† Serafina †
How many times must she have to hear about how brilliant Jaycob was? How many times would someone pretend to sit with her, to hear about Serafina's thoughts and wishes and cares, only to wax lyrical about Jaycob?
She had thought, for two weeks now, that Elías would be different, but it did not prove to be the case. He was just as in awe of Jaycob as everyone else. She might have forgiven him for that, if it was merely because of his mother, but there was no doubt in her mind. Elías idolised Jaycob for what he could do, for his magic, for what he had done, and all that he stood for.
It was too much.
Serafina turned away, trying to hide the unexpected tears, as Elías kept talking, having no concept of what his words did to her heart.
"I have been in touch with Risteph in these past months, since he discovered my existence," Elías revealed, much to her surprise. "It was my mother who wrote to your father, to tell him of the connection between us, in the hopes that together Risteph and I could repair the tear in our family. Do you know what he has told me?"
"You know I do not," she challenged, bitterness seeping into her tone. And, this time, she did not care if he heard it.
Elías sighed and shook his head, once more. "I had hoped that some sense might have shown you the answer by now," he said, as though she should have been smarter. "Risteph has told me that he has never been happier since losing his knowledge of magic. He knows it exists and what it can do, but he has no memory of ever holding it in his hands nor seeking to own more. He only knows that magic has brought him pain.
"Jaycob cured our family of a generations old curse when he used magic against Risteph. He freed him from the expectations of our fathers and our families," he continued, saying that as if she should have known better, which was beginning to get on her last nerve. "Using the magic the way he did, out of love and understand, kindness and compassion, he broke the hold over my mother's magic. She was instantly cured, as her magic returned to her, but she also wept for near a day."
"Why?"
Elías threw his hands up and spoke to her like she was an idiot – and, honestly, she was beginning to wonder if she was, from the continual way he kept expecting her to know things. "Because she had felt Risteph, when all that Jaycob held clashed with what Risteph used against him. She felt both of them, in that moment. She knew their souls and their hearts. She knew that both were innocent," he reasoned. "My mother told me that she had never felt a purer light or heart than Jaycob. But that Risteph held the potential to be just as pure, if he could be turned away from the dark path his father had set him on. She wept because Jaycob had given him that chance."
And, there it was again, how wonderful Jaycob was. How he had performed miracles and made everyone happier and more complete than they had ever been. When would it stop?
"And now he is happy, Serafina. He is wed to a man he loves, still a human and still without magic, but content to be. And it has healed my mother's heart to know that we – she, my cousin and I – have been released from the curse of the family we were shackled to until Jaycob came into our lives." Elías turned to stare off into the fields ahead, again, smiling to himself as though he has been freed from something and not Risteph.
Serafina sighed and tried to follow his gaze, wondering if that thought was true. Perhaps Elías had found himself free of burden, free of expectation and free of the shackles of his family heritage because of Jaycob's acts. Despite that, she had not heard anything that told her that she was appreciated or needed or wanted in her family. All she heard was more praise for Jaycob, who was already the favourite of her family.
All the progress she had made in thought, thanks to their talk over lunch, had flown out the window, leaving her wondering if running away was her only option. She could not bear to return home and have her accomplishments here looked over because of this new news about how Jaycob had liberated another family.
"That is why Jaycob is revered, Serafina. Not because of his magic or his power or any wealth he may have," Elías claimed, trying to redeem the conversation, but Serafina could not see how it was possible. "He is revered the world over because, even when faced with the temptation of all the power in the world, he did not cause death or destruction. He did not do anything to prove his might or to seek revenge.
"Jaycob saw a boy in pain and used his magic to free him from the binds magic had placed upon him. Jaycob turned from temptation and darkness, all in a single moment, without thought, and did good with the magic he held in his hands," he continued, sounding so reasonable that it made Serafina want to grind her teeth into dust. "What he did was not a miracle – any of the warlocks could have achieved the same feat, if they only held that power in their hands. It was the choice he made that was the miracle. The choice to do good over evil. The decision to remain light and resist the darkness. Jaycob's heart chose his path that night and that is the true miracle."
The true miracle was that Serafina had not yet punched Elías for the many, excessive times he had spoke Jaycob's name in the last few minutes. The miracle was that she had not run away screaming, ready to commit homicide because of the serious inability for anyone to understand that the last person she wanted to talk about or hear about was perfect Jaycob.
Still, she could not help but ask; "Why?"
There, Elías stumbled, and Serafina hoped beyond hope that he had no answer for her. Yet, words kept tumbling out of his mouth, much to her dismay. "Because...because magic is a corruptible power, Serafina. Why do you imagine your parents have guarded and protected him so fiercely over the years?" he asked, such passion in his voice that it took her aback. "Even your papa, when enquiring as to a position here for you, confessed that he had distanced himself from Jaycob for years, because he feared losing his beloved son to the thrall of magic. He searched the world over for a potential cure, in case such a fate met Jaycob," he confessed, which was something she had not known.
That would certainly explain Jaycob's outburst, when he and Averie first met, about how he had never wished to be King, he had never asked for such a position of power, and how he hated their papa for believing the lies Serafina and Ana had concocted about him.
True, she had been wrong to do such a thing, but it had made her wonder about his outburst, which Elías had now explained. But it bothered her that he knew so much more about her family than she did.
Did that say more about herself or Elías?
"Magic is...it can be a drug. It is so addictive and the more powerful the gift – the stronger it is, the younger the child when they discover it, and the more they use it – the more risk there is that the child will face not only an addiction to casting magic, but will falter in their morals," Elías continued, just as passionately, still stumbling over his words in his rush to explain what Serafina could not understand. "The power corrupts easily, especially the young, and Jaycob was a heady mixture of all the dangers. He was the most likely to succumb to addiction and darkness. Yet, in all of these years, he has never once stumbled. That is because he has the heart of your father and papa; he knows pain, anger, loneliness. He has seen it all through their eyes. He has witnessed their triumphs and failures. And he had learned from all of it."
That hurt to hear, though she would not admit so out loud. She wanted to ask why she had never witnessed those same lessons or why she had never seen any of the cracks in her family life that he claimed were so obvious and clear, but the words stuck in her throat. She could not bring herself to voice them, even if she could get them out, for fear of proving his point that she did not know her family as well as she had thought.
"Perhaps you blinded yourself to the same lessons?" Elías asked, voicing the answer to the very question she could not ask.
But she could not stop herself from retaliating in anger; "Perhaps they were never there to learn."
"Oh, Serafina. You are still so blind to what is clear," he lamented, with a deep sigh. "You envy Jaycob for his magic, yet you have no idea how much it has hurt him. All that it has taken from him. Perhaps until you realise that, you cannot open your eyes to all that is before you, waiting to be discovered," he insisted, his eyes turning sad and so disappointed that Serafina could not stop herself from reacting.
Elías was the only one who had ever taken the time to sit with her, to talk to her, and to try to understand her.
She took a moment to wipe her cheeks free of tears, before leaning in for her first kiss. Elías' eyes widened the closer she came, as time seemed to slow impossibly. He leaned back as gravity pulled her forward, ending with Elías scrambling back on his hands with an apologetic smile on his face.
The laughter he let slip after, as she quickly righted herself, was just one more humiliation added onto a day full of them. "I am sorry, Serafina. I am not inclined that way," he muttered, while rising and getting to his feet. He wiped his palms on his thighs and looked away. "I should return to class. I shall tell my mother that you need some time to yourself, so that you may think or return to your cell," he said, before quickly taking off back to the classroom.
Serafina sighed and lay her head in her hands, wondering what new hell fate would visit upon her in this prison where she was confined.