Family Business 4: Helping My Little Twin Sister Discover Magic (Patreon)

Family Business
Chapter 4: Helping My Little Twin Sister Discover Magic

-VB-

“Father,” I greeted the man as he came into the manor. With me were my mother and Lux and the household staff.

Against propriety and code of conduct for nobles, father rushed in, scooped me and Lux up in his meaty and muscular arms, and hugged us.

“I’m so glad you two are safe,” he whispered while hugging us. 

Lux went from anxious to quiet and then she burst into tears.

I took it all stoically, even if I also wanted to cry.

I had a good family… if still noble and prone to nobility’s faults. It wouldn’t stop me from continuing to embezzle them… but I might embezzle them less.

“Father, I have information regarding who attacked us,” I whispered.

Father went stiff and then gently set both of us down. He gave both of us a kiss on the forehead. “Lux, go with your mother. I have something to discuss with Marris.”

Lux frowned but nodded. She knew that I would share with her the details of our talk if she asked for it. She was a patient girl, despite her age, because she knew that if she waited, her big twin brother Mar would always get her what she wanted.

As Lux went to mother, held her hand, and walked out of the lobby, father took my head and walked us out of the lobby to his office.

It took us three minutes to weave through the manor’s corridors, open the door, sit down, and prepare ourselves to talk.

“You have information?” he asked me.

I nodded shakily, and from within my blue and white vest, I pulled out a bloodied handkerchief. I hadn’t washed it or the item within fear that the cleanliness of the item in question might call the evidence’s validity into question. 

Father grimaced as I pulled the sticky and stuck handkerchief apart to reveal… He shot out of his chair and came around his office desk. He knelt next to me, inspected the badge of the Angrimorian Duchy’s personal retinue, and then his normally tan face reddened darkly. 

“That …!” he hissed but lost the words he wanted to say as his anger began to mount ever higher.

“Yes,” I agreed. “That son of a bitch nearly got Lux killed.”

His eyes snapped up to me in shock, for he had never heard me cuss before, and nodded. He shakily (barely noticeably) walked back around his desk and sat down on his luxury white leather chair.

“I am afraid that I had to bloody my hands, father,” I said in faux apprehension. “I’ve … killed.”

He looked at me for a moment before he cradled his face in his hands. He walked back around the desk and embraced me.

“You’ve done nothing wrong.”

I grimaced for the first time with honest emotion. “... It doesn’t feel like it.”

Father shook his head. “You’ve done nothing wrong, son. Go. I will deal with this issue. I will make sure that the duke of Angrimoria pays for what he’s done to our people.”

I nodded and left. 

-VB-

As he promised, father took this issue directly to the king rather than hash it out in direct conflict with the duchy of Angrimoria. This meant that he had to leave High Silvermere again right after having arrived here. The day after we met him in the lobby, we saw our father to back to the capital.

I just hoped that this wouldn’t be the start of a big issue.

In the meantime, Lux and I spent more time by ourselves. The adults “understood it, saying that we were upset and unhappy. They didn’t use words like traumatized, because in a warrior society like Demacia, no one can be traumatized - more on that later.

It was normal for normal children to feel shy or upset after such an attack and witnessing such deaths, so adults left us alone.

It was perfect for me to use the time to educate Lux more in-depth about magic in the depths of our manor library. I’d used a special formula, a gaseous one, that made people adverse to the area where the gas was. I had already given Lux a counter to this potion, so she didn’t feel its effects just like I didn’t.

It made the library seem barely misty.

“I want you to focus on this ball of mana,” I said as I gently pushed the amalgam of colorful lights floating midair towards her. 

Deep inside the library, away from any windows and doors, I asked her to take her first step into magic. 

Lux looked at the amalgam of lights hesitantly before slowly reaching out with both of her hands. When her hands were underneath mine as if she was trying to use my hands as shields against the harmless ball of differing magical properties.

“Feel for something that comes to you naturally,” I encouraged as I spread my hands apart. Unseen to her, a single spell woven into that ball broke apart and slithered up her arms and up to her mind. 

She squeaked when the ball of magic dropped onto her hand close enough to touch her and then floated back up. She stared at it in awe. Slowly, bits of magic that couldn’t hang onto her fizzled out. She tried in vain to do something but it was hard. 

This method that I was using was a way to find one’s natural affinity. It was a hard method to use, if only because most magicians didn’t possess the ability to use all elements like I could, and I did it using volatile alcohol potion that turned into colorful wisps. It was part of the reason why elements that Lux couldn’t hold onto disappeared; it was literally alcohol.

“Umm umm umm!” she mumbled as one by one, colors disappeared.

Leaving only one behind.

A pure white light bobbed up and down gently like a plastic float would on a calm lake, and it was simply what it appeared to be: light. 

I knew Lux would get it. It was her destiny.

And as I watched my spell work its way through her, I smiled in victory.

Because Lux was now mine.