[The Celestial Wars] Chapter 1.24

The girls and their respective governesses chose that moment to join them, so both sides allowed the tension to pass before the children picked up on it. Columbine ambled in on her hands and reverse walking legs with her wings bouncing in time to the step. Cora wore a floor-length dress of red with multiple layers of petticoats.

Her fringe had been braided to frame the crown of her head, leaving the rest free-flowing to the middle of her back. Avis knew it was Clarise’s preferred hairstyle, because he’d seen it on Columbine earlier that week. It suited both his wife and his younger daughter, but on Cora it looked utterly horrific and they both knew it. Like a pit-bull being wedged into a tutu.

Envisioning his sister of War showing much the same temperament, he wondered how much blood had been shed to force Cora into that outfit. Either way, he’d be fixing it before they left.

Clarise’s servants, Frash and Tilu, along with the four Highborn Hellion Guards had yet to make an appearance. As they waited, Avis gave the girls a cursory once over to get a measure of how they were handling things so far.

Columbine, he could see, was excited to be going on this journey with them. No surprise there. He suspected his little princess would’ve followed him anywhere he permitted her to.

Cora, on the other hand, sulkily shifted her gaze from one point of the room to the next and remained sullen. She didn’t quite scowl, though her arms were folded over her tiny chest as if daring anyone to say a word to her. It was cute in a laughable way—especially in that ridiculous get-up.

Or at least it had been, until she turned that look to him and the surliness manifested into icy hatred.

Okay … that’s going to be a problem.

In his mind, their biggest issue was behind them. Dealt with. If she thought otherwise, he needed to get to the bottom of it before they left the safety of Hell. Avis allowed his mental control to drift over her without making the move obvious. He didn’t want to totally dominate her. Just enough to observe her thoughts from the outside.

The fact he could meant Belial had removed the seclusion ring from her body while he’d been recovering from her attack. Good. No bender liked the presence of a seclusion ring and anyone caught with one was immediately treated with open hostility. For most of the pantheons, that explanation needed to be a real doozy, or the culprit died soon afterwards as a warning to others.

Case in point—Avis remembered a young celest from Alchera who thought the ring would protect her from the Mystallians, since his pantheon consisted primarily of benders. It had been one of the shortest mistakes in the history of all histories.

She’d smugly faced off with Death and his son, the god of assassination and gloated how the ring’s presence meant they couldn’t do a frickin’ thing to her. A well-placed dagger between her eyes and another through her ribs for good measure, said otherwise.

Basically, no one of consequence was stupid enough to walk into someone else’s territory wearing one. It was too easy to be caught, and too many other ways to be dealt with.

Next time, I will not sully a sword on you, you animal. I will lay my hands upon you, and then you will be mine to control, just like Columbine was.

When Avis saw Cora’s thoughts, he didn’t know whether to laugh or be offended by the sheer audacity of the girl … mainly because he was too busy being gobsmacked. Wait—what? His moment of bafflement morphed into parental condescension as more of those superior opinions of herself crossed her mind. Oh, reeeally!

The little shit had the nerve to think she had mental supremacy over him? Ha! He’d known she had little understanding of how his power worked, but he’d always assumed she knew that bending followed the same basic principles as the demonic shapeshifting.

That was, like fuck she would ever take him down. The only rational explanation for her mindset was she had no idea that bending came from his side of the family. But … was she really that ignorant? Wow. The girl needed an education, and she needed it now.

Not tipping his hand just yet, he cuddled Clarise close and said, “Would you mind staying here for a second, sweetheart? It seems Cora and I just need to hash out a few … last-minute details in private before we leave.”

Despite attempting to make it sound like they’d be having a casual conversation at most, Clarise’s head snapped back and she stared at him with eyes that were suddenly filled with concern—for him.

His heart swelled with both amusement and love in equal parts, but he dropped another quick kiss on her lips before she could say what was so clearly written all over her face. “We’ll both be fine,” he promised, pressing his forehead to hers. “She’s had her piece of me and she’s not getting another. I’m just going to talk to her—for the most part.”

