Chapter: 27: The Color Spectrum

The air on the train was saturated by voices discussing the events of the ~Crown Show~.

According to Evie, the episode had been nothing less than a success. The viewer polls had skyrocketed, and people were already debating online which candidates were their favorites.

I hadn’t seen the polls nor the comments online—none of us had.

Evie didn’t want us to be swayed by conspiracy theories and incite aggressive hostility between us so early in the competition, so we’d been denied access to the media for now.

Piper and Oakley were eagerly discussing the same topic as everyone else.

We might not have access to the media and Heliac’s biased opinions, but that certainly didn’t stop anyone from conspiring theories of their own.

I was exhausted. My feet hurt, and my eyes were barely open, so instead of contributing to the conversation, I lazily gazed out the windows into the gloomy surroundings.

“Did you see the way he looked at Willow?” Piper chirped beside me.

The mention of my name made me turn my head—a dreadful mistake.

“I did,” Oakley said, chuckling with a troublesome smirk plastered on her face. “He looked rather…captured.”

I sighed and surrendered to their pointless conversation.

“I don’t understand why you keep bringing that up,” I mumbled, massaging my sore temples. “It doesn’t matter if the prince is pleased with my performance tonight. I’m not here for him or the crown.”

“Oh, come on, Will,” Piper said, lightly shoving my shoulder. “You have to admit that he’s at least a little handsome.”

“And kind,” Oakley quickly added, waggling her eyebrows at me.

I knew exactly which part of my interview she was referring to, but I brushed her off.

“He ~is~ handsome…and kind,” I said, eyeing Oakley, who only smiled wider, “but—”

“It wasn’t a lie when you told Arawn that Prince Atlas healed you once, was it?” Oakley said, interrupting me.

I shook my head. “There is more to the story, but no, it wasn’t a lie.”

Oakley sighed, leaning back in her seat with a fantasizing gaze looking into the empty air. “You’re so lucky,” she said. “I wish he would heal me someday.”

Piper and I chuckled at her exaggerated reaction. “Don’t worry, Oakley,” I said, rubbing the skin where the shard of glass had once cut me. “I’m sure you’ll get your chance soon enough.”

“Settle down, girls!” Evie shouted through the cart, making us turn toward the seat she rose from. “The schedule for tomorrow will be explained now, so please stay quiet.”

Evie cleared her throat and unfolded a yellow note.

“After breakfast, your valets will lead you to the auditorium, where you will have your first class in the art of colors.

“The class tomorrow will serve as an assessment of your knowledge and your powers in this new environment.

“We will arrive at the castle shortly, so kindly collect your belongings and calmly start making your way toward the exits.”

My stomach began aching.

Was I supposed to attend this class with the other girls?

***

Evie hadn’t given me any additional instructions since yesterday evening, and she didn’t show up for breakfast.

It puzzled me why the royals would expect me to attend a class where I was expected to have knowledge and control that I obviously didn’t possess.

I couldn’t even force down more than a few bites of bread before my stomach complained.

Adriel was in my room when I returned, waiting for me to take a seat in front of the vanity table.

The makeup and the dress were light today. For once, it felt like I could move without fabric restraining, and the shoes were flat.

“Are you ready?” Faye asked, opening the door for me.

I shrugged, hating that I wasn’t allowed to share these distressing thoughts with her.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to be ready for a lecture,” I said, wrinkling the back of my skirt in my hand.

Faye chuckled. “I guess you’re right. But it can hardly be more nerve-racking than last night.”

“True,” I said, thinking back to that horrifying night.

The others had already arrived when I stepped inside the auditorium, and I quickly found a seat beside Piper and Oakley before anyone could beat me to it.

This auditorium had been built to contain hundreds of people. Our group felt large at times, but here, we looked small with all the empty chairs around us.

The door suddenly slammed behind us.

The room turned silent, and we all spun around to watch the tall woman in a tight, black dress standing in front of the entrance.

“Name the abilities and their respective colors!” she shouted, swinging her bedazzled cane in circles.

I gulped when no one answered her.

This woman didn’t strike me as friendly, nor did she appear to be someone who would be particularly understanding of my position.

Instead, I feared that a single glance from those narrow eyes would be enough to kill even the most terrifying Goroag.

“Miss Mays!” the woman exclaimed, making my entire body jump as she pointed her cane at our group.

I followed the invisible line until my eyes caught sight of a woman sitting isolated in the corner.

Arisu Mays.

