Chapter 53 #2
“If you’re losing power, and the power is from our bloodline, why aren’t I losing it, too?”
Simeon shook his head. “Each wielder’s magic is their own.”
“And why is yours weakening?” There was a reason, though I knew he wouldn’t tell me. I’d felt the steadily fading buzz of magic both here and at the fortress. “If you don’t tell me what I need to know, how do you expect me to?—”
“No, Aryella!” he snapped. “If you give a damn about a single life on this continent, you will do as I say.” A dismissing wave of his hand, and the doors flew open. “Training starts tomorrow.”
“I won’t just comply blindly with whatever you want!”
“Then everyone else you love will die, Aryella.” He narrowed his eyes. “Do you want their blood on your hands?”
I shook my head in disbelief. “How much blood is on yours ?”
His shoulders fell ever so slightly, but he recovered quickly. “Not as much as your precious Smyth had on his.”
The air whooshed from my lungs before I growled, “Keep his name out of your fucking mouth.”
“Come back in the morning for training,” he uttered slowly, “and perhaps I will.”
I hesitated, wishing I had it in me to kill him right here and now. But I knew I needed Simeon to protect the people I loved. With the wards weakening and my inability to strengthen them without his guidance, I didn’t feel I had much choice but to leave him alive, and work with him. For now.
I slammed the door of his study behind me. Instead of setting him on fire like I wanted to, I just imagined I did.
I was nauseous the entire walk to Simeon’s study the next morning.
When I entered, I saw him peering into a tall glass beaker filled with steaming and bubbling purple liquid.
His eyes were focused and curious—a stark contrast to the confident, manipulative, and coldly cruel man I spoke to yesterday. Maybe today, he would be different.
“Give me two minutes,” he said without looking up. “Feel free to look around.”
Not having had much opportunity to browse yesterday, I took advantage of his invitation to keep myself from running like I wanted to.
The back wall of his study was lined with bookshelves, far more than in the Barracks but still nothing close to the library in Tovick.
Plenty of the books I recognized, having at least skimmed through already.
I knew my uncle was controlling what information about Nyrida’s past and magic was accessible, and I doubted how much I would find both here and in the cave library Gemma had already told me about, though I planned on visiting there soon, too.
I migrated over to a table covered in sketches of all kinds. Weapons, saddles, shields, buildings. Some maps, too.
“Have you used all twelve of your powers?” Simeon asked.
“Eleven,” I answered. “All but one.”
He tensed, refusing to look at me. “Which one?”
I shifted uncomfortably. Of all twelve gods, this was the one I needed most. The things Nyxar could do with his darkness far exceeded Molochai’s shadow powers.
He could move the heavens, turn day into night and night into day.
With a single touch, life could cease to exist in a cloud of mist. At his full strength, he could even nullify the powers of the other gods.
“Nyxar’s spoke is there, but it’s not solid . I can’t grasp it.”
Simeon closed his eyes in defeat, but he didn’t look shocked. Had he expected me to fail before I’d barely begun? “That night in Brinnea, with Molochai, did your powers manifest?”
I recalled the sheer helplessness I’d felt that night. “No.”
“None of them?”
I shook my head.
“Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I snapped. “Maybe because you starved them out of me.”
Simeon ignored my attitude. “But you wielded power twice before that night. Not so easily as now, but you did. Viridian, to heal that boy in Tovick, and then Rainar’s water to drown that beast. Why couldn’t you wield in Brinnea?”
“Because I had already given up,” I admitted shamefully. “When I found out who I truly was while stripped naked and tied to a tree by shadows, I realized how stupid I’d been to try and reason with evil . I felt helpless, deceived, furious at myself for being so impulsive, and I. Gave. Up. ”
Simeon’s chilling apathy simmered into something slightly warmer.
“I am very sorry that happened to you, Aryella.” A small smile pulled at his mouth.
“Your mother tried to reason with him, too. You’re much like her in that way, always seeing the best in people, giving them chances they don’t deserve, but all it does is end up hurting you.
” His grin faded. “The day your mother went to Molochai to try and reason with him was the day she began to die a slow, terrible death.”
Hearing about Christabel made my heart soften in a way I didn’t want around Simeon, but he was my only connection to the past I longed to know. Yet another reason I felt like I was still stuck under his thumb. My only access to my real mother was through him.
