“How did that transition from a you’re not stupid speech to a believe in yourself speech?”
“It was subtle, I know,” he says as he opens the door. I chuckle and follow him in the training room.
“Oh my goodness,” I say when my eyes adjust to the bright lights. Colin calls everyone to gather in the middle of the room. Colton, who is standing on the far side of the room talking to an unfamiliar man, turns in my direction and smiles at me. “Colin, do you think it’s possible for Dravin to be stopped?”
“I think it depends on what you believe. Dravin is very confident in his abilities. From what I’ve heard, you’re very strong. You need to use all those emotions swirling around in that pretty head of yours and let it strengthen your magic. That’s why you were given that new power. It’ll make you stronger if you use it in the right way. Yes, I do think it’s possible for Dravin to be stopped, but it doesn’t matter what I think. What you think is going to happen is all that matters,” Colin says as everyone crowds around us.
“That’s why you think I got this extra power? To strengthen my existing magic?”
“You’re powers are emotion based, Ryanne,” Tom says as he places a hand on my shoulder.
“Now, you have a ton of extra emotions coursing through you. If you can harness those, you could be unstoppable,” Colin tells me. “When I instigate you, I can feel your magic moving through the air. You’re powerful, but you don’t know how to use all your magic yet. You put too much effort in pushing your magic back. If you would let your magic move freely around you, I think you’d be able to train much easier.”
“I could hurt someone,” I whisper. Since everyone is around us, I know that they are listening, but Colin is only talking to me.
“You won’t hurt anyone,” he confidently states.
“And how do you know that?”
“Call it intuition,” Colin says as he winks at me. My mouth falls open. He’s talked to Claire recently.
“So what’s the plan for today?” the unfamiliar man asks.
“I was thinking that you could help Logan train Lily, Chris. Natalie and I can work with Ryanne in controlling these emotions.” Colin says. I turn and look at Chris. He must be Colin’s son. I can see some of the resemblance. They have the same dark wavy hair and light almost gold eyes. “Oh, Ryanne, this is my son Chris. Chris, this is Ryanne.”
Chris smiles at me, and I can’t help but smile back. He looks to be the same age as Bragden and Conner, which would put him in his early-mid twenties. That means that Colin is older than he looks. Standing over six feet tall, he towers over me like all other mages. His golden eyes watch me with curiosity. I realize I don’t look like a mage; he doesn’t have to be so obvious about it.
“I’m not what you expected, I know.”
“No, it’s not that. You look very familiar,” Chris says as he continues to watch me. Hmm, he actually does look familiar. Lights keep flashing before my eyes. Darkness. Sirens. I rack my brain for where I had seen him before.
“Oh my gosh,” I gasp and cover my mouth. “You’re the paramedic.”
“I helped you before?” he asks me.
I bite my lip and look down. Colton walks over to me and wraps his arm around my shoulder. “You helped me after a car accident last year.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember that now,” he says, “I’m so sorry.” His pity flows into me. I step back into Colton as I try to bury that emotion away. I don’t want to feel that.
“Don’t pity me, Chris. I can’t handle any more of that.” Chris nods and the pity instantly stops. He’s much better at controlling his emotions than everyone else.
Colin claps his hands, scaring everyone. “Everyone else can train together. I trust that you guys can split yourself up into groups on your own,” he says.
Tom pats Colton on the back as he stops beside him. “Yeah, they know who to train with. We’ve been doing this for a while now.”
Even though everyone starts splitting up, Colton lingers beside me. “Trust Colin,” he whispers to me. “He knows what he’s doing. He and Tom used to work together training other mages.”
“I know. He told me.” Colton looks surprised, but doesn’t comment on that. He nods and looks over my head and laughs. “You’re being summoned.”
“Come on little Hobbit. We don’t want you to end up in Mordor without any training!” Colin yells from across the training room. I shake my head and stand on my tip toes to kiss Colton on the cheek. Turning around, I skip over to Colin and Natalie, trying to act more optimistic than I feel.