Of Heroes and Villainy

The Winter Solstice was always a time of traditions, presents, and parties. The city of Vailmont was no exception to that. It wasn't as bustling and busy as the Capital city of Thyllport where Walt's family lived was, but many of the noble families had parties set up months ahead of time so no one's overlapped the other. The Blackwoods had never thrown their own, mostly because most people were too afraid to go to it, but they did go to some of the others.

The holiday started more lowkey with picking out a tree to take home and decorate, which they always let Rinne pick out once she was old enough. Rinne went running through the rows and rows of trees, looking for the perfect one. She stopped in front of one that was tall and full, and a deep rich green color. It was slightly rounder in shape than most of the others, and she turned towards her family, where Kageo was leading them behind her, and grinned.

"This one!" Rinne cried happily.

Adiran was carrying the axe to chop it down, and after taking a good look around it, he nodded his head and got to work. Kageo was on the other side, ready to grab the tree when it fell. Then the two of them carried the tree back to their vehicle to get it secured and taken back to the house. Once they had it set up as they liked it and the blue and silver tree skirt was around the bottom of it, they brought out the ornaments, tinsel, and lights to put on the tree. Lilith and Adiran sat down once the lights were all in place with mulled cider and let the kids put all of the decorations up.

Kageo also worked on getting the solstice train set up that would go around the house. Him and Adiran did this every year so he knew what he was doing. Yami and Rinne finished decorating the rest of the living room and front entrance, and the whole home was alive with color and lights by the time they were done and had grabbed their own mugs of hot cider.

Kageo brought out a photo of their parents with all of them as kids at Yuletide, with Yuna about halfway through her pregnancy with Rinne. It was from a party that Adiran had held the year before their parents had died. It was always the finishing touch on decorating.

Next year

, he promised to his parents silently.

Next year, we're going to know the truth. By this time next year, I'll clear your names. I swear.

Kageo didn't purposely send those feelings across the connection to Walt, but he felt it anyway. They would learn as they went that particularly strong emotions would come through when they weren't right next to each other.

Walt had been strolling toward the grove to meditate when the sending came through from Kageo. The feelings that passed along the bond were so strong that Walt had to stop and sit on a convenient bench for a moment to gather himself. When he eventually made his way into the grove, he was emotionally exhausted from working through those complicated feelings and ended up napping instead of meditating.

He had several nightmares where the culprit in the Blackwood Murders had been him somehow and he was trying to convince Kageo not to kill him in retribution, even though he didn't blame his lover at all for the feelings he had about the situation. In others, they discovered that Wilhelm had either personally committed the murders or had ordered it done. In the dreams, Kageo wanted nothing to do with him even in the dream where he brought justice by killing his own father.

Walt woke up from the nightmares in a bit of a panic, inadvertently sending those feelings along the bond to Kageo. He judged from the position of the sun in the sky that he had only been asleep for an hour, but that hour had felt like years.

They were in the middle of preparing dinner when the panic came through the connection. Kageo dropped the bowl he had been holding, sending the contents all over the floor as he grabbed onto the kitchen counter to stay standing. He brought one of his hands up to his chest, taking in the panic that had come through which caused a bit of panic of his own because he didn't know

why

Walt was freaking out. He wasn't sure if something had happened and if he was okay.

Now he suddenly understood what his uncle had meant about being able to harm someone through the bond and why it was so important Wilhelm never learned of it.

"Kageo, what on earth?" Lilith cried as she looked down at the mess.

All Kageo managed to do was look at Adiran with a look of fear and Adiran seemed to understand. He crossed the room and grabbed Kageo's shoulders to start to steer him from the room. "It's probably just side effects of the things he's been working on in school. Yami, could you handle cleaning that up? I'll take him to sit down."

Lilith narrowed her eyes at Kageo but eventually nodded her head as her husband took their oldest out of the room and into the living room to sit down. With Adiran's help, he calmed down enough to send back concern through the link to let Walt know that he was worried before he put his hands up to his face and rubbed his eyes.

