“How the hell have the Council gotten away with treating people like this for so long?” I demanded of him. He had to know. Surely? Was he complicit? Maybe he didn’t want to be, but what could he do? He was a puppet, after all, and he seemed content to be just that before I showed up.
My father conjured a glass of wine and took a long drink of the blood colored liquid, before coming to sit with me on the couches. I wasn’t sure if his silence was a good thing or a bad thing.
“I knew it was bad...” my father said, shaking his head, “But I have never travelled to the realms and spoken to the people before. I never thought it was my place, which, thinking about it now, is preposterous. I used that as an excuse so I wouldn’t have to see what was going on for myself. It was...” He took another long sip.
“It was terrible!” I finished for him. “Did you know that the Council rule their people like this? With an iron fist? With an unforgiving attitude? With complete disregard for human life?”
He shook his head. “No. I truly didn’t believe it was this bad.”
“We take their food!” I exclaimed, still shocked by what I’d been told. My fingers shook even as I tried to bring the glass to my lips. It shook too much for me to get a proper sip in, which was okay anyway because I still had more that I wanted to say. “With all our magic, all our resources, we make the shifters do all the hard work, then take the food they need for themselves so they have nothing left.”
He shook his head. “Food made from our magic is not the best. It drains us, and nutritionally...”
He let his voice trail off.
I knew all that! I wanted to scream. That wasn’t the point. My mother had died because of her wasting all her magic and energy to sustain us. That was not a good enough excuse!
I glared at him. “Are you serious right now?” I asked, my voice growing soft. “You are justifying the fact that we are starving a whole realm of people, for our benefit.”
He shook his head. “No. Not at all, I’m simply...”
I put my drink down and crossed my arms over my chest.
“You’re what?” I demanded, narrowing my eyes at him. Deep down, I knew my father wasn’t the bad guy, but at the same time, what he was saying wasn’t helping things. “Making excuses for the Council? For yourself? This is disgusting. And it has to stop.”
I got up, nervous energy now replacing the exhaustion of the day. “Someone has to do something.”
And it was obvious no-one else cared. No-one even knew, and if they did, they were bigoted bitches like Mallory who thought of the Shifters as a sub species. Little better than animals. So why would they help them?
Tavlor stirred his drink with a silver spoon. What he was having, I had no idea.
“No-one is going to do anything, Ava. Unless you step up,” he said in a gentle voice. “Your father is un-liked by the Fae and the Shifters, although with a lot of work, we could probably change that. But if you allow Cedric to step up as the next High Warlock, things are guaranteed to stay the same. Or they’ll get worse.”
“Worse?” I groaned, rubbing my fingers over my forehead where the pain was growing. “How could things get worse?”
What more could the Council take from these people?
My father laughed. “You obviously don’t understand much of our history, Ava. The Council have established dominance over the Fae and the Shifters with wars. Death. Using their power to force people into submission, for centuries. Yes, things are bad where they stand currently, but at the moment, there are no wars. No un-necessary deaths. This is peace. And it may not be a good sort of peace, but it is something.”
I glared at him. He couldn’t possibly be serious.
“Only people living in fear, poverty and starvation,” I said, sarcasm dripping out of my mouth. “Yes, so much better!”
I rolled my eyes for effect and kept on pacing. But he was right about one thing: I didn’t know a lot about the Council’s history, but it was something I needed to find out about. I couldn’t change anything without knowing what happened first. I needed to work backwards to understand or this would all be for nothing and everybody involved would have to go and repeat the same thing over and over again. Nothing would be done.
I glanced over to Tavlor, who was sitting quietly, sipping his drink, his brow furrowed.
“What are you thinking about Tavlor?” I asked.
I tried to get the edge out of my voice, but I didn’t do a good job of it. I was still buzzing with frustrated energy despite myself.
He met my gaze and I saw the trouble, the indecision swirling in the dark depths. “I’m thinking... that you’ll never be happy unless you change things to be more fair,” he said. There was no tone to his voice, no reluctance, no sadness. It was as though he was simply reciting facts. “More equitable. And even as the High Warlock, that’s going to be hard. You would be fighting against the Council, every day of your life. But that’s something you want to do, isn’t it, Ava?”
His gaze penetrated deep into my soul. He knew me. He got me.
There was a pile of guilt gathering in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t do much of anything unless I gave up the right to be with Tavlor. And while I wanted to help, I couldn’t give him up, either.
“Is that something you could do?” I asked. I couldn’t dwell on what I could and couldn’t have, not until I figured out what I could do and whether it was worth it or not. “Fight for the people in those other realms, every day? Against the Council? Against the witches and warlocks that want to stay on top of food chain with little to no effort on their behalf.”