26. ~Elliot Sabre~

26

~Elliot Sabre~

Thwarted once again by a Hellborn.

For all the power I had at my disposal, the celestial object forged in the fires of Hell was one such thing that I could not battle against, no matter how much power I expended.

I hissed as Abi’s fingers brushed the hellfire burn plaguing my right shoulder as I sat in my son’s desk chair in his chambers at Electi Academy.

“That was incredibly risky, putting yourself between Alena and Orpheus and the Hellborn,” she chastised me in her usual way that really called to her great care for me.

“Alena was fading and moments away from her magic tapping out. It was the only way.” I groaned as her magic began slowly healing the wound. “I wanted to do a great deal more than merely extract our children, Abi. He was right there. I could have—”

“If you’d tried to do anything more, like apprehending him, you would have been lost to us, likely Alena and Orpheus too. You made the right decision.”

“It doesn’t make it any easier knowing he’s still out there.”

“I understand, believe me.” There was a great deal of anger in her voice that wasn’t usually there, no matter what we faced.

I tilted my head to look at her. “Abi?”

“I’m fine,” she muttered.

I sighed. “I know you touched black magic.”

She frowned. “Xavier?”

It was my turn to frown. “My son knew about it?”

“I’m uncertain. He was in the Dark Fae Realm when Saryan and I were discussing it, so it stood to reason that he may have overheard. I’d just assumed that was how you knew.”

“No. I felt it on you. So, it came from the Light Fae traitor? You entered a mind protected by black magic?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You would have stopped me. Or tried to talk me out of it and we both know how powerfully persuasive you are when it comes to me. I couldn’t allow it, not with Alena’s wellbeing at stake. It was our only chance to finally find her.”

“I understand wanting to protect your child, believe me. But how are you doing with the cost? I can’t determine whether this rage I’m feeling from you is a direct result of you touching that poison, or if it’s about the state of your daughter when I brought her back here to the Infirmary.”

“In all honesty, it’s a bit of both. Not to worry, I’ll handle it.”

“If you feel a struggle, talk to me. Swear it.”

“I will. Now, let me finish up healing this hellfire.”

I nodded and tried to relax into the chair and keep still as the cooling sensation of her angelic magic on the wound set in, soothing it bit by bit.

The relaxation part went out the window when my son burst on in.

I’d thought we’d have more time for her to heal me before he arrived back in his room after holding vigil at Alena’s bedside downstairs in the Infirmary.

During my teleportation, she’d lost consciousness.

“Hell, Dad! You took a hit from a Hellborn? You didn’t mention that when you returned! You didn’t even appear injured in the least. You glamoured the wound, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I didn’t want you worried for me.”

“Well I am! First you, then Orpheus, then Talon, then Alena, Saryan too, now you again! This is too fucking much! The way things are going, none of us are going to make it out of this war alive!”

“Come,” I said, holding out my hand to him.

He walked to me and I grasped his hand, hating the terror in his eyes for us all. He’d endured so much hurt lately, I could barely stomach it.

Giving his hand a squeeze, I assured him, “We will survive this.”

“Constantine got away and he still has the Orb and a Hellborn.”

“He didn’t get away,” Abigail told him.

My son arched an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

I smiled. “I tagged him, son.”

His eyes shot wide. “You did?”

“I surely did. Sabre Tech is working on a way to contain the power of the Hellborn for a limited time, long enough for Abigail to then bury it beneath the earth and seal it so it cannot be retrieved again and fall into the wrong hands.”

“Obviously, destroying it would be the optimal strategy,” Abi said. “However, that isn’t possible with a Hell-forged weapon.”

“This is the next best thing,” I finished for her.

She smiled, liking when we completed one another’s thoughts or sentences.

“As soon as the device is ready, we’ll march on Constantine and end this,” I told my son. “Until then, the ward here has been reinforced, Exemplar is out there covertly monitoring the demon and his followers to minimize any damage he may cause in the meantime.”

“So you want me to just sit tight?”

“I want you to continue with your therapy and your studies. And be with your loves, son. They need you dearly right now.”

