Chapter 13 Meet the Squad. #3
“Everyone here knows who you are, Percy. Or we know now. Before, you were just a half-witch, pet of the princess, and we all wondered who your mother was, but we didn’t know. Not until recently, after your novel ability became known. That’s when we were told who you really are,” Rea said.
“So, I have a novel ability, and suddenly I’m wanted?” I asked, trying not to sound as rejected as I felt.
“Pretty much. It sucks, I get that, but this is war, and we didn’t really have time to worry about one witch,” she replied.
“I’d prefer if you all had kept not worrying about me,” I said quietly.
“Have we really made that negative an impression in one afternoon?” she asked, surprised.
“I’m not an idiot; everyone wants me for my ability. I don’t mind telling you or anyone else, I’ll never use my ability to further any war or any cause, I’ll never starve anyone.”
Only those who had never experienced true hunger could ever suggest famine and starvation as a weapon against others.
If they knew what it felt like, to be so hungry you can’t sleep or all you can do is sleep, the pain comes and then goes, and maybe the lack of feeling is the worst, when just being, simply breathing, is a chore and the desperation, everything starts to look a little like something edible.
I wouldn’t be the reason another person experienced that. Never.
“You’re not behind us?” Talia asked, her head tilting to the side curiously.
“I’m not even entirely sure what The New Foundation wants exactly.
You want to end the House system and replace it with what?
You’re happy for a House like Halvorsen to continue, but every other House has to go?
All I know is that those I thought were my friends dragged me from my home and brought me here for what?
So that my ability can be used as a bargaining tool at best, or to kill innocent people at worst?
And it would be innocent people who starve.
All those Lords and Ladies you all want to tear down, they’d be last to know hunger, if they ever did,” I said.
“Look, I get it, from the outside, it all looks like more of the same shit; doesn’t matter what toilet it’s landing in.”
I grimaced at the crude analogy, but it was right.
“What a nice way to put it,” Melina said, shaking her head.
“I do have a way with words,” Rea said, smiling confidently, before turning her attention back to me.
“It’s about more than ending the House system.
It’s about making an even playing field for everyone.
It’s not anarchy. There’s always going to be the need for a system of power.
We think that the system should be central and peacefully elected.
Right now, it all comes down to how lucky you were at birth.
Born into a noble family, you’re set for life and can do whatever you want.
Born as a commoner, you might get lucky and be some noble's servant. Life can be quite good to those on the edges of nobility, but for everyone else, it’s a hard grind to survive.
And for what? So that those who already have everything can have more? ”
“You don’t have to explain to me that life is hard, that it’s not fair.
Where have you all been hiding all these years?
While you left the poorest to fend for themselves?
And now you want to start a war. Is war not hard?
You talk about peace, but you want to get there violently. How does that make sense?” I asked.
“We had no choice,” Talia replied defensively. “The decision was made to protect the coven.”
“Protect the coven from what?” I asked. When I thought about it, Lady Flores hadn’t given me any reason for why Flores disappeared or why The New Foundation was started.
“There were reports of Flores witches being taken, forced to labour instead of the charity we had been providing. After one rescue, it was reported that one of our coven had been raped to produce a half-witch of Flores' capabilities. We rescued everyone we could, and we refused service to the kingdom. We do not give at the cost of our lives. One of Flores’ lost is one too many. Then, when news of Damia’s disappearance spread, it was the push we needed to finally see the kingdom and Houses for what they were, and we withdrew our help and from interacting with the other Houses.
When we first heard of you, we thought you were a result of that time.
There was talk of coming for you then, but it wasn’t practical at the time,” Melina explained.
“Why didn’t Lady Flores explain all of this?” I asked, noting that Melina believed my mother had disappeared, whereas Lady Flores had admitted that my mother had left of her own accord.
Was my mother’s leaving used to rally the rest of Flores behind the same cause?
Did Lady Flores lie to me, or did she lie to her coven for propaganda?
Why hadn’t Selene or Sasha told me of the crimes against Flores witches?
