George was more in charge of castle security than anyone else.
Phillip still had a fair idea of how the ladies were vetted, and how to get around that if necessary.
“We were well aware of the unexpected demise of Lord Norwood twenty years ago, and the destruction of their home and wealth. Lady Norwood was straightforward about her unorthodox choice to raise her daughters near the edge due to their strained circumstances. Her father, General Ansulf, would likely have taken her in if she’d asked. Lady Norwood admitted to an abundance of pride, which she had come to regret. She had planned to contact her father while in court in hopes of a reunion.”
Phillip drank his tea after that rendition of the facts.
His tea was the perfect temperature again, almost cool enough to gulp. He finished the cup, waiting to see if the demon had anything more to complain about now.
“That’s a lie!” William spat out.
Phillip looked over to William. He hadn’t expected his brother to dispute the story they had both worked out after interviewing the security guards and from their own conversations with Jill during her time in court.
“What a pretty, sad tale to beg the court’s sympathy,” the demon said. “Did they make up some tragic nonsense to explain how their home was completely destroyed? Every damn stone turned over, crumbled on itself like a sand castle, smashed by an angry child.”
“We didn’t discuss it,” Phillip admitted.
He wasn’t the type to pry into what was obviously a black episode in the lives of the Norwoods. That kind of talk was unsuited to wooing witches.
He had definitely tried his best to woo Jill for William’s sake, given her strong earth.
“Lady Norwood never spoke to her father or sent him a message while at court. I visited the general myself—after their sudden departure—and he didn’t even know his daughter and granddaughters were still alive. He has a memorial set up for them in his home,” William shared.
Phillip didn’t respond right away. It was his first of hearing about William’s trip.
Jill had never mentioned her grandfather.
Only Lady Norwood had done so, in conversation with Phillip’s own mother, which is how he heard about Kaila’s regret regarding the prolonged separation from her family.
A general for a grandfather provided the kind of connection that any witch seeking a court position would envy, even if it was for common earth magic.
Why would Kaila lie about a reunion?
“Did you learn anything else of importance when you visited General Ansulf?” Phillip asked his brother.
Phillip forced himself to grab a couple of cucumber sandwiches from the simple luncheon platter as he waited for the answer.
He had a bit of a sweet tooth and would prefer some of the cookies laid out, but they would have to wait until after the demon was gone. Powder on his fingers and crumbs on his cravat were not very becoming of a royal.
“Nothing of import really, or else, I would have mentioned it before now,” his brother smoothly answered.
William grabbed one of the sugar dusted, snowball cookies that Phillip had been eyeing up.
The plain sandwich Phillip had picked was quickly chewed and swallowed.
“I don’t see how useful any of this information has been thus far,” Phillip grumbled.
The dry bread of the sandwich was sticking in this throat. He tried to clear it with a sip of tea.
William snagged a thumbprint jam cookie.
Phillip swallowed his sip of tea and continued on with his reply.
“Something terrible happened to the Norwood family. It cost them their home. They are still affected to the point that they’re not ready to reunite with General Ansulf. As nobody knows what happened, anything else is supposition and rumour.”
“Pardon me, Prince Phillip, but that is not entirely correct.”
After interrupting, the demon wiped the crumbs from the second snowball cookie he had gobbled, while Phillip had talked.
The napkin, the demon crumpled and tossed on top of the plate, sending the sugar dust left on the porcelain, flying into the air.
A discreet air-barrier kept Phillip’s clothes pristine.
Manners were lost on their guest.
Phillip was close to disposing of his own like the demon had his napkin.
“Do get to the point,” William impatiently prompted, grabbing the last snowball cookie and a strawberry rhubarb tart.
Phillip shoved the second cucumber sandwich in his mouth and chewed. It had the crusts cut off, which made it small enough to be bite-sized for someone of his proportions.
“I was there the night Elizabeth Norwood sucked the magic out of her father and killed him,” the demon said.
The hastily swallowed sandwich wedged itself in Phillip’s throat at the same time as a servant dropped a fresh plate of snowball cookies onto the floor with a clatter.
“Out!” Phillip croaked, smacking himself on the chest to clear his throat. “Everybody out, but William and our guest!”
The servants left the wasted food on the floor and scurried to obey. They had just closed the doors for the privacy of the remaining occupants when Phillip pushed his chair back.
He almost sent the chair toppling as he stood up to reach the tall pitcher of ice water. He turned his glass over and poured it full, without giving the demon a single glance.
Only after he had drained it of all but a few, small cubes of ice—which clinked back against the glass as he set it firmly back on the table—and swiped a hand across his mouth to wipe the few stray drops of water, did Phillip look at the demon.
He levelled a withering glance at the cause of his indigestion.
“Explain yourself,” Phillip ordered.
Skeletons Unearthed
He had enough.
His mate had been most foully accused.
The demon may not have realized he’d been pushing Phillip’s buttons earlier, but it was obvious now.
The tendril of fear that wafted from the demon was more palatable than the earlier stench Phillip had detected.