Clarise looked over her shoulder at the girls that stood beside their governesses a short distance away. “Very well,” she said, turning inside Avis’ embrace to face them. “Columbine,” she called. With one hand raised, she beckoned the youngster forward with the tips of her fingers. “Come here, sweetheart.”

While Columbine came forward, Avis brushed his lips across Clarise’s hair and stepped around her to make his way to Cora. It amused him to think just how much the situation resembled a prisoner exchange as the two approached each other from opposite sides of the room.

He offered Columbine a warm smile and a wink as he passed her, then ran his hand over her leathery scalp to scratch the base of her skull for a few precious seconds. Columbine hunched beneath the attention and made a series of demonic snorts and wheezes that sounded remarkably like childish giggling.

He chuckled to himself and gave her a light push towards her mother, then lifted his gaze to the more problematic of his two children.

The derision in Cora’s thoughts sobered him instantly and approaching her, he said, “We need to talk, young lady.” Without giving her a chance to respond, he took her by the shoulder the moment he could, spun her around to face the same way he was, then propelled her with a shove towards one of the empty stalls.

She stumbled a little because of that stupid dress and heels, but he quickly caught up to steady her, in case she face-planted. Just as soon as he’d finished this little chat with her, he’d be getting her out of that idiotic outfit and into hunting leathers. High class ladies may have enjoyed wearing such finery, but not a Mystallian like Cora or Armina.

He envisioned the outcome of someone moronic enough to try and shoehorn his sister of War into that outfit and shuddered inwardly. Armina wouldn’t stop at the specific idiots who tried. She’d move on to their family, then the neighbourhood, and maybe … maybe call it a day when their entire species had been eradicated.

Armina wasn’t the kind to take any chances on repeat occurrences. Avis looked down at Cora, and as they proceeded into the stall, he called over his shoulder to Clarise, “Sweetheart, could you give us a bit more privacy?”

Clarise remained silent, but the moment he and Cora crossed the gate’s threshold, liquid mass oozed out of the ground and wove its way through the open rails of the stall until it reached the ceiling overhead.

In just a few seconds, it swelled and solidified into a thick rock wall with a solid timber door. Complete privacy. The enclosure would’ve cast the room in darkness, had Clarise not also included the luminescence of Hell’s stonework into the inner wall.

Cora broke away from him and stalked to the far side of the enclosure. There, she whirled on her toes and slammed her shoulders into the wall, folding her arms across her chest and crossing her short, narrow-heeled shoes at the ankles in defiance of him. Her chin came up in a manner that suggested the whole realm was hers for the taking and he was just too stupid to realise it yet.

Avis sank his teeth into his bottom lip, using the pain to distract his rising temper. It didn’t entirely work. That cock-sure of yourself, huh, you little minx? Time to fix tha … Wait! He stiffened, his lips sliding out from between his teeth as his eyes dropped from hers to her folded arms. Both her folded arms.

Why, that no good, sneaky prick! he fumed, knowing his father-by-marriage was the only one who could have given her back her missing arm with the tefsla in place*. Sneaky, sneaky sunova bitch.* Avis shook his head and smirked wryly, unable to help himself. Without even knowing it, he’d gotten at least some of what he asked for anyway.

Cora didn’t appreciate his spontaneous amusement and threw herself back on to her feet. Her arms dropped to her sides and her fists clenched as she stomped her right foot at him. “How dare you laugh at me!”

Still chuckling, but now for an entirely different reason, Avis looked at her and shook his head. If this wasn’t so serious, he’d be laughing his ass off at the nerve of the little twerp. “Cora, I think you need to understand a few ground rules where my family is concerned. First and foremost, once you’ve had your shot, it’s over. You don’t get to hang on to your anger for a second round.”

Cora curled her lip and slammed her fists into her hips. “You cannot stop me from hating you!” she snarled.

Avis deliberately straightened to his full height. “That, is where you’re sorely mistaken, trouble.” Trouble—his new nick-name for her. Fitting. “By the time I’m done with you, you’ll still sense something’s wrong, but you won’t have a clue about the specifics. Make no mistake, I can and will take that entire day’s memory from you if you keep this crap up.”

