Two minutes. Only two minutes late. The Elders were less than pleased. "Keshiema, it does not seem that you are taking your training seriously,” Samael chided her.

  "I deeply apologize and beg for your forgiveness." She kneeled before them, barely holding on to her colors.

  “The king is a powerful demon,” Beelzebub elaborated. “He’ll destroy you if you’re not prepared."

  "Prince Samael," Hiro rushed into the throne room. Samael scowled at him for the interruption. "My apologies, my prince but Uvall has had a vision about the Hell-Child."

  "I understand. You were correct to come to us immediately. Beelzebub, please pay a visit to Uvall."

  "Are you sure? Would Mer-" He paused when Samael glared at him. "of course." He saluted respectfully to the others before leaving the room with Hiro trailing behind him. Merihim bawled his fists and clenched his jaw and his eyes followed them as they left. Keshiema wondered why he looked so upset.

  "Keshiema," Samael's voice snapped her back to the present. "Do not be late again."

  "I give you my word, my Prince." She placed her fist over her heart and bowed deeply.

  "I shall be training you today," Ayperos said as the others left the room. He stepped down from his throne in the hopes that she would feel more comfortable.

  "What about Beelzebub? Wasn't he supposed to train me today?" She looked at the door he had gone through, wishing for anyone but Ayperos.

  "It's complicated. Now, come with me."

  Keshiema followed Ayperos through the hallways, paying closer attention to the turns they took. 'If I'm going to live here, I should know my way around.' Looking at the doors, she noticed Demonic Numerals carved in each one.

  "The humans called them Roman Numerals." Ayperos startled her with the sudden interjection. "You should guard your thoughts more carefully, Keshiema." He slowed and gestured for her to walk next to him. "A significant percentage of demons have at least some capacity toward telepathy."

  "Is that your thing? Telepathy?"

  "One of my things, I guess.” He looked down at her and smiled kindly. “It goes in hand with being a Dream Walker."

  She knew of Dream Walkers. The term covered higher-class Incubi and Succubi. She had been warned about them many years ago during her Medic classes. Subconsciously, she drifted sideways, putting more space between them.

  Shaking his head, Ayperos sighed. "You need not fear me. I made a vow and I fully intend on keeping it."

  "Forgive me, my Prince. Caution of Dream Walkers is engrained into Friskalia. I have taken the Medic courses more times than I care to think about." She stared at her feet. “Does that mean he’s one too?” She mumbled to herself.

  “Yes, Ipos is also a Dream Walker. I Imagine you are reminded of him when you look at me.”

  ‘Shit,’ she winced, ‘I said that out loud…would it have mattered though?’ Slowly she turned to turned her head, preparing herself for an ill-tempered response, only to find a blank expression.

  "I'm not angry. We do look identical. But we are nothing alike. His father was a great demon and did well in teaching him, but personalities are curious things." She waited for him to elaborate further. The silence carried through the corridor, thick enough to cut with a knife.

  "Why are so many older demons attending the Academy?" She finally asked.

  "Some of the demons have joined the fight recently, having managed to hide away in the more isolated parts of Tavera. Some need retraining after battle wounds have healed or after making critical mistakes. We're here." He opened the door, revealing a small room with two chairs in the middle. One chair was plain and made of old wood, the other was remarkably similar to the throne-like chair in Merihim's training room. Pushed to the side was a cart with an odd helmet sitting on it. "Take a seat."

  She took the small wooden chair. Looking at the long cord running from the machine to an outlet, she frowned. "We're using electricity? I thought the campus was off-grid."

  "All power here is from Impure Crystals. The stronger ones don't hum like the ones we use for the lights. I promise you; we aren't connected to the power farms in any way."

  "I thought the more powerful crystals were fairly hard to come by." She remembered her father finding her playing with the colorful glowing crystals that were meant to power their entire village. She thought they were toys when the green-haired man delivered them. 'Wait...'

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  "They are." Ayperos grabbed the helmet off the cart and put it on her, carefully aligning the cutouts around her horns. "Now, back to the matter at hand. We need to train your mind how to block out unwanted eavesdroppers."

  "Even dream walkers?"

  "Unfortunately, no, not when they are invading your dreams. That's not possible for you without giving up your healing abilities. But there are so few, and most of us stay away from the Friskalia. It's too dangerous with the ability you have to kill someone inside your dreams."

  "I can what?" she asked, dumbfounded.

  "We can work on that later, I suppose. Right now, let's start with the basics." He flipped a switch on the side of the helmet. 'Blocking out a single person whose already in your head.'

  "How?" She felt that if she talked to him via telepathy, the link he established would solidify further. Heeding Merihim's advice, she listened to her instincts.

