A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

After Erik revealed Eloise was supposedly already cured, silence fell for a moment while Alexandre blinked. Finally, his eyes flew open, "What are you talking about?!"

Erik smirked mischievously, "You don't think it was weird how your wife only told you about where we'd meet Katya, hours after we'd already left?"

Alexandre's eyebrows twitched. He realized he hadn't really thought about it. When he arrived in Bamburgh, Eloise first needed some comforting, and then he started searching for the attackers.

It was only hours after that, in the middle of his search, when Eloise suddenly contacted him, to say that Erik had told her where he'd meet with Katya, and that Alexandre should go there if he wanted to save his wife.

At the time, Alexandre simply didn't care about the implications, or the likelihood of a trap.

Anger started spitting from his eyes as he looked at Erik. "What the hell did you do to Eloise?" he growled threateningly. Since his service to them wouldn't kick in until Eloise actually made it to the next day without any poison in her system, he could still attack them right now.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Dark blue magic circles appeared around him and crackled with furious energy. Third-ranked Arcanist power began radiating into the surroundings, promising pure destruction.

Erik naturally felt a little threatened, but he remained calm, because he wasn't alone. Katya stepped in between the two of them, obvious in her intention to defend Erik.

The werebear looked calmly at her fellow Councillor, "Calm down, Alexandre. Just hear him out for a moment."

Smirking confidently, Erik popped out from behind Katya's back. "Your wife's fine. Better than before I came to your castle even, because I didn't lie about her being cured. All I did was make a covenant with her, like I did with you. A covenant she'll be completely released from by the end of the day."

Of course, any time he mentioned making covenants and curing Eloise, he was actually talking about Elora's accomplishments, and technically, the covenant already barred Alexandre from talking about such secrets, but why complicate things now? Elora certainly didn't mind.

Alexandre's magic circles started dimming a little and his brows furrowed. "What kind of covenant?" he asked, hesitantly, without taking his eyes of Katya.

"Simple," Erik shrugged casually. "I would cure her of the poison, and in return, she'd delay your search efforts, and tell you our location at the right time. All while forbidden from telling you about all this, of course."

Back in Bamburgh, Elora discovered the poison in Eloise's system almost immediately, and from there, it was an easy road to extrapolating the truth, and coming up with this plan. Especially after talking with her.

Alexandre blinked, and his magic circles disappeared as his arms fell limp next to his body. "She… risked both our lives like that?" he muttered in shock, clearly having never expected such a thing from her.

"Don't judge her too harshly," Erik told him calmly. "She made me word the covenant in such a way that it wouldn't work if I planned to bring you harm here. She realized this was the only way to release you from your service to Aria, without dying herself."

Seeing Alexandre was still processing this news, Erik continued. "Did you know she was essentially ready to die, so that others would stop dying over her, and you'd be released from under Aria's heel?"

Erik cocked his head with a frown, "I hope you won't turn out to be a prideful idiot, ready to throw away the deep love you clearly have for each other, all because she made such a decision without you when she had no chance to discuss it. Ask yourself this: would you be sad if you later discovered she had the opportunity to be cured, but refused it?"

While Erik could be quite callous at times, he was also a man who respected love more than anything. If his actions caused a marriage full of love to split, he wouldn't loose any sleep over it, but if he had the chance to try and prevent it, he absolutely would.

Fortunately, it didn't appear to take much convincing. Alexandre first opened and closed his mouth a few times, but then shook his head as if to clear his mind, before his gaze filled with determination.

He nodded, "You're right. I would be devastated. She made the right decision…" He turned to Erik with an anxious look, "So… is she really cured?"

Erik nodded, his lips curled up confidently, "Of course. Why not go home and find out? If it turns out she isn't, Katya will still be forced to bring Dimitri back to you, and if she is, then you should probably enjoy the rest of this day of freedom, because tomorrow starts your service to Katya."

Surprisingly, a small tear actually fell from one of Alexandre's eyes as he nodded again. "I'll do that…" he muttered hoarsely, his eyes looking into the distance. Clearly he'd already decided that Erik was probably telling the truth, causing him to be filled with a desire to rush off and see Eloise.

But first, he collected himself, and turned to Erik, before looking him over a few times, as if inspecting him.

Then he spoke again, his voice now under control. "Perhaps I misjudged you. I won't thank you, and I don't like the fact you killed my men, people I was supposed to protect, but you have principles, and I'll follow a principled man before a devious snake like Aria any day."

Erik grinned and nodded, "Good man."

Without answering, Alexandre turned to Katya and nodded respectfully. "Katya… I suppose I'll be hearing from you soon."

Once again, he didn't wait for an answer, Instead, he conjured storm clouds under his hands and feet again, before rapidly ascending up to the helicopter that was still hovering over their heads.

Mere moments later, Erik and his allies were watching the helicopter disappear into the distance.

When it was gone, Erik turned to Katya with a wide, smug grin. "Well? Worked out pretty well, didn't it? Dimitri is free, and rather than making an enemy of Alexandre, we've made him an ally. I do believe I've gone above and beyond here."

He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, "I'm waiting for that apology about not trusting me."

Katya's eyebrows twitched as she looked at his smug face and felt a strong desire to punch it instead. Yet, just like Erik was a man of principle, Katya was a woman of the same. Not only had she promised him an apology if everything worked out as planned, but in the heat of the moment, she'd promised to do it kneeling, too.

So, she sighed, and slowly started bending down, under the wide eyes of her brother and Seraphina, and the smug grins of Erik's wives.

Erik, however, pursed his lips a little, because in truth, he didn't really want to humiliate Katya. So he grabbed her shoulder and chuckled awkwardly, "No need for all that, Katya. A regular apology will do."

But Katya shook of his hand, and her head, before continuing to her knees. "No. Pride is nothing without the determination to follow through on a promise," she told him sternly, now looking up at him from below. "If your stunt had made me loose Dimitri again, I would have ripped of your head like I promised as well."

Naturally, that caused Erik's eyebrows to twitch a little, but Katya simply continued talking from below him, "So, if you don't want to humiliate me, then take my kneeling apology like a man."