Chapter 22

"Oh, I hate the formalities," Gaea admitted, linking arms with Kore like they were old friends as they walked on the other side of the lake where no one was. "Please drop the formalities, I get enough of them from my own followers. We're not discussing politics so you might as well act as if we are friends. I heard you have the tongue of a sailor on you, just like your father."

"Yeah," Kore said, sighing as she stared off to the lakeside. "I knew more swears than actual words when I was young."

"I spoke to your father earlier," Gaea said. "He said you have been attending a school?"

"Yes, Iscariot Institute in Japan. I've been going there since my mum died. I left straight after the funeral."

"I'm sad I didn't get to watch her death. It was said that she died a death she was worthy of."

"I wouldn't know."

"You were there, weren't you?"

"I was." Kore sucked her teeth for a moment. "But I don't know if my mother should have had such an easy death. I've been told so many things and realised so many other things that I don't know what I should believe. I wish I had your knowledge."

"Dear, you do not want my knowledge," she said. "I know things I shouldn't. I know your family's secret. I know Black, White, and Grey Magic. I know what it would take to destroy the earth and what it would take to heal it."

"And the Magic unbalancement?"

Gaea sighed, a sound that rarely came out of the Ancient Saint. "That is why I am here. In the last few months, I have felt how Magic has changed and morphed. It is becoming unbalanced and I know why but I cannot reveal it for I fear if I do, my reign as Saint will end. You understand the fear of your rule ending."

"My rule hasn't even begun and I've been threatened already," Kore said. "I don't know if my mother is the corrupt one, or if the other Crowns are, or if the whole Order is. With a single poisoning, the whole Magic system is being challenged as none of us know what is happening."

"Yes, that poisoning," Gaea muttered. "I'm sad to say that I did it. The scheme needed to be exposed, and a change needed to occur. Your Curse was part of it."

Kore just gave her a blank look, sighing before rubbing her hand down her face. "I'm too sober for this shit."

Gaea laughed, snapping her fingers and handing the younger Witch a glass which she just gulped down. "The Crowns are the thing that is causing the Magic to unbalance. There is too much distrust between you all, and since they refuse to allow you to rule as true Crown, it had upset Magic even moreso."

"Why has it? What have we done?"

"It's what you haven't done," Gaea stated clearly. "You all see Magic as a right, something you have to have to be worth something. But Magic is an entity. Magic is organised Chaos, and Chaos is our creator. Trying to control something alive is not what should be happening. The chaos you are, Kore, you try to contain it within such a tight grip and end up failing. You try to control it, thinking that is how it is supposed to be. That's why your Curse is hurting you."

"If I let the chaos out, destruction will follow me everywhere,"

"Let it out?" She laughed, a noise that held destruction and creation within a human form. "You can't let out something you are. These are the things modern Witches have gotten wrong. You don't have Magic, you are Magic. You are chaos in human form that holds the power to create or destroy. Bloodlines have been polluted and abilities have been lost. The Greylights are one of very few bloodlines that have been able to retain the teachings, that is, until your mother."

Kore scoffed with a roll of her eyes. "What did my mother do this time? Was it because she left me with my father because I was a late bloomer? Or the fact that she dampened my Magic for her own gain? Or when she tried to cure my Curse before it was even activated?"

"Do you know who gave you your name?" Gaea said, unlinking her arm from Kore as she stood in front of her now. "Your true name, not the one everyone calls you."

Magic radiated off her, Black, White, Grey. It all came off in waves.

Kore didn't flinch as it hit her, sensing her Magic with light touches that tried to coax the Greylight Witch's control to release.

Something told her she should do as asked, releasing her iron hold on her Magic and allowing it to leak into the air around her. Beneath her feet, flowers grew and died where she stepped. The wetland of the lake's shore became alive with flora and fauna as Kore looked around in confusion.

"Daughter of Demeter and Zeus, of spring and lightning," Gaea said. "Other names would be Ceres and Jupiter."

"You're saying my parents are gods?"

Gaea laughed and the night sky twinkled with starlight. "No. Their Magic had always been too unstable to handle such power as being a god. They would have crashed and burned long before they could reach their potential. Your father had always been careful, looking after you seemed to keep him in check. Your mother, on the other hand, was a wild card in the tarot deck. Chaos came to you late because it knew you needed to grow a little before leaving a mark on you."

"A mark?"

"Your Magic, your soul. It is as black and as dark as it can be, as I have ever seen and I've been around for a very long time. I'm older than many civilisations and empires that thought they were immortal. I've never seen a soul as dark as yours."

Kore frowned. "That doesn't make me feel any better."

"You don't understand," Gaea laughed, stepping back and spreading her arms out so the moonlight could hit her golden jewellery with such intensity, it was as if the sun came out. "Without darkness, there cannot be light. Without chaos, there cannot be order. Good and Evil are human concepts that you need to get rid of. Death is not bad and life is not good. Ending suffering is better than prolonging a life full of it."

"I know that good and bad aren't real," Kore said. "Day cannot exist without the night. But I don't understand what this has to do with me? What do you mean when my soul is dark? I'm not good but nor am I bad."

"Darkness has several shades, but even when the brightest light pierces it, there is still darkness," she said. "You're as dark and as light as any Witch can be."

Kore groaned. "Please don't tell me there is gonna be a Chosen One scenario going on?"

"There've been many before you. Every Greylight thought they could be the one, even before the Greylight name came into existence." Gaea smiled. "Why do you think your family name is grey and light? A contradiction in itself. How can a light be grey without darkness to help it?"

Kore gave the Saint the stink eye, "So it is a Chosen One thing?"

