When no one else piped up with any smart remarks, I paced back and forth at the front of the classroom and dove headfirst into teaching them the basics.
“The first thing you need to learn is how to breathe.”
“We already know how to breathe,” the blonde girl who’d wanted to go home yesterday said. “You’re supposed to teach us how to use our powers.”
“You know how to take air in and out of your lungs,” I corrected. “You don’t know how to breathe yet. What’s your name?”
“Christina,” she muttered.
“Christina, come up to the front of the class. You and I will demonstrate how to breathe.” I gave her my warmest smile, and she ignored it. Maybe it was my solid black eyes. Or maybe she just didn’t like anyone. She didn’t move, either. “I wasn’t asking you, by the way. Come here.”
Christina frowned, then slid out of her desk and stomped to the front of the class. She was angry and rebellious, her aura filled with swirling aspects so dark I was surprised they didn’t make her sick. Fear, anger, despair, and horror swirled around her like hungry vultures waiting for their meal to drop dead.
My life in the camps had been hard, and I’d suffered with a hollow core every day of my life. My mother, though, had tried to show me another way. Thanks to her, I’d learned to cycle my breathing, and the basics of the sacred arts of jinsei. My experiences had been hard, but nowhere near as hard as what this girl had suffered through. Her aura belonged to someone much older, and much more damaged, than I’d ever been. She needed my help.
And I would give it to her, whether she wanted it or not.
“You all have a core inside you,” I explained. “In most people, this collects and stores jinsei, the sacred energy of life. People like us, though, have a hard time hanging onto that energy.”
It was clear from the looks on the faces in front of me that none of these kids had ever been taught even the basics of jinsei practices. I had a lot of work ahead of me.
I thought back to the lessons my mother had given me and parroted them back to my students.
My students. I didn’t know if I’d ever get used to that idea.
I walked them through the simple act of cycling. Take a deep breath. Hold it in your lungs. Feel the sacred energy within you. Breathe out and let the aspects you inhaled flow into your aura.
Take a deep breath.
I guided them through the exercise for a solid hour. At first, their breaths were shallow and didn’t pull deeply enough from the sacred energy that surrounded us all. Christina, especially, took only superficial breaths that did nothing to cycle power through her hollow core. After a few corrections, though, many of the students did much better. They inhaled deeply, pulling the air in through their nostrils and forcing it down deep inside them until their abdomens expanded. They let it out in a long, slow stream that left their lungs empty.
They were getting closer, but they still weren’t cycling. The jinsei flowed into their bodies, but it circled around in their lungs and then left on the exhale without ever reaching their cores.
I thought back to my childhood memories and realized I never remembered a time when I couldn’t cycle. I remembered my mother reinforcing the technique, I just didn’t remember when she’d originally taught me. How young must I have been when I’d learned the most basic understanding of the jinsei arts?
And how long had it taken me to learn the most essential technique? I wondered if six months would be enough time.
With only minutes left in the class, Christina’s eyes shot wide and she gasped.
“I felt it,” she said. “Right here.”
She touched her fingers to her solar plexus then took another deep breath.
This time, the jinsei entered the channels from her lungs and swirled through her core. The aspects peeled away and floated into her aura. And then, just like it had happened to me thousands of times, the energy gushed out of her hollow core like water from a bucket with a hole in its bottom.
I braced myself for Christina’s frustrated outburst. She’d touched the sacred power of the universe, only to have it snatched out of her hands. She had every right to be angry.
Instead, she looked at me with tears in her eyes and a trembling smile on her lips.
“It was beautiful.” She could barely whisper the words.
She reached toward me, then pulled her hand back as if afraid she’d get burned.
“You see it, now?” I asked.
She nodded, and tears spilled over her eyelashes. Her spirit senses had come to life, and she’d seen the jinsei flowing through another person for the first time.
It wouldn’t be long, I knew, before she’d get frustrated and angry at her limitations.
That was for later. Just then, I let her enjoy what she’d experienced.
Christina deserved at least a moment of happiness.
The Team
WORD ABOUT THE TEAM spread through the student body faster than a mono outbreak through the upperclassmen dorms. While almost no one at the School knew the full story of what happened at Grayson Bishop’s trial last year, most of them had heard rumors that I’d repelled a terrorist attack. That got me more than my fair share of high fives and thumbs-ups on my way to breakfast the next day. The wardens made sure that every member of our team was escorted to the front of the food line, and they had our usual table cleared and ready.
For once, I felt like a real celebrity. I hadn’t even been treated this well
