Rather than letting my anger take hold of me, I focused on the spell. I sucked in a breath and closed my eyes. I ignored the little voice that told me I needed to make the Council pay for what they did to my father. I ignored the way my power felt—so easy to hold onto, so easy to release and harm them. My father needed me more. With a few whispered words I’d learnt from the Fae mage to amplify my powers, I split apart the spell cast over him.
My eyes sprung open. My father’s head was thrown back, and he shivered with whatever evil magic had been cast over him. He looked like he was in pain, so much pain he could not make a sound. I needed to get him through the struggle. Every spell did not want to be removed so easily, not when the victim gave it life.
I moved my hand and pulled. The split spell immediately vanished and I stumbled back, letting his hand
s go. I caught my balance, righting myself, and hoped what I had done was enough.
His head dropped down so that his face was level with mine, and his eye lids sprung open.
He was back.
“What happened?” he asked with a frown. Relief washed through me.
“The Council.” I indicated to the Witches and Warlocks who stood on the other side of the wall Tavlor had created. “They put a spell on you to... numb you, I suppose. They didn’t want you able to interfere with my trial.”
Matlock spun around to face the room, his wand appearing in his hand as he whipped it from wherever his hiding place was.
“Who the hell did this? Damn it... you’re all under arrest,” my father yelled. “Tavlor. Now.”
Tavlor dropped the shield he’d conjured. My father blasted the entire audience with a white light that had the ten or so people falling onto chairs that magically appeared beneath them.
Clearly, they weren’t expecting the spell they’d cast on my father to be magicked away, especially not by me.
The powerful men and women shrieked as their hands were bound and glittering, magical ropes wove around their waists and over their thighs, holding them in place on the chairs they now sat upon.
I almost laughed, their shock was so palpable. In their lives, I was sure no-one had dared to overpower them in such a way.
My father’s chest heaved with the effort such magic took, but Tavlor and I stared at him in disbelief.
“Woah,” I said. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
My father half chuckled and half growled.
“You don’t think you get all your power from your mother’s side, surely?” he asked.
I grinned at him, enjoying the moment of connection, of the playfulness in his eyes. The I turned back to the Council, a group of scowling witches and warlocks.
“Should we bind their magic, or something?”
Matlock shook his head. “No. My magic and the spell I cast is enough to sedate any magic they might try to throw at us in this room.”
I raised an eyebrow. Really? Did that mean I had the same power?
I looked down at my hands, but shook my head. Though this trial was about me, it wasn’t about my magic. I needed to focus on what was going on presently and then I could talk to my father about my potential.
He had all that power and yet they thought they could unseat him so easily? I think it’s time he stepped into his role with a little more fervor.
He lifted his head as he glared at the Council. “I am the High Warlock. And with it comes power that all of you granted me, and none of you have. How dare you stifle me? Cast a spell on me? That alone is grounds for a decade in jail, and you all know it!”
I glanced over at Tavlor.
Really? Just casting a spell on the High Warlock was enough to send someone to jail for half my life?
That was a bit harsh as far as I was concerned, but who was I to talk about the laws and politics I wanted to change, when my father was on the war path.
“Who was it? Or did you all agree to do this to me together?”
When none of them spoke, simply glaring at my father like he was in the wrong, he nodded. “You all agreed, and I assume my lovely wife here was the one to suggest it.”