Chapter 127 - Ariane’s Surprise

Chapter 127: 127 - Ariane’s Surprise

She raised one arm toward the nearest training dummy and drew a steady breath.

Mana gathered around her hand almost immediately, warmer and denser than the Aqua mana Adrien was used to sensing from her.

For a second he watched without understanding, and then the form turned familiar as a sphere of orange flame took shape above Ariane’s palm. Adrien’s eyebrows rose.

After all the hours she had spent training with Evelyne he had assumed another Frost spell was coming, so Pyro mana was the last thing he would have guessed.

[Fireball]

The spell left her hand cleanly and crossed the training field without wobbling once. It struck the centre of the dummy’s chest and burst apart, fire spreading across the reinforced wood before dying away.

Adrien stared at the scorched mark. The spell was the same one he had learned from Kael, though the gap in control was obvious.

Ariane had formed it faster, held the sphere steadier and released it without the slight instability he still felt whenever he shaped Pyro mana. He turned back to her with honest surprise.

"That’s actually impressive. You really did surprise me. I wasn’t expecting this at all."

Ariane lowered her arm, plainly pleased with the reaction. "I’m good, right?"

"You have better control over it than I do."

Adrien walked to the damaged dummy and studied the impact point. The Fireball had landed almost perfectly in the middle, and the burn pattern was cleaner than anything he had left there earlier.

"How long have you actually been practicing? And somehow you managed to do all of this without me noticing."

"I practiced with Mother whenever you were busy with other things. When you went away, I used the time to train more."

Ariane came closer, taking in the wet ground and the burned targets Adrien had left behind. "I didn’t want to stay behind you forever. I thought I would finally have something new that you didn’t, honestly. Then I arrived and found out you already learned Pyro too."

Adrien glanced at her. There was no real disappointment in her voice, only the competitiveness he had started noticing whenever magic came up between them.

"You still surprised me. I only learned these spells a few days ago, and my control is terrible compared to yours."

"Mother corrected me every time I did something wrong."

"That explains a lot."

Adrien thought back to the way Evelyne handled documents, soldiers and nearly everything else in Greymoor. He could picture her treating a badly formed spell with the same patience and precision she gave to an error in the accounts.

He looked at Ariane again. So much had been happening lately that he had not paid nearly enough attention to her own progress.

"How many Affinities do you actually have? You have a ridiculous amount of talent too."

"Two that I know of. Aqua and Pyro."

Ariane raised her hand and let a thin trace of heat gather around her fingers before dismissing it. "Aqua is still much easier. Frost especially. Pyro feels completely different, but Mother said that was normal when you start working with another Affinity."

Adrien nodded, since he had reached the same conclusion earlier. Absolute Comprehension could hand him a spell’s structure in moments, yet practical control still had to be built cast by cast.

"You’ve had Pyro for a while, then?"

"I knew I had the Affinity. I just never really trained it before. Frost was already enough, and there was always something else happening."

That made sense. Ariane had awakened years before Adrien, though knowing an Affinity existed and developing spells from it were two different things.

"Mother’s probably the best person in Greymoor to teach you anyway."

"That’s what I thought."

Ariane glanced at Umbral Root in his hand. "Are you going to keep training?"

"I was, but I’ve done enough for today."

Adrien dismissed the staff and let it dissolve into mana. The training field carried more than enough proof of how long he had been out there, from the half-melted patch where Ice Wall had stood to the blackened marks across several targets.

Ariane surveyed the damage before turning back to him. "You really were testing everything."

"Mostly limits. I can’t change either spell yet, so there isn’t much point forcing it."

They started back toward Greymoor together. The afternoon had begun to cool and the estate was busier than the training ground, with soldiers crossing between buildings and workers hauling supplies toward storage.

Their conversation drifted away from magic on the walk. Ariane told him about several changes Evelyne wanted made inside the manor and how some of the newly hired clerks were still learning where everything went.

Adrien listened and answered now and then, enjoying how ordinary it all felt compared with most of the last two months. They trained near each other now, ate together more often and talked without needing a crisis to put them in the same room.

They had almost reached the stairs when one of the maids approached. She slowed in front of them and gave a small bow.

"My lord."

Adrien stopped while Ariane carried on a few steps ahead. "Yes?"

"A letter arrived for you while you were outside. I left it in your room on the desk."

"For me personally?"

"Yes, my lord. It was addressed directly to you."

Adrien nodded once. "Thank you."

Ariane looked back toward him. "Something important?"

"No idea yet. I’ll find out."

They parted inside the manor, Ariane heading toward another wing while Adrien went upstairs. He was not expecting correspondence from anyone, which made the maid’s message more interesting than it should have been.

When he entered his room the letter waited exactly where she had said. A thick envelope lay in the centre of his desk, untouched and impossible to miss.

Adrien approached slowly, his attention caught by the seal before anything else. Black wax closed the envelope, pressed with a raven whose wings were spread wide.

It looked absurdly close to the old medieval letters Adrien remembered from his previous world, the sort used in films whenever a noble family was about to deliver either an invitation or terrible news.

He stopped in front of the desk and picked it up. His name ran across the front of the envelope: Adrien Clairmont.