The entire church was silent.
'Her aspect is what???'
All servants, guards, and similar personnel had their mouths open wide enough to catch flies. The abbot had his eyes opened wide as well, but instead of the others' unadulterated shock, he wore a knowing and childlike grin. He had felt it earlier at the very beginning and this only confirmed it; this girl was special. Taking his eyes away from Dahlia for a moment, he wanted to check how her parents were handling such an incredible revelation.
Surprisingly, there was no excitement or joy in either of their eyes. The Baroness did seem shocked, and something in her expression maintained a hint of intrigue. Meanwhile the Baron's expression looked almost sickly. His wife looked at him and tried to understand what caused the blood to drain from his face and it only took a moment for understanding to dawn on her. Her lips formed a tight line as she turned on Dahlia.
"Girl! Your aspect. What elements does it contain?"
Her harsh voice shattered the silence possessing the church and everyone shifted out of their shocked trance and turned their attention back to the scene in front of them. Dahlia was still recovering from her hallucination at the time and the added harshness from her mother made her want to crawl into a hole. She knew this was going to be a problem.
"I-it uses, um, n-nature, space, and d-darkness…"
With each word her voice progressively shrank until she could hardly be heard. The Baroness clenched her jaw while the Baron spoke up with a vein throbbing on his temple, his voice low but containing a deep rage.
"You… you really are a worthless piece of trash, aren't you?"
Considering how incredible Dahlia's proficiency and aspect were, plenty of people were bewildered by the Baron's outburst, but those that knew better were more concerned if Dahlia would get beaten in front of everyone there and now.
Darkness itself wasn't taboo in the noble family. Multiple ancestors possessed aspects with renowned darkness attributed aspects such as "Day and Night," "Starlight," and the famous "Duality." What each of these had though was light to compliment it. To have an aspect void of light was already a blot on the noble house, but to have darkness instead was nothing short of a mockery.
Vincent's thoughts were a mess. This girl was his absolute worst nightmare. Her bloodline didn't tie her to the house in any way. Having such a unique dark attribute aspect was practically a middle finger to their entire lineage, and to cap it all off, he couldn't even write her off as being weak and worthless.
He desperately wanted to write her off. Maybe kill her and chuck her in a ditch. But at the same time, she was absurdly valuable. The original plans to sell her off to a nobleman would definitely have to go through, but the gains he would make from that marriage would now likely be increased tenfold. The fact Dahlia suddenly became such a hugely important card in his hand, all while her existence mocked him, made his blood boil.
Turning to face everyone in the room, the Baron snarled as he spoke.
"Not a soul hears of what happened today. I don't want a word of this disgrace to be known outside of who is here right now. Her potential and aspect are valuable and will be used as bargaining chips by our family in the future, but I will be the only one who decides which outsiders get to know. If word gets out, I'll hunt down the loose lipped bastard and make you regret it. Am. I. Clear?"
The servants could feel their hearts sink. This brutal noble was going to make a list with their names on it and if someone breathed incorrectly, they might all suffer for it. Wonderful.
Dahlia trembled as her father turned his attention back to her.
"And you. I don't want to hear your voice. I don't want to see your face. Until the debutante I want you completely isolated. Not a word to anyone and no use of any magic either. I will only order this kindly once. If you go against me, I will ensure there are no second chances."
As he turned around and began talking in hurried whispers to his wife, Dahlia merely stood there shaking like a brittle leaf in the wind. Plenty of people were looking at her through the corners of their eyes but no one dared approach. She was not only pitiable, but she was also a magical anomaly. It was impossible for people to ignore her but with the Baron's words still fresh in mind, no one dared follow up on that interest.
Seeing that no one, not even the abbot, was about to look at her, let alone talk to her, Dahlia decided now was the time to leave. Ripping off the claustrophobic and sweat soaked robes, she controlled her breathing and shaking as best she could as she made her way to the carriage.
The servants outside weren't aware of what had occurred, but they clearly weren't planning to ask. The expressions of everyone who had already left the building told them more than enough that they shouldn't get involved. It was under this strange and heavy atmosphere that they all returned to the manor.
In another carriage that had left a bit earlier, Vincent and Sabrina Lionysus were trying to figure out how to best handle the situation. In the enclosed and noise protected space, they had both taken the opportunity to complain without a filter and the curses, vitriol, and spite that had come from their lips in the last half hour would have made some fairer blood nobles collapse from shock.
The two only stopped their tirade when a knock came at the door. A man in plain clothes was riding a horse alongside the carriage. He didn't look special, but they knew him quite well to be in charge of all information gathering related to their daughter.
"You took your sweet time. Get in, we can't decide on anything until we hear your report."
The man lept off his horse and into the carriage without anyone needing to slow down. Closing the door behind him, he pulled out a folder from within a side bag he was carrying and immediately got down to business.
"Sir. Ma'am. Frankly, I don't know where to start. Even with our team's capabilities, we still lack the ability to track all of the information down. To begin with, I'll get the simplest part out of the way. Her mana proficiency is comparable to human geniuses born once or twice a decade. It's not groundbreaking, but even with her proficiency alone she could be on the leading edge of a generation given the right circumstances. Some pure bloodlines can achieve similar levels, but that's after years of effort and countless expended resources. This is her starting point."
The man furtively glanced at the two. He knew how angry they would be given the current situation but luckily they weren't taking it out on him.
