Chapter 23 The Balance of Magic #2
Adriana didn't respond, she didn't have to. He had always suspected there to be a real meaning behind the Romillys’ disappearance.
Divina's death was not sudden, she had been ill quite some time before she had passed away, but her entire family's departure had come as a shock to everyone in the Courts.
Whether Divina had warned them to leave, had seen what would happen, no one knew.
The only potential person who may have known would have been Striga, though Xander very much doubted it.
Surely she wouldn't have allowed Xander to take over her sister’s manor had she known what he would do.
That night, it was clear she knew something, but as to how much she knew, he would never find out.
“Were they good to you?” he asked Adriana, as he conjured another shadow in his hand, pulling and twisting the dark wisps to form a spiral, one that matched his Manipuli brand. He gestured for her to do the same.
“As good as they could be,” she replied, darkness slowly beginning to form around her fingertips.
“I was a nuisance to them, an unwanted pet to be passed down to whichever family member volunteered to take me in.
They never saw me as one of their own, which I understand.
I'm not a Romilly, nor am I just an Incantrix, not anymore. But they still included me as much as they could. While I never learnt the lesser magic they taught, I got to observe their lessons and read their old books.”
Xander frowned. He and Edward had read of lesser magic, of simple spells being cast by those born without abilities that went beyond the natural, but those tales had been based on other worlds, other realities. “The Romillys knew lesser magic?”
“They still do. Any mortals who marry into the family or any children who are not born as Incantrices are taught lesser magic. They usually require something physical to work; cards that are laid out one by one to hint at one’s fortune, trinkets that have been blessed with prayers to the Superi, like Soror to provide guidance or Tutel for protection.
A few of them even use mixtures of herbs for supposed strength or healing, but the only effects I saw were more of an emotional impact rather than physical. ”
“Where did they learn such spells?”
“From Divina, I suppose,” Adriana shrugged, her attention fixed on the shadows in her hands as she attempted to manipulate them to form the same patterns as Xander’s.
“Their books didn’t have an author, or at least not one who made themselves known.
But they reminded me of my great-grandmother’s writing, the way they taught a lesson within a tale. ”
The darkness she held expanded, shadows pulsing against her hold on them, before they suddenly snapped into a similar shape to Xander’s, as if they had eventually given up and succumbed to her will.
Perhaps this was just how a second generation Nocte Lamia’s magic worked, Xander thought.
His brother’s descendents’ magic worked in similar but not identical ways to their creator's. Each person had their own knack for controlling their gifts, or, in Nicolai’s descendents’ cases, couldn't control it at all.
Clearly, Adriana didn't need his help with the darkness.
She had found her way through it alone, and had taken it in her own way.
“Let's take a break for now,” he said, releasing his hold on his shadows. “But I want to work on your light next.”
“I already told you, I can’t reach it like I used to.”
“And the reason you gave me is exactly why I want you to. You're holding back, and not just your magic. If you want to gain your control back, first you must let go of it.”
She chewed at her bottom lip in thought, but Xander didn't pry in her mind. He couldn't persuade her to find her balance, only she could make that decision.
“Very well,” she muttered, her feet kicking at the dirt.
They didn't speak as they ate lunch, and Adriana excused herself to drink another bottle of blood away from him.
He understood why; it was odd for him to have to consider her own bloodlust, too.
As much as he wanted her to feel she could be open with him, especially with her immortal cravings, he knew that it would take time.
He wondered if she always drank this much, or if it was because she wasn't used to using her powers.
Or perhaps it was to soothe the burning urge to hurt him, to attempt to quench the desire to make him pay for what he did.
Whatever the reason, he wouldn't push. But he wanted her to know that she could talk to him, if and when she wanted to.
“I have a few more bottles,” he said, as he watched her return outside, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. He noticed a small speck of blood staining the corner of her mouth, and wondered just how beautiful she would look covered in the blood of her enemies as she fed upon them.
“I'm fine,” she snapped. “Let’s just get on with it.”
She stood before him with her shoulders hunched as if defeated already, before she slowly, reluctantly, raised her hands, turning her palms upward.
Xander could see the slight tremor of her lower lip, and the way her eyes darted around the trees, the ground, anywhere but him.
He knew she didn’t want to do this, but that fear she held, the reluctance to embrace her true power, was the only thing that would bring her back to herself. He was sure of it.
“Breathe, Adriana,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Focus on the warmth within you. Bring it forward, don’t be afraid of it.”
Her jaw clenched and he half expected her to throw back an insult or reject the idea of being scared of her own magic, but she didn’t. She pushed down every thought, every feeling, every ounce of power. Just like she’d blocked it all out that night.
Xander could sense a darkness in her mind, one that moved and flowed the same way as his shadows. It had clung to her ever since that night, ever since he had taken everything away. And it was suffocating her, snuffing out any hope of light and joy.
Her light was her antidote, but to claim it, she would first have to embrace the poison he had left behind.
Adriana squeezed her eyes shut, a tear escaping to trail down her cheek. “I can’t,” she whispered, the words choked. “I can’t do this.”
“You can. It came to you yesterday, you just need to control it.”
“I can’t.”
As she spoke, a subtle shift in the shadows beneath the trees caught his attention from the periphery of his vision.
Their wispy tendrils began to slither forward, poised and ready to flock to her.
Whether they were there to protect her or to consume any flicker of power she possessed, he didn’t know. But he would not let them get her.
