Page 11 of Strange Familiar (Warriors of Magic #2)

~11~

A lise and her father rode in his carriage to House Elal. It was even more elaborate than the Elal carriage that had been stored at Convocation Academy that she’d taken without permission. Her father only commented on that theft by saying he’d arrange to have it returned to Convocation Center, in case Nander had need of it.

Lord Elal’s personal carriage was grand and large enough that they each could pretend the other didn’t exist for some time. He’d traveled to House Phel under an invisibility veil made by his cadre of spirits. That, and his superior ability—not only to Alise, but preeminent over all wizards wielding spirit magic—had allowed him to slip through the guardians she’d set to alert House Phel to intruders. She’d been a fool, not predicting her father’s next move in their cold war.

Nic and Gabriel had objected to her departure, of course, as had all the minions at House Phel, quietly or loudly offering to fight for her. All it had taken, however, had been the smug, triumphant look on her father’s face for her to refuse them all. He’d expertly arranged it so that either Bria or Alise would return to House Elal with him, to be molded into a dutiful heir. At least Alise had some chance of withstanding the molding; she’d never subject an infant to the man, let alone her beloved niece.

For quite some time, Alise refused to speak to the man who called himself her father. That bit of spite satisfied her until she realized her silence suited him just fine. He sat in his section of the carriage, tended to by various servile spirits, steadily working through correspondence brought and taken away by an unending stream of Ratsiel couriers. He was probably delighted that she’d elected to keep her mouth shut. Well, enough of that.

“Why not Nander?” she asked abruptly.

“Uh?” he grunted, not looking up from the missive he was penning. He put a hand out as if expecting a Ratsiel courier to land on it, clearly thinking the unusual sound of her voice had been an alert from an incoming message.

“I said ,” she didn’t bother to hide her anger, her hate, “why do you want me for your heir? Nander is eager to lick your balls or ass to have the dubious honor. In fact, when last we spoke, if you can call it that, he’d seemed convinced he had the job.” Her younger brother had, in fact, preened and taunted her over his elevation and her disgrace, an effort that would have landed far more solidly if she’d given a flying fuck.

Her father lifted his gaze and attention from the letter he’d been writing, studying her with the one depthless, wizard-black eye. The gold metal patch on the other eye seemed to also stare at her, unwinking, baleful, and swirling with a condensed knot of spirits that no doubt enabled him to see, possibly beyond what physical human eyes could.

“It speaks,” he observed sourly.

She glared back, unamused.

“I’d come to the conclusion that my sole remaining daughter, chief among my ungrateful progeny, condescended to speak only to the lowly, the renegades, familiars, useless ‘high’ house minions, and mousy librarian wizards without true magic.”

Oh, so that’s how the wind blew. Despite her concerted efforts—and an intensive magic-working that had all but drained her to her very soul—he’d apparently managed to keep spirit-spies on her. “Are your feelings hurt?” she cooed in a falsely sweet voice.

“My feelings?” He barked out an incredulous laugh and set aside his lap desk. “I can see I went very wrong with you, Alise, allowing you to grow up with such sentimental ideas. You don’t have Nic’s hard-headedness. I never had to teach her to ignore the puny mewlings of the flesh that are our so-called emotions. She understood that much from birth—and managed to turn it against me, all out of bitterness because she failed to become a wizard.”

“Failed? She couldn’t control that she manifested as a familiar.”

“Couldn’t she?” He scratched his temple under the gold-buckled, black leather strap that held on the eye patch. Alise had seen him do it before, thinking that it probably didn’t itch so much as he’d developed the habit to stop himself from messing with the patch. The missing eye had to pain or at least gall him. She hoped it hurt like a burning coal in his brain.

“That’s debatable,” he declared. “What are the origins of failure? Some say they derive from a weakness of will.”

“Ah.” She nodded sagely. “So, your failure to acquire the House Phel arcanium and take that magic for yourself, not to mention nearly perishing at Gabriel’s hands and being sent home, spanked and maimed—that came from a weakness of will?”

His pressed lips twitched, one eye glittering like volcanic glass while the other swirled almost idly. The effect disconcerted her, but she didn’t let it show.

“This is where your inexperience shows itself so embarrassingly, Daughter. I didn’t fail. They cheated and my allies failed, yes. I, however, triumphed—as you witnessed at House Phel. All that matters is the long game. I won this battle and I will win the war. And you, Alise, are a weapon in that war, one to be molded and tempered into the service of our family’s cause.”