“It’s the witch who should be explaining herself. My silence about her evilness has already cost so many lives, but the things she made me do . . .” the demon trailed off, staring into nothing, over Phillip’s shoulder.
Any respect he’d had for the demon had already been lost.
Phillip scoffed, pouring himself more water.
“Elizabeth would have been barely out of diapers at the time that you accuse her of patricide. You should have researched your facts more carefully before you approached us with this ridiculous—”
“She was three years old,” the demon interrupted. “I’m her uncle on her late father’s side, Maeren bless my late brother. I was living in their castle at the time. I thought you knew this already, and that was why you agreed to an audience.”
No, he’d only agreed because of the request from George’s mother, unaware of the connection.
“Your brother was related to Prince George’s fire-clan?” William asked. He sounded surprised, too.
Certainly, none of the Norwoods had boasted about their royal ties. It seemed odd, given they’d been looking for entrée to a royal harem, to not lever the connection.
“Yes, we’re both a distant relation to Prince George’s fire-clan. It’s through marriage, not blood. They were still kind enough to take me in after the tragedy that occurred. I would have likely died on my own, injured and drained of my magic.”
“This is utter nonsense,” Phillip said, taking back his seat and sipping from his water glass more slowly.
The cold had been the slap to his senses that he’d needed to focus.
The demon had waited over twenty years to suddenly approach them with his story. Such timing was suspicious.
“Jill has always been the stronger witch of the two sisters,” the demon said.
He was undeterred by Phillip’s expression of disbelief at Elizabeth being a killer at
such a tender age.
Jill’s greater strength was less questionable, but why did that matter?
“Elizabeth was born a runt, dwarfed in magic despite the power of her parents. Something must have happened during the pregnancy, although Kaila always denied any wrongdoing. With her blood witch ways, Kaila doubtless tried a spell, which sapped Elizabeth of even average-strength,” the demon continued.
“You can’t prove it,” William said.
Blood witches were even more myth, although the king had believed in them.
William was likely referring to a spell to strengthen a child born weak.
Some elementals believed sickly children who died in their first year were never meant for more—a kind of natural selection. They discouraged parents from interfering with it.
When times had been hard during the clan wars, resources more scare and earth healing harder to come by, that reasoning had been accepted.
It was why most parents didn’t officially name their children until after their first birthday, even to this day.
“Elizabeth is a weak air-witch,” Phillip lied. In Daemon’s bedroom, she’d met him head on in a hurricane of power. “Most witches have gentler gifts. It isn’t a crime to be born weak in magic.”
Of course, magic strength was revered and much attention was paid to the firstborn child of any coupling. A strong enough firstborn could sometimes be named by the parents before the first birthday.
“Kaila married into the Norwood family without a spark of fire magic. She knew that my brother would seek another witch from his harem to breed his heirs if she failed to produce a proper fire-child. Until Jill was born, she insisted that Elizabeth had dormant fire. Kaila said Elizabeth’s fire needed time to mature. My brother spent a fortune on medics and quacks to find out what was wrong with his eldest girl. It probably put strange ideas in the child’s mind, thinking she could fix what was wrong with her when she was born too inferior to ever rise above her mediocre powers. A child wants only to please their parents, and Elizabeth would have done anything to please Kaila, even submit to dark blood spells to cheat her natural gifts.”
William raised a hand to pause the demon’s incredible story.
He had accused Kaila of abusing magic himself, but the demon was detailing an atrocity that would rock all of Maeren if true.
Many parents pushed their children to practice and develop their magic to achieve their potential.
To experiment with magic that could do untold horrors upon your own child was another thing entirely.
Kaila would be a contemptible monster.
“Do you have any evidence that such magical perversions took place?” asked William. His upper lip curled when he spoke, as if the words themselves tasted foul.
“As they say, the proof is in the pudding. Did either of you taste Elizabeth while she was here?” the demon asked, pouring himself a glass of ice water.
Both princes shook their heads in denial.
Phillip, of course, wasn’t going to reveal this to Elizabeth’s accuser.
“Did anyone other than Prince Daemon—who has betrayed all of Maeren in his rush to claim the throne—taste her? She was at a tasting ball, wasn’t she?” the demon mockingly asked.
Enough! Phillip wiped his mouth on the napkin, folded it, and put it neatly beside his plate. He pushed his chair back.
Fire begged him to let his temper outwardly burn.
“Elizabeth is shy, a wallflower who never would have even caught Daemon’s attention, except for a clumsy accident. You also will do well to keep your accusation about Prince Daemon to yourself. He has a right to a trial, like any other citizen.”
William nodded to Phillip as he rose. His younger brother could take care of dismissing the demon and his wild tale, but Phillip wasn’t going to stick around a moment more.
“I thought it all was in my head, too, until I realized it wasn’t me at all. It was Elizabeth, in my mind—controlling my thoughts, what I felt, saw, and heard. She cast a spell on me that I fear would pull me under to this day if she willed me to be her puppet again.”
“There is no magic that controls the mind,” Phillip dismissed with a shiver, his hand on the door lever.
“Lightning is the very electricity of your thoughts,” the demon said.
Phillip dropped his hand.
