Chapter 21
There is a terrible darkness that does not bode well with the light. They do not blend yet there is a balance that must be made.
Over two months at Lux and Cedric has been increasingly distant since our last row. Though, I am sure he is tied up with Sawyer in their territory. Avonde mentioned Cedric was handling his brother and I assume they are doing it at Krue.
I’m okay with that.
Avonde has been walking me through my family’s history this morning, which is a slight departure from our regular sessions. She says this is important and I can’t help but agree with her. Garreth sent a message that he could not find anything on the spell at Krue so he will keep searching.
“Is it normal to have such a direct family tree like this?” I ask, tracing the trickle-down genealogy of my bloodline. Our noble house’s branches do not get much more important than our ancestral seat.
“Mostly. Cedric’s family is slightly skewed since they have been the ruling family for the longest period. As you can see, your line starts fairly recently. Nothing else can be dug up past your…” She counts the names on the paper. “Great-grandmother?”
“What were they like? My parents?” I run my fingers over their names, trying to conjure any image of them.
Avonde grabs a larger tome and plops it on the table. Dust plumes from the pages.
“Would you like to see for yourself?”
I don’t need to answer that question. She flings the thick book open and turns it around to face me. There, frozen in time, lay two rough portraits of my parents. My true mother. My father.
My family.
My heart squeezes with pain and grief for the time lost. I knew them once and I would like to know them again. What if it isn’t possible? What if I can’t find my way back?
“You will, Liv. You will. Breathe.”
Panic takes over as I pull my head back to avoid smudging their renderings with my tears.
Elmira Josephine (Green) de Cassas
x
Xristopher Bay de Cassas
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Elivienne de Cassas
My mother is beautiful. Her hair is dark and set with large curls that frame her face. The drawing is not perfect, but it captures her high cheekbones and laugh lines. She smiles faintly for the artist. A small necklace in the shape of a leaf rests on her chest.
My father, Xristopher, is both pale in face and hair. His eyes shine and tilt up as if perpetually happy. He is in a formal costume for court, but his blond hair is unruly.
“My mom looks like a cess,” I mention.
Avonde, who was busying herself with a few documents glances over at the book.
“Oh, it was your father that passed it down. And he passed it from his father. And from there, we’re not sure how the cess gene was introduced into your family.
” My eyes find my father’s again and it’s all too much so I push away from the table to breathe.
“How did they…” I start, my eyes drawn to their portraits some more. The similarities are uncanny. I wonder if I laugh like them. If I am as tall as my mother or my father. Did we have family traditions?
“They passed the year before your accident. A blight tore through the continent. The malady is internal, it claimed many lives that year. Cedric lost his mother to it many years ago and when it came back…” She trails off, a saddened look across her features.
My head snaps up. “No, all four?” Avonde nods and busies herself with some tomes. “The kingdom suffered a great loss.”
Cedric lost his mother years before his father, ascended the throne when I fell into a stasis and has been surviving since.
So many emotions roll through me. How can he sit on that throne?
How can he walk these haunted halls? Cedric has always proven to be deft at hiding his pain, but this is debilitating.
I cannot even remember my parents and here I am, shedding tears for the loss of their memory.
“How could they exist one day and not the next? I thought vampyr were immortal. I don’t even remember their deaths and yet it pains me so.”
“Immortality has many limits. The Gods provide checks on power in so many ways you will come to find out. The blight was connected to an illness in the human population. Thus, different feeder laws. But you can honor your family every day, Liv. Just by living and finding your way back to your truest self. Please rest assured they are peaceful in the Ever. All of them. The Gods have them now and one day you will all be together again.”
I snort, wiping tears away. “You mean a thousand years from now.”
“Time flies when you have a lot of it,” she says, squeezing my hand. “I know you feel like you have lost so much of it already but promise me you will continue to reclaim your life. That you will honor not only your past self but your present and future.”
