Chapter Thirty-Seven #2
For just a moment, Cormal considered actually throwing the fireballs. He really, really wanted to.
Suppressing a sigh, he made the fireballs wink out.
“People with magic have always had certain abilities that non-magical folks don’t,” Cormal said, keeping his voice even with an effort.
It was probably a bit too despotic to think if you wiped out the worst councilor, the others would fall in line? Yeah, that was probably a bit far. Pity.
Cormal continued, “Even if carnalions possessed the abilities you seemed determined to endow them with, there are ways that other people can achieve similar ends. I can threaten you with an element. Someone stronger than you can threaten you with bodily harm. Any non-magical person in this room could threaten you with a weapon. The Queen could order you to stop talking. The world is full of people who can influence us in a variety of ways. You’re acting as though carnalions are the only being who have ever committed a crime, and that’s ludicrous. ”
Kinan stepped in smoothly. “Perhaps if we complete the healing demonstration, that will answer more questions.”
Of course it wasn’t that easy. The sixth councilor didn’t want any of them to injure themselves in order to be healed, because that could all be a ploy, as the ninth councilor had suggested.
“Are you volunteering, Councilor?” Cormal demanded.
She demurred immediately.
“Anyone?” Brannal asked. “If you won’t accept our evidence, I believe we’re at an impasse.”
Silence reigned for a long moment, and then the first councilor said, “I volunteer.”
She’d been elected for her first term only four years ago, and she was in her early thirties. She’d always seemed reasonable when Cormal had dealt with her in the past, and he desperately hoped this meant she was here with an open mind.
She matter-of-factly asked Perian and Trill if they would have any trouble healing a knife wound, and when they confirmed it would be fine, she cut open her own arm and actually walked amidst all the councilors so they could see clearly that she was really injured.
A couple of the councilors looked a little green.
Once everyone was satisfied that they’d seen enough of the wound, Perian and Trill reached out, laid a hand on hers, and a moment later, the wound was gone. Wiping away the leftover blood showed that the arm was completely unblemished, not even a scar remaining.
A mutter swirled around the room.
Yeah, it was that awesome. How had they not worked that out yet when their presumed-dead prince had been restored to them completely whole?
The seventh councilor wanted to know, “How much magic did that take? How many times could you do it?”
Perian and Trill exchanged glances.
“We’ve never measured, Councilor,” Perian answered after a moment.
“As you may be aware, I exhausted myself into a magical coma for days the first time I healed the Prince. Helping Kinan regain a full body took a great deal of energy which others were kind enough to help provide us. Like humans, our energy isn’t inexhaustible.
We have a different way of replenishing some of it than humans do, but it still takes time to recover.
The two big healings we accomplished took the help of multiple members of the castle under extraordinary circumstances to help heal the Prince and Princess.
Please don’t assume that’s the norm. We can’t work without breaks or without re-energizing our magic.
There’s a lot we still need to discover about ourselves because it’s been hidden for so long.
Trill and I both grew up not knowing what we were.
Trill learned when he was fifteen, and I didn’t realize until this year after everything that happened here at the castle. ”
“Why is that?” the third councilor asked.
“As we’ve already said, keeping it a secret has taken a toll. And carnalions often choose to leave their children with the human parent.”
“Why?” the third councilor pursued.
He didn’t seem particularly antagonistic about it, just as though he wanted to understand.
“They aren’t particularly parental, Councilor.”
“Are you saying they don’t have feelings?” he pursued.
“Are you saying that humans who choose not to have children have no feelings?”
The man shifted awkwardly at Perian’s pointed question. He didn’t have any children, if Cormal remembered correctly, though Perian probably hadn’t known that.
“No, of course not. But you’re saying they’re different from humans.”
“Of course I am,” Perian answered, sounding faintly annoyed.
But really, Cormal was so impressed with his ability to remain calm with this group.
“They’re not human. They’re beings who don’t come from this world.
They’re not the same as us. But that doesn’t mean we can’t find points of commonality.
