TBTT 03. He was not prepared for that answer

[moonshadows]

The door to the moderately luxurious suite he has ordered her confined to opens forcefully enough to impact the wall, and closes just as forcefully behind him. He stands there a moment, radiating fury, but she looks thrilled rather than frightened. She is kneeling in the same spot she was standing in when he last saw her, when he ordered her to stay there until he came for her next.  This only infuriates him more, and his wrath washes against her like the waves of an unfriendly ocean.

 “So,” he hisses, “you thought to mock me.”

 She jerks as if struck. “Never!”

 He pauses. The discordant echo he is accustomed to hearing when he is lied to is…absent. As it was when she threw herself on his mercy and declared that she wished to serve him. The moment passes and his fury, renewed, beats down upon her.

 “Then explain to me how it is that this amulet-“ and he lets it dangle in front of her, “-has no magical properties.”

 She watches the familiar object sway before her as the growl fades into silence. It takes her a moment to collect enough thought-fragments to determine that it is her obedience which has enraged him, and why.  She raises her eyes to his calmly. “The amulet didn’t command me; you did.”

 That gives him pause. It took him half a day to confirm that this suite had been fitted with a monitoring system, locate the screen that showed his new prize, and have it moved to a more convenient location so that his guards could keep an eye on her. She has stayed in the same spot since he left her there, whether standing or kneeling as she is now. He’d been pleased with the effectiveness of the amulet Joshua had surrendered, but there was no magic in the thing – and now that demonic sense which had never been wrong about others attempting to deceive him was silent. Was she telling the truth? Or had she found a better way to lie?

 “And did your former master command such obedience from you as well?”

 She changes position, rocks back from kneeling to sitting with her arms around her knees. He still sounds as if he would tear the answer from her flesh, but he’s not as angry as he seems. “Joshua never commanded me,” she says with a shrug. “He only pretends to use the amulet so that people aren’t frightened of me. I needed someone to teach me how this world works, but he’s been…kind to me.” It stings her pride to be so vulnerable before him, but it negates some of his rage so she doesn’t try to hide anything from him. “He made me part of his family.”

 Despite himself, he can feel the anger slipping away. It was a cunning strategy; not one he could have pulled off, but it clearly worked well for her. It occurs to him suddenly that he’s been yelling at a child, and had been contemplating the torturous interrogation of a man who, if her words are true, knowingly welcomed a demon into his home and was kind to her.

 “Made you part of his family,” he repeats slowly, “where your own family was…not kind?” Habit gives the words a sarcastic edge.

 Her eyes drop. “My mother conceived me as a weapon against my father, and then used me as a bargaining chip to get what she wanted. My father left me to be raised by his mother, who doted on me until she realized I didn’t inherit his power, and then barely tolerated me. My uncles are all dead or in the Legion, but they left behind sons who bullied me while my grandmother watched. My aunts don’t care about one weak little half-breed, for the most part. I got pity from some, but…” she shrugs. “They all think I’m worthless, and they’re probably right. I inherited my father’s skill, but not his strength.” She looks up at him again, and he is startled by the mingled admiration and self-loathing on her face. “I used to think skill could make up for raw power, but…” she blinks, and a few tears creep down her cheeks. “I couldn’t stop you, so I guess that proves me wrong.”

The fact that she doesn’t sound resentful is one more thing he didn’t expect, and makes him slightly uncomfortable with how he’s been treating her. Some of the attacks she threw at him were impressively complex for the small amount of power that had backed them, and he’d had to break them through sheer strength because he was too impatient to unravel them, or simply couldn’t figure out how to do so.

“Raw power is no substitute for true strength,” he finds himself saying, the words cutting their way out of him from where he’d locked those memories away, tangled emotions bleeding out in their wake.

She sniffles a bit. “I still wish I could come close to commanding even a quarter of your power, but I’ll never be that good. I’m not strong enough to inherit my father’s place or make one of my own, so I came here and I thought I could at least defend it…but I can’t even do that.”

Anger boils out of him again, but it’s not her that it’s directed towards. It’s the same anger that’s been a part of him for so long that he can’t even trace the track it’s worn into his mind. It pulses, flows  within him like the beat of his blood, inseparable, integral to him. “Stop that,” he snaps, and is rewarded with a look of wondering admiration on her teary face. He thrusts the amulet out again. “You will maintain the charade that this holds control over you. You will remain here – in these quarters – until I return, and you will not attempt to leave. Is that understood?”

"Yes, my Lord.”

Her face reflects the rapt devotion in her voice and he leaves as quickly as he arrived.