The Veil of Darkness

"So you met another ancient guardian by chance and he advised you not to use your powers in public?" Leela concluded and raised the question while staring at Annalise as if the latter was either a prodigy or a complete idiot.

Annalise slowly nodded her head in affirmative as her gaze shifted across all her friends and her husbands whom she had just revealed the reason of her not using magic to save herself on the night of attack.

They all were huddled in the cozy section of the living room in front of the huge fireplace while a strong snowfall was ongoing on the outside. The moment they were back in the Castle, the regular snowfalls and chilly weather was also back, which again made Annalise wonder if the Sky Kingdom actually used magic to stop it from snowing during the three days of festival.

"Oh stars, Annalise!"

Leela’s exasperated words pulled Annalise out of her thoughts and made her look at the woman in confusion who had both her hands placed on her hips while she looked at Annalise as if she was looking at a child.

"What is it?" Annalise asked while sharing a quick look at others but no one said anything at all.

"How come you always end up meeting these ancient people out of nowhere? And how come you always end up trusting them?" Leela pointed out the main problems in Annalise’s story about her encountering a total stranger on the night of Winter Midnight Ball right before the attack.

"I don’t know! They just... I just end up meeting them..." Annalise had no clue how to answer the first question. Even she wondered sometimes why she always end up meeting people whom the world hadn’t seen for ages. "And to answer your second question, you all know that I can sense when the other person is lying or having bad intentions toward me. Elaron gave me no reason to doubt him or his intentions."

Once again none of the men spoke a single word but as for Leela, the woman wasn’t the least bit pleased with Annalise’s answers.

"I don’t care about all that, Lisa. The only thing that I know and care about is the fact that this Elaron guy could have been a threat and you just listened to his advise of not using your powers even when you were in great danger. What if your mates didn’t get there on time? What if you got hurt way badly? How could you..." Leela trailed off as she tried to catch her breath and calm herself down.

Annalise stood up and approached Leela before taking hold of her hands and speaking, "I know you are worried for me, but I trust my instinct, it has never judged anyone wrong. As for not using magic, that’s because I did agree with what he said. There are few people who knows about my powers and if keeping it a secret from our enemies can give us an upper hand, then that’s not a bad bait, right?"

Of course this bait would only work if Annalise could reach the highest potential of her powers before it could be too late.