Alise suppressed a chill of foreboding. Talk. It was only talk. He couldn’t make her do anything she didn’t want to do. “And what, exactly, is our family’s ‘cause’?” She loaded the question with scorn. “Accumulating wealth? Crushing dreams? Oppressing the masses? Ruling the known world?”

“Ruling all the world, not just the known world,” he corrected, black eye glittering with unsettling avariciousness. “Once the world becomes known, it too will become ours. As for wealth, that’s a pathway to power. Crushing dreams and oppressing the masses is just a fun side-benefit.”

He seemed to be utterly serious, not in the least sardonic in adding that last. With new worry worming deep in her heart, she thought he might actually believe that.

Piers Elal shook his head slightly at her, mouth curving in sordid amusement. “You will learn, Daughter, to find joy in life where you can.”

“In the suffering of others?” she spat.

“Why not?” he countered. “It’s pure propaganda that’s shoveled down our throats that we should be sorry if others suffer. Why not savor the sweetness that we prosper instead? Their debasement exists as a contrast to our exaltation, else our supremacy wouldn’t be as sweet. That’s all that matters in life. Nature teaches us that. It is devour or be devoured. Why not enjoy being the apex predator? Do you think the crippled prey, the weak, the starving, those who exist only to feed you, that they wouldn’t change places with you in a moment? Be sure they would, my daughter. When you have your teeth buried in their throat, they will fear and loathe you—but they will also admire and wish with every fiber of their being to be you .

“There is no shame in giving yourself the same regard. You were born to rule the world. Bred for it. Gifted with the power and the ability. You possess even greater talents than I realized. If you squander those abilities, that’s where the shame lies. What would we say of the tiger who refuses to kill, who only wastes away nibbling grass until it dies, mangy and skeletal? Would we admire and glorify that pitiful creature or do we celebrate his brother, strong and sleek, muscled, radiantly gold and terrifying as it prowls through the territory it owns utterly?”

Alise found her convictions blurring. He made a compelling case, though she knew the principles he espoused must be wrong. Still, the image he painted of the starved tiger denying itself food compared to the glorious, well-fed one… She didn’t want to be the pitiable, starving tiger. Her father saw it in her, too, that shared pride, the desire to be the best. All this time she’d worried about becoming like him—had the struggle been in vain, for no reason?

“We are not animals,” she said, knowing that to be true and important.

“Correct. We are better than animals,” he shot back. “As wizards, we are also better than humans. Everything that applies to those lower tiers of beings, applies to us, but magnified. We have a manifest destiny to better ourselves, to rise ever higher.”

“My point is that the tiger knows not what it does. There is no morality, no question of compassion. It knows it must eat to live and its instincts drive it to kill. There is no deciding not to. The tiger lives in the moment. It cannot predict the future or plan for it. It has no abstract thought.”

“Exactly,” her father said with approval, even a kind of pride that could become intoxicating. “ Now you are thinking and you understand my point. Humans improve over animals in just that aspect. Because of our ability to predict a future that has not yet occurred, to plan in the abstract, to concoct a strategy and see it through, humans have risen to dominion over animals. Despite our lack of claws and fangs to rend and tear, we puny creatures have triumphed because of one thing.” He tapped his temple, stirring the spirits in his glass-domed patch to swirl like snow in a decorative globe. “Our minds. By employing magic and wizardry in addition to that intelligence, we possess more formidable weapons than mere claws and fangs.

“Alise, you and I, like most wizards stand at the apex of all the world. With magic, we are gifted with metaphysical fangs and claws. They allow us to win every fight, to put down the weaker prey, and feed on them. With the ability of our human minds to plan, to strategize, even centuries ahead, we ensure our place as the most powerful beings in all the world. More important, among wizards, you and I are at the very top of even that rarified group. This is your legacy. This is what I want for you.”

“What if I don’t want it?” She lifted her chin, but her resolve wavered in the face of what seemed like irrefutable logic—and so her voice trembled too.

“You don’t fool me, Daughter,” he replied, not without a strange form of compassion. “You do want it. You’d be an idiot not to recognize that in yourself and you’re no idiot. You only question yourself because you’ve been too long among the prey, the losers, the ones pretending they enjoy their lives as is to console themselves over the brutal truth, that they lost before they even began. I left you too long in the contamination of small minds and little lives. I seek to correct that now, to both elevate you and help you to cherish what makes you so very special.”

He was making too much sense and Alise looked out the carriage window as spring once again yielded to winter, growing whiter and harder as they crossed into the high altitudes of the Knifeblade Mountains, traveling at the speeds of luxury. The landscape became sterile without the gentle blossoms and fuzzy new leaves. Was it still snowing in Harahel? Probably. And Cillian would be cozied up inside, buried in books, as he was happiest. And she was in the cold and bitter world, once more alone, as seemed to be her destiny. Special? Maybe. But she’d never asked for that.

