Chapter 15: Chapter 15 – Interlude – part 1

Adele

Aer mansion, Berlin

Adele looked down at the half-empty wine glass in her hand, thinking about what to do next. As it was now, she had not achieved what she set out to do after discovering Leo’s capabilities. 

The capture attempt instigated by the Church failed, and that mongrel and her dear stepdaughter fled the premises, the best she could tell. As far as she was concerned, she had failed her father's mission and, thus, herself. 

Looking up, she examined the aftermath of the short fight that had broken out and saw for what it was - a fiasco. The Church's priests were swarming the dining room covered in rubble in their pristine white robes. The once beautiful wooden floor was scorched and riddled with holes. Her husband, now probably ex-husband, was sitting on the ground bound in orium chains, his magic sealed and him - powerless. Viktor did not look up even once and was still as a statue, seemingly not paying attention to the number of people running around him.

The Bishop leading the capture, Bishop Leonard, was dressed in white robes like his priests though his were more elaborate. He looked at the surrounding chaos with clear annoyance, meaning one thing - he was equally displeased as her father would be when he heard of this failure. Failing to capture a loose heretic, still young and inexperienced, was unheard of and, therefore, a shameful stain on the Church’s stellar reputation. 

Without wanting to drag this circus out longer than necessary, Bishop Leonard moved to join Adele at the head of the now scorched dining table and sat down in a clean chair his priests had provided. He looked into her green eyes and began with a strong Italian accent, “So, it looks like they have escaped because of your incompetence. We gave you and your father our support and all the tools necessary, planned and timed this perfectly. But they still escaped. What do you have to say for yourself?” 

Adele did not know how to respond, as she was as annoyed as he was. However, judging by the irritated look on his face, she did not want to piss him off more than he already was. Evaluating his face, where a large, pronounced nose and a thin mustache below it attracted her attention, she thought for a second. 

“I am not at fault, sir,” Adele responded, looking down at her hands resting on the table. “Viktor had a strong protection ring, capable of rendering your initial disabling spells useless. I did not know about it, as it seems it was acquired recently. I tried to stop him myself, though it was already too late. You have undoubtedly heard that he and Heidi are sensitive to magic. They can feel a spell thrown their way….”

“It does not matter!” the Bishop interrupted angrily by raising his voice. “What is done is done. You have failed us. I will ensure that the Pope hears a full report of what transpired here. Your contribution, though, might be, how to put it, significantly improved if you were to tell me everything you have learned in detail. Do not rush; think it through,” he said, leaning back in his chair to look at the woman before him. 

Leonard knew of Adele Inpes, the eldest daughter of clan Inpes. A cunning and ambitious woman, she married off to a third-rate clan head as a second wife after the first one had tragically passed away. 

She thought she could gain the Pope’s favor and thus increase her standing with the Church if this operation had gone as expected. Now she was at his mercy. It did not matter to Leonard what Adele needed or how much more she was willing to lie. What mattered was to capture the heretic before he became a problem. Thus he needed information.

Thinking it over and deciding to lay all her cards on the table, without seeing another option, Adele began, “I do not know much about the boy. We found him in a backwater country’s hospital, passed out.”

“Where?”

“In Riga, Latvia. That is next to the Baltic sea, near Russia and Sweden,” Adele answered, looking the Bishop in the eye. 

“Thank you for the geography lesson; I know where this city is,” the Bishop answered her, his tone mocking. “So, you found him in the old pagan lands. Tell me more.”

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“Of course, your excellency. Yes, we found him when we got a call from the hospital. They brought our daughter there after a car accident. The boy was brought in with an ambulance as well. She was unconscious at the time. When we got there, Viktor went to the hospital’s administration and gathered all the details. Though physically unhurt, the boy was involved in the accident and managed to call the ambulance after checking up on Heidi. When they got there, he was lying next to her car on the ground, unconscious.”

“Why then bring him here, to Germany, to your family’s estate?” the Bishop asked.

“Simple. When Viktor went to check up on the boy, he noted that the boy’s body had a large accumulation of mana,” Adele answered.

The Bishop was intrigued and thought over his next question before asking, “So Viktor thought that it is what? An opportunity? Surely he and you must have known that such a finding had to be reported to the Church immediately. We do not allow loose heretics to run around and wreak havoc in mud lives. We, the Church keep the ordinary world safe from monsters, old and new.”

“I know and understand, your excellency. Viktor brought the boy here and asked our clan’s chief healer to examine him. He discovered that while the boy had mana, he had not formed a mana core yet. The boy was dying. Viktor knew it. So he asked Heidi to try to teach the boy. Undoubtedly, he hoped to trigger a core formation, similar to what Heidi did when she was little. I disagreed with him and consulted with my father, who organized this raid with the Church.”

Leonard thought about what she said. He knew heretics could not pass the first trial - the core formation. Even if they discovered that they could suddenly move items with their mind or that there was some new energy they could use, these individuals never amounted to much. They just did not know how to form a core without a ritual. No one did. 

He asked, “But there are no records of adults forming a core in this day and age, not without the ritual. What was he trying to achieve?”

“What my father thought they were. To undermine the Church. As the Pope and my father suspected, Aer's head had been plotting to throw over the Church for a while,” Adele explained. 

The Bishop laughed, “Ah, yes! The old plot of the Aer. Of course, we have known about this for a while. For centuries your clan heads have been thinking about the commoners, pagans, and the godless. Giving power to the people was a grand idea, was it not?” 

Adele frowned before answering, “Pardon, sir, but it is not my clan. I am faithful to my father, to the Inpes. I have never been a part of whatever plot there might be in clan Aer.”

“Of course, of course, dear. Please continue,“ the Bishop chuckled, waving his gloved hand at her.

“Viktor’s idea worked, as impossible as it would sound. The boy was put in a mana-condensed environment with no plan or guidance. I have no idea what was done, as Heidi did not share this part before the attack, but the boy came out with a half-formed green core. That is all I managed to gather, before I triggered the ring and called you over,” Adele finished. 

The Bishop drummed his fingers on the table, thinking, and asked, “There must be something else. I am sure of it. My gut is never wrong. Think!”

Adele looked back at the table, her hands shaking slightly as the Bishop released a slight pressure from his blue core pressing down on her red. It was a common tactic used by stronger mages in their society to intimidate opponents and make them see how superior they were. The amount of mana contained in a blue and red core was like comparing a bucket and a small pond.

After the pressure was released in a second, Adele remembered and said urgently, “Yes, the book! Viktor mentioned a book left to their clan heads by their ancestor Inca. The book was supposed to contain important information. He gave Heidi an iron key to his desk in the study. That is where the book was before they ran off. I swear. That is all I can remember.“

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