Thunder rumbled outside; Fay Greeley, of the Fellowship's Council, shivered and pulled her sweater more firmly around her broad shoulders. Storms made her uneasy; they held too much elemental power, utterly untamed and uncontrolled. Though she knew how strong the shields were, around this room where the Fellowship's Council had met since its formation a century before, she'd have preferred to be in her carefully environmentally-controlled home, under her own shields.
The five of them sat around the curve of a great semi-circular oak table, in a square limestone-walled room with a window on each of three sides and a door on the fourth; at least the closed curtains spared her the sight of the trees lashing in the storm, but the rain pounded on the roof mercilessly, and the thunder made the ground tremble, the vibrations travelling right through the stone floor.
“We have had no fewer than five members resign from the Fellowship in the last two months!” Norton Waller said angrily—but then, he said everything angrily, in Fay's experience. “All complaining that we overstepped ourselves forbidding contact with the Lyndells, or claiming that we waste Fellowship resources and opened the Fellowship to harassment by encouraging independents to see that it's best to join us!”
“And so far we've failed with the last few independents,” muttered Rosemary Kincaid. “God knows, the Terevan boy and his little gang need a leash.” She was still smarting, Fay knew, over her humiliation in an extremely upscale clothing store, when her credit card came up as having been reported stolen. She was hardly the only one. No one could prove that it was that grandson of Margaret Lyndell’s who was living with that insufferable Terevan boy and who compensated for his weak witchblood with a talent for computers, but there wasn’t much room for doubt.
“We need to do something to restore order within the Fellowship, before we lose any more!”
“Let them go,” Cordell Batista said lazily, reclining in his carved wooden chair as though on a throne. In his own mind, Fay thought, he was a king listening to his advisors wrangling. “If their loyalty is so tenuous, we can only be stronger without them.”
Power rippled, somewhere close, shivering across the shields. The heavy bronze-bound oak door, spell-locked by all five for security while they conducted Council business, trembled and opened.
While all five Council members stared, shocked speechless by this unprecedented intrusion, three people stepped inside. None showed any sign of being wet from the rain drumming against the windows. One Fay recognized as Margaret's blond grandson; that one stopped just inside the doors, leaning against the wall casually with his arms crossed, watching.
The other two... Christian Terevan was equally readily identifiable, the family resemblance unmistakable. Power beyond anything Fay had ever seen channelled and controlled outside of a prepared circle sparkled around him in a brilliant prismatic halo, turned him from a young man in simple black jeans and green T-shirt to a mage from a legend.
Beside him, keeping in perfect stride, was a woman... no, not a woman, not with that dark rippling aura, but she had the form of one, clad in sleek black leather that covered her long legs down to heeled boots, her arms down to fingerless gloves baring deadly-looking black nails, the collar of what looked to be a corset rising to frame her white neck but leaving a long narrow V bare to show a hint of cleavage. What was she?
Christian stopped, a short distance from the table; the woman halted half a step behind him, and spread wings made all of shadows and night, golden eyes flicking from one Council member to the next, measuring them coolly. Norton swallowed audibly, gaze fixed on her; Cordell, when Fay snuck a glance, seemed unable to look away from her.
“I'm Christian Terevan.” It wasn't loud, but it carried, in the utter silence. “You have been, for quite some time now, attempting to badger and intimidate me into joining your Fellowship and accepting a mentor and master of your choosing. You have even made attempts on my life. I prefer to avoid confrontations whenever possible, so I've been letting it go, and waiting for you to tire of the game. Your childish obsession with having me under your control has caused me and mine unnecessary suffering and aggravation.” That soft voice hardened. “I have had enough. Any further provocation will be met with retaliation, by me and mine. Stay away from my house, my household, my friends, and me. Better still, stay out of my city entirely. Any further contact or spying on your part will be interpreted as hostile activity, and we will respond accordingly. Have I made myself sufficiently clear?”
Asima Hadar, the fifth Council member, nodded. She looked shaken, Fay observed distantly, but leave it to Asima to find her voice before anyone else. “Understood.”