He thought not of Elizabeth, but of his eldest brother’s strange ability to always know where they were in the castle.
It was more than uncanny timing and a watchful gaze.
When they were young boys, Daemon had found Phillip in the bowels of the castle, wedged under a heavy shelf that had fallen on Phillip in the cold storage.
Phillip had tried to sneak an apple from a high perch and fell, pulling the top-heavy shelf over.
It had been slowly crushing Phillip, his body twisted, so the shelf caught him more on his left side. He’d fractured many ribs and other bones, weakening by the minute as he couldn’t take a deep enough breath. He had been blinking out of unconsciousness when Daemon unerringly found him.
Phillip hadn’t been able to yell for help.
It had been dumb, blind luck that Daemon came across him while hunting for a castle cat.
William’s bark of laughter interrupted the silence.
“A lightning witch? Now I’ve heard everything. Go, Phillip. I’ll have Lord Norwood escorted out.”
Phillip joined the laughter, although he felt anything but merry.
“Please, it was just getting amusing,” he said, dismissing William’s offer.
He turned around and gave the demon a careless, bored look.
The demon was still sweating under the collar.
Phillip retook his seat, crossing his legs and resting his booted feet on the chair next to him.
The demon smiled back as Phillip tipped his chair, and he knew he had succeeded in hitting the right tone.
“You were telling us how a little girl sucked out your brain power,” Phillip prompted.
The demon ignored the provocative retelling.
“I wasn’t there when they named Elizabeth, but Jill’s magic was worth celebrating at her naming ceremony. It was where I met my young nieces for the first time. They made such an impression that I offered to stay a while—with my brother—to help train the youngest. All of the attention on Jill must be when Elizabeth started feeling jealous. Elizabeth was always underfoot, thwarting my efforts to spend time alone with Jill as I taught the youngest the basics of her fire magic.”
“Why didn’t her father teach her?” Phillip interrupted.
“He was but green powered,” the demon answered. “I had reached the highest levels of blue with my transition,” he humbly admitted.
“The basics don’t involve blue,” Phillip pointed out.
“So, I was teaching more than the basics. Jill’s raw potential outweighed most vampires I’ve fought. Her parent’s ambitions were royal, and she was the closest witch to the Blue Queen’s strength that Maeren has seen since that one’s disappearance.”
Pushy, ambitious parents, wanting more and more magic from their children. That Phillip could believe.
“Go on,” he said with an outward, bored sigh.
What had the demon meant when he said Elizabeth was always underfoot? Had it been like Daemon’s ability to find anyone in the castle?
“I probably pushed Jill too hard as a child. I only had experience with soldiers. Jill had done so well that I took her training farther than I should have for a girl her age. She weakened, instead of getting stronger, and then she developed the anemia of her sister. We stopped the training, of course, but Jill failed to recover. I suspect it was an inherited weakness of magic on the mother’s side. Fire never melds well with earth, tempered and banked.”
William cleared his throat. “Prince George has both magics and even Daemon avoids picking a fight with him.”
“It’s just a theory,” the demon quickly responded. “I remember earth-lords glowing with the h
eat from dragon fire that seemed only to forge them into stronger fighters,” he added, perhaps as a salve to William’s earth-strengths that he had maligned.
Phillip nodded. The demon may have a point.
George’s earth-magic was fairly weak compared to his fire. Perhaps a balance, favouring one or the other, was better than Jill’s extremes of both powers.
Even the twins had difficulty with their polar opposite powers, preferring to use one at a time, but it paid to never forget they trained to use both if necessary.
“I didn’t realize Elizabeth was already manipulating me then. A simple suggestion became my own idea. She had Kaila’s wicked attentions and guidance at such a young age. It’s the only explanation for how Elizabeth’s mind became twisted in its immature state. Elizabeth was power hungry, always pushing her secret magic onto her sick, younger sister for practice. I fear if her parents had let Elizabeth stay the long days in Jill’s room instead of only the nights, the youngest would have died in her sleep, never avenged. It was how I found them that afternoon: Elizabeth entwined over her sister’s body, weaving her magic to hold Jill still as she opened her mouth over Jill’s sweet, sleeping face and drank down Jill’s soul like a demon. Elizabeth’s power was immense, but I still tried to stop her, rushing into the room, until she used the fire she had stolen from Jill and circled me with flames.”
The demon paused, dry swallowing before reaching for his glass of water. The ice had melted, but he still gulped it down like it was the coldest, most refreshing glass of water he’d ever drank.
“She’s a monster,” William pronounced.
The horror suffusing his tone was even worse than when he told Phillip that his earth confirmed their father’s bones were the ones laid upon his burned out bed.
The demon continued. “I don’t know how such a foul creature could be born of my brother’s loins. It had to be Kaila’s blood magic, corrupting Elizabeth’s soul so that she was born a demon.”
Born evil. Everyone said it about Daemon, although Phillip had always denied it.
“Why didn’t you fight back, protect Jill? Elizabeth was still a child, no matter her unusual powers,” Phillip pointed out.
Witch Darkness Follows (Maeren Series Book 3) Page 11