Chapter 149: Lingering Attachments
Before the arrival of Count Albert Morgan at the Moore Mansion, Vivian and Beatrix had lengthy conversations about life, love, and lingering attachments.
Still hung up on her feelings, Beatrix was unable to let go of the many years ’ old fantasies she had developed one-sidedly toward Ian Grayson overnight.
Vivian felt as though she was trying to convince two different people with a single argument about Beatrix’s bipolar nature, racing against the next personality shift that could erase any progress made with the other. These rapid changes kept Vivian on edge, though she suspected some were defense mechanisms rooted in Beatrix’s subconscious from childhood traumas.
These personality shifts were not just out of Beatrix’s control; they were hindering her healing process, and Vivian felt compelled to play along with the madness for hours until she felt that the many parts of Beatrix were finally coming together, reaching a point of stable thinking and rationality.
There was one truth to this matter, however: unlike Vivian, who was let go by her Crown Prince fiancé, and Edith, who had a powerful enough standing and support to break her own engagement, Beatrix’s situation was much more complicated, and despite being hurt, she was still attached to something she could not simply let go.
Since the Graysons were the ones who provided for her education, they not only had a say in what she could and could not do, but they were even involved in how her magic was being developed. House Grayson was shaped by many tragedies, whether caused to them or by them, and their success in rising to the seat of the Right Chancellor was the result of a long, brutal conflict that shaped them into the ruthless northern house they are today.
This meant that being a sorceress specialized in pain was not a mere coincidence for Beatrix. But this begs the question: how could Beatrix’s spellring turn out to be exactly what House Grayson required of her?
The answer is simple, and it is related to House Morgan’s Ancestral Ring Vault, a very deep and isolated vault within the estate of House Morgan, protected with the greatest level of security the Morgans could afford, and where every spellring ever used by a member of House Morgan was stored. Once a house member dies, their ring gets deposited to be paired later with a future descendant.
This was what is known as Spellring Inheritance, where hoarding large numbers of such successful rings would be more beneficial than simply getting new rings. Once a spellring is revived with a new user, he or she would simply need to review the old research documents passed down with the ring by the ancestors who used it, and develop the ring from where they left off, a tradition that would guarantee the production of very powerful sorcerers.
In Beatrix’s case, she inherited a ring called the Heart of Thorns, a ring that was passed down through at least three users according to the surviving records. Such a ring had loads and loads of research documents, guaranteeing a smooth rise to power, and since the Morgans had to provide these documents to Beatrix, who was going to be a future member of House Grayson, the price the Graysons invested was astronomical.