20 The Real Reason

After making sure Lerica's body was safe, the couple sat in silence for quite a long time. They still couldn't accept what happened. It was Rhael who broke the ice.

"What do we do with Sera now?" she asked.

Agaven did not respond, his eyes were dismal but when he heard Sera's name there was a tinge of hate in his eyes. Rhael saw this and continued talking,

"I can't bear to treat her as my daughter any longer. I've only been nice to her because she has a lot of similarities with my Lerica." she paused.

"...and it's Lerica's last wish." her voice slowly fading.

She was waiting for her husband's response but Agaven looked like he was in a really deep thought. She rolled her eyes to his husband out of frustration for not responding.

"What is it!?" Rhael said as she stood up, ready to walk out if Agaven still won't respond.

Agaven spoke, very careful with his words. "I haven't told you the real reason why I agreed to adopt Sera."

"Real reason?" Rhael asked, confusion eminent in her eyes.

"You know I have been against adopting anyone as our child that's why it had been long before we really did."

"Is it not because of Lerica's wish?"

"Partly it is, but there is another one." he paused. Rhael, irritated with Agaven's attitude of not spatting everything at once, remained quiet.

"When I saw Sera, I saw the similarities she had with Lerica just like you did. I told myself then that if I do some experiments on her I might very soon solve the problems with Lerica that we had been trying to solve for a long, long time." He said seriously.

Rhael was taken aback with what her husband had just said. Human experimentation was a taboo to the world, magic or no magic. But slowly, her desperation started to get a hold of her. They were doing very well on their research about Lerica's condition for 2 years already but they had been stuck on a bottleneck up until now.

"We've haven't been making progress for how many damn years already. But when I saw that girl in the orphanage I knew she is the key."

"So what is it you want to tell me? That we should use Sera for Lerica?"

This time Agaven looked at her trying to assess her expression. Agaven was afraid that Rhael might think less of him for trying to suggest Sera, their adopted daughter, to be experimented on.

But on that moment Rhael's stern face started to show some emotion. Her lips curved into a grin and her eyes looked like it was sad, but soon it was happy, then it turned evil. Agaven saw all these emotions on his wife's eyes, he knew she agreed.

"We need a life in exchange of our daughter's life." she murmured to console Agaven, but more importantly herself.

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Sera woke up with a start as blinding lights flashed above her. She tried to get up but realized she was held down by a powerful force. She squinted her eyes to adjust to the surroundings as she heard movement around her. "Who's there?", she rasped, but only the rustling sounds of movement around her was what she heard. She closed her eyes to remember what happened recently. Pain racked at her mind and body as the memories came rushing in.

'Nooooo!.. my Princess…'

'..what have you done?!'

'...Mom…Dad…thank you…'

"Mom…", Sera's mouth slowly moved. "Dad…", tears started flowing. "…Why?" Exhausted, Sera fell back into her deep sleep.

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Bursts of arcane light flashed within Lerica's old room. Inside, Sera's body was suspended in mid-air by levitation magic, Rhael and Agaven pacing around her, taking note of every detail. Back then when they were still novice practitioners, spells of this level would tax them greatly. Now, however, it would only take a wave of the hand. Both of them worked hard to get to where they are, because they had a purpose. To lose that purpose would mean to lose their purpose in life. They would stop at nothing to prevent that from happening. Even if it mean to—

"She's gaining consciousness," Agaven alerted his wife.

"...Mom…Dad…why?…", whispered the floating girl, but the couple ignored her.

"Give me five more minutes, the procedure is almost done," Rhael responded as if in a trance. With that, Agaven strengthened the sedation spell to silence the mumblings of the poor girl.

Upon nearing completion, however, the couple felt a spark within the spellwork. They dismissed it though, thinking it was due to magical instability. Even at their level as Magi, the world has still yet to tame magic and occurrences like this were a common thing when casting spells.

"It is done," the Stedore couple let out a relieved sigh and ended the spellwork.

They didn't even bother to gently lower the floating body of Sera. They just let her fall to the hard, granite floor. The sudden impact woke Sera but she felt as if her body was sapped of all its strength. She tried reaching out, "Please… Mom…". Rhael only brushed her off and walked away, her husband following her steps. As the door locked behind them, Sera strained to hear their conversation.

"Resistance is strong in her, I don't even recognize some of her energy networks. This will take longer than expected. We might need to be a little more… persuasive."

"I don't care. As long as we could tap into her life force. Its all we need for…" The voices trail off into the distance.

Sera painfully turned around and lay on her back, blankly staring at the ceiling. She was already alone in the room but she didn't feel that way. They did something to her. She felt something change in her, as if something was awakened.