“Dad, I can’t just do nothing after everything that’s happened and—”

“I’m working on a way to return your magic to you.”

He pulled up short at my revelation.

I hadn’t wanted to inform him yet, not until my experiments were further along and I had something concrete. As it was, the early stages had proven very promising. Moreover, he clearly needed a bright spark in his life at the moment, something to give him hope.

“How? You said it wasn’t possible unless Constantine did that himself, but he betrayed Alena and never did it. Her sacrifice, trying to save me because of what she saw me do that day, was all for nothing.”

“Constantine already had a hold on her at that point,” Abigail told him, as I’d asked her to, because I didn’t want him bearing so much guilt, especially not on top of everything else. “ Exemplar analyzed the scene where she was taken. The results took some time because of the black magic involved, but we recently discovered that he had infected her at that point, been inside her mind through his ingestion of her blood. He would have pulled her to him anyway. He would have just used something else, or someone else as the spark.”

He cursed and scrubbed his hand over his face, and I could see some of that awful weight lifting off him. “Thank you,” he told her, earnestly.

She smiled out at him. “Of course.”

I shifted my weight on the chair as Abigail got to a particularly nasty and deep part of my wound, all I could do to cover up my discomfort in front of my son. I cleared my throat and told him, “The night you were turned, when Constantine snapped your neck after feeding you his blood, there was a brief moment that your magic was still untainted. I extracted some of your magical essence at that point. I used most of it when I delved into my experiments with black magic to try to reverse the turning, but I have some left. Since your magic was taken, I’ve been working in my lab to find a way to return it to you. The solution involves merging it with some of mine. With our familial connection, the similarities in our magic, your body will accept it, and it can become one with you. Once I determine a way to fuse it together safely.”

“Dad, that’s… incredible.” He thought for a moment and I saw the moment he realized the drawback. “If you’re giving it to me permanently, merging like that, it would impact your power level, wouldn’t it?”

“It would diminish my power, yes. Somewhat.”

“What exactly does somewhat mean? How much are we talking?”

“By half.”

“No,” he said, firmly, shaking his head. “No way. We’ll find another way. Or I’ll make my peace with it. I’m already working on it actually.”

“I don’t want you to have to compromise—not when it comes to that.”

“Then when we defeat Constantine, we’ll make him return it.”

“I don’t want that for you. It could be returned to you corrupted, because of what’s within him. Or he could invoke the sire bond through it. You were able to stave that off because of your magic. Now with him having access to it, it stands to reason that he could enforce the opposite.”

“Then I’ll fight it.”

I looked away.

“Ah, I see. You don’t think I’m strong enough. Mentally speaking?”

“I think you’ve endured too much already and that it’s taken a significant toll. You need to focus on your recovery, not taking on more strain.”

“I won’t have you compromised, Dad.”

“It’s not a sacrifice to me if it makes you happy again, Xavier.”

When he went to argue back, Abi cut in, “Allow it to settle first and then you can resume your discussion in a few days. Tensions are already high enough right now.”

“Yeah,” Xavier said, running his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, they are.”

“Done,” she told me then, patting my shoulder.

I looked to see the skin devoid of even a blemish, completely healed. “Thank you.”

She kissed my cheek, then told me, “Why don’t you spend some time with your son that doesn’t involve any heavy subject matter. I need to speak with Orpheus before Alena awakens.”

“That would be nice,” Xavier said, beaming at me.

“It certainly has been too long.”

That was a severe understatement.

His turning had pulled us apart.

He hadn’t wanted me to be close to it, he’d wanted to handle things all on his own.

And as much as it had killed me, I’d allowed it. I’d given him his freedom.

But I’d almost lost him in the process.

This time I wouldn’t make the same mistake. There would be a balance now. And our estrangement would end going forward. I couldn’t be without my son anymore. The last three years had been excruciating. Almost losing him in the absolute sense had served as a brutal wakeup call. I couldn’t operate that way for another moment.

My son was everything to me.

Nothing came above that.