CHAPTER FOUR

It may not have been in Clarise’s nature to lie. However, the truth and all its varying shades could be just as misleading in the hands of a professional. When she told Avis that Columbine could manipulate her body to avoid a physical punishment, she neglected to mention that due to her upbringing, Columbine knew better than to try.

The Hellion Highborn took discipline very seriously—some might say a little too seriously—but no one of repute could say that when a child of Hell was disciplined, the miscreant would be in a position to repeat the offence any time soon. If they dodged the pain of one punishment, another would be forthcoming, far worse than the first and completely unavoidable.

As such, Columbine’s backside still throbbed as she made her way back to her quarters. She touched it only once and bit back the yelp that rocketed to her throat, tears still streaming silently down her face.

Never in all her young years had she ever felt pain like it! Her mother’s tail was like a whip of rolled leather, and she hadn’t realised how much it could damage the soft flesh of her father’s kind. Her demonic plates would have deflected the blow easily. It was just one hit! One tail strike! There were times when her mother had spanked her until her plates almost cracked beneath the impacts of Clarise’s claws and it still hadn’t hurt this much.

“Wot is wong?” a young voice asked.

Whirling around, Columbine came face to face with a small male Hellion Highborn Lord, barely eighty centimetres tall. His wrinkled skin clung to the near fleshless bone in most places and the clump of fine straw-coloured hair that adorned his head fell lifelessly around his face, making him appear like an old Mystallian mortal reaching the last dregs of his life. But the apparent age of his body ended when it came to the sharpness of his dark eyes.

“Charon,” Columbine wheezed, wiping her eyes and attempting to feign normality. “Was there something you wanted?”

“Wot is wong?” he repeated, tilting his head to one side.

“It is … nothing for you to worry about,” Columbine said.

“Whad y’ do?”

From the moment Charon changed his line of questioning from a general inquiry to one of specifics, it never entered Columbine’s head to deny him the knowledge he desired. Despite his youth, Charon was still male, and Hellion Highborn. The twenty-month age difference between them meant nothing to a race that lived eternally. Clarise was the only Highborn Lady that could dictate to the young demon lord without reprisal, and that was only until his ascension into the High Court. All other women, even his ancient aunts and step-grandmother, would do as he commanded, just as they did with all Highborn Hellion males.

“I left my quarters not dressed right,” she replied, with a formal curtsey.

“Why?” he asked, not with the anger that any of their uncles would have shown, but with a general infantile curiosity.

“Because Father is awake.”

Charon swivelled towards the open doorway that separated them from Avis and Clarise. “He is?” he pouted. The withered flesh of his brow bunched over his nose, and his shoulders stiffened angrily. “Why? I do not wan’ ‘im back! It is not fair! It is not …!”

“Charon, no,” a male voice called from a short distance away. “Hold your tongue.”

The children did not miss the emphasis of seniority, and before they had properly turned, they both retreated into the submissive poses of bowed heads and hands clasped before them which they knew would be acceptable to whichever Lord addressed them.

But when they realised it was Hell’s Angelic Crown Prince, they immediately dropped to their knees with their heads bowed forward as was his due. Columbine winced and managed to bite back a yelp as the pose brushed her ankles across her tender backside.

Either missing her grimace or choosing to ignore it, Uriel drifted his armoured hand across the crown of Columbine’s dark hair. “Go back to your quarters and get dressed for breakfast, little one,” he said with a smile, rubbing the armoured fingertips against her scalp before gently guiding her head in that direction. Columbine bowed deeper beneath the command, then rose and left them without a backwards glance. Until she was out of earshot, she knew the males would not speak again.

Once a cavern wall separated them, Columbine sagged against the stone surface and breathed a heady sigh of relief. That could have gone very differently had it not been Uncle Uriel who discovered them. The other Highborn Hellion Lords did not share the Crown Prince’s generous streak in any way.

Nor would they have looked upon her with a smile and sent her on her way without even mentioning her appearance. The offence may have been minor, but each of them would have reacted in the same violent way that her mother had.

Fearing another discovery, Columbine stretched herself to her physical limits and beyond, allowing herself to dissipate into fine, invisible particles, just as she had earlier to escape her father. The shortcut to avoid the situation was obvious: to change what she was wearing into more suitable clothing and be on her way. She would have already, only she had been told by two different elders to return to her quarters to get changed and it was not in her nature to disobey even one. The trick now was to make it back there without being discovered.

She drifted through the corridors, spreading herself across the surface of walls and floors like an airborne virus whenever others crossed her path. Unlike her father, her mother’s people knew when they walked through one of their own kind. The mind behind the dissipated body still swallowed heavily when others passed below her. Did they see? Did they know?

