Chương 122: Chapter 119: Understanding.

"Hmmmmm." Violet was staring down at me, one hand on her chin. She had been staring for some time now, circling the couch like I was a horse she was considering buying. Every so often she leaned in close and squinted, as if my face might reveal something at a different distance.

"What?" I asked.

"Doesn't look like she did anything to you," Violet concluded, straightening.

"Raise your hand."

"Why would I-""Raise it." I raised my hand. Violet took it, turned it over, and made a great show of inspecting my palm, my fingers, and even my wrist. What she was looking for, I could not begin to imagine. Cursed marks? A royal brand? After a long moment she nodded, satisfied.

"Hmm. Guess you're safe."

"Violet, I don't think she was the type to do anything." I had already had Anias confirm that the Princess had truly left the District before I let myself sink into the couch. Twice, actually. It had seemed a reasonable precaution at the time. It seemed even more reasonable now.

"Oh?" Violet folded her arms.

"Know a lot of runaway princesses, do you? And a lot of legendary Heroes?" I paused.

"Well... point taken, I suppose." Damian had not been inspecting me. Damian had spent the last several minutes inspecting the room instead, lifting cushions and peering behind curtains as though the Princess might have left some hidden Magical Implement while my back was turned. Given everything, I could not entirely fault him for it. He finished with the side table, found nothing, and finally turned to me.

"So what did she want?" I shrugged.

"Honestly? I have no clue. I think she was just bored."

"Bored?!" Violet's voice climbed.

"Don't they have some fancy shit in the capital? How about she go take her boredom out there and leave us the hell alone."

"Hey, I tried to tell her that too. In nicer and more polite words, but more or less the same."

"That's the problem. You're too nice." Violet jabbed a finger at me.

"Let me talk to her next time. I'll give her a real piece of my mind. Bet she won't bother you after that." I looked at her. I did not even want to imagine what would happen if Violet got her wish. Would the King burn Aelheim to the ground because Violet Indri insulted his daughter to her face? Was that a thing Kings in this world did? I didn't know, and I very much did not like not knowing.

"It's fine," I said.

"For now she's gone, and apparently she's staying in the Thalos District. If anything happens, it shouldn't be our problem." I paused.

"Hopefully." Violet grumbled something under her breath. Probably some creative curse I had never heard before. Sere slid her notepad into the edge of my vision. Sure enough, Sere had drawn the Princess, just as I'd expected. Except she had drawn her as four different figures, standing in a row, all of them with their mouths wide open at once. I grinned and patted her hair. It was commentary, and it was accurate commentary at that.

"Remember what Aziah said. You have to be more careful in the future, okay?" Sere nodded so furiously her hair fell into her eyes.

"So what the hell are we supposed to do now?" Violet asked, dropping onto the armrest beside me. I thought about it. We had rushed back from Myrrheim earlier than we had planned. Even Julian, surprisingly, had not yet done something. As it happened, there was something I had been putting off for some time and now I had time to spare.

"We came back early, so... might as well do that." Violet's eyes started to gleam.

"That means?" I grinned.

"Yep. Might as well get some training in."

"Somehow," Damian said, "I don't think this is what Violet meant." The three of them sat cross-legged on the grass of the training yard, arranged in a loose line in front of me. Violet. Damian. Sere, who had brought her notepad and was already ignoring all of us in favor of sketching the sky.

"You think so, rockboy?" Violet muttered.

"Hey, this is important," I said.

"I tried to use my Edict in Myrrheim too, and I had no luck at all." Those gladiators had been weak enough that it hadn't mattered. Whoever I met in the King's Tournament would not be. I could not use Vaelin there, and my Tenet alone would only carry me so far. If my Edict could do anything at all, I wanted it before the qualifiers. Just using a stupid amount of mana couldn't carry me forever.

"I'd like to have something to defend myself with, if it comes down to it." Violet sighed and leaned back on her hands.

"Yeah, yeah. Well? Hit me already."

"Violet, I told you last time. That's not how it works."

"Right." She nodded seriously, as if she had known that all along and had simply been testing me. I extended my hand toward her and let mana flow. It met the barrier at once, the same as last time. That thin sheet of something that almost felt like glass. That might give a little, but didn't actually let me through. This time however, I didn't push against it aimlessly. I had thought about this.

The one time I had ever felt anything close to something actually happen, Violet had been in pain, and I had wanted, more than anything in that moment, to take that pain away from her. There had been something there. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. So I reached for that mental image again. I pictured her shoulder aching. I pictured myself taking that ache and turning it down. For a moment, all I was doing was mentally fumbling.

"Feel anything?" I asked.

"Nope." Violet picked at a small blade of grass.

"Am I supposed to?" I lowered my hand and exhaled through my nose. Damn it. I had been so sure that my desire was the key to this. Fine. I'd just switch test subjects.

"Damian. Is it comfortable, sitting cross-legged on the ground like that?" He blinked at me.

"It's fine."

"But is it comfortable?"

"... Well. It's less comfortable than a chair." Damian said, as if I'd asked him to reconfirm if the sky was blue. I nodded slowly. I thought about the ground under him, the ache that was probably creeping into his ankles, and I desired to make it go away. I projected mana. Damian let out a gasp. My eyes snapped open.

"Did it work? Did it?" Damian was half on the floor. He had one arm braced against the grass, holding himself up against something pressing him down.

"... No," he managed.

"Can you... take your mana away, Esra?" I paused and took my mana away. Damian righted himself and brushed grass off his sleeve with as much dignity as he could gather, which was some, but not much.

"Just to be safe," I said.

"Did you feel anything? Besides the mana."