“And before there is any possibility of future misunderstanding... the lady beside me is a lamia. There is nothing you can send that she can't kill, and nowhere you can go that she can't follow you, if you give her reason. I imagine false accusations of my using blood-magic or death-magic, based entirely on my association with her, would probably do that. Clear?”
“Understood,” Asima repeated. Rosemary looked like she was choking on rage—there was no way she could have revenge for her embarrassment now. And whether Christian was, in fact, indulging in blood- and death-magic or not—was there something about a lamia, not a liminal she’d ever heard of, that brought that into question?—it had just been made an implied death-sentence to accuse him of it.
“Good. I thought I'd come and tell you this in person, just to make sure we're all communicating. We're going home now, and I expect this to be the last time I have to deal with any of you. I have better things to spend my time on.” He turned his back on them, a gesture Fay read as contempt: he felt no fear in having them behind him. The dark woman—the lamia?—fell into step beside him, folding her wings back and somehow making them vanish altogether.
The three intruders departed; with a careless gesture, Christian made the door close and reset the spell-locks.
No one spoke, for a very long moment. Lightning flickered, and thunder rumbled, and the rain and wind assaulted the fragile glass barriers of the windows furiously.
“All in favour of making a formal apology to him and to the Lyndells, and looking into this accusation of attempts on his life?” Fay said finally.
“Yes to the apology,” Cordell said, “but I see no reason to waste more effort than that on the issue. Anyone who tries on their own will obviously get what's coming.” It came out distractedly, though, his attention elsewhere, and Fay thought she could make a good guess as to where.
“What if he takes it as a hostile act on our part, collectively, if one individual does something stupid?” Asima asked.
This was going to be one of those issues where everyone had opinions, Fay could see it now. To make it worse, Cordell and Norton were only halfway paying attention, Rosemary was sullen, and Asima all too obviously could hardly wait to escape the room and start new gossip. Fay sighed, and set herself to the task of bringing order back to that portion of chaos she had any hope of influencing, at least.
Thank you very much for this story, I really enjoyed reading =)
I must say I didn't expect the fellowship plotline to be resolved so swiftly. No planning, complicated search, or grand final battle. Just... Show up with big witch energy to the tune of "f*ck Around and Find Out" x)
I missed on this one, obviously. I'm sorry.
This was never meant as a "Christian vs Fellowship" (or any part thereof) story with some other stuff around it. It was just "Christian learns how to cope with life without his family", with the Fellowship (and a small psycho sub-group) as one of the factors. That's why it never really turned into a standard sequence of increasing crises and then a clear climax and denouement, just a sort of episodic, almost slice-of-life pacing.
By the time Christian pulls that stunt in the epilogue, the Fellowship has already officially given up, even if Christian doesn't know that, and they never had any interest in killing him anyway - that was strictly the one little conspiracy. (Eric's retaliation nearly caused a rebellion among members who didn't see the point to begin with.) It technically accomplished nothing concrete but it was Chris taking control his way, which isn't the way his family did. And honestly, anything else I could have added would have felt like filler - I tried!
So. I'm glad you enjoyed the rest, but I'm sorry the ending didn't land properly. It's sometimes hard to judge when no one sees it except me and my roommate before it comes out. Maybe I'll do that sequel after all and see if it helps. Sometime after finishing Transposition (why did I ever release that without finishing the whole thing?)!
@Prysmcat I think the fact you wrote chapters from the point of view of the fellowship really cemented their role as the main antagonist of the story, and yeah, until the very I felt like you were building up to a big confrontation.
Also we never even got to see Val (and maybe even Sara) start learning magic. Or see the romantic tension between Sara and Alexandra/Mark resolved ^^
And don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed this story, I think my main criticism can be summarized as "I'd happily have read 20 more chapter of this" ^^
@Aearil That is absolutely fair, and I can see how it looks that way. I think it probably suffers from having been originally written without a strong antagonist, rewritten to include Dextra et al. to make it more novel-like in hopes of selling it to a publisher, shelved because I couldn't make it work in acceptable novel length, and re-rewritten to actually include all the depth it needed to make sense. I should have worked harder on cleaning that up. Or possibly abandoned this one permanently, but... I just couldn't.
As for Val learning magic... sequel.
