The haggard Farrian official shut the stone doors of the Governor’s audience chamber behind him, the last to exit, and they slammed with finality.

“Well then,” he said, the resentment discernible in his voice, “I suppose you had better come with me.”

“Where is the ‘manse’ we’re staying in?” Ryn asked for the group, beating Nuthea to it.

“It’s on this top level of the city,” said the official as he began to lead them across the stone floors. “For some reason he’s letting you stay in our finest guest accommodation, normally reserved for diplomats and dignitaries. I can’t think why.” He eyed Vish, barely keeping a sneer from his face. “He must want to keep a close eye on you.”

Out of the building, into the brisk, crisp mountain air, along the way a bit, and the official led them to another of the miniature mountains-upon-the-mountain that were all over Shun Pei--another one of the spines of this gigantic conical porcupine, as Nuthea had come to think of it.

Inside the earthen structure, the walls and floor were made of polished grey stone. A circular atrium had several doors leading off it, with golden knockers each carved into the face of a monkey. At the centre of the atrium was a small fountain, carved from white stone, which pumped water up by some hidden mechanism and sprayed it out in a glittering circle.

Now this was more like it. This was more what she was used to. The Captain’s chamber on Wanderlust was tolerable, but not really up to standard. And, by the end, the Earth Temple had grown quite unbearable. This was was much more what Nuthea was used to.

“They are single rooms,” said the official begrudgingly, “so you may each have your own. I am sure you are more than capable of deciding who sleeps where.” He pointed to a stone staircase at one end of the atrium. “Though there are a few more rooms on the upper floor. I suggest the young ladies sleep up there.” He pointed to the central door that led off from the atrium, the only one without a golden monkey-face knocker. “Through there is the dining area. Servants will bring food there at sunrise, noon, and sundown. Each of your rooms locks from the inside, and the keys are in the rooms already. You should have everything you need. Oh, I nearly forgot.”

He reached inside the folds of his blue robes and brought out a collection of small white papers, counted off six of them, then handed them to Nuthea.

“What are these?” she asked, looking down at the square scraps of parchment, covered in an inked script of strange symbols that she could not read. The Farrians had a very odd form of writing.

“Your visitor’s papers,” said the official. “One for each of you. If you show these at the gates between any of the levels of the city, they will let you through, so you can pass between them as you wish. You are free to explore the city at your leisure and come and go as you please. There are training squares open to the common people on the second level. Now you should have everything you need. The Governor’s tournament will be held in seven days' time, next firstday. I will come to you again on seventhday, to give you the details of where the tournament will be held. Please do not tell anyone about your discovery of the Earth Emerald. If you need anything or have any problems, I can be found at the entry gate to this uppermost level. Enjoy your time in Shun Pei.”

With that, he left them, seemingly keen to get away from them as quickly as possible.

“Well this is pretty sweet,” said Elrann when he had gone, looking around at the fountain, the floor, the golden door-knockers. “Much nicer digs than the last time I was in Shun Pei…”

“I’ll say!” said Ryn. “Did you hear that? They have servants who are going to provide our meals for us! No more hard tack and salted meat. We won’t even have to use Nuthea’s coin to buy food anymore!”

“Well,” said Nuthea, “unless we want to explore the city and eat at some inns for some of our meals.” She didn’t see what the fuss was about. This was perfectly normal. Although she supposed it wasn’t for Ryn and the others, and she was glad he was happy about it. She hadn’t seen him this happy in...ever?

“It’s not bad, it’s not bad,” acquiesced Sagar. “I mean, I’ve stayed in nicer places. But this will do.”

“I suggest,” said Nuthea, “that we all take some time to settle into our rooms, and meet up again in the dining area at noon for our luncheon. Elrann and I will take two of the rooms on the upper floor, as the official suggested. It is only proper that we have our own floor.”

Sagar frowned, and looked as if he was about to do that growling thing he did and then open his mouth to protest, but Nuthea hit him with a meaningful glare and managed to head it off. The skypirate kept his mouth shut, and only a very faint growl came from it. Boys. He needs to learn to control himself.

“Great,” said Ryn by contrast, “see you all at noon. Which room do you want, Cid?”

“I’ll take this one,” said Cid, pointing to the nearest door.

Nuthea and Elrann left them to it and went upstairs, each choosing one of the rooms on the upper floor.

Nuthea shut the door to her room behind her and let out a long sigh.

It had been a long time, traveling on that airship, all cooped up with everyone else, and then navigating that Farrian shrine. Her companions were growing to become her closest friends–how couldn’t they, after all they had been through together?--but she still needed a break from them from time to time.

