106: Druisella Morningstar

(Jacob POV)

I let my mana run free, activated my blood magic, and lowered my stance with blades in both my hands humming with all the magic power that I was emitting. 

"Someone is getting serious." She giggled again with the same obnoxious voice. 

My emotions aside, I knew how dangerous she was. If I was going to fight her, I had to give it my all. She was an absolute monster. 

"Why are you working with them?" I made a last-ditch effort to make a conversation. And somehow that totally random thing I said got the very first reaction of surprise from her.

"Wait what?" She was startled.

"Why is this such a hard thing to answer?" I did not let my guard down. With the amount of crazy filled in her head, who knew what she had planned? "I simply asked why you were working with them," I asked again. 

"You don't know?" She asked surprised.

I could not answer and simply shrugged my shoulders. 

"Am I supposed to?" With this her mouth curled into an obnoxious grin.

"You really don't know." This time it was not a question. She was asking as if it was the most obvious thing in the whole world. 

(Am I supposed to?)

I asked myself. Was she someone I knew? 

(Someone of greater power? Someone from the family? But she can't be a Morningstar)

She did not have the signature hair of the Morningstars. Even her magic was not extraordinarily strong. It wasn't vast either. Hell, I could not even tell how she had been fighting me. Even if the magic she consumed was minimal, the amount in her body was so little that she should have run out of magic a long time ago. But she had been fighting continuously and the odd thing was that, rather than being empty, her magic was at the same level where she had started from. 

(How is she doing that?)

"You really don't know" She giggled and then broke into a burst of laughter. "You don't know me. you don't know me. you don't know me." She laughed hysterically. Her face pointed towards the roof. "So, you don't even know who I am now?" She covered her face with her hands as she stopped her laughter. "That's why I did not get the reaction I wanted. You don't even know who you are fighting." 

"Excuse me? Why am I supposed to know who you are?" I asked the question. "You are not a Morningstar; I know at least that much." I had not let my guard down even a bit. When I said that, I saw her whole body shudder. 

"I am not a Morningstar?" She peeked at me from the slits between her fingers. "You are courting death." 

"Why? You the kid of the dark lord or something?" I mocked her empty threat. 

She straightened up and looked me straight in the eyes. Her foolhardy demeanor was all gone. She was as serious as one could be. Then her lips moved, and I heard the most shocking thing I could have heard at that point. So shocking, that one of the daggers fell from my hands. My jaw hit the ground and I felt every single hair on my body stand up.

"You are Jacob Morningstar right? You must have heard of the name...… Druisella?" She smiled at me.

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(Nathan POV)

I looked at the extremely complex diagram in my hand with a single thought in my head.

(Who the Fuck made this shit.)

"Hey, sis," I called out to her.

"Hmmmm, what's the matter, Nat." She replied.

"Can you explain this to me? It's a little too complicated and there is no explanation for it whatsoever." I actually did not want to ask her for help. She would ask me why I was studying scripts and runes. And I would not have any reason to explain to her. I obviously could not tell her about it. She would freak out if she knew that I was finding ways to lift the seal. 

"Show me here." She took the book from me and looked at the diagram. 

It was a really complex magical formula comprising of many runes, most of which I did not recognize even a bit, scripts, and magical circles. Several circles were overlapping to form the most complicated magical formula that I had ever seen. 

I had taken that book from the main library of the house. And the books were in series. Starting from easy to intermediate and lastly advanced. The book I was studying was the easier one. And I had not understood even a single word written in it so far. If this was the easiest book, I did not want to imagine what the hardest would have looked like. 

"What the hell is this?" And I was not hoping to hear that sentence from sister.

"Why what happened?" I asked.

"What the hell are they teaching you guys in your years?" She looked absolutely baffled. 

"Nothing much?" I fidgeted. She was totally not getting what was written in the book. 

"I do get what is written in here but it's really advanced." She looked at the formula from different angles. "It's a little too advanced for your level. Almost at the level where I had a really hard time understanding it." She explained.

(Wait what?)

"What do you mean by that," I asked her.

"Nothing nothing." She shook her head. "What is this anyway and why are you being taught this." She closed the book and looked at the cover.

"Wait, sis, a moment." But I was already too late. She had already closed the book and was reading the cover page.

"The ...….. of Runes...… and...….. By Dru..." She whispered the text to herself. "Haaaah." And then she simply massaged her temples.

"What happened sis?" I asked that but I knew for sure that she was going to be mad at me. 

"Nothing Nat...….. Why are you reading this book?" She asked me.

(Oh God... here comes the beating.)

"I..... I...…..I" My mind ran at full speed to make up a believable lie. But there was simply nothing I could have said.

