Hi!

I'm back with another chapter and guys, it's super long! Enough said, enjoy the chapter. Let me know if you liked this one!

Lara

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Chapter 31

I didn't really know what I was doing. My nerves had left me the moment I stepped out of my room in search for Giuliana. There was this need to tell her what I thought really happened. Come clean. She was someone I could trust. I mean, this was not the Circle, or a freaking meeting with the head vam-

I faltered in my steps.

Yeah. It wasn't.

And I was not going to think about him. Been down that lane, thank you very much.

And I had bigger problems, dammit. The ability to take someone else's magic and use it was very rare. It was severely punished by the Circle. I knew that much. Not knowing that I could do it seemed like the biggest; meanest joke the universe had played on me. Lately.

Hiding it, forgetting that it ever happened, would have been the smart thing to do, in my world. But I remembered the look of pride on Giuliana's face, and I just ... I wanted it to be real. For the past few weeks I had practically been living and breathing in lies and untruths. I just couldn't keep doing it. Not with Giuliana, and not if it could destroy my one and only real chance of having something coming close to a family. A place I could call home. A comfort zone in which I didn't have to keep running, anticipating the big bad to catch up from behind and make a mess of my world. It wasn't perfect, but sometimes I felt like this place could be my salvation.

In the past few days I'd been jostled from one training session to the next, but I was able to watch the Lumenis and their ways. It was a simple, peaceful life. A guarded life. And I was in the middle of it, a stranger washed up on their shores by chance. It was true that I wasn't here by choice, but if there was even a tiny chance of building a future here, finding some sort of peace – wouldn't it be worth it?

I was going to do it. For once, I was going to be completely honest – damn the consequences.

I gathered whatever determination I had left and walked through the arched doorways with straightened shoulders. The dark path of stone that wound its way through the mountain like a snake. My room was located on the outer wall of the mountain, where the first white-washed stone carvings began, and were human-carved structures met with natural stone. It was also a part of the mountain I was well familiar with. To get to Giuliana's room, I had to pass through what I'd come to call the great hall, then move on and turn left.

I remembered the way there. I also remembered that this was the furthest I'd ever gone. Apparently I hadn't convinced the Lumenis that I was trustworthy enough to see more of the mountain yet. It irked me, not only for the obvious reasons. There was a part of me burning to learn what kind of treasures the stone structures were hiding. I'd read enough books on magical theory to know the Lumenis were housing more than one library.

Torches flickered against the soft breeze that brushed through the holes perpetually. The smell of salt and water waned the farther I went, replaced by cool, damp air drafts.

I rounded another corner and almost ran into two witches. I muttered an unintelligible excuse and headed on, hoping they were also part of the raiders. Vincenzo and a handful of witches from what most likely was his inner circle regularly scouted the territory around the village, looking for leaks in the massive magical shield around their hideout. Giuliana was one of them. I would have to hurry if I wanted to catch them before they went out.

Here's to hopes Giuliana's still there.

The door to her room was within sight. I'd almost reached it, when I heard low voices. I stopped in my tracks, found a door ajar right beside me. I think I would have moved on. I was a heartbeat away from never learning what I eventually did that night, and I wouldn't have, if I'd just walked on.

Sometimes the worst joke the universe can and will tell you, is the one you have to hear.

I heard my name, recognized one of the voices. It was Giuliana.

I walked up to the door, hand stretched out, ready to push it open. Then stopped dead in my tracks.

"Vincenzo, she wants answers," Giuliana said. "She still doesn't know what coming here truly meant, and it's my fault. Back then in New York I didn't tell her that joining the Lumenis was a lifetime choice. She doesn't know she has to make that decision. She needs to know. Let me explain everything to her."

"You'll do nothing of the kind. We've been over this before." Vincenzo said. "I don't give a damn if she's made progress. She's a ticking time bomb someone dropped into our hands and we both know it."

I grew very still, hand outstretched, thoughts tossed up, caught in the air.

Ticking time bomb? A lifetime choice?

Hot and cold showers cascaded down my back. What was going on here?

"She's not, Vincenzo."

"Why exactly do you think Raphael Medici took an interest in her?"

Giuliana made a sound of displeasure. "Oh, don't tell me you believe the word of a rogue witch like Medici! He is infamous for his crimes, even here in Europe."

