VERITAS
By Sky Samuelle
AN: This fanfiction deals with Paganism, witchcraft, reincarnation. If these themes bother you, you should not read it. No offence is intended to Christianity.
'Veritas' is Latin for 'Truth'
Summary: Anything I could say would spoil your enjoyment of this story. I just will leave you with one key word :Isobel
Disclaimer: I own nothing but a seriously overactive imagination and I'm very sorry about it.
1603 ,December 21- France.
Christians filled their pristine mouths with the name of their jealous, vengeful God but what they really feared it was Satan.
When the full moon rose in the nocturnal sky witches came out their hiding places - farms, villages, even normal families- to meet and to adore him, the Devil walked among the mankind, favouring hills and woods for his escapades from the Hell.
It took so little to be arrested. Just an accusation from an envious neighbour and you could be taken from your home and never see it again. If you were convicted, they tortured you long enough, inventively enough than confessing sounded as a good alternative. If you confessed, they hang you but at least it was over.
Innocent farmers were been condemned to die simply because they could cure a cold. Occasionally there was the someone's grandma or mother-in-law, accused by a family unwilling or unable to support her .Other women were just ugly, too poor, too exposed to their neighbours' bigotry or paranoia.
Margaret Isobel Thoreaux was not one of those: she revelled in being a witch and found her glory in the Church's disapproval, her amusements in those trivial, corrupted stories about what a Sabbath really was .
Like her parents before her, Isobel belonged to the Ancient Religion, the cult who venerated Nature and recognized life which slept within rocks and plants and awoke within animals and men alike. In her Craft, there was no Devil to fear but your own darkness… the essence of her Gods – The Great Mother, The Horned Hunter- did not reside in a far away sky, but it was immanent in everything which surrounded her : it was for their power Isobel reached inside herself when she practiced her rites, her spells.
Her parents had died because of their faith, although their assassination was been kept secret because of their noble birthright.
Yet when they just failed to return to her one night and nobody was been able to find them or their bodies, Isobel had smelled the truth immediately, making sense of overheard conversations about threats and violated politic balances.
Her anger had begun to grow, fuelled by the teachings of a grieving, angry grandmother.
She swore nobody would never enjoy her defeat, nobody would never dare judging her. Nobody would never hurt her again, because she would make herself powerful and invulnerable. Even if she had to let Dark Arts consume her very spirit and permeate her instincts.
Calhoun had not understood her silent rage, her need for vengeance. Isobel had not expected any better from the son of the High Priestess of the SilverWolf Coven, and she had trained herself to not care about the blatant disappointment in his eyes every time she refused to abandon her solitary path and join the Coven.
Cal was been her most dear childhood companion, but they shared the same Belief, rather than the same morals. Isobel could not afford being hindered from his conciliatory, forgiving attitude nor accepting his Coven's ethical boundaries.
She had chose to teach Brianna Withridge and Madeleine Hibbins her Craft instead.
Yet, in spite of all their unfinished arguments, during that horrible night Isobel remembered his advice so clearly than it was almost like if he were murmuring it at her ear:
" If you are ever arrested, promise me you will confess everything, anything, about yourself, about me, about anybody, even my parents. Loyalty has no use inside a Torture Chamber. You can only hope your death will be sufficiently quick "
It wasn't loyalty to Cal which refrained her from confession now.
It was her pride – that fiery, all-surviving thing - which would not allow her to submit herself to those men, who had broke her body, while they insulted her gender as weak and perverse.
The pain they inflicted on her it was something she could withstand, but the humiliation of falling apart under their eyes would destroy her utterly.
Of her prison, she hated every detail with focused, passionate fury: the fetid and warm air, the colourless moonlight barely filtering from the smallest oval window, the walls which carried the sound of pitiful laments from the adjoining cells.
Even that hatred invigorated her . Even that hatred could bend itself to her will, to become strength.