“Nander craves all that,” she said quietly. “Give it to him, because I don’t want it.”

Her father laughed and picked up his lap desk again. “Yes, you do. I can see it in you. And that’s why it’s always been you and never my wastrel son. He lacks your pride, your drive, your determination, your acute intelligence, and your sheer ability. I know it was you who took the bonds of the spirit spies attached to you. All of them, at once.” He laughed with every appearance of utter delight. “When I felt you do that, I felt such a burst of pride, Alise. Only my true daughter could accomplish such a feat—and at such a young age! With time and training, you could eclipse even me. You could well be the one Elal has waited and bred for all these centuries, the one to put House Elal forever at the pinnacle, after which all the world will be known simply as Elal.”

She returned her gaze to him, curiously. “Me? I thought you wanted this for yourself.”

“Of course I do,” he acknowledged, “but I labor for a greater goal. There is a selflessness required in laboring for the good of the family, of our house and name. None of this is truly about me. I am carrying forward a strategy formulated long ago, as passed to me by my father, and as I will pass along to you. That should help to clear your conscience, should you retain doubts. This is not about you raising up your own interests; this is about you ushering in a new world order.”

“With Elal at the top.”

“Of course.” He smiled and unfolded the letter he’d been writing. “Would you choose to elevate another high house? Sammael? Hanneil?” He snorted. “No house is more worthyor better equipped to rule than Elal. Believe me, someone will win this war. It is a choice between being the oppressed or the oppressor. Which would you rather be?”

When she didn’t answer, he chuckled drily and surveyed his missive so far. “Think on it. You’ll have plenty of time, now that you’ve agreed to study with me.”

“What about my degree—I still need to graduate from Convocation Academy.”

He looked up again, his one eyebrow climbing into an incredulous arch. The other must have been destroyed along with the eye because that quadrant of his face didn’t move, other than the lazy swirling of the spirits in the glass dome. “Now you pretend to care about your education? After repeatedly ditching school on various errands where you pretended to save people.”

“I did save people,” she retorted, stung into indignation.

“Temporarily, which means nothing. If you can’t make something last, you’ve failed. All that matters is the long game,” he repeated. “Those little lovebird familiars you think you spared their fate at House Sammael? They will inevitably be bonded to wizards, as is their rightful destiny. The librarian wizard will retire into his well-deserved obscurity along with the rest of his sorry excuse for a house. House Phel will be House Fell again, this time forever. They have served their purpose.”

Alise knew better than to ask what purpose that was, letting the silence fall as her father wound down and returned his attention to his letter. He’d changed, she realized, replaying the conversation, more than he knew. The missing eye was the outward manifestation, but something in his mind had destabilized. In the past, he’d never have been so garrulous nor divulged so much. He’d dropped many clues, however. A centuries-old strategy that had to do with the disastrous dissolution of House Phel. And why did he seem to think Nic could have overcome being a familiar? As far as anyone knew, including centuries of research on familiars, willing and unwilling, familiars simply could not become wizards. A neurophysiological connection failed to form, rendering them unable to wield magic, only to generate it.

“Speaking of familiars doing their duty,” he mused without looking up, adding something to the letter, “I have need of a new one. I’m considering engaging in the Betrothal Trials—or possibly offering a pre-empt. I understand Brinda Chur will be up for the taking soon. Adding fire and sun magic to our arsenal would be brilliant, indeed.”

That shocked Alise out of her musings. “Brinda Chur?” she echoed. Brinda had approached Alise at Convocation Academy, offering generous portions of her bright and brilliant magic in exchange for information on how to manipulate the Betrothal Trials. Surely she hadn’t been thinking to snag Lord Elal? Although she had expressed high ambitions. The prospect turned her stomach. “She’s my age.”

“A year older, I believe,” he replied absently. “Though you are in the same class, aren’t you? By all accounts, she’s rich in magic. And an alliance with House Chur could be very well timed, indeed. Besides, I need a young familiar. Your mother had grown old, her magic withered. I had to wait days between major workings, it took her so long to recharge. Yes, a fresh young familiar for the arcanium and a nubile young body for my bed will be just what the Refoel healer ordered. I’ll be like a young man again.” He looked up suddenly, grinning at what was probably an aghast expression on her face. “And she can breed me more heirs, as a backup to you, in case you falter. Though I’ll also have the Phel infant.”

