Folks Of Fury (#1; Tales Of Elysia [COMPLETED])

sixteen.

"Ezra, can you do something for me?" I was only just recovering from steamy hard sex in the showers.
He blinked down at me, his skin was still flushed from the hot shower, doing the buttons of his pants.
"Tell your father, I have the cure. But don't tell him what it is." I hastily added that last part.
"I'm not stupid. Once they know, the covens would love nothing more than to drain you dry to save their numbers."
I sat upright the bed, shifting to sit at the edge and continued.
"Tell him I want to meet at the Manor. All the other Agnate heads should be there."
Ezra sat down next to me and asked softly. "What are you planning?" He knew me all too well in just the small length of time we've been together.
"Nothing but sweet revenge. I just don't want you to look at me like I'm a monster afterwards."
He peered deeply at me, reaching to place and hand on my knee affectionately. "We're all monsters, you told me that. Whatever it is, maybe it'd put things right back in balance between you and them."
I nodded at that line of reasoning even if I hadn't thought that way. "Tromos will tell me if he agrees to the meeting, which he has no choice but to."
He chortled and muttered before kissing my cheek. "You've turned them into carrier pigeons."
"Insult them and you'd wake up without eyes." I called after him as he left the room and soon the house.
I walked to the mirror and tilted slightly enough so I could see my scarred back.
At least they weren't rawed and pinkish with trace amount of blood. The lines ran from my neck down to my waist, crisscrossed and jagged but looked like scars of several years rather than less than a week.
"It's a shame to have such ugliness marring your body forever."
I jerked around, taking up a defensive stance at the acrid voice and found Aristyl standing in the room, so tall that he nearly touched the ceiling with the crown of his head.
"What the fuck are you doing here? How did you even get past my spells?"
Aristyl snorted. "You cast it to ward off the Agnate, not one of us."
"That answers the second question. Or are you here to get even for the duel?"
He glared at me. "Do not insult me by thinking I'd be that dishonorable."
"Then what is it? Has Queen Mab finally granted me knighthood?"
Aristyl laughed. I wasn't expecting that to be the case.
"You fought well doesn't mean you've earned your place, Senoy. I come of my own accord, to tell you something the Queen didn't confide."
I frowned, I was sure I had gotten a sincere oath from her. But then Mab was a cunning bitch. She's had centuries to be really good at it.
"Once the cure has been taken, it will save whoever it is but only him. The already infected will die thereafter the plague will be no more."
"So you're saying, whoever is already infected by the plague will die regardless of the cure."
Aristyl nodded. "You can give as many as you wish but once they have drank it. It seals the fate of the other invalids."
I sighed deeply. "That makes this easier then, doesn't it? I wasn't planning on saving that many, let the rest suffer for the sins of their kindred."
A smile stretched across the Fey knight's face. "I see you have a scheme in the works."
"One to quench my own thirst for revenge." I looked to the roosting form of Apelpi.
"Maybe you can have a front row seat to it."
"And maybe you aren't after all different from us."

I knew they'd been waiting for almost half an hour, Tromos had come back to the wood house to relay back what was decided by Ezra's father.
I wanted them to wait for that long to exaggerate the anticipation.
I flew in through open front door. With the agreement of my terms, the rowan barrier that protected the Manor from Fey influence, gave me allowance.
In a flash of gamboge light, I returned from being an eagle and thankfully the spell to keep my clothes had worked.
Or I'd have lost my element in the ensuing embarrassment.
"Oh the boy has more of a flair for the grand entrance than you, Eleazar." The vampire leader, a blond lithe man with pitch black eyes said.
The Agnate leaders in Redwood were all seated about a conference table in the receiving parlor of the Manor.
I found Ezra standing at his father's side, rolling his eyes with amusement at my theatrics to which I winked back.
"So you're the cause of all this fuss. Can't say I'm not impressed." Katerina, the Shifter mistress mused as she hungrily eyed me, in her seat opposite Eleazar Khan.
"So, Senoy St. Ours. I've come to understand, you can help us with our witch dilemma."
I looked head on at the Knight of the Agnate and corrected. "I don't go by that last name. This household isn't worthy of claiming me as one of them."
Eleazar Khan had the same domineering bearing as his son, same piercing hard gaze and handsome cutting of his face.
Even with him sitting, I figured Ezra was taller and less burly. And also that he had probably gotten his elegant cheekbones from his mother.
At the head of the table sat three very familiar witches- Uliana, Tereze and Sophie St. Ours.
My mother cringing at the coldness in my voice.
"What do we call you then?"
I smirked, "Just Senoy, would do for now." It was a heady feeling, holding the power over these powerful figures.
