Chapter I - A new start and a strange baby

*** Magdalena ***

Something was wrong with this baby. The more time Magdalena spent with it the surer she became. First, it cried all wrong. Of course, all babies cry, but not like this. Normal babies cry loud and they scream - uncaring whoever hears them. Gods be damned, they want to be heard by everyone and everything in the whole damn world. Their screams are without shame, without real sadness, just an expression of something being wrong or simply not to their liking.

Her Maya’s child was different. It cried. It cried a lot, but the way it cried, it wasn’t normal. Tears were flowing nonstop and sometimes there was a silent sobbing, but never real screams.

And then there were its eyes. Filled with so much sorrow, loss, and regret. It reminded her of the old smith on the day he had carried his son to his grave. There was so much emotion in those eyes. No baby could even understand tragedy enough to ever have eyes like this at such a young age.

Her first impulse was to check the old scrolls in her family’s archives. She found stories of remnants and demons taking possession of small children or even them stealing babies and swapping them out with their own brood, but she had checked the old weaves surrounding the house. Twice. There was nothing wrong with them all lines were unbroken. The house was protected.

Just to be sure she even took a small blood sample when her daughter was taking a nap and weaved a circle to check it for any residual magic. Initially she thought it did not achieve any interesting results. The circle did not reveal any magic inside her granddaughter. That eliminated nearly all the possible explanations she had found.

No magic meant, no ghosts, no demons or ancient artifacts had taken hold of her grandchild. However, she noticed it was watching her intensely when she was performing her magic. First when the magic circle began to shimmer in a dim green light that she could still understand. The light was attracting the child’s attention. That made sense.

What was strange was the intense focus with which she was being watched when she had summoned a little bit of water to clean the site of her little experiment up. No flashy magic this time. A baby should not be interested in the slightest and yet it seemed utterly fascinated. To be honest the only reason she even cleaned up so thoroughly, was her daughter Maya. Not the brightest magic weaver herself, but she knew her mother’s ways and if she found even the smallest hint of magic, she would become suspicious that her mother was messing with her child and there would be hell to pay.

“Ungrateful brat, that one. You drop her just one time on her head as a baby and bang her daughter wants to become an adventurer instead of playing her part in the family legacy” she grumbled to herself.

As always, she was only interested in protecting her family and their continued legacy. And if the little spawn was interested in magic, she would show her magic. Maybe her granddaughter would turn out useful, after all. Maybe that was her second chance to do it right?

*** Kiara ***

It took quite something to get Kiara out of her own sorrow, but the events of today certainly pierced the thick fog of sadness.

“Ok, let’s think it through rationally…” she thought her thoughts running at a million miles a minute.

“On the plus side. Magic was real! Magic was fucking real!!! How?!? What did she need to do to learn it? Maybe she could already do magic and just needed to try hard enough?” she concentrated really hard for a second on something, anything really to happen.

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“No clue on where to even start… but there will be a way to learn. She just needed to be patient. Magic was running in her new family. Damn that was a weird thought. She missed her old parents and her little brother… Her new family still felt unfamiliar and strange to her. Now instead of being the older sibling she had an older brother. Yes, she had to admit, the thought of annoying the shit out of him had her giddy with anticipation. It was her duty as a second born brother… Or well sister now, I guess. Fuck another weird situation” she shook her weak head slightly from side to side.

“The plus side was magic was real and might help her find her. Maybe there was a way.” As long as she did not understand magic, she consciously decided to stay optimistic. A lot might be possible she did not know of yet.

“On the negative side… Her grandmother was an evil witch who apparently liked to torture babies. Damn that needle had hurt like hell. It was just like in his previous life whenever he had donated blood the little poke in his finger to determine his hematopoietic iron value had hurt the most. Maybe he just had sensitive fingers? Across two lifes, seems improbable...” Her thoughts were drifting once more.

“Worse than that. She had absolutely no clue at all what that woman had done with her blood. For all she knew she might have enslaved her very soul with her strange glowing ritual circle. I guess I would count as a virgin sacrifice right now… Maybe she had cast a spell on her to make her unable to ever refuse any of her requests or she was siphoning her very soul to regain her own youth.” She worried.

“Damn her luck! Everything might be possible with magic after all. Who knew? Definitely not her, of that, she was sure. But there was nothing she could do about it right now” She had tried to memorize the complex symbols and geometries in the circle, but it seemed like in her previous life she did not have a photographic memory and all she could remember were precisely drawn geometric chalk lines on an old side table.

“Seeing it just once there was no chance to gain any insights into what exactly his grandmother was doing, but with enough repetition there might be a chance.” She theorized.

Then the look in her grandmother’s eyes had suddenly changed. A cold shiver had run down her spine. She didn’t move a single muscle. It was as if a predator suddenly had her in its sight. Her grandmother smiled. “Gods above that’s one evil smile”

“Would it really be worth it to try to learn magic from such a monster? It would be a dance with the devil and both sides were only out for themselves. She did not know what this demon, this evil witch wanted from her, but it was crystal clear to her there would be a price to pay for every secret she wrenched from her”

“Love turns a smart man into a fool” she sighted internally “So let us dance devil! Wait what style do you dance with the devil. Rumba, Bachata, a Viennese waltz?!? Please don’t let it be a Boogie. He just didn’t like that one. On the other hand, at least with a Boogie he knew the basics. If the devil wanted to dance Salsa he would be completely lost. Again, on the other hand he always wanted to learn Salsa, so yeah let’s dance Salsa. Wait, what?!? What was he even thinking?!?” confused her thoughts drifted more and more and became increasingly sluggish and soon she drifted to sleep.

*** Maya ***

“Something was very wrong!” Maya thought when she entered her living room and saw little Kiara sleeping peacefully in her grandmother’s arms.

“Her lovely little devil which had kept her up nearly nonstop for the last months and until recently was mostly crying, was sleeping peacefully in another woman’s arms with a slight smile on her face. High treason! How could she?!?”

What was even worse, her mother Magdalena was also smiling and it was her evil, scheming smile. The smile of a fisherman who saw a huge fish struggling on his hook, knew there was no chance for it to escape and now it was his turn to slowly and methodically reel it in.

“What the hell had happened here, while she had taken a short rest? Petro had not been easy either, but so much more normal. Isn’t the second child supposed to be easier?”

Slowly and gently two big arms wrapped around her and she could feel warm breathing on her neck.

“Aren’t they cute together?” whispered Sarok her husband into her ear before gently kissing on the cheek. His warm embrace felt comforting and did wonders to ease her tension.

“Yes, her little Kiara might be a little bit special, but she loved her with all her heart” she thought happily.

Turning slightly in his embrace, she whispered back “Yes, we made a beautiful little girl together” before giving him a gentle kiss.

His chest swelled with pride and she felt his lips curling up in one of those stupid grins she loved so much.

“Sometimes he is such a doofus, but he is my doofus” she lovingly chided him.