"He might be a rogue witch and a criminal," Vincenzo said evenly, "but that he has survived up until now, makes me wonder how he did it. There may be rumors about the state of is mental health being unstable, but I'm reluctant to believe them. I've heard others speak of him and of who he once was. He understands magic better than any other rogue we know of. Not only dark magic. He knows certain things about the old ways."

"Are you suggesting what I think you are?" Giuliana sounded offended.

"Your godchild was very vague when it came to why she was abducted by the Raven. If he wanted revenge, he would have simply killed her and be done with it. He did no such thing. It makes me wonder what he wanted from her."

"And that is the reason why you put her through all the training," Giuliana said slowly. It wasn't a question. It was a statement.

I heard clothes rustling, the harsh sound of feet and motion. Someone turning fast.

"She told us her hold on other elements is erratic and uncontrolled," Vincenzo said. "I don't trust her enough to believe in words alone. I want to see how she handles the magic. We need to be sure her magic isn't the reason for Raphael Medici's interest in her."

"I know and I understand that. It's true that when I first heard about her use of three elements I was worried," Giuliana said. "But you must have realized it too. She isn't a Pentagram, or else all of the elements would have manifested faster. In the past all the Pentagrams' powers manifested at once. The ancient texts speak of sudden surges of power occurring within short periods of time. You and I both know it Vincenzo. You've seen her. She's got a lot of raw power, but it's not nearly as much as a Pentagram could wield. From what I've seen she can barely use the other elements at all. "

"You forget who she is, who her parents were," Vincenzo said. "She's a wild card. Witches of the Larosa family were always unpredictable. They've proven to be more susceptible to dark magic than most of us. Someone like her, without training and knowledge? Without the morals to stand against temptation when tempted by dark magic? She could do more damage than half of the Marinelli clan."

"Possibilities and subjunctives. You think that's enough to write her off and put a proverbial death sentence on her?" Giuliana said. "I will not allow that!"

My vision tunnelled then flickered in and out. The world tipped and tilted, until nothing made sense and I fell into a cotton swab of darkness.

Death sentence.

The words rang in my ears, a radio out of tune. For a long time all I could hear was its hissing, a powerful sputtering of dislocated vowels and mismatched rhymes.

Vincenzo's voice was harsh, pulled me out of that dark-land of roaring white noise with a violent jerk.

"She's a direct descendant of the Larosa family, the first female in over eight decades. That makes her dangerous. Not only because of the implications, but because of her name. There was a time when everyone associated with the family was in danger, you know that. No matter if the vampires have forgotten the name, and I doubt they have, I haven't. That she's staying with us, that she's even here, is enough. God knows, I could have done without this. You knew that and yet you came to me trying to make it my problem. There are more than a hundred witches out there, and I'm responsible for them. You think I'll risk them for one witch we don't even know?"

"That's not true. She belongs here. And she should stay if and because she feels that way. You can't just take her magic away from her. You owe her," Giuliana said. "We owe her. How could you forget what happened all those years ago? We failed to protect her parents. We failed to protect her."

"I did not forget." Vincenzo's voice hardened. "I could never forget. And we did not fail. They decided against being a part of the Lumenis."

Giuliana made a sound of protest.

"Don't even start with me, Giuliana. We all know about your feelings regarding the De Luca incident."

"You forget the Lumenis' true purpose, Vincenzo. You forget what our forefathers swore after the second Pentagram arose. They took the same oath you took. They promised, what we all promised we would do."

"I am following the oath to the word – just like our forefathers. Which is exactly why I will do what I must to protect this village."

"You might be following the oath, but you're doing it for the wrong reasons, Vicenzo."

I heard movement, the soft swish-swish of clothes rustling with motion, and rushed to the other end of the corridor, hiding deep in the shadows.

Minutes, maybe even hours, blinked out of existence. I was lost somewhere between hot blood rushing in my ears and that familiar, numbing darkness behind my eyes. The only thing I could hear over the roar of my heartbeat was the endless repetition of two questions. What happened after the second Pentagram arose? And what did the Lumenis' forefathers swear?

In time even the questions disappeared. They were meaningless, unimportant, pointless to what came next.