I drew closer, my hands behind my back and jarring visibility of Angurvadal for them all to see that no one was intimidating me here.
"I have the cure to the witch plague incurred by Queen Mab of the Fey. But I have terms and conditions before I will give it over."
"Terms? You insipid bastard, you dare come here and dictate-"
I glanced over my shoulder at the staggering and deathly pale form of Johann.
His words were caught off by series of wracking debilitating coughs that left blood on his mouth.
Sores and blisters reddened across his face like a pox, blotching him to a gruesome sight.
I'd heard the plague was a wicked creation but until now I didn't believe it. Though why Johann was infected was surprising, he wasn't a witch though descended and married to one.
Uliana, never tolerant to her brother's-in-law rants snapped with narrowed eyes, "Johann, you aren't of this town's Agnate leadership. So either go and rest or-"
"Or nothing, he can stay and hear this." I cut off my aunt.
"And yes, I have conditions which have to be met unless you want all of witchkind to go extinct by the end of the month."
I paused looking from each of their faces, saving my aunts, mother and Johann for last.
My mother nodded grimly and Eleazar spoke up. "State the terms."
"One, forthwith the covens do not have a claim on me nor I them. The Fury sisters will swear to leave me permanently to my own devices which will no longer be beholden to them. Nor theirs mine. At the end of today, our fates are severed for good."
Johann grunted out. "We wouldn't want it any other way."
"Johann, you will shut up or leave this gathering." Katerina said tightly.
And when they looked to me I continued, "There is only one dose of the cure and that brings me to the second condition. I will choose who to give it to. It will be taken here and now, by whatever means I choose, no testing whatsoever, should the terms be accepted."
"How are we to believe that you won't use this as a ploy to poison whomever you chose?" Aunt Tereze quipped.
I laughed with mirth at that. "Poison? Please like I would give myself the stress. All I have to do is wait out the week and then this entire house will fall to ruin with your deaths. But to reassure you, I will swear."
"You're a half breed, bound by neither Agnate nor any law." Ninus, the vampire leader said brusquely.
"Then I'll swear by you the Agnate that the cure is indeed the salvation of the covens. And if it isn't then the Knight of the Agnate will execute me without question." I knew Ezra would be uncomfortable with that and I spied from the corner of my eye that he was about to intercede.
But stilled in place as I looked at him meaningfully. I have a plan. Trust me please.
I waited to see if there was any more concerns about the authenticity of what I offered.
"Sounds reasonable enough." Eleazar grunted with a deepening frown for which I felt a twinge of wary.
"Anything else?" Aunt Uliana said, her brows shooting up to her purple lily patterned turban.
"Yes, one more thing." I glowered at my hateful stepfather. "I want the whip you used to flog me. See it as a parting gift of sorts, I don't care. Bring it to me."
Johann spat out blood into a handkerchief before he could say anything.
Instead it was my mother who looked at me as if I was a stranger. Like I hadn't been much of one since the day I was born.
"And don't think you can somehow overwhelm me and take the knowledge of the cure forcibly. I've taken precautions that ensures your failure in that regard."
Eleazar steepled his fingers on the table and enunciated. "Looks like you've thought all this through? When my son told me you have a cure, I refused to believe, after what they've done to you, that you would save the covens. Answer me this and we'll proceed with your conditions. Why?"
I looked at Ezra as I answered. "Because we're all monsters from the day we are born till the moment we die but what frees us is what kind of monster we live through life as."
Katerina chimed, "And what kind are you? A forgiving one?"
I would've laughed but wouldn't want to insult them with such hubris.
"Maybe after I've had my fill of vengeance, I might be."
"The witch plague your Queen set on us isn't good enough revenge for you?" Johann snapped.
I didn't want to correct him that I didn't serve Mab, not yet anyway.
"The plague was her retaliation to my mother breaking their bargain. This is mine for what I suffered for your repulsive bigotry."
Eleazar looked at the Fury sisters for their deliberation and decision because he couldn't exactly decide for the covens.
"One dose of the cure and you choose who takes it. What happens to the others?" Aunt Uliana asked.
"They'll die but the plague will die with them. No one else will fall sick."
Aunt Tereze glared as she retorted harshly. "So what use is this cure to us, if it'll save only one."
"Would you rather every last witch in the world perishes? Because if you do, then I'll leave."
"Take the offer. There are still many who will survive." Katerina advised.
"How sweetly the Fey bargain, how severely they punish." Eleazar muttered to himself but loud enough to be picked by those of us with supernatural hearing.
It was Aunt Uliana who at last spoke. "I just want to say, Senoy. What was done to you that day, wasn't of your mother or my wishes."
