CHAPTER NINE

After a while, Avis lifted his hand and ran it across the top bone ridge of her leathery wings. “Do you think I could see the Mystallian side of you again? The side I saw yesterday morning?” he asked, still a little uncomfortable with being in the presence of any Highborn Hellions.

Columbine shook her head and turned away from him slightly, refusing to meet his eyes.

For someone he’d seen managed to become mist in an instant the day before, Avis knew there was a story here he wasn’t going to like. He probably should have gone in search of the memory involving Cora’s command to change at will while he was still inside her mind, but his own curiosity about her view of him made him change his objective halfway through.

He could still go back in and see for himself, but he wanted to take things carefully where Columbine was concerned—more carefully than he had ever done in his life. She adored him. He was her hero, and nothing whatsoever was going to threaten that idolisation, no matter how misplaced it was. So instead, he asked, “Why not?” Again he slipped his fingers under her chin, forcing her to look up at him.

“And before you find a non-verbal way to dodge that question, young lady, I’m telling you from now on I want you to answer me with words. Don’t ever look at the ground when you’re speaking to anyone from my side of the family. Meet their eyes and own the space you’re in, princess. It’s important. You’re not less in our eyes unless you make yourself so.”

There was that moment of hesitation again.

“Columbine,” he prompted. “I believe I asked you a question.”

Nervous smoke poured through Columbine’s nasal and chest cavities. “I … was naughty and now that I have tefsla inside me, I have to stay this way for ages,” she confessed miserably. “I am so sorry …”

“Being sorry changes nothing and solves less,” he snapped, not realising he was parroting his own abusive upbringing where apologies were concerned, until he saw her shoulders tense, then slump in defeat under his hands. Damn, this dance of not offending her is going to be harder than I thought.

Before today, he hadn’t cared who’d heard him say what; the joy of residing permanently at the top of the mental food chain. Forcing himself to relax, he said in a softer tone, “You must take responsibility for your actions, Columbine. Apologies are well and good, but it’s your actions which will show whether you are truly sorry. Saying it, even if it’s heartfelt—proves nothing. You need to fix it or forget it.”

To ease the tension, he pressed his lips to the soft leather of her head again. “We are not the mortals, princess. We are celests. We let our actions speak for us. We are above verbal apologies.”

The viewpoint had to be completely foreign to her, yet Columbine nodded diligently. “Yes, Father.”

It irked Avis that she was just going through the motions to please him, but for now, he decided to let it go. He had plenty of time to fine-tune her attitude later. “Now, what is tefsla and how exactly did you come by it?”

Avis waited almost a full minute before prompting her with a clearing of his throat and a sharp frown.

“After being punished for being in the training hall, Cora was given tefsla to prevent herself from healing. Or maybe the tefsla came first. I-I do not know. I was put to sleep before that and when I woke up, she was in the room next to me. She was hurt—a lot.” Columbine pulled away from her father until she sat at the edge of the bed with her head bowed like a servant. “I could not … it was hurting me … to feel her pain.”

Avis felt his chest tighten and he pulled himself forward off the pillows until his elbow rested on his raised knee. “Come again?” he asked, very pointedly. As far as he was aware, Cora was a mind bender and that was why the Hellions were having so much trouble with her. But Columbine’s explanation said otherwise, and he wanted very badly to be wrong about it.

As if fearing she hadn’t explained herself properly, Columbine attempted to word it differently. “I was not hurt—but she was, and the tefsla stopped her from shapeshifting herself better.”

Avis’ mind reeled with her revelation and he fell back against the pillows with a thud, spearing all his fingers through his hair as he struggled to not swear long and loud. Cora’s both*?* A mind bender and a fucking shapeshifter? How in the realms was he supposed to stay in control of that?

Yes, he was married to Clarise and the blood they’d shared during that ceremony protected him from any shapeshifting from those below her privileged rank, but that wasn’t the point! Cora was both! His mind mastery and Clarise’s body wizardry! By the Twin Notes! She was actually both! It was insane!

And damn, if it didn’t take the problem of trying to raise her to a whole new level. No wonder the Hellions wanted her dead. That level of power in one so young was terrifying.