They’ve been able to blend in amongst us for centuries.
And just like one human is different from another, so is one carnalion or one child of two worlds different from another.
We each have individual personalities and likes and dislikes.
” Perian shrugged. “But carnalions seem to prefer to live an unfettered existence, for the most part, at least those that Trill and I have encountered. We don’t actually know for sure if that applies to all carnalions. There’s no way to know right now.”
Triumphantly, the ninth councilor said, “Exactly! What if you’re wrong about this entire thing, and you’ve been telling us about one or two carnalions who aren’t as terrible as the rest?”
Kinan took this one.
“Then we would discover that and act accordingly.” His voice was stern and no-nonsense.
“Councilors, as we have already indicated, we aren’t saying that carnalions or Life Mages should face no consequences moving forward.
We’re asking that they be treated like humans and accorded the same rights.
If they commit crimes, they should be punished for them.
So if you enact this change, and a month from now, a carnalion willfully kills a human by fatally feeding on them, then they would be tried for murder.
But they wouldn’t be killed simply for existing. ”
“What if leaving them alive gives them the chance to kill more people?”
Impatiently, Cormal said, “If they were indiscriminate killers, then chances are they would already have been identified by the Mage Warriors. We have watch stations and reports coming in from across the country at all times, as you know, and we investigate all such reports. We rarely have reports of carnalions, and we believe this is part of the reason for that. Carnalions clearly possess higher intelligence, and they’ve been using it for centuries.
Even if you don’t believe that they possess fellow feeling towards us, then at least believe that they’re smart enough to know that if they kill humans, they’re likely to be killed.
They can be motivated by self-interest just like a human can. So give them a reason to be good.”
Cormal gulped in a breath. “I lost sight of that, and you saw the harm I caused. I was scared of the stories we’d been told, and I didn’t consider how Perian had been behaving in the months he’d been here.
I drove him away, and I may have deprived the Prince of months where he could have been cured.
Far from harming anyone here in the castle, Perian did a great deal of good. Let’s offer that chance to everyone.”
It was the second councilor who said, “I agree that Perian and this Trill fellow seem quite reasonable. But they aren’t carnalions, as I understand it.”
“They—” the ninth councilor began to protest.
“Silence!” The Queen snapped. “I believe the second councilor has the floor.”
The ninth councilor snapped his mouth shut.
The second councilor cleared her throat. Her gender beads were two female beads and one nonbinary today. She’d told Cormal she appreciated being referred to with her majority pronoun at a given time, but she rarely felt a hundred percent like anything.
She continued. “By your own admission, children of two worlds are not the same as carnalions. How much of the… reasonable behavior that we’ve been witness to today is due to your human heritage?”
She at least did Perian and Trill the courtesy of talking to them directly.
“I was raised by my human father,” Perian conceded.
“He protected me to the best of his ability and loved me just as I was. But I am also still my mother’s child.
She visited periodically when I was younger but stopped when she was badly injured.
She didn’t want to be tied down, but she also didn’t want to risk deciding to stay due to her injuries and putting us or others at risk.
I think that demonstrates very reasonable behavior. ”
Trill cleared his throat. Molun and Arvus stepped closer to him. Trill gripped their hands tightly.
“I was raised by my mother and grandmother until I was fifteen. When we found out what I was, my grandmother locked me in my room without any food or water and waited for nature to take its course.”
There were some shocked murmurs.
Trill swallowed visibly. “My carnalion father came and rescued me, and although he wasn’t ready to support me himself, he found a carnalion that I could stay with.
She taught me all about being a child of two worlds, how much caution was necessary, and how to stay safe.
She is entirely reasonable—more reasonable than me, truth be told,” he admitted with the trace of a smile.
“So if you’re judging by reasonable behavior, then at least in my life, it’s the humans who’ve been more unreasonable and cruel than the carnalions ever have been. ”
“Now wait just a minute,” the fourth councilor argued. “You can’t claim that humans are bad because you had a bad experience with two of them!”