Chapter 11: Elemental affinity [2]
Aries placed his hand on the sphere.
The red spread from the center outward in a slow bloom until it lit the space between all of them, casting everyone’s faces in a dim, warm glow.
Nobody moved.
"Okay, take your hand back," Eren said, leaning forward on his elbows. "Let’s see what we’re dealing with."
Aries pulled his hand back and stared at the glow.
’Red?’
Yellow was mage. Blue was knight. He’d figured that much from context since arriving in this world. Red hadn’t come up in anything he’d read or heard. Red simply wasn’t on any list.
’But I was definitely using mana back there against the Dranox. So what exactly is this?’
"Wait..." Eren’s voice went flat, all the easy energy drained right out of it. He was staring at the sphere with his elbows on his knees and genuine disbelief sitting open on his face. "This can’t be."
"No way..." Valea had moved closer without seeming to decide to, pearl eyes wide and fixed on the glow. "He’s truly awakened."
"Truly awakened," Aries repeated back at her.
That was apparently how he handled information gaps now.
Cedric was looking at the sphere with the expression of someone whose long-held suspicion had just been confirmed. He folded one arm across his chest, held the crystal in the other, and turned to Aries.
"During your arcane sensing," he said, "did you choose a constellation yourself — or did something form around you on its own?"
Aries pulled the memory back. "There was this tiny glowing thing that just appeared out of nowhere," he said. "Everything else had been rejecting me and then suddenly this one formed on its own. It kind of just forced itself to become my arcane."
Cedric nodded once. "That explains it."
"Okay, what explains it?" Aries looked between all of them. "Can you stop with the riddles and just tell me what I am? Mage? Knight?"
"You are Both!" Eren and Valea said, at exactly the same moment, with identical energy.
Aries looked at them. "Both?"
"Both," they confirmed.
Cedric raised one finger. "Normally, during arcane sensing, you choose a constellation. Each constellation supports either a mage or knight path — and accepts or rejects based on compatibility. That path is fixed after awakening." He raised a second finger.
"But in extremely rare cases, the constellation chooses the person instead. The arcane forms around the individual rather than the other way around. That phenomenon is called a True Awakening."
His emerald eyes held Aries’s steadily across the fire.
"A truly awakened individual has compatibility with both paths. Mage and knight. At the same time."
The fire crackled between them. At the edge of the clearing, Kivi dipped her head toward the lake and drank with complete indifference to everything happening behind her.
Aries sat with this for a moment.
’So. I’m rare. Actually, properly, categorically rare. I can pursue both paths. Mage and knight at the same time.’
He made a deliberate choice not to examine too closely what moved through his chest right then.
"As you can see," Eren added, settling back with a shrug that didn’t quite hide how pleased he was about this development, "Master and I are knights. Valea and the tied-up criminal are mages."
"What did you just call me?" came from the direction of the tree.
"Having both sounds incredible." Valea clasped her hands together with an expression that managed to be genuinely happy and slightly pained at the same time. "I’m honestly jealous."
"Heh." A short sound from Nico’s tree. "Having both paths doesn’t automatically make someone special. Skills matter more than whatever classification you were born into."
Aries looked at him.
’Why does this guy sound personally offended by someone else’s good news?’
"Do you wake up every morning," Eren said, pressing two fingers to his forehead, "with a pre-planned commitment to argue against whatever good thing the world is currently trying to do?"
"Leave it, Eren." Valea waved a hand. "He’s jealous of Aries and expressing it the only way he knows how."
Nico’s expression was a masterwork of offended dignity. "Jealous? Of him? Please."
The chaos picked right back up with the easy fluency of something that had never really stopped.
Across the fire, Cedric said nothing, just let his gaze drift briefly toward Aries with the quiet, measuring look of someone running a calculation they hadn’t announced yet.
’Truly awakened at twelve, this kid might be worth investing in.’ he thought. His eyes moved back to the fire without hurry. ’He has no idea yet what he’s sitting on. That might be the most interesting thing about him.’
"Now then." Cedric raised the sphere slightly, bringing things back around. "Shall we see what elemental affinity you possess?"
Aries looked up. "How does that work?"
’Arcane. Awakening. Mage, knight, True Awakening, and now elemental affinity.’ Something specific was developing behind his eyes that had nothing to do with the cliff. ’How many systems does one world actually need to function? It’s very confusing.’
"Simpler than arcane sensing," Cedric said. "Close your eyes. Go inward toward your arcane. Don’t look for anything specific — just feel for what responds naturally. What pulls toward you. You’ll recognize it when it comes."
Aries nodded and settled back. He closed his eyes.
The sounds of camp gradually fell away. The fire, Eren shifting on his log, Nico’s ongoing commentary from the tree trunk, Kivi at the water’s edge. Then just the quiet space behind his eyelids and the deeper quiet below that.
He went inward towards his constellation. He waited for something to reach out to him, just like he was instructed to.
’Feel for what pulls.’
His eyes opened.
Valea had been sitting on the edge of asking the entire time and finally couldn’t hold it anymore.
"Well?" The restraint gave out completely. "What did you feel? I’m dying to know what element a truly awakened person actually carries."
Aries looked at all of them across the fire.
"It is..."