Ditto for where Sara's relationship with Mark/Lexa goes. Seriously, I had to end it *somewhere*! But with 3/3 comments all asking for the sequel, I've got it bumped up on my to-do list so it's immediately after the currently-active, well-underway works in progress, including Transposition. So there WILL be a sequel!
And also, thank you for still being here and coming along for the ride with whatever weirdness my brain happens to produce!
This was a very enjoyable story. The life you cultivated in your characters really comes across on the page. I like all of them so much.(at least our protag group anyway).
I do think the story's end is a tad abrupt, but overall it still works. And while we didn't get to see Chris or Lexa really lay down the law action wise, the final don't f*ck with me was great. I would have liked to see Cordell really get the screws put to him though.
Alas I must echo the only real issue I have is there simply isn't more! (Yet?
)
Yet. There will be more. It's definitely on the (slightly out-of-control) to-do list. It's a shame it takes so much time to get all these ideas out of my head and onto my computer! I don't mind the effort, it just feels so slow sometimes.
I'm really glad you enjoyed it, and thank you for letting me know! I've already apologized in other comments for the steep curve at the end. If I can think of a way to fix it, I will, but probably the best way is just to get to that sequel. Christian and co are very much alive somewhere in my head and I don't expect to have any trouble writing more. I'm fairly sure that Cordell and Dextra will both be back in that, although I doubt Cordell will enjoy it much by the end!
wow yeah this was really good! I'd definitely read more~
(also I noticed a lot of similarities to Yin-Yang (which is good, I loved that one, it's now on my list to reread soon ;P) and with such a long history I'm wondering if that was intentional?)
Thanks for letting me know! Glad you enjoyed the trip!
I'm not sure what similarities you mean, beyond the ones inherent in urban fantasy with magic users. Do you mean bad guys treating liminals and elementals as tools while good guys treat them as equals? The relationships don't quite parallel, since sensitives are emphatically the same species as the mages and provide a direct power source, and liminals and elementals are not and do not. I do tend to play with power dynamics of various kinds in many stories, and with the basic nature of freedom and connection and responsibility.
The seeds of Yin-Yang sprouted about the same time I was working on the first draft of this, maybe just a little later, but since I didn't pursue or finish Yin-Yang until years later, it followed a different development path.
Did I intend any similarity? No. But there are definitely themes that repeat in what I write, like most writers. They have evolved over time but the same sorts of things still matter to me.
Does any of that answer your question?
Also, if it's easier, Yin-Yang is available for free as an ebook via Smashwords. There's a link on my website. Glad you enjoy it so much!
@Prysmcat I was meaning the ones where a magical family with a name ending in '-van' gets negative attention from a council that doesn't like said family's breaking from their values, while the heir of the family befriends a magical being who he has a co-relationship with alongside another member of the household
I guess it's not really anything concrete or direct but they have similar vibes (which, coming from the same author in the same genre with a similar setting and themes, makes complete sense ;P)
@nullptr Ah, got it. Poly relationships and relationships with non-human or otherwise exotic characters are both pretty common across a lot of what I write, whether it's urban fantasy or otherwise. So is the idea of people fighting against The Establishment, whether it's an official one or not. I didn't think of the name similarity, I came up with those years apart. (And, um, Van isn't the heir to anything, just part of a big family.
)
As long as I can keep stories distinct enough that people aren't confusing them, I'm not too worried about whether some themes repeat.
But I try to avoid deliberate similarities.
These past few months have been an absolute joy with a slight dose of this novel every day. Thank you so much for it. If you ever get around to a sequel, I'd certainly squeek!
I really appreciate all the comments, and it makes me happy that it made you happy.
*bumps the sequel up the to-do list further* Um... fifth place, I think is as high as I can move it right now. Fortunately, the ones ahead of it are all there because they're in progress with a lot done. I'll get there! (My to-do list is absurd.)
I for one would highly enjoy a sequel! I really like the end how Christian was able to wrap everything up nicely and show his growth.
Thanks! I'm really glad you liked it, and thank you for teling me! Yep, Chris is done being a pushover - although guaranteed he's still kind enough to make Alexandra roll her eyes regularly.
*adds mental notes to bump the Lamia sequel up on the to-do list*