No, they couldn’t have. When she saw her uncles Ludovic and Innis approaching, she spread herself so thin that she was no higher than a few millimetres off the wall surface and held her mental breath. Disobedience was one thing, but to be caught attempting to avoid an elder’s reproach was another matter entirely. And this was Innis—second only to Darnel in cruelty.

She couldn’t do it! This was insane! She couldn’t hide from them and only a fool would want to try! Even without the convenience of sight, they could always sense her nearby presence as one of their own.

She was on the verge of reforming on the ground with her head bowed low when she heard Innis’ heated squeal as he spoke her father’s name. That alone wouldn’t have been enough to sway her decision as Innis was the single most bad-tempered of all her uncles, and his reaction to everything was severe to say the least.

But when Ludovic echoed Innis’ sentiments with a grisly snarl of his own, Columbine held her place and her breath, hoping their anger blinded them to her presence. Ludovic was patient when patience required it—but he could be extremely dangerous to cross when the mood took him. He had never taken his rage out on the women of the family (not the way Uncle Innis often did) but still, Columbine had no desire to be the first.

“She is an idiot!” Innis raged.

“It is her choice to uphold her vows,” Ludovic replied.

“But it makes no sense!”

“Welcome to the Known Realms, brother. Who can ever understand the workings of the female mind?”

“But how can Father allow her to do this? It is insane!” Innis turned and punched the nearby wall in hopeless frustration.

Columbine gasped as Innis’ fist closed in on the wall and she retracted every iota of herself from that section of the wall and froze all others in expectation of discovery. But none was forthcoming. Innis was so deeply entrenched in his anger that he failed to sense her body movement withdrawing from the wall around his fist.

“The woman is insane, and Father equally so for allowing it to happen!” he snarled.

“Say that at your own peril and as far from me as you can,” Ludovic warned, pointing a clawed digit covered in fur at his younger brother. “I have no intention of invoking Father’s rage in my vicinity over the likes of you.”

Columbine frowned in confusion. Why were they saying such horrible things? Father just … went away for a while. Mother had said so. And he was back now. So why would it make no sense for Mother to want to be with him? And why were all of the males, even young Charon, so angry about his return?

She waited until they took their strange conversation around the corner at the far end of the corridor before risking a mental shake of her translucent head. It was very wrong for her to listen into grown up conversations—even more so when it was the men, but she hadn’t done it on purpose. Their conversations were simply not meant for her.

She stiffened with the epiphany. That was it! She had obviously misheard! By listening in on a conversation that was not meant for her, she had failed to understand the true meaning of it. That was why men’s conversations were not meant for ladies’ ears unless otherwise invited into them. They often spoke of things that the ladies could not possibly understand.

Pleased to have rationalised the misunderstanding to some extent, Columbine moved along the walls, determined to reach her quarters before she found herself in a position to eavesdrop again.

“Ludovic, for Hell’s sake, what is it?” Innis demanded as the pair returned to the corridor moments later.

Ludovic’s gaze narrowed into thin slits of suspicion as he swept his eyes across the walls and ceiling where Columbine had been hiding. “Nothing,” he said, in a voice that implied otherwise. After a moment, he relaxed and shook his head. It couldn’t have been.

Just as Columbine thought she had arrived at the inner sanctuary of her bedroom without any further problems, her governess chose that moment to look inside the room for her missing ward.

“Where have you been, mistress?” the large, centipede-like demoness asked, clicking her pincers together anxiously as she crossed the room towards her. Her overlapping leather plates strongly resembled skin that was doubled over in rolls and each of her four sets of roving eyes were fixed on Columbine.

“Diviten,” Columbine groaned, raising her hands above her head and holding them there in anticipation of her governess’ aid.

“Do not ‘Diviten’ me young lady,” Diviten chirped, taking the hem of Columbine’s nightgown in her lowest set of pincers and passing it from one set to the next, in effect lifting the nightdress over Columbine’s head. “You were born for better things, and you should know your place by …” pausing in mid-sentence, Diviten took her charge by the shoulder and angled her towards the light. “… forgive me, Mistress. I see you have already been disciplined.” She ran several feelers across the thick welt that had formed across Columbine’s upper legs to disappear beneath the lace of her underwear.

Columbine yelped and burst into tears beneath the gentle caress, shoving both hands against Diviten to break the contact. “Stop it, that hurts!”

Unfazed by the shove, Diviten stepped back a pace and clicked her teeth together. “That is hardly surprising, mistress, when one considers the mark that has been left.”

