Chương 58: Chapter 57: A Change to the Status Quo

++Hard power was always more my style than soft power. Inconvenient, given what my enemies were. More inconvenient given how I looked. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E. My father took quite some time in finishing up with the social affair, forcing me to wait. I comforted myself with the knowledge that, given what I had seen of his interactions with Earl Yilear, he was probably even more annoyed about the fact than me. That comfort did not last long.

Fortunately, I had literally spent more of my existence learning to deal with boredom than I had doing anything else by a factor of trillions of times over, if not more. There was no real mental strain on my part to just wait, and within another hour I was rewarded. I got some more practice done for my mana as I stood there, so it was also not a total waste. Rather than confront the Baron immediately, I elected to let him reach his study first.

If I tried to make him do something he did not want to, he would refuse outright should the display happen in front of other people. My father was a vain man and could not bear the thought of being seen to surrender. He did not like actually surrendering, either, but I hoped to convince him that his best interests lay in that route now. Once he was in the study, I deftly knocked upon its door and waited for an answer. He seemed surprised to see me, and not unpleasantly so.

"Come in dear," he smiled, stepping back to make way for me as I did. It was my first time actually being in his study with express permission, not counting that brief entry I made to present the forged documents from the Winzorth Institute half a decade ago now. The place had changed somewhat, more papers littering it and more work clearly in need of doing. Despite that, it still looked fundamentally the same. A fireplace warmed it from one corner and a great many fencing trophies dotting its walls.

The floor was carpeted, the walls solid stone, and it all gave me the impression of an artillery shelter that had been rather forcibly converted into a real living space. It was the most 'Baron Agrian Vornholt' room I had ever seen.

"Now to what do I owe the pleasure?" my father chirped. He was in a good mood, excellent. That would hopefully work to my favour here.

"I need to speak about Victoria," I told him bluntly. His smile quivered, a crack in the cheery facade.

"How is your sister?" he asked, conversationally. I could tell he was bracing himself for something, he was pouring a drink.

"She told me you have not been letting her practice magic." He did not look up as he answered.

"That's right. Not ladylike, magic. No good at all for a girl of her age."

"But I practice magic," I countered.

"Well, you're you, and she's Victoria." My father's smile was fuel on the bonfire of my temper.

"Are we cleared up now?" What a ridiculous question. I yearned for the freedom, one day, to point out such idiocy.

"No. Why am I permitted to practice magic while Victoria is not?"

"Because we needed you to, Isabel. You were an opportunity we couldn't pass up, you and Agrian. The first and second most magically gifted prodigies in living memory, maybe in all of history. The family was…bah, you're old enough now, the family wasn't doing well financially. We still aren't as a matter of fact." He gestured to his loaded desk.

"All that? That's me scrambling to keep us afloat for a few more years, until you find a marriage to someone well-connected and Agrian starts drawing in magical contracts." I was not really surprised, most of this I either knew already or had guessed myself, but to hear him say it all so brazenly was shocking itself.

"And you will deny Victoria the opportunity to hone her own powers, why exactly?" This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"I will give Victoria the chance to live a normal life!" he snapped, all good humour and patience gone in a flash. I saw something I had not expected in my father's eyes; loathing.

"She's just a child," he continued.

"All she sees in magic is pretty colours and fun passtimes, she doesn't understand what it actually means. By the time she does she'll be old and practiced enough that word will have gotten out, and she'll be just a freak. I've already seen that for you, I don't want it for my other children." I took time to consider that.

"So Agrian and myself, we were just sacrificial lambs to increase the family's wealth?" His face twisted with total agony, and I thought for a moment he would deny it.

"Yes," he said instead.

"At the end of the day, yes, and that was my greatest failure to both of you. I'm sorry. But I will not do that to Victoria too, not her, not Qaigor if he shows talent either." It made some level of internal sense at least. I did not much care about that, however. It was still an impediment to my plans. I had not even managed to test Qaigor in my last visit, he had been too young and undeveloped to show any magical talent he may have had. Now I was being told I could not test him here? Ridiculous.

