Familiar Fire

Chapter Thirty-One

"Kill him and we kill the child." Aurora wanted nothing more than to say 'I'd like to see you try' but her mouth couldn't form the words. She knew Melascula wouldn't back down from something like that and would kill Theo just to spite her. She also knew that she would have said the words if she hadn't placed the spell on Theo just an hour prior making it impossible for her to hurt Theo, or allow anyone else to do so.

"Fine. I can't promise that he won't be unscathed, but I won't kill him."

"Deal." William's look of concern made Aurora laugh.

"Don't worry, Will," She spat the nickname as if it were poison. "You're about to see who's the one trapped in this engagement." His face visibly paled, making Aurora smirk. "Now before we get ahead of ourselves, let's discuss this agreement. Shall we go somewhere to talk about this privately?"

"No one is around."

"Except for you, dear." She used the name with as much sarcasm as possible. "The grown ups need somewhere to talk." Melascula rolled her eyes, but nodded, leading Aurora and Zeldris to a conference room in the castle.

"What did you want to discuss?" Zeldris asked.

"Let's be honest here. I know you were going to kill me with whatever toxin you created to do so if I didn't join you. I hope that now I'm sitting in front of you, you realize how stupid that plan was. I would be stronger than the both of you combined if Zeldris didn't have the additional power of the Demon King. Sure, you could have killed me, easily I'm sure, but you would have lost this war embarrassingly fast." Zeldris looked to Melascula and then back to Aurora before nodding. "Great, so now that we're agreed, I want you to hand over your supply of what can kill me and for you to destroy the rest."

"Why?"

"I can't trust that you both will keep it safe. I'm sure you would protect it, sure, but the safest place for it is with me. I don't want you leaving it around and having William kill me again." The other two demons looked at each other before both nodding, Melascula sighing as she did so. Aurora loved how much power she had over the pink-haired demon. Zeldris reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, pulling out a bottle with a bright teal liquid inside, handing it to her.

"This is all that we have." Aurora looked at him skeptically. "Really, it is. The Demon King made it, and this was all he gave us."

"What is it?"

"A mix of things. First, it's made of billions of microscopic shards of metal that react with your cells, multiplying once in your bloodstream. After only a few minutes, your cells will be entirely replaced by metal. The poison also stops your heart so you don't just keep living with a metal heart. Once the metal has reacted and your heart has stopped, you die."

"And if the metals removed?"

"Your heart would have already stopped with the metal in it. It would be too late. And I wouldn't try destroying it, Aurora. It's enchanted to keep returning until it has been used. The only thing is you don't know where it reappears. It could fall into the wrong hands."

"Because your hands were the right one's when you would have killed me if I didn't join you."

"Fair enough." Zeldris said, reminding Aurora of Meliodas.

"And how do we know that you won't betray us?" Aurora looked to Zeldris, debating if she could trust him or not. After a few seconds, she decided that she didn't trust him completely, but enough.

"How about this? I will perform a spell where if I stab Zeldris in the back, literally or figuratively, I will be unable to stop myself from drinking the poison, and I won't be able to ever break the spell."

"Why just Zeldris?"

"He's the one the Demon King chose to rule, planning to overthrow him?" Melascula rolled her eyes but remained quiet.

"Unless I tell you not to." Zeldris added to Aurora's proposal, making her eyebrows furrow. "What would happen if you hit me, not hard enough to hurt me, but the spell makes you drink the poison anyways."

"That does make sense." Melascula said.

"So it's agreed, you'll perform the spell and add in the fact that I can disable it." Aurora closed her eyes, focusing on her magic. She opened her eyes again, looking between them.

"Alright, it's done."

"Let's put it to the test," Melascula said, a smirk on her face. Aurora sighed, a bored expression on her face. She grabbed a piece of paper off the table, crumpled it, and threw it at Zeldris. She immediately grabbed the bottle and uncorked it, unable to stop herself. She leaned it closer and closer to her mouth, about to pour it into her mouth. Her eyes widened as the liquid poured from the bottle.

"Stop." Aurora immediately pulled her head away, letting a few drops of the potion drop to the floor, barely avoiding going into her mouth. She siphoned the liquid off of the floor back into the bottle. "There, you got your proof, Melascula, now leave. I need to speak privately with Aurora." The pink-haired demon looked like she was about to argue, but Zeldris sent her a glare. She nodded and left, closing the door behind her.

"Why did you let it go on so long? If you had spoken a millisecond later I'd be dead."

"It was the only way Melascula would believe the spell worked. Sure, you could try to fake it, but she would have easily picked up on it." Aurora sighed.

"Ok, but I'm trusting you. That's the only reason I made it you and not her. I don't trust you very much, but I do. I trust that you have good intentions in this war, even if that belief kills me in the end." She turned and started towards the door.

"To prove that your trust wasn't misplaced, Aurora, as the only person who can disable your spell, consider the spell and the vow attached to it void." The redhead walked over to the table, and crumpled up another piece of paper and threw it at Zeldris. Her hand didn't move to grab the bottle. She crumpled up another piece of paper and threw it at him again, making sure. "Would you stop that?" Aurora threw another one laughing as he tried to bat it away, but instead, it hit him between the eyes.

"I had to make sure."

"Did you place the spell on yourself and the child?" Aurora didn't want to think about it. She knew with her emotions, that child meant the world to her. Now, she dreaded that he had power over her. He was the only one in this entire world that had even a fraction of it, but it wasn't a fraction. The spell made it so that if someone threatened to hurt the child, she would lay her life down to save him. She hated it. She walked towards the door again. "I will kill Theodore." Without intending to, Aurora whipped around, forming a blade in her hand, and launched across the room towards Zeldris. "Kidding." She immediately relaxed, letting the blade disappear. "Just making sure."

"I hate it. I hate that I let you convince me into doing it. I'm going to die trying to protect that child and it's all your fault. If I didn't have to protect him from harm, I'd kill him myself to be rid of the spell."

"First of all, if you were able to kill him, you would already be rid of it. Secondly, that's exactly why you placed the spell and I recommended it. You might not care now, Aurora, but one day, the darkness in you can be broken. The dark magic that is. If you were to kill your son or even hurt him...you would never be able to rid yourself of that darkness." Aurora rolled her eyes and left the room walking back to the main part of the castle.

"Aurora, my love. There you are. Let me show you to our room."

"I know I said I wouldn't kill you, but if I'm sharing a room with you, that will change real quick." Zeldris laughed.

"Luckily for the both of you, there are plenty of rooms in the castle. You can even have entirely different wings."

"Separate wings is just overreacting."

"I'm glad we established earlier that I'm always overreacting so you know exactly where I'll be staying." William rolled his eyes and stormed off, leaving Aurora and Zeldris.

"William made a huge mistake, didn't he?" Aurora nodded absentmindedly, deep in thought.