Did they not know? Were they keeping it from me?
Was it even true? My head hurt from all my unanswered questions, and I was exhausted.
“It’s a dark time in our history. Those who lived through it don’t particularly like to talk about it.
There was so much fear. We were few in number and scattered across the land.
The Houses tried to portray reports as one-off instances and to suggest that there were so few reports kingdom-wide compared to other crimes.
Perhaps for other covens the number seemed small, but it was one in ten, one in ten Flores witches had been abused while offering our gift to the Houses, stopped from leaving a village or town, forced to work, sold, treated and used like an animal.
Violence against us was on the rise everywhere.
Nowhere was safe, not for any of us,” Rea continued, and the way she spoke, I wondered if she was remembering that time.
“But I thought the other Houses respected us, that we got along with everyone?” I asked, and the way Rea looked at me, I’d never felt more ignorant or foreign from Flores. She looked at me like I had swallowed some obvious childish lie as truth.
“Do you really believe that the Houses, especially during a streak of the harshest winters and wettest growing seasons, would not abuse our gift? Wouldn’t fight over us?
Wouldn’t force us if we didn’t want or feel like we could help?
That they wouldn’t view a shortage of Flores witches as something they had the power to change?
Has your time within the Royal House been so idyllic?
The Houses didn’t just ignore what was happening; they actively encouraged it.
Even trying to hunt us down when we started to hide. ”
I shrank away from her. I knew the nobles of the Houses didn’t care about ordinary people, so long as they had what they wanted.
But what Rea was telling me was that the ordinary people of the kingdom had betrayed us.
When times were difficult, they didn’t turn to us for help that we could freely give, but had turned to take from us more than we could give.
“I never knew about such things. It’s not what I was told. I didn’t even know that we had disappeared from public life until recently,” I admitted. “I never knew or met another Flores witch until recently.”
Rea’s face softened.
“Damia died before you could remember?” she asked and reached out to grip my knee.
“During my birth,” I told her.
“I’m so sorry. No wonder you know nothing of this.
If it weren’t for each of us telling our stories to one another, there would be no Flores history.
How terribly difficult it must have been to enter your magic without the guidance of a mother.
What were you told about us? Let’s correct the lies and stereotypes propagated by the Houses,” she said softly.
“I thought we were well liked, that we were nomadic by nature, few in number, peaceful, and that one day for no reason that anyone could ever learn, we simply disappeared, well maybe not disappeared but we stopped travelling the land, stopped offering help, that we were silent and refused to say why, that the only Flores witches still practicing had left the coven to join the Enchanters Guild,” I explained.
Rea laughed.
“Seriously, they say that we for some unknown reason simply disappeared?” She laughed incredulously.
“I’m guessing they didn’t just let us stop providing services either, out of respect for us?” I asked.
Rea patted my knee.
“Are you na?ve by nature or do you truly just not know any better?” she asked.
The insult stung.
“That’s a bit harsh,” Talia said in my defence.
“I’m starting to think both,” I told her, hating how rightfully patronised I felt.
“They tried to hunt us down; those they found, they tried to torture the whereabouts of others out of them.”
“Why did they stop?” I asked. “I mean, I was never hunted for being a Flores witch. What happened?”
Something had to have happened. Nobles aren’t exactly told no and are accepting of it.
I should have realised how ridiculous it was to think that a whole coven would suddenly seem to vanish for some mysterious reason.
How could an entire kingdom spread such a lie?
How could they make a whole land forget what had happened?
Father had never even spoken of such a thing to me.
“They didn’t for a while. When I was born, we were still hiding.
But I was lucky that by the time I entered my magic, there was no more danger.
But to answer your question, what changed?
Technology and the weather. We haven’t had winters as long and cold or springs as short and wet since.
New methods of pest control, farmers and rural communities gained access to better equipment for working the land.
In short, they only stopped hunting us when they didn’t need us as much,” Rea explained.
“None of the other witching covens helped us?” I asked. I thought there was friendship between all witches. Magic being our common thread, that’s why the Enchanters Guild was capable of being so successful.
