EL Official BK5 Chapter 16 - Mommy Issues. (Patreon)

Markos confronts his mother...

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Trigger WARNINGS: implied SA, implied domestic situations, implied child abuse. Nothing is graphic, exactly; it's a conversation, not the actual event. But the language is blunt when Adelaide tells Markos things he probably didn't need to know in unnecessarily harsh ways that help shape him into the asshole we all know and love :)

My skin tingled. Energy buzzed through my body in an unfamiliar mix of excitement and nervousness. In my hand I clutched the keys to an eight bedroom villa with a small yard in the eastern side of the inner castle housing. After tonight, I wouldn’t ever have to walk the scummy damp streets of the outermost walls. 

My mother and I could move into the castle, she would have access to the banquet like any other noble… and I had done this all on my own. Without my father’s spineless nature holding me back. 

With my heart in my throat and a pleasant vibration pulsing through my veins I opened the door into our dirty ‘home’. My mother was at the table, she had prepared a fresh meal and the blood stained meat was served on a single plate. That dampened the buzz somewhat.

Our relationship had been better, I thought… but this meal was prepared as she ordinarily would have, for herself only. Her smooth Fae features remained locked in calm, unemotional lines. Her cold gaze gave no flicker of warmth. Anyone else might have assumed neutrality, but the disappointment was there, laced in the way she watched me and how she spoke.

“You’re home,” she stated.

“…Yes,” I answered more softly. The disappointment in her voice was sobering, had I done something wrong…?

Adelaide took a deep breath in and leaned back against the countertop. She ran her hands over her face before knocking the plate off the table. The ceramic shattered against the floor while her expression remained unchanged, and I flinched. The meat landed in dirt among the shards of glass.

“How?” she murmured to herself through her hands.

“...How what?” I asked quieter as concern trickled down my spine. Her tone of voice shrank me. I might as well have been a helpless child all over for I no longer felt grown.

“How do you always come back?” she growled, glaring across the small space from between her fingers. 

“P-pardon…?” My voice faltered involuntarily. She was at least a foot shorter than I, but the disdain in her eyes scared me in ways I’ll never be able to fully articulate. 

“He told me, you wouldn’t return. That his pet would take care of it during the exams. So why the hell are you still here!?” my mother shouted until her voice was a screech.

I stared in stunned disbelief as silent tears rolled down her cheeks with no other accompanying mannerisms.

“You were supposed to be gone. All these months pretending, I just can’t do it anymore. Why can’t you just die already? How long do I have to do this for?”

Adelaide slid down the bench as she spoke, until she was seated on the floor with her arms covering her head and suddenly, the keys in my fingertips felt like nothing. Everything I had worked towards dissolved, fracturing piece by piece.

A snide smile tugged at the corners of my lips, it pulled into a forced grin showing my teeth. Energy deregulated around me, stirring the grime as it swirled in steady  agitation. “I got us a house in the inner castle, and a room in the castle too. I also passed combat exams. My score is going to be the new record… No one knows it yet, but I’ll pass the medical exams too-..”

“Shut up,” she stopped me as I tried to let her know that we didn’t need Emmerich to be okay. To show her that I could take care of us.

My heart beat so furiously that it choked the air from my lungs as waves of bitter resentment coated the back of my tongue. “I-I don’t understand. Why do you hate me? What have I done!?” Something in me gave way and the questions escaped. 

They opened the floodgates and I couldn’t stop myself as I continued, “I’ve never disobeyed you! Not when you made me wait outside for hours in the cold, not when you poured scalding water over my arms. Not even when you force fed me salt until I vomited and then compelled me to eat it while I pleaded with you to stop! I still did everything you asked because I thought it would change your mind!”

I paused to suck in a breath. My whole body trembled, and when I blinked, some sort of warm moisture spilled over my cheeks, “I didn’t tell anyone when you burned our chateau down. I don't argue with you, I’m quiet and good. 

I did everything- I got thrown off a boat tied to a chair! All so that I could do this! To give us a better home and to make sure that we had enough food and-” I stopped when my voice failed me. I switched automatically back to our native tongue. “Alors, c'est quoi ton putain de problème?!” (So, what the fuck is your problem?!)

I’d never sworn at either of my parents, let alone my mother and the guilt of it curled my insides. But her expression didn’t change. Unbridled loathing set her jaw in a downward slant, and her eyes rolled upward as she glared. Nothing I said bothered her. “Mon problème, c'est toi.” (my problem, is you.)

