The Demon King’s Hero Of Light - Volume 1 Chapter 199 199 Secrets Of Magic
“Shadow magic?” asked Bridgette, pausing in the middle of opening the next book. “Why in the world would you want to know about that?”
“Let’s just say my dad died and he was the shadow hero,” said Aella with a smile.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of such a thing,” confessed Bridgette, looking stunned.
“So, there isn’t anything in there about such a thing?” asked Aella, her hopes dropping. How was she going to figure out everything that was possible with it, when her father never told her about it? She could ask it directly, but it didn’t really want to talk to her. In fact, as she searched for it, it almost seemed to be hiding from her. Could it be overpowered by the other elements?
“There may be,” responded Bridgette, heading back to the bookshelves. “I think I remember there being a book from the demon library I glanced at and didn’t really read in detail. It mentioned something about shadows I think.”
Aella sighed in relief and waited as the sage muttered to herself as she perused the shelves.
“Here we go!” chimed Bridgette as she grabbed up a large dusty tome and hauled it back to the table. “It has a section in it that was very interesting, talking about the differences between the light and the dark, that I started reading, but Felix started having one of his prophetic seizures and I had to stop. Unfortunately, I never got back to it.”
“Now seems like a good time,” chuckled Aella, watching as Bridgette flipped through the pages, being careful not to damage the old parchment.
“Here we go It says that light and dark are tied together, often symbolized in the same rune,” said Bridgette.
“I think I remember my dad telling me about that,” mused Aella, thinking about her early lessons. “He didn’t have a lot of patience with me when he taught me. I had to learn very quickly because he never knew when he would be called away and I needed to know as much as possible. There was a lot of lessons in the light of a candle, in the bas.e.m.e.nt of my childhood home.”
Bridgette was looking up at her with wide eyes brimming with unwept tears. “That’s so sad,” she whispered.
“What? Why?” asked Aella. “I cherish those memories. They’re all that kept me from losing hope while I was in the pits.”
Bridgette wiped her eyes and nodded quickly, looking down at the book as if afraid to say what she had been thinking. Aella stared at her for a moment trying to decide if she wanted to know what she had been about to say, then gave it up. It couldn’t be that important.
“So, what shadow powers are listed?” Aella insisted, trying to get the conversation back on topic.
“This mage, probably from a different realm, mentions several abilities he could do, but they’re tied together. He could do both light and dark magic. The dark ones he has listed are stealing other’s shadows, dark vision, cloak of darkness blur or body of shadow see invisible things, and invisible body.”
“What’s the purpose of stealing someone’s shadow?” Aella asked curiously.
“The mage mentioned that it opened them up to attack, somehow,” said Bridgette with a shrug. “You may have to practice that one, to figure it out, because it doesn’t go into more detail here. Though, he did say here that he liked to hurt someone using their shadows. Apparently, he could stab them, by stabbing their shadows instead of their bodies. His last comment was about trying to figure out how to move from one shadow to another, but it seemed to be too much of a movement spell for him to figure out. I’m not sure if he figured it out or not.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Aella. “I can already teleport wherever I’ve been. I don’t care about jumping from one shadow to another. I guess I will have to play around with it, when I have time. What else can you tell me about the other magics?”
“You don’t plan to get Alfred’s light, do you?” asked Bridgette, not looking up at her as she looked over the rest of the section talking about the light magic.
“No, I already talked to him about it. He wanted to make sure that he had a way to stop me if I ever got out of hand. I kind of like knowing that there’s someone that can stop me if I really did lose it. Besides, my shadow doesn’t like the idea of me also getting light. The fire is already a bit much for it, though they haven’t attacked each other yet.”
The fire within her seemed to flare up at that, as if it were being challenged, and she quieted it with a reassurance that she didn’t want them to clash.
“That’s good,” nodded Bridgette as she shut the tome and moved to return it to the shelf.
Aella watched her, wondering why it was so important to her. The sage must also believe Aella needed someone to stop her if she ever went bad.
“There’s information in this book talking about travel magic, that could allow the various kingdoms a way to travel back and forth without having to travel the miles to each other,” said Bridgette, holding up a book.
“I guess I can glance at it, but I’m not sure how to use magic honestly,” said Aella with a shrug.
Bridgette set it down in front of Aella and spent the next twenty minutes trying to explain it to her, but Aella just kept getting more and more frustrated.
“Bridgette, the only reason I can do the magic that I can do, is because I don’t have to focus or make runes, or any of that intricate stuff you keep trying to explain to me. I just will it, and it does whatever it does. Sometimes I can ask nicely and it will do other things, but there’s none of this stuff you keep talking about,” said Aella.
“I thought it would be too hard for you,” sighed Bridgette.
“Too hard for me?” laughed Aella, jumping up from her seat and pacing around the table. Precious looked up at her in annoyance, his nap having been disturbed when he was dumped on the floor.
“Do you want to try again?” asked Bridgette hopefully.
“Maybe later,” growled Aella. “I have other things I need to do right now.”
“Alright,” sighed Bridgette, closing the book and standing up.
Aella grabbed up Precious and teleported to her room in the castle. She spent a moment looking around. When she became king of the realm, instead of king of the demons, would she have to give up this room? There was so much magic and stuff in the chests
Aella stopped and glanced up at the chests. Flying up to the landings that held the chest with the miscellaneous magical items she decided to check it out. Could some of the magic that was lost to the church that Bridgette had mentioned, be in here?
Leaving Precious napping on her bed, Aella stepped into the chest and looked around. Everything was still neatly organized by the mimic, and for a moment she wondered how he was doing with his Hentopia he had created. Shaking her head, she turned to look over the various magic items in front of her.
In the middle of the table was a bag full of chalk. Wondering why it had caught her eye, Aella picked it up. The moment it touched her skin, she knew exactly what it was. If she were to draw a rune with the chalk, she could imbue magic to that rune associated with whatever magic the rune represented. So, for example, if she were to draw the rune that meant movement on one spot and then again on another spot, she could have them be connected so that if someone stepped on one rune, they would immediately be moved to the second rune and vice versa.
Bridgette had been trying to teach her all this complicated mess to allow people to be transported from one place to another, and this chalk would allow her to do it without the mess. Her father had already taught her the runic language, so she was confident she could create the movement runes all over the place, to allow people to travel around.
Tapping her chin for a moment, she thought about how stupid some people could be. Perhaps she should make this look big and impressive, to impress the leaders of the other kingdoms. They would probably be more willing to accept her as the King of the Realm, if she impressed them.
Putting the chalk into her bag, she thought about the problems the other kingdoms had at the moment, with no homes to go to with the storm. She really needed to try and figure out a way to calm the storm. Joseph had said it would take three months, but surely there had to be a quicker way.