After War Storm

Mare

I lead Cal back to the meeting room with him asking me what we found. I tell him to wait until we reach Julien and Farley.

"So what did you find?" Cal asks as soon as we're through the door.
"Well," I say, walking over to the table where Farley's notebook is. "they all ate the same thing for dinner on the day their powers disappeared."
"You took me out of training to say they all have similar eating habits?"
"No, Cal," Julien says "we took you out of training because it's a clue."

Cal thinks about it for a moment before realisation hits him. "No, it can't be. All the Whispers in Norta were killed during the war."
"Exactly," Farley says "which means, another country is targeting us."
"But who?" Julien asks.
"It can't be the Lakelands," I say. "They don't have Whispers either, do they Cal?" I look at Cal and he's deep in thought. "Cal?" I repeat a bit louder and he jolts out of his thoughts.
"Sorry, Mare. What did you say?"
"The Lakelands don't have Whispers, do they?"
"No," he says before returning to his thoughts.

After a moment I ask: "What are you thinking about?"
"Just about what this means." He looks worried which makes me worried. Cal is a soldier and if this is making him worried then it's very bad.
"What does it mean, Cal?" I ask.
"It means there are Whispers amongst us."

-~-

"Farley and I conducted the interviews with the three Newbloods who came forward, this morning," Julien tells the council who are sat around the large table, as well and Eve and I.

We called a meeting soon after Cal told us it meant there were Whispers in Norta. Though Cameron stayed at training with the soldiers.

"We discovered that someone has done this to them and that their minds were tampered with afterwards," Julien continues. "The question is, the same as last meeting: whether we should tell everyone or not?"
"I still don't think we should," Farley says. "Now we know someone is targeting Nortan Newbloods, it means there is an even higher chance of war and we are only just out of war, do we really want to create fear. Especially now we know Whispers are involved. The last thing we want is for people to turn on Silvers again."
"You make a good point, Farley," Cal says "but I think we need to talk to more Newbloods. We need to gather as much information as we can if we want to find out who is doing this, find someone where the Whisper slipped up and forgot something."

"I agree with Cal," I say, speaking for the first time. Everyone turns to look at me. "We need to speak to more Newbloods and see if this has happened to anyone else. We still don't know how their powers are being taken. Farley is also right that we shouldn't announce this to everyone as it would cause panic. Let's keep it quiet and go and talk to Newbloods without telling the country."
"Go and speak to them how?" Sara asks.

I turn to Julien. "Blood bank? Do you still have the list?"
"I do, but Mare, everyone has duties here that they can't just ditch to go and track down Newbloods like before."
"Then I'll go," I offer. "My only duty here is to help end this, whatever this is, and to do that we need to find others this has happened to."
"I'll go with you," Cal says immediately but I shake my head.
"You have soldiers to train and a country to help run along with the rest of the council."
"You can't go alone," he insists. I see Eve smirking from the corner of my eye.

"Guys," Julien interrupts. "You can discuss who goes later," he says knowing full well this will lead to an argument. Cal has always been protective and I like that but not when he stops me from doing things that I'm perfectly capable of. Julien continues: "But Mare, it could take weeks, months to track down all the Newbloods and there might be no more that have had their powers taken. Some might have not even known they had gifts that were taken. Think how long it took last time."
"We couldn't show our faces last time," I say getting annoyed.