Isobel observed the bloodied, deformed hands in her lap like if they no longer belonged to her. Every finger was been broken, in different points, several times. Yet the witch was still able to smile coldly in front of this: the excruciating pain faded slowly in the recesses of her mind as soon her persecutors brought her back to her wet, stinking cell. Always.
Yes, she could overcome physical pain and heal herself little by little: It was Yule, the Winter Solstice, one of eight sacred Sabbaths: tonight, even in her abysmal dirty prison, Isobel celebrated the rebirth of the Sun-god from the Goddess. Sabbaths were days of great power and while Yule approached, she was been able to feel the Hearth power awakening and stirring, flowing in her body at her prayers to restore it. Today the Power was greater, and she felt it caressing her bruises and kissing them better.
If her throat wasn't been hoarse for the long hours spent screaming, Isobel would laugh about her captors and their outrageous sense of victory as she sensed Life humming sensuously in her tired, tormented limbs.
Magick felt like the rush of an orgasm and a lover' caress blended together, It embraced her and fortified her. Nothing in the world could motive her to give these sensations up and someday… someday the Stones would lay in her possession and she would fulfil every one of her potentialities, rejoicing in a power like no other.
Vengeance will be hers then.
-
During her first days of incarceration, she used to awake wondering if this would be the day of her execution, if she would have enough time and energy to escape .
But as days passed by, her sense of time had became uncertain and her body was been crippled, revealing a treacherous weakness. Frustration and resignation fought for the control of her soul, then they both morphed into anger, which became a shapeless hatred .
Fear had waned, leaving boredom and hunger in its wake.
Isobel was no longer concerned about executions and plans: even dying seemed impossible in this place of bottomless desolation.
Now when she awoke, her first awareness was for the filth and the stink absorbed by her lacerated clothing and her scratched skin, so much than it was difficult to set a distinction between her breathing figure and the walls of her prison.
Only in her hatred for her enemies Isobel felt truly alive: she lived to confront them and to spite them during the interrogatories.
She anticipated the twisted pleasure of it, when the door tweaked and opened.
Light was harsh on her bruised face, but already before her eyes adjusted she could say the guards weren't there to take her.
She had only one visitor, who waited in silence to be acknowledged by her.
Isobel said nothing, but it wasn't difficult to recognize him.
The young man in front of her had recently appeared by Inspector Leonidas LaCroix' s side in his interrogatories as testimony. He had stood there and watched while the Inspector tortured her, with empty eyes and a bland expression of distaste on his features.
Isobel recalled a faint feeling of familiarity, or maybe similarity, pervading her whenever their gazes accidentally met. A taunt rose naturally to her lips before she could persuade herself to be more careful
" How can I assist you, my Lord? "
Her provocation amused him, eliciting a wolfish smile from his thin lips. That look befitted him, making his appearance more human than it was ever been in the story of their short acquaintance.
" Countess Thoreaux, I am there to assist you. To escape. "
Isobel observed him with more attention, noticing a chrisom stain on the hem of his black cloak. She hoped it was blood.
" Who are you? "
"Aleksander LaCroix"
"A Leonidas ' relative? Why would do this for me? "
"I have said I am there to escort you outside. I never implied my motivations had anything to do with your benefit, or even your person "
Aleksander was fast to unlock her chains and to ease on her shoulders her a night blue velvet cloak, which felt luxuriously soft and smelled clean.
As Isobel leaned resentfully on her escort, Aleksander held firmly his arm around her waist like if her foul stank and filth were merely a creation of her imagination.
He had to have realized her ability to stand so soon after the morning activities was not entirely natural, but he didn't inquire about it, even after they had left the prison.
Outside the prison, the carriage was waiting for them was two alleys away; Aleksander helped Isobel inside and murmured at her ear their destination. She already loathed him for the composure he flaunted in the face of her vulnerability. Only his coldness comforted her: being dependent on him would be unbearable if she had found any trace of compassion or genuine sympathy. But no, the younger LaCroix treated her with a politeness utterly lacking of empathy and his eyes never failed to discreetly follow every her movement, like if he expected her rebellion.