  'That's good, keep following to your intuitions. Now, concentrate on where you are hearing my voice. That is one of the places you are going to feel someone trying to pry into your mind. Right now it should feel like a pressure on a small. This is a portion of your temporal lobe. Concentrate on that and try to build a wall. There are other places too: the parietal lobe it going to be a weak spot for most people. The occipital lobe shouldn't be difficult though, it's harder to pry into what someone is seeing than it is to hear what they are thinking. If you feel someone is snooping and you can't establish a wall to block them out, you must ground yourself. Clear your thoughts, like you do when you are going to heal someone. After that, you can try to force them out.'

  As if the sheer knowledge of the pressure points gave her the ability to recognize them, Keshiema sensed the pressure when she searched for it. "It's almost like a head cold."

  'I wouldn't know, those are a human thing.' He smirked slightly. 'Now I'm going to try to pull thoughts from you. I want you to build the wall to keep me out.'

  She could feel him searching, but it felt about as noticeable as a feather brushing against her skin. When she felt the soft touch, she thought about the wall. Imagining pushing it out from within the center of her mind, like a box expanding outward, she could feel the feathery touch fade away. She started to relax, lowering her guard. The feeling immediately returned. She panicked, wondering if she would have to keep up the wall forever to keep anyone from spying on her thoughts.

  'You've got the wall down, Keshiema, but you need to do more than that. You can't spend your life within your own head, trying to protect your thoughts. You must be proactively offensive. Reverse the link, follow it to the spying demon and eradicate him.'

  "I can do that? Kill someone with telepathy?"

  'Your Friskalian abilities give you more control than most would have. It is a truly rare gift. You won't kill him, but you will put him in a vegetative state. Most do not recover from that. Of course, that much power takes vast amounts of training to build. You should have the building blocks, but dedicated practice is necessary to get to that point.'

  "So, how do I do it?"

  'Find the link between our thoughts, you should feel it deep within your mind, within the cerebrum. It will feel like a tension, pulling on your thoughts. Think of it as a tightrope, your mind is one platform and theirs is the other. Walk that tightrope to their mind, once there you can concentrate your thoughts to send a pulse that will cut the threads of their mind. Go ahead and try. The helmet you are wearing serves the purpose of preventing you from doing any damage while at the same time strengthening the link I have to your mind.'

  Closing her eyes, Keshiema found the connection and followed it. When she reached Ayperos, she became slightly disoriented. She thought about the pulse like her aura, letting it build and releasing it in a powerful burst.

  Ayperos shouted, falling to his knees in front of his throne, clutching his skull. Keshiema sprang up from her chair, throwing the helmet aside. Kneeling next to the prince, she placed her hand on his shoulder. "Ayperos, I'm sorry! Are you alright? Please say something."

  "I'm alive. Not brain dead either." Letting her hand fall away from his shoulder, he carefully sat on his throne, massaging his temples. "I just didn't expect you to be that powerful."

  "Are you sure you’re ok? I can try to heal you. Or I can get a medic if you would rather." Her tone was nearing shrill, and she spoke quickly. He could hear her heart thumping, and the erratic rhythm matched the pounding in his head.

  "I'm fine. I told you, the helmet wouldn't let you do any real damage. I'm just going to have a headache for a few minutes and then I'll be good." He struggled to talk through the migraine.

  "At least let me get rid of your headache?" She pleaded.

  Her creased brow over smokey eyes weakened his resolve. ‘If only you knew how much you look like her.’ He sighed, "If it'll make you feel better."

  Stepping behind him she placed her left hand on his forehead. The other she placed on hers. Her aura radiated through his mind, replacing the pain with a soft warmth as the scent of lilacs filled the room. "Keshiema, thank you." He said as she removed her hand.

  Seeing her wind rose faintly visible on Ayperos’s forehead, the silent confirmation that the healing spell worked, eased her mind, and let her breathe a bit easier. "You're welcome, my prince. It's the least I could do, given I caused it."

  "I think that's enough mental strain for one day, what about you?"

  "Not to sound at all unappreciative, but yes, I think so too."

  "Good. We have something to handle tomorrow, so you’ll have the day off from training. But you’ll resume at sunrise the day after tomorrow. From there we’re going to start picking up the pace of your training. Hiro is just outside the door. He'll escort you to your chamber so you can rest.”

  "Thank you, Prince Ayperos." She bowed before leaving and meeting up with the Kitsune-Daemon in the hallway. "Hiro," she smiled as she greeted him with a quick salute."

  He smiled, saluting back. "Kesh. I'll walk you back to your room, if you'd like."

  Keshiema's stomach rumbled. "Actually, I haven't eaten much today. Lunch was a bit small. Do you have time to hit up the cafeteria with me?"

  "I believe I can make time for a quick meal." Hiro smiled.