Torres Vi Terande sits in his office after pushing away his son. He knows how smart Alexander is, and the genuis it will birth. However he also knows how attatched he is to this family. Torres gave him everything as Alexander grew. He was firm but loving. Strict but kind for so many years. Torres had watched his son grow up to a strong young man. A man that did not need him. That would do better without this burden. The same burden he got from his father.
Maybe that's why Torres pushed Alexander away just moments ago. Torres picks up a letter and in the bottom right corner was a stamp with the emperial family's seal.
'I have waited ten years to hear something promising from your failure of a son. He continues to stain this empire along with the rest of your family. If it wasn't for the late Emperor Augustus your family would not even have the land nears those mountains. You have been protected by the shriveling honor you had left but that dries up soon. In four years, if either of your children do not show anything worth the protection of nobility, you and your family shall be stripped of their name. You have been protected long enough by your ancestors. Signed your beloved emperor Ceasar Di Valrahn.'
Torres sighs. He has been saving up in secret for a long time. It is why their clothes had been maintained and handed down from the generation prior. It is why Torres has collected a loyal faction in the north. Torres knew what they did to his father. To his grandfather. All dying after reaching the fourth level. Those eyes can always tell.
Alex my son. Violet my love. Ana my sweet girl. Do not blame your selfish father. This empire has sought to ruin us for generations. It is time I heeded my father's wishes. In the west, where our enemies lay, they will gladly accept us. Aracor has already sent word. There we can grow strong again.
Four years is plenty of time. Forgive me Alexander. You will hate me but if you cover us in the Empire's capital, Seraton … At least we can flee before they notice. When you return.. If you return, I will…
Torres looks over the pages deep in thought. He is betraying his son, for his daughter and wife. He justifies it by promising he will create safe passage for him some day, but in the end it is still justification. A part of why Torres seperates himself so much from Alexander is out of guilt. However even then he knows a part of himself blames his son for getting the empire's hopes up.
We can't all be rejects my son.
Alexander closes himself in his room. It's the only thing he knows. Copper plate after copper plate is worked on with lightning speed. He creates more complex runes, overlaying structures over the central word and creates complex meanings. If he creates one copper plate for shadow magic and it works, than of course he can do the same for water, for wind and for water Ana awakens to. She won't suffer like he did. He makes sure of that with every thing he creates.
He isn't aware of the knock at his door. He only notices her familiar arms as they wrap around his neck. Violet hugs him tightly.
Alexander doesn't have room for tears anymore. Not when his father stands on his neck and pushes him from everything he knows. He is lost but Violet warms him. He stops what he is doing and lightly touches her arms.
"It's okay Mother. I am okay." Alexander says with pain laced in every word. He wonders if he can still trust Verila. She listens to his father's commands and even his mother is forced to follow him. He is still The Baron Vi Terande, head of the house and Alexander is barely a successor.
Violet moves around him. She is still wearing her silver dress. His chest aches looking at her. How can father ignore someone so beautiful? He thinks to himself. She bends over to look at what he is working on her dress loosens around her chest.
"I have never seen runes like this before? Is this what you've been working on?" Violet's eyes light up with pride. There has never been any doubt in her mind that Alexander would succeed his father and surpass him in every way. In her mind he already has in so many ways. Even in the way he treats them all. So much better than the callous jealous man he has become.
"Yes.." Alexander knows that after these last copper plates he would need to destroy everything here. He doesn't break promises. It's hard for him not to give Violet anything she wants when she looks at him with her storm ridden eyes. The only one who always believes in him still, "Let me show you."
Alexander places his the copper plate onto the apparatus. The one he made for water. "When you inject your mana think of something beautiful."
Violet didn't question him. Not even for a second. She thought of rain and storms and lightening. The most beautiful things to her. She remembers the first storm she was in when she was a little girl. The way lightening crashed across the sky and thunder rumbled her house in the village. She was a commoner born with magic, a rarity of generations, although when she met Torres in the academy she couldn't take her magic far. However when she was studying magic then she wanted to conjure storms of great magnitude. She wanted to feel the rain hit her skin like she used to when she was a girl before she worried about men and other things.
In moments Violet sees her mana form not just water, but condensed energy. It is a vibrant cool blue water. It's edges undulate and turn into itself. Over and over it folds into itself until it no longer looks like water. The hues of blue shift to white as clouds begin to form and soon turn to whisps of grey and then they rage. Her gasp is quick when she realizes it. It was like every dream she ever had as a girl. Rain begins to fall on the copper plate from the small storm cloud and then small bolts of lightening streak within it. All from a level 2, adept mage. As the storm fades as quickly as it formed, Alexander could see tears in her eyes.
Violet looks at him in disbelief for a moment. She can practice for years and never get to cast a spell like this. She knows when she looks in Alexander's eyes what he's done. Years spent working on this and Alexander, her son, this young man.. Has done this. Her dreams are somehow alive in this moment.
