Chapter 263 - Flawed

Alexa put her fist against her mouth, horrified. It was possible to see how far the man she knew was far from the being she was facing now.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the figures as static as she was, scattered across the wreckage and piles of bodies. She didn't even know who Shades were and who was alive. Alexa just wanted to erase from her mind what she had seen, the animalistic and sadistic acts she had witnessed.

'The monster. The monster inside him. He already said it. Every time he spills blood ... ' Her thought was not completed, because her feet were getting in the way of each other, as her thoughts.

When Magnus dropped the sword, making a move to come to her, Alexa swallowed. Her whole body was shaking ... Turning her back on him, she started to run.

"ALEXA!" he roared, running after her.

She didn't want to look back. She didn't want to hear his voice, not like that!

Terror overwhelmed her senses, and she ran through the empty streets and courtyards, almost out of breath, having no idea where she was going. He was still chasing her and his heavy steps reverberated behind her. 

But Alexa has not went that far. Her flank started to hurt and her heavy pregnant belly was too much for her. Nauseated and panting, she put her hands in her knees, trying to catch her breath, when he stopped in front of her.

"YOU! You are in so much trouble, young lady!"

That didn't even sound like Magnus...

She held out a hand in a signal that he wouldn't approach.

"Stop! What are you doing?!"

"Once again, does the nosy lady have to come where she wasn't supposed to be? What is your excuse to risk your life and my son's life?"

She blinked as thick tears fell. 

"I barely recognize you, Magnus ... Did you ... Did you look around you?"

He did as suggested, but snorted, looking back at his wife.

"Are you talking about the dead enemies?! Did you want me to spare them? Do you know what they did to the people of this village?!" he barked.

Alexa also looked around again, but closed her eyes.

"You didn't think about this place's people! You only thought of your hatred and your thirst for revenge! Your soldiers consider you insane, Magnus! I…"

"Do you consider me insane too?!" he laughed insanely. "Another crazy warrior, the third in succession? But I overcame Blackrose's feat, didn't I? I set aflame not a part of Venice, but enemy boats and soldiers ... Is that enough for you?"

"You didn't do this for me."

"Neither did he do it for you, but for the glory of his name and the Church's."

"I don't even know why we're talking about him now, Magnus! Don't you see how you are? Don't you see the beast inside you..."

"The beast inside me… It's always that. The beast inside me. A demon, isn't it?"

"Yes! You said that yourself. Don't let yourself be dominated by this anymore, Magnus!"

"HAHA HA! HAHAHAHA… HAH… HAHAHAHAAH!" 

The sudden laugh that broke out from Magnus startled her. In fact even some crows on the roofs fluttered with the loud sound echoing in the alley.

"What ... what are you laughing at?!" Alexa asked, seeing him sit on the floor carelessly, while laughing as if he knew something she didn't know.

"I had a revelation tonight, Alexa. My fears are completely gone. Some people say they can hear God's voice in times of despair. But of course, it didn't happen to me. Hahaha.. haha ​​..."

His irritation had subsided, and he was laughing. How had that happened? She didn't understand.

"What happened, Alexa, was the funniest thing ever. I discovered, my love, my little dove, that there is no black thing inside me. There is no voice telling me to do things. There is none of that. There is only Magnus. Deciding what to do."

Alexa bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood. Behind the mask of filth on the Prince of Holstein's face, his golden eyes scanned her as he loosened his armband clamps.

"Yes, Alexa. This is the war, this is the Prince, this is the man you chose, among your queue of suitors... Am I the best of them, or the worst? In a way ... I feel sorry for you."

His words scared her more than she expected.

"Sorry?"

"Sorry, Alexa Zoe Dalassenos von Wuttenfal. I will not share you to anyone. Does he think he will spend the winter with you? Does he think he will win your heart overtime?! I will imprison him in such a way… and even if you sleep… You and I can live forever like that…"

Alexa remembered Jette's verses, in her epic.

"Overwhelmed by the warrior of irrefutable deeds, the Dark Lord lays and sleeps..."

Was that an account of past events, or a prophecy?

"Magnus ... I don't want to live forever."

This time, it was he who looked at her as if he didn't understand her for the first time. Wiping his face with the back of his arm, he stood up, asking,

"And how can we make this work?"

°°°

"I can no longer see that impish Alexios when I look at you," squeezing his dark eyes in contentment, Master Petrus de Languedoc ruffled Alexa's hair.

"Ah, well ... I grew up!" she looked adoringly at the Alchemist. 

