The Eldrim Cards

The silence that followed Nero’s words was deafening. Marilyn stared into the eyes of her young boy and found that... they were no longer the eyes of a young boy at all. In those bright blue eyes was a fire that the return of his brother could not extinguish.

There were no words that could be said - by her at least - that would bring back the Nero of old. The irony was that his whole life, she had trained him, raised him to be tough, to be fierce, to be the best warrior that he could be, yet now all she wanted was to see Nero how he once was. She wanted to see that bright, loving boy he used to be before his brother disappeared.

Although he still smiled now, and though he still made friends, and still lived life with purpose, it was not the same.

She sighed internally, though she did not let any of her emotions show on her expression. Motherhood had really made her sentimental.

"Alright, then," she said with resolve in her voice. "I won’t stop you, nor will I ask you to slow down. I will just teach you one lesson I hope you never forget - a lesson the sharp decline of my family taught me. Sometimes, in this world, we get things, we get opportunities, and start thinking we’re special."

She paused, and looked at Nero, as if she knew something. Nero, in turn, listened to her instructions attentively, giving away nothing of his actual thoughts.

"But we do not exist in this world alone. If we can have special encounters, others can too. If we have a strong lineage, then others can too. Never, never, never assume that you are special, or that you are the exception. The moment you begin feeling superior, and start treating the enemy as inferior, is the moment you cement your death. Although a soldier’s death is already written, there is no need to rush to it either."

Nero nodded seriously, not cracking any jokes, though he could think of a few. This was a lesson both his parents had repeatedly tried to teach him, and though he never underestimated anyone, it was true that he had a tendency to be slightly arrogant. It seemed like this was a family trait coming from his mothers side of the family.

"Good," said Marilyn as she nodded, appreciating the seriousness he was displaying. "In that case, we can get to the second reason why I brought Irene here. When I met her, she told me about your tattoo..."

Marilyn let the word linger in the air, and though she did not express any dissatisfaction when she said the ’t’ word, Nero could feel it in his bones. "She said that she had recently improved her skills by a lot, and wanted to refine your tattoo. Moreover, now that you’re an Initiate, you can tolerate a whole lot more, so she wanted to take this opportunity to help you improve it."

Nero smiled, as if he didn’t sense the hidden message in his mothers word.

"Irene you’re awesome," he said, unbuttoning his shirt. "It didn’t even occur to me that the tattoo could be improved. If you can make its function even better, that would be awesome."

Irene stepped forward and pushed up a chair where she indicated that Nero sat down.

"I’ve got my hands on a few improved Spell Models," she explained as she stepped behind him and observed his tattoos. "Moreover, I wanted to make sure your ascension didn’t cause any unexpected issues with the existing ones."

Though her words and tone didn’t reveal it, her expression was a whole lot more solemn as she studied Nero’s back. Originally, she had created an abstract, but symmetrical tribal pattern on his back, and within imbued a very strong anti-tracking spell model. Basically, if anyone tried to tag or track Nero through any means, Nero would immediately realise it.

But just as Edward had said, the tattoo had changed. Although there were still hints of the original tribal pattern in the tattoos, they looked a whole lot more like the contours of a drawn flame than a random pattern. Moreover, the symmetry was still there, but only because the tattoos had morphed to look like eyes.

So, in essence, Nero had two eyes made of flames drawn on his back. As if that wasn’t enough, just standing there, Irene almost felt like she was being watched by those eyes - as if she was the target of the fury contained within them, and it made her heart skip a beat.

Yes, that’s just how excited she was! How could a tattoo frighten her? She, who could imbue Spell Models into her tattoos, literally had access to a whole other method of manipulating aether than others. She was not limited to just cards, she could put her spell models anywhere. Much more importantly, she could directly mimic Spell Models, which was the crux of her innate ability. What she could do far exceeded the limitations imposed upon the entire human race!