Chapter 27 Antonia #2
I re-read the relevant segment from the beginning.
I read it a third time.
The blood drained from my face as I read through it a fourth.
One possible and surprising example of these so-called “collaborative conditions” comes, ironically, from the most infamous of the magical disorders ever to be recorded, the text noted.
There is persuasive anecdotal evidence to suggest that the notorious birth defect, caelum ignis, might in some cases actually be tempered by a form of magical symbiosis reported to occur in at least two separate incidences.
The most famous of these, of course, is the case of the bloodthirsty tyrant, Konstantin “The Dragon” Petrov, who decimated much of Eastern and Central Europe.
I swallowed, then flipped the page to read on.
There were some at the time who dismissed Petrov’s powers, saying that if he truly were a caelum ignis, the condition would drive him into insanity, thus righting the problem via the natural order.
Even back in those years, when the magi-sciences were significantly more limited, it was believed by all that insanity was the preordained lot of the caelum ignis, that it could not be avoided and therefore, one had only to wait the condition out.
The thinking was, if they could simply avoid confrontations with Petrov while he remained at full strength, The Dragon would be easy to eliminate once he descended into full irrationality.
He would make mistakes, do foolish things, even die by his own hand.
But those waiting for that outcome would wait in vain.
Unlike most Magicals suffering from his condition, The Dragon did not fall into insanity or loss of control as he aged, although this is, admittedly, the usual fate of the caelum ignis.
There is some speculation that the reason for this was his wife, Antonia Petrov, a formidable witch in her own right, who displayed similar abilities as her husband, although she herself was not believed to have been born with his condition.
It is now thought by many experts in magical ailments that a caelum ignis only survives the transition to adulthood and the maturity of their powers through the taking of a mate able to share that power with them.
This is the purest form of magical collaboration, and may eventually prove the disorder to be more of an adaptation following the Separation, and not a “disorder,” per se, as such things are usually defined.
While this is theory only, those studying the condition agree that it could go far to explain why Petrov remained high-functioning throughout his life, despite the powers he displayed.
It might also explain the strange case of Junger Richelieu, who lived a relatively normal life until the death of his own wife, who may have served a similar function.
Unlike Petrov, who clearly had larger ambitions, Richelieu managed to stay out of the eye of Magical Law Enforcement by means of hiding his condition through an utterly ordinary existence.
He owned a small apothecary which he managed with his wife, had many friends and two children who appeared perfectly normal.
He may not have been identified as a caelum ignis at all, but for his wife’s sudden death from illness, which immediately caused him to degenerate into the worst excesses and instabilities of his condition.
While his children and close friends were apparently unharmed, he destroyed his own shop and several other buildings of note in the village where he’d lived his entire life, starting with the medical facility that had treated his wife, and the healers who had been unable to save her.
Richelieu was caught and killed by Praecuri on his way to the nearby town of Rotterdam, where it was believed he intended to go after the medical facility there.
More known cases of caelum ignis would be needed to solidify this theory into something beyond mere speculation, but it does potentially explain how Petrov maintained lucidity throughout his life, despite his questionable ideologies and the uses to which he put his own abilities.
Sadly, no one got the opportunity to ask either of the Petrovs this question. His wife, Antonia, took her own life the day after Petrov was finally gunned down in a field in Bavaria at the age of two hundred and three.
I sat there, shaking for a few minutes, before I was able to read on.
I couldn’t process how I felt. Relief? The relief was so intense I couldn’t really articulate it to myself at first, as it slowly sank in that Bones’s condition wasn’t as hopeless as he’d believed.
Terror? I felt absolute terror when I thought about what this might truly mean for him and for me, and how Bones might interpret that information.
I couldn’t pull apart the two feelings enough to make sense of either.
In the end, I could only read on.
There was more about Antonia in the book.
I read through all the descriptions of military campaigns and the various battles, and there were many mentions of Petrov’s wife, Antonia, fighting alongside Konstantin and appearing to wield similar powers as her husband.
I found it both interesting and disturbing that none of the other references to Petrov I’d found had mentioned this.
I checked the publication date and realized the book I’d just read had been transcribed and translated from handwritten scrolls, so the publication date for the bound version was somewhat misleading.
A publisher’s note at the beginning stated the text was believed to be almost two hundred years older than any of the others I’d read.
I couldn’t help wondering if, at some point in the time since, scholars, or possibly even one of the magical authorities, decided information about how a caelum ignis stabilized their powers wasn’t good information to be sharing.
For one thing, it might throw into question whether every child born with the affliction should be murdered as a baby.
Richelieu made the case that one could live a normal, even happy life as a caelum ignis, if perhaps one under a certain degree of supervision and intervention.
I definitely suspected Antonia’s non-inclusion in later histories had been deliberate.
Again, I could guess a few reasons why it might have been suppressed, and not only to justify the current––and to my mind, barbaric––laws still on the books in all of the major Magical governments of the world.
Regardless of the precise reasons, it was disturbing.
I read through every chapter about the war.
I tore off a piece of parchment and stuck it in every part of the volume that explained about Antonia, Petrov’s wife, and her relationship with Konstantin. When I finished, I didn’t set that book back in the stack, but placed it on the coffee table.
After a bare pause, I summoned one of the school’s drakai.
It couldn’t wait.
I needed to send it to Bones immediately.
The drakai appeared in a swirl of red and orange smoke and fire, and once I told it what I needed, it flew back out through the kitchen window I’d opened for it, the enormous book disappeared somehow inside it’s body, just like Bones’s letter had been the night before.
In an instant, the drakai was gone, and the book was out of my hands.
Bones would read it when he read it.
The thought made me instantly anxious again.
I was trying very hard not to connect the dots on how I’d been feeling lately, vis a vis the magical connection between me and Bones, and what I’d just read.
I definitely wasn’t succeeding.
The Antonia stuff created a knot in my heart I could scarcely breathe through.
Caelum hadn’t known. I was sure he hadn’t. He hadn’t even known the name or nature of his own condition until the last day of Yule. I absolutely hated the fact that I had to be the one to tell him both things.
Pushing that from my mind, I forced myself to read the segments on caelum ignis in the next book in the pile I’d brought back with me from the Tower.
Varya insisted I take them with me when she found out I’d been conducting research in the Bones library, using books unavailable at the library here, at Malcroix.
She’d been adamant that I borrow whatever I needed, and simply return them to Bones, or send them directly to the Tower via university post.
The next text ended up being another transcribed scroll, and had a lot more information on Antonia Petrov, including where they’d met, her own accomplishments as a witch prior to meeting Konstantin, and a number of other biographical details for both of them.
By all accounts, she’d been a strong witch before she’d married Petrov.
She’d completed apprenticeships and masteries in both transmographication and seeing arts before they met, and was also said to be gifted in theosophy.
Later, Antonia personally ran the team of spies they sent against their enemies during the wars, and was rumored to be the mastermind behind many of The Dragon’s battle strategies.
It was a pity they’d chosen to channel all that magical talent into dark sorcery, not to mention they’d decided to wield it against people like me.
By the time the sun started dipping closer to the horizon, I couldn’t read anymore.
In the end, I fell asleep on the couch, Wraith curled up on my stomach.
I dreamed about wars in distant, snowy lands, a mage in a dark cloak, his face hidden behind a gold dragon mask, standing at my side.