“Even if you had tried to fight him, I’m not sure it would have mattered.” Green eyes identical to mine peered back at me, turning grave.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The Selvaren are a unit,” he explained. “They are most powerful when together. They draw from each other. Yes?”
I nodded. I’d read this so many times I could recite it.
“For you , that means your power cannot reach its full potential until you can access every single one. Without Nyxar, you will not be strong enough. Molochai will snuff out every flame you throw at him, melt every flake of ice, still every gust of wind?—”
“I get it.”
“Do you?” Simeon countered. “In its full effect, Nyxar’s power can nullify the others. If you cannot eclipse Molochai’s darkness with your own, you’ll stand no chance against him.”
My dread felt heavy. “Then what do I do?”
He retreated to the corner of a room and hauled forward a massive tome. “My wards are the one thing his magic cannot pass through. We start with protection, so that you can continue warding when I cannot.”
When, not if.
“Why are the wards failing?” I pressed again. “Why are you weaker?”
He gave me nothing. All that could be heard was the bubbling of potions brewing on the wood stove in the corner. Maybe months ago, I would have stayed quiet and accepted what I was told, but not today.
Don’t let anyone leave you in the dark. Ask questions. Keep asking them until you get what you need.
I recited those words in my mind, in his voice.
“I will learn everything you wish to teach me, on one condition,” I stated boldly.
Simeon’s nostrils flared. He gestured for me to continue.
“I will ask questions, and you will answer. After every question, you get an hour of my time.”
“You will maybe get answers,” he corrected me, opening a book before us. “But you are welcome to ask your questions.”
I had hoped we would make progress today. That he would be more forthcoming with information and that I wouldn’t have to pry it out of him. Playing his game would have to suffice. “I go first.”
Simeon crossed his arms impatiently while I scrambled to come up with a question. Where to start?
“Why did you wait four hundred years to wake me up?” I spat out the first one that came to mind. “It doesn’t take that long to raise an army.”
Once more, Simeon gave me silence.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. “You were waiting for him to move on, weren’t you? Hoping he’d… give up?”
Simeon’s eyes darted nervously in my direction. It was all the confirmation I needed.
“You wanted to outlast him.”
“I needed time to understand your abilities, Aryella.”
“No.” I shook my head. “You’re smart. Selfish, but smart. It wouldn’t have taken you that long. It didn’t . You let a whole continent suffer through centuries of bloodshed just to get your way.”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“How?” I demanded. “If there’s some complex reason, don’t you think I deserve to know?”
“You do,” he agreed without hesitation. “But that was your one question, which I have answered. We now have an hour, and then you can ask another.”
I gritted my teeth together. This might require more patience than I was capable of.
Thankfully, the basics of the magic in our bloodline was simple.
Knowledge of spells—words in the language of the gods.
We started with materialization. He had me put my hand on an object, whisper an incantation, make it disappear on one side of the room only to reappear on the other, much like he had with our notes but on a smaller scale.
“Close your eyes and visualize it,” he instructed, guiding my hand over a piece of fruit. “Focus on how it feels in your palm. The rind, the coolness and roundness of it. Then, say the word and let that feeling go. Envision where you want it to land.”
I lost track of how many times I tried and failed. Whispering foreign words to inanimate objects felt ridiculous, but after many failed attempts and fruit that wouldn’t just move , I succeeded.
“Now bring it back,” he ordered. “Reverse it.”
By the time I succeeded again, at least an hour had passed.
“Shouldn’t we move to warding, if that’s the priority?” I inquired, slumping down in a chair from exhaustion.
“Is that your question?” Simeon leaned against the table. The man protected the grimoire like it was his only child.
“I— no .”
For the first time since I’d met him, he laughed. A strange, melodic sound that warmed my blood with an inexplicable trickle of joy.
“Warding is more complex,” he answered calmly. “It will take a while for you to learn it.”
“How long did it take you?”
“Five years.”
My gut twisted. I had a feeling Simeon’s remaining magic wouldn’t last five years.
“Your real question, then?” he questioned.
I had so many. One, about whatever entity was strangling me in my sleep, but she hadn’t come back for days. I should ask about the magic again, where it came from and how Simeon and Molochai obtained it, but my instinct was pleading for me to ask something long overdue.
Don’t let anyone leave you in the dark.