She grabs him tightly. Tighter than she ever has. He feels her soft warm meld with his and some of his hurt fade. Alexander heart hurts. 'She will have to stay with my Father. Forced to take care of Ana. She deserves more than this.'
Alexander hugs her tightly. Then looks into her soft grey eyes. He gives his mother a soft kiss on her forehead and goes to the aparatus. The copper plate is still slightly wet but he brushes it off on his chest. "Mother, you should use these to make your third circle. I don't know how hard it might be for you, but it'll be better than anything from a textbook. Just please don't let father have it.. Destroy it."
"Honey.." Violet knows what this means. All the work he put into it. The fame and power he could weild with a plate like this.
"I made it for you. You deserve it. You've done more than enough to have this." Alexander pushes it into her hands. "You won't see me for awhile, maybe not until I leave, but please know I love you. I will return for this family."
Violet takes it. "Oh, Alex. I love you too. I just want you to be happy. We will be fine. Your father.. we can't do anything about your father right now. But You've worked long enough for this family too. You are a man now and that means living your own life.. Fighting for what you want and living for it." She kisses him on his forehead pulling him down to her chest. She quietly walks away leaving Alexander with the silence.
I wish I could do more for Ana, Duke.. Even Verila.
Alexander finishes the last copper plate so when Verila shows he is ready. He leaves one for himself, for last minute tweaks. To test the most minute of details. Alexander told Verila to come back in two days. He first thought that he would spend most of it with his family, but now he just wants to show his father he doesn't know anything.
Alexander wants power. He wants true power. Not just the power that green eyed wind mage had on his day of awakening. He wants the power, that cold power that the emperor and empress had, when they looked down on him.
The arcane light powered by golden mana quartz and cande flame lights his face as he mulls over his designs. He thinks of the academy. The faces he has avoided. The faces he remembers from every forced gathering. The faces of the nobles as they looked down on him and his family. The smiles he forced knowing they were fools. He can feel the rage that has sit inside of himself for years as he studied and used his mind to get where he is now. They were beneath him in all ways except magic and arbitrary nobility.
I want them to sit below me. To beg at my feet. To know who they cast out.
His fists tighten around the runes he designed. The master sheet meant nothing to him now. He has every convention memorized. He knows only Verila knows now. She can't tell anyone. She wouldn't..
Verila moves from the shadows created by the lights on his desk. She slithers behind him and taps on his shoulder.
Alexander whips a blade from under his desk and slashes it towards her. The blade passes through her body breaking her into shadows. She quickly reforms into her body with her hands up.
"Verila. What are you doing here? I thought you would need to be close to my father." Alexander puts the blade down. The anger is still sitting in him. He is sorry for slashing at her but lashing out is the least of his concerns. Her loyalty is.
Verila can tell that something is different. An anger sits in his dark brown eyes. Something he wasn't showing earlier. That sadness in him moments ago twists into rage. The spite that he used every day of his life to get to where he is. The spite he only grew with every moment he was forced to parade as the 'stand in heir' at empirial functions seems like sadness to her. In this moment Verila doesn't just see the man that Alexander is but the boy he was. The boy that was hurt by this world's expectations.
The one she has watched since he was a boy.
She wanted to go after him earlier but she was torn between her feelings, her duty, and her past. She isn't anymore.
Verila knows what will be coming and the things she might need to do. As she has done for generations. Torres will leave Alexander, Torres fails to see the greatness his son truly has. He thinks him only a genuis who can't weild magic. Verila knows it's more, but Torres has made decisions that cannot be undone. Traitorous machinations that have been set in place.
Verila grabs Alexander. Her familiar grey fingers find the nape of his neck. Her shadowy mask dissipates in front of him. "V?" Alexander can feel her warmth. It is different than his mother's. He wants more from her. Verila moves in closer to him pulling her soft grey lips to his ear. He can feel the slow wet sound they make as she spreads them apart right by him. Her tongue gently touches the roof of her mouth and she moves it.
Alexander can feel his chest heave with each slow breathe she makes. Verila still thinking about decisions she already made before coming into this room. Alexander can feel her fingers hold him close. Her chest pushing into his. They had been close so many times, but not facing eachother like this. Alexander's breathe feels heavier as her large chest pushes into his. His breathe hitches as he feels her lips mouth words she can't bring herself to say.
"V, what is this?" Alexander questions. His hands find his desk as she pushes him back. He is sitting lightly on the desk as she presses him further.
Alexander begs for her fingers to run into his silver hair. He wants her black eyes on him and most of all he wishes he was shirtless beside her again. He wishes it was them experimenting again. Working together. He loves how she looked at him then and now he can only think about her shadows melting off of her exposing her soft grey skin. He can feel her long grey ears twitch with every subtle movement they make between them.
She mouths words he can't see against his ear but he can feel it. He can feel her lips get closer and closer to him. She brushes his hair away from his neck and places her dark grey lips on them.
Is she.. Kissing me?