Each word dripped with hatred, and I found myself frozen in place staring back at her perfect unblemished stoicism. It was like looking at a porcelain doll. A long silence passed between us as she delayed, before at last continuing.

“Not a day goes by where I don’t wish you never existed,” she spat the words at me like venom, “I hope you die somewhere far from me. Your father thought buying me entitled him to an heir. He squirted you into my belly against my will and you grew like a parasite. I was forced to bring you into this world and care for you as if you didn’t disgust me.

I look at you, and I’m reminded every day of what I had to endure. I see him in your face and I know you’re the same, just as vile and repulsive as he is. The only decent thing you could have done for me, would have been to die when I tried to rid you from my body. I don’t need you to ‘take care of me’. All I want is you out of my life.”

*** 

Waves rolled in slow sets and crashed against the rocky shoreline. The sea breeze disturbed my hair, pulling the curls to and fro with the wind. I had been sitting on the beach for some hours. Watching the tide pull in before the sky began to lighten and it receded.

My mothers words echoed in my thoughts, filling the empty space for new thoughts with repetitive renditions of the conversation. I’d already thought of a thousand other things I could have said. Questions I should have asked, but truthfully I didn’t want to think about it anymore.

The confirmation that she hated me brought little solace. It didn’t in particular change how I viewed my father either. Marriages are arranged and there are certain expectations that come with that. I doubted it was violent, given the mild manner of my passive father. 

He likely viewed the events that scarred my mother as passionless duties, the fulfillment of a job requirement. Afterall, that’s how he viewed me. Not as a living being of flesh and blood, but as an ‘heir’. A name to write down on paper. That is how Fae society works. All exchanges are transactional–give something, get something. There’s no room for emotion, and I would be no different.

I stood when the morning light touched the tips of the boulders. The medical exams were held, I passed, as expected and part of my new duties included apprentice work. I had decided to live in my assigned room in the castle. There was no use for the villa. It could gather dust for all I cared. 

As the dutiful son and heir to the Bellerose family line I would continue to take care of my Mother, albeit, at a distance. I sent her food daily, and made the journey to personally visit her once a week like clock work. We didn’t speak, nor did I stay long.

In the evening I returned to the inner castle. The tall wooden gates are guarded night and day. They shut in the later evening to separate the mid-castle from the upper, or during siege, and as I walked up the stone pathway to the gates I had expected them to open when the guards recognized me, but they made no move to do so.

“Open the gates,” I ordered calmly.

“You are no longer permitted entry,” one of the men stationed at the entryway responded.

“Excuse me?”

“By order of Lord Edwin, you are no longer granted entrance,” he repeated and I snorted to myself.

“Very well then,” I turned to go without causing a scene. Lord Edwin, had just made a mistake.

I slipped away between the buildings, disappearing from sight before circling back around. Entering through the gates wasn’t the only way to get into the castle. I slipped through the streets silently and climbed the side of a building using a stack of wooden crates to bolster the assent.

Creeping from one roof top to the next, I continued until the highest building met the lowest point of the wall and jumped. The distance between was wider than I had thought and I almost fell. I caught hold of the space between the raised sections of the wall and found a narrow foothold where a stone jutted out further than the rest. 

Impact knocked the breath from my chest, but I shimmied up to safety regardless. The top of the battlement is patrolled by pairs of guards at regular intervals which meant waiting in one place wasn’t an option. Unfortunately, getting onto the wall wasn’t the difficult part. It was getting back down that proved a challenge. 

Inner castle spaces are grouped toward the center at the back against the mountain. It leaves a gap between the gatehouse and the first of the buildings that provides little to no cover, which meant I would have to go around. On the other side, gardens stretch to the wall and I could go unnoticed among the foliage, but it meant I risked running into guards along the way.

Taking a calming breath in, I chose to go around. Irritation tickled at the back of my mind, threatening to blossom into rage. To lose access into the castle meant I would miss my healing lessons, and if I didn’t report to the Klein family, I could be charged with treason. 

I’d worked too hard to get here, I wasn’t going to face execution for this. Edwin was trying to take away my ability to travel between the provinces and he would pay for the disrespect. I wasn’t the kid he'd thrown into the ocean anymore. Time had worn away the naivety and I had nothing to lose. 

Fae laws stipulate that while theft is a crime, where one cannot simply walk up and take something from another person while their back is turned. Acquiring items from others through means that require ‘effort’ is permitted.

This means that issuing Challenge over possessions is acceptable. As is it written that if you are able to break into secure containment, and make it out alive with what you came for, it becomes yours. Of course, the original owner can, and likely will, issue challenge over the items in question. But if you can defend them, they remain yours.

