To Be King

Part 4 - Let The Lessons Begin?

It was another three days before Jade left the Occiden House again. During those days Jade tried over and over again that small spell that Italo taught her. While she was afraid of burning herself again, she tried to remember the feeling of Solomon's hands around hers. The cool touch of his authority and relief from the heat. Keeping the image on her mind and staying calm like Solomon told her, Jade tried warming up the blood pack she got, taking delight in the dark light emitting from her hands. But that was all that happened. The blood remained at room temperature. She had tried warming up her entire body - just warming - and it had somewhat worked, starting in her hands and then climbing up her arms, but when she tried to go further, she got so tired she went out of breath. Even the shadowy light had thinned out and just dissipated. After that, it took a whole day for her to be able to do anything else at all.

When her authority returned, she decided to take a different approach. To make herself colder. Solomon seemed to do it so easily, with just a little cloud of blue he clasped around her inky authority. If she just remained calm, perhaps she could do it as well. She didn't get very far before she started to shiver and her fingers couldn't move very well. Later, warmed up and with only one trial, she had picked up an article of her clothing and tried very hard to make it so cold the material went stiff. On this matter, Italo was correct in that external use of her energy was a lot harder. She was spent once she managed to collect just a little bit of cold air around the cloth, which faded immediately. The downside, however, was that she herself was freezing again. How did Solomon make it seem so easy? He did it with such little flare, as if he were just breathing that icy touch.

Jade decided not to try again or she'd end up like a corpse in rigor mortis. Stiff. Once she was warmed up again, she had settled on feeding her clientele until she went back to visit Solomon and Italo.

——

"Alright, I want to learn how to use authority." Is what Jade said as soon as she got to the cafe. There were no customers today either so she didn't get the chance to see the backroom yet, but that was the least of her concerns.

She wanted to use magic. What Italo and Solomon had managed to do so effortlessly made it seem easy but over the past three days, she realized it was anything but. She wanted to do what they could do, especially since she found out that it was much harder on her own.

"You would like us to teach you?" Solomon was slurping something through a cup with straw and when Jade saw the dark colour through the straw, it was pretty evident what it was. All vampires needed it, after all.

"She'd like me to teach her." Italo said as he popped out of the back door like a ghost. Solomon waved his hand in his general direction with an eye roll.

"I still have a repertoire of skills worthy of learning from..." Solomon muttered and gave Jade a look.

"Yes." Jade took a seat on a stool she sat on three days ago, and almost before she could even turn her head, Solomon was already at her side, setting a cup in front of her. Jade smiled as the scent of coffee filled her chest and already made her feel more awake and relaxed. Her stomach even rumbled a bit.

"Well this is great Jade, because I was going to propose that you learn it. It's imperative." Solomon said, the end note sounding a bit foreboding. He sat down beside her and stuffed his straw back in his mouth but Jade didn't miss his eyes flitting towards Italo for a second. She ignored it.

Jade picked up the thick mug and took a long drink from it. It was hot and syrupy, making her feel like she could just take a winter day and stay inside while it snowed. Except it wasn't snowing, and at the general moment, she wanted to get out of the house rather than stay in.