I’d never heard her talk apart from during Arawn’s interview. She usually avoided human contact and kept to herself.

Her hair was pitch black, half pulled into a ponytail and the rest falling across her shoulders, stopping below her collarbone.

The teacher had terrified me and probably most of the other suitors, but Arisu appeared unfazed by the order given.

“Earth—Brown,” Arisu began without looking up as if she’d been repeating the sequence her entire life.

“Metal—Silver; Growth—Green.

“Water—Deep Blue; Ice—Cold Blue; Healing—White.”

She paused between the elemental categories before she resumed.

“Air—Pale Blue; Sound—Purple; Teleportation—Transparent.

“Fire—Orange; Light—Yellow; Electricity—Black.”

She said the last color ability with a cold frown.

Arisu was a Fire Iridis from the Sun Academy, which meant she supposedly mastered both fire, light, and electricity.

But judging from her frown, electricity might have caused more trouble than she desired to admit.

I hadn’t mastered any of the abilities in my categories—not even air.

If mastering one of her additional talents were her biggest issue, I envied her.

“Good,” the terrifying woman said, “but you missed the most important one, Miss Mays. Can anyone tell me which blood color Miss Mays carelessly forgot?”

I held my breath and lowered my gaze to the floor, hoping it would make me invisible.

I peeked to see if anyone had raised their hands, but no one had.

Then she disappeared before emerging seconds later in front of the desk, papers flying everywhere.

She was a teleporter.

“Red,” the woman said, banging the tip of her cane against a poster attached to the board beside her.

“The original color. First-bloods may not possess any special abilities, but we have all been one of them.”

I gulped, suppressing the smile yearning to grow on my face.

The teacher might appear terrifying, but at least she had proper morals.

“That was the first question of many that we will use to test your knowledge and your limits. Unfortunately, I have little hope for you after—”

The teacher stopped talking as her eyes scanned our group, eventually stopping at me.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, narrowing her eyes as a frown wrinkled her tiny nose.

“Um…,” I said, straightening my back as blood rushed to my face.

~Wasn’t I supposed to be here?~

“Arthur is not a patient man, Miss Aldwyn,” she exclaimed, slamming her cane into the table in front of me.

Arthur? Was she referring to my master?

All eyes had turned to me. Voices whispered, and I could faintly detect my master’s name being mentioned through the mutters.

The teacher rolled her eyes when I didn’t respond yet.

“Stand up,” she said, raising her voice, and I obeyed without questioning her command.

Her heels echoed through the auditorium as she walked around the tables and stopped beside me. “Hold on to my arm, please,” she said and didn’t offer me as much as an affirmatory glance.

My hand trembled as I raised my arm to grab hers.

The world suddenly warped before my eyes, and my stomach turned with an overwhelming urge to throw up.

I fell to my knees, coughing violently to catch my breath.

The floor felt cold and hard against my palm, which wasn’t consistent with the wooden flooring from the auditorium.

I opened my eyes and realized that she’d teleported us outside the classroom to a place somewhere along these endless halls.

“Knock twice and wait for the grumpy old man to open the door,” she said just before she disappeared and left me alone in the hall.

The door was small. It almost looked normal in contrast to everything else in this giant castle.

Reluctantly, I curled my hand into a fist and knocked twice.

Nothing happened.

My heart thundered in my chest, and I bit my lip as I tried knocking again.

A tingle rushed across my skin when I heard a noise coming from the other side. Still, no one opened the door for me.

I took a deep breath and reached for the handle, opposing the teleporter’s advice.

It wasn’t because I wanted to, but I didn’t know the way back through this maze, and I refused to put up with more of this nonsense.

If my master was in there, and I was out here. He’d called for me and should’ve expected my arrival.

“Hello,” I said, carefully peeking inside the room through the crack.

I hadn’t had much time to imagine the appearance of my master or how he lived, but this was not what I’d expected.

The room was dimly lit and messy without being cluttered. Countless books were stacked on top of each other on the floor, constructing odd walls in unexpected places.

Curtains of red fabric draped from the tall ceiling in no particular pattern, and a huge clock hovered in the middle of the floor, slowly revolving around.

There were definitely more tables and chairs than necessary, and uneven pieces of fabric covered most of the actual walls.

Was this really the studio of the great air master that the prince had praised so highly?

“Hello,” I shouted again, pushing the door entirely open.

“Are you Willow Aldwyn?”

The voice came from inside the studio, but I couldn’t pinpoint from where or see the man who’d asked the question.

