Page 45 of Bound and Tide

The priest nodded, unruffled. He was older, face lined, light eyes watching in that way that said his years had made him perceptive rather than daft or cold. Xander hated eyes like that, ones that allowed too much, that rarely narrowed, that considered kindness a strength and looked too deeply into the darkness for the sad, frightened, feeble source.

But those were also the kind of eyes he could take advantage of—the kind that would help him.

“This is where the discretion comes in.” He tightened his jaw and didn’t bother to hide the darkness in his own eyes. “I am, let us say, arcanely connected to an infernal source—not by choice, mind you, but I have enjoyed all the benefits of it, cultivated it, served it. It is in my blood, and it is my duty to carry out its will. To carry out her will.”

“I suppose if anyone could understand that, it should be me. But?” asked Father Theodore because of course there was one, and of course the holy man could sense it.

“But…recent events and certain people and frustrating feelings have made me reconsider my obligations.”

“Obligations or options?”

That was a good question. “Is something ever a choice if, eventually, it is inevitable?”

“Is an ending truly inevitable if it only comes after the time before an eventually?”

Xander drummed fingers on his knee. “I’m not sure there is a way to end this problem I have without ending…me, as it were.”

On the desk’s other side, the priest still waited, nodding and listening intently.

“Bloody Abyss,” Xander sighed and scrunched up his face. “My mother’s a demon, if I haven’t made that clear, and each day I am compelled that much closer to summoning her into this realm, which, believe you me, would be rather bad for the lot of us.”

The priest sat back, face losing its placidity as he considered him.

Noxscura coursed through Xander, and he clenched the desk’s edge and curled his toes and held his breath. Not now, he demanded. Of all the places to unleash the Abyss, let us avoid here for at least a moment longer.

“You are saying that you are a…mage?”

Xander blew a steady breath through his nostrils and raised a hand, allowing the slightest bit of noxscura to ooze out of his skin. “Blood mage.” The shadow that enveloped his hand rolled over itself and struggled to get away, reaching for the priest but unable to escape. Sweat broke out on Xander’s forehead, his breathing went ragged, and his vision tunneled until he finally closed a fist on the shadow and trapped it away once again. It wouldn’t have been possible without that last corrupted trinket, and he felt it crack in his pocket from the strain.

The priest was stalwart, Xander would give him that, unblinking eyes locked onto where the dark arcana had been.

Xander wiped at his brow and sat back in the most nonthreatening way he could manage. “My magic is also getting out of hand, as it were.”

“In what way?”

“I was once completely in control of it, but…” Xander squinted down at the desk then huffed—if this temple were as secure as he hoped, he may as well be entirely honest. “No, that’s not really true. I don’t think I’ve ever been completely in control of the noxscura because I don’t think she’s ever let me be, but I’ve struggled quite a bit lately. I’ve very nearly caused a calamity or two that I’d rather not have, and I fear the next time I…may not be able to stop something awful happening.”

The eyes he expected to narrow only softened further. “That is complex, and I can see it troubles you, my son.”

He would have snapped at the man to not call him that, but the priest laid a hand atop his, and every foul thing in Xander’s body halted. He didn’t hear himself or anyone else calling him craven. There was no demand that he stop being such an ungrateful spoiled brat and just fulfill the only thing he was good for. The noxscura calmed, everything calmed, and it wasn’t even arcana that had done it.

Shoulders sinking, Xander’s voice went utterly pathetic, but he didn’t care. “Please, tell me what to do.”

Father Theodore donned his glasses with the resolve of a soldier strapping on armor and stood, going to a shelf full of books. He ran a finger along the spines with eyes squinting through the small lenses until he found what he sought. The book he pulled off was old, but then most books with the kind of information the two needed probably were. “Dominions rarely have direct descendants on this plane,” he said as he flipped through the pages, “however, when they do, they often have the ability to bestow and deny certain gifts, usually through some arcane talisman.”

Xander sat forward. He always had that inkling. “So demons can manipulate their spawn’s powers?”

The priest gave an uncommitted nod and muttered to himself as he continued to flip through the pages. “Darkmore, Darkmore…” He removed loose parchment that had been tucked inside the book and scanned the handwritten letters, lips moving and making that fancy mustache twitch.

Xander too twitched, crossing arms tight over his chest while he waited until he thought he might burst.

“Ah, here it is.” Father Theodore cleared his throat. “A brother of mine from a temple in Elderpass knew a man once with your…affliction. Said much the same thing, that a demon’s hold over him was too great, but he’d managed to sever his connection to the infernal.”

“Marvelous!” Xander stood, hands open. “Then I’ll just go see them, and—”

“No, no, this was over thirty years ago, and Father Benjen is long dead, but he wrote here that the blood mage had to cut off the arcana at its source.”

Xander flopped back into the chair with a huff, annoyed with the nonspecifics and how the holy man had so quickly ripped away his scheme. “Well, you should know, I’m probably not altruistic or trusting enough to cut off my arcane source since that sounds like a thing I need to continue living. Ideally, protecting the people I love won’t involve sacrificing myself or any of them—I’ve watched a man weep over a woman’s corpse after trusting the wrong bastard, and it seemed terribly inconvenient.” Never mind that Xander had been that exact bastard, and as far as he could tell, he was lucky enough to not have a rival version of himself fouling up his plans.

---