Free The Vaetra Chronicles: Book 01 - Vaetra Unveiled by Daniel R. Marvello

again," she instructed as she stepped a few paces away toward the fireplace.
    I stared at the Seeker again and thought about the ruby ring. Find the ring, I thought, but aloud I said, "Seek."
    To my surprise, the Seeker made its high-pitched whine again and started to rotate at the end of the chain. If it had not been attached to its ring on my finger, I think I may very well have dropped it. When the colored end pointed toward Sulana and the ruby ring, it stopped rotating and the volume of the whine increased.
    In that moment, I felt a disorienting shift inside me. It was like something long dormant had awakened and shaken off the cobwebs of disuse. When the Seeker located the ruby ring, a tingling sensation of power flowed through my mind. The feeling was dizzying, as if I had drunk a bit too much wine.
    I heard a gasp, and I looked over at Meghan. She was staring at me like I had sprouted antlers; her mouth had literally fallen open. I looked at Sulana to find that she was grinning triumphantly at me for some reason. Then I looked over at Daven, but he just rolled his eyes and shook his head.
    "I thought so!" Sulana cried.
    "What?" I asked a little too loudly over the Seeker's whine.
    "Just proving a theory," Sulana said with satisfaction.
    "How do I turn it off?" I asked.
    "Just think about making it stop seeking the ring and say stop ," she replied.
    I did as she suggested and the Seeker fell silent once again. A sense of relief washed over me as the dizzy feeling went away. I removed the Seeker's ring and held the device out to Sulana. She took it back from me with an amused smirk.
    Meghan had regained her composure and was considering me now with interest. She looked at Sulana. "I never imagined he was a Sensitive," she commented.
    "Oh, he's more than that," Sulana said. "He's a Channeler."
    "So I see," Meghan murmured, looking back at me appraisingly.
    It was frustrating to feel left out of a conversation about me while I was standing right there. I gestured at the Seeker. "Would someone care to explain what just happened here?"
    "You made the Seeker work," Sulana replied in a matter-of-fact tone. She seemed to be enjoying my discomfort and confusion.
    "So what?"
    "So, it means that not only are you sensitive to vaetra, you can also channel vaetra. I don't understand how you couldn't be aware of that."
    Meghan interrupted. "You grew up among sorcerers, did you not?" she asked Sulana. Sulana nodded in reply. "Out here among the mundane, one is taught at an early age to fear and avoid sorcery. Showing an interest in it or fraternizing with those who practice it can have unpleasant consequences."
    Sulana turned her attention back to me. "So you never tried to find out why you could hear manifestations? You never wondered if you could do more?"
    I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. "When would I have done that? Every time I've been in the presence of magic, sorry, sorcery , I've been with people who were suspicious of it, afraid of it, or hostile to it."
    I looked at Meghan. "I gather that people who cannot sense vaetra are the mundane ?" She nodded.
    I looked back at the Seeker in Sulana's hand. "Anyway, I figured the sound sorcery makes is one of the things that unnerves people about it. And nobody wants to talk about it, so I had no idea that others don't hear it too."
    "That's incredible!" Sulana exclaimed with a laugh. "I wonder how many other Channelers are out there who have no idea of what they can do?"
    Meghan frowned. "Probably not many. Sensitivity often runs in families, and those families are often more accepting of sorcery, although they keep quiet about it. Many even test their children for the ability to channel and apprentice them to a sorcerer when it's practical."
    Sulana nodded. "Yes, that's how we get most of the initiates at the Archives. A parent brings them to us for training. I never realized just how unusual that was."
    "So what do I do now?" I asked, more than a little uncomfortable with my