“You agreed to leave Bria alone if I came with you,” she fired at him, heart thumping.

“Peace, Daughter. I will abide by my word. I’m aware your… compliance rests on me leaving the child alone. But, when House Phel once again sinks into the swamps from which it came, your pretty niece will need a place to go. Would you leave her an orphan, alone in the world to fend for herself, or adopt her into her rightful house?”

“Her rightful house is Phel.”

“No. Phel is only the seed. Elal is the source and the soil. Why do you think I allowed your sister to quicken with a rogue wizard like Gabriel Phel? Elal needs that child. And perhaps Seliah Phel’s to round it out. We could stand to recharge our portion of El-Adrel magic.”

“Seliah isn’t pregnant.” And Jadren would never allow her to be in jeopardy, or for anyone to take their child if she were.

He shrugged, pen moving across the fine stationery. “If she isn’t yet—and I’m not sure you’re correct, given the information I’m privy to—then she soon will be. But there’s time to let that one ripen, as it were.”

Alise dearly wished to be able to tell Cillian all of this. The pieces of the puzzle, as he would put it, seemed to be all laid on the table, only awaiting the right mind to assemble them into the big picture. Perhaps she could figure out how Nic had used the confidential Ratsiel courier to send him a message. Or bind a spirit to take a missive to Cillian. They were still friends, more or less, weren’t they? And even if he never forgave her for leaving him without a word, he wouldn’t be able to resist a riddle. Yes, she’d get a message to him and another to Nic and Gabriel. Also to Jadren and Seliah, warning them all.

“If I’m to be your heir, Papa,” she said, returning to her childhood name for him, “I should complete my degree.” Being back at school would give her the freedom she needed. “It shouldn’t take long at this point. A few more months at Convocation Academy and—”

“Out of the question,” he interrupted without raising his voice, a wreath of spirits encircling her throat and squeezing with light, but inexorable pressure. “Do you think I would share all of this with you and allow you the option of communicating with any of them ?” He sneered the word. “No, until I’m convinced that you are firmly on the side of House Elal, I will complete your education in isolation. I think the tower where Nic spent her Betrothal Trials will work admirably. You will live there until I am certain of you.”

Aware suddenly of the reality of her imprisonment, Alise looked out the carriage window at the valley below, House Elal proudly situated in the middle, in the curve of the river. Several towers spiraled up from the ancient, rambling structure, the tallest holding at the top the circular room Nic had occupied for months without leaving, sequestered so that the identity of the father of her child could not be in doubt.

“You might consider using the time to good effect,” her father added. “Conduct your own fertility trials.”

“Fertility trials?” she echoed, too aghast to do otherwise.

“You, too, will need a familiar.”

“I don’t want a familiar,” she replied without thinking, still consumed with the horrifying prospects of being sequestered in that tower room, entertaining male familiars in an attempt to become pregnant, and having Brinda as part of House Elal. Her father had forced breeding on his brain and it was ugly.

“Nonsense,” he snapped. “Any wizard of worth has a familiar. That’s the entire reason for their existence, to bolster the careers of wizards. You know what they say: behind every great wizard is a great familiar. You must simply set aside those foolishly romantic notions of that bookish boy you dallied with—I’m sure he was fine to learn on, but that’s in your past now—and realize that in a male familiar you can have everything you need. Magic, companionship, support, sex, children.”

Her face had grown hot, though from embarrassment or anger, she didn’t know. Her father didn’t notice, or if he did, didn’t care, not even looking up from his letter.

“The more I think about this,” he continued, “I’m certain it’s the ideal situation. We can kill several birds with one stone. I’ll arrange for a parade of suitable candidates to visit you, for you to choose from. It’s good for a woman to have her babies young, while her body is fresh, leaving her later years to build magical skills.”

Lady Harahel had said almost the exact same thing, though she didn’t have a familiar. Cillian had said that most Harahel wizards didn’t. Familiars provided reservoirs of magic for workings that required massive power, or in case of emergencies. And there was no such thing as a library emergency.

Except for when they’d needed to extract the Phel archives from that folded space, and then she had given Cillian the power to do it. That had felt like such a triumphant moment, when they’d finally succeeded, defying the odds. That had felt like the ideal path, not this. Somehow she’d been navigating a labyrinth of conflicting choices, dodging monsters and worse, gradually finding her way out—and then had hit a dead end. Neatly cornered by her father and fate, finding herself back exactly where she’d started. Where Nic had started.

Depression settling over her like a dense fog, Alise stared out the window at her tower home for the foreseeable future and wrapped herself in silence again.