Chapter 2 #2
Aemelia’s expression softened for a moment, shifting from rage to a deep, familiar ache. "Ah, always the golden boy. Ophelia, you have loved the idea of him since we were thirteen. He was always the noble Aenite prince, the light to your... well, your blight."
"It was a beautiful dream," I admitted, my voice hollow. "But we always knew, deep down, that it was just that. A High House like Valerius, with his father on the Consortium, and me... a blighted Ashworth. It was just a story we told ourselves."
"It was a good story," Aemelia countered, a spark returning to her eye.
"And he was good practice for your heart and for...” she raised her eyebrows smiling.
“But now the practice is over. You must learn all about the enemy to defeat it, don't you agree?
" She leaned in, her aura flaring with defiant energy.
"Remember when we thought Headmistress Elara was having an affair with the Dark Matter tutor? Everyone said we were mad."
A small, choked laugh escaped me. "And you used your 'Enlighter' gift, which was just incurable nosiness back then, to weave a truth-light into her study desk."
"And we found the letters!" Aemelia grinned, a flash of the girl I grew up with. "Not an affair. She was a spy for the Low Houses! That's when you dubbed me 'Lady Sleuth,' and we swore we'd uncover every rotten secret in this city."
My smile faded. "My point is, Lady Sleuth," I said, my voice dropping, the levity shattered by the return to reality. "That was a tutor's pathetic secret. This is Cain Alistair. This isn't a truth we can just uncover; it's a cold, consuming silence I can't seem to filter out."
Aemelia squeezed my fingers, and I felt the raw, chaotic magenta of Aemelia’s aura wash over my Empathy, not muffling the pain, but surrounding it with a protective volatility, like a lightning shield around a fragile flower.
"Then let me scream for you, Oph. Let me carry some of the fury," Aemelia whispered.
“But the future seems sealed. If you flee, they dissolve your House. If we fight in plain sight, they will try to silence us. And the Treaty... the whole balance... Oh, the pressure that has been placed on you, Ophelia…”
"I know," I cut in, the weight of my altruism settling on me like a shroud. "It's the Treaty. I can feel the weight of Aeternia and the human realm on my shoulders. I won't be the reason it all fails. I will sacrifice myself if need be, but I won't do it without a fight."
Aemelia's fiery energy dimmed to a smouldering coal, her shoulders slumping. Plume settled briefly on Poppy’s head, the starling’s whirlwind of iridescent rainbow light contrasting sharply with my fox's subtle, honeyed gold. The finicky Plume, a creature of high-strung, lady-like delicacy, regarded Poppy’s sturdy, unapologetically beastly attitude with obvious, flickering contempt.
Yet, for this singular moment, their shared grief took precedence, creating a fragile, silent truce between the unlikely companions.
Aemelia looked at the vast, sprawling city below.
"They think the High House Valerius is the Light.
They forget that the Ashworths were the true source of creation, the root.
Why would the Consortium risk this pairing?
We know he's The Prince of Death, the Death Toucher, and the most powerful Pain Eater they have ever seen.
They must need you to stabilise him, not surrender to him.
What if he's the one with a fatal instability?
We know that power corrupts the mind and corrodes the soul.
" A dangerous glint appeared in her eyes. "That way, we don’t fight the rule. We fight the male.”
I felt a flicker of reckless hope, but instantly crushed it. “His power is beyond anything we can imagine. He doesn't use magic on a whim; he simply exists and he is calculated. His very presence is a weapon. We are no match for him, Em.”
Aemelia snorted, the sound utterly devoid of fear.
“Oh, 'his very presence is a weapon,'” she mocked, pitching her voice low.
"You're buying into his legend already. We don't even know what he looks like.
For all we know, that armour is hiding a male with crossed eyes and a nose like a pickled cucumber. "
I couldn't help it; a raw, hysterical laugh bubbled up in my chest. "Aemelia Godley, that is just vile."
"I'm just saying, no need to grant him his full titles yet!” she insisted, her eyes dancing with mirth.
"Maybe he's got a really tiny...." She winked.
"There's always a weakness, Oph. The more they hide, the more pathetic the secret.
He's probably compensating for a very small...
sword of vengeance and death," she says the last two words in a gravelly, hoarse voice, making herself cough.
The humour worked. My panic subsided a little, replaced by the familiar cold resolve of a fight. This was us. This was what we did. We had each other's backs.
I pulled back, my spine stiffening. My eyes were hard and focused. This was the shift from victim to combatant, powered not by magic, but by a fierce refusal to surrender and one brilliant friend.
“I’m not going to break, Em. I’m an Ashworth, and we specialise in enduring chaos,” I declared, the words a fierce, quiet promise.
“If he thinks he has me, a broken doll he can play with. Well, he has miscalculated the cost of my light. And he has no idea of what I’m truly capable of.
I will survive this, as I have survived worse.
And if there's a way to turn his power against him, I will find it.”
Aemelia’s energy flared into a brilliant, determined magenta. "Then let’s begin with the schematics." We immediately hunched over her map, switching the sheet of paper, our entire moods becoming a tense dance of pragmatism and wild speculation.
Aemelia walked to the small, cluttered desk tucked into the alcove.
I stared as she pulled a shimmering, palm-sized orb of fused crystal from one of the lower drawers—a specialised tool used by her kind to channel and anchor truth.
I watched, as I always did, with a fascination bordering on reverence; Aemelia's fierce, methodical work ethic was as much a source of power as her untamed magic. She held the orb in her palms, her aura spiking as she began to infuse the crystal with intent, anchoring a network of observation deep within the city’s unseen magical currents.
Aemelia finally released the crystal, which now pulsed with a faint internal light. “Right. Now, this little thingamabob can scout the underbelly of our beloved quarters to find anything that could be relevant. One can hope it works better this time.”
"I need to know everything about him. Like you said, nobody even knows what he looks like," I replied, my eyes fixed on the distant black spire in the west, one I knew was attached to the Alistair House.
"His habits, his fears. I need the Cenite texts.
Everything emotional has a pattern, a backstory, a core vulnerability.
I need to find the flaw within the Void. "
“I'll try to find an angle through the Consortium directly,” Aemelia vowed. “I’ll use any excuse Consul Althea gives me to get close to their private archives. I hate that place, Ophelia. My truth-weaving magic always goes haywire around High Cenite Consul Malathor—like his presence is actively trying to twist the light itself.”
The raw force of Aemelia's loyalty was the warmest, most terrifying magic I had ever known.