I narrowed at her. "And yet she knowingly permitted it from all the years, she purposely turned a blind eye to the torment I suffered in this house. Do you or do you not accept my terms?"
"We accept. Swear your oaths that the cure is authentic and we'll give the necessary oaths to your terms as well." My mother recounted with a finality that just wasn't her.
Her husband and eldest son are dying.
Nonetheless, my momentary twinge of sympathy gave way to dark anticipation.
To which I showed by grinning ear to ear and Ezra threw me an eyebrow raise at my mad cheshire expression.
"I swear by the Agnate heads seated before me, that the cure which I possess is authentic and will do nothing but purge the sickness of the witch plague from whomever takes it."
And all three of the Fury sisters uttered their oaths abiding by clear enunciation of my conditions.
Satisfied by each other's oaths, I announced.
"Excellent, now could someone help my dearest brother, Jean downstairs? I'm sure he's dying to see me again." Ezra chortled, causing his father to glare over his shoulder at him.
I heard the surprised and relieved gasp from my mother who watched me, disbelieving that I had chosen my cruel brother.
The one who had held the whip as his father had commanded.
Aunt Tereze stood up and left the room to get Jean. "Don't forget that wicked little whip, let him bring it with him." I called after her.
"Meantime you will have to make room for him and his father. I fear they might not have much strength in them."
Mom rose to her feet to give the chair to her husband while she paced back and forth and occasionally looked up at me, as if trying to see if there was some loophole to the agreement.
You might find it if given more time with your genius spellcraft. But alas mother, you have none.
Aunt Tereze walked back in, shouldering a pallid and shivering Jean. He looked worse than Johann but then he'd been one of the first to fall sick and if not for the spells of Mom and our aunts would already be dead.
He had lost considerable amount of weight, his face was gaunt and rough with greenish pustules.
I doubt he could breathe or see well from all that boils. It churned my gut into a myriad of nausea.
His arms shivered across his chest and I was stunned into temporary terror at the sight of the malignant whip rolled in his hands.
I reached out a hand and Aunt Tereze with a half pained half scornful look, guided Jean's hands to release the whip into my hold.
Behind them followed the rest of my siblings, they all looked shocked to see me. Lisette was no where in sight, no doubt recuperating from her ordeal.
"What is this, we didn't authorise a show?" The vampire was a humorous fellow as he looked appalled by the presence of my siblings.
"They are his family, would you deny him the comfort of their company in this dire hour?" Katerina replied but glanced at me as if it was my choice.
I shrugged, "Don't care. The more the merrier."
Aunt Tereze scoffed and brought Jean into the empty chair beside his father.
"What's g-going o-on?" I heard Jean groan.
"The Agnate and our mother and aunts have agreed to let me offer you the cure to your predicament."
He cocked his head to the direction of my voice, eyelids too swollen to lift.
"Senoy?" He managed to utter amidst pain and discomfort.
"One and only." I responded.
I clapped my hands and in a flare of gold light two glass goblets with silver stems appeared before them.
"What the hell is this? You said you'd give us the cure?" Aunt Tereze snapped.
"I also said I'd give it in whatever means I choose and I've chosen this one. I'll leave the choice of whoever takes the cure to my brother Jean and to his father, Johann."
"A game of chance." Fleur said under her hoarse breath.
"You never said anything about a game." Ezra's father glowered at me, weak eyes still brimming with hate.
But I was not moved by the threat of it. In fact it kept on course to this plan. "I didn't need to. This is my means of giving it. Take it or leave it, knowing the fate of your people rests on both."
Eleazar threw a look at his son who wore an impressive blank face.
"Should I go on or do we need to deliberate more? Jean might not last long, just saying."
Mom whimpered out, both her eyes shut as tears streamed down pressed lashes. "Carry on."
"Two cups of glass and silver, lie before you. One bears white wine, Champagne-Ardenne and the other a vintage Sancerre red wine. Both wine give a truth about my past with you. Only one holds the cure to the witch plague. Whichever is chosen first, the other is taken as well by the either of you."
"I know this game." Hans spoke, despair and sadness washing over his realisation. Good it means all this was well thought out.
"One is cure to any and every malady and the other is deadly poison. One life, the other instant death."
And now it all dawned on them, the inescapable trap I had set upon them.
"You can always refuse to play and seal the doom of the covens."
"Shut up, you cruel half breed."
I shook off the reins of restraint I had on my power since passing into the compound. I'd held back unleashing my rage and pain on being back here so tenuously.
But I won't be insulted. Not now and not ever.
The room blazed in harsh fiery light with my anger, white noise blitzed through the air as I whirled resentfully on Margot.
