"I was told to report to you," Shan said quietly, standing stiffly before Lanni, his eyes barely meeting hers. Lanni gave a curt nod. "Chapado asked me to work with you. I had a similar prob-lem controlling magic and avoiding backlash. She also mentioned you’re struggling with your mage sight." Her tone softened as she added, "I did too. I still do. Mine’s more be-cause of my strength. I doubt you’ll have that problem." Shan nodded again, his posture slumping slightly as if the weight of the conversa-tion were pressing down on him. There was a hint of resignation in his eyes, but a forced stoicism quickly masked it. Lanni studied him briefly before asking, "What did Silva and Mirtone teach you about magic?" His lips pressed into a tight line. "Nothing." "Nothing?" Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. "I hid it from them," Shan admitted, his voice dropping. "I just wanted to be like the rest of the kids." Lanni's gaze sharpened. "What do you mean?" Shan hesitated, his fists clenched at his sides. "I was the only one born there," he muttered. "Jahree wasn’t kidding when he said I grew up there. My mom gave birth to me and left as soon as she could. The other kids… their parents at least pretended to want them, even if they didn’t treat them right. But me?" His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat roughly. "I never had that. I don’t know anything about my parents or their names." Lanni felt unease as Drepal whispered in her mind, He's lying. But it wasn’t about the facts—Lanni knew that much. It was something deeper, something Shan was holding back. Still, she wouldn’t press him. Not yet. "I think I understand a little of what you're feeling," she said softly. "Being different… feeling like a freak." Her voice wavered, the old pain rising to the surface. "I was an abomination from the moment I was born. My mom hid her pregnancy from everyone. For years, I thought it was because she was ashamed of me for being born out of wedlock. I didn’t know the truth until I was twen-ty-four—who my father was, why he stayed away. He never told me until I was twenty-six." Shan’s eyes met hers, curiosity mixed with something else. “Why did he hide it?” Lanni let out a breath. "He was a fugitive. He thought he was protecting me." Her expression darkened, memories stirring that she’d rather forget. "Sometimes I wished I wasn’t different and could just fit in. But… not being trained in magic? That was dan-gerous." Shan nodded silently, his jaw tight. His eyes flickered with unspoken emotions—fear, maybe, or anger—before they settled back into guarded neutrality. Lanni took a slow breath, sensing his walls going up. "Everyone in your squad is unique, Shan. This won’t change anything." For a moment, Shan seemed to relax, his shoulders easing. But the tension quickly returned when Lanni asked, "Have you figured out how to do anything with your magic on your own?" Shan shifted uncomfortably. "Not really." Lanni’s brow furrowed. "Nothing? Okay… well, we have a lot of work ahead. You’ve probably picked up a few bad habits without realizing it, so we might have to un-learn those. But we’ll figure it out. First, we’ll test you as they do at the college." "Don’t they have a shielded room for that?" Shan asked. A faint smile tugged at Lanni’s lips. "Who do you think maintains the shield?" Shan blinked, stunned. "You do? Really?" "Every five years, after the shades." She looked at him pointedly. "If you break through my shields, we’ll know there’s a problem." They went through several tests, and as the minutes stretched on, Lanni grew in-creasingly concerned. Not all of Shan's issues were psychological—there was something more, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. But she had ideas. "If we can’t fix it, A healer I know has several special sights and is a sensitive. She's not that strong of a healer, but she could probably tell your health history by being in the same room." Shan's body stiffened, and the sudden shift in his posture was impossible to miss. "Do we need to?" His voice was flat, but his eyes betrayed a flicker of anxiety. "If she’s a sensitive, I don’t want to cause her grief." Drepal stirred again, suspicion lacing her voice. He doesn’t want Cari reading him. What is he hiding? Lanni glanced at Shan, her expression neutral. It doesn’t matter. If it were im-portant, Loka would have said something. "She’s probably already read you," Lanni said aloud, her tone light. "But we won’t worry about that unless we can’t figure this out ourselves." She pulled out a mirror and handed it to him. "Look at this. What do you see?" "A mirror," Shan replied warily. "Do you want me to look into it?" "No, just look at it. Focus." Shan frowned but obeyed, staring at the mirror. "Don’t blink," Lanni instructed gently. His eyes widened slightly. "I can’t…" "Let your eyes water. Let them lose focus." "But—" "You can do this, Shan. I know it’s uncomfortable." His eyes turned red as he strained to keep them open. Lanni was about to tell him to stop, worried she’d pushed him too far, when suddenly, Shan blinked and looked at her through tear-filled eyes. "What did you do?" His voice trembled slightly. "Nothing," Lanni said calmly. "It was glowing." Lanni smiled. "That’s magic. You’re seeing magic now." "Mage sight?" "Yes." Shan swallowed hard. "I have to do that whenever I want to use it?" "No," she assured him. "It’s a way to force it for now. Once you get the hang of it, it’ll become easier." They worked through more focusing exercises, and Shan managed to glimpse magic each time, though it clearly took a toll on him. By the end, he looked exhausted, his eyes red and raw. "You’ve got the basics now," Lanni said gently. "Once you get used to switching, it’ll be second nature." #fantasy, #magic, #dragons, #hiddenlands