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It is, in retrospect – brilliantly clear.
And that – eats at him.
X
The first time he casts anything, he’s tricked into it.
There isn’t really a test to determine if a child has magic; not all magic expresses itself externally or visibly. Children rarely possess the words or ability to express that which isn’t discernable, and adults rarely have the patience or wisdom to try and ask. There’s been attempts to mandate or standardize a test, of course – most homeworlds abhor the thought of wasted magical talent – but none of those experiments had ever born fruitful results.
Helia’s six. He dreams of knights and heroes, speeches and poetry and honor and justice. Not magecraft.
His parents do not have the talent for it. Helia knows then of Uncle Saladin, but he knows of his uncle as a teacher, a Headmaster, a leader of warriors, the sort of man to make those knights whose tales he so adores. He does not grasp that his uncle is a wizard before he is a warrior.
Helia does not understand, at that age, what it means to be a wizard.
At six, he idolizes his uncle, despite that he has never met him before. Saladin has little interest in his family generally; even less that they do not share his talents and cannot feed his legacy. His visit in of itself should have been suspicious, but Helia’s parents care to have a child exactly as much as Saladin cares to have relatives, and if they notice they do not speak of it.
Saladin is stern-faced, if vaguely jovial. He’s a loud, opinionated man but not ill=tempered, and Helia is fascinated by him all through dinner.
When Saladin hands him his staff, Helia takes it without a second thought.
In retrospect, it had been a – kind test. Dormant power reacts strongest to threat; most practitioners Helia meets learnt they had magic after an attempt to maim them at best. Saladin merely fiddled with the orb on his staff, and when Helia took it, it lit right up.
He’d not protested the magical lessons, not at first and then not for years – it had been a secret, a bond, something to bind him to the man he already worshiped. His parents were vaguely supportive but absent, but Saladin was there, over holo-call when not physical and always involved, and Helia had always known his uncle had been grooming him into a successor.
He’d never minded.
X
Their falling out is explosive, but it is not – directly – related to his uncle’s own behavior.
Not at first.
Not enough to make Helia spurn him, when Saladin approaches him about a delicate matter with which he needs assistance
Eraklyon is one of the more military-minded of homeworlds, and it provides a significant amount of funding for Red Fountain. They are strong, capable allies to have – but Eraklyon’s king is a man ruled by his ego and his pride. His heir is causing problems; or, rather, Saladin tells him that Eraklyon’s crown prince’s squad is causing problems, in great part due to the necessary security measures taken to protect the man.
Saladin needs a capable, calming influence. He appeals to Helia so easily, never mind how greatly changed he is from the boy Saladin once knew. Helia has trained at Red Fountain, yes, but he seeks to be the peacemaker and that is what Saladin needs, mediator and guide and protector rather than yet another brute –
Helia has spent the past years of his life avoiding his uncle for a reason, but the situation as presented to him is perhaps one of the few that could ever tempt his return.
So he goes.
X
He does not realize his uncle had lied to him, used him, until he wakes with a splitting migraine and foreign magic lingering in his peripherals.
That is not enough to stop his uncle’s plans. Nor is it enough to mitigate, not in the moment, but it is all Helia needs to – do better.
None of his new squadmates trust him, but they have, for the most part, been cordial. They work well with him, and while they do not bother to hide their resentment, they do not seem to hold his position against him either.
If he had known what they intended, he would not have sold them out. This is not the danger Saladin warned him of.
And – whether he realizes it or not, Saladin has betrayed him. Lied to him, used him, manipulated him – and betrayed him, to use him to murder three women innocent of the crimes of which they are accused. Their blood stains Helia’s hands as readily as it does the Council’s, and that is Saladin’s fault. That is Saladin’s fault, and Helia cannot forgive it.
Not a second time.
That’s the thing about wizards.
They don’t take betrayal well.
X
Fairies and witches teach one another; pass their knowledge down through kinship of half-a-dozen different flavors. There are centralized schools through which even the most disadvantaged of women can gain a magical education.
Wizards are far more – isolated. Few men willingly walk the path, and fewer still achieve any sort of acclaim. A wizard’s whole being is in his deeds, his research, what feats are put to his name – and wizards are jealous creatures.
Witches fight. Witches kill each other, and steal from each other. Wizards pass their stolen trophies off as their own, and work to undercut the next generation in a way even witches don’t. Saladin had had apprentices before. None had…worked out.
Helia, however, was blood. Helia was a child. Helia was eager to learn, and did not like conflict; he was passive and agreeable and rarely asked uncomfortable questions, and even more rarely questioned authority.
In Helia, Saladin saw a chance to make a new sort of legacy. Helia would be a wizard and his heir – but he would be Saladin’s heir, and never Helia the wizard in his own right.
Helia had known. He had not cared. Not then. Not –
“What,” he asks, in the hours after the execution, “did my uncle do?”
Riven sneers at him, and does not answer. Prince Sky buries his head in his hands. Brandon does not even look up from where he is scrubbing muck from his arms.
“It’s not what he did, it’s what he’s doing.” Timmy answers. His gaze is calculating, when Helia meets it. Some of the ambiguity of the squad’s dynamic settles; Prince Sky is the field leader, and maybe he was off-field as well, but after the revelation of his identity came out –
“What is he doing?” Helia asks.
It is not a question he can take back.
It isn’t a question he intends to.
X
That’s the thing about wizards.
A fairy would defeat her enemy. A witch would destroy her enemy.
A wizard will tear the legacy of his enemy to pieces so thoroughly that time itself fails to remember their name.
That’s the thing Saladin forgot.
Helia may have made an abysmal warrior – but he is an excellent wizard.