I never really believed in the myth that the women in my family could tell which colors of a man’s aura were joined to his emotions. I never believed that myth until Magesty Yoll, Master of Arete walked into the large ball room in my mother’s palace and forever changed my life. I could see the colors of his aura, of course. All the women in the royal line can see the auras of men who are close by them. Their auras are often interesting but not informative.
My first surprise, the one that caused my eyes to open wide and caused my mouth to emit an unladylike, “huh,” was how many colors I could detect. Instead of the usual twenty two hues that most men emit, I was seeing hundreds. It was as if a girl who had grown up knowing the colors of a child’s painting set was suddenly introduced to the palette of a true artist. But the real shock, the fear, the dread, and the flare of hope that I felt throughout my body was caused by the realization that I knew what those colors meant.
For the first time in my short life, I could tell which color in a man’s aura corresponded to which of his emotions. And because of that, I could tell what Master Magesty Yoll was feeling. The reason for my sudden fear was the sinister gold of anger that swirled violently around his torso. His family hated my family. Our country’s armies faced each other across a river. Was his anger directed at us? The dread that I felt was caused by the dark maroon slithering along his arms and spiraling around his fingers. That indicated his need for revenge against someone who was near.
And then there were the pulses of blue and those pulses were the reason for my hope. For blue was the color of his hope, and as I watched, the blue hues would suddenly appear in various places around his entire body. Even in the gold and maroon bands, a bubble of blue would suddenly emerge; overshadowing the surrounding gold and maroon for a moment, and then the blue would fade and disappear into the miasma of his aura. The blue was more pronounced around his face, but even there the other colors were still dominant. Only in one place, did the blue remain constant, and that was around his heart.
Some of his emotions were barely detectable. The sea green of envy was a faint veil. Whatever his feelings toward my family, he was not envious of our wealth, or of our position in life. The most prominent color I could see was not any of these. The yellow of bitterness was everywhere around him from his soles to his hair. It was his usual color I could tell. It was just submerged for the moment in the others.
But even the knowledge that I could read his emotions was not my greatest shock. What really stunned me, caused my body to tremble, and caused my eyes to moisten with panic was that each time that I saw his vivid blue pulse, my own blue color pulsed in response. In an instant, I realized that the color of hope was the same blue hue in each of us. Suddenly panicked, I instinctively, defensively, tried to modulate my blue so that our colors were not synchronized. It was useless. Helplessly, I felt my blue attuned to his, and I realized after a few minutes of denial that fate or destiny had walked carelessly into the room. For better or for worse, I was his and he was mine. He just did not know it, yet.