I blinked, struck with the worst kind of epiphany a human could have. It was the moment in which I realized that Medici had been right. Nothing was as it seemed, never had been to start with. Everything I once believed in, fundamental truths I'd built my whole system of beliefs on, just vanished into nothing. Not only that the Lumenis wasn't what I always assumed it was, I probably wasn't what I thought I was.

I was the good guy. I was the one who was wronged. This was supposed to be sanctuary. My sanctuary.

All of a sudden I didn't fit anywhere. There was no category or truth I could stick my name tag on. Not on the Circle, not on the Lumenis. No one to confide in.

I'd glimpsed something I'd seen in bits and pieces before, but never understood fully. There had always been parts of my past that didn't make sense, didn't add up to what I knew about myself and my parents. Whenever doubts arose, I suppressed them with all I got. Now the lid to Pandora's box had been lifted enough for me to see. I just wished I hadn't seen it. By the three witches, I wished I didn't.

I'd never felt as alone as I did in that moment.

* * *

I stayed close to the shadows, unmoving, respiration the only thing that tied me to the real world. Giuliana and Vicenzo left together. I knew because I heard them.

The sound of their footsteps, however, had long faded.

I was alone. All alone. And if I didn't do something and moved, I was going to have a nervous breakdown in the middle of a freaking mountain.

I took a deep breath and pushed myself away from the wall, slinking back into the corridor, moving on autopilot. I had to get back to my room. Fast.

Questions and doubt lingered in the recesses of my mind. The scent of betrayal and disappointment bitter on my tongue. Had desperation and a cracked compass brought me to the last place I wanted to go? I shook my head, trying to shake off the perpetual Why? spinning in my mind.

Weighing my options, thinking about the endless string of catastrophes that had brought me to this point – it was getting old. Where were those moments in which I believed my life was anything coming close to simple? Where were the times when I didn't have to ponder on every single word I said to people around me? Even here in the middle of nowhere things were not what I thought they were. Trust was a two-edged sword that, once again, was turned against me, cutting deep into skin and bones.

I remembered conversations I had with Giuliana, her urgent words suggesting I come to visit the Lumenis and learn more about my past. I just learned that coming here meant I couldn't leave.

Judging from what Giuliana said, I had to make some sort of choice. Judging from Vincenzo's poor show of faith in me, I couldn't leave ever. According to him I was a wild card he was neither willing to suffer, nor to let go.

Did that mean Giuliana fooled me on purpose? Should I have guessed earlier?

The questions that had been bothering me for the past few days resurfaced. There were many things that didn't make sense when it came to the Lumenis. I'd learned a few facts since I first stumbled into the Lumenis' secret hideout, and I learned them the hard way.

For one, Vincenzo's animosity towards me was disproportionate. His uncle, Sergio, died because of me, I knew that, but Vincenzo kept treating me like I was the one who orchestrated what happened all those years ago. In front of the other witches he maintained I had to learn their ways and control my magic first and foremost. He'd stood there in the great hall, saying that I had to earn my place among their community.

And all that time he was telling half-truths. The training? Just a means to see if something was wrong with my magic. If he didn't like what he was seeing, he was going to put a figurative magical death sentence on me. He'd take my magic away without blinking. That was what they were talking about – the figurative death sentence was to make sure I wouldn't be able to use magic any longer. There was no doubt in my mind that Vincenzo had the knowledge and power to do it.

What I didn't get was: if there were other witches who could control more than one element, why did my relation to the Larosa family still matter? I didn't believe Vincenzo's wild-card reference for a second. After all Giuliana just confirmed I couldn't be a Pentagram. She said all the elements would have manifested earlier if I really was.

When we first met, Vincenzo said there were more witches that could use multiple elements. So what was the problem? Wasn't I just one among many? And what happened the night my parents died? Why exactly did they want to leave the Lumenis in the first place?

There was no doubt in my mind that the Lumenis hadn't told me the whole story. And they weren't going to.

But I was going to find out.

I stopped dead in the middle of one of the stone corridors I'd come from and turned around slowly. I knew that Vincenzo called most members in for some sort of out of town expedition. This was probably my one and only chance to get answers. My fingers twitched and fisted, white-knuckled with the need for action, something to balance the turmoil and commotion in my mind.

I turned on my heel. I had a new destination.