Chapter 991: Color Theory
Adalia wouldn't let me get up.
Surrounded by so much to gape and gawk at, I needed a proper look. As uncooperative as my body was, I managed to muster enough strength to do just that. Except I still couldn't.
I only felt the pressure of her hands the moment I resisted. Her grip was like hooks tethering me to her lap like I was some fixed flap of a tent spread out on the dirt.
At first, I thought she was just keeping me there to recoup. It was only after I met her gaze again, unyielding, and practically burrowing holes through mine, that I realized it was less a matter of keeping me, but needing me.
Needless to say, I lost my urge to leave her lap rather quickly after that.
"How long was I gone for?" I asked.
"A few… minutes…" she said, tilting her head a little in thought. "Three… minutes…?"
"Three minutes. That's not too long."
Adalia shook her head in response. "Long… enough…"
She was distressed, that much was obvious. But I wish there was a way to know to what extent. A waver of worry in her voice, the hitch of a breath. I know she cared immensely, I could feel it. I just couldn't see it, hear it. Her face, her tone—empty.
And for those three minutes that passed… I was apparently even emptier than that.
I stand corrected. Adalia's right.
Three minutes was long enough… too long, if anything.
My arm shot up. Surprisingly, it didn't take much effort at all to place a hand on the side of her face and stroke her cheek.
"Thanks, Adalia," I said. "And sorry I made you do that."
Adalia just slowly leaned into it; the supple cold of her skin taking up the whole of my palm, straying threads of her hair slipping between the gaps in my fingers. And from that silence, that gesture alone, I didn't need anything else to know that she was feeling a little better.
"Oh, good. You're awake. Finally."
Irene came forward, hastily shoving her phone into her pocket. She had that look on her face. That faux appearance of calm and composure. Maybe it wouldn't have been as obvious if it weren't for all the glimmering shafts of magic, highlighting her figure in many different contrasting shades of light and darkness. As it was, it just made her appear all the more unsettled.
"How are you feeling?" She asked, maintaining that same front even in her voice. "Are you okay?"
"I'm good," I said, staring up at that unnerved look in her eyes that she failed to hide. "Are you okay?"
"Fine, yes," she nodded stiffly.
Adalia, on the other hand, seemingly thought otherwise. "You were… frightened."
"No, I wasn't," she brushed her off, dismissing the claim with the most contemptuous of scoffs.
"Yes… you were…"
"Wrong. I wasn't."
"You… were shaking…"
"Everything was shaking. What do you mean?"
Adalia cocked her head, looking somewhat bemused by her continued denial.
"Then… why did you… scream…?
"Okay, stop talking, Adalia." Irene snapped at her, looking equally annoyed as she was mortified. "I told you I'm fine. I'm fine."
"You screamed?" I asked.
"I'm. Fine."
With the way she had fixated her scowl at me, I was about ready to take a pledge of silence for the rest of my life. Maybe have Sera teach me a couple of pointers on shutting the hell up.
Thankfully, she let up on her murderous intent before any drastic lifestyle changes could occur. Irene knelt down and met me at eye level, she parted her lips again to speak, but it took a couple more seconds before she actually spoke any words at all.
"Looked around yet?" She said, "I don't think you need me to tell you just how effective the method we used worked for you."
Behind her a short distance away, just barely peeking above the grass, I could see the slices of our leftover pizza had spilled out of their now upturned boxes just basking under the sunlight. Between that and everything else, doubts were the last thing I had about myself.
Just questions. Lots of them.
"What happened, exactly?" I asked, picking out just one inquiry out of countless dozens.
"Just as we discussed would happen," she said. "Adalia controlled you, ordered you to strike the ground with your magic, and that's exactly what you did. What you're seeing now is the result of that."
"Yeah, I know that, but…" I still couldn't wrap my mind around it, around everything.
There were three lines drawn on the ground. I managed to reach the second carrying only the vaguest, fleeting hope of ever making it to the third. Next thing I know, I'm waking up to Ken on the phone with IIrene freaking out about some violent earthquake and everything everywhere was either toppled or on the verge of toppling.