"Less chosen and more self-created," she tutted. "You can leave this conversation and never turn back, leave the Witch world behind and live freely, knowing someone after you, eventually, will have the same gifts as you."

"Makes me feel less special and there's less pressure then,"

"You don't have to be this Chosen One you speak of. You've not been chosen, not created, not moulded, not changed in any form that you wouldn't have been in already. You are who you are, Kore."

"But then what is my true name?"

They watched as the flowers around her wilted with her emotions. Kore picked a dying tiger lily and forced Magic into it, bringing it back to life and beauty once again.

"You were named Kore. Maiden, spring goddess." Gaea placed a hand on Kore's jaw, cupping it with the warmth of a mother. "I and the other Ancient Saints knew what your True name was going to be, even if your parents disagreed. We chose your namesake long before you knew. We could feel what you had ever since you were born, I just hope you live up to it."

"Live up to it? How am I supposed to do that when I have no clue what is happening within my own court?"

"Remember your namesake," Saint Gaea said, her hands cupping Kore's jaw. "Your true one."

"No one has ever told me it,"

"Child, you'll figure it out," Gaea smiled. "Child of spring but goddess of the underworld. Fitting for one who could bring great change. Destroy those brooches on the Winter Solstice, you'll find what you are looking for. And who you're looking for is the Vampire that doesn't know that eavesdropping is rude, Markus!"

"Are you fucking kidding me, Markus?" Kore fumed, turning around to watch him just sheepishly shrug.

"You were gone for a long time," he said as if that explained everything fully. "I was getting worried."

"I don't need a babysitter,"

"Never said you did, only that I was concerned,"

Gaea rolled her eyes. "You both are so dense and vague. I'm off! Don't be too long." She disappeared within a blink of an eye.

"Vague?" Kore wanted to scream. "You're the one being vague! All this shit about light and darkness and all I know is that I'm grey as grey can be. Good and bad. Gods and goddesses. Argh! Why can't anything be simple in this goddamn world?!"

Markus laughed, a beautiful sound that made Kore angrier than normal. She just glared at him as he walked over.

"You have this pretty flush when you're frustrated." He smiled down at her, his thumb running down the side of her lower lip. "How far would it go down, I wonder."

She rolled her eyes, going to bite his thumb as she was tempted.

"Naughty."

"Says the man who wonders how I look when I'm angry,"

"You're very beautiful when you're angry," He said. "The anger does something that releases the stubborn little facade of a human form you have on."

"Facade?" she laughed. "How do you know if it's a facade or my true self?"

"I heard what Gaea said. You are Magic but you refuse to treat yourself as such when you are truly divinity in human form." Markus leaned forward, liking the fact that she didn't step away or lean back as he took one of her hands. He brought it up to his mouth, watching her eyes as he kissed the wrist. "You smell like pomegranates."

Kore couldn't help the huge laugh that came out of her at that. It was so bad that she had to cover her face as she snorted and giggled and made every sound that was indecently not ladylike in her amusement of his words.

"Pomegranates? Of all things, you say pomegranates? Do you realise how many people keep referring to them when they find out my name? It's tacky, Markus..."

He stepped even closer this time, not enough to crowd her and left enough space for her to move away if she wanted but she didn't. She actually leaned forward a touch, just so she was a hair's breadth away from her chest touching his.

His hand was still on hers, now holding it instead of just her wrist. It was warm and comforting, almost familiar in the way her Magic seemed to vibrate in the same frequency as his.

"I heard that you had a drink earlier," He mumbled, breath hot on her ear. "I wonder if you taste like that cherry drink you like..."

Kore just inhaled through her nose, gritting her teeth in slight frustration as she glared at him. Her tongue poked at her lips, wetting them as she thought before she mentally said fuck it and grabbed his tunic.

It wasn't fireworks and knees turning to jelly, but the kiss felt right. Something in them settled as they simply moved their lips against each other's, never taking more than the other gave but it was still a little rough as Markus's fangs descended of their own accord and nipped Kore's lip. She just smiled into the kiss, tasting her own blood on her lips as they continued.

When they parted, both of their eyes glowed their respective colours.

"You have a little..." He ran his thumb against the tiny wound on her lip, healing it as he gathered a little bit of blood onto his thumb. "Something there."

He contemplated putting the thumb in his mouth but Kore beat him to it, gently suckling it for only half a second before ducking under his arms and stepping away.

"Waste not," She said, turning so she walked backwards a couple of steps as she fixed her circlet. "As much as I would love to continue, our presence will be missed soon if Saint Gaea returns and we don't. My dad will try and find me and I rather not be walked in on. So, with my refusal to admit anything yet, are you gonna join me for a dance before the night is up?"

She held her hand out as she still took a couple of steps back towards the lake. He followed her onto the water, seamlessly walking on water as ripples occur wherever they stepped but they never sank. They walked on water. Kore was always a couple of steps ahead to make him chase her.

He would gladly do it forever.

)(Greylight)(

"Finally!" Eros said as he watched the reflection of Kore and Markus in the large basin.

"Only took several Magic outbursts and Gaea's interference," Tartarus laughed, the sound vibrating as a small earthquake occurred in parts of the earth. "Wouldn't have taken as long if you allowed me to do it sooner."

Gaea didn't agree. "You would have scared the poor boy away!"

"Poor boy?" Tartarus shook his head. "They're both as old as Chaos!"

"I'm just glad they didn't kill each other this time,"

"Last time was bad enough," Gaea agreed. "At least this time she is a capable Witch."

"This one might work to save us."

"Hopefully."

"Are we going down to visit the festival?"

"Of course!"