The Royal Series 0 - A Royal Archive

Chapter 5

Sister Margaret was not a true teacher. She was just another warlock in awe of Jaycob. A magic user who wished they could be as good as Jaycob, comforted to know he was in the world and capable of all he could do. Someone who worshipped him the same way her parents always had.

***

It didn't take long for Elías to find Serafina hiding behind the wall that separated the convent from the fields. She had not gone far, knowing that she could not find her way back, but at least behind the wall she would not be seen.

When he took the seat beside her, where she sat hugging her knees and crying, he did not immediately move to comfort her. He instead bent his knees and hugged them in a facsimile of her posture, before asking; "Why did you run from my mother?"

"Mother?" Serafina looked up in surprise, only to realise from the faint smile playing on his lips that Elías had spoken deliberately. He knew that the information would be news to her and had used it to gain her attention.

"Yes. Our teacher, the warlock of this church...Sister Margaret is my mother," he confessed, still looking proud of his devious trick.

"But she is a nun!"

He nodded and sighed. "Yes, she is. But she was not so when she bore me. She was a strong young warlock, alone in the world after her husband died." Shaking his head, he looked far off into the field and seemed to hug his knees tighter as though to steel himself for what he was about to say. "My mother, too, has known sacrifice, Serafina. All the women here have. It is the bond that brought them together.

"My mother united with a powerful human, neither witch nor vampire, but he coveted power. He bewitched my mother and I was born. Then he revealed himself; he was a witch, one who sought only power and wealth. He intended to use my mother's power and my own to boost his own magic. He would drain us completely, to take our magic for his own," Elías explained, the pain of such a betrayal still present in his voice. And, if she was honest, Serafina doubted it would ever go away.

"That is awful."

Turning slightly to face her, he asked; "It does not sound familiar to you?" The raised eyebrow that she had come to know well over the last two weeks suggested that it should, but she could not fathom why.

"Excuse me?" she asked, not knowing how else to react.

Taking a deep breath, Elías nodded and seemed disappointed but not surprised that she had no idea what he spoke of. "The story of your brother travelled to our church because of my mother. Because Jaycob saved my mother's life. She had very little magic since the day I was born, because my father stole it and then left. My magic was also diminished, but untapped as of yet, so he could not reach the potential within me for more," he said, offering a hint of relief that she could not quite understand. What did it matter to her if his magic remained his and had not been stolen?

"My father was an evil man, Serafina. But his brother was just as evil. In fact, I believe that his entire family were raised to covet more and more magic, so afraid of never being as strong as their great warlock ancestor of centuries past, that no magic was ever enough," he reasoned, managing a level of understanding and logic that defied sense. He should have been furious, but he remained calm as he spoke, until he turned to her once more. "You still do not understand, do you?"

"What is there to understand but that your father was a brute?" she asked, truly confused as to what he was trying to say.

"My father was the brother of your father's prisoner. In short, Serafina, my father is the uncle of Risteph, the criminal that your brother fought against the night he returned my mother's magic to her," he explained, finally putting the pieces together in a way that, still, confused her.

"But he did no such thing."

Elías groaned and dropped his head onto his knees, clearly frustrated, but in a different way that Serafina felt. "You despise your brother so much that you do not even care that he nearly died that night? So much that you do not even know the story of what he did?" he asked, raising his head to stare at her in disbelief.

It was the first that she had ever heard the risk to her brother's life, that night. All she had been told was that Jaycob had done something stupid and dangerous to save a peasant boy he had fallen in love with. Her father said that the other details had not been important, at the time, though she did remember that her uncle Parry was utterly fascinated by it and asked Jaycob and Averie to recount the story multiple times, just so that he could pick it apart for details he may have missed on the night.

"Serafina, you are blind to all that lies before you," Elías lamented, maintaining eye contact as he spoke. "Your brother held the greatest magical power of the world in the palm of his hands and did not use it for evil. Such a thing could never have been imagined, before that night."

The thought bristled and made her feel weak, again, knowing that no one would ever have expected or trusted her to do the same, even if she had possessed Jaycob's power. "Then why did they grant him that power?" she questioned, hoping for a reasonable answer that was not something stupid like "because he is Jaycob" or "because he is the best of us all." She could not bear to hear such a thing.

"Because they searched his soul, as they connected with him, and saw that it was pure. As yours once was, before you allowed anger and jealousy to take hold," Elías replied, as though he knew her so well as to say such a thing. "You have so focused on what Jaycob is capable of and what Jaycob has done that you have never ventured to test your hand at what you are capable of and what you might yet do."

That was almost as insulting as their previous conversations about her magic and lack of talent. "Do not presume to tell me who I am," she demanded, already at the end of her tether. She could not bear any more insults, today. One more and she might yet truly run from this place and her family and never return. Anything to escape the spectre of Jaycob that haunted her, even in another country.

Perhaps her father had been right when he said that no one could escape their demons. "No matter where you go, Jaycob, your demons will follow you. You must face them head on, if you wish to conquer them," he had once said. Yet again, more advice for Jaycob and none for Serafina.

"Someone must, little princess. You are so lost and yet, are completely unaware of it. Which is the most dangerous place for a soul to be. You could so easily be swayed to darkness, if you do not remember the light you were born with," Elías reasoned, reaching out to take her hand in his. "The night your brother faced Risteph, my own cousin, he did something so remarkable that the entire world knows of it. He could have killed Risteph that night. He could have punished him for the sins of his father, for the sins he had already committed. Yet, even with all the power he wielded that night, do you know what Jaycob did?" he asked softly.

"No. I never cared to ask." And that was the bare truth of it. She had not cared. Not what happened to Jaycob and not what he had endured.

That truth weighed heavily upon her, making her feel smaller than she had ever felt.

Elías only nodded in understanding. "He incapacitated Risteph. He unlocked the magical cage surrounding his heart and mind. He freed him."