Chapter 251 - Sharing is Caring

"Don't think this is going to happen, Alexander," said Magnus, raising an eyebrow. "I will find a way to stop it. I will not let my wife go to you."

Alexa was gaping and still speechless.

"It would be better for us to come to an agreement..." Alexander sighed, finally getting up and heading for the door. "The fact that you will destroy the three of us just because you can't share anything is unfortunate..."

Alexa rarely saw Magnus even blush, but this time even his ears turned red. He was apoplectic.

"DO YOU THINK I WILL BEND TO THIS MAD WHIM AND LEAVE ALEXA BY YOUR SIDE?! Share her? You are a lot more stupid than I thought."

"It wouldn't be you sharing, but me. For three simple reasons, which may not be clear to you now. First, you will have a child together, and that brings you together in some way. Second, there is no other way because even I am not strong enough to undo the curse of the hellish pomegranate seed. And lastly, because killing you to rip my heart out of your chest is not in my plans ... Don't force me to do that, Magnus. I don't want to. Alexa," he turned to her. "Tell him not to do it."

Alexa looked at one and the other. The death of one meant the death of the other!

Magnus fell silent, although his face showed that several conflicts were going through his mind at that moment. Opening the door, Alexander said goodbye,

"On this subject, I see that there is nothing more to say. Time changes everything, for better or worse. And the more we struggle, the more we will get hurt..."

When he left them, Alexa hugged Magnus.

"The fault is mine! I'm such a fool! I couldn't see through their doings!"

"This cannot be the end. You won't end like this, being forced to go with him for as long as it is! If what was left of my brother died in the consciousness of that… thing… I will find a way to destroy him."

Alexa just stuck her face in Magnus 'chest, exactly against the chest that held Orcaius' heart inside. She had no doubt that Magnus said that with conviction, but Alexander was right. What good would it do if Magnus died?

ºº

"What Alexander says makes sense, Alexa," replied Iacintho after hearing all the accounts of his younger sister's recent dilemmas. "Within everything I have learned about the mysteries of the Underworld and the Great Judgment, returning from hell with something from there is impossible. You have the seed within you, so you cannot get rid of the curse. Like Alexander himself, in a way. You have stopped sharing a body, but you still share many things. Even the sleep that afflicted him ... Now it will also afflict you, for an entire season."

He sighed heavily, as if his mind could not produce a satisfactory solution to an enigma.

"I can't believe I couldn't see behind his farce!" muttered Narses, sitting on a rock.

The brothers were gathered on some rocks near the sea on that cloudy afternoon, not far from Schwartzhoffhausen, watching the waves break on the gravel beach.

Iacintho was the only one among them with the hood fully pulled and covering his face, in addition to the heavy cloak hiding his body. Alexa and Narses had found out that the legends about the upirs were real. During the night it was much more difficult for regular humans to realize that Iacintho was just as supernatural as during sunlight. So he avoided being seen during the day. Although he was able to walk around like anyone else, in fact. He also complained his vision got blurred by too much light. 'Upirs were created by shadows and to the shadows,' he had said. 

"Tsk," Iacintho mocked his brother, laughing darkly, "at least you got rid of your private jailer with the help of your brother-in-law… I got some help from the other brother-in-law."

Narses and Alexa looked at each other, worried, while Iacintho laughed. Then finally, Narses also laughed, "Alexander would be a great brother-in-law, that I had already sensed. Too bad, even though he's a great brother-in-law, he's out of the cycle, and in a way, he's dragging our sister out of it too."

His words were full of meaning, and Iacintho agreed, wiping his eyes from the tears brought on by his laughter.

"Yes, Narses. I understand what you mean. So we will look for a way to save it. Lex is expecting a child, and during the three seasons for which she will be pregnant with her baby, we have to find a solution. Because ... we don't know what can happen. I am relieved that Alexander claims that this baby was not put there by the seed that our shortie swallowed. It was the normal method, and with Magnus. "

"Can this child be normal?" Narses asked.

"Don't you have any tact?!" Alexa put her hand on her stomach, completely flat and, particularly, hungry. This conversation gave her the chills and made her think, in a very real way, that she was actually expecting a baby. There was a small Magnus or a small Alexa inside her body. A baby in need of care, nutrition, and a father and mother. 

But there was also a cursed pomegranate seed inside her. That would take her to the dark world that she experienced in some conversations with Alexander, in her dreams.

Couldn't she be with her baby?

"Can we leave immediately looking for a solution? Where to? Should we still look for Master Petrus?" she asked, feeling a lump in her throat as her fingers unconsciously circled lovingly under her navel. It was there that she imagined little Magnus living.

"This is the obvious step that Alexander imagines we will take," said Iacintho.

"Yes, he knows her and he also knows a lot about us. And maybe even about Master Petrus, since he lived Lex's life in dreams, as you said. I think he could have many ways to stop our most obvious actions. Like snatching you from their views, for example."

"He said he doesn't care, because wherever I am, I will reach him as soon as winter comes," Alexa recalled, fearfully.

"Lex ..." said Iacintho, getting up from the driftwood trunk where he was and coming to his sister. "Listen to your brother. You have less than nine months before winter comes. Your agony can be unbearable if you think this time is short. Take the time to be with your husband and let Narses and I think about how to fix it. We are free from our prisons thanks to you… Collaterally, of course."

"Eh, are you really going to thank Alexander who caused all this, for having each of you got rid of your burdens?" she narrowed her eyes, sullen by Iacintho's increasingly strange sense of humor. But Narses agreed.

"And we will show you appreciation fixing this mess for you."

"Trust your brothers a little. We are not totally useless, despite appearances!" Iacintho winked at her.

"Speak for yourself, undead!"

"Hm, an undead who is more friendly with the ladies than you have been, oh great celibatarian seducer!"

Alexa didn't believe what she was hearing. They had become the opposite of what they were! Narses was now much more surly than Iacintho, and ... Was Iacintho now a bon vivant?

But she knew they had some sort of recent deal. And although Narses said that Iacintho had to be destroyed, it didn't look like he was in such a hurry after seeing him in person.

"Are you saying that I shouldn't worry about that?! I don't want to have two husbands!"

Iacintho sighed,

"Right now, Alexander is managing to have you for him all year, don't you think so too?"

"...!" Iacintho had a point, though.