“I believe that Nyx is very rare,” Hilana told him. “It only just began to appear in Ash, about two seasons ago, I understand. When the Eclipse started. There isn’t one now, and you don’t see an Eclipse here, but there was a great darkness that went all beyond the borders of the Kingdom. The Royals and the Dragons put the Sceptre of Avaerys in the sky in order to protect our realm,” she explained to the other two. “Outside of the Sceptre’s light, everything was dark and cold. Winter reigns, there was no sunlight and one could not use their Cardinal Runes unless they had a special type of dragonshard. But even world magic was not working properly, and dragonshards were taking much longer to recharge. They normally recharge on their own within a decent timeframe, but with the darkness... they weren’t. Void creatures were drawn to the light, and they are harvesting and gathering aether... though we don’t know what for. But now I am wondering if that has to do with those elves that were in the Monolith.” The Vastiana was thoughtful, chewing slowly on her date.
“...For him. His plans. I wonder... I wonder if the aether those voidspawn have been gathering is for ‘his’ plans. Whomever ‘he’ is... and that’s why. That’s... that’s going to be a problem. They’ve been devouring a lot of it,” Hilana realized. She’d have to mention it to Cithaera... along with the the fact that she thought she had seen some sort of Tower to the West when she and Æros had been traveling to the Crystal Tree in the North.
“I’m surprised at you,” Athalia smiled at her. “You’ve come a long way, soror. You had no interest in magic back then.”
“It took some convincing,” Hilana admitted. “But it makes for a powerful tool, I’m learning. But even still... I imagine the High Sentinel has already considered this possibility. I’ll leave a note for Sentinel Phocion when I have my next lesson in the Praetorium.” They’d likely already have put that together with their tales from the day before, but if they hadn’t... it was another connection that helped flesh out the picture.
“You take lessons in the Praetorium?” Lia stared at her, raising an eyebrow. “From Sentinels? Does Father know about this?”
“That’s another long story,” Hilana smiled at her with a shrug. “But no, he doesn’t... I’ve kept that from him. He wouldn’t approve, Lia, and you know that.” Lia only nodded. She knew full well that Hilana was right about that. Their father’s expectations had been that they were raised well, they became proficient in at least one Rune, and learned how to run a household. They would marry properly to a man he chose for them, and they would have children and raise them. Simple. Except Hilana had been the one to defy his plans, and she was determined to wrest some control of her future from him... by appealing to those who outranked him in the hierarchy. Raithen had already offered, and in doing so, that had taken a great deal of pressure off of Hilana’s shoulders in that regard.
That was another long story, and Hilana was building up more to tell her. She didn’t know how well it would go with Lia; but things were certainly better with her than they had been with the one who actually resided in Ransera. It was one complication after another, but she owed her explanations. And lots of them. It was going to take a lot of tea.
With Semblance, he was able to see far more of Athalia, though Hilana...was oddly muted to his attempts to study her aura. She was blank - he was not able to see into her, for some reason, and it wasn’t that she was so skilled that she was keeping him out. She had already said she was a novice at best, a beginner that was still working on learning and understanding, on training her aether and her senses to better understand what she was looking at and looking for. But beyond her, there was far more that he could look at and observe. Each of the prepared foods told a story in its aura, down to what all went into the various recipes to make them. “That was the Rune shaped like a sun on the nape of your neck,” Hilana advised him, drawing the shape of that Rune on his arm with her fingertip as well since he couldn’t see it. “A bit similar,” she turned her right hand over, showing him the sun-like Rune that filled her palm.
“Semblance works differently than almost every other Cardinal Rune in that you are able to manage each of the abilities that come with it from the time you receive your Rune,” Hilana explained. “You can learn about the structure and physical properties, or emotions and focus of a target, its aura, and so on,” she had a drink of her hibiscus iced tea. “The challenge is really in learning how to interpret and guide your focus, and the better one gets at that, the more information one can discern from what they are trying to semble.”
