Wrath's Virtue

Aurelion sat on a bench under a large pine tree. It was a secluded spot, overlooking the distant mountains. He was waiting for a figure he hadn't seen in a long time. He was in his state of Void Focusing, hoping to detect her before she arrived this time.

A short while later, he sensed a flicker of movement in the shadows to his left and turned his head toward it.

The moment he did, a hand gently touched his other shoulder from behind.

Aurelion opened his eyes. He slowly turned his head and saw the beautiful woman with purple tinged skin and black hair standing over him.

Vespera smiled. "Were you trying something, little light?" she asked, her voice melodic.

Aurelion recalled the flicker of movement he'd sensed. He looked at the woman for a long moment. "You must have a fine movement technique," he stated.

"I wonder, do I, little light?" Vespera replied, gliding around the bench to sit down, crossing one leg over the other. She continued, "You haven't come here in a long time, little light. You've kept me waiting."

Her gaze softened with a hint of feigned tenderness as she looked at his scarred eye. She reached a hand out toward it. "But I suppose you've been busy."

Aurelion knocked her hand aside with the back of his own, his face was a flat, emotionless mask.

Vespera pulled her hand back, a mischievous smile returning to her lips. "You're too stiff, little light. Why don't you try to relax a little?"

"You must know that you're wasting your time, Vespera," Aurelion said.

"Yes, but it's fun to annoy you, little light." She then leaned her face closer to his, studying him with a thoughtful expression. "I will remind you of this conversation in a few years," she murmured.

Aurelion sized Vespera up. "Perhaps in a few years," he thought to himself, before speaking aloud.

"Who will gonna make the first move?"

"You should be able to guess that, little light," Vespera replied.

"It's a given that Silverfang will, yes, but I'm curious who will make the first public move."

Vespera considered this for a moment. "That is a difficult question, but... it might be the Giant Bone clan."

"Giant Bone?" Aurelion asked.

"Their clan leader, Silas, enjoys stirring up trouble. You might receive your first challenge from his clan. The others might prefer to wait and observe how you fight first. Why do you ask? Are you worried, little light?"

An involuntary, small laugh escaped Aurelion's lips. "Of course not. I just have a beautiful plan in my mind."

Vespera's smile widened with interest. "Is that so? What are you planning, little light?"

"You'll find out soon enough, Vespera," Aurelion said, his tone shifting back to business. "I came here for something else."

Vespera pouted slightly. "Alright then, tell me, little light."

"She seems a bit more tamed since our last meeting," Aurelion noted internally. "She didn't immediately demand payment for her information."

"I want to learn a stealth technique from you," Aurelion stated. "And in exchange, I will give you some beautiful information."

A smile bloomed on Vespera's face as she heard Aurelion's request. "So, you want to learn stealth techniques from me now, is that right, little light?" she purred.

"Yes," Aurelion said flatly.

"I might just do you a favor and teach you a technique," Vespera continued, leaning back. "But it will be a bit expensive, little light."

"I can pay whatever the price is."

Vespera's smile grew wider. It had been a long time since she had communicated with Aurelion, and suspecting the boy knew great things, she was very eager to enter into a grand bargain with him.

"Very well, little light. I have a technique that might be suitable for you. But it requires the ability to manipulate shadows, and..." she looked Aurelion up and down, a flicker of feigned doubt in her eyes, "...seeing as you're a High Elf, I'm not so sure you can do it."

"Teach me then," Aurelion commanded.

"I'm not so sure you can learn it immediately, little light," Vespera said, her tone shifting to that of a mentor. "For you to learn Shadow Weaving, you must first understand the shadow. To us, it is not merely an absence of light. It is a presence, a sanctuary, a place of secrets and possibilities..."

Aurelion internally rolled his eyes. "It's just the area light cannot touch," he thought, bored by the poetic lecture. "We see the world around us through the reflection of light. That is the reason we cannot see in the dark."

Vespera, ignoring Aurelion's bored expression, continued as if sharing a sacred secret. "People see the world in stark contrasts. Light and dark, order and chaos. But the shadow is neither. It is the boundary between them. It is the place where things change form... To weave a shadow, you cannot simply step into the dark. You must feel its texture, its coolness. You must understand its weight... its silence."

