Book 3 Chapter 39: Younger like Older

++Defeat! These ‘Gods’ wield their powers like flailing morons, but they possess so much raw strength that there seems little I can do to counter it. My legions are destroyed one after another, faster than I can make them, and even my most fell weapons do nothing to even inconvenience them. The lesson is clear now; I cannot engage them directly, not even with an army at my back. For now at least, Lord Dread must wage this war from the shadows.++

- Fragment of Lord Dread’s archives, date indeterminate.

Mother and Father didn’t know that Victoria was listening. They didn’t know she could. Isabel had always been the clever one, the queen of the household. Victoria wasn’t like her. She wasn’t as tall or as pretty or as talented, she was old enough now to know all these things. Neither did she have Isabel’s quiet mastery of the world, that uncanny ability to move others to her desires with only a look and a whispered word.

But she wasn’t stupid either, and she wasn’t untalented with magic. After hearing about her older sister’s spying habits so many times, it had been simple for Victoria to mimic the spellwork she used as part of them. Doctor Brown’s lessons on physics had helped a lot.

So here she was, standing outside Father’s study on the other side of the locked door, inches of thick oak between her and what must have been the most important conversation she’d ever heard. Her magic was formed into aether tubes carefully layered to carry the sound through one end and into her waiting ear, filtering out the background noise from either side of it as best it could. Imperfect. Victoria had made an error somewhere, because the audio quality was poor and left her ears straining. She couldn’t imagine how she might fix it.

But she could still hear, and that was what mattered.

“She’s in over her head!” Mother exclaimed. Her voice was raised and jagged like Victoria had never heard it before. Mother was always calm, and when she spoke with Father she was gentle, but now she roared at him like he was a cow and she the farmer. Father seemed to just take it, not exploding into anger like Victoria would have expected. His reply came loudly enough, but the heat was nothing compared to that of his wife’s.

“When has she ever been in over her head?” he asked.

“You can’t be serious,” Mother snapped. “The damned Vorets are sniffing around that refinery, do you think she can fight them off herself? You need to do something Agrian.”

“Do what?!” Father’s temper finally flashing through now. Victoria flinched as she heard his voice. Agrian had once said that Father’s rage was ugly and dark, she’d never seen it. Perhaps this was a glimpse. It felt like there was something more there than she was hearing, bubbling under the surface. If there was, it remained submerged and hidden save for that brief flash.

“Call her back,” Mother said at last. “It’s all still in your name, right?”

Father hesitated. “...Not quite. The refinery is, the funds aren’t, the land isn’t.”

“How could you let her do this?” Mother asked, exasperated and disbelieving. “What did you think she’d do with this kind of independence? Damn it Agrian, she’s always been rash!”

“She offered me the chance to make our family’s fortune back, and it was damned well working,” Father growled. “Don’t talk to me about rash, Isabel is one of the most successful entrepreneurs alive.”

“WAS!” Mother roared, then choked back into silence before continuing with a quieter voice. “She was one of the most successful businessmen alive, for a few brief weeks before this trouble found her. Now the water is getting too hot, and Isabel, as always, is opting to keep swimming and trust in her own ability to stave off the burns rather than do what she should and flee. Are you going to leave our little girl to destroy herself, Agrian?”

There was such a strong note of pleading in Mother’s voice that Victoria herself felt moved by it, even as she reeled back from hearing her describe Isabel in such a way.

Father, though, was not to be moved.

“Isabel was never our little girl,” he said darkly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Mother demanded.

“I mean that she…is not a normal girl,” even Father didn’t seem to know what he’d been about to say, or else was burying it in his own mind better than Victoria would’ve thought possible.

“But she is still just a girl. How can you let her do this?”

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Silence, thick and heavy and painful as a great weight bearing down on Victoria’s spine. She wasn’t sure who would speak first, who would break first. It ended up being Father.

“I don’t think you understand who Isabel is if you think we let her do anything,” he said at last. “She’s made up her mind and she won’t be deterred. If I try to impede her directly…I’ll have just made myself an obstacle.”

“Stop that,” Mother snapped. “Stop talking about her like she’s some…some monster.”

“She’s dangerous, is what she is,” Father growled. “I love her, Elizabeth, you know I do, but I’m not blind. I know you aren’t either.”

“She’s unconventional,” Mother said at last. Victoria just stared into the keyhole, trying to see either of her parents’ faces. Neither one was visible. She had only their voices.