"I see, I see!" His hand hovered over Alexa's prominent belly, and he said a brief blessing.

"This little girl will be protected from all evil. Wherever she is, evil will not touch her."

"A girl?!" Alexa's heart split between awe and fear. 

"Calm down, Alexa," Iacintho put a hand on her shoulder, "This is good. The girls in our house are less likely to carry the gift. Her life can be a lot easier than yours was, and what a Dallassenos boy would be."

"Ah ..." She wished so, while also wishing that the Dallassenos' blood was strong enough to continue passing from generation to generation. Even though she herself had been deprived of her Light.

"Iacintho's messengers reached me, and when I was ready to go all the way here, a Bishop knocks on my door! I never imagined this happening," Petrus smirked. Bishop Agnello just squinted like a bored cat, guarding his thoughts as he watched the Dallassenos siblings meet with their mystical mentor.

"It must have been an interesting trip ..." Narses commented. He seemed the most anxious in the room, and Alexa noticed his restlessness through his movements. She had come home from a long journey, and her whole body ached. Just the need to find out what her brothers were doing still kept her on her feet.

Magnus didn't want to let her go back to Holstein, and only when she begged at his feet and said that she was afraid for his brothers' lives did he bring her.

Yes. 

He turned his back to the east and returned to Holstein with her, transferring his duties to other generals.

It was a relief to discover her brothers' shady business wasn't a confrontation against Alexander, but Master Petrus' arrival.

But why did they all look at each other as if they kept a secret from her?

Why were they doing this to her? Didn't they see that she was on the verge of tears? Even when she smiled because seeing Master Petrus was really something great?

"We'll all be talking together soon, won't we?" She tried to control herself. They quickly agreed and advised her to rest after arriving from such a tiring trip.

"Did something happen?" Iacintho asked, but she shook her head. Alexa wasn't prepared to tell them Magnus was going mad.

Alexa thought she really needed to rest. Her thoughts were confused. Did they really not know what had happened in the citadel? Hadn't the news arrived yet?

"I will do this." She glanced at her brothers, and they looked very tense and guilty.

Master Petrus - a small, slight figure who made himself giant by the force of his mysterious presence - seemed to hold his breath and his troubled thoughts within himself. Agnello kept his gaze away, as if thinking deeply, with his mind absent.

'What are they doing?' she wondered. However, knowing that she wouldn't have an answer, Alexa withdrew.

°°°

"There are no actual possibilities to break this spell, not the way it is. Is that your answer, Master Petrus?" the Sovereign Prince's voice didn't hide his annoyance. Alexa had approached the room cautiously, silently, to hear what they were still talking about.

Alexa had woken up in her room, in the middle of the night. She was feeling more rested after the tonic that her brother Iacintho had prepared for her to have a relaxing sleep. 

And Alexa imagined that, as they always did in the past, her brothers should still be in Master Petrus' company, sharing secrets in the dark hours as they preferred. And they were.

But Magnus was with them, this time.

"Possibly not, with the knowledge you have gained and with everything I know about this type of transfer ..." Master Petrus had a dry and assertive tone. "There is a solution, as Iacintho told me, and it has already been suggested."

"Do you really think my old heart may be somewhere, in Orcaius' power?"

"He partially lost his powers while living here as the boy Alexander, His Majesty. He even hinted at this in his reports. And according to Iacintho, he told Alexa that 'Letitia' has taken possession of one of his resources linked to you, Your Majesty, as soon as she was backed by the living witches of her cult."

"I already said that all of this is just another attempt to force Alexa to do something she will regret." Magnus snarled.

"As I understand it, Your Majesty," Petrus sounded bored, "A sophisticated and well-crafted magic has linked some bodies and some lives and souls in a process that binds them together. However, it would be stupid to think that chance did it, and it was made without a purpose. From the beginning, the intention was to regain Orcaius' freedom. He was caught in a curse that prevents him from being reborn. And forces him to be, unlike the Dallassenos, not a Bringer of Light, but an Avenger."

Alexa didn't know what was nothing she was hearing, hidden near the door, in the shadows. She didn't see their faces, but she could deduce from the kind of silence that Magnus would curse at any moment, and she was not mistaken.

"Avenger?! What the hell is that?"

"It's what you are quickly becoming, Your Majesty. It doesn't take long for the blood you spill to take you to the end of everything that's still human in you. Your end is near, Magnus von Wuttenfal."

"HOW DARE YOU?!!!"