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~18~
The next timeSergio Sammael came to visit, Nic was prepared to do battle: mentally and physically.To give herself more confidence, she’d used her time to improvise a more modest outfit from her bedsheets, thanking her past self for all those long hours spent doing needlework.Not that she had any sewing supplies, but she felt comfortable folding and manipulating the fabric.
She’d also selected a few implements that could be used as weapons and hidden them around the tower room.Sergio could paralyze her with pain, of course, but she could hurt him back.She didn’t need magic to do that—something she’d learned from Gabriel—and Sergio was coward enough that a little damage would make him think twice the next time he tried to force her.
None of that took very long, so she spent her copious remaining time in meditation, exploring those nonphysical channels that opened when she voluntarily gave away magic and concentrating on strengthening her skills of keeping them barricaded shut.Her sanity was a small price to pay for depriving Sergio of the least drop of her magic.Petty of her, perhaps, but it also starved him of magic.She didn’t have much power in this situation, but whatever leverage she could use, she intended to.
She’d come a long way since she’d believed her only power in life would come from manipulating her wizard master.If she’d learned anything from Gabriel, it was that controlling one’s own life was a choice.She didn’t have to accept that not being able to wield magic equated to having no power at all except through whatever wizard bonded her.
One thing she was sure of: She would never allow another wizard to bond her.Part of her hoped—perhaps irrationally, and perhaps as an early sign that her sanity was eroding—that Gabriel would wake up, somehow figure out where she was, and come to rescue her.
That was the Lyndella fantasy, however, captured by her wizard’s enemies and wasting away while she awaited the rescue that came too late, for both of them.Tragic foolishness.
And Nic was no Lyndella.
If they couldn’t triumph, she could at least take their enemies with her.She’d learned from poor Selly.If Nic could build up enough magic inside of her for long enough, the wizard who eventually forced their way in to tap into it would get an ugly surprise.She might never match the sheer compressed volume of years of magic going stagnant, but Nic was the most powerful familiar in the Convocation, with years of practice at cultivating magic.And Sergio was no Gabriel, nor did he have the help Gabriel had had.
With a bit of luck, if and when she broke, her magic would kill or maim Sergio at the same time.It wouldn’t be an unequivocal victory, but it was better than submitting to defeat.So when Sergio unlocked her tower door, she was ready for him.
She was not, however, prepared for the sight of his companion.
“Papa?”she squeaked, her breath having gone entirely out of her.Her thoughts whirled through a gamut of relief, terror, joy, and cruel suspicion.How was Papa there, where House Sammael was holding her captive?She needed to think through the ramifications and possibilities.She couldn’t think at all.Some pitiful childish part of her wanted him to be there to save her.The older, jaded adult knew that wasn’t the case.
It hurt an astonishing amount.
“Kitten,” Papa declared, calling her by her old pet name and opening his arms to her as if nothing between them had changed and she’d run to him for a hug.“It’s so good to see you again,” he said when she didn’t move, prompting her.His magic sang sharp in the air, primed, invisible spirits milling palpably around him, and his black eyes glittered with expectant calculation.
No, he wasn’t here as her beloved papa, no matter how he playacted at it.He was here on some mission of political conniving.
“I’m confused about why you’re here, Lord Elal,” she said formally.
Sergio folded his arms and raked her improvised outfit with an infuriated glare.Nic was doubly happy to have thwarted him.Having her father see her in that excuse for a negligee would’ve been especially humiliating.“What did I tell you, Lord Elal?”Sergio sneered.“Hopelessly recalcitrant.”
“She wouldn’t be if you’d bonded her already,” Lord Elal snapped at the younger man.“I handed you a golden opportunity, a pearl beyond price, and what have you done with it?Nothing.”
“Her wizard is still alive,” Sergio retorted, more than a hint of a whine in his voice.“I can’t bond her while he lives.”
“There’s a simple solution tothat, you idiot,” Lord Elal sneered.“How difficult is it to dispatch a magicless living corpse?It’s not as if he can defend himself.A toddler could take care of it.”
Nic’s blood ran cold, and she stared at her father, wondering how she’d ever loved him.And how she could still be taken by surprise at his duplicity.“You’re talking about my husband, wizard, and the father of my child, as well as the lord of a rival house in the Convocation,” she said softly, a clear warning in her tone.One which her father ignored completely.
“Phel has wizards around him,” Sergio protested.“We can’t simply waltz into House Phel and expect no one to fight us.”
“Then take a force of your own,” Lord Elal explained with exaggerated patience.“They are a motley crew of half-talents, with more commoners and familiars than wizards.”
“Do you consider your daughter and heir, Alise, a half-talent?”Nic inquired, steeling herself not to flinch when her father rounded on her, wizard-black eyes blazing with fire.
“Have a care, kitten,” he said with lethal quiet.“You serve a purpose, for the moment, but I won’t hesitate to muzzle you as your wizard should’ve done.You have caused a number of problems for me, you and your delinquent sister.Do you know she wrote to me, begging me to help you?”He laughed, sounding genuinely amused.“She even offered to come home and accept whatever punishment I deemed necessary, like that was something I would ever want from that ungrateful brat.”
Oh, Alise.
“Nander will be the next Lord Elal,” her father continued, nodding to himself.“He shows great promise, and none of the unfortunate bad blood that seems to have infected you and your sister.Fortunately for you, kitten, you have an opportunity to redeem yourself.Once you bond with young Sergio here, you will cement our ties with House Sammael.And I’ll consider forgiving you.”
“I can never bond with Sammael.”She held her head high.“I am Lady Phel.House Phel is mine, whether Lord Phel revives or not.”
Her father laughed again, incredulity and contempt in it.“I thought I taught you better than that.It’s just as well you turned out to be a familiar, as impotent in intelligence as you are in magic.House Phel will cease to exist,” he explained.“Once Lord Phel is dispatched, his house status will be well and truly revoked.”
“I carry the House Phel heir,” Nic countered.“That parentage has been certified by the Convocation proctors.”