He paused for a moment, just long enough for that to sink in. “You want to know where you get your mind powers from, little girl? The ones you’ve deluded yourself into thinking you’re the only one who has them?” He clapped both hands together and bounced them apart to open his arms wide, rolling his fingers back towards himself. “You’re looking at him.”

Cora’s outrage turned to shock … then horror. “YOU?”

Avis grinned. “Me,” he agreed, flicking his eyebrows tauntingly. “That’s my family’s gift, and just like the Hellions and their shifting, the further up the food chain you sit, the more powerful you are.” —he raised his left hand and curled his thumb and forefinger to represent a zero— “Translation: you have exactly no chance of mentally dominating me. Ever.”

“Then why did you let me attack you in your room, if you could have stopped me at any point?”

The question was a fair one, and he found his ire dissipating. His shoulders relaxed and his hand dropped to his side. “Because that’s how we deal with things in Mystal, trouble. I wronged you. Badly. Not through a third party’s circumstance or because of what someone else told you had happened. You were there. You saw it all. You understood everything that happened, and you’ve dealt—or rather—not dealt with it ever since. You deserved your piece of me, and as your father, I gave you that opportunity to get even and then some.”

He squared his shoulders again, resuming the role of both her father and dominant patriarch. A raised hand sliced horizontally through the air between them like an underscore. “But now, it’s done. You bloodied my nose, Cora. Congratulations. I couldn’t be prouder. But if you’re hoping for a rematch, it’ll be with a clean slate and this time I won’t be bending over and taking it up the—”

He barely caught the crude terminology that came so easily to mind. Wow, parental censorship sucked! However, instead of digging himself out, he changed tack entirely. “Like it or not, I’m your father, trouble, and if I’ve got to knock that into your head right now, I will. In a few hours, we’ll all be leaving Hell, and I’m going to have my hands full enough dealing with what’s out there to be worrying about the dagger you’re plotting to throw at my back.”

“So, in Mystal, I get to get even?”

She hadn’t heard a word he’d said after making that point, but he could tell she liked the idea of revenge—a lot. Probably because it had been so thoroughly denied to her in Hell. “An eye for an eye, and a kick in the teeth for good measure,” he agreed, nodding slowly. “You chopped me into finger-knuckle sized pieces, remember?”

Cora grinned at the memory. “Yeah, I did that.”

“And that took much longer than what I did to your mother the night of your birth.” He raised his hand again and flicked two fingers between them. “So, you and I are now done. Your mother and I are also good. Your vengeance is finished.”

Cora pouted sulkily. “What if I do not want it to be?”

“Tough. Mystal is a unified house—more so than your precious Hell …”

“They kicked you out, did they not?”

Avis sucked in a sharp breath and rubbed his mouth until he had his bottom lip pinched between his fingers. This was not where he wanted to have this discussion.

If Belial knew there was a chance they might not have a home to go to in Mystal, he could very well rescind his permission for them to leave, and Avis would remain a prisoner of Hell forever. Or worse, he could keep Clarise and Columbine here and send him and Cora away—effectively splitting up their family unit.

The thought of living without Clarise and Columbine was intolerable; worse than all the time he’d spent amongst the Damned. In case the old bastard was listening in, he had to put a spin on this that didn’t sound so … final.

“What I did was inexcusable. You know that. Under any other circumstances, we’d make our stand as one and fight until Mystal prevailed. In a way, I think they still made that stand. While the Hellion Highborn were banging on our borders and demanding I be handed over to them for punishment, my family exiled me out the other side of the realm to where the Hellions were. If I had to guess, it was so that when the time came, they could answer in all honesty that they didn’t have me, and they had no idea where I was. But what they did know and were probably counting on me to use to stay ahead of the hellions was my innate ability to safeguard my own life.”

Avis knew he was making this up on the fly and he unconsciously scratched at the top of his throat just behind his chin. The truth was, he had had no idea what their inner motives were or where exactly he’d woken up after he’d been beaten into submission.