"If he was hurt or dying, you'd know," Adiran said quietly to Kageo so it wouldn't travel to the kitchen.

Kageo took in some deep breaths as he gave a nod of his head to his uncle. Then he sent his concern once again, this time less panicked than the first time he had done so. The answering message from Walt included a faint tinge of disappointment, probably that the connection was far too emotionally based to allow direct thoughts, then a flood of warmth and love followed by a greyed-out feeling that Kageo recognized as Walt's emotional state while he was focusing. Knowing Walt, he was at work developing some means to communicate across long distances. There were phones of course, but those could easily be tapped into, especially when Wilhelm had the idea to.

Kageo seemed to visibly calm then, like the panic had never happened, though he looked embarrassed. He looked at Adiran before saying, "I should help Yami with my mess."

"As long as you can handle it, that's fine," Adiran agreed.

Kageo nodded again and got up, heading into the kitchen to help Yami. Adiran followed behind and when Lilith gave him a questioning look he came over and told her that some of his abilities had been having affects he wasn't ready to deal with constantly. It wasn't technically a lie, but wasn't the whole truth either.

Kageo helped Yami clean everything up then he started over on his part while Rinne helped him to speed it along. Adiran snapped some photos as they worked. Lilith watched the two of them, her attention on her nephew more than on Rinne, like she was trying to figure out what was up with him. Kageo kept his attention on his sister though, not wanting to give anything away to her right then. Plus, he loved his sisters with all of his heart. He wanted the holiday to be good for them, especially Rinne who was only thirteen.

Meanwhile, Walt would normally wait, bored and rereading one of his few approved books while waiting for the Page to come summon him to the ballroom for the annual Yuletide Festival. This year, however, he was working furiously in the room that he had repurposed from his studies room into a workroom, completely unaware of what day or time it was or even that his outfit for the evening still sat untouched on the bed. He had almost solved one of the fatal flaws in his design the day before but a misplaced junction line had literally caused it to go up in flames. Fortunately, he had rewritten his unmodified spell form from memory this morning while trying to puzzle out how to finish it off.

Until he placed the triggering component, it wouldn't activate and he was still a little too unsure of himself following that messy mishap, so he found himself mentally overlaying the design in his head on top of the slate tablet that he had painstakingly etched ever-so-gently with its real-world counterpart. He had traced the complicated design three times before he was convinced it was right and placed the triggering component with a careful stroke of his stylus. The whole tablet hummed and lit up with an eerie purple luminescence in the æther before settling into the latticework matrix that made up the tablet on an atomic level. As the magic aligned and integrated itself with the slate, it altered the structure, lending it permanence and strength.

More importantly to Walt's intentions, however, an unnaturally straight seam formed, neatly bisecting the tablet into two uniform pieces. Walt picked up one of the pens he had designed and spelled to work with this enchantment and drew a simplistic smiling face on one tablet, watching it draw itself on the twinned other half. He twirled the pen briefly and caught it smoothly with the butt end of the pen now facing the tablet and "erased" the sketch. It erased simultaneously from the other tablet. He smiled to himself in satisfaction. The next test couldn't be completed until he was near Kageo again and would require the assistance of a trusted individual.

Finally realizing the date and time, Walt carefully stowed the tablets in his desk safe (a drawer in his desk that he had spelled to be impervious to magical interference and keyed to his specific DNA) and rushed into the shower to get ready for the Festival. When he was free of three days' worth of sweat and effort, Walt dressed in the silver suit with a shirt in blue speckled with gold and silver stars, open at the neck.

When he came out to meet his family, Stella was already there wearing a gorgeous dark blue, backless gown with a square neckline that had silver and gold stars embroidered through the fabric. Her golden hair was up in a chignon bun with little gold pins of stars through the top of it. Her makeup was done in blue and silver eyeshadow and a berry lip tint.

"Father's political partners will be in attendance," Stella said blandly to Walt as he came up, as if she was simply informing him to act right. "The heir would do well to speak with them, show support of father and his plans."

