Thunderlord snippet - Storm-sense

Please remember that this is a work in progress and drafts have a habit of changing drastically from inception to finished book.

From Thunderlord Chapter 12

Now it was Kyria’s turn to look astonished. “You studied at a Tower? Neskaya itself? No wonder you knew how to heal the horses and that poor man of Francisco’s.”

“What I did was no great thing in itself,” Edric said. “Every novice studies monitoring and the principle of laran healing. But the lineage we share –” he gestured to himself and then to her, “— our Rockraven blood –” although we not so close that we might not marry if there were no other impediment, “--  that explains why Scathfell wanted you. You’re right, not for anything having to do with you, Kyria, as a person, but because of what you carry in your genes.”

Kyria frowned. “What? A predisposition for dropping kitchen spoons and assaulting banshees with cooking knives? A talent for trapping small fur-bearing animals?”

“Storm-sense. Which, in its fully realized form, means the ability to not only detect but control cloud and rain…and lightning.”

She fell silent for a time, considering this. “My family told stories about the Witch-Child of Aldaran. She was Aliciane’s daughter, I believe, and therefore your kinswoman as well. ‘Tis said she could do these things. But me? I have no such power.”

“Search inside yourself, inside your mind,” he urged. “You’ll see I’m telling the truth.”

Kyria looked away, and for a moment he thought she would reject everything he’d said. “Ever since I was a little girl, I have been able to feel when a storm was coming. My father said I used to have nightmares about lightning even when the sky was yet clear. But my storms always came; I was never mistaken. He told me other stories, of how such powers were bred in the Towers and then used for terrible purposes. Men bursting into flames, whole kingdoms laid waste, the very land poisoned and forests set ablaze. I never put much faith in those tales. But I’ve thought – I’ve wished – oh, how I’ve wished! – that I could send a storm somewhere else. But I’ve never been able to, not even the slightest bit. And to be able to summon one out of a clear sky – I cannot imagine how that is even possible.”

She stopped climbing and faced him, her eyes fierce. “What do you know about such things? You said you studied at a Tower – were you part of these breeding programs? Is that how you know?”

“No, nothing like that! Yes, such things happened in the past, and records are kept in some of the Towers and also at the monastery in Nevarsin. Today no reasonable person would participate in a program that looks at women, and men, too, as of no more value than their seed.”

She shuddered, but said nothing. Her very silence demanded the truth.

“I know of these abilities because I have them, too,” Edric said. “I can not only sense storms, I can send them where I wish. I can, if you will excuse the colloquial phrase, call down the lightnings. I went to Neskaya Tower to learn how to control my storm-sense so that I would never misuse it, as has been done in the past.”