All he knew for certain was that the Highborn Hellion Guard had marched on Mystal, and Tal’s son, the Mystallian god of magic, had branded him with a rune right where he was rubbing to prevent him from getting back into the celestial realms.

Without that access, he couldn’t get his bearings, but the brute squad hadn’t been able to find him, so distance had to be a factor. The problem was, no one stayed in the mortal realms for long by choice, especially the mortal realm of another pantheon.

He was a God of Life, and outside his powerbase, the life he protected most was his own. That was how he’d been able to stay ahead of the pack for three years. His innate ability safeguarded his life.

Once caught, the Hellions burnt off that magical brand with hellfire, and after his first pass at the Walk, it hadn’t returned. Still, this creative version of events felt right. He knew his family. Despite how furious he’d been with them at the time, he knew they’d have tried to protect him from the Hellions.

Refocusing on the present, he held up three fingers for Cora to see. “For nearly three years I led that chase through the mortal realms. Three years, and not a thing touched me. Not even the pantheons I screwed over along the way. It was nearly three full years before the Hellions somehow cornered me and brought me to heel.”

“And now that the threat of Hell’s wrath is gone, you seriously think the Mystallians will just welcome you back with open arms?” The incredulous look on her tiny face was hilarious.

Avis smirked with pride and nodded. “That’s the plan, trouble.”

“But you nearly got Mystal destroyed! Why in the realms would they do that?”

“Because we’re family, Cora. I’m not whole without them, and they aren’t whole without me.”

Cora twisted her lips, her brow creasing sneeringly. “So … for all your talk, you have a weak family, rather than a strong one.”

Avis’ good mood vanished in an instant. He snapped his teeth against the roar of denial that surged to the back of his throat and swung away before he did something to her he’d later regret.

Thank the Twin Notes he’d had the foresight to have this conversation here … now … almost as far away from his siblings and their descendants as they could possibly be. Not many people called the Mystallians weak to their faces and walked away with their lives. In fact, as of that moment, the number totalled one, and even he as her father wanted to wring her fucking little neck.

“No,” he growled, after taking a few moments to breathe through his rage. “It means any threat to one of us needs to be big enough to take out all of Mystal, or whoever the antagonist is will die for their stupidity. And to date, there are very few realms who are bigger than us.” He held up two fingers. “Two, to be exact.”

He dropped his hand and shook it at his side. “Now, don’t get me wrong. You’ve got plenty of cousins who don’t see eye to eye and they’re forever rolling around on the ground, trying to prove to each other who’s the most powerful amongst them. But the second an outsider approaches with ill-intent, those same cousins will be shoulder-to-shoulder, ready to defend each other with everything they have. That is what it means to be a Mystallian.”

He clenched his left hand—the hand closest to her—and held it out to her in a fist bump. “When one of us does this, and says the name Mystal with strength and pride, any family member within hearing distance will be adding their fist to it in a sign of unity. Mystal. Unified. Now and forever.”

He watched to see if she would come to him, and when she didn’t move, he allowed his hand to fall at his side. Too soon. She still didn’t see the difference between being Mystallian and being Avis, and she would never fist bump him. “You don’t have to like me, trouble, but you will respect me as your father, and one of the supreme rulers of Mystal. In front of anyone else, you follow my lead and we work as one. You hear me?”

Instead of answering, Cora walked casually to the opposite side of the stall and back again in a zig-zag pattern that had her gradually working her way towards him. She focused on every stone she approached, as if each new one required her full attention and the movement in his direction was coincidental.

The ruse was so adorably obvious he didn’t even need to look inside her mind to see what she was planning. Of course, she wasn’t going to take him at his word when he said his mind-bending surpassed hers and she had to fall into line under him. Why should she? Still, it nearly killed him not to laugh and hold out his hand to make her so-called sneak attack that much easier for her.

When Cora was within arms’ reach of his side, she grabbed his forearm with both hands. The steel in her eyes at her A-Ha moment broke through Avis’ determination not to react and he started to chuckle. He had no idea what she was trying to make him do, for a younger mind attacking an elder was on par with a summer breeze hitting a brick wall.