"Which of us is the cruel one? You and your bigoted family who spent years putting me through hell just because we don't share the same father. Or me who after eighteen years of surviving your spite is giving you a chance of salvation."
"This is no salvation." Jean said weakly as his siblings backed away in fear of me.
"Then let your father take the wrong cup and die." I drew the gamboge burst of power back within me, silently revelling in their shock at me.
"Senoy, please. You can't do this." Tears streamed down my mother's face. But I looked away from her and faced my stepfather who had been watching me for a while now.
"You lived in this house for eighteen years." Johann started, silencing his family. "I know your lies and truths- your tells and tricks."
"By all means, prove it. Save yourself and be content that your hatred is what killed your son."
"No, I won't give you that satisfaction. I'll give my life to save him because I'm his father. You have none which is why you seek to deprive my children of me. You want them to feel what it's like to be empty in that regard. You've envied them- Jean most of all."
And Johann took Jean's hand and placed on the table, an inch close to both goblets before he said to him. "The left is the white and the right the red. Take the white."
I raised a brow. "Sancerre was the wine, we all drank the night of Lisette's graduation. Jean poisoned yours with salt and excessive hellebore."
And Johann took the glass of red wine and gulped it empty just as Jean raised the Champagne-Ardenne and swallowed down.
The air was heavy with tepid anxiety, all the Agnate vigilant and not interfering.
Immediately Johann doubled back, his chair toppling over and he choked to the burning in his throat.
But there was triumph in his eyes because he believed he had thwarted me. He gasped for breath, clutching at his neck.
Suddenly he stopped and Jean hunched over like he had been punched with fists of iron.
"Oh Saints!" Margot and Fleur gaped in horror as they looked from their father to their brother.
"You tricked them. They were both poison?" Aunt Uliana gasped out.
I shook my head and stated simply to Johann who only just realized how gravely mistaken he was.
"The sins of the father has been visited upon the son. You thought you knew me, this has taught you otherwise."
Steam rose from Jean's mouth as the poison scorched him from inside out, thick purple veins roped across his face, breaking skin and gushing blood from every orifice.
Just as colour and vitality rushed into his father, clearing away the pustules and blisters, healing him of his plague instantly.
"No! No no no!" Johann wailed with obvious torment and grief as he grabbed at his hair and pulled as he kept over his dead son.
"It should've been me...no please...take me..." He cried.
My siblings surrounded them, ashen faced and torn.
"Is this what you wanted?!" Fleur who had always been the closest to Jean howled with tears running down her face.
"Does this count us even, Fey?!" Good, remember this.
Before I vanished into a column of sunset red light, I declared tightly.
"Not even close."

I returned to the wood house, excitement and uncertainty for what I'd just done singing a hype in my blood.
It felt even better than when I had enchanted Benny and Paul weeks ago, this was like taking all the best brands of heroine together at once.
I stumbled for a bit and leaned against the ground steps to catch my bearings.
"That is what it truly feels like to be Fey. We are creatures who are prey on the rawest of emotions; pain, rage, joy and desire. Because we are the very embodiment of all those wild forces but we learn to control them well so they do not overwhelm us, for that would be chaotic even by our standards."
I nodded, "Thanks for the advice and that little info on the cure."
The Fey knight sauntered closer, seeking to close the distance as he grated out.
"Which you used beneficially. Well played, yet again Senoy. It seems there's hope for you."
Aristyl was chuckling with complete abandon of his usual ghostly passiveness.
"I'm glad you're entertained."
"As is all of the Court. You let me see through your eyes and through mine I revealed it all to the entire Fey Court. They haven't been well entertained like this in a while."
I rolled my eyes at his offhand cunning which I was starting to look past as only natural.
"To deceive so expertly, even I believed your adoptive father would die. But be careful, you have taken his firstborn, he feels shattering pain now. But that will subside to blistering anger."
Am I becoming more like them? More attuned with delighting in cruelty?
"I want to ask you something." I wanted to put the St. Ours and what happened behind me. I am done with those people.
His expression froze over immediately. "I do not answer to anyone but the Fey Queen."
"It's just a harmless yes or no question."
Aristyl nodded to go ahead though jewel purple eyes narrowed to slits at me.
"The murders are more like sacrifices- ten humans, five witches killed and mutilated on a night of the full moon, to access the ley lines."
He cocked his head to the side. "I do not hear a question in there."
"Is the killer one of the Fey Folk?"
"Yes." And Aristyl vanished into thin air.
With that bit of information cleared, I went up into the house and looked through my clues with new eyes.
Though I was distracted by what had happened at the Manor today and waited anxiously for Ezra to get back.