It gratified her, his wariness of her and it made her to wonder what impressions their indirect encounters inside the torture chamber had produced in him. They were apparently violent enough than he still considered her a potential threat.
They did not converse until the carriage reached the end of its course: a country house whose matron was anxious to usher them to a modest but clean room. Isobel overheard her rescuer being reverently reassured by the old woman of her discretion, in exchange of a generous compensation and a most valued 'protection from unwanted attention'.
After a servant helped her to have her first bath in months, the Countess Thoreaux felt ready to sustain her first dinner with Aleksander.
She noted he did not resemble at all to Leonidas, although their manners retained something of similar. Leonidas was a sadist so convinced of the sanctity of his motivations, than he had became blind to his own obvious enjoyment of his vice.
Instinct suggested to her that, while Aleksander may not be as cruel, he was capable of equal ruthlessness.
Perhaps it was this feeling to persuade her to accept his rescue; after all, she would have no use in protection from the weak, and while his motivations were obscure, they seemed to have a strategic nature. Isobel would not trust morality, but strategy was something she could relate to.
Their first dinner, like all of the following ones, held the prudent calculation of a chess game.
"The SilverWolf Coven was advised in time to escape. They were meaning to move toward Essex. When travelling will be safe enough…"
" To hear the manner you speak, one could imagine I should be pleased to wait at your beck and call "
"Unless I'm mistaken, you lack of a more convenient choice, Countess. "
His constant use of her title sounded mocking more than respectful, and it grated on her nerves.
" Who is the High Inquisitor LaCroix for you? "
His answer was unhesitant as much it was colourless.
" My paternal uncle. He raised me. "
" I suppose he must be been proficient and loving as a parent like he is as ecclesiast. Wonders never cease "
" I shall drink to that "
-
Aleksander returned for supper one week later, informing her that Authorities kept under tight surveillance all the paths out Paris. Probably the Isobel's glamour charms could have overcame the obstacle easily, giving her a new face and new documents to leave the region, but there was no guarantee than her more familiar adversaries weren't expecting it from her.
Isobel was creature of infinite prudence when it came to her survival. For now, it was preferable biding her time and centring her energies on her recovering health: although she grew stronger with every passing day, healing rituals drained her enough to make a long journey unsafe.
Her lesser vulnerability didn't change the irritation she felt in Aleksander' s company during his second visit. His circumspection was the mirror's image of her own and he had a way to walk around the house soundlessly, which belonged to her before a long, forced sedentary rendered her steps faltering.
She discovered in him depths which confused her and left her to deal with the weight of untold words and undone things.
He was not intimidated by her, nor he showed remorse for tacitly assisting his uncle in torturing her, and she didn't expect otherwise.
Nonetheless, her awareness of what he had seen couldn't vanish uniquely because he refused to mention it, or even acknowledge it. As a matter of fact, his discretion only increased her resentment: it was humiliating to look at his impassive face and knowing Aleksander had witnessed her degradation, experienced the sounds of her suffering, intuited her despair.
He was a challenging match in their verbal sparring, apt to cross continuously the thin line between poisonous insinuations and sweetly polished commentary.
At last Isobel could only deal with her irritation by inviting Aleksander to share her bed.
He revealed himself as a unexpectedly unbridled lover, expert enough to defy the roughness of his mouth with the perverse slowness of his hands, to sate one appetite while he awoke many others. Their bodies felt acquainted with each other and it was only among her immaculate sheets Isobel could experience the addictive sensation of anticipating his thoughts.
When Aleksander touched her, it went beyond her skin.
In the following weeks he came to her more often, abiding her requests.
