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The Inheritor | CW: Referenced Near Drowning, Referenced Death Through Gifting Magic | ~2000 Words

[unbreakable_king]

“We need another way to contain him.”

Attention turns to Rhy in the room, and given how many people were present, that’s quite a bit of attention. Well, let the attention be upon him, he was used to it. And if they tired their eyes following him as he paced, well, they deserved it, for all they had been hiding from him. Especially after Kell’s little stunt with the river. Thanks to that Rhy now knew very well what it was like to nearly drown, and he hadn’t even been the one in the water.

There was Kell, sitting across the room in one of Rhy’s favorite chairs, still dripping wet and no doubt ruining the thing. Though Rhy cared more for the chill across his shoulders from the wet clothes on his brother’s body, a chill even Rhy’s own pacing by the fire could do little for. A chill that not even the heat he could feel across his fingers from his brother’s too hot cup of tea could drive away. Sitting at his side on a stool was the Aven Essen, Tieren’s entire attention on the healing play of magic that no doubt alleviated the pain in his brother’s chest, which Rhy only knew from the fact that the pain was diminishing in his own. Nearer Rhy and the fire stood his father, Maxim, his father brooding in a way that Rhy was certain his brother had inherited, shared blood or not. Of course, given what had come of their city, he understood the brooding. Perhaps Rhy was due for another bout of it himself. But not here, not now, it would be unattractive, and hardly helpful.

Well, maybe he was brooding a little, but at least he tried to keep moving forward. There was nothing it could do for him right now.

Part of the brooding, though, came from the other two presences in the room. The first, Alucard Emery, oh how his presence ached in Rhy’s chest. His being there was its own form of dull ache, one Rhy hoped would not be echoed back across to his brother. The low throb of it was like a bruise to the jaw, one that only hurt when one was chewing or speaking. A bruise to the jaw that had come just as a rather lengthy speech was to be delivered, which was to say that it was constant, and he had no hope of relief any time soon. Alucard was seated on a couch with wine, nursing it and not even thinking it strange that one of his sun-darkened sailors stood at his back. The final member of their little mess of people was the unexpected Antari of Gray London, Lila Bard. The woman that captivated his brother so, moved his brother to perhaps even aspirations of love. The woman who sat on the floor and leaned against the couch, so close that Alucard could reach out to touch her if he wished, and Rhy didn’t like how that left a light curl of jealousy in his chest.

What business was it of his who his former lover dallied with? Even if it was bound to break his brother’s heart. Why should he care that Alucard remain so close to the woman, especially when he owed the woman his life, and his brother’s. Perhaps even the standing of his whole kingdom rested upon the small woman’s shoulders, and he shouldn’t begrudge her the company of the privateer but…

Ah, what a powerful little word, that one. But even her eyes, one brown and one a shattered star from where her glass eye had been broken, were turned upon him.

“Something better than a body,” he continued, living with the weight of the gazes upon him. Who was he to speak to them on this, he half wondered. He wasn’t a magician of any real caliber, his power the drips and drops of a leaky facet, rare and unmanageable compared to the force and experience in this room. “Bodies come with minds, and those, as we know, can be manipulated.”

Oh how deeply he knew that. He still remembered it, the lingering presence of Astrid Dane in his mind, and it made him sick to think about. Sick enough that he found himself reaching out to a nearby shelf, plucking down the first thing that came to hand. He needed to be buddy, he needed to feel useful. The silver spear was one of his father’s creations, from when he did magic more often, made of long metal cords, so when he pulled at it, they drew apart into a large orb, until even that was not enough for his finger, so he pressed them inward together, creating a dense ball in his hand. The weight didn’t change, but it was still satisfying to be doing something.

“We need something stronger. Something permanent,” his brother agreed, his voice firm and full of that frustrating conviction that Kell was given to.

“We need an Inheritor,” Master Tieren said, his voice soft but it still carried to Rhy, whose fingers forgot the playing with the potential weapon in his hand. There was something in his tone that made the word more weighty, more definite, more capitalized. Interesting.

All eyes turned to the priest, and Rhy delighted in the lack of weight from his shoulders, the potential judgement in his eyes. At least someone had said something useful. He was quite ready to speak, to press the priest, only another voice cut in for the first time and stilled Rhy.

His father’s voice, deep and strong like the earth itself, held some accusation in it, even has his face went scarlet.

“You told me they didn’t exist,” Rhy watched his father accuse.