"Texture? Weight? This is a pointless waste of time," Aurelion thought, his patience wearing thin. "Get to the practical application."

He could no longer hold his tongue. "And how does one feel an absence of light, Vespera?"

Vespera let out a soft chuckle, as if she had been waiting for that exact question. "Precisely the response I expected from you, little light. You try to understand with your mind, but this is something you must understand with your energy. Very well. Enough talk."

She stood up and gestured toward two distinct shadows on the ground. One cast by the large pine tree they sat under, the other by a lifeless gray boulder a few meters away.

"Let's begin your first lesson," she said, her eyes glinting. "Extend your energy. Not your eyes, not your hands. Tell me... are those two shadows the same?"

Aurelion didn't try to feel the shadows as Vespera had suggested. That seemed meaningless to him. Instead, he did what he always did. He analyzed.

He extended his own energy as a series of fine threads. A scanner to measure, not to sense. The threads probed both patches of darkness. In the shadow of the boulder, his energy met only a flat, cold stillness, a pure absence. But in the shadow of the pine tree, it was different. He detected the faint, residual resonance of life itself, a whisper of the tree's own energy bleeding into the ground it covered.

After a few seconds, he opened his eyes.

"They are not the same," Aurelion said. "The shadow cast by the tree carries a faint echo of life energy from tree. The shadow from the boulder is energetically inert. One carries the trace of a living thing, the other does not."

The mocking smile on Vespera's face vanished for a moment, replaced by a look of genuine interest.

"Good," she said, a tone of sincere appreciation in her voice for the first time. "Very good. You did not use your eyes; you used your senses."

She took a step toward him. "You have understood the first secret, even if you arrived at it with your cold, infuriating logic. A shadow is not just an absence of light. It is colored by the essence of whatever casts it. A living thing's shadow carries a whisper of life. A shadow from a dead thing carries only stillness. Remember that."

Aurelion looked at Vespera, unimpressed by the revelation. "What do I need to do now?" he asked.

"You have already learned what you need, little light," Vespera said with a smile. "When you succeed in filling your own shadow with your own energy, you will begin to be able to manipulate shadows. And after that, you will be ready to learn my techniques."

Aurelion's nose twitched slightly. "So, that was all I have to do!" he thought, annoyed at her roundabout method. "And until she explained it just now... never mind."

"What is the name of the technique you will teach me, Vespera?" he asked.

"Shadow Weaving, little light," she replied.

"I am joining the college," Aurelion stated. "Our next meeting may be a long time from now."

"Don't you worry, I will come to visit you, little light. There, I will teach you this technique with practical application... on others."

A rare, genuine smile touched Aurelion's lips. "You are far too kind to me, Vespera."

He continued, his tone was smooth and confident. "And since you were so kind to me, I will be kind in return and share a little secret with you."

"I am waiting with curiosity, little light," Vespera said, leaning in slightly.

"You spoke to me of shadows, Vespera. I, in turn, will speak to you of light," Aurelion began. "Light is composed of colors, and in the universe, there are colors that exist beyond what our eyes can perceive. What we can see is only a very small fraction of the whole, Vespera."

Vespera raised a single eyebrow.

"One of the more interesting of these," Aurelion continued, "is the ultraviolet. This light has a unique property. It reacts with certain materials that are invisible in normal light, causing them to glow."

Aurelion leaned closer to Vespera. "Let's say you have a spy, and they send you a blank parchment. To a normal eye, the paper is empty. But if you could create a small burst of energy tuned to this ultraviolet frequency, the secret message, written in a special ink, would blaze forth in a light that no one else could see."

Vespera was visibly surprısed. "How?" she whispered.

"You will learn how," Aurelion said, "when I have learned my technique."

He then smiled. "This is my information, Vespera. The truth that the world is filled with lights you cannot see. The methods to read the invisible. Is this beautiful enough to pay for your lesson in shadows, Vespera?"

Before Vespera could answer, Aurelion's expression became deadly serious.

"Be loyal to me, Vespera. Be loyal to me, so that you may learn the truths that no one else knows."