Walt smiled and nodded, accepting Stella's information in the spirit in which it was offered as she turned and began walking with him toward the ballroom, the Page walking ahead at the speed that only Pages could manage to sustain. Unfortunately for the siblings, the absence of the Page didn't guarantee them privacy, as there were other people in the halls making their way to the selfsame ballroom, dressed in all their finery.

The ballroom was already filled with people, all dressed in their best for the solstice as they ate and danced and talked. Walt could see their father and mother when they came in. They were speaking to some of those same political partners right then. One of the men, Ilwyn Chambers, was a member of the council. He could be a brutal man, decisive with his decisions and not always the most compassionate, but he got things done and Wilhelm always seemed happy with the directions of those decisions.

Walt was immediately accosted by the woman who had been attempting unsuccessfully to court him for the past three years. Unfortunately, Stella gave him a sympathetic shrug and moved off to avoid the attentions of the man who had been trying to convince her to let him court her. Meanwhile, Eunice Anderson began prattling on about whatever she had been doing during the school term, as her family had not received an invitation this year. Walt sort of tuned her out and began looking for someone influential to interrupt this unfortunate discussion.

Walt could see couples, even those his age, taking to the dance floor, and it made him think of Kageo. What might it be like to lead Kageo to the dance floor and feel their bodies up against each other as they waltzed? Would Walt lead, or would Kageo? He knew that Kageo did own clothes in colors that didn't match the Blackwood aesthetic, but what kind of suit would he wear to a ball like this? He'd have to ask Kageo when they got back to school to see any photos he had taken while at his own events, to sate that curiosity.

"I heard you had the unfortunate luck to be rooming with the Blackwood heir," Eunice's voice cut into his thoughts. "That must be dreadful, especially with the sure knowledge now that he excels at blood magic. What if he tries to take some of your blood for his work? He might be able to control you!"

Walt, long experienced with keeping his emotions off of his face, was nevertheless caught off-guard and couldn't keep the look of disgust that crossed his features masked, however briefly. Fortunately, Eunice mistook his disgust at her words for disgust at being roomed with Kageo.

"I know, right?" she asked in reaction, "Those

Black

woods are no good, you mark my words! If there's any further trouble I bet it's

their

fault."

Walt caught sight of former Baron Louis Pettmont, member of the Council and general toady who blindly supported everything Wilhelm supported, for the most part. He definitely served his own interests as well and was under the impression that he would be second in command of the new regime should the Whitmores seize power. The man was portly and noxious to talk to but had a brilliant head for military strategy. He caught Walt's eye and invited himself over.

There was a traditional rivalry between the Pettmonts and Andersons that had gotten bloody in the past, with the Pettmonts always managing to come out on top. It was made worse for the Andersons because they typically relied on brute force and sheer numbers, a strategy that worked for them for centuries in the feudal period following the Cataclysm. That was until they came up against the Pettmonts. The fifth Baron Pettmont had thoroughly embarrassed Duke Anderson on the battlefield, casually surviving a decade of raiding while steadily whittling down the Anderson advantage in numbers until the fight was essentially equal, at which point the Andersons decided that a peace treaty was a good idea after all.

Once the Reformation had happened, the Andersons had lobbied for seats on the Council to be representative of population, as his family was quite extensive and fond of spawning large numbers of children each generation. The Pettmonts had successfully blocked that clear attempt to garner more favor with the Council but it had ultimately cost them any hope of putting the long-standing rivalry to bed.

Pettmont had brought his son with him to the social event of the season, probably in hopes of "helping" the boy begin his courtship of one of the many eligible bachelorettes in the Council Families. Percival Pettmont was of a height with Walt, though considerably narrower. This had the effect of making him appear taller than he was, even standing next to Walt. Despite his timid nature, Walt had found him to be a delightful person once he had cracked that thick shell of his. When the Pettmonts interjected themselves, Walt nodded respectfully to each, sneaking in a brief flicker of relief to Percy when Eunice turned to greet them.

