The Seal of Conquest

"Character counts most when duty calls."

“Blood magic.”

Serilda stared the older woman down. The field marshal’s expression was unreadable, but that didn’t stop the subject of her gaze from being able to sense the distrust and dislike of the situation. Victoria returned the glare with an even look of her own, albeit with a fair bit more ire in her golden eyes. The Seal of Conquest was still quite sore over being beaten by two mortal mages, one of which housed her annoying brother Lux. While the battle had been one for the history books, with Victoria and Mythal going toe to toe in a way that no mortal had ever done with her before, her defeat was indisputable… and the seal absolutely abhorred that.

Yet, at the same time, Victoria respected it. She did not have a perfect record, even before she became a part of Serilda Sinclair’s life, but the only ones who had ever beaten her were creatures of significance: gods, demons, angels, dragons, and the like. And even then, her losses were quite sparse. As the living embodiment of victory, it was only natural that she overcome the vast majority of opponents in her long lifetime. Even now she did not feel that her reputation had been too badly besmirched as she understood now that neither Mythal nor Serilda were even close to ordinary mortals. Mythal was sired from an archangel, and Serilda… well, she was certainly a special case, indeed.

Still, her newest host was mostly a mortal, with only a sliver of non-human blood in her veins -- literally. Victoria was torn heavily between being angered over the crushing and humiliating defeat, while also being impressed that someone of such lowly origin had the insurmountable strength and determination to rise up and make a mockery of her. It was exactly what the woman wanted in her host, and the thing that made her understand that Serilda was truly worthy of the title and responsibility, possibly more so than any she’d worked with in the past, and that was saying a lot. Victoria had not needed to take over the bodies of all of her past hosts, but when she did they had always stayed dormant and lost until the body withered and died and she was passed to the next generation. That was, until now.

“Yes, blood magic. As a Seal I am able to use and control any magics that my host has, but the blood magic is my power and it stays with me no matter whose soul I happen to be sharing. However, since our existence is… symbiotic, if you will… this means that you also have access to it, and must learn to master it.” Serilda could only watch the woman as she spoke, her delicately manicured fingers drumming idly on her desk. A long silence passed between them while Victoria patiently waited for the woman to respond.

Ultimately, Serilda couldn’t help herself. A rather undignified snort escaped her nostrils, and it was all downhill from there. Victoria frowned at her as the marshal succumbed to a state of dry chuckles, leaning forward on her desk to rest her face in her hands and just laugh to herself. “You think this is funny?” the seal asked with annoyance in her voice.

“Not even a little,” Serilda informed her. She shook her head a little in her hands before breathing an audible sigh and looking back up at the older woman sitting across from her. “There’s not a single thing about any of this that’s remotely funny, but at this point I can’t help but be entertained. What else am I supposed to do? I’ve spent my entire adult life doing everything I can to stay away from beings just like you, and not only do they keep popping up in my life but now I learn that my actual soul is apparently fused with one. One that is giving me access to blood magic of all things.”

By the time Serilda had finished her statement, she’d gone from mild sarcastic amusement to thinly veiled frustration. Honestly, she did not have time for this nonsense. The noblewoman already had far too much on her plate, and this whole situation was just the ridiculous frosting on an insane cake. She reached over to a drawer on her desk and pulled out a file.

Victoria looked at the younger woman like she’d just spit in her coffee. “I don’t see what you’re so upset about. You are clearly a woman of a significant amount of responsibility in this world,” she said, waving around broadly to the giant office that belonged to Serilda in the Rune Knight headquarters where they currently were. “You hail from a long line of royalty, to which your family still has claim. I would think that you would be more eager about such a powerful tool being put at your disposal.”

“You think your magic is going to help me?” Serilda snapped back, slapping the file down on the desk. Her blue bored holes into the Nephilim’s. “Do you understand the connotations your magic has to mortals? Throughout history, almost everyone that has managed to get their hands on blood magic in some form has done so because they were power hungry sociopaths that sought control and had no regard for the sanctity of life. Which sounds not unlike a certain deistic being I’ve had the misfortune of meeting recently.” She glared poignantly at Victoria, letting the look linger long enough to be an adequate show of dominance and defiance before flipping the file open and trying to read it.