A stabbing headache surged to life behind his eyes and he rubbed his thumb and forefinger against his forehead to alleviate it. Fucking hell, he thought, as that reality sank in. Cora was both a shifter and a bender—equal proportions at her age.

It was crazy, but right there; a fifty-fifty split of power that no one else shared. Anyone who dealt with her one on one would fall short by at least half of that power. Even his own twin, who was Death to his Life and seconds younger than him, only had at his disposal the bending element of native power.

Cora could shapeshift him into a household pet if she wanted him to. It would be the biggest and briefest mistake she’d ever make in her incredibly shortened life by the time Amaro was finished with her mind, but the problem still existed.

Billowing clouds of heated air from the side of the bed broke through his reflections and forced his attention back to Columbine. Her chest plates pumped like bellows, spewing smoke with every exhalation as her dark plates shivered in fear.

Pull it together, Avis, he reprimanded himself. You’re scaring her. For Columbine’s sake, he decided the best way to move forward was to change the subject until he could come to terms with Cora’s dual power, so he focused on what else Columbine had said at the time. “When you say … you felt it,” he said, pulling himself up to sit on the pillows and rest his shoulders against the bedhead directly.

He was convinced this was a safer topic of conversation that he could humour her with. After all, it wasn’t as if she could actually feel anything from Cora. That was just plain ridiculous. Their kind fell into two categories as children and only two categories: mind benders and shapeshifters. Cora was the surprise package by having access to both, but neither side cared what anything felt like.

Columbine rubbed her demonic hands together and drummed her talon-tips against each other. The consistent nail on nail clicking sound seemed to calm her, so Avis didn’t ask her to stop, no matter how annoying he found it.

“I cannot explain it, Father. It was like part of me … felt her pain … and I knew I could do something to make her feel better. I knew it was wrong … but I could not bear her to be in pain … not like that …”

Avis had heard enough. If anyone else was listening to this, they’d think she was either insane or just plain stupid. For her sake, he had to nip this in the bud, quickly. He certainly couldn’t be seen to encourage it. “Princess, you had to know that Cora was going to be punished for what happened, didn’t you?”

Columbine refused to look at him, but the smoke from her chest eased. It took a few seconds for her to answer, but when she did, it was drawn out as if she were folding under duress. “Yes, sir.”

Both her defeatism and her need to call him sir could be dealt with another time. He mentally added them to the irritation he felt over her need to lie if necessary just to please whoever she was talking to. Mystallians didn’t play that way. Good or bad, they called it as they saw it.

They could never be forced to back down from that position … and don’t get him started on their views of calling each other ‘sir’, ‘m’lady’ or ‘m’lord’ like a fucking servant or commoner. Nevertheless, Avis decided to use her veiled concession to hammer home his point. “Then, maybe you thought you felt her pain, and convinced yourself it was real. Don’t you think that that’s more likely, princess?”

He had expected her to see the wisdom in his words and agree with his assessment. For him, it was a no-brainer. Since no one could feel what others were feeling, she had to have imagined it. There was simply no other way. The tension across Columbine’s hands tightened as she silently curled them around her toes. She also pinched her beak together and hunched her shoulders, all without looking at him. Avis didn’t like any part of that. “Columbine?”

She remained silent and unmoving.

“Columbine, look at me and tell me what you are thinking, so I don’t have to go back inside your mind to find out for myself. I promise you, I won’t be happy if I have to do the latter.”

Her small, black-tipped forked tongue ran around the edges of her beak as she slowly, excruciatingly slowly lifted her head until he saw the tiny flames that hovered in her otherwise empty eye sockets. The brow ridge over her eyeless recesses puckered into a wary frown. “I felt it, Father. I know I am not meant to, but I felt it. I feel them all.”

She spoke with such conviction that for a moment, Avis began to doubt his own certainty on the matter. Then he folded his arms over his chest and viewed the young Hellion before him. Celests didn’t feel things from others. It wasn’t their way.

Those of Hell told others what shape subordinates could have, while those of the Nexus forced subordinates to think whatever they wanted. The process was dictatorial. Each side enforced what they wanted. There was nothing else. Column A or Column B. The only exception to that rule was the twin connection he shared with his brother Amaro, but Columbine was too naive to know about oddities such as that … wasn’t she?

Avis had to be sure.