Although, the only problem with taking a break from them was that her grief for her mother rose up to the top of her mind. She felt the pang of it again now, a big gaping ache in her stomach, her chest, her heart. It was always with her, though she was distracted from it a little when she was with her companions and focusing on their quest. But she couldn’t spend all her time with them, and this was when she felt it most keenly.

This must be how Ryn felt all the time, too. And he hadn’t just lost his mother, he had also lost his father, his friends, everyone he had ever known who had been part of his hometown of Cleasor. And it had all been her fault… No; I can’t go down that line of thinking again. I’ve dealt with that with the One.

And then there was this problem that she had become…blocked. She held out her two pale hands in front of her, palms up, and willed for some lightning to appear. A jolt, a fizz, a spark, anything. Nothing happened.

“Bolt,” she tried whispering under her breath.

Nothing happened.

At most, her arms ached a little.

What was going on? It couldn’t just be that she was out of mana, because she felt physically fine. Tired, and grieving, to be sure, but she had slept on the airship on the way back from the Farrian jungle and she had still been eating, so her mana levels should be fine.

No, this was a longer term problem. She should at least be able to produce something in terms of lightning. But she hadn’t been able to for weeks now. She had thought that combat would sort things out, but it hadn’t. She had tried so hard to produce lightning to persuade the Farrian official to first let them onto this level of the city, to attack the earthen golem guardians, to try to open the door on the second floor of the Temple, but she just hadn’t been able to, on any of those occasions.

What was going on?

She looked around her room, which she had not even bothered to do yet, so preoccupied had she been with her problems.

It was simple yet comfortable. A mat on the floor, which she presumed was where she would sleep. A wardrobe for her clothes. She would need to get one of the boys to bring over some of her clothes from the ship. A mirror. A small desk and chair.

She sat down on the chair, to think.

How am I going to get myself...unblocked?

She held out her hands on the desk in front of her. Her white, delicate, dainty hands. The hands of royalty. What was wrong with them? Why were they not producing what she wanted them to? It had always come so easily, so naturally to her, what with her having been touched with the Lightning Crystal at birth, but now the magic wasn’t flowing anymore. Who could she turn to for help for this?

Then the answer came to her, so obvious she wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before.

Grandfather.

She stood up from the desk and went downstairs, finding the room that Cid had chosen earlier.

She used the golden door-knocker.

“Come!” came the eccentric yet friendly voice from within.

“Hello, Granddaughter,” said Cid when she entered.

She didn’t preface her visit with any niceties. She was too distressed. “Grandfather, I have a problem. There’s something I need to tell you.”

“You have become blocked in your use of your lightning.”

Nuthea froze mid-stride. “You know already!? How did you…?”

The room was identical to Nuthea’s own. Cid had been sitting on the chair at his own desk, but now he got up and gestured for Nuthea to take it, then sat on his mat as he spoke to her.

“It is easy to see, Granddaughter Nuthea. You couldn’t produce it when we were first trying to gain entry to the top level of the city, and you didn’t even attempt to use it against any of the Earth Temple guardians or any of the doors or mechanisms in there. Of course, you may have tricked the others with your explanations of why you did not produce it, as after all it is highly unlikely that the element of lightning would have any effect against the element of earth, but I know better.”

Tears began to push at Nuthea’s eyes. She put out a hand on the table in front of her to steady herself. “Please, Grandfather… You’ve got to help me… I don’t know what to do… How can I get it back? What’s happening to me?”

“Peace, child.” Cid smiled through his beard from where he sat. “Do not fret about it--that will only make things worse. Do not even fret about fretting about it. Simply allow yourself to feel your feelings. That will be the quickest path through. This sort of thing does happen from time to time. In fact, from my knowledge of Jewel lore, there is a name for it among those who bear the gifts.”

“Oh?” Nuthea was intrigued. “What do they call it?”

“Being ‘silenced’.”

“Well, that feels like a good description. I do feel ‘silenced’ in my use of my lightning. My lightning projection is a part of me. It’s like I’ve lost a part of my own being that I can’t use any more. It is a bit like losing my voice.”

“I know. I know.”

Nuthea bristled a little. “How could you know?”

“Because it’s happened to me before.”

More surprises, Nuthea thought. Is there anything that hasn’t happened to Grandfather before? How much of what he knows does he hold back? “What did you do to fix it?” she said.

“In my case it was a bit different. I became silenced because I fought a magical monster that caused me to be so. All it took to cure it was some good rest and recuperation after the battle, and I recovered. Well, that and nearly dying, come to think of it…”

“Nearly dying?!”

“Yes. I nearly died in the battle, and one of my companions revived me with a phoenix feather. After that, and some rest and recuperation to restore my mana, I became un-silenced.”

“But I don’t want to have to do that!”