“Yes,” I said, and the air stirred.

I never saw him move, but in the blink of an eye, he was in front of me.

A chubby, hunchbacked man with brown hair and a dark, chaotic beard examined me from a few feet away.

His blue eyes were nearly hidden beneath two bushy eyebrows, and his shoulder-long hair had been partly tied into a messy bun on top of his head.

“You’re late,” he scoffed and turned his back to me.

Fabric sagged from his shoulders like the curtains from the ceiling. Some were folded and tugged into a wide belt, while others wrapped around him like a loose cloak.

The vastness of his power saturated the air with buzzing energy as if it was leaking from his pores.

“I apologize,” I whispered, trembling with fear. “I wasn’t—”

“No excuses!” Arthur exclaimed, turning around to face me with a cocked head.

He was leaning against a long staff, and as my eyes slowly got used to the darkness, I noticed how old and frail he looked.

His power might be vast, but I doubted he could teach me much about the art of battle.

“Step inside,” he said, gesturing for me to move. “So, you’re the one who dared to defy our system?”

Blood rushed to my face, and my fingertips turned cold.

Was he going to punish me? Had this promise of education been a ruse—a diversion meant to lure me here for them to destroy me without anyone noticing?

Then he started laughing, slow and painfully amused.

“That is one impressive deed,” he said, laughing louder and leaving me utterly perplexed.

Was he finding my misery amusing?

“Stand here,” he said, pointing his staff toward an area clear of chairs and books while his laugh slowly faded into a humming chuckle.

He made a quick gesture with his hand, and a light bright enough to illuminate the entire room switched on.

I carefully moved to the appointed area, mindful not to step into his papers. Then he began examining me closer, stepping on books and paper as he circled me.

“Hmm,” he hummed, scratching his unkempt beard. “Bad posture, rigid body—”

This didn’t feel like a good start.

“But, I do sense a great deal of strength in you,” he said, and my eyes shot wide open.

“You do?” I asked without thinking.

He scoffed. “A quick mouth, too!”

Blood rushed to my face again, and my eyes found the ground just as fast as they had left it.

Arthur may not be royalty, but he was still superior, and I was not to believe that I was even close to being his equal.

“Show me what you can do,” he said, leaning against his staff.

I cleared my throat. “Wha-what would you like to see?”

“Anything you believe you are in control of,” he ordered.

I clenched my teeth, trying to think of something impressive. It wasn’t easy as I didn’t have much skill to show off.

I could only think of one thing, but it wasn’t extraordinary. It wasn’t even great. Regardless, it was what I had.

Placing my palms to face each other, I concentrated on transferring my powers to my hand.

Then I moved them apart, revealing a twirling ball of air in the cavity, bigger than the one I’d constructed in the mansion.

Arthur nodded. “A child’s trick. Make it grow,” he commanded.

That man surely wasn’t sugar-coating anything.

I widened the gap between my hands and made the sphere grow to the boundaries of my control.

“Good,” he said as sweat trickled down my forehead. “Now, close your eyes and focus on the energy you feel in your body. Direct it toward the ball.”

I closed my eyes, and instead of focusing directly on my hands, I tried to focus on the energy as Master Arthur had instructed me.

My breathing turned ragged as I took notice of the way the energy coursed through my entire body like streams of highly concentrated winds.

I’d felt it every time I’d used my powers, but I’d never cared to think more of it.

It was soothing and almost hypnotizing.

Now direct it, Willow,” Arthur demanded.

I hardly heard him. My mind had been transported to a different realm—a realm of energy and peace.

I offered the power more freedom, and it accepted what was given. I felt it grow stronger, but I didn’t fear the feeling as I’d done at the mansion.

My body felt light, as if I were flying, as opposed to feeling burdened by hopelessness and the sense of my powers suffocating me.

I fluttered my eyes to see how big the sphere in my hands had grown, but instead of being constrained to my hands, it had expanded to surround me.

And the feeling of flying had been more than simply a feeling.

A lump formed in my throat when I realized I was hovering above the floor, and I lost control.

The winds I’d previously confined inside the sphere were released, knocking over tables and books.

Arthur split the wind using his staff, remaining untouched by the massive surge of air that passed him.

I dropped to the floor, landing on the cold tiles as I struggled to keep my spiraling mind under control.

Anxiety dug its claws into my chest. I expected Arthur to scold me, declaring me a lost cause. Instead, a big smile greeted me from behind his beard.

“Good. Now, let’s get started.”