Forgoing all sense of gentleness, he swept through her mind—willing himself to find what he knew couldn’t possibly exist. He brushed past her cognitive thoughts and flew beyond the memories that made up her young character in his search for the deeper core of her existence. He was looking for her essence. Deeper and deeper he travelled, deeper than he should have had to go, until at last, he floated on the edge of a yawning chasm of darkness filled with countless tiny, shimmering stars.

To the inattentive, it was yet another example of the mental superiority of a bender—for the mind of a shapeshifter was as barren as any other wasteland. Yet somehow, he sensed there was more to this setting and reached out to exert his own control over the nearest of those tiny stars.

Without warning he was blasted by the emotions of billions of individuals and he cartwheeled backwards beneath their overwhelming sensations. He could taste their joy, smell their fears, hear their roars of various pleasures, see their angers, almost touch their passions, and there were so many of them! As if every star had an endless number of sources connected to it!

What? … how?

Avis struggled through the levels of Columbine’s mind until he was at the very edge at which point he threw himself back into the safety of his own shell. His physical breath escaped him in a heavy gasp as he flung himself sidewards away from her, his head bowed into the bed-post. A series of smaller pants followed as he wrapped his arms around the post to force himself not to fall and faceplant on the floor. So many emotions … he could still feel them … crawling all over his skin like ants.

“Father, are you alright?” Columbine demanded, scrambling across the bed to assist him any way she could.

Unable to speak, Avis shifted his weight to free one hand, which he waved at her to assure her he was fine. Or he would be, just as soon as he worked out which emotions were his and how to cleanse himself of the rest. In the forefront of his mind, he made a very huge mental note to never to do that again. Ouch!

Columbine lay her left wing across his back, wrapped her arms around his free arm, and rubbed her leathery head against his shoulder. “I love you, Father,” she repeated.

With his eyes still closed, he felt that love. He felt it … as tangibly as touching a fire would burn his fingers. It encompassed him, driving the unwanted emotions away like the shadows they were.

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. It was the celestial birthright of the Nexus celestials to take command of any mind beneath them and force them into compliance. It was what made Order … orderly.

Not that he himself agreed with all the moralities that went with that ability, but it was there, none the less. If he wanted to take over someone’s mind, depending on who it was, the distance ranged from touch with one of his peers through to anywhere within the realm if it was a particular mortal he wanted to modify.

In opposition to the Nexus way of doing things, those of Hell had the ability to alter the physical capacity of those beneath them to achieve their objective. Mass could be absorbed and expelled at will by those of the right bloodline. He himself had seen Clarise use a dining setting to increase her size, and just as those of the Nexus could manipulate from a distance, so too could the Highborn Hellions.

Avis released his breath in a heady sigh and relaxed his grip on the post as he found the strength to sit up on his own. They were gone. Thank the Twin Notes. Whatever he was feeling, it was because he himself was feeling it. He rolled on to his back and tensed the arm Columbine had seized, hauling her firstly on to his lap, then up into his arms in a tight embrace. “Oh, wow,” he whispered, pressing his lips into her leathery head. “I was not expecting that, princess.”

Columbine stiffened in his arms. “Am I in trouble?”

Despite the discomfort, Avis grinned to himself and tightened his grip on her. “Not while I’m around, princess.” He wanted to mean that, more than he wanted to draw his next breath, but deep down he knew it wasn’t entirely true. She was what the mortals would call an empath. A true celestial empath.

If anyone else learned of that … they’d either want her dead or enslaved for their own use. Which meant his job as her father just got a whole lot more—dangerous. With his chin resting on her head, Avis licked his lips pensively.

As bad as that revelation was, something else she’d said then occurred to him and he found himself wondering if it was too late to go back to the lesser problem of Cora having both sets of known powers. “Honey, you said you shapeshifted the tefsla from your sister …?”

Columbine’s head rocked affirmatively beneath his chin, apparently not thinking anything of the oddity. Her lack of verbal response irked him, and he squeezed her sharply. “Yes, Father.”

Avis pushed her away just far enough to see her face. “Your … older sister,” he emphasised, cupping her chin in one hand and staring at her to see if she would either redirect his enquiry or change her story. Not to sound intentionally repetitive, but she shouldn’t have been able to shapeshift an older Highborn Hellion either.