Still in tears, Columbine’s jaw went slack with realisation. “I did not know Father’s kind were so breakable!” she cried, wiping her eyes and twisting to view the mark more clearly for herself. She looked up at her governess, the shock of the mark distracting her from the pain, temporarily. “And it still hurts!”

“That is obvious and unfortunately, you brought it entirely upon yourself. Do not search for solace with me. You will find none.”

“But I just wanted to see father …”

“Then you should have waited for the appropriate time of introduction, would you not agree?”

Columbine snapped her mouth shut and closed her eyes, pushing both together tightly. A few seconds later, she forced herself to nod. It wasn’t her intention to be disrespectful. She just wanted to see the man she had only ever heard about her whole life.

“Mistress, may I ask what drives your desire to become like your father’s people? They are so … pathetic, quite honestly. They are weaker, fragile, unco-ordinated … form rigid … grounded bipedal …” As her truthful though insulting descriptions grew with passion, Diviten found herself at a loss for more adjectives that best described the limited physique of the Mystallians when compared to that of demons.

The change that swept over Columbine would have sent a lesser servant scurrying from the room in fear. Straightening where she sat, her eyes shot open and she speared her governess with a withering look that no longer belonged to a remorseful child. “That is my father you speak badly of, Diviten. Choose your next words … With. Great. Care.” Her eyes ignited with hellfire as she spoke, leaving no doubt as to where her young loyalty lay.

Diviten dropped to the ground with her forehead pressed into the stone flooring. “Forgive me, Mistress,” she said, not rising from her prone position.

“Speak not of it again.” Columbine turned away; as much from the affair as her governess. “Father is a good god—a strong god. Mother said so.”

“Of course, mistress.”

Columbine perused the room around her. Unlike the cavernous abodes that her mother’s family found so familiar and comfortable, Columbine had been redecorating hers ever since she learned of her father’s recovery. More than anything, she’d wanted to show him that she too could be as Mystallian as he was by her current selection of furnishings.

So, instead of a rough stone perch or carved insert to rest upon, Columbine had a central four-poster bed complete with matching bright pink, silk curtains. A single-drawer bedside table was located on either side of the bed, each decorated with finely beaded doilies. On the right was a bright vase filled with colourful flowers, whereas the left table held a small, thin leather-bound book in a light puce colour that fit easily in the palm of her hand.

Thick warm rugs of deep maroon set off the cherry tones of the marble streaks in the floor. On the right was a single door that led to her wardrobe and bathroom. Large twin glass doors to the left of the bed opened out onto a fake balcony, but whilst the doors remained closed, the view from within was effective.

She walked towards the edge of her bed and sat down, grimacing at the shaft of pain as she settled her weight on the plush mattress. Her focus remained on the small side table with the flower vase until the pain subsided, at which point she released her breath in a small sigh. Not all of it was in relief.

Diviten shuffled up behind her. “What is troubling you, Mistress?” she asked.

Columbine’s eyes dropped to the base of the vase where the doily was located. “I wanted my room to be like my father’s,” she said, annoyed with herself for making what appeared to be a fundamental mistake. “I saw none of these in his room while I was there.” She lifted the vase and removed the thinly laced object from the table, holding it up for Diviten to see. “Is my room wrong?”

Diviten chittered and shook her head, taking her charge’s hands into two of her claws. “No, Mistress. These items are feminine—ladylike. Your father does not have them because he is a Lord, and Lords do not have finery such as this …” As she spoke, she removed the doily from Columbine’s hands with another claw and replaced it under the vase. “But that does not mean he does not expect to find them here in your rooms.”

“What if he does not like me?”

Despite having frightened her minutes earlier, Columbine saw the leathery skin around the old demoness’ eyes crease warmly. “How can he not?” she asked, her bulbous lips twisting into a tender smile. “You are obedient, ladylike in almost all aspects, diligent, and respectful. How can he not like those attributes?”

Columbine looked down at her hands and swallowed heavily. “He said I was impulsive when the mood takes me.” She jerked her head back to the oversized centipede demoness. “But I can change that! If I work very hard, I can be in total control at all times! I can! If he would just give me another chance!”

“Then perhaps you should begin now, Mistress,” Diviten suggested pointedly, gifting her ward with a slight frown in the face of her frantic passion. “Excitement is the same as rage, and both emotions are beneath the Highborn Ladies. Calm control always, at all costs. Remember your lessons …”

Columbine drew a deep breath and squared her shoulders proudly, then released the breath to allow her shoulders to drop into a portrait-perfect pose with her hands cupped in her lap.