While the Pettmonts successfully steered the conversation away from Eunice's rather obvious advances, Walt happily discussed the more public of the upcoming plans which drew Percy out of his shell. Eunice looked surprised when Percival began to speak, as Walt had assumed she would. Despite his appearance, Percival had a deep bass rumble that seemed to resonate within your chest. The more he talked, the more Walt saw her aura change and a lot of the futures that had concerned him previously disappeared. Walt couldn't help but wonder what Kageo was up to, though he assumed it was much more wholesome and relaxing than this.

The Blackwoods sat down to their meal, talking lightly about the balls they would be going to starting tomorrow. Kageo always hated going to them but he was the heir and he did what was expected of him. Still, he loved the nights in which they made their Yuletide meals together and spent quality time together.

After everything was cleaned up from dinner, they went into the living room to exchange presents. Kageo was watching his aunt and uncle closely, trying to puzzle out who Lilith's heart-cord could be attached to. His uncle was so affectionate with Lilith, giving her hugs and kisses as they joked and enjoyed the evening, but Lilith had always been more reserved. Was it because she didn't feel the same way? He knew they weren't linked but his uncle had always loved her for as long as he had been alive. It made his chest ache when he thought maybe his aunt didn't love Adiran at all.

At some point, Adiran was helping Rinne set up one of her gifts with Yami so Lilith came over to sit on the couch next to Kageo. "You've been quieter than usual tonight."

Kageo gave her a wry smile. "Is that possible? I'm always quiet."

She gave him a small smile back. "Are you thinking about your parents?"

Kageo looked over at their photo, deciding this felt safer to talk about, so he nodded his head. "It kind of feels like we're on the precipice of things happening with this, like it's the calm before the storm. I just...I need to find something that helps me learn more."

"Too bad Adiran never figured out opening your father's study," Lilith commented. Colton Blackwood's study had been in the guest house of the manor, farther into the property, past the garden. He'd done that to keep it away from the kids while he worked. When he died, the door had been locked and Adiran couldn't figure out how to unspell it to let them inside.

Kageo looked at the ground, thinking about what the connection to Walt had helped him be able to do. Maybe he could look at the spell-form and find a way in. He didn't say that out loud, though. Instead, he replied, "Do you really think anything in there will help us?"

"He wouldn't have put spells to lock it for nothing," she commented.

After that, she went over to help Rinne as well, leaving Kageo to his thoughts. She made a good point, and he had never tried himself to get into that room, but maybe that should change. He finished up his time with his family opening presents and enjoying quality time together, and then when everyone split up to go to bed, Kageo went into his room to get dressed in warm clothes, making sure they were dark in color before he slipped out of his room and headed to the quarters meant for the help.

There were workers there, but he could slip down the stairway there unseen. He checked the hallway by the back door, making sure no one was around before he went out the door and out into the chilled night air. When he breathed out he could see his breath in the moonlight, but he wasn't concerned about it. The guest house wasn't too far away and though they didn't keep the heat going there other than what was necessary not to freeze the pipes, he would be fine once he was out of the wind.

He walked through the garden and back onto the grass, the snow crunching under his boots as he walked, which was some of the only sounds around him. When he got to the guest house, he checked the door to find it locked. He walked over to the wall to the side, using his fingers to knock on the rocks until he found the one with a spell and pressed his finger into it. It read him as a Blackwood and then opened up to give him the key. He unlocked the door, put the key back, and then headed through the house to find the office his father had created.

It was a room that didn't have a window to it, which Kageo thought was probably by design. The heavy wooden door was carved with intricate designs of the Blackwood crest, with the beautiful raven that always looked over them. Kageo ran his hand over the cold wooden carvings, considering what he might need to do to get it open. He didn't think he'd find a key because Adiran had looked for years.

No, it had to be something metaphysical, but what? He could see the spell-form vaguely, and it all seemed to trail to the same point. There was a single gem in the middle of the carvings; a black stone as the eye of the raven. The longer Kageo stared at it, the more he could see just the tiniest bit of red in the very middle of the gem, as if it was in the very corner of the point that had been placed into the wood. That's when Kageo got the idea, and he put his finger up to the gem and concentrated his abilities before he slowly started to fill the gem with blood magic.