Since she was unable to look away without forcing his hand aside, Columbine began to vent steam through her chest plates again. “Grandfather said I was not to speak of it.”

Avis’ gaze narrowed, and he twisted his lips to one side irritably. He had no intention of pitting his daughter against the ruler of all Hell any more than he was willing to do that himself, but dammit, Columbine was his daughter first! His! More so than Belial’s! Anointment was just a technicality after the birth! If there was to be any say over how she …

Realisation derailed his inner rant and suddenly feeling very foolish, he closed his eyes and covered them with one hand to hide from his own stupidity. Power within an individual always rose to the highest obtainable level, whether it be from a birth parent or an anointed one, and Belial had anointed Columbine at birth in his absence.

Clarise had already told him that, but amidst everything that had happened since, he’d forgotten. That anointment gave Columbine the shapeshifting prowess of one of Belial’s daughters, rather than that of his granddaughter. Clarise would need to touch Columbine to exert a forced shapeshift instead of being able to do so from range.

Columbine in turn could shapeshift Cora without touching her and Cora would never be able to affect Columbine at all, despite being the older sibling.

Given his younger daughter’s shyness, Avis wondered if Columbine knew she had the strategic advantage of range over her sister. He also wondered if Cora did. The muscle under his eye twitched as he realised Cora probably did know and it went a long way to explaining the sisterly dynamics between them.

Columbine was the good girl. The quiet, obedient one. The one more heavily influenced by the Highborn Hellion way of behaving. The flipside was Cora. Already forced into a mould that didn’t fit, she’d then had to accept her inferiority when compared to her little sister. A double blow that couldn’t help but fester resentment that must have bordered hatred. She waited five years to attack her sister? Avis could only imagine the sibling rivalry that would blow up if he’d ever permitted that in Mystal. A point of contention would be an understatement.

Avis was tired of being on the back foot where his girls were concerned. All he had at this point was wild speculation from a single point of view and he’d had enough of that, though there were still lines he couldn’t cross. Lines that began and ended with Belial.

So, first things first. He gently stroked the underside of Columbine’s beak and willed himself to relax to the sound of his daughter’s warbling hum. “Princess,” he said, as softly as he could so as not to frighten her. “The last thing I want to do is get you in trouble with your grandfather, but I really want to know as much about all of this as possible. Can you remember what he said you are and aren’t allowed to talk about, or will I go back into your memories and see for myself?” Without going anywhere near your freaky essence, he mentally added to himself.

Columbine’s forked tongue ran around the edges of her beak again, but her head tilted to the right and her left eye ridge arched upwards as if she were trying to remember. “Don’t worry, princess,” Avis crooned. “I’ll go back in and …”

“Little one,” Columbine said, lowering her tone of voice as if she were attempting to mimic someone. “I forbid you to speak of anything that has occurred during my visit to you this day before I called you little one. If anyone wishes to have this conversation, they must come to me first. Nod, if you understand.”

Avis blinked at her in astonishment, then closed his mouth after picking his jaw up off his chest. There’d been no hesitation. She’d paraphrased that so perfectly that he could actually hear the supreme demon saying it. But how? When only yesterday she couldn’t remember a single complicated word like bi-schalarian without his help?

If he’d thought he wanted answers before, now he practically seethed with the need. The best part was, he knew exactly what the starting parameters were and how they worked in his favour. Being a bender, he didn’t need her to say anything, so he didn’t have to garner permission to have a ‘conversation’. But there were definite risks with sidestepping Belial’s intent. Eyeing her carefully, he ran the pros and cons of what he was thinking.

Pro: I’ll learn what had happened.

Pro: Belial would never have to know.

Con: I’ll have to do it behind Columbine’s back. If she knew, she’d be obligated to report us to her grandfather and get us both into trouble.

Pro: This was Belial, and no way he’d have left his mandate that open to interpretation unless he wanted me to use the obvious loophole.

Con: What if it’s a trap?

Despite the ominous nature of that last con (and he certainly wouldn’t put it past Belial) the desire to know far outweighed the fear of reprisal. He looked at Columbine and smiled warmly at her, then he cuddled her in close, tucking her leathery head under his chin. Once she was secure, he sighed happily and slipped back into her mind.

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CHAPTER TEN

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