“Oh, goodness me, no–don’t worry about that, child. You don’t need to. That is not the only route to being cured of this affliction. And in your case the silencing does not seem to have come about from battling a magical creature at all. Tell me, when did it begin?”

Nuthea searched her memory. She didn’t have to for very long.

“After the battle with General Vorr,” she said. “That was the last time I was able to use my lightning. Ever since then it’s been…‘silenced’.”

“Hmmmm.” Cid stoked his beard. “Forgive my directness, Granddaughter, but in other words you have been silenced ever since the death of your mother.”

A pang of grief echoed through Nuthea’s chest. Cid’s words had called attention to what was already there, in the background, but the attention made her feel it again. “Yes…” she said. “Or at least, soon after her death. I was able to use my lightning in the battle with Vorr and his soldiers immediately after she died. But you are right–ever since that battle, I have been unable to use it. Silenced.”

Cid continued to stroke his beard, as if the affectation somehow helped him to think. “Well, that makes enough sense. Immediately after it happened you were fueled by pain and outrage in reaction, and the situation demanded that you fight to survive. But once that battle was over and Vorr had been killed by young Ryn, your rage cooled and you became silenced…”

Nuthea frowned. She was beginning to grow just a little bit irritated with her Grandfather in the faith; something she wasn’t used to. He was talking about all of this as if it was some academic exercise, with a removed calm. Didn’t he realise how much this all meant to her? “But why?” she said. “What do you think the connection between my mother’s death and my becoming blocked is, exactly?”

Cid had been staring off at nothing as he pondered, but now he looked at her directly with his peculiar gray eyes.

“Have you forgiven yourself for what happened?” he said.

His words cut through her, straight to the heart of things. But the thing was, Nuthea had a ready answer to that.

“Actually…yes,” she said. She would not have said it so confidently had she not known it to be true. “After mother’s funeral, I… I did business with the One. I told him that I was deeply sorry for what had happened to her, and for my part in it, and I cried out to him for forgiveness. And…I received it. I received his forgiveness for the terrible things that I, in part, was the cause of… I am so grateful for his mercy. I do not think I could be able to live with myself without it.”

“Hmmm…” said Cid. “Curiouser and curiouser… Well; keep working on that and receiving the One’s forgiveness, but it sounds as though that is not the source of the blockage, if what you say is true. Tell me–have you also forgiven yourself for what happened with the Imperial General that led to young Ryn’s hometown being burned down in their pursuit of the Fire Ruby?”

Another pang went through Nuthea at being reminded of that mistake too. And yet, at the same time, once it had gone through her, she knew what the answer to Cid’s question was.”

“Yes,” she said. “I forgave myself for that soon after I realised what had happened. Again, I don’t think I would have been able to live if I had gone on carrying the weight of the guilt of it. I prayed to the One for forgiveness, and received it. And Ryn seemed to take a bit longer to get there, understandably, but he seems to have forgiven me too. I even prayed to forgive the General, General Vorr, what he did as well. So I don't think that's the cause of my being blocked, either.”

Cid held out his open hands, “Well, in that case, I am really not sure at all about what the source of your silencing is. The most common cause of being silenced or blocked, especially in the use of one’s powers, is failure to forgive another or failure to forgive oneself. Since it sounds like you have forgiven yourself and the most important other person to forgive–the General–I’m really not sure what is causing this silencing. Perhaps there is some other explanation. Did you touch by the Fire Ruby, perhaps?”

“No.”

“But could it be that you were touched by it? Could it be that you were touched by it without realising, perhaps during the battle?”

“No, Grandfather. That did not happen. I can’t produce fire either. I can’t produce anything when I try to project.”

“Well I have to say this most strange,” Cid stood up unexpectedly all of a sudden, apparently signaling that their conversation was over, for now. “I will think on this more, Granddaughter–I promise. But for now, go back to your room and get some more rest. The One knows we all need it. We went through a lot in that Earth Temple–and we achieved a lot, too. We’re all deserving of a little break, don’t you think? I will see you at noon.”

He had opened the door to his room to let her out. Nuthea was not used to someone else deciding when a meeting was over or when she should come and go, but she swallowed her protest. Her Grandfather must be tired and worn out still from their ordeals in the Earth Temple, as he had said.

“Thank you, Grandfather,” she said as she paused in the doorway on the way out. “You…you will think on this more, won’t you?”

“I promise,” said Cid with a kindly smile. “Now go and get some more rest, and I will do the same.”

He shut the door after her, and Nuthea climbed up the stairs back to her own room.

When she got to it, there were already two people outside it, having some sort of argument.

“Ryn! Sagar!” she said. “What are you doing?”

They stopped talking and turned to her at once. They hadn’t heard her coming up the stairs. Ryn looked white as a Manolian mountain. Sagar was red in the face.