I did that?
I could do that?
"The lights…" I pivoted before I could even finish my first line of thought, my focus scattered on far too many different things at once. "How come the lights aren't disappearing like they used to?"
"Eventually, they will. They'll only linger for as long as it takes for your magic to disperse from the earth. The longest I've seen them take was roughly around three minutes."
"It's been a lot longer than three minutes."
"I know," she simply said, her gaze strayed off toward a small collection of light beams to the side. Their dark radiance continued to paint her face in a harsh glow that did not dim in the slightest. "Your magic's black. You've ever wondered about that?"
"In my head, yeah," I said. "But I just assumed it was something I simply inherited from my mother's side."
"Not… correct…" Adalia's voice resounded faintly from right above me.
I glanced up at her. "It's not?"
"Partially," Irene answered in her stead. "Magic of this shade isn't exclusive to her or her lineage. See typically, color is indeed hereditary. It depends on what you are born as. Human, Demon, Reno, Hermelian, whatever the case, that will be what defines you and the color you will conjure. But, black is the sole outlier to this. It's not inherited. It's just… coincidence."
Hovering somewhere between drunk and shellshocked, my brain wasn't exactly in the best state to be soaking up information. Regardless, I powered through it and listened.
"As I mentioned, demons have red and humans manifest theirs in blue. That simple difference in color means already a great disparity in abilities and natural affinities. Powers unique to their own. Adalia's control over you just now—that's something I can never master, let alone grasp. The same way she can't replicate the things that I can do."
Hearing that made me recall something, a perfect example of what she just described. The time when I was struggling down Mom's barrier, I remembered Sammy attempting to pitch in and help me to no avail. Try as she might, she just couldn't copy what I was doing. The girl had a better grasp on her magic abilities than I do, and still, it was simply impossible for her.
"Then there are individuals like you. Random, pure chance, or maybe just divine intervention at work," Irene said, snapping her eyes back towards me. "The sole affronts to this fundamental law of magic and nature. Literal black magic. You."
"What does that mean?" I asked. "Do I have more unique abilities than other colors?"
"Wrong…" Adalia refuted me again.
"Partially," Irene clarified further. "Individuals born in possession of this shade of color are not bound by their species or their affinities. You're capable of learning and mastering every branch of magic to ever exist, and in extreme cases… you may be able to even conceive some new ones of your own."
Forget what I said about the trees, the lights, everything to do with me being shocked and bewildered. This. This has to take the cake on things I can't even begin to fathom.
"The innate vitality of demons, the dominance of the vampires, the overwhelming strength of the elves," she continued on, her words toiling in my head like the heavy chime of a bell. "On top of their unique magical abilities, your flexibility means you will be able to mimic their most distinct traits as a species as well."
When I listened to her explanation, I could hear a lot of talk of grandiose stuff; grand notions of might and power and abilities that were suited more to the renown of fabled heroes and people along those lines. But Irene wasn't talking about legends of old that were crowned and lauded in days of yore.
She was talking about me.
What I can do.
It didn't sound like me. Barely any of it did. A part of me wanted to doubt the things she was saying, the claims she was making… but looking around again, just taking a single glimpse at our surroundings… was all the proof that was needed to shed away that doubt.
"Am I really that special?" I asked, the air stripped from my voice.
"In your case, especially so," Irene affirmed. "Being the son of the two individuals who possess this magic type, maybe it helped boost your chances, making you one of the rare few to have it."
"I'm not the only child," I said, thinking about Sammy again and her condition. "Yet Sammy doesn't seem to—"
"Chances," she re-emphasized. "I didn't say it was a guarantee. It's just dumb luck, coincidence…"
"Seriously?" I remained incredulous. "Who else can be this extraordinarily lucky?"
"I can think of one other actually," Irene muttered.
I was just being rhetorical. I didn't really expect to get a serious answer back for that one. But if she was offering, then…
"Who?" I asked.
Irene dropped her head a little, the many vast lights hitting the expression on her face, malforming the already somber look on her face to something much darker.
"Jay."