"I did not." I sighed. Well, that was just lovely. Not only had I failed, I'd nearly bowled over my own retainer in the process. Some Edict. I turned to my last hope. Sere was still sketching the sky. She had not looked at any of us once. Sere was... hmm. Sere was probably always at least a little hungry for sweets. That was less a guess and more a law of nature. Maybe I could reach for that? I extended my hand and reached. Sere paused mid-stroke. She looked up at me, head tilted.

"Hey, Sere. Do you feel anything?" She shook her head. I let my arm drop, and then I let the rest of me drop with it, flopping back onto the grass and staring up at the clouds.

"This is bullshit," I muttered.

"Woah." Violet sounded genuinely delighted.

"She cursed."

"Yeah. I did." The clouds drifted along, entirely indifferent to my growing annoyance.

"Why did I lose the Gift lottery?" It was an ungrateful thing to say, and I knew it. But everyone else's Gift simply worked. A Gift was not supposed to be something you needed to think this hard about, and yet here I was. A shadow fell over my face. Violet popped into view above me, frowning, and punched me in the shoulder.

"Ow. What was that for?"

"It's because you're moping." She glared down at me.

"Come on. Use that brain of yours."

"I've been doing nothing but using my brain." I threw an arm over my eyes.

"Even the Princess said I looked like I wasn't getting enough sleep." I heard grass shift, and when I moved my arm, Violet had turned around and crouched down in front of me, her back to my face.

"Well?" she said.

"Get on." I stared at her back.

"What?"

"I said get on. We're gonna go for a little walk."" What?" I said again, just as eloquently.

"If you don't do it, I'm going to jump on you." I looked at Damian for help. Damian looked back at me with the face of a man who knew when to speak, and when not to. Sere gave me a thumbs up without looking up from her notepad. Confused, and more than a little wary, I sat up and looped my arms around Violet's shoulders. She stood like I weighed nothing at all, which, to her, I probably didn't.

"Just don't drop her," Damian sighed.

"Like hell I'd ever do that." Violet glanced back at me over her shoulder. She smiled so wide I could see all her teeth.

"So, are ya ready?" I had a very bad feeling about this.

"Violet, I don't know if-" Violet dashed forward. I yelped. The training yard blurred past, then the hedges, then a fence that we did not go around so much as over, and my stomach felt like I'd left it somewhere far behind. At first all I wanted was to get off. Then Violet took a running leap off a low wall, and we hung in the air for a heartbeat and I clung closer. I started to laugh. I couldn't help it. It burst out of me somewhere over the east lawn and refused to stop. Violet whooped and went faster.

"Violet-" I gasped between bounds.

"How the hell was this supposed to help?"

"Dunno!" she called back.

"It's working, though, ain't it?" It was. That was the most annoying part. Eventually she slowed, far from the training yard, out towards the back of the manor, where the grass grew long. My laughter slowly turned into breathlessness.

"I don't like seeing you mope," she said, aimed straight ahead at nothing.

"Guess it's alright sometimes. Doesn't mean I fucking like it."

"Sorry," I said. She glared back at me.

"Are you dumb?"

"Err... sorry?" Violet sighed and kept walking. I looked at her. Really looked, from this strange vantage point where all I could see was the back of her head and the line of her shoulders. Her knuckles were split. There were fresh calluses along the edges of her hands. A thin scab traced her right forearm. It wasn't like Violet had just been lazing around while I buried myself in papers. If I had spent every waking hour drowning in trade agreements, then she had spent every one of hers training.

Getting stronger, relentlessly, and all because I'd asked for her help in the King's Tournament. And it hadn't even been that long since she'd stood in that chamber under her father's manor with her hands over mine on Vaelin's hilt. Since she'd pushed the blade in herself, and wept after, because even as a monster he was still her father. And here I was, feeling sorry for myself over a Gift that wouldn't cooperate. I felt a hot flash of shame. I thought about what it must be like to be her.

To carry all of that and still be this loud, this bright, every single day. She must be just as tired as I was. She must be so- Connection. The world shifted. For a moment, I was the one carrying instead of being carried. There was weight on my back and long grass dragging at my legs. And then the feelings hit all at once. Anger, like flames that never quite went out. Frustration. Pride, and so much of it. A stubborn will that did not know how to bend.

And over all of it, a protectiveness so vast and so bright that for a second I couldn't feel anything else. It was like standing too close to the sun. I thought this was how Violet felt about her friends. About me. Then, finally, growing concern and confusion. And there were knobs. I could feel them, the same way I felt my own, except these were nothing like mine. Mine sat in neat rows, always waiting for me to just touch them.

Hers were more violent, somehow, as if I'd have to fight them for the privilege of turning them. I reached for the nearest one, just to see.

"What the-" The words came out of Violet's mouth, but it was me who had spoken. Or perhaps it was both of us? We stumbled and the tall grass swung up to meet us, and we went down together in a tangle of limbs, I felt something snap. I was myself again, flat on my back in the grass, one of Violet's elbows digging into my ribs.

"What... what the hell was that..." Violet groaned from somewhere beside me. Understanding, Vaelin murmured, in the back of my mind. Violet pushed herself up onto her elbows, shaking her head.

"That felt fucking weird. What the hell was-" She stopped. She stared at me.

"... What's that look supposed to mean?"

"Sorry," I said.

"I didn't mean to. I'll ask next time." Violet blinked at me. Then she waved a hand, though I noticed she rubbed at her temple with the other.

"Whatever. Didn't hurt or anything, just felt weird as hell." She squinted.

"So?" I sat up, grass in my hair, and grinned at her as wide as I could manage.

"I think," I said, "I think I understand how this works now."