened when she touched threads carelessly. Didn't want to know what worse things waited if she wandered too far.

But someday soon, she'd have to. The Unity Ceremony required her to enter Davorin's mind completely. To merge their consciousness until there was no separation.

And if she couldn't control her power by then, she'd destroy them both.

The training room door burst open. Varian stood there, face grim.

"Malachi's army was spotted an hour away. They'll be at our gates by nightfall." His eyes found hers. "Whatever magic you're learning, you'd better hope it's ready. Because we're out of time.”