The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 5 by Bella Forrest (book series for 10 year olds .TXT) 📕

second. It just so happened that, at that exact moment, he was pouring more drink into Julius’s glass while feeding imperceptible slivers of his anti-magic through the sparkling liquid, into the chalice that the king held in his hand. In his distraction, Alex vibrated the particles all wrong. Instead of shattering the glass, he only succeeded in shaking the molecules of the drink, causing it to spurt the fizzy fluid up through the narrow chalice, straight into Julius’s face.

The king was less than impressed, whirling around and grasping Alex tightly by the throat. It was all Alex could do to restrain the anti-magic inside himself, stopping it from crackling through his skin in retaliation. Julius oozed magical energy; it radiated from him in tangible waves.

“You little wretch! You did that on purpose!” Julius roared, spittle flying in Alex’s face. “Did you shake the bottle? Did you think it would be funny?”

“No… Your… Royal… Highness… I… just…” Alex croaked, unable to finish his sentence as Julius’s hand gripped tighter. It was a move Alex had seen the king use before, on the laughing prisoner back at Kingstone Keep. Suddenly, Alex was very aware of his mortality.

“I am your king, you cretin! I talk to you, I welcome you, I engage in polite, intelligent conversation with you, and you choose to repay me with this?” Julius growled. “Let me guess, it was your little friend that put you up to this? Or was it you, Hadrian, you stammering fool? Are you precisely like your father after all?”

Hadrian raised his hands in surrender. “Uncle, this w-was an unfortunate accident—I can assure you, it is no p-practical joke on my part,” he insisted, his voice tight.

“Then it must have been you!” Julius snarled, glowering in the direction of Aamir.

Aamir shook his head rapidly. “An innocent error, Your Royal Highness—I believe the bottle got too close to the window, and the sun increased the volume of bubbles within the bottle, due to increased speed of fermentation,” he replied hurriedly, the words pouring out of his mouth with such conviction that even Alex nearly believed him, though he was starting to feel like his head might explode.

It was hard to breathe, his cheeks puffing out, the veins at the sides of his head throbbing, and his eyes beginning to bulge as Julius continued to tighten the hand around Alex’s throat. With a surge of panic, Alex realized he was close to losing control over his powers. It was like drowning, feeling the pressure of blood pushing through the body, urging the sinking person to take a breath. Alex’s anti-magic was his survival instinct, and it was taking every fiber of his being not to use it.

Julius raised his hand, bringing it close to Alex’s face with such force that Alex thought he was about to be punched. The king stopped just short of impact, showing exceptional control over his own muscles. It was this kind of strange thought that kept Alex’s mind away from the sinking feeling that he was having, knowing he was about to be disintegrated from the inside out, until there was nothing left but a floppy husk.

Alex could feel the pressure building beneath Julius’s hand, the space between the king’s palm and Alex’s face growing unbearably hot. It was because of this man that the Spellbreakers and the mages had split apart, ripping up a potential treaty of peace in favor of violence and segregation. It was this man’s hatred for Alex’s kind that had signaled extinction for the Spellbreakers and brought about the Great Evil. In mere seconds, Julius would realize what he was dealing with, would know that the key to his own survival was standing right before him.

“Nobody makes a mockery of me,” Julius hissed.

With barely a sound, Venus stood and rested her hand upon her husband’s arm. She leaned toward him, her mouth close to his ear, and whispered something soft and soothing. There was a musicality to her voice that had Alex transfixed, even though he could only catch snippets of what she was saying. It sounded like a familiar poem—a sonnet, perhaps.

“Love is not love… that looks on tempests and is never shaken,” she whispered.

It was Shakespeare, and a poem Alex knew well—it was one his mother liked.

“Release him, my love,” she requested, her hands covering his. As if drawn by the desire of her voice, Julius’s hands lifted upward, away from Alex’s face. They settled on Venus’s face instead, his forehead leaning in toward hers, until they were nose-to-nose. A crackle of energy flitted between them, like static electricity. The way the king’s hands rested at the base of her neck still made Alex feel as if Julius could either embrace his wife, or strangle the life from her.

For a long while the couple stood that way, with their eyes closed, breathing rhythmically with one another. It was like a bizarre meditation, a still moment in the middle of a storm. Nobody dared to speak.

With a loud exhale, Julius let go of his wife’s face and straightened.

“Apologies for the outburst. I’m not one for practical jokes,” he said casually, sitting back down and taking up the glass once more. It was mostly empty after the upward surge, and Julius held it up to Alex, who was still recovering from the shock. “Wouldn’t mind a top off now, if it’s not too much trouble?”

Alex’s hands shook as he attempted to pick up the bottle. Thankfully, before another catastrophic spillage could occur, Aamir swooped in, taking the bottle from Alex’s trembling hands and pouring out another full glass for the king.

“Didn’t scare you too badly, did I?” Julius scoffed.

Alex shook his head. “No… Your Royal Highness… not at all,” he croaked, his throat raw.

“Pity, I love a good scare,” the king remarked. If almost killing someone was the way he reacted to a perceived joke, Alex could only imagine how Julius would react to a real threat.

Venus placed her hand on her husband’s. “Now, now, darling, they’ll