Chaos & Order: Dawn of Chaos

Chapter 3 - Edited

"Odelius?" She questioned, feeling more confused than annoyed. "What are you doing here?"

"I said I would help with your magic." He replied, strolling around the attic space. "This is not very ideal."

"It is working just fine, thank you." She retorted, stirring the potion with a large wooden spoon.

"Your cauldron is rusty..." He remarked under his breath, which caused Athelia to glare at him.

"Are you here to help, or to judge me?" She questioned, irritated by Odelius's remarks.

As Odelius walked over to Athelia's book she had propped open, he flicked through a few pages for a moment before vanishing. Sighing with relief, Athelia gave the potion a final stir before leaving it to simmer and climbing down from the attic. As soon as her feet were on the bedroom floor, she could feel the judgemental gaze of Penelope from the other side of the room. Having been told to stay on bedrest for a while, Penelope was lying in her bed reading a book.

"What are you making up there?" Penelope asked sarcastically. "Poison to fill the water wells?"

"I give up arguing with you." Athelia sighed, scanning the bookshelf for a book to read.

"As soon as I am allowed out of this house, I am telling everyone what you are." Penelope warned, her voice full of piercing hatred. "Arguing with you is the last thing I remember. I know you had something to do with what happened!"

Hurt by the words, Athelia turned to look at Penelope, her eyes filled with pain as she responded. "I would never do such a thing."

"The first moment you could use magic you tried to kill me, and then it was all about you..." Accused Penelope, her gaze piercing into Athelia. "You use your magic to get whatever you want, and I would not be surprised if you had got that mage to kidnap me!"

"None of that is true!" Athelia tried to argue, but she knew Penelope was too full of hate to listen.

Athelia could remember clearly the first moment she had used magic. She was around six or seven years old and was arguing with Penelope over a toy. Full of childish anger, she had pointed aggressively at Penelope and a bolt of mana had flown across the room, just missing Penelope, and it hit the wall behind them. The bolt had been so weak it had barely left a mark on the wall.

"You will not threaten my apprentice." A deep angry voice growled behind Athelia. As she turned around, she saw Odelius using the same disguise he had used the day he took Penelope.

"Who are you?" Penelope cowered, her voice shaking. "What are you doing here?"

Clutching the bed covered close to her face, her skin drained of colour and turned as white as the sheets she held onto. As Penelope trembled in the bed, Athelia slowly looked between them, and curiously waited to see what Odelius would do.

"Athelia is my apprentice now." Odelius warned, stepping slowly towards Penelope. "If you threaten her or dare tell anyone about her, you will be back in my cell, and we will go through all the wonderful experiments I have in my book. Understood?"

As Penelope nodded, Odelius disappeared. Without saying a word, Athelia hurried to the bookcase and climbed up to the attic. Seeing Odelius kneeling on the floor, no longer in disguise, she tiled her head to see what he was doing. He was using a knife and scratching a rune into the floor.

"I am putting a sound proofing spell in here for privacy." Odelius spoke, pushing a small amount of his mana into the rune before standing up. "Listening to your sister was getting on my nerves."

"Thank you, but what was that about a book of experiments?" Athelia asked, feeling a mix of unease and curiosity at the idea.

"Oh, do not worry yourself about that." Odelius grinned. "It was just to make sure she got the message of staying quiet."

Turning his attention to the cauldron, Odelius stepped towards it while taking a small pouch out of his pocket. Before Athelia could say anything, he undid it and tipped the contents into the bubbling mixture. Gasping with disbelief, she watched as he grabbed the wooden spoon and began stirring the mixture. As it turned from orange to scarlet red, she glared at Odelius with a rising feeling of irritation.

"What are you doing?" She asked with alarm. "I had just finished that!"

"If you keep sticking to the same things you will never get better." Odelius stated, turning his back to the cauldron. "This will make the healing potion stronger, and the effects will be faster."

As the bubbling mixture began to boil over onto the floor, Odelius span round to see what was happening. Watching the mixture boil faster and splash onto the floor, he tenses, and Athelia watched his expression quickly change to regret. Seeing the potion violently splatter around the room, she quickly took a step back.

"Move!" Odelius shouted, grabbing Athelia.

As they dived behind a stack of boxes, the cauldron exploded and Odelius threw up a shield of mana to protect them. Feeling her ears ring from the bang, she cautiously poked her head up from the boxes to see what had happened. The dust settled slowly, and she felt her entire body tense in horror as she saw a large hole in the ceiling. Groaning in frustration and dread, she held her hands to her face.

"Father is going to kill me." She groaned.

"That was definitely not supposed to happen." Odelius muttered before adding. "I will make an excuse and make sure no one questions this."

***

The following day, Athelia lay in the sun on the hill below the house. Odelius had used his magic to repair the damage to the house as soon as it had happened, but Athelia had refused to let Odelius alter her families' memories. As a result, Winston had banned her from using a cauldron in the attic. Looking over the river beneath the hill, she could see the great oak tree thriving and as she closed her eyes, she could hear the loud rushing of the waterfall nearby.

Running up to Athelia, Wisp bounded over excitedly, but stopped a few feet away and meowed loudly at her. Confused by the strange behaviour, Athelia tried to encourage Wisp to her, but as she stood up Wisp bolted away. As Wisp dived into a thick bush of brambled, Athelia hurried over and felt her heart racing as she heard Wisp yowling. Trying to push some brambled away, she huffed and began crawling through a small gap.

"Wisp, where are you?" She called out, hoping she would be able to crawl back out again as she felt the thorns cutting her arm.

Hearing an echoing meow, Athelia continued crawling until she came to a small cave opening. Standing up as she reached the cave, Athelia made an orb of mana which lit up the space with its green glow and she found Wisp drinking from a small pool of water in the corner of the cave. A few crystals grew on the rocks around the pool, and vines grew from the ceiling in places around the edges of the cave.

"This is perfect." Athelia felt a growling excitement and hurried away to get help from Odelius.

***

Having dragged Odelius to the cave later that day, Athelia watched as he moved the thorns and bushes away from the entrance. As they stepped into the cave, Odelius took a brief look around before nodding in approval.

"Yes, this would make a suitable lair for you to practise magic in." Odelius spoke, using magic to move a giant rock next to the cave entrance. "Use that to keep it hidden for now."