For a while, I just sobbed, the light still pouring from my hands. I could feel it trying to calm me down, to try and make me feel better, but it didn't work this time. This time, things had gone way too far. I was willing to hurt people I actually cared about.
A pair of hands held onto my shoulders, but not with a hard grip this time. No shock of electricity. They were gentle. David sat down next to me, put his arm over my shoulder, and hugged me. I couldn't believe he was doing it, with what just happened, but here he was. Forgiving as always. I let him, though, because right now I didn't want to do anything. I didn't want to move, in case the darkness should burst out again.
The light continued to pour from my hands, though.
"Let it calm you." David said. "Stop rejecting it."
I took a breath then, and finally let it in. It was like nothing I'd ever felt before- like happiness and calm and joy all at once. I still hadn't forgotten what I'd done, but it helped. The light washed over me in warm, soothing waves, and when I finally stopped crying, it started to disappear.
I looked at David, and then around the room. I was shaking my head in disbelief, not quite believing that I'd done this. His desk had fallen over and broken in half down the middle, with papers and splinters of wood everywhere. A filing cabinet had a large dent in it, and everything was just a mess. I heard movement behind the broken desk, and remembered Ronan. I gasped, and immediately ran over to him, worried that he would be hurt.
"Oh my god, Ronan." I said, tears threatening to return. "I'm so sorry." I grabbed his arm and helped him up, and when I saw the gash on his face, I did start to cry again. His cheek was bleeding, and already he had a black eye forming.
For a moment, Ronan looked at me, examining me for any signs that the darkness might still be here. But, then he just sighed. "I'm sorry, too." He said.
"Your face." I said, wanting to make it better but knowing I couldn't.
Ronan reached up and touched his bleeding cheek. "Ah, it's nothing."
"But it is." I said. "I did that."
"Stop, Millie." Ronan said sternly. "This was not you."
"You don't understand, Ronan. It was me."
"No, this is you." He placed his hands on my shoulders. "That darkness is only something that amplifies your deepest and darkest desires. I understand that you wanted to hurt me, but it was the darkness that intensified your anger and made you feel like you actually wanted to hurt me."
"I'm so sorry." I said again.
"It's okay." Ronan said, and hugged me. I hugged him back, although I still felt awful. No matter how Ronan worded it, I knew it was still me who did this.
I turned to David. "Sorry about your office." I said. "I'll help tidy it up."
"Yes, you will." David said, sternly but with humour behind his eyes. "But not today. You can come back tomorrow and do it."
He chuckled then, and seeing him smile despite all this made me smile too.
"Today, we sort this issue out." Ronan said. "We try and understand exactly what is happening to you, and how to go about controlling it. From now on, no more secrets. If something strange happens to you, you tell me. Got it?"
I nodded. "Yeah. I will."
"Good."
There was a knock at the door then, and all three of us stopped talking and looked at each other. We looked round the room. There was no reasonable explanation as to why the room looked like this.
David held a finger to his mouth, and Ronan teleported to the door and leaned on it so no one could get in. There was another knock.
"David?" I heard Peter's voice on the other side of the door. "Are you in there?"
I could see David clenching his teeth, trying to remain silent. Peter tried the door, but Ronan was pushing against it. After a few moments, I could hear Peter's footsteps becoming distant. We all sighed loudly.
"That would have been hard to explain." David said. "Although, now I'll have to explain why I wasn't in my office when I should have been."
"Just say you were with me or something." I said. "Peter seems to think I'm struggling to deal with life at the moment. He keeps asking me how I'm holding up."
"Well." David said, looking around the room again. "Perhaps he's not wrong."
I laughed. "Thanks, David."
"Perhaps we should discuss what we're going to do next?" Ronan said. "Because I've never even heard of anyone able to control all the elements."
"Not to mention the extra two." David pointed out.
"Yes. And I believe it all started when you passed out the other day. Right, Millie?" Ronan looked at me.
"I think so." I said. "It was after the dream I had."
"I thought you couldn't remember what happened?" David asked.
I pursed my lips together. "Um, yeah, sorry. I lied about that, too."
"Oh." David said.
"What did happen, then?" Ronan asked.
"Well, I was in a small white room at first, with no doors or windows." I began. "So I was trapped. At first I thought there was no way out, but then I realised the walls weren't that solid. I knew it was just a dream, so I managed to punch my way through. I thought that would be the end of it, but then I was in another white room, only bigger. And I wasn't alone. There was a blue blob floating in the middle of the room, and when I went over to it I realised it was ice. But not just a blob of ice- it was the element ice. If that makes sense." I looked at Ronan and David who seemed to understand what I meant by that. I was glad, because I had no idea how to explain it.
