He turned and found his uncle still in his finery from the ball wearing a smug smile. “For forty years I have waited to see this day. You have no idea what I’ve done and sacrificed to see it come to fruition.”
Questions swarmed Icarus to the point that he felt he was caught in a whirlwind unable to grasp at any single one.
“I don’t like you,” Seren said as she came to stand next to Icarus, pressing her body into his side and grounding him in the present.
“I’m fairly certain you don’t like anyone, Miss Marudas, except for apparently my nephew. Icarus, I admit I’m surprised to see you taking up with a student. That’s low even for you.”
Icarus felt as if he were fourteen years old and lost once more. His uncle’s disdain like a knife to old wounds.
“Why don’t you cut to the chase, old man, and tell us why you are here? You must have some villain monologue stored up given its been, what, sixty years of scheming you said?”
For all her bravado, Icarus could see her hands shaking slightly as she clutched the Omnis stone to her chest.
“You are about as tiresome as Calder, but without the wit.” Cyrus sighed. “Very well then. We don’t have long anyway since the two of you took your damn time releasing the Omnis stone.”
Power hummed around Seren and Icarus understood her plan. She was siphoning energy from the omnis stone preparing to attack his uncle. They only needed to keep him talking long enough.
“I wouldn’t do that, Miss Marudas. After all, were you too busy cavorting with my errant nephew to wonder where your sister was?”
The power around Seren snapped as if it broke into a thousand pieces.
“What did you do to her?” Seren’s voice promised retribution.
“Nothing at the moment though that can be easily rectified. Let me tell you what is going to happen. You are going to give me the Omnis stone. and I will give you your sister. Easy enough, I daresay not even you can mess it up, Icarus.”
Ice scraped up his body, coating all the past he tried to bury. “It chose Seren.”
“Obviously, but not a binding agreement. I hated having to break your mother. It was the single worst thing I’ve done in pursuit of this moment.”
His chest wouldn’t expand to take in air. The words his uncle spoke crashed and careened in his mind, a mixture of nonsense and knowing.
“Illiana was a good woman. Too good for your father, but I knew that I needed to break all of you thoroughly enough that no one would get close enough to what was and is mine.”
Icarus fumbled for the words, but nothing came to him except flashes from that night. His mother staring at nothing and his father weeping at her feet.
“You bastard,” Seren said. “It was you. You made him believe he had no choice and that his father was mad.”
“Actually, his father did do it. You recall the magic I showed you, Icarus.”
He could see the delight on his uncle's twisted face as the knowledge washed over Icarus. He felt fragile and lost to the unknown under the weight of his uncle’s scorn and the guilt that threatened to sweep him away.
“That kind of magic isn’t possible without the grimoire.” Icarus’ voice was quiet and haunted.
“And that is where this story gets interesting. You see your father and I found the grimoire months before that night. It was tucked away in a vault in his study, or rather my study now. Atlas Darkmore had it stashed away for his heirs to find and with it was a sweet little book,Mimsey Mae’s Guide to Magical Artifacts.
Seren’s breath caught. “Lily gave me that book.”
“Don’t interrupt, girl, we will get to that,” he said with unabashed delight. “We knew the Omnis stone was in Calami, but not how to get to it. We couldn’t exactly waltz in during the middle of a war. Not to mention we were missing the vessel. At least that was until that night. Word reached us of two powerful sisters in a godsforsaken village with unparalleled power. By the name of Marudas.”
Icarus snaked his arm around Seren protectively. As if sensing the danger to her mistress, Tisiphone slithered in front of them and snapped open her fangs, hissing at Cyrus.
“Terrifying. Anyway, as I was saying. We knew then that if one of them wasn’t the vessel, they would at least have access to the omnis stone, but we were both convinced one of them would be the vessel. Your father wanted to come to a truce with the witches and humankind, knowing that we would have to wait for the sisters to come to Calami. It was a decent plan, but one that seemed crowded. So I found the mind spell in the grimoire and used it on your father. He fought like a rabid animal against it, but the grimoire’s magic is ancient and unyielding. Your mother told him it was alright before he broke her, trying to spare him the burden of what he was about to do. It did nothing in the end as he didn’t even try to fight me when I released him from the spell. Even when I went to get you to witness the carnage, he hardly noticed, too busy weeping at your mother’s feet. I couldn’t have asked for more though when he charged toward you, hoping to save you from me, but looking more like a madman.”
“You destroyed them.” Icarus wished there was more vehemence in the words, but he felt as if his world were not his own. Everything he had believed and based his identity on was elaborate lies.
“You were the one that turned in your father. That was cruel even by my standards.”
“You manipulated him,” Seren growled. “Don’t stand there and act like he had any choice in what he did. You murdered his family and abused vulnerable children.”
