Page 163 of Gift from the Wing

“Why?”

“Because I need to know. Honest answers only. No bullshitting,” he says when he sees she’s about to downplay her answer.

Blowing out a breath, she readjusts herself on Corentin’s lap and her face grows more serious. “Nervous, scared, excited, determined…all of it. The whole point of that room is to help me get better with my sight. I’ve come to accept I won’t ever control it completely like I do my other gifts because of its nature to need to be able to tell me things on seconds notice, but I am supposed to grow to the point where I can call on it and it’ll respond. It’s both thrilling and intimidating. It’s hard to think straight before Igo in there.”

He nods along like that makes perfect sense, and it does. That room is an other-realmly experience, and we all want it to do its purpose for her. But without these fucking side effects would be nice.

“Whenever you use a tool to amplify your gift, it disrupts your natural magic and mind, even if it doesn’t feel that way. Combine that with the flood of emotions you’re experiencing, and you’re making your body, mind, and magic vulnerable to imbalance. You might not notice it, though. You probably enter the room, calm your nerves, and proceed, but you’re doing things out of order.

“Most of us understand that our minds heavily influence our magic. Emotions often cause our magic to surge, and those emotions are driven by our thoughts and external factors. But few realize the full extent of the mind’s role. I’m more knowledgeable about the brain than most, and I can tell you—it’s responding to everything. It sees the amplification as a threat.

“When you go in anxious or afraid, your brain scrambles to fix the situation. Even when you think you’re calm, your brain isn’t. So when you jump into a vision with unbalanced magic and mental strength, you’re left vulnerable, both mentally and physically.”

Willow’s mouth gapes open, an argument, confusion, and acceptance all sitting there on the edge of her tongue. Without addressing Trex just yet, she turns her head to Gaster.

“He didn’t experience any of these physical side effects?”

“No, but at the same time, child, he had years to perfect his calm, balanced nature. He had to. He didn’t have a Nexus to help with that. Also, unlike you, he only had the gift of sight. He didn’t have to worry about balancing six other gifts and all four elements,” he says softly with tender eyes.

That seems to put things in a different perspective for her and her tense muscles relax back into Corentin. “I walk in with my magic, gifts, everything locked up because if not, as soon as I’m in, I’ll be sucked into a vision. I sit down in the middle of the room, clear my thoughts, set my intentions, and release my magic, while calling forth the sight.”

“You need to work on being balanced with everything before you go in. Let your mind, magic, and gifts know what it is you’re going to bedoing. It may seem strange talking to yourself, but everything within you listens to what you tell it. If you go in there with the mindset that this is overwhelming or this sucks, that’s exactly what you’re going to get. You need to go in clear-headed and determined, with everything already open and on the same page,” Trex tells her, and I gain a little respect at the gentle coaching coming from him.

He’s not being his typical assholish self and seems genuinely concerned with helping her get this right. Granted, it still could have a little self-serving motivation behind it, but he’s willing to teach her something she needs to know.

“So what did you do to her just now?” Draken asks the burning question I know all four of us were waiting for an answer on.

“I sent a signal to her hypothalamus, letting it know everything in her body is fine. It’s a part of the brain that controls multiple different things. Hormones, body temperature, appetite, sleep cycles, emotions, behaviors. You fucking name it. It was in overdrive trying to figure out a problem it couldn’t find. It didn’t know what to make function or force to stop functioning. That’s also why the healing vial wasn’t working. There was nothing to heal.”

“But she’s fine now?” Corentin asks.

“Should be. Ask her.”

There went that small glimpse of the nondickish attitude. Fuck, I hope getting his brothers back causes him to chill out a bit. We’re stuck with him for a while, no doubt, and eventually, one of us is going to punch him.

“He’s right. I feel perfectly fine now,” Willow says, but it’s unconvincing.

She picks up on our doubts but doesn’t show that outwardly.

“How the hell am I supposed to balance everything in me before going in there? I struggle to balance myself before I even open the door,”she says in our minds quietly.

“You’re bonded to the most balanced person in the realm, princess,”Corentin says, smirking over at me.

“Mostly,”I tack on.

Her beautiful wide eyes whip to mine and hope shines through their depths, piercing me right in the heart. Her unwavering belief in me nearly knocks my breath away and I clench my fist against my thighs to keep myself from pulling her into my lap.

“We’ll work on it this afternoon, little warrior,” I promise.

This isn’t just a simple act of calming herself and balancing her emotions. What Trex is explaining is on a much deeper level that involves balancing everything within her. I would’ve already worked on this with her if I thought she truly needed the help, but she has an insane ability, in my opinion, to do it on her own. Of course, like any of us, she loses her cool every now and again, but she’s always able to rein it in quickly.

I’ve never noticed, even on a bond level, everything in her not being balanced. She always feels level if her emotions aren’t heightened, but I guess this room brings something out in her that we need to work on.

“Thank you,”she says and blows me a kiss.

“So what did you see that caused this today? I assume we can know since we got invited here,” Codi says after a moment of everyone taking some bites of food and starting easy conversations.

We chuckle as Willow grunts like the question surprised her, and she hurriedly takes a large gulp of coffee, then wipes the corners of her mouth.

---