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Darlryan held Kate’s shoulder’s as she vomited and reached out gently to touch her mind. The explosion of pain made him pull back and stare at her. What on earth was going on with her? Practicising shouldn’t cause an effect like this unless he’d overworked her and he didn’t think that he had. He shot a mental instruction to Laxmi to bring some painkillers and continued rubbing her shoulders until the heaving stopped. By that time Laxmi had returned with water and some co-codamol. Kate swallowed them with a genuinely grateful ‘thank you’ and looked up at him wearily.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I must have over-worked you. You should tell me if you’re getting tired.”

“I will.” She rubbed at her temples and closed her eyes. “But I wasn’t tired. I’m always getting these headaches. Sometimes they are so bad I can’t get out of bed.”

He frowned at her. “I don’t think it’s coincidence,” he said. “You were in pain after I empowered you as well. I want to look into this if that’s okay.”

Kate began to nod then groaned and stopped. “Sure,” she said. “Maybe you can do what the neurologists couldn’t and find out what’s causing it.”

“Hopefully,” he agreed. He reached out again scanning the power channels he had opened and saw the problem immediately. Something was forcing them closed and trying to divert the power to somewhere else. The pain was a side-effect. That hadn’t been obvious earlier so the practice had triggered it. Who had done this to her?
He hissed angrily to himself before telling her what he’d found. Kate’s scowl deepened and she rubbed at her temples some more.

“Some one did this to me?” she asked.

“They must have,” he said. “It’s not natural.”

“Can you fix it?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “And I think I should do it as soon as possible. It’ll hurt a lot but not as much as leaving it would in the long run. I’d knock you out but I need you conscious to remove it.”

“Okay.” Kate nodded and visibly tensed in preperation.

“I will be as gentle as possible.” He promised before diving into her mind. As soon as he touched the block Kate started screaming and thrashing around. He pulled back and called to Laxmi to restrain her so she wouldn’t hurt herself. This was worse than he had realised. It would take a lot of power and skill to place a block like this. He waited until she was secured and began again. He tried to remove it gently but it was firmly entrenched. He growled to himself and attacked it more vigourously forrcing himself to ignore the fact Kate was no longer screaming only because she was too hoarse. Eventually it began to crack and one more mental blow and it shattered. He swept around ensuring he had got all of it – such things were like crystals and would regrow if he missed even a fragment before moving on to the next one.

Whoever had done this had placed them at a very early age – possibly even when she was just a baby – but they had started paining her only when her natural power started to grow at puberty. He shattered and cleared the last ward before letting her sink into unconsciousness and had Laxmi carry her to a couch.

“Will she be okay?” Laxmi asked.

He nodded. “She just needs rest.” He scowled. “But what was that? Someone was siphoning her power for something.”

“Xantaria?” she asked.

“Possibly,” he said. “It wouldn’t surprise me. She seems to need a lot of energy for whatever it is she is doing so she’s a good suspect but let’s not assume things.” He stroked Kate’s forehead. “It’s a good thing I chose her. I think this would have killed her in the end.”

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