Chapter 8 Winter #4
I looked between them all. “Let me guess, The Shadowed uses its whisper network to track the members of Temperance, and once they get a lock on them, Pops, Grandpa and Grandma confiscate the Nihilumbra? It can’t be any of the rest of you because of the anti-magic properties from The Void aspect that’s one of the ingredients? ”
“Actually, because that’s fused with the essence of the Veil, it doesn’t impact all magic-wielders, only those operating on death-touched resonance,” Mom explained.
“Like me, with my Wraith side, your dad as a necromancer. Because I’m also Dark Fae, which is not a death-touched magical nature, I’m able to break free of it. Your dad can’t.”
“Yet,” Dad ground out. “Tests are still ongoing.”
“For me, right? It’s about finding a way to free me of it.”
“Of course.”
“Dad, even if you find a way, I’m still part Wraith, and the only reason Mom could manage it, as she said herself, is because she also has her Dark Fae side.”
“Let me handle it. I always find a way. You know that.”
“Damn fucking straight,” Pops said.
“Why did he let you go?” Zayn asked all of a sudden.
I frowned. I thought I’d explained things enough where that entire misconstrued abduction was concerned. “He just wanted to talk.”
“But he needs you for something, to power his parasite… whatever. You also said his ability to do that is weakening. So it’s urgent.
Why let you go, then? Why already try to seduce you with showing he’s the only one who’s found a way to protect you from that Nihilumbra shit, basically bonding with you? ”
“Seducing me? That’s not what happened,” I said, screwing up my face at the thought of it. I looked at him, Vax, and Evira in turn. “I wouldn’t allow anything like that. It’s the four of us now, nothing and no one else.”
“We’re all well aware and that’s not in question. I didn’t mean it in a sexual way, Win. There are other forms of seduction.”
“I… he said it wasn’t time yet, that I wasn’t ready.”
Dad’s eyes narrowed. “Is that why you begged me to train you?”
I flinched. “You think I’d only come to that conclusion about the training under the influence of another? Somebody I’d just met?”
“It’s not your fault, Winter,” Father said. “This is what Ruxnoth does and he’s lived for centuries perfecting these psychological assaults and manipulations.”
“I’m not manipulated. Sure, yes, he said I need to be ready, but with everything else that was brought up, the fact I was taken and couldn’t prevent damage to Ambrose just because Ruxnoth was protected by some necromancers, then hearing about Temperance, what Sanctus needs from me, and realizing the bigger scope of what all of you are protecting me from…
it all made it undeniable that I can no longer run from my fear of delving deeper into Necromancy.
” I sucked in a breath. “And maybe if I take it all the way, there’s a chance that those who fear me will see that I’m not going to become like Morien. ”
Dad turned from me and looked out at the family.
“You see what that fucker has done? No matter which way we go, he’s forced this training on his terms. If I do it, it could serve him and ready Winter.
If I don’t do it, Winter is at a disadvantage.
And with Ruxnoth making himself known, it’s only a matter of time before this all comes out, so Winter will need to be able to defend himself at maximum power and optimal knowledge base. ”
“Dad, no. You don’t get it. I’ve wanted to take the burden off the family for a long time.
I just thought that I could do that by moving out, thinking you’d see I was fine on my own.
And growing my Wraith power and abilities—which I’m all set in.
But I see now that it also needs to be the Necromancy. ”
“Oh, Win,” Mom uttered. “You’re not a burden to us. You’re our son. Look at your Pops. Grandpa and Grandma are still very much involved in his safeguarding, despite his age. It has nothing to do with that and everything to do with it being what family does. We don’t see it as a chore.”
“I understand that, Mom. But in my case, it’s different and you all know it.
The danger is much greater. Pops isn’t feared so intensely and by so many.
I am. And I always will be. Now knowing about this Temperance situation and that there are protocols in place with the Guardian Movement and all those in a position of command specifically against me if I step out of line, we’re talking about the very real possibility of all of you being wiped out in defense of me.