The seal growled low in her seat, glaring right back. “It’s hardly my fault that you pests can’t control your urges and misuse my magic for your petty gains. Why should you care what others have done with it in the past? That does not define how you must use it--”

“No, but it will define how people interpret who I am and how I approach things!” She was desperate to get work done, to distract herself from this insanity, but it was fruitless and even she knew it was. A moment of quiet tension passed before Serilda continued. “I am the heiress to lands, people, and a business that has been in my family for generations. I am an ambassador for Fiore in its relations to our neighboring countries. I am the head of the entire military force of my country, answering only to the magic council and the king himself. They’re talking about making me a wizard saint... and you want me to accept and use what is arguably the most ill-reputed magic to have ever existed? You’re insane.”

“No, what I am is practical. Do you think I would have earned my place as the charge of conquest with any other type of magic? You have responsibilities to thousands if not millions of people to keep them safe at any cost. You would be a fool to turn down such power, daughter of Kuroryu.”

Serilda started to argue back but the woman’s last sentence had thrown her off. She blinked at her in confusion. “What did you just call me?”

It was Victoria’s turn to sigh. “Right. You weren’t conscious for most of while Lux was present. Seals are attached to bloodlines. This means that I am intimately familiar with your family history, because each of my prior hosts since the dawn of time were your ancestors. One of them was the very man that founded your family into royalty, Kuroryu… the Void Dragon King.”

Despite everything, that had certainly caught Serilda’s attention. All her life her family had claimed to carry the blood of dragons. Their very family crest was of a dragon. Yet no one had shown any evidence in recent centuries of actually having such blood. They were just humans that possessed no draconic features of any kind or even records of such a claim ever being valid. It had only ever just been a myth since long before she had been born. Yet here this woman was, who had been with her family since its first member thousands of years ago, telling her that not only did she have a dragon in her lineage, but that he was specifically a dragon of the Void… which was her primary magic.

Hating herself for it, Serilda composed herself and leaned back in her chair, giving Victoria her full attention. “Go on.”

Knowing that she’d finally managed to find the right hook, Victoria continued. “Kuroryu was a powerful man, powerful enough to turn himself into a great king. He was also one of my many hosts throughout your ancestry, and the only one whose soul I was ever forcibly severed from. At the time, there was a large conflict between him and a dragon named Muko, the original dragon of the void who was slaughtering the people of Kuroryu’s kingdom. Together with my help, he was able to defeat Muko. But, in a last act of defiance the beast performed a spell that fused his soul with Kuroryu’s, effectively kicking me out and forcing me to wait for the next suitable host in his line to be born.”

Serilda was utterly floored. She couldn’t even help the slight slackness in her jaw as she processed what she was being told. She’d always assumed that if her family had dragon’s blood it would be evident in some form, and that evidence had been right beneath her nose all this time. Never had the woman stopped to consider that void could be an element that belonged to a dragon. Tales always depicted more tangible things like fire, ice, iron… not void. And now here she was realizing that her Voidwalking magic had come not by chance or random natural selection.

She was the proof of her family’s heritage.

The noblewoman looked down at the ring on her right hand, the signet that marked her as the duchy’s heiress. The curved depiction of the dragon on it looked back at her. Suddenly, the image held a lot more weight to it than it did a few moments ago. She stared at it quietly before slowly closing the limb into a loose fist.

Noting that Serilda was short on words for the time being, Victoria took the opportunity to press the advantage. “Listen, child,” she said, not using the term as an insult so much as a moniker from an ageless woman to whom Serilda very much was a child comparatively speaking. “As I said before, you are a woman with immense responsibilities and people under your charge and protection. Reputation is important, but not as much as results. Your reputation will mean nothing if you are unable to fulfill your duties because you shirked away from a useful tool. So blood magic has a history of misuse? Change that. But as much as you may not want to accept it, you and I are stuck together for the rest of your short life… and you would do well to hone the skills I’m offering you as your grandfather did.”

After a moment, the Voidwalker flicked a stony gaze back up at the woman and silently sized her up. All things considered, Serilda did not like Victoria and was pretty sure she never would. The two clearly saw eye to eye on very few things, and the noblewoman would never forgive her for taking over her body and using it to slaughter an entire city of people, even if they were dark mages. But living in denial was not something she could afford, and she couldn’t deny the wisdom in at least fleshing out the skill set she was being offered. Just because she could use it didn’t mean she had to, not without being desperate.

“Call me child again, Vicky, and I will drag that temporary body of yours into the middle of the street and use it to wipe out the muck.” Serilda could not kill this immortal being, but somehow she figured a threat to the woman’s pride and reputation would be much more potent anyhow. Victoria narrowed her eyes dangerously at her and growled slightly under her breath, but said nothing. “Fine. Tell me what to do.”