"Ahem, moving on to her aspect… we know that it isn't unique, at least in the strictest sense. True unique aspects can only occur once in history and when they awaken there are very specific identifiers. None of that was present in Dahlia's awakening, so she'd only be considered rare. But… well, there is no record of this aspect in history. Some similar aspects have existed, but not this specific one. If it has existed before, then it's likely recorded in the annals of some isolationist race or culture"
He could see the Baron's eyebrows twitch the more he spoke. Having such a rare aspect just solidified how angry he was. As his frustrations were about to boil over on the poor messenger, it was the Baroness that actually spoke up.
"Whatever. Vincent, calm down, you're acting like an idiot. We already accepted that it'll be a disgrace that this information becomes public. We were already going to keep it on the down low, so now we should be looking at the positives."
Still trying to calm the Baron down, she cast a quick glance to the man in front of her.
"Caleb, continue your report. You don't need to go into too much detail of similar aspects seeing as we don't plan to utilise her abilities. Just summarise roughly what can be expected and then move onto the bloodline."
For his part, Caleb took this in stride. Due to the patriarchal house, Vincent was always known for taking the lead but due to his temper it was common for Sabrina to take over behind closed doors. With a nod, he skipped a few pages in the report and just got to the projected summary.
"The key trait is nature. You can expect it to behave nearly the same as a typical 'forest' aspect in this regard. It's potent and has huge potential but is also not particularly special when discussing aspects. The 'dark' addition is a somewhat common modifier of aspects as well. Even 'dark forest' has been seen a number of times in history and it seems to be straightforward. It literally can produce darkness but also usually specialises in modifying sensory perception and in extreme cases, affects emotions. Paired with a word like 'lost,' you can probably expect this to be the case."
He took a deep breath, rubbing his forehead as he looked over the last part. 'Lost' was not common as an aspect modifier. Not at all. 'Lost at sea' was the only one that appeared in the records he could find, and the owner of that aspect died at 35. He used what little was known as well as a couple maze and labyrinth aspects as reference to try and understand how this might behave.
"I can't actually say much with regards to 'lost'. Thankfully, we know it is space attributed, but all I can say is that its behaviour will likely be unusual. When people think of space, they likely think of pocket dimensions, teleportation, or spatial fissures. Those might be achievable as well but, well, the focus seems to be on relative positioning? I'm truly sorry I can't say more. Even with the little information I could find, it seems like a hard to analyse aspect. Once paired with the other parts, who knows how it might mix with 'forest' or 'dark'."
He frowned at his own sloppily done research. This was far below the quality he aimed for, and the next part was about to be even more shameful. He glanced up from the page and saw the Baron squeezing a handrail like a stress ball while the Baroness seemed to be watching and listening to him like a predator about to catch its prey. Sighing, he got to the part he dreaded.
"So. Bloodline. How do I even start? Uhm. We have no idea."
The sound of wood splintering could be heard coming from the Baron's hand.
"Excuse me? We paid you how much and you don't have the slightest idea?! You know what, I think I ought to-"
He was cut off by his wife who gave him a scathing look. Caleb didn't start again until she finally returned her gaze to him and gave a small nod.
"Saying that we have no idea may be a slight exaggeration, but it really isn't that far off. We compared her bloodline to all existing ones on record as well as recorded monstrous races, but nothing seemed to match. All we could confirm is that it seemed to be a race not tied to a specific element, but rather could occur in different elemental variations."
Although the Baron was still fuming and hardly paying attention, the Baroness seemed particularly absorbed in this information. As he continued to explain, he could almost see her eyes flashing in a dangerous interest. Whatever, it's not his problem.
"A good example of this is certain elemental spirits and dragons. Unlike, say, a pheonix or kirin which have a specific element prescribed to their race, a dragon could be fire attributed, lightning attributed, etc. Of course, I use these examples, but we know for certain she doesn't have a draconic bloodline. Whatever it is has to be incredibly rare, or incredibly good at hiding itself from human eyes."
Sighing, he sat back and shrugged.
"Like I said. We really don't know more than that. The one good thing is that, with how it's only 20% purity as well as totally unknown, Vincent can be rest assured that she isn't some child born from Sabrina having an affair with another person as then the bloodline would have been recorded, and she didn't screw a mysterious monster either as then the purity would be in the range of 95% or higher."
He chuckled a bit as he saw Vincent visibly relax a bit at that. His wife hadn't appreciated the observation, but maybe it was a hidden sore spot for the Baron. News like this might help remove some old insecurities. Feeling like that alone just earned him his paycheque, Caleb finally finished his report.
"I honestly can't tell you how this bloodline entered her system, but chances are it was either recessive and in the family for a long time, or it was an entity that traded power in exchange for the blood of a descendant. For that later option, think of the typical deal with a devil or angel. Strong enough entities can form contracts where the residual magic leaves a direct imprint on descendants. Whether it was actually caused by a contract or what that contract might have been is impossible to find out though without more information."
The Baron continued to be on cloud nine as he now happily held his wife in his arms. What was just said went in one ear and out the other as he clearly was much more interested in his wife who he now knew hadn't cheated.
The wife though was the inverse of him. Vincent's affections seemed to not even be registered in her mind. All her focus was on Caleb and the information he was delivering. At the mention of the possibility of a contract, her eyes shone once again in a dangerous glint, and though nearly imperceptible, a small blood chilling grin had formed on her lips.
'Yup. I'm good. I'm not touching that subject again with a ten foot pole.'
Much to his dismay, what he heard next came from that terrifying, smiling mouth.
"Caleb, be a dear and do everything you can to look into that contract and her bloodline. You'll be compensated well, I assure you."
As she said it, her smile had made it to her eyes as they turned into little crescents. Not only was she particularly interested in this subject, but seeing him squirm from discomfort made her feel particularly pleasant. After many years of just barely getting by, she finally felt a little more alive.