Rea sat back.
“Yes and no. Officially, no. Individually, that’s a different situation. But the other covens offered us no official support against the Houses. They were starving, too. They were just as desperate, if not as violent.”
“Our history is not pleasant,” Melina said.
“I had no idea about any of it,” I said.
“Without your mother and the lies of the Kingdom, you have had no way of knowing. The crimes against Flores are why we have The New Foundation; that’s why we’re here, to put an end to a system that not only subjugates and abuses those of lesser power but actively denies and forgets its atrocities,” Rea explained.
“Maybe you’ll see that we’re not all that bad,” Talia said and nudged me with her shoulder.
“Maybe,” I said, trying to comprehend the level of violence and depravity that would be necessary to make a peaceful coven like Flores spend decades building an army.
It wasn’t long before Kat returned, and we made our way to dinner. The mess hall was across the main quad of the base, a large rectangular building with dozens of tables in rows, and a line where you picked up a tray with only a few food options to choose from.
The noise of so many conversations happening at once was much worse than the café at Sanguis Academy had ever been. It seemed like half the room was filled with obnoxiously loud soldiers who all reminded me of Dylan and Harris.
I looked around the room, expecting, maybe even hoping that Ana would be there. I hated remembering that I was here in part because of her. Was she even really my friend? She knew who Selene was to me, but she still helped take me from her.
“Who are you looking for?” Kat asked beside me.
“My friend Ana,” I said.
“Is she Flores?” Kat asked.
“No Syngeneia,” I answered.
“She’ll be staying on the main base then, only those of Flores heritage stay within Witching Command,” she said.
“Why?” I asked.
Kat leaned down to me to speak nearer my ear, like she didn’t want to be overheard.
“We’re grateful for all our allies, that our cause has attracted so many, but when it comes to Flores' business, we only trust Flores,” she said.
If they weren’t relying on Arvid’s generosity, I would have accused them of paranoia. Maybe Arvid didn’t know as much as he claimed to. Why else would he need me?
I ate my food, a plain pasta dish, and tried to make it less obvious that I was looking for someone.
I wondered what Selene was doing. Was she looking for me?
I hoped she was. I hoped she’d come for me.
I looked across the hall at the entrance and remembered what it was like to see her enter the café at Sanguis, the way she demanded attention, everyone consciously or not glancing in her direction, how her eyes would always find me across the room, no matter where I sat.
“You have an admirer,” Talia said with a smirk across from me.
I looked up at her.
“Who?” I asked and moved her head in the direction diagonally behind me.
I twisted in my chair and turned to see Idonea glaring at me from across the room.
“You’re getting along great with all your cousins, I see,” Kat said.
“Cousin?” I asked.
“You didn’t know?” she asked, “Shit, sorry, yeah, she’s Ploutos’ daughter, that’s your uncle,” Kat explained, and I remembered the name from Lady Flores’ photobook.
“She made a terrible first impression,” I said.
“Probably because she has her eye on — Oww! What was that for?” Melina asked Rea who had elbowed her in the side as she spoke.
“It’s not your place to gossip,” Rea warned, and Melina had a look of recognition before quietly agreeing.
“Anyway,” Kat interrupted, drawing my attention to her, “Tomorrow you and I are going to begin your combat training,” she said excitedly.
“Combat?” I asked.
“Don’t get too excited, what Kat means is she’s going to have you running laps,” Talia laughed,
“Physical conditioning is crucial for all aspects of combat,” Kat replied.
“So is being able to hit your mark,” Talia said, laughing, and Rea and Melina joined in.
“Ha ha, so very funny. What does it take to get any sort of respect from my own squad?” Kat complained.
“Maybe some more time on target practice,” Talia suggested.
“I’ll make you my target practice if you’re not careful,” Kat growled playfully, and Talia’s face grew a deep shade of red.
“Okay, okay, leave the poor girl alone,” Rea said, nudging Kat with her shoulder.