He knew that Finley would likely regret missing seeing him unpluck the final strands that held Declan hostage to his human looks and suppressed magic. But he’d been right to go to the Bastons. He could only imagine what Declan must be going through right then. The last thing he needed was for the people he loved to reject him.
Yet is that not what it means to be a Vex? To be rejected and alone? To use our power to protect ourselves and thwart others that would do us harm?
His mother had told him countless times that they didn’t have friends, they didn’t have allies, all that they had were enemies and obstacles. And she’d treated everyone like that including him and Haera really if he looked back on it. She would have treated their father that way if he had ever been present enough and not half-gone on the fumes of the lotus to see him as a threat. Sometimes, Rhalyf had wondered if his father had sought the oblivion of drugs as the only way to deal with a wife who long ago had cast aside any tenderness she might have felt towards him.
“You think I am hard on you, Rhalyf?” she’d mocked him one evening after dinner when she’d destroyed a spellbook of his. A spellbook that he’d painstakingly created and treasured. But she’d turned it into a pile of ashes at his feet. Hot tears had run down his cheeks. Rage and pain had squeezed his throat like a vise, keeping any words from coming out. “You have no idea! My father…” Here, her red eyes had grown distant and a faint tremor went through her. She rarely spoke of his grandfather. Vex had killed him long ago. “He was the first king in the Under Dark. And he ruled before we knew how to protect ourselves against the dangers here.”
“So he destroyed your work?” Rhalyf’s voice had been thin and tight. A boy’s voice. But a man’s grief.
“Work? Work?!” She let out a wild bitter laugh. “No, he destroyed my eldest brother!”
Rhalyf’s head snapped up at this. She had never mentioned another sibling other than Vex. “Older than you and–and Uncle?”
“Yes,” she said, her expression going bleak. “Lysanthir. He was brave, kind, generous…” Her voice drifted off. These descriptions had never left her lips before. Not about any Kindreth. Let alone family.
Rhalyf blinked his tears away. Maybe losing the spellbook was worth it if he could learn something about someone his mother called kind without mockery. “What happened to him?”
“He wanted to defend our people,” she said with a sour press of lips. “So my father gave him that opportunity as a bound soul. The first one of his kind.”
Rhalyf drew in a sharp breath. He had heard of this darkest of magics. Binding souls to weapons had been what they’d done before Vex had discovered the far more powerful art of Blood Weapons and Armor. Vex had outlawed the practice of binding souls, which was a rare act for him. Normally, he allowed unfettered experimentation when it came to magic. But somehow the act of using a soul in this way offended him. Maybe it was because he had cared for Lysanthir.
“It was Vex’s fault that it happened really,” his mother’s voice dripped with anger.
“What did Uncle do?” he asked softly.
Her lips had flattened. “Your uncle’s magic didn’t manifest for a very long time. People thought he would never cast. They considered him defective.”
Rhalyf blinked slowly. His wet lashes were sticking together so he rubbed them dry. He couldn’t imagine his godlike uncle ever not having magic. Everything the Kindreth had was based off of Vex’s magic. Illithor and all the cities of the Great March. They were feared and respected because of Vex. His magic was beyond anyone and anything else. He illuminated the dark. He molded the light. He was everything magical. To think of him as not being able to wield even a single spark seemed insane to Rhalyf.
“We were barely clinging on in the uppermost levels of the Under Dark then. Starving. Hunted. On the brink of extinction. And here was the middle son of our king being completely bereft of magic!” She let out a bitter laugh. “My father’s position was tenuous as it was. Not that we had much time or ability to fight amongst ourselves as we were being picked off on all sides. But Vex’s weakness made everyone think that we were in that position because there was something wrong with our family!”
“But Uncle has magic. All the magic,” Rhalyf had insisted in his small, little boy’s voice.
“Yes, yes, he does!” His mother let out another laugh. “Not that Lysanthir cared either way. Vex could stay without magic and still be cherished in his view. He defended your uncle against our father’s attacks. Against anyone and anything that would harm Vex. His Xel was precious. He was Xel’s great protector. And he would let no one forget it. And your uncle idolized him for it. I suppose that was why his magic finally manifested when Father bound Lysanthir.”
Rhalyf drew in a sharp breath. For a moment, he could almost imagine it. A Xelroth Vex no older than him, but without the ability to create even a wisp, watching with huge, tear-filled eyes as his brilliant and brave older brother’s soul was pulled from his body and stuffed into a weapon or piece of armor, fueling its enchantments. He swore he heard a ghostly shriek from his uncle’s boyhood lips…
“Not that it did Lysanthir any good. Even after Vex destroyed our father, he could not free Lysanthir. Nothing he did could release our brother’s soul back into the river to be reborn,” she shook herself as she finished her tale. Then her eyes had fixed upon him again. She nudged the ashes of his precious spellbook. “So you may hate me and think me hard for destroying this spellbook, Rhalyf, but I’ve taught you a lesson that it took Lysanthir’s life to teach Vex and that is this: you must be strong enough to protect what you value or someone else will take it from you and may even destroy it. Do you understand?”
He had.
But she and Haera had been stronger than him, able to take everything that mattered from him, so he had stopped himself from caring about anyone or anything too deeply. Best to simply shrug and laugh even as he died a little inside as they destroyed innocent servants, precious knowledge and, finally, the belief that they had loved him at all.
He looked down at Declan’s handsome, if pained, face. He heard Aquilan’s beloved voice in the hallway and Finley’s light step coming up the stairs. Had he forgotten his mother’s lesson? Because it seemed impossible to be strong enough to protect all of these people from what was coming.
But I have to try.
Reflection
Venomthorn Academy, Nhamashel, Under Dark, Fifteen Years Ago…
Rahven stared down at his right hand as the purple magic crackled over the surface of his palm. He had been Awakened. He was not a Null! When he grinned though, his throat tightened and hurt from where Vulre’s arm had clamped over it. Vulre would have killed him. Intended to kill him. But Rahven had Awakened and saved himself.
The magic had bloomed inside of him. Flowed outwards from the center of his chest to every inch of his body and then from him to Vulre.
And oh, it was glorious!
Purple lightning had sent Vulre flying back from him, slamming him against the walls of the Venomthorn Keep. The wall had depressed and cracked and smoked. If it hadn’t already been black, it would have been from his power.