"Magic makes me and Agrian powerful," I told my father, deciding to try a new tract.

"Do you want to deny Victoria her chance at that same power?"

"I want to keep from turning her into a freak!" he snapped. He fell silent, and I let that silence linger. His guilt would be my ally here.

"I shouldn't have said that," the Baron sighed at last.

"I'm sorry Isabel, but you must understand that I'm doing this for her own good. And Qaigor's."

"You are doing this because you dislike magicians, even though half of your own children are already among their number." I could not hold my temper back now, it was bubbling up from within me. This new body, all these new feelings. Twelve years was no time at all to adjust to the sheer physicality of my new emotions.

"Don't presume to talk to me like that," my father snapped.

"I'm still your father, you're still my child."

"No, I am your sacrifice," I countered.

"Your money-making scheme to be quickly used and discarded once convenient—" he moved faster than I could see, standing before me in an instant. There was no magical defence for this, human speed did not exist at such a timescale. One moment he was yards away, then he was in front of me, then the backhand came around and caught me hard across the side of the face. My feet left the ground. I lay there for a few moments, maybe as long as a minute.

My head was spinning and shock slowly working its way through my system, and all the while Baron Agrian Vornholt looked down at me and said nothing. I was surging with adrenaline by the time I reached my feet.

"I didn't enjoy that," my father said as I climbed back to stand before him.

"Understand that, I didn't enjoy it. But I had to do it, and I will do it again if I need to. You're almost a woman, now, Isabel, I—ARHG!" he hurled back and slammed into the stone wall like he had been thrown by an ancient onager, his body bouncing from it and sending cracks along its surface as the glass flew from his hand to strike the surface beside him. It was liquor-sodden dust after impact. My father dropped down to the floor and lay there panting, staring up at me in disbelief.

"You…" I had used my magic on him, of course. And I was not done yet. Weaving aether around me, I hefted a great block of it high over my head, then let it hover there suspended by my mana. With a mild exertion, I muted the walls of the room around us, not wanting to be disturbed. I watched my father, still remembering how terribly fast he could be when the situation called for it.

"You will not do that again," I told him. The challenge seemed to snap him out of his reverie, he was on his feet so fast it was like his whole body was a compressed spring let loose, lunging for me. The aether was barely fast enough to halt his charge and fling him back again. The wall cried in pain for a second time as the Baron rebound from it. Now, there was blood dribbling down the back of his gashed head. A normal human skull would have been liquefied instantly.

"You will not," I repeated, "do that again." My father was staring up at me with a mix of rage and…yes, fear. A start.

"You would use magic on me?" he croaked.

"On your own father?!"

"You hit me," I told him simply.

"I was disciplining you!"

"And now I am disciplining you, letting you know that you will not, in fact, do that again. Nor will you do it to Agrian, nor Victoria, nor Qaigor. Nor my mother. You will never strike another member of this family for as long as you live." I was not sure what possessed me to add that, but it made sense. If he got used to hitting, he would be more likely to hit me. But of course, Baron Vornholt did not appreciate that logic.

"What happened to you?" he gasped as he lay there, trembling and leaning back now, more fearful and disgusted than angry.

"You…you were my little girl."

"I was not, and have never been, that," I told him calmly.

"You have been warned now, you know where the line is. Do not cross it again, father, or there will be consequences for you." I cannot describe the primal rush that went through me as I delivered that final proclamation. My father flinched back from it like he had been given a verdict from the Gods.

"I will teach Victoria magic," I continued.

"That is going to happen. How you respond to it is entirely your choice, but just bear this in mind when you do. Remember this day forever. Every time you think of raising a hand to me, or of defying me, or of slighting and controlling me, recall that you are not the most powerful creature in this family anymore." I had done things his way, and lived as the helpless child. It had gotten me nowhere fast. Twelve years old was old enough to menstruate, and it was old enough to begin taking my fate into my own hands.

"That will be all," I said at last, then headed for the door.

"It was good to see you again, father," I called back as I left. And it was.