Chapter 71. Purple (III)
"Why did I attack you..." she asked, tilting her head in confusion.
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
She could tell something was off, yet couldn’t put her finger on it.
Her memory from a few moments ago was fuzzy.
She could feel the gap yet didn’t know what had filled it.
She remembered purple, but that was the color of Elena’s eyes, not the malevolent energy.
"...A malevolent purple energy," she muttered, only to pause. What malevolent energy?
She didn’t remember it. Yet she was sure, somehow, that she once had.
"I am sorry I couldn’t do anything for your mother..." Elena’s voice, full of guilt, cut through her thoughts.
Heather looked at her, nodding slowly.
The shock and disbelief of her brother actions replaced by her curiosity towards Elena.
Her confused gaze stared straight into Elena’s worried eyes, trying to figure out what was going on.
"Purple," she muttered. "Why are her eyes even purple?"
Except for the other races, humans only had shades of four colors representing their element: red for fire, blue for water, brown for earth, and silver for air.
Hair and eyes should fall under one of those shades. A variant might influence the shade, like Raika’s yellow lightning giving her red-gold hair and eyes, but the red would still remain.
But purple.
Heather had always accepted it, simply because Elena was a Dominus. Maybe her control of fire and water gave her purple eyes, but she had never once seen her use water, only her purple flames.
Something she had never questioned until now. It had always felt common, normal. Now, her gaze locked onto Elena, as if the longer she looked, the more answers she’d find.
Elena didn’t avert her gaze, looking back at her with warmth, yet... "She has a stronger mental fortitude than her brother..." she thought, her purple sash flickering between shades of pink.
A Supreme of Fire would have noticed the mana threads linking the sash to Heather herself, threads proportional to the cherry blossom petals she had absorbed earlier.
Numerous threads connected the two, likea web-bridge. A few of the pink threads had already turned purple; the rest were slowly following, the mana from Elena’s sash creeping through them into Heather, corrupting her mind, slowly but surely.
The more threads turned purple, the hazier Heather’s memories became, the lesser her suspicion toward Elena. She even began to feel familiarity, affection, toward a woman she’d never paid much attention to before.
She had always liked her mother and Raika, but for some reason, she had never quite warmed to the third wife, Elena. Not dislike, just the distance one keeps with a stranger.
Now, that distance was gone, replaced by something closer to what she felt for her own mother.
She was being drawn to her. She who had looked into Elena’s eyes now couldn’t tear her gaze away even if she wanted to, seemingly locked in place, yet she didn’t seem to hate it.
Before she knew it, she had begun to move towards her, her steps slow, her gaze still locked in, eyes clouded by emotion.
Hugh rose to his feet, afraid she was going to attack Elena once again, but halted at a glance from Elena, his eyes momentarily flashing with purple.
"Oh..." He nodded as he noticed the tears in his sister’s eyes.
"... She has come to her senses," he thought, a smile on his lips, then straightening into one of worry when he remembered what he had done.
He had used the Sakura on her.
His desire not to bring her harm, and for her not to bring harm to Elena, had made him make that choice, something he regretted the moment he used it.
If he could stop the source, it was always better than a riskier move that could injure her, that had been his thought process as he activated the Sakura, but now...
"Maybe I should have stopped her with force." He remembered her gaze, the shock, the almost fear-ridden eyes she had looked at him with.
As he wallowed in his guilt, Heather was in Elena’s embrace.
"I am sorry, Lady Elena. I don’t know what came over me..." she sobbed, Elena rubbing her back in comfort.
"Don’t worry. I should be the one apologizing. I am sorry I couldn’t help your mother... I never expected Aiden to be this cruel..."
Heather’s shoulders shook, the overwhelming guilt consuming her.
She felt as if she had tried to kill her mother, the guilt tearing through her heart.
"I am sure your mother didn’t do anything wrong, yet she had been expelled to this place..." Elena continued, her voice low with grief.
She paused, allowing her words to sink in.
"She isn’t replying..." she wondered, expecting a few curses from Heather, yet the latter only continued to sob.
"Did it not work?" she raised a brow, releasing her embrace.
Heather cried like a toddler, more than she had in all her 17 years. As a noble lady, she had a lot of her emotions bottled up. The sight of her mother, her brother’s actions, and now that she had tried to harm someone she now believed was like a mother to her.
Like an opened dam, the tears fell.
"My mother didn’t deserve this... Hinata was wrong, I didn’t steal it yet... Why did Hugh use the Sakura on me... It hurt that time when I hurt my toe... Why did he have to graduate before me... Why did I try to harm you... I know I should hate Father, but I don’t think he would do this... I hate myself..."
Elena’s mouth fell open, taken aback by Heather’s words. Like a child, she rattled on and on, most of her words unrelated. She said every and anything that bothered her, whether related to the current situation or not.
"What’s going on..." Hugh rushed to her side, Heather pushing him away.
She might be in disarray, but she hadn’t forgotten what he did.
Elena stood at the side. "Tch, it didn’t work..."