Cassius’ black slacks were covered in dirt, his boots caked in mud. Given that he detested mess inside our home and he’dbeen walking around the castle for a half hour now, that really spoke to his own state of mind. As usual, he was concealing it outwardly. But those of us who knew him well understood just how deeply he truly felt everything beneath that harder outer shell. Especially when it came to our son, who he still often referred to asour little miracle.
But Winter didn’t see it that way.
Not now.
And the world was making it virtually impossible for us to counter that.
We’d gone to extreme lengths to ensure he didn’t internalize that sort of public sentiment regarding his existence.
But that had been undercut the moment he’d grown old enough to think critically, to notice things beyond his immediate surroundings, that point for every young person where their world grew bigger and they catalogued outside behavior and responses.
I hadn’t wanted to allow him outside at eighteen even. Because I knew. I fucking knew how somebody else’s demented legacy could impact the next generation, something I’d fought so fucking hard to break for Winter. And all of us also knew what it was like to be judged and feared for what we were. Me as The Last Necromancer, Cassius as a Fallen. Velra and Lazriel as hybrid beings. Ketheron as a Polygenus Entity.
But Velra, Cassius, and Lazriel had insisted that Winter be free to walkabout every now and then, to venture out into the supernatural world in controlled circumstances where we still monitored him, but not to an invasive extent. Such as me knowing he was atPolarismany times during hisfree leisure ventures, but not what he was doing. Aside from the obvious sexual activity, of course, something very healthy.
They’d been right, I’d had too much of a stranglehold on him.
In my bid to protect him from everything, he’d been so suffocated.
Restricted. His freedom impeded.
Me, Sylas Morgrave, all about liberation, personal freedoms and sexual expression, had hindered that for my own son.
The guilt of that—the fucking failure of that—was what had led to Loxley Academy happening. To letting him go. To finally standing at a distance.
But now… this had happened.
He’d been taken.
He’d been harmed.
And he might have even been damaged beyond that, something we wouldn’t know until he woke up.
“You don’t need to falsely absolve me of fault, Cas. I’m not going to fly off the handle in a catastrophic sense.”
“It wasn’t false. You’re not at fault.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t get into that aspect of things any further right now.
“How’s Velra? The spell?”
“The spell is in place. I’ve bolstered her shadows so they’ll maintain perpetually without her draining herself.”
“As she’d no doubt attempt to do for Win. When we’re asleep or something.”
“Yes.”
Velra’s shadow magic had provided comfort to Winter many times during his childhood. She would have them swirl around him, not actually touching, but creating a soothing encompassing feeling. It was what she’d insisting on doing for him as he slept now. Actually, the moment she’d come home from her work in the Dark Fae Realm and found so many of us gathered. The moment Ambrose and I had relayed what had happened, then Lazriel had settled Winter upstairs in his room, she hadn’t left his side.
Ambrose had taken off and Ketheron had gone with him after performing the cleansing for Winter, the two of them to conduct deep-dive research into the possible location of Ruxnoth’smagical construct.
I watched Cassius’ eyes dart between me and the sealed vial containing that slithery black and blue goo that Ketheron’s cleansing had removed from Winter. The physical manifestation of that twisted should-be-long-dead True Celestial infiltrating our boy.
I moved away from the vial and leaned against the wall with a weighty sigh. “Shortly before Winter was born, I had a conversation with Remnant about what it would mean to protect a child of Winter’s special makeup. My words to him? These.‘This child is born of death magic. An impossibility made possible. It will need to be shielded. Now that can happen in a frost castle or whatever Velra, Lazriel, or Cassius like. But it will be a heavily protected and magically fortified home. If they wish for it to happen above ground, for our child to live a life as though unaffected by being afflicted with this special nature that many will fear, then so be it. I’ll see to it. We’ll all see to it.’”
He nodded, recalling me telling him about it. “He told you that it would only be an illusion. That’s what you’re really driving at, yes? He spoke those words as a test only, Sylas. He didn’t truly believe it.”
“But itistrue. Isn’t it?”
