***
They were gliding on an arrowhead-shaped flying vessel controlled by the boy's familiar when Roka questioned him. "So, is there a reason why a fifth-tier mage would go through the trouble of poisoning you rather than just outright kill you?"
"Because she didn't have any grudge against me," Lothar had replied darkly, unable to hide the murderous gleam in his eyes.
Confusion had been all too clear to see on Roka's face when he asked the follow-up question. "Then why would she want to poison you?"
"Because my coward of a father doesn't have the balls to do it himself. Mage Shia is just the borrowed blade he used to do it!" Lothar had replied calmly unable to keep from growling the answer.
His answer had been followed by silence from Roka and Lothar had tensed thinking that his ire had somehow displeased him. He, however, was wrong. "I get the sense that this is a sensitive topic for you. You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to," he said, with a look of understanding on his face.
They both knew that if he had demanded it of him, Lothar wouldn't have been able to say no. The memory of the power the boy had displayed had been too fresh in his mind for Lothar to even consider raising any objection against him. That's why Roka's verbal permission not to say anything more if he didn't want to had meant so much to Lothar. Despite his easily discernible fear, the boy hadn't chosen to take advantage.
"Sanz Aran, that's my father's name," Lothar found himself talking now that he had an ear willing to listen. "A fourth-tier mage and head of the Golden Trident merchant group. Both those achievements, however, are only because he married my mother. You see, Mother is from the Jareth family, the most powerful family in the city of Varun. Before he married her, father was just a small-time merchant at the third tier, with a few successful businesses under him. Knowing the man, his pursuit of my mother probably began as a calculated move to get in with the Jareth family. After all, with them, he'd have the resources to take both his business and pursuit of magic to the next level. Somewhere along the way, however, he fell in love with her."
"At the time, however, it wasn't just my father that was after her. Tallen, a scion of the Rotha family also had eyes for my mother. And unlike Aran, the small-time merchant, the Rotha family is the only other family in Varun that comes even close to rivaling the Jareth family in terms of power. Worse yet, Mother had already been familiar with Tallen for far longer than he'd known Aran, so he had his work cut out for him. He went to great lengths to try and win her over but from what information I could gather, he would have failed if not for the intervention of my mother's grandfather. Having been at the head of the family for almost two centuries, my great-grandfather saw the Rotha family as upstarts that were trying to encroach on their domain and consume them from within. To him, they were an eyesore, and he would have never agreed to any union between the two families. And so, with his support, Aran got the woman that he loved. Not a man to dally when an opportunity presents itself, Aran married my mother just a month after he got the blessing from my great-grandfather. It would have been the perfect ending to his love story, only... my mother was already pregnant with me." A bitter smile had crossed Lothar's lips at this point. "Do you want to guess who the father was?" He posed rhetorically.
Lothar had remained quiet for a while after this as his mind went back over the information he'd gone to great lengths to gather, back when he still wondered why his father hated him so. "From what I'm told, great grandfather had never been more angry with mother than when he found out. She was punished harshly by the family. Great-grandfather also generously compensated Aran for the humiliation he had suffered. Generous as the compensation was, however, Aran was heartbroken. Whatever else his faults, he really did love my mother, and this act of betrayal was like a dagger to the heart. Had she been from a less prominent family, I suspect that my mother would have been divorced if not outright killed," Lothar spoke matter-of-factly. "She, however, was a daughter of the Jareth family and great grandfather wouldn't allow the two to part ways. After all, the family name would be tarnished if what had happened got out, and he would never allow that."
"He was stuck! He couldn't do anything to my mother lest he make an enemy of her family. He couldn't divorce her seeing as my great-grandfather wouldn't allow it. The worst part is that even if he somehow managed to divorce her, he'd end up right back at square one. The resources he'd need to ascend as a mage would be out of his reach. Despite everything that had happened, he still needed them more than they needed him. So, swallowing his pride, he chose to go along with it. He'd pretend my mother was pregnant with his child and when I was born they'd act like I was his child. But their little charade was shattered when I was born," Lothar relayed, his hand unconsciously reaching up for his flame-red hair.
"Affinities, especially high ones, are usually passed from parent to child. It's only in exceedingly rare circumstances that a direct child has a high affinity for a school of magic that neither of their parents possess. Rare enough that, even if they had dyed my hair black like Aran's, the truth still would have come out the moment my affinity for the fire element started to manifest. I was a living testament and reminder of the fact that, despite having my mother by his side he'd already lost her to another man.
I don't know whether my mother ever loved my father the way he wanted her to. But with her grandfather threatening to disown her if she further brought shame to the family, she too was forced into the cage that Aran was in. Their marriage became a frigid thing. Any affection my father once had for my mother died and they became two strangers living under the same roof. I don't know about your hometown, but among mages in the city of Varun, monogamy is a rare thing. With hundreds of cycles before them, most people agree to spend a certain number of cycles together before they either part ways or in other cases, cease to be exclusive with each other. As a sign of respect to her, a first wife is owed fifty cycles of monogamy before the husband can marry another wife.
"Zena, a second-tier healer became my father's second wife. They probably got close long before the fifty cycles were up. You see, as soon as the fifty cycles were up, my father married her the very next day! And much as it burned me to see, for the first time ever, I saw the man I considered to be my father happy in a way he'd never been before. He loved her and she loved him and that was that. As far as myself and my mother were concerned, we could have been dead for all that man cared." Much as it had burned him to say, Lothar knew this to be the truth. Even if he wanted to believe otherwise, it wouldn't have changed the reality of the situation.
With a weak smile on his face, Lothar continued. "They had my sister Deina less than a cycle later and for the first time, I knew what it felt like to be loved and cared for by family. Zena and I were mostly on neutral terms. My father had every right to take a second wife and that's what he had done. I didn't resent her for it. But when Deina entered the picture, I actually became happy that he had married her as, through Deina, I finally knew what it was like to have someone love and care for you the way family should." Lothar couldn't keep the reminiscing smile from his face as he thought back to those days when little Deina would always shadow her big brother everywhere with that bright smile on her face. The smile, however, didn't last long. "But as with most things in life, this too eventually fell apart," Lothar stated with a sigh.
"You see, despite being the only one that my father loved and cared for, over the cycles, Zena came to resent the fact that she was the second wife. She wanted to be the only woman in his life and wasn't above plotting murder toward that end. It was only a year after my younger brother Konan was born when there was a failed attempt on my mother's life. Luckily, she had competent guards some of whom gave their lives in protection of hers. She didn't get out unscathed, but that she was still breathing was a miracle given the size of the ambush that had been targeted at her. By this time, my great-grandfather had stepped down and it was my grandfather, Mother's father, who was in charge of the Jareth family. The whole city was turned upside down. Grandfather was ready to go to war with the other families if any of them turned out to be the ones behind this. So you can imagine his rage when eventually, the evidence led right back to his own house!"