"If you want something advanced on runes, you can ask me you know. I have the documentation of all the books in the library."

(Wait what?)

I was shocked to hear this. She did not ask why I was reading the books or why I had stolen from the library. She simply asked if I wanted a book I should have come to her. How was this happening?

 She looked up "How did you even find this book? No why did you even choose this book." She asked with irritation in her voice.

"Ummmm, I don't know. I just found it. I mean it was quite hidden but not as if it could not be found. And it seemed better than the others. More advanced. Overall, it seemed like the best choice. So I took it." I answered.

"Don't read this." She spoke.

"Why?" I asked.

"For one, It was written by someone who was an absolute genius. It is a little too high-level. As you progress through this book, you will find even harder formulae." On this, my body shuddered. 

(Harder than this. I thought this was the hardest in this book.)

"I have read it before and although I can manage the hardest formula in the book, But still barely. And don't even talk about the second book. Even the easiest formulas in that book are so high-level that only an expert can understand them. And I don't even know what is in the third book." She spoke, her eyes concentrated on me.

"Damn." That was the only thing I could have said after this.

"So don't read it. If you need advanced material, I can give you some." She said as she placed the book in her small bag that was beside her. "Also It was written by her," she said lightly.

"Her?" I asked. 

"Yeah. You know, the legendary runemaster." She moved her hand trying to make me remember.

"I am sorry but who again?" But I had no idea what she was talking about. 

"You don't know about the Legendary Runemaster. The mad Witch scientist." She looked disappointed.

"Sis you can give me all the names in the world but I still won't remember." The name was not ringing any bells. 

"You don't know." She face palmed herself. "Have you not read about the history of the household." She asked.

"No, actually I haven't." I grinned at her. 

She face palmed again. "What am I ever gonna do with you." I grinned in return. "Okay, I will tell you why you should not read this book. The story goes like this." She started and I left the back side of the seat to listen more carefully. She started "This book was written by a Morningstar named Druisella, the mad witch scientist." She exhaled deeply. "It was quite a while ago. An anomaly was found..... A child saw a Morningstar performing magic. Her memories had to be erased but something weird happened at that time. The Morningstar brought to the mansion." She said.

"Wait what?" I said totally flabbergasted. "He brought a muggle to the mansion. Was he crazy or what." 

"Nat, don't interrupt." She said. "I was getting there." Then she continued. "Everyone had the same reaction as you. He was questioned several times why he brought the child with him and each time he had the same answer for it. That he had no other choice. He told them that he had tried several times to remove her memories, but the spell simply did not work." She stopped for a moment and then continued. "He told everyone where he had found the child and how the meeting had come to be. The specifications were not given in the history of the household, but it was just stated that Druisella was a muggle when she was brought into the household." I listened to her, intrigued. The Morningstars were all a bunch of Narcissistic bastards. They did not care what anyone else said about them. They thought of themselves as the most powerful and noble household. So, it was really odd that those egocentric people would take in a muggle just because the memory spell did not work.

"So, did they take her in," I asked.

"Yeah…. Apparently, they did." 

"Wow." I was genuinely surprised.

"My reaction exactly" she pointed towards my face.

"So, just like that, no one looked for the child in the muggle world," I asked.

"Yes…... yes, Nat I am coming towards that if you would just let me." She sighed. "Apparently, she was an orphan. She had no one to go back to in the muggle world."

"But even then, she must have had some connection to some orphanage or something else." I butted in again.

"NATHANIEL COULD YOU PLEASE STOP INTEREPPTING ME." She shouted in rage and a cold chill ran throughout my whole body as I saw an aura of death behind sis.

(She is so going to kill me if I do this again. Not that I am doing it on purpose or anything.)

"Anyway, as I was saying." She continued. "Yes, she was in an orphanage but that did not trouble anyone. As the orphanage acted quite weird in her case. They were more than willing to give the girl to him. In fact, it was as if they were trying to get rid of the girl. What he wanted was to keep the girl as his apprentice, so he was more than happy for it." She sighed. Obviously, she did. What he did was kind of a dumb thing to do.

"The little girl was about eight when he took her in. Everyone thought that she was a muggle at first but on inspection, it was proved that she did have a magical aptitude. Really minor, one that could even be overlooked. He took her in as his apprentice. He was more than happy to do it. And the girl...… I don't know if I was not there, but it is said that she was weird. She was too much of a genius.

(As expected, I don't know how my family managed it, but the sheer number of geniuses was overwhelming. Sis, Jac, Xeros, Alex, and even my old man. And now I am hearing about this girl here..... hmmmm…. my old man haan?)

I had just gone with the flow and now I had a bitter taste in my mouth. 

(Remembering that son of a bitch.) 

I laughed.

(I can't believe it still makes me sentimental.)