“Well, our unconventional daughter isn’t going to back down, and if we try to do anything to keep her out of this fight she’ll…overreact.” Father sounded like he wanted to say more, and was trying very hard not to. He got like that a lot, always around Victoria. Always handling her like she was made of glass.

Mother was doing the same to Isabel, she realised. She’d gotten like that even more once Isabel flew. Everyone had been thrilled to see it, Mother above all, but once the novelty wore off she’d started worrying, then turned her focus to Victoria. ‘Never copy that’, she’d said. ‘You’ll get hurt’.

It was a smothering love, and the only kind Mother could give.

“Then perhaps we should go to the Vorets themselves and arrange…arrange a marriage personally. Isabel is not yet twenty-one, you still have the authority until she reaches full adulthood.”

Father’s voice sounded like steel scraping on iron and eroding it.

“You will never suggest that to me again,” he growled. “Never again. And we will pretend you didn’t suggest it now.”

Victoria heard footsteps, and took a moment to realise they were headed for the door. She scrambled to the side and managed to hide around one corner of the corridor just before Father emerged. He left the study in a stormy rage.

“What are you going to do then!?” Mother yelled as she followed after him, all thoughts of propriety and hiding their argument forgotten.

Both of them were preoccupied with one another, which meant their peripheral vision was about on-par with a man looking down a telescope. It was a family weakness. Victoria used it to her full advantage as she angled her head around the corner to stare as her parents continued fighting. Father looked by far the more furious, Mother the more desperate.

Neither seemed likely to back down.

“I’m going to put an end to this madness,” Father spat. “I’m going to save our daughter and I’m going to do it the right way. The only way I can.” He rounded on Elizabeth, eyes like fire. “And if you get in my way, I don’t care what threats she makes or ultimatums she gives. I’ll put you in the fucking ground and stride over your rotting corpse to fix this.”

Victoria’s legs felt weak. The words echoed in her head, rebounding off against the insides of her skull. She wanted to weep, though some new instinct kept her as silent as the grave. She was scared. Scared in the presence of Father, in her own home.

No. She was scared of her Father, trapped in her own home. Everything good and safe about the Vornholt estate had become bad and deadly in that one sentence.

Then the atmosphere cracked. Something about the cold aura of dread and danger thinned, and Father’s eyes softened a shade. He stepped towards Mother and reached out for her. “Elizabeth, I’m sorry, I—” but Mother backed away.

“What were you talking about, when you mentioned Isabel’s threats and ultimatums?” she asked him. Her voice was as cold now as his had been moments before.

Father hesitated. He looked more uncertain at that moment than Victoria had ever seen him.

“A few years ago…shortly after she returned from Winzorth, Isabel…made me promise not to lay hands on you again. Or Agrian, or Victoria or Qaigor. She…used the threat of her magic to enforce it.”

Mother looked like she’d just been cut with a knife. “So that’s why you stopped,” she finished. “Because you were scared of our daughter.”

Father didn’t meet her eye, and he didn’t deny it. She continued.

“You were always capable of controlling yourself then,” she accused. “You always had it in you to fight back that temper and resist when it flared up. All these years, I’d thought you did it for me. For our family. But it was just because you were afraid.”

She was crying now. So was Victoria. So was Father. This sight was a new one too, and even worse than his rage.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked.

Mother just turned from him and walked away. Victoria melted back behind the wall and backed off more, so that her mother would not see her as she passed. When the Baroness was gone, she moved back to her previous vantage point and watched her father.

He seemed unsteady on his legs, swaying slightly as if in a breeze. Victoria saw him just standing there, doing and saying nothing, and after a few moments she stepped out from behind the corner and walked over.

“Is Isabel going to be okay?” she asked him.

Father didn’t seem surprised to see her there. Perhaps surprise was just beyond him at the moment. He turned with sad, empty eyes to answer her.

“Isabel is going to be fine,” he told her as he reached out and pulled Victoria into a hug. His arms felt hard and thick, like pillars of stone. Usually that was reassuring, but today Victoria couldn’t imagine anything more scary than her father’s strength.

“Do you promise?” Victoria asked him, looking up into her father’s eyes as she spoke. She saw him smiling now, though without any warmth. It reminded her rather vividly of a stalking wolf.

“Oh yes,” he said at last. “I promise you. Because I’m going to be there to protect her.”