Diviten’s head bobbed approvingly. “Much better, Mistress.”

Rising with a grace that only came from long hours of practice, Columbine went to her dressing room. Be a Lady at all costs: obedient, diligent and respectful. She could do that. She was better at it than Cora ever was. All she had to curb was her enthusiasm to be with her father, and her poise would once again be flawless. Surely that would please him.

Knowing Diviten was half a step behind her, Columbine pointed to a delicate dress of blue and matching shoes nearby, then held her hands out to the sides; just as her mother had taught her to. Control. Control is everything in the Mystallian world. Lose it, and one loses oneself.

She stepped into the hooped petticoat that Diviten held out for her and accepted the hard twist of the girdle straps that pulled her stomach in tight against her spine. Her father’s people had a strange idea of dress, but her mother assured her that a lady of quality must endure the pain to be presented as becoming in the company of their lords.

Bipedal … bipedal … she thought to herself, over and over, reminding herself that women from her father’s home realm endured this every day, and to fit in she must also endure it and not cheat by removing the pain.

After Diviten tied the girdle in place, she sipped in a short sample breath. Several weeks ago, she taught herself how to breathe in such a way that barely required the lungs to move. A necessity, in this form.

When she had her breathing under control, she nodded for Diviten to continue. Two layers of petticoats were wrapped around the wire frame, then the dress was slipped over her extended arms and fastened up her spine. The long, shoulderless sleeves crafted of fine materials, were attached to the dress by the smallest of stitches along one side. Finely laced slippers were placed on her feet. A satin necklet of matching blue finished off the outfit.

Not a word passed between either of them during the dressing.

When they left the dressing room, Columbine went and sat before her dresser, still focused on her breathing rather than the servant that scurried after her. Diviten retrieved a brush from her table and silently brushed her long mane of ebony hair for several minutes before twisting it into a sophisticated braid.

“You may go,” Columbine said, once Diviten had woven the long stem of the flower into her hair so that the flower sat at the top of the braid, just as her mother had done.

“But Mistress, I have yet to powder …”

Columbine looked at her through the mirror. “You may go, Diviten.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

For some time after Diviten bowed and withdrew from the room, Columbine stared at the mirror. Her father had said she was pretty. She turned her head from one side to the other. Her skin was fair, her cheekbones were high and defined and her lips were rich in the colour red.

Did he think she was showing off her shapeshifting abilities? Was this what his kind found pretty? She had nothing to base any modifications on, so she had remained true to her original form. Her mother’s family certainly hadn’t found anything attractive about her bi-schalarian shape.

The men teased her relentlessly and it hadn’t always been in good humour, while the women huffed and completely ignored her, unless she happened to be in her mother’s presence. The only time either side treated her as a fellow Highborn Hellion was when she reverted to her demonic form.

She had based her theory of ugliness on those reactions, yet her father had said she was pretty. And not just pretty, but very pretty. Was he only saying that because he was her father?

She reached out to touch her reflection, her initial question still plaguing her. Did he like what he saw? Did he really?

She sighed and allowed her hand to fall to the crystal dish that held an assortment of hair brushes. It didn’t really matter anyway. As a denizen of Chaos, she could change into whatever her father wanted in a daughter. Diviten was right.

She need only control her enthusiasm and her father’s desires would be revealed in time: A simple comment about someone’s eye colour or the way someone wore their hair that happened to catch his eye. That was all it would take, and with those small titbits of information here and there she could mould herself into his perfect idea of a daughter.

The reflection of the leather book on her bedside table caught the corner of her eye. Dodging the subject of the morning’s events would not make them go away, and the longer she put it off, the longer it would take for her to catch up. She rose and made her way towards the book. “Grimoire,” she said aloud, as she lifted the book and opened it to the empty second page between the soft covers. Instead of saying anything else, Columbine closed it again and ran her hand over the fine leather cover with a smile of pride. This had been her creation—her choice of amendments.

Her mother had wanted pink but was willing to compromise with puce when she realised how much it meant to Columbine to have a variety of colours around her. It was her first grounded bipedal book. She cuddled it close. It was all hers. Of course, the grimoire had always been hers, but it wasn’t until recently that it took this rather unique form.

All grimoires absorbed whatever the writer dictated. She pressed her lips to the top edge of the book, having no doubt that her father would whisk them away to his home realm now that he had returned. She’d heard from everyone how different Mystal was, and she was convinced the more she practiced now, the easier it would be to fit in there.

“Grimoire,” she said aloud, again.

