Absolute Mana Dominion: All My Talents Are SSS

Chapter 34: 34 - Vael Edevane

Amelia pushed the door open and they went through together, and it was a house. That was the first thing Adrien noticed, and somehow the most surprising one, because after a lift inside a tree and a barrier that had spent half an hour lying to him he had been expecting something else. Wide rooms, wooden floors, light coming in from three sides, and somebody’s boots left by the door where somebody’s boots always end up.

Vael Edevane was standing waiting for them, and Adrien went rigid before he had decided anything about it.

The elf was tall. Nearly two metres of him, easily, and built like a man who would have gone straight into the starting five of any team Adrien had ever watched at three in the morning. White hair, long, and a pointed beard just as long, and green eyes that had fixed on Adrien the moment he came through the door.

He looked nothing at all like Amelia.

’I’d love to see what her parents look like, because none of this came from him.’

Then Vael took one step forward, and Absolute Mana Sense told Adrien exactly what he was standing in a room with.

It was suffocating. His mana moved. It shifted around the man the way water shifts around something submerged in it, and it did it on its own, and Adrien had never felt anything alive like that except once, from about a kilometre away, out of the window of a carriage.

What he had not expected was for the enormous old elf to cross the room in two strides, take Amelia off her feet in both arms and lift her about a foot off the floor.

"My darling girl." Vael had her clamped against his chest. "You’re alright. You didn’t come and see your grandfather after everything that happened, do you have any idea what that week did to me? Any idea at all?"

Adrien stood by the door and did not move a muscle. He was not frozen because of the mana this time. He was frozen because a moment ago he had been fairly certain he was about to meet something on the same scale as a dragon, and instead he was watching a grandfather.

’That tells me more about him than the last ten minutes did.’

Amelia’s magenta eyes came up over her grandfather’s shoulder and landed on Adrien, and she went the colour of the ribbon in her hair.

’Put me down. Put me down right now.’

’He’s standing right there. He’s going to think I’m about nine years old.’

She got a hand between them and pushed off, and landed on her own feet, and tugged her sleeve straight with considerably more attention than the sleeve required.

"Grandfather. Please don’t do that in front of people." She cleared her throat. "I brought Adrien. Like you asked."

Vael looked wounded in a way that took up his whole face.

"You pushed me away."

"Yes."

"In your own home. In front of a guest."

"Especially in front of a guest."

"There is nothing to be embarrassed about, Amelia. A grandfather is permitted to..."

Amelia held up one fist at about chest height without saying anything at all.

Vael raised both hands. "Fine. Fine, joking aside." He let it go and looked at her properly. "I was worried. Come and see me next time. Your parents told me you were busy, and I have heard what your parents call busy before."

"I know."

"Alright..." He straightened up.

"Adrien Clairmont." That was all he said, and after that he said nothing for a while.

Vael looked at him. Properly, from the boots up, and it was not the way people look at a stranger they are about to be polite to. Adrien had the distinct impression that he was being read rather than looked at, and that whatever was being read was somewhere under his shirt.

It was an unpleasant few seconds. Adrien had been in interrogation rooms in another life and had been more comfortable in them.

And the old elf said something under his breath, so quietly that no human in that room should have caught it.

"So it woke."

Draconic Senses caught it.

’He knows?’

Vael put his hand out before Adrien could get anywhere with that.

"It’s good to meet you, Adrien. I’m Vael. I was a friend of your father’s." His grip was exactly as careful as a man that size has to make it. "And I’d like to apologise to you for not lifting a finger while it happened. I was doing what he asked me to do."

Adrien took the hand.

"Good to meet you too. Amelia said you wanted to see me." He let go. "And don’t worry about it."

He said that last part evenly and meant about half of it. Vael nodded once, as though that had been an answer and not a courtesy, and turned toward a door at the far end of the room.

"Walk with me to my office."

He glanced back at his granddaughter.

"Amelia, would you bring our guest something to drink? We’ll be talking a while."

Amelia looked at her grandfather, and at Adrien, and back at her grandfather again.

She nodded and went, because there was no version of that request she could turn down without making it obvious that she had understood it.

Adrien watched her go and followed the old elf down the passage, and Vael did not bother with any of the usual approach on the way.

"I have a great deal to talk to you about, Adrien, and my granddaughter cannot hear any of it. That’s why she’s fetching drinks." He said it without apology. "I’d rather do this in private."

"Is this about my father?"

"In part."

For a moment, Adrien wondered how many promises his father had left behind, and how many people were still keeping them.

Vael pushed the door open and stood aside to let him through.

"Come in and sit down."