Over the coming weeks, my focus shifted, and Lord Edwin became my new project. I watched and waited. Soon I knew all his secrets, who he spoke to in the halls, what food he piled onto his plate at the banquet and what gifts he bestowed on his Pet. Through her unblinking gaze she could sense when someone was hiding and magic granted her unnatural long sight. But what I really wanted to know was where he kept those smuggled weapons. 

I’d decided that the scythe he had was going to be mine- Ávila placed a book on the desk opposite me and slid into the empty seat there. 

“More anatomy books?” she began, eyeing over the pages I’d long since forgotten about as I plotted against Lord Edwin. 

“Why are you here?” I asked, bluntly ignoring her question.

“I wanted to sit with you.”

“Why?” I repeated, and Ávila fidgeted.

“Because we’re friends..?” she answered with more trepidation.

“No,” I responded calmly, “We had a transactional arrangement. I agreed to train you, in exchange for compensation. You have passed the combat exams and payment has been completed. There’s nothing more to discuss.”

She stared back in shock, as if I had slapped her.

“If that’s all?” I prompted, motioning that I was done with the conversation and hoping she would leave.

“You don’t.. But…?” the girl struggled to comprehend, “We’re friends!” she repeated.

“Of course,” I agreed, forcing a pleasant smile, “And should you ever have a need for my services, I will review your request with more consideration than I give to most. I see no need to interact otherwise.”

Her mouth set in a hard line, “You still talk to Baltzar.”

“Baltzar and I apprentice in the same office under the same instructor. His payment is still ongoing.”

“You’ve never given a damn about anyone but yourself, have you?” she hissed.

“Don’t pretend to be surprised. You got what you wanted, I got what I wanted. I don’t do favors for free and I don’t have the time to waste on unprofitable interactions.” 

Ávila’s mouth opened, then snapped shut as she thought, “You don’t even live in the villa. What was the point?” she demanded in a lower tone, as if speaking more quietly would somehow expose my secrets.

“The point is I own a villa, that’s all, I never said I intended to live in it. I just collect things of value,” I shrugged.

It didn’t matter whether or not she believed me. It wasn’t as if I had ever done anything altruistically. I had goals and I worked toward them. There was no difference now, only that I was wise enough not to believe her false smiles. 

My mother had taught me the invaluable lesson of detachment, feelings have no objective value. They are simply tools one can use to manipulate and Ávila was very good at pretending to care. She stared long and hard while I ignored it until she finally left. 

I watched her go with my eyes only before returning to my research. Lord Edwin had earned payment in kind, and I was refreshing my understanding of dry drowning with him in mind. Although I hadn’t yet decided what I was going to do about his Pet. She deserved some kind of retaliation as well.

*** 

Time drew on, leaves turned red and brown under the waning sun as the weather grew cooler and I sharpened my plans. There were far too many people I wished dead. Hasan, Edwin and his pet, Lazarus, the guards that denied me entry. But death was a shallow punishment, and I was smarter than that. 

On a moonless night I slipped between shadows, silently following Lord Edwin down the street. His pet wasn’t with him, and that was his own mistake. When he stepped around a corner I pounced. The tip of my blade stopped a hair's breadth away from his throat, trapping him against the wall.

“Remember me~?” I mused, before warning, “Make one sound and I’ll kill you right here.”

His energy stirred in a hiss of movement around us, although uselessly so. The Klein’s aren’t the only ones with the complete gene and Edwin’s power was nothing compared to mine, even with our age difference.

“Hasan’s little snake,” he sneered, “Looks like you need to go for another swim.”

I clamped a hand over his mouth to cover the scream as I drove the knife through the side of his kneecap, “I told you not to make a sound, but I’ll give you a second chance. Since you have something I want.”

Edwin didn’t answer, he was too busy writhing over his knee. 

“Retract the orders barring me from free travel between the provinces, or I’ll come back and do worse.”

I ripped the blade from his knee and healed it with my magic in the same motion, leaving no trace of our interaction before disappearing back into the darkness. He had called me ‘Hasan’s’ as if they weren’t conspiring together, and that gave me pause. Pieces of a puzzle I hadn’t been able to solve clicked into place.

Hasan’s surprise when I mentioned Edwin smuggling weapons, Edwin suggesting I was willingly working with Hasan, and the fact that neither had yet come to eliminate me. They weren't aware of each other before I mentioned it. But if it wasn’t Edwin collecting Hasan’s letters… who was he communicating with?

One problem solved, many more to go.

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