The book fell open in her hands again.

“Where to start,” she said, looking anywhere but at the book before her. She then glanced down at the page and snorted as the words appeared in dark ink across the first line. She should have known the book’s dictation would begin from the moment she initialised their bond, but it was too late now to change it. Moving on.

“Father woke up this morning. I went in to see him. He is very white.” Columbine looked at her own skin—the bleached tone was a stark contrast to the jet-black plates of her demonic form.

“Even whiter than me, but maybe that is because he has been sick.” Columbine sucked on her lip, finding the need to remind herself that no one could read her diary without her approval.

No one could force the genetic seal that was forged at the grimoire’s creation—not even her esteemed grandfather, although he and the other Lords could easily order her to do it, should they desire to do so.

She drew in a deep breath. If they did, she would accept the consequences of what would be revealed. “I went in to see him without Mother’s permission,” she said, as the memory of her mother’s reaction still stung painfully across her backside.

“I waited until she had left for breakfast, and I chose not to let her servants see me. Mother will not be pleased with them and will most likely punish them for not stopping me somehow. Not that they could have. They are demons and I am Hellion Highborn. I care not for what happens to those that far beneath me.”

With that she paused and ran her nail across her lip. Those last words were not her own. They were her Highborn upbringing, yet in her mind she didn’t feel comfortable with that opinion. True, it wasn’t meant to be her concern. She was supposed to be above such things as the well-being of servants, but still …

“Why do things like that make me feel wrong inside?” she asked, of no one. “I am Hellion Highborn. We are above such things, and Father is an established god, who is also above such things. So, where does this awful feeling inside me come from? It is easy to pretend it is not there. I have done it long enough to fool everyone. But I know these servants. I know every one of their names, and I have watched all their habits. I feel as if I know them better than any of the Highborn that go to great lengths to show me only what is expected of them. Am I wrong to feel something for them? Are they really as far beneath me as I am told?”

Columbine closed her eyes and fell back against her bed in such a way that the hoop fell downwards against her legs instead of jutting straight out. Even now, her mother’s training regarding protocol could not be dissuaded.

So many conflicting thoughts.

She was only a child and already the most developed shapeshifter of her generation by far. Probably because in her father’s absence, her grandfather had anointed her at birth. She wasn’t quite sure what that meant, except that he saw her as both his granddaughter and his adopted daughter. There was so much she didn’t understand—so much protocol that conflicted with the desires of her heart.

If she were to ask any of her elders for advice, they would tell her to stop being so foolish and act appropriately as was expected from ladies of their position. If she were to ask the servants, they would bow and tell her what they felt she wanted or needed to hear to spare themselves her wrath. Not that any Lady had ever struck a servant themselves, but it certainly wasn’t unheard of for a Lady to have a servant executed for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

With her deep sigh came the age-old revelation: it would come in time. The balance that made up her life would reveal itself to her in time. Again, she was showing her impatience.

Still, when her mother wasn’t looking, she would apologise to Frash and Tilu for any discomfort they were forced to endure on her behalf. They would just need to be sworn to secrecy afterwards. “Grimoire, I do not regret going to see Father.” Her buttocks chose that moment to twinge painfully against the hoops, almost as if reminding her of the outcome. “But I do regret being caught. That hurt.”

Columbine looked down at the grimoire. Although there were only three pages to the book, there was always one on either side of where Columbine was currently using. Whenever she turned the page forward, the page closest to the front cover would merge then into it, while another page formed from inside the back cover.

The book was eternal, with as many pages as Columbine needed to document her immortal existence. Flicking through the pages, she glanced back at the earlier entries involving her emotional state without actually reading them. Would her father find these feelings as undesirable as her mother’s family obviously did?

She closed her grimoire and sat up in bed, feeling more tears slide against her cheeks. Drawing from an inner strength, she took a deep breath and analysed the tears. She knew her father’s people called it crying, and that they came from moments of true sadness or true happiness. Women cried more than men. She hadn’t worked out why yet. It was simply the way it was.

She had already cried twice that day. Both were caused by sadness, but the sources of tears were different. The first sadness was due to physical pain, which she was already intimately familiar with. The other was also pain, but it came from a deeper location and affected her much more profoundly. She didn’t like it.

Rubbing the heels of her hands across her eyes, she melded the liquid back into her face and rose to her feet. “Diviten,” she called.

The centipede demoness appeared moments later in the doorway with a bow. “Mistress?”

“My face has no powder.”

Diviten bowed again. “Yes, Mistress.”

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CHAPTER FIVE

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For more of my work: r/Angel466