“I promise,” I say, squeezing back. “What exercises do you want to do today?”
Avonde reaches for a box full of random objects, I can hear them clinking around. When I go to look in, she swats at my head. “No peeking. This is an acumen test. In the past, you were able to conjure the standard power range as the rest of the cess. Some have special gifts.”
“Like how you can read minds?”
Avonde nods. “Precisely, though we were unsure of yours, and the hope was after the Bloodrite that you would manifest but alas, the timeline was shortened.”
“I was able to bring dirt to my hand!”
“That will help today actually,” she chimes.
“How did I lead the cess military division of Lux if I was average?” I snort. Surely my title couldn’t have stretched that far.
“Right.” She swallows. “My apologies for not explaining. You were not – are not – average. Cess can influence the elements. Water, earth, wind, fire. Most at mild levels such as diverting a stream, growing vines, creating wind barriers, melting ice, among other various things. We also conjure other magics like offensive blasts, shields, things like that. It’s a raw magic. ”
“I think I saw that yesterday,” I muse.
“You definitely did.”
My hands, when looking at them, are the greatest mystery. The zaps of magic I feel are so minuscule, I cannot imagine them doing more the way that Yully can.
“Before, you could do all of them at once, Liv. Without thinking about it. Where I can deliver a letter across the continent with wind, you can send it across the Harren Sea. The cess lights all around you were fortified with your magic. An ember that never dies.”
The world around me is so much more vibrant, more alive knowing my untapped potential. As the flames on the wall bounce, I yearn to feel the lick of their warmth upon my skin. Would I burn?
“Today I want to see if you can conjure them individually. There are four elemental items in this box.” Avonde gestures to it once more, sliding the lid back on.
“To begin, ground into yourself for earth. Perhaps you should remove your shoes to feel the natural stone beneath. Close your eyes and hone in.”
Without hesitation, I slip my shoes off and sit on the ground, cross-legged.
In an effort to be more successful, I plant the pads of my fingers into the earth as well, closing my eyes.
Avonde begins instructing me, giving cues that might help me identify the hidden object. No hints, of course. Just suggestions.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Four objects, what could they be? The wall in my mind is present, but unimportant, as I breathe in through my nose and out the same.
A fuzzy cloud appears before me, whirling around slowly as if time has slowed.
Tingles pull through my fingers, up my forearm, winding around my bicep and into my shoulder.
Just the sensation of connecting with the earth like this, almost infinitely, overstimulates me but I focus on it.
Connect.
Find it.
Inhale.
Exhale.
The threading sensation pulls taught as if a string was implanted from my neck to the ground and into the box, something I cannot accurately describe.
“What do you see, Liv?” Avonde’s voice lingers in the background. “Visualize your target.”
On her cue, the fuzzy mass before me begins to produce a shape. While abstract, it takes a slow spin as it forms completely. My hand reaches out, hesitantly, afraid to break the connection.
An elys flower.
My eyes jolt open and Avonde slides the top from the lid and a delicate bloom rises from the inside. Its purple petals catch the light beautifully as it slowly turns.
“I did it,” I breathe.
“Yes, you did.” Avonde reaches for it, plucking the stem from the invisible levitation. “Very well done, Liv. That was incredible. Faster than I would have imagined.”
“What next?” I ask, excitedly.
Footsteps sound at the top of the stairs accompanied by voices so I quickly jump from the ground, wiping the dirt from my dress to face our new guests. Avonde reaches across the table and places the flower in my hair.
Cedric?
Hello, Liv.
I jump in place and Avonde quirks her brow as the voices echo down.
“As I was saying, you really have no luck when it comes to it. If you would let me place the bets, I will get you twice your money back. Guaranteed.”
“Isn’t gambling outlawed?”
“Yes, but I am the king.”
“So let me get this straight, you outlawed gambling only to illegally gamble yourself?”
The two bicker back and forth playfully before Avonde interrupts them with an “Ahem”.
