Chapter 294: Chapter 294 - Training with Alice

As he watched Emily hasten out, Erik felt a surge of positive emotions through his new link with Eira. 'It seems to be working... Hopefully, she'll come out of her shell and talk to me soon,' he thought optimistically.At the same moment, Emily was startled to see Emma grinning beside the doorway. Their eyes locked; Emma's happy and knowing grin betrayed her awareness of the events inside, while Emily desperately hoped she wouldn't mention them.

Relieved when Emma chose to remain silent, Emily quickly left to resume her training, her heart still racing.

Erik stepped out of the core room and followed Emily with his gaze, then turned to Emma, sharing her grin. "Enjoy the show?" he asked.

"I did. Thank you for letting me listen," Emma giggled, her excitement palpable. "It was a lot of fun to see Emily so subdued!"

"It was always inside her," Erik chuckled. "She just needed someone to coax it out." He continued curiously, "But I'm curious how you feel about the way she addressed me…?"

Emma's excitement quickly made way for a complicated expression as she mumbled, "I… I guess it's fine… I was trying not to think too much about that part…"

"Are you sure?" Erik questioned. He didn't want there to be any resentment from Emma towards either him or Emily.

Emma sighed and nodded, "Yeah, it's fine. Our parents died a while ago already, and I'm sure they'd just want us to be happy." Then she chuckled, "Besides, she never called our father… that thing she called you. That was more my thing, so just don't expect me to ever call you that."

"Deal," Erik grinned, glad this wouldn't become an issue, before asking another curious question. "So does part of you enjoy the idea of her being punished because of what she did to you in the past?"

Emma's excitement quickly turned to embarrassment as she poked her fingers together and made herself a little smaller, "M— Maybe? I— Is that bad? I really don't blame her for what happened back then… it wasn't her fault!"

"It's not bad at all, Emma," Erik reassured, his chuckle softening her embarrassment. "In fact, I think this is a very healthy way of getting rid of whatever little resentment you may have against her. I'll make sure to arrange that little fantasy of yours at some point."

Emma quickly thought back to the day they first arrived here. Back then, Eira showed them the harbinger's bedroom, and Emma admitted a certain fantasy to Erik. Hearing Erik mention it now, caused her face to start heating up, although whether from embarrassment or excitement was anyone's guess.

Erik was about to comment on her red face, but was interrupted by his own need to yawn, the sound of which quickly echoed through the main hall. "Oh man," he mumbled after it was done. "I must be more tired than I thought. And then that encounter with Audumla… I think I need to get some rest."

Naturally, Emma offered to accompany him, but Erik was forced to deny her. "You need to reach second rank before we leave here, Emma. Focus on that, alright?"

Emma sighed, and nodded. It's not like she didn't want to train and reach second rank, she just found it hard to stay away from Erik.

With that, Erik retreated to his bedroom, and quickly fell asleep.

——————————

The next morning, Erik woke up to find Emma had climbed into bed with him at some point during the previous night or evening. As it turned out, Erik had managed to sleep for at least 12 hours.

Looking at the ceiling, he yawned, and then lifted his arm to look with pride at the arm guard covering half his lower arm.

Naturally, he had taken the armor of before he went to sleep, and now he was admiring his own handiwork.

He looked at the dimly pulsing light brown core in the middle and prodded Eira's feelings. They were still sad and chaotic, but she also seemed to be asleep. seaʀᴄh thё NôᴠeFire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

While constructs didn't technically need to sleep, they did often have the capability. Usually, this was mostly so they could pass vast amounts of time without noticing, like Eira herself had done a lot during the last 8000 years, but sleep was also a good way to process emotions, for any sentient being.

And Eira was having a lot of emotions right now.

Next, he checked how Elora was doing, and quickly found the fairy still be sound asleep. But that was no surprise, she had quite a lot of time to make up for. Not to mention that Audumla's interference at the end likely took a lot out of her as well.

Since his two most important current tasks were finding a way to get through to Eira and talking about next steps with Elora, he decided to get started on Alice's training instead, just like he promised.

Find your next read on мѵʟ

He quickly got out of bed without waking Emma, and made his way to the training room where, unsurprisingly, he found Alice, already training by herself.

"I see you're eager to get started today, Alice," he chuckled upon seeing her.

Startled, Alice quickly paused her exercises and looked at Erik, "Ah! Teacher! I mean… yes I am!" By the end of her rambling, she was looking at him with eager determination.

"Good," Erik nodded with a small smile. "I would have preferred to wait with trying to uncover your first skill until Elora had recovered, but she's still asleep, and we can't really continue your training until you uncover it, so it is what it is."

So far, Alice had spent most of her time training her body and improving her foundation, and while that was a good thing, it could only go so far.

Especially considering her age.

So, Erik spent the entire day with Alice as they worked to uncover her a ability and took breaks in the form of exercises. Naturally, they also managed to grow a little closer in that time, as Alice came to know more of the man who had become her guardian, and Erik about the child he had taken as his ward.

The next few days were spend training with Alice during the day, and meditating to integrate his lightning and ice insights into thundersnow at night. With a relaxing schedule like this, he didn't really need much sleep, after all.

During this time, he made several attempts to strike up a conversation with Eira, but she kept steadily ignoring him. He did feel that her emotions had begun to settle down a little over the last few days, and he hoped that meant she was thinking, rather than reacting.

On the morning of the fifth day, Erik was sitting in a meditation dome and quickly advancing his thundersnow affinity towards the second rank.

Elora was still asleep, but he suddenly noticed a change in his surroundings, causing him to open his eyes. In front of him, inside the bubble, sat Eira. She had pulled her knees up to her chest and was now hugging them as she stared at Erik with a complicated gaze.

When he noticed her, Erik looked back at her with a calm confidence. He needed to show Eira that he believed himself to be in the right. Any show of remorse would only give Eira cause to think there was something to blame him for.

Neither of them said anything, but Eira seemed to search for something in Erik's eyes. Finally she gave up and sighed, "You could have kept what happened with Mistress from me, but you decided to tell me… to trust me… so thank you."

Erik nodded slowly at the construct, "No need to thank me for that. Trust was the deal, right?"

"Yeah…" Eira smiled slightly before falling silent again. Erik could see she still had more to say, so he simply waited for her to continue talking.

Finally, she spoke again, "I don't know what Mistress is up to… Why she didn't talk to me for two years, or why she suddenly returned when my core was disconnected, or why… why she didn't show up here when she thought I was in danger."

"But it doesn't matter!" she shook her head with determination. "I trust Mistress! If she had a choice she would have shown up! I know she would have!"

"Alright," Erik nodded. "I'm glad to see your loyalty hasn't wavered."

While not entirely true, as he did partially hope to undermine her loyalty towards Audumla a little, he also enjoyed the idea that she might hold this kind of unbreakable loyalty towards him someday.

"What about you and me, though?" he asked curiously. After all, there had to be a reason she decided to show up here and now. Or was it really just to thank him for telling her, but she wasn't actually ready to move on?

A hinter of anger flashed through Eira's eyes, "I hate how that… that fairy robbed me from the chance to talk to Mistress again…!" she mumbled through gnashing teeth. Before she continued, she sighed and reigned in her anger, "But that's not your fault… Even though you didn't exactly disagree with her either…"

Eira pouted, and looked away, "Anyway, I'll never understand your wariness of Mistress… but I suppose I can accept it…"