All characters in sexual situations are 18 or older. Thanks for reading!
"There you are, Vel." Cassia found her son striding in from the meadows, holding Naevia's hand. They looked sweaty and bedraggled, as well they should. She assumed they had spent a busy day helping to erect tents in the absence of the servant staff. She hoped that was all they had done. They knew better than to get into mischief where they could be found, didn't they?
Naevia leaned in close to her brother. "There is a shadow that hangs about Mother. I can remove it. Let's get her somewhere private."
"There is a what?" Vel looked down at her and then back up to the duchess. He saw no shadow.
"Like the ones Brynhild cast about her." As she watched her mother beckon to them, Naevia could feel her nerves tingle and itch. "Let's be quick about it."
"I'm glad I found you, Vel," Cassia said. "I wanted to talk about tomorrow. The arrivals should start --"
"Come with us, quickly." Vel took his mother's arm and hurried her into the castle. Neptune's temple was the closest unoccupied room, so he pulled her in there.
"What's going on?" Cassia looked around her at the statue of the great towering man with his trident and the sea creatures that surrounded him. The blue walls of the chamber became bluer still when her daughter's skin glowed. There was a flash of azure, and Cassia stumbled into her son. A dark veil that had shadowed her mind lifted. Her thoughts immediately fixed on her conversation with Brynhild that morning. "You're in danger, Vel. The sorceress plans to..." Her face twisted in disgust. "She plans to rape you, I think. She's looking for magic." She grabbed at Vel's arm. "Where is she?"
"It's okay. She's gone. I sent her from the castle for good." Vel hugged his mother close and squeezed her tight. "Naevia prevented whatever Brynhild had planned. And I banished her."
"Naevia did?" Cassia looked over at her daughter. "How?"
Vel and Naevia filled in their mother on the azure light and how it had protected them. They left out the part where it had saved Naevia and Dellia when they'd been spying on Cassia. It didn't seem pertinent.
Cassia relayed to them the conversation she'd had with Brynhild that morning. She left out the part where she'd told the sorceress about Vel taking the duchess's rear. Her daughter didn't need to hear that.
Silence filled the temple after they'd, mostly, caught each other up to speed.
"The curse has turned my daughter into a sorceress." Cassia thought through all the implications.
"Yes. But not you, Mother. You've had no blue light? Nothing unexplained?" Vel followed along. He saw what must have been Brynhild's conclusion.
"Vel! Not in front of your sister." Cassia's eyes went wide at his cavalier mention of their secret.
"I know you've done it, Mother." Naevia folded her arms.
"Of course she knows, Mother." Vel held up his hands in surrender when Cassia shot him a look of betrayal. "Only Naevia and Dellia know. It's okay."
"Dellia?" Cassia felt faint. She looked about the temple, her gaze traveling everywhere but her daughter's eyes. How much had Vel told them?
"Don't faint, Mother." Naevia reached out and held her mother by the shoulders. "We need to think things through." She turned to her brother. "You have to take her to the relic tower tonight."
"What?" Vel and Cassia both looked at Naevia like a madness had taken her.
"Brynhild went to you, Mother. She said she was going to interrogate Norbana next. Don't you see?" Naevia looked back and forth between her mother's uncomprehending face, and Vel's knowing one. "She would have made Vel take her in the castle if she thought that's how the magic worked. It would have been easier. But she surmised from you and Norbana that she needed the relic tower."
Cassia's hand went to her mouth. "Oh, my."
Moments later, Vel nodded. "Brynhild's logic must have been that the magic transfers to a woman only if I join with her in a place of old magic."
"Yes." Naevia nodded. "Which is good news about Lady Norbana. We should have been more careful there."
"But... I don't want magic." Cassia looked from her eighteen-year-old daughter with her determined expression, to her nineteen-year-old son with his suppressed smile. "You better not be enjoying this." She bit her bottom lip. Of course he was enjoying it. Men always wanted to claim the horizon. They hadn't yet spoken of it, but of course she would have to give him her vagina in that broken tower. That was as clear as day after what Brynhild had said to her. Cassia had given Vel almost every part of her. It was no surprise that Vel wanted the rest. Perhaps it spoke well of his restraint that it was circumstance, and not his pressing for it, that would break this final wall.
"You have to, Mother." Naevia took a deep breath, trying to control her excitement. "If it wasn't for the magic, Brynhild would have had her way with Vel."
"You have no magic?" Cassia looked to her son.