“Pardon us,” Garreth smiles. “Our king just informed me he is quite the bet maker.”
“Bet maker? No, no, my friend. I am a bet winner,” Cedric replies with a wink.
Nice to see you.
I nod back because I can’t figure out how to reply.
“What do you make bets on?” I ask. Garreth flops onto the sofa, boots still on, and places his hat over his eyes for a nap.
Cedric knocks Garreth’s feet from the furniture, both to make room for himself and to keep the place clean from their riding boots.
They must have just gotten here from Krue.
Why they don’t just apparate, I have no idea.
He leans forward, like he’s telling a secret.
“Chess. You would think it’s a fifty-fifty chance but no, it’s more than that.
You have to account for the time of day, sun position, what they ate, have they had ale?
To this date, and mark me, I have yet to lose a chess bet. ”
Avonde snorts.
“Why not just make it legal?”
“My father instituted the law after the nobles were gambling their tax money away. I kept it for the same purpose though it does live on.”
“Surely you see the same nobles at the matches? Do you not fine them?”
He scoffs. “Gods no. Because I’m there in secret as well. Betting on the same games. And taking their filthy money.”
Garreth smacks his hat on Cedric’s head. “If you can’t beat them, join them. Is that your strategy?”
Cedric mimics Garreth but in a much more high-pitched voice before Garreth tackles him to the floor.
“Hey! Hey! Watch the tables. We have potions brewing here from months ago!” Avonde screeches as she shifts the wooden table away from their tomfoolery. I quickly grab my chalice of blood Avonde poured for me when I first arrived.
“Are they always like this?” I sniff the rim.
“Generally. Or much worse.”
I laugh as Cedric puts Garreth in a chokehold using Garreth’s own arm. They’re not tapping into their vampyr strength, simply just tussling like normal people.
“So! To what do we owe this pleasure?” Avonde cuts in, pausing their scrap.
Cedric lends a hand to Garreth and right when Garreth goes to take it, he withdraws and Garreth plops right back down on the floor.
“Ass.”
“Baron sent a messenger. Apparently, he is having one of his infamous gatherings and we have been invited in anticipation for the ball next month.”
“Baron? Who is Baron?” I ask, thinking of the list of people who have been referenced in my time here.
“King Baron Leyer of Gruyere, our northern friends. Baron ascended the throne at a young age and was pulled from formal schooling so we did not get to see him as much as Rolan, for example. But—”
“Baron is a lot and—” Garreth chimes in.
“No, he isn’t, he just favors—”
“The man, Ced, he’s—”
“Gods, man, would you let your king speak for a moment?”
“My king? Do you hear that Liv? And this man says he isn’t classist.”
Cedric drags his hand down his face. “Anyways –” he glares at Garreth – “Baron would like us to make a trip out to celebrate the changing of seasons. We generally don’t travel this much but duty calls, I’m afraid.”
“And duty being bottles of wine and Baron’s fancy for—”
Cedric whacks Garreth’s head with a glare. “Be nice.”
Avonde, completely tuning out their bickering, considers the trip. “Unfortunately, I need to stay back this time. With our new acolytes and the research, my time is tied.”
“We’ll miss you,” I say, sipping on my blood. It has been easier in Lux to feed.
Garreth crosses and uncrosses his legs before nodding in understanding.
“It’s to the north, you say?” I shiver at the thought of a colder climate. In the last week Lux’s temperatures have dropped noticeably and each morning I bundle up more and more when I practice with the cess.
“Indeed. Gruyere to the north, Duresden to the south to south-west, Hollisland to the east and Kilare to the south-east. We’re set right in the middle.”
My mind thinks of a chessboard when imagining the continent.
Five kingdoms, all of which operate around one another and sometimes against each other, from the way I understand those to the south.
While the High Council surely provides much peace, I wonder the just how much power allyship holds here.
In a game of chess, which piece is Duresden? And which is Lux?