With a stern tilt of his head, he urged the darkness to retreat, to give her the space to breathe and continue.
“I can’t find it, I don’t want to,” she sobbed, as she collapsed to her knees, giving up trying to reach for her light. The tears came freely now. “How can I summon something so pure, so good, when my happiness is gone? When I don’t feel like a good person anymore? When I don’t deserve to?”
As her tears continued and her breathing became erratic, Xander felt a distinct pushback against his hold on the surrounding shadows.
It wasn’t just a sense of them waiting anymore; they were actively fighting his efforts to keep them at bay.
And, as if on cue, the air around them began to crackle with energy.
He had seen her lose control many times, and it almost always started the same way.
Sometimes with a spark of a flame, other times with waves in water.
More often than not, it was her lightning that made the first destructive appearance; a raging tempest strong enough to summon the gods.
That familiar hum of electricity dancing through the air warned him of something far more volatile than a simple storm.
But there was no rain, no wind, no lightning. Only power.
Adriana was not the same woman he had known all those years ago.
She no longer worked well with being pushed, but as he read her thoughts, it was clear she did not want niceties either.
The silent plea for solitude raged in her mind, for a simple mercy of being left alone but not wanting to feel lonely.
Of wanting to never see him again but never wishing to be parted from him.
“Tell me what to do,” he said, unable to keep the begging tone hidden from his voice. He crouched down before her, careful to keep his distance. “Tell me how to fix this.”
“There is no fixing this, Xander. What's done is done.”
“Then tell me how I can help right now. It kills me that I can't comfort you, knowing I am the reason you are falling apart. Whatever you need, whatever you want, just tell me.”
She hesitated for a moment, a deep frown forming on her face, but her tears had gradually slowed, the hum of electricity dying down. “Distract me,” she finally said. “I need some sense of normalcy, even though none of this is normal.”
It was an expected request, a tactic that he’d used in the past to calm her powers.
She was right, none of this was normal. Although distracting her from the reality they were in didn’t seem like the right thing to do now, he understood.
If this was what she needed to push through, to find her light again, then he would obey her demands.
“You know that I reformed the Courts in 1925?” he asked, earning a slight nod from her.
“My brothers still don’t know why I restarted them, why I had such a change of heart one day.
To be honest, neither do I. Those years I spent in isolation here were strange.
I’m not sure when exactly it was, or how long it lasted, but I became ill.
Every night I’d wake up sweating, but I wouldn’t be fully awake, as if I had one foot here and the other in another world, one I had conjured in my dreams. It was the first and only dream I’ve had that you weren’t in since… that night.”
Adriana watched him expectedly. “What happened?”
He thought back to those years of loneliness, his self-imposed exile from society.
An unnatural feeling of unease gnawed at him as he tried to remember it all.
He, a man with such immense power over the mind, who remembered every breath, every fleeting thought, every single moment of his existence since his rebirth, had never been able to fill the void where that dream should have been.
His only logical explanation had been that his own Manipuli power had somehow turned against him in his sickness.
Whether that sickness was real or a result of his despair, he did not know, but he could certainly remember it feeling very real.
Another explanation was that it was Superus Quies himself who had barred his magic entry to his ethereal realm in retaliation for what he had done.
Though the Superi did not involve themselves with the acts of those within the lands of the living, he could not help but feel as though a higher power was punishing him.
Or perhaps that was just his wish, so he did not have to be the one to punish himself any longer.
“I can’t remember the specifics or any vivid details,” he explained.
“But when I finally completely woke up in our cottage, I saw flashes, fleeting images, and feelings that I knew were my own but I couldn’t quite remember feeling.
I knew that whatever had happened in this dream, I had played a part in helping them.
And I realised I wasn’t helping anything in the real world by wallowing in my grief and self-pity.
So I thought that I could at least try to help my brothers, to do some actual good in your memory.
I could at least try to make amends for everything I had done. ”
Xander waited for Adriana to respond, to ask him any further questions, but she didn’t. Her tears had stopped, as had the writhing of the nearby shadows, but she seemed to be at an utter loss for words.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“I’d like to rest,” she said, quickly, as she stood from the ground and walked back to the direction of the cottage. Just before she made it to the cobbled path, she paused and turned back to him. “Our cottage,” she whispered, her voice carrying in the gentle breeze.
“What about it?”
“You said our cottage. But you built it after I…” her voice trailed off. “I mean, I’ve never lived there, but you called it ours.”
Xander’s jaw clenched. He hadn’t realised he’d said that. Despite it being the truth, despite always referring to his home as theirs, he felt embarrassed to say it in front of Adriana.
“I know I did,” he replied, turning to face the lake again to hide his reddened cheeks. “Because it is ours. It’s our home.”
He waited for her to leave, waited to hear the door close, before he allowed his tears to fall.
Healing his pain from their past felt unimaginable, but he had to cling onto the hope that he could at least help her.
Even if he could never hold her the way he wanted, even if he could never have her the way he used to, he would take whatever she’d offer him and thank her for it.
He would survive through it all to make sure she learnt how to live again.
If reminding her of just how much she meant to him, how much she still meant, was what she needed to overcome their past and find her balance, then that was what he would gladly do.
And it seemed, from the subtle glimmer of light he’d noticed in her fingertips when he had confirmed their cottage was indeed her home just as much as it was his, he was on the right track.