Giving her a moment to deduce the situation for herself, he then raised his arm so that she had to reach over her head to maintain her grip. “Maybe you’re the one with the hearing problem,” he said, still smirking at her.

That steely gaze was gobbled up by more horror as Avis took her hands one at a time and calmly removed them. “I think,” he said, stepping back from her to put some distance between them. “… you need a crash course in where your place in our family is.” He paused, holding his hands out to either side as if that somehow made him less of a threat. “Kneel.”

Without causing her any pain, Avis forced her gently to her knees, allowing the rest of her mind to remain under her control. Her hands shot out to either side as she fought against his domination, but her legs refused to straighten. He stepped forward again and squatted down in front of her, resting his forearms against his knees. “The power which the Highborn Hellion elders have over your body—we of Mystal have over your mind. Those of your generation fall into the touch control category, but only so far as the elder controls the younger.”

“If that is true, why can I not touch control Columbine’s body, yet I can touch control her mind?”

Avis hadn’t realised the identity of Columbine’s anointment-father had been kept from Cora, but every thought his elder daughter was having right now insisted that she’d caught him in a lie. He breathed out heavily. Time for a little … corrective history lesson.

“Because your grandfather Belial anointed her in my absence, so from the shapeshifting side of things, she’s technically your aunt in generational power. And … just in case the knock-on effect escaped you, that means she has ranged shifting over you.” Cora’s pupils constricted, and her mouth opened and closed like a goldfish out of water.

“Judging by that stunned look on your face, I’m assuming she’s never done that to you.” Avis emptied his lungs in a heavy sigh and rolled his eyes skyward. Just when he’d thought Columbine’s sweetness couldn’t be topped, that kid somehow managed to take it to the next level. Right now, she floated somewhere between sublime and immeasurable.

“From the mind-bending side of things,” he went on, refocusing on the task at hand. “She’s still your younger sister and through touch contact you have the power to bend her mind to your will.” Realising the ramifications of what he’d admitted to, he frowned slightly.

“But just so we’re clear, no more messing with her mind on a whim. After that fiasco you put her through the other day, I’ll be checking on her mental state periodically myself and if I find out you’ve been screwing with her for shits and giggles, I guarantee you, you really won’t like what happens next.” He folded his arms to emphasise that point and scowled. “In fact, it’s probably your fault she came and tried to heal you right before you blew up at her in a blood rage.”

Cora’s head shot up. “What?”

Avis leaned forward, putting one knee on the ground to close the distance between them. “Oh, yes. I know all about it. Including the way you mentally ordered your sister to ignore all elder commands. Did you really think such a blanket decree would just go away because you were personally done with it?”

He shook his head, his anger spiking again. “Of course not! And because you didn’t go back in and correct it, she ignored every elder command therein and presumed that decision was of her own making—including the one your Uncle Ludovic gave that forbade her from helping you. On top of that, you went and made her a mute! I swear, every time I think about that one, I could skin you for it! She’s shy enough as it is without you …!”

Realising he was about to lash out, despite his promise to Clarise to keep this cordial, he closed his eyes and tapped his clenched fist against his lips to calm himself down.

“You have to be careful when you’re dealing with one of your own,” he said a few seconds later, breaking the intervening silence. “Proving superiority is one thing, but when you’re done, you need to clean up your own mess. Anything more permanent than a few minutes, you’d better have a damn good reason …”

“What would be a good reason?”

Avis should have anticipated that question, but since he hadn’t, he straightened up and looked around the stable for inspiration. There wasn’t much in the way of choice.

“Say you had a younger cousin whom you saw charging towards a rock wall and knew he was only doing it to enjoy the sensation of getting his brains scrambled. No one would blame you for putting a more permanent “stop head-butting the stone walls” command in place, provided you then went and found his parents and explained why you felt the need to do so. Under those conditions, they’d probably reinforce that command themselves.” It was a pathetic example, but the best he could come up with at the time.

“Where is the fun in that?”

Avis released his control of her and held out his hand to help her upright; chuckling cruelly as he did so. “That, my dear, is what mortals are for.”

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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

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