"Anyway." I continued. "I could feel a connection to the ice, and almost felt like it were calling to me. I wanted to touch it, but then my attention caught something else. Next to the ice, there was the fire. A blob of flame. I felt a connection to that, too. Then, when I looked around me, I realised that I was stood in the middle of a circle. Around me were nine blobs. Ice, fire, earth, water, air, lightning, metal, darkness and light. I wanted to touch them all. So then, they all merged together into the ice, creating one big ball of... power. It was so strong, but I still reached out to it. And then... then I guess I woke up."
"Well that would explain what just happened." David said. "When I tried to shock you. It didn't work, did it?"
I shook my head. "It did at first- at first I felt the shock, but then all I felt was the electricity. It seemed to overpower the darkness, though, which doesn't really make sense. I mean, I would assume that darkness would be stronger than lightning."
"I have a theory." Ronan said.
"You do?"
"Yes." He said. "So, I think that each of your elements needs to have some kind of initiation. A trigger, of sorts, where it first makes an appearance. When David shocked you, that was the trigger for the lightning element, so it overpowered the Darkness as it manifested itself."
"But..." I frowned. "When I was at home, I met another Heir." I began.
"You did?" Ronan asked.
"Yes. My home vicar is an earth Heir, and when I was talking to her, I had another... episode."
Ronan frowned. "You mean a Darkness episode?"
I nodded. "Yeah. But it didn't come out completely- I managed to fight it off. But Stella, she helped by using the earth element. She used it to calm me down. So, surely that would have been an exposure to earth? I didn't feel anything like this lightning thing then."
Ronan rubbed his chin. "Maybe it just wasn't strong enough. I mean, David shocked you quite badly. Well, it would have been bad to anyone else- perhaps even fatal."
I turned to David. "Fatal? Your electric shock could have killed me?"
"Nah." David waved a dismissive hand. "You handled it pretty well."
I narrowed my eyes.
"The important thing is that I think you need a strong exposure to an element to trigger it." Ronan said.
"Are you saying I had a strong exposure to Darkness?" I wondered.
"Well, the sun was setting." David pointed out.
"Yes, and think about it. There is a darkness in everyone. You were surrounded by lots of people, not to mention criminals who you ended up chasing off. And with the darkness came the light. The two come together."
"The fire?" I wasn't so sure about Ronan's theory.
Ronan wasn't so sure, either. "Okay, I don't know. Perhaps it wasn't a literal fire. Maybe it was metaphorical."
"Yeah." I said, very doubtful. His theory made a lot of sense, however it had holes in it. Lots of missing pieces. But, it was something.
"What triggered your episode back home?" David asked.
"Well, Stella was about to teach me how to summon my Black Prometheum, so she showed me how to do it with hers first. Then she let me hold it, and you know it's supposed to change to the colour associated with your element?"
David and Ronan nodded.
"Well, when I held it, it didn't change colour." I continued. "At least, not at first. It stayed green from where she'd been holding it. Then it turned blue, as it should. But then, it turned red, and then all the other colours before finally turning black. And that's when it happened. It was like a reminder, and I felt it inside me. It wanted to come out, but Stella helped me stop it."
"How did she help you?" Ronan asked.
"She told me to think about my element." I paused. "Well, the ice. So I did, and it worked. It drove the darkness away. A bit like the electricity did just now."
"So the darkness is not the strongest element." Ronan said. "Although it makes you feel strong and powerful, and it can control you, your other elements overpower it when you summon them." Ronan seemed happy with this.
"So?" I asked.
"This means you can control it! Far easier than you thought, actually. I have another theory."
David sighed. "Here we go." He muttered.
"Each element drives the darkness away." Ronan ignored David. "And the darkness only wants total control. But, with your other elements emerging, it's finding it hard to stick around when they come. My theory is this. What if with every element you acquire, the darkness becomes weaker? What if, when you manifest all the elements, the darkness is driven away?"
"But... isn't it just like one of the elements?" I wondered. "Surely you can't just drive one of them away- it would be like me saying to David that maybe he could drive his lightning away."
"But the darkness is not one of the elements, Millie. Not really. Just like light. You remember we had that conversation the other day, about the darkness and light being their own selves? Being too strong to be contained in a body?"
I nodded.
"Well, I don't think that's completely wrong. I think that it is inside you because it is waiting for something."
"Waiting for what?" I asked, Ronan having completely lost me.
"I don't know." Ronan sat down, stuck. "But for an Argent to have power over all of the elements, that's something unheard of. I think something is coming, and you've been given this power to stop it."
"No pressure." I muttered. "What do you think it could be?"
"Not sure." Ronan said. "Maybe someone? I guess we can only wait."
There was a moment of silence.
"But, in the mean time, we should expect the worst." Ronan clapped his hands loudly. "I will train you as best I can. If anymore elements emerge, you must tell me. But take your vicar's advice, if you ever feel the darkness return. Think of the ice. Drive it away. Okay?"
I nodded. "Okay."
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