That’s not a normal familial safeguarding situation. ”
“It is with our family, Win,” Pops insisted.
Fuck. Their mentality and approach that they just couldn’t allow themselves to waver on was exactly why I needed to do this.
It was exactly why I worried so much about the worst coming to the worst. And it was all the more devastating now I’d found out from Ruxnoth just what that worst actually was.
A lot of what Ruxnoth had told me rang true, but not everything.
He’d said Dad wouldn’t survive my rise, me growing in power. If I remained on this plane. Obviously, because he’d wanted me to go with him to Sanctus.
But he’d missed the fact that once I came into my full power, I would then have the means to stop my family—even the great Sylas Morgrave—from going to those lengths for me.
I could change their fates.
I could finally safeguard them.
I could protect my family, my loves.
“Head back to Loxley Academy and settle in for a few days, then we’ll begin your training,” Dad announced.
Just like that.
What the—
“Really? Even with you worrying that Ruxnoth—”
“Like he said, you need to be ready.”
With that, he turned from me.
“Sylas,” Mom called after him.
He held up his hand. “I’ve said all that can be said at this time. I have research to do in my lab.”
Pops shot to his feet. “You can’t just—”
Father shook his head at him, some sort of look I couldn’t decipher passing between them. Were they mind-linking? They rarely did that, but it was still possible between all four of them. Pops was particularly good at it, because he did it a lot with Grandpa.
Dad stopped at the door. I tensed, worry and hope sparking in equal measure that he wasn’t just walking off.
But then he looked at Vax instead. “Don’t break that tether. Are we clear?”
Vax nodded.
My dad lifted his chin, then strode out of the room.
In the next second, Pops was darting out after him.
I turned to Vax. “Tether?”
He fiddled with his crown, then told me, “Magical and scent tracking were not possible, but we were able to find you because I’d previously tagged you with a tether.”
“Basilisk vibrational tracking?”
“Yes.”
Well… that was… a lot.
Zayn nudged me. “I told him you’d get it, because of how you can be when you’re really into someone. Or someones.”
I grunted.
Vax winced. “I apologize, little death. I know how it seems. I did it shortly after you disappeared that awfully long night when you blocked my ability to track you.”
“It’s not that. Zayn’s right. I can be obsessive and territorial too. It’s that you risked so much by doing it. Risked yourself, Vax. That’s a guarded ability.”
“It will be kept among your family here and those involved in finding you,” Evira assured me.
That was the hope.
But lately so many secrets had come to light. This could be yet another one of them.
She grasped my arm, insisting, “We’ll protect him.” Her sparkling smile radiated. “We’ll protect each other.”
Translation: don’t lone-wolf it.
I’d made them a promise concerning that.
But I’d also made a promise to myself that being what I was wouldn’t actively harm them. And with what I’d come to know in the last few hours, I couldn’t just pretend that didn’t alter things. I couldn’t pretend that things stood where they had before Ruxnoth had snatched me away.
They’d shifted.
The stakes had shifted.
And I knew, I fucking knew it deep in my bones, if I didn’t shift accordingly, everything would be lost.
They’d all fall.
I scrubbed my hand over my face.
“You see, it’s always one step away from you being acted upon. To being punished for just being what you are.”
Those words of his… the punishment he’d referred to would touch my loves too now, those who hadn’t signed up for this by being my blood. Those who had been yanked into it by the most innocent thing of all—their love for me.
Something that all of this could twist irreparably.
No. Worse. Something it could poison beyond saving.
How the fuck could I balance these two worlds without breaking something in the process?
I reached out and grasped Evira’s hand on me.
As I felt her raw conviction and adoration, as I looked out and felt the same from Zayn and Vax… I couldn’t even bear the notion of it. Of breaking them.
Us.
Even if it meant saving them.
And what kind of person would it make me if I couldn’t step up and do that if it came down to it?
Was there sometimes no choice?
Was there no other way to protect those I loved than by shattering them?