"Hey Nat, you still listening?" Sis noticed.

"Yeah yeah. So, what happened next." I asked.

"Nothing. He started to teach her, and she absorbed everything like a sponge. She was a genius in memorizing and experimentation. Especially runes. The only problem was that the standards of the family were a little high. Even if she was a genius, she did not have much aptitude for magic. She was below average at best. Rock bottom even. And that did not sit right with the patriarch. His master did not have that much influence, but he had come to love the young girl. And there was no way that he was going to let anyone point fingers towards the girl he considered her daughter. And even more so, the girl was an expert runemaster. And that was the only thing keeping her in the household. The combination of her skill in runes and the efforts of her father were the things keeping her because she could not perform magic very well." Sis stopped. "And then he died."

"Wait what?" I was surprised.

"Yeah, just like that." 

"What do you mean just like that." 

"Yeah, I know where you are coming from." She shifted on the chair and placed her left leg on top of the right. "I too was confused but that's it. The history states that he died." 

"But that seems so..." I could not even find the words to describe the feeling. "Weird." I went with weird.

"Yeah, I know. But the history simply ended there." She said.

"But.... But that is so frustrating." I said. "And why does any of that have to do anything with me not reading the book written by her." 

"That comes next," Sis told me. "After the death of her father, it was written that they inspected the labs where she worked, and it was discovered that she was performing experiments on humans. After that, it is written that she was executed, and her knowledge was locked deep in the vaults of the household. It was too precious to be destroyed and too dangerous to be left unsupervised."

"Then what about these books." I pointed.

"These were deemed safe by the household but still considered something that should not be provided to beginners because of the complexity and the origin." She explained.

"That's really not a convincing story at all." I leaned back on the seat. "But okay..." I smiled. "I will do as you say, sis." I assured. 

"Thanks for listening Nat. I knew I could count on you." She smiled back. 

There was no harm in not reading from the book if she was forbidding it. So, I decided not to. At least not in front of her. 

(She will never know. HEHEHEHEHEHE)

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(Jacob POV)

My hands trembled and I found it hard to keep ahold of the only dagger left in my hand. 

(NO NO NO NO NO NO. She has to be lying. She can't be Druisella? Could she really be?)

My mind was not accepting it. But even at the mere mention of that name, my body had started to tremble. 

"You are lying." I declared. 

(Yeah! She has to be. There is no way that she is alive. She was executed.) I assured myself.

"Really...… you don't believe me?" She laughed. "Come on now….. out of all the people, you should believe me...… Didn't little Abby tell you anything?" She giggled.

Everything around me blurred except for her. All my focus was on the girl in front of me. I felt my body twist towards the left and then towards the right. I felt my arm stretch and the hilt of the dagger rubbing against my hand. I saw as it flew away from my reach towards Druisella. Letting go of my weapon in front of her was not the wisest of decisions but there was nothing I could have done. She had tried to provoke me, and she had been successful. I was angry..... really really angry. My dagger flew at breakneck speed towards her. She did not even dodge, maybe she could not, instead she simply moved a little towards the left. So, the dagger that was aiming for her chest hit her in her shoulder instead. There was a moment of stupor. I took that and grabbed the dagger on the ground. And jumped backward. 

"Come to me." I shouted and the dagger in her arm immediately disappeared forming strands of shadows and then it appeared in my hand. 

(I need to get away from here. I can't fight this monster.)

And with that thought in my mind, I touched the shadows on the ground and merged with them disappearing from her sight. 

"Are you really going to leave the little kids behind my dearie?" 

Silence.

There wasn't a single sound in the room for several moments. And then I materialized in front of her once again.

"See I have faith that little Abbey would not have trained you like that." She giggled.

"SHUT UP. DON'T YOU SAY MOTHER'S NAME WITH THAT FILTHY MOUTH OF YOURS CARMEN." I shouted in rage.

"Carmen han? Hehehehe." She giggled again. "Seems like you know your history." She raised her hand towards me.

(Obviously, I do. I know everything. I know how much has been removed from the records of the house. I know every single thing about her. After all, her father was my grandfather's brother.)

"yeah, I know my history." I looked her dead in the eyes. "Glad I paid attention in the history class. I know your every dirty little secret." I raised my daggers, taking a fighting stance. "I can see that the tendency of yours with which you killed your father hasn't left you," I smirked.

"Don't you think that you are talking a little too much little boy?" Her expression became grim. 

"Not laughing now are we." 

"Oh, I still am." She smiled again. "But you won't be in a few moments." 

I lowered my body as magic ran freely through my body. I could not hold back. If I held back even an ounce, I would not survive the fight against the monster called Carmen Rouge aka Druisella Morningstar.