My breath heaved in my chest as I struggled against the wave of intense of emotions rising up over me. “I will learn whatever I need to learn. I will train as hard as any other Witch ever has. I am a willing student in all of this. From the moment you all knew who I was, you’ve treated me like a criminal. Like the enemy, when all I was, all I still am... is a girl wanting to know her father. Wanting to know more about this power that resides in me. Wanting to know how to control it.”
Rasslor scoffed. “Really?” He sneered. “And your father’s power and position have nothing to do with that desire?”
“I wish my father was just a normal Warlock, then I wouldn’t be fighting for my life in a trial, set against Witches who want me dead!” I threw him a disgusted look. “If you knew anything... anything about my up-bringing, you would know that I learnt nothing about your hierarchy, your politics, or your world. Your assumptions about me are completely wrong. I feel like I’m drowning on all the knowledge I do know because it doesn’t quite make sense to me. I’ve never been drawn to your power because I didn’t know it existed. How difficult is this for you to comprehend?”
Rasslor snapped his fingers. My father was marched up to the stage with us, still looking like a barely animated doll.
“So, if you are innocent of these charges...”
I groaned aloud again. “Innocent? I am the child! How could I have willfully committed treason!”
This was why I was infuriated. This was why I kept pushing, why I kept fighting. How could they punish me for being created? I did not have a say in my creation. Did that mean I deserved to die for it, or whatever the punishment would turn out to be?
Rasslor nodded once, as though finally accepting my logic. But then he turned on my father, and his look was one of pure greed and envy.
“Then it is the High Warlock that must answer for the crimes against the Council, as he willfully broke our laws,” he said, puffing up his chest almost proudly.
I groaned. Was this their plan all along? To force my father to admit that he’d had a child with another Witch on purpose?
Did they want to unseat him completely so they could replace him someone they could control more easily?
“What have you done to him?” I said before my father could react in his stupefied state. “He looks like he’s under some sort of spell, like someone is manipulating him.”
“We sedated him, so that he didn’t interfere with the trial,” Rasslor said, so matter of factly.
So, they made sure that I had no one on my side when I needed them? Wow, that was low. Perhaps it wasn’t a spell, but it was still enough where my father’s senses were clearly dulled. And yet, here was Rasslor, now accusing him of a crime when he could not get hold of his own senses.
It was lucky we hadn’t declared Tavlor to be my ‘person’ earlier, or they might have organized to do something to him as well—if they wanted to risk such a thing with him.
“Tavlor. Can you fix it?” I asked, turning to the man by my side. A warrior. Half Fae. And technically, my father’s right-hand man, Head of the Guard. I didn’t want to hope just in case nothing could be done, and knowing how these people worked, I wouldn’t be surprised if we were stuck, at least for now. But I pressed my lips together and waited, hoping he had good news.
Tavlor pulled the High Warlock behind him, slid his sword back into its sheath, and conjured a shield that rose in front and fell behind us.
A perfect bubble.
I glanced across the room to where the Council members were all standing, mouths open, some of them drawing their wands.
From besdie me, my father still stared at me like he had no idea who I was. I blinked, trying to ignore the ache carving itself out in my chest.
“It’s not working,” I said, my voice cracking. “He’s still mute.”
Tavlor glanced back at me, both hands extended out in front of him, being held at a conjuring, awkward angle.
“You’ll have to do it,” he said. “I can’t let go of the shield.”
And he couldn’t. People of the Council had begun congregating in front of us, throwing spells at Tavlor’s projection and testing its strength. As though they did not take Tavlor and his magic seriously. They were a bunch of hypocrites, the lot of them. I knew they feared Fae magic, and yet, because Tavlor was a hybrid, they assumed his magic couldn’t stand a chance against theirs.
Clearly, they were wrong.
He was doing his job to save us, to save my father. Now it was my turn.
Pity I hadn’t had more training in healing, although I did know a bit about mental barriers...
I took my father’s hands in mine and closed my eyes, focusing on the connection between us. The strength of our familial bond. I found it, held onto it, and used it to project me forward, into his subconscious.
I slipped my magic along his veins, into his mind, testing for the cracks in the magic fogging his brain. Keeping his personality and true identity from us.
Then... I found it! The weirdly shaped grey bubble. An alcoholic-like cloud encasing his mind. Clogging up his powers. Making him defenseless.