One night, he observed her manoeuvring the instruments on her altar. She was cleansing her athame with sacred salt when he finally spoke:
"My mother was like you, a Daughter of Nature. My father knew it before marrying her, and loved the faith in her, so different from his own. I think she was turning him to the Old Religion from the very beginning "
Isobel didn't turn to meet his gaze, foreseeing it would discouraged him
" How did they die ? "
" Leonidas "
She said nothing, and the next thing she felt were his hands on her shoulders, his lips lingering on her neck.
His voice was morbidly seductive in its faintly mournful softness:
" They told me he had soiled the family name by allowing a witch to live and to pervert him: for this, his punishment had to be more excruciating. My parents were executed personally by my grandparents, my uncle and their cousins. No outsider had to know their shame, but me? I needed to know what happened to those who sold the Devil their soul "
" Were you very young ? "
"I was five years old. I remember every moment of that day "
Isobel's rage was always been cold and cutting like Ice. It calculated and reaped revenge.
But the Aleksander's rage - she felt the moment he bit her shoulder- was hot, erratic and avid like Fire. It was the most real emotion she would never squeeze out of him and she hungered for every splinter of it.
--
Almost two months after, Leonidas LaCroix killed his nephew and Isobel saw it all inside her mind, perceiving his pain like if it was been hers.
Her heart skipped more than few beats… her lungs barely served her for many minutes.
She didn't cry over his death. She didn't regret the recklessness of their encounters. She even avoided to wonder if their intimacy had exposed them. But she promised him to take his revenge in heritance, because he had deserved it.
It wasn't long before the High Inquisitor succumbed an atrocious curse.
She escaped the Parisian country almost undisturbed and if a memory sometimes spoiled her tranquillity, she pushed it away. Although occasionally she recalled that disturbing sensation she had only ever felt in his company: like if she had already breathed and sweated and laughed beside him countless times before and it was natural like life itself.
Yet his face didn't really intruded in her thoughts until months later, when she waited for her death along a Brianna and Madeleine.
Isobel had closed her eyes to shut out the panicked murmuring of her companions and suddenly the Aleksander' s memory was there, clear and intense and pleasant.
Looking back, she smiled without malice: it was a shame they would never know if that was a face she would be able to love.
They tied her at the stake and she welcomed the Fire, with its destructive warmth.
Then the Fire's embrace surrounded her and there was smell of cloth and wood burning, an oppressive incandescence choking her throat, rich smoke taking her breath away.
Beyond the pyre, the faces of her enemies flaunted their moral superiority in their triumph.
Holding her chin high, Isobel turned away from them and looked inside the tongues of Fire lambing her feet.
She grinned in front of her death sentence: she wouldn't surrender her life to no man or woman, but the Fire's judgement she could accept.
Yes, she looked without fear inside the flames and saw…
Aleksander: bald but still darkly, powerfully attractive. His eyes no longer the same
intriguing shade of maroon tinted with gold (the exact duplicate of a stone called
tiger's eye) but an arctic blue which was less effective to dissimulate the calculation behind his gaze.
She was at his side, still innocent yet not, her face too strongly reminiscent of her present reflection.
Isobel read into the flames of her funereal pyre and divined her future : she glimpsed another lifetime and saw her soul reborn within her own bloodline. She saw her most hated rival in Genevieve Teague, Leonidas LaCroix in Lionel Luthor and Calhoun … Cal would become Clark Kent.
Someday, her other self would come in contact with her charm, the one wherein she had so carefully captured a figment of her spirit … a part of herself which would always, always been aware of who she was. Then, her current personality would prevail on her future conscious.
She would have her stones and her revenge if not in this lifetime, in her next one.
Perhaps, if she felt like it, she would have Aleksander to entertain her.
Isobel Thoreaux laughed harshly as the blazing flames devoured her:
Let History repeats itself… it runs in circles, and circles go on forever!
THE END
Okay I really hope you like it! This had to be a drabble but it changed automatically into a longer, elaborated tale. But I'm truly in love with my work this time, so you can flame me if you feel like it, I won't crumble.
I'm off to finish Resurrection.