Evanora skims through the rest of the book- the inane details that follow are of no relevance to her. In this manner, she flips through the pages until a sentence catches her eye.
This is the tale of the Vischer family.
She stops flipping and focuses on that sentence, mouthing the words as her thin fingers trace them. Written in bold, cursive letters, these words may very well seem like a normal piece of writing that is stylised and highlighted. But those eight words mean something else to her.
Evanora admires the colour, font and style implemented by the author of this compendium. This is not the first time that the story of her family is chronicled, and it is quite certain that it will not be the last time. However, the glossy feel of those words, along with the colour and style of writing are subtle tributes to the Vischer family.
Each ancient family has peculiar mannerisms that are associated with them. It could be in the way they dress, eat or how they are addressed, be it verbally or on paper. The Vane family, for example, prefer bold serif fonts and the rich, royal purple colour due to their British roots. The Slavinsky, on the other hand, lean towards the Algerian font, with bright red as their choice colour.
The author should be related to the Vischer family, to take note of something as trifling as this. She reasons that the author must either be a member of the branch family (as no surviving member of the main family would attempt to chronicle their history for the public) or must be an accomplished historian.
The Silver Witch of the East mulls over the contents of the compendium. This time, she does not reduce the book to ash after reading its contents. Apart from the subtle tribute to her once revered family, the book is not much different from its counterparts. But it is the little things that really matter, especially to eccentric geniuses like her.
History books, as comprehensive as they are, do not do justice to the true stories upon which they are centred. Not to those who experience the tale first-hand, who see all that there is to see, hear all that there is to hear and feel all that there is to feel. It just doesn’t make the cut.
The history books do not tell of how she died during childbirth and how her mother had to literally give her life. No one knows this formed a connection between the duo from that point in time, or that Klara Vischer was not the only one who suffered. It was bad enough that her mother’s poor health was an open secret; it would be nothing short of a disaster if anyone were to discover that a child of Anthony and Klara Vischer was frail and sickly. So she was shut in, away from everyone else, with only maids to keep her company.
Nobody knows that the unnamed member from the Andalusian branch of the family was her first crush. She had been in love with him for twenty years but never got the courage to confess it. Upon discovering the signs of her Awakening, he began to show interest in her and the naïve witchling assumed he was genuine. Until he showed his true colours a century later, choosing to assist her father in his deranged experiments for power and fame.
Nobody knows that he was part of a scheme to assassinate Louis Vischer, her elder brother and the first in line for the position of the patriarch of the Vischer family, or that the scheme actually succeeded. Were it not for Henrietta’s pleas, her bully of a brother would be reduced to a name in the history books, without any worthwhile achievements except being the only son of Anthony and Klara Vischer. No one knew the lengths she went to in order to reverse time and save his life.
The history books do not include a foolhardy attempt by one of the few friends she had to save her from the deplorable conditions her father subjected her to. Emmanuel Joust was a true friend, and his feelings for her remained true to the very end. but the world is no place for the innocent and naïve, and his demise at the hands of a man she loved for over a century taught her that.
No one knows that the Great War is a searing hot knife that tore into her barely healed injuries and left wounds she would never be able to recover from. She lost everyone she held dear, and nothing, not even the use of Fate magic could bring them back or undo the damage that was done.
Nothing is free. Everything you desire is yours, provided you are willing to pay the price.
The Law of Exchange is as fundamental as it is absolute. It did not matter that Evanora was forced to break the rules on a repeated basis. It didn’t matter that she did it to save people. All reasoning becomes null and void before the scales of nature regarding the Law of Exchange. All one can do is prepare for the verdict and live with it. And that, is exactly what the Silver Witch of the East did.
The backlash of misusing Fate magic for so long involved the cessation of her ability to birth life; she could never have a child of her own. The power to bear seeds was taken from her, so she could not even present anything for the Tree of Life to work with. That became what we would call ‘a dead end’.
Arielle Vane, the youngest of Henrietta’s children, was the sole survivor of the Vane family after the war. It was a struggle to adopt her, given her far from pleasant childhood and the amount of people willing to adopt a scion of an ancient family for the benefits it could bring.