“No. I told you I would not help you make one,” the priest corrected, and the way the two held each other’s gaze, the room silent and weighty all over again… it was unnerving. The two were so often a united front, old friends, Rhy knew. So to have them disagree over something meant that this Inheritor was not a light thing to discuss.

And yet, if it was an answer, a means to help the city…

“Anyone want to explain?” he asked, and for the life of him, Rhy could not keep a slightly hysterical edge from his voice. If there was an answer they were denying themselves because of history between his father and the Aven Essen, he had no patience for it.

“An Inheritor is a device that transfers magic. And even if it could be made it is, by its very nature, corrupt, an outright defiance of cardinal law, and an interference,” the stress put on that word as the Aven Essen explained, his eyes hard on Maxim, said that this was an argument he’d gone over before, “with the natural order of magical selection.”

Rhy could see the way his father looked at that statement, like he was a marble statue, with a face carved to relay the purest essence of anger. Silence hung between them like the dark mists that hung about the history, hung in the entire room like a barrier to further discussion. Even Rhy himself did not dare break it, because he understood what Tieren had just said. The cardinal laws governed magic and its use, not only a moral directive, but one intended to keep them from falling into the abuse of magic that had led to the downfall of Black London. One could never use magic to compel or control. A device that could do so, while taking magic from one to give to another as something along the lines of an abomination. And his father had meant to create one.

Meant to create it for Rhy. Meant to use a dark and tainted means of theft to take magic from one and give it to him, his useless, powerless son. Who, then, had been his father’s intended victim? Someone who had already broken law and who would have the sealing bands marked into their skin, to keep their power from ever being used? Or perhaps would it be someone a little closer to home? Rhy’s eyes flickered quickly over to his brother, even as a chill came over him. Had that been the point of the Maresh family taking in an orphaned Antari? To steal the birthright of one to gift to another who had nothing?

The very concept made him nauseous.

But the silence hung too long, far too long, and Rhy refused to let the revelation of what his father would have done for him, done to someone for him, stop this possible answer for their kingdom from being considered. So he took a deep breath and broke the silence again, his attention on Tieren rather than his father. Rather than his brother. Rather than anyone else. If he just looked at the Aven Essen, he wouldn’t need to consider anyone or anything else, or even the weight of his next words.

“Is it really possible, Tieren?”

“In theory,” the priest answered, crossing to Rhy’s desk and pulled a piece of paper from a drawer. Soon he had produced a pencil as well and begun to draw. “Magic, as you know, does not follow blood. It chooses the strong and the weak as it will. As is natural.”

Those words were pointed, no doubt another thing he had spoken to Maxim about when Rhy was young. But no, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t think about that more. Would not consider what his father would have made him party to.

“But some time ago a noble man named Talrik Larene wanted a way to pass on not only his land and his titles, but also his power to his beloved eldest son. He designed a device that could be spelled to take and hold a person’s power until the next of kin could lay claim to it.”

“Hence ‘Inheritor’,” Lila mused aloud, and the words made Rhy more sick. He had to swallow back the bile in his throat. Maxim, then? Had he wanted to pass his magic on to Rhy? Would his father truly do such a thing? Would Rhy accept it?

He feared the answer, if put to him, would be yes.

“And it actually worked?” Rhy asked, his voice almost breaking with strain.

“Well, no. The spell killed him instantly. But his niece, Nadina, had a rather brilliant mind. She perfected the design, and the first Inheritor was made.”

“Why have I never heard of this? And if they worked, why aren’t they still used?” Kell demanded, and Rhy had to struggle to not flinch. Of course the Antari would want to know. It would be childs play no doubt for his brother to create one, if the way of it was known. What would Kell do to make sure that Rhy could provide for the Empire? What had Kell done? Rhy found he did not wish to know.

“Power does not like being forced into lines,” Tieren said as he continued to work. “Nadina Larene’s Inheritor worked, but it worked on anyone. For anyone. There was no way to control who claimed the contents of an Inheritor. Magicians could be persuaded to relinquish the entirety of their power to the device, and once it was surrendered to the Inheritor, it was anyone’s to claim. As you could imagine, things got… messy. In the end most of the Inheritors were destroyed.”

“But if we could find the Larene designs,” Lila cut in, no doubt seeing the use of it more than the caution, and Rhy understood her drive there as it moved him as well for all of his horror, “if we could recreate one…”

“We don’t need to.”

Rhy’s chest ached with the rich curl of Alucard’s accent. He feared what his former lover would say next, for he knew that tone, had known it so well once. It was Alucard’s tone for ‘I have a secret you do not know’.

“I know exactly where to find one.”