Page 124 of Cursed Heirs

He walked to me and I grasped his hand, hating the terror in his eyes for us all. He’d endured so much hurt lately, I could barely stomach it.

Giving his hand a squeeze, I assured him, “Wewillsurvive this.”

“Constantine got away and he still has the Orb and aHellborn.”

“He didn’t get away,” Abigail told him.

My son arched an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

I smiled. “I tagged him, son.”

His eyes shot wide. “You did?”

“I surely did.Sabre Techis working on a way to contain the power of theHellbornfor a limited time, long enough for Abigail to then bury it beneath the earth and seal it so it cannot be retrieved again and fall into the wrong hands.”

“Obviously, destroying it would be the optimal strategy,” Abi said. “However, that isn’t possible with a Hell-forged weapon.”

“This is the next best thing,” I finished for her.

She smiled, liking when we completed one another’s thoughts or sentences.

“As soon as the device is ready, we’ll march on Constantine and end this,” I told my son. “Until then, the ward here has been reinforced,Exemplaris out there covertly monitoring the demon and his followers to minimize any damage he may cause in the meantime.”

“So you want me to just sit tight?”

“I want you to continue with your therapy and your studies. And be with your loves, son. They need you dearly right now.”

“Dad, I can’t just do nothing after everything that’s happened and—”

“I’m working on a way to return your magic to you.”

He pulled up short at my revelation.

I hadn’t wanted to inform him yet, not until my experiments were further along and I had something concrete. As it was, the early stages had proven very promising. Moreover, he clearly needed a bright spark in his life at the moment, something to give him hope.

“How? You said it wasn’t possible unless Constantine did that himself, but he betrayed Alena and never did it. Her sacrifice, trying to save me because of what she saw me do that day, was all for nothing.”

“Constantine already had a hold on her at that point,” Abigail told him, as I’d asked her to, because I didn’t want him bearing so much guilt, especially not on top of everything else. “Exemplaranalyzed the scene where she was taken. The results took some time because of the black magic involved, but we recently discovered that he had infected her at that point, been inside her mind through his ingestion of her blood. He would have pulled her to him anyway. He would have just used something else, or someone else as the spark.”

He cursed and scrubbed his hand over his face, and I could see some of that awful weight lifting off him. “Thank you,” he told her, earnestly.

She smiled out at him. “Of course.”

I shifted my weight on the chair as Abigail got to a particularly nasty and deep part of my wound, all I could do to cover up my discomfort in front of my son. I cleared my throat and told him, “The night you were turned, when Constantine snapped your neck after feeding you his blood, there was a brief moment that your magic was still untainted. I extracted some of your magical essence at that point. I used most of it when I delved into my experiments with black magic to try to reverse the turning, but I have some left. Since your magic was taken, I’ve been working in my lab to find a way to return it to you. The solution involves merging it with some of mine. With our familial connection, the similarities in our magic, your body will accept it, and it can become one with you.OnceI determine a way to fuse it together safely.”

“Dad, that’s… incredible.” He thought for a moment and I saw the moment he realized the drawback. “If you’re giving it to me permanently, merging like that, it would impact your power level, wouldn’t it?”

“It would diminish my power, yes. Somewhat.”

“What exactly doessomewhatmean? How much are we talking?”

“By half.”

“No,” he said, firmly, shaking his head. “No way. We’ll find another way. Or I’ll make my peace with it. I’m already working on it actually.”

“I don’t want you to have to compromise—not when it comes to that.”

“Then when we defeat Constantine, we’ll make him return it.”

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