Chapter 76 - When You Are Ready (2)

Elior heard the knocking on the door. He was expecting Shin as he had already practised what he would say to him to get his trust. Walking up to open the door of his room, Elior found it was not Shin, but a maiden in white.

Aanya had a thin smile on her face, with her burning white hair left unbound on her shoulder and back. From the outside, there seemed to be nothing wrong with her, just in her usual mood. A loose white gown was on her body, and in her arms were a lot of notebooks, as well as a few books.

"Mind if I come in?" Aanya asked with twinkling eyes.

"Yes," Elior said, and led her into his room. He gave her a seat before the desk where all his stuff from the hollow book, phone, coffee, as well as a few instruments of magic engineering were in disarray.

Elior did not start and was trying to come up with something while Aanya was looking around his room to see anything interesting. There were not actually many things in the room and was mostly cleaned apart from a couple of regular things in disarray.

"Senior," Elior called, pouring her a cup of coffee as well.

The aromatic scent of the coffee drifted all over the room as it was not a regular coffee. Elior had brought many good things to relieve his usual headache after all the hard work he put through every day. Although he had not done much physical training in the last few days, he kept his mind always busy with magic engineering, mana application or spell casting. A few like this coffee were necessary to keep a cool head. 

"Are you alright?" he asked hesitantly, gazing at her face carefully. It was so hard to see depression and trauma in a few people with the cheerful face they put in. Like her father, Aanya was too good at hiding their inner pain. Perhaps she unconsciously learned it from seeing how her father acts. Perhaps he had learned it from him as well. 

"Yes," Aanya said, smiling. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, I have not seen you for sometimes and heard that—"

"So, you are worried about me?" Aanya kept the curl on her lips and sipped in the aromatic coffee. "I guess there is another person who is worried about me. I feel happy."

The guilt in his heart rose, seeing her like this, but he pushed away the guilt deep inside his heart. He would feel even more guilty if he failed in his mission and all the wrongs he did would be for nothing.

"I am going away for some time," Aanya said, and gestured towards the notes and books. "These are the notes that I had with me. They did not just contain my understanding of spells, but my father's in the artificing too. I did not know how useful it would be for you, but surely you can put them to use how you like. And give a copy to Ileana when she's ready."

"Are you leaving earth?" Elior asked, ignoring everything about the stuff. An uncomfortable, unknown emotion rose in his heart. This was surely related to his doing, but he had no idea if it was good or bad for her.

"Yes," Aanya said. "I don't know how long it will take me, but I will surely come back."

"I think a change of pace would be good for you," Elior said.

"Oh, no, I am not going there for a change of pace." Aanya rested her palms on the desk and eyed him. "I am going there to inherit what belongs to me."

Elior's brows knitted together immediately.

"You know, junior," Aanya continued and her body shook a little. "In every generation of my maternal clan, a female was born with the brightest eyes, as well as unreal power that could not be comprehended through common knowledge of the universe. My ancestor, Silverett Daylight, fought together along with the great emperor Ashoka thousands of years ago and sacrificed her life to give this power to the maiden of the clan. Though she did her best, all the people that came after her did not have even a tenth of her potential. Usually, the possessor of the eyes takes the reign of the house and nobody usually utters a word in denial.

"That seemed like a dream to many people, but only the possessor of the eyes knew this was more of a curse, a burden than anything else. Yet they could not abandon it, knowing everything. Even if the possessor of the ability did not want the burden, they still have to shoulder it. My mother . . . she . . ."

Elior said nothing, just kept his eyes on the emotional senior. He bit his lips and clasped her palms together.

Aanya looked at him with two crystal drops of tears in her eyes. "When I was little, I asked my mother why she was always so tired and did not have the time to play with me. She only answered cryptically, saying I will know when I get older.

"Nobody has an idea what the possessor of the brightest eyes sees, and nobody could have any idea what was going on in their head. Even my father did not have the faintest clue why my mother did what she did. Why she did not tell him everything. My father beats him even now for not understanding a thing.

"I did not understand a thing back then, but I learned why she was silent to the person she loved the most."

Aanya became silent and clasped his palm tighter.

"Senior," Elior called after a few seconds. His voice was slow and hesitant. "When you first saw me about a month ago, you were in a trance for a few seconds. A vision perhaps. What did you see?"

"You don't want to know," Aanya said, wiping her eyes with her left palm.

"You would be surprised to know if I want to know or not." Elior did not push her to open up about her vision.

Aanya looked at him for a couple of seconds. "Emptiness. The emptiness was what I saw, and pain," she said. "No matter how hard you try, they would not leave you. You just have to learn to accept it no matter what happens. It's the only way for you."

Elior nodded with only a little arch in his brows, nothing else.

"You don't look surprised?" Aanya asked.

Elior shook his head. "I have a theory," he said. "Do you know where all these abilities we have come from? Like Brightest Eyes of your clan, Emperor Ashoka's Everlasting Flames?"

Aanya said nothing, though she heard many hypotheses about the origin of the powers.

"I think the Mother gives it to us," Elior said. "And it is not free. The stronger the power the Universe gives us, the more things the universe wants from us. What we want does not mean a single penny to Mother. Mother is heartless, she's cruel. All she wanted was to root out the cancer growing in her heart.

"It doesn't matter how many of her children she sacrifices, all she wants is for the cycle to end."

Elior stopped suddenly, and an impaling pain appeared in his head. He could not help but clasped his forehead with his cold palm. He did not understand what he just said in the last phrase.

"Cycle?" Aanya asked, picking her brows. "What Cycle?"

"I don't know," Elior said truthfully and tried to not go deep into pondering, knowing nothing good would come if he draws the Eye now. "I don't know why I said that."

Aanya believed him, and they soon heard a knocking at the door. "Brother, open the door. It's me," Shin called from outside of the door.

"In a minute," Elior said, and saw Aanya standing up.

"I will see you in the tournament, then," Aanya said. "Work hard. I have to argue a lot to get you the chance."

"Thank you," Elior said, standing up as well. "And I am sorry."

"Why are you sorry?" Aanya stopped just before the door. She looked back at him and pondered before a sleek rapier appeared in her arms. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

Elior's heart shook. It was exactly the other of the twin rapier that he had lost in the dungeon in the night of the high storm.

"I think this belongs to you," Aanya said, giving him the rapier.

Elior took it and looked at her eyes intensely, as he did not understand what to say to her. He surely had encrypted the artifact well and nobody could tell who made it, which means she had found it out the other way around. Possibly, see through the disguise. 

"Don't worry," she said. "You don't lie, but I won't ask anything now.

"Just tell me everything when you are ready."

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