The Immortal Queen Tsubame: Ascension (22 page)

Devdan laughed at her and came to stand right behind her. He grabbed her wrists and gently threw her hands down into her lap.

“What are you doing?” MaLeila asked.

“Your hair.”

MaLeila snorted. “You can do hair?”

“Have you seen how long my hair is?”

Of course she had. It was even longer now than she was used to.

“Yeah, but… you never do anything with it besides a ponytail.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t know how to do it any other way,” Devdan said taking the comb off the bathroom sink and parting her hair. “It was so long when I was a boy that my mother threatened to chop it all off if I didn’t learn how to do it myself. So I did.”

MaLeila resisted the urge to narrow her eyes. Devdan never spoke about his mother voluntarily. And she was almost afraid to ask or interrupt him in fear that he’d realize what he was doing and not say anything else.

“That’s not nice,” she finally said.

“My mother wasn’t known for her patience, though she was kind to those who deserved it.”

“And what about to those who didn’t deserve it.”

Devdan shrugged. “Probably tried to curse them with voodoo.”

MaLeila blinked, her head rearing back some, causing Devdan to send her a look that told her to stop moving. She muttered an apology, but she wasn’t sure whether Devdan was joking or serious. He’d said it as though… as though it were a fond memory.

“You mother practiced voodoo.”

Devdan nodded.

“Not the dark silly stuff you see in television though. She knew how to mix herbs and she used to pray to this goddess that our master thought was the Virgin Mary. She may had been able to do some magic too. I’m not sure. I didn’t know what magic really was the time we were together and I don’t know if my head is conjecturing it or not. Regardless, the herbs she mixed was probably the reason everyone thought she was barren for a while until she had me. She would get pregnant, but always managed to miscarry until she let herself stay pregnant by my father.”

Seeing that he wasn’t withdrawing from her or shutting down, MaLeila decided to milk this for all it was worth.

“Your dad?”

“I didn’t really know him. He used to come from the north to do business with our master, but she was always a little happier and always found a reason to send me away from our cabin when he came down.”

“Was he a white man?”

Devdan frowned, though whether it was at a particularly thick section of her hair he was trying to braid or her question, MaLeila wasn’t sure.

“I used to think so. But as I got older, I found it strange that he never married before he met my mother. I suspect, and some historians I read after I got out the seal think this too, that he was a black man passing, and in order to keep passing he never married or had any known children so he could keep passing.”

“Did he have gray eyes like yours too?”

“Yes, much to our master’s dismay, but he didn’t confront my mother about it until I was older. He came to our cabin drunk on some holiday or another. My mother sent me to the cabin next door, but I wouldn’t leave. And when he attacked her, I fought him and bought myself a ticket to the auction block.”

“Do you know what happened to her?”

Devdan shrugged. “Not sure. I got sent to South Georgia where Claude bought me. I could have other siblings for all I know. She was still fairly young.”

“I thought you said people though she was barren.”

“They did.”

“How old was she when she had you?”

“Nineteen.”

“That’s a little young to have a couple of miscarriages and think she was barren.”

“Maybe that’s young in modern days or even to a sorcerer or sorceress back them, but not when most female slaves were expected to start having babies at thirteen it wasn’t,” Devdan said dryly.

He didn’t volunteer any more information and MaLeila had no more questions to ask, more than satisfied with what Devdan had willingly offered to her without having to pry anything out of him or interpret vague answers. Instead, while he wrapped her hair and periodically picked up a hairpin or the brush, she wondered why it was so easy now. Why was it so easy to talk to him, to be around him, to relax around him now? They hadn’t been apart that long. They hadn’t matured that much on a little over four months. Adina wasn’t that close to him. As far as MaLeila figured, they were little more than fuck buddies. So why now?

“You like that?”

MaLeila blinked out her thoughts and looked in the mirror at her hair. He’d slicked back most of it into a ponytail in the middle of her head, closer to the top than the bottom, and then parted the hair at the edge of the ponytail into small braids, He’d rolled and tucked the rest of the loose hair in the middle into a round bun and then wrapped and pinned the small braids around the base of the ponytail beneath the bun so that it hid the ponytail holder. He’d left two locks of hair out in the back and braided them so that she had a braid tossed over her shoulder on either side with the heavy gold clamps to weigh them down.

“Well, at least if all this political stuff messes up, you can have a career in hair styling,” MaLeila teased.

Devdan rolled his eyes, muttering a “you’re welcome,” as he walked out the bathroom and closed the door so she could get dressed. MaLeila looked after him for a while. Their conversation had been so surreal. MaLeila still wasn’t sure it was real or whether she was dreaming; that after all this was over, she’d go back to her room and realize that she had hallucinated the encounter. But her hair was done and if anything that was proof. MaLeila certainly wouldn’t have been able to do it herself even in her dreams.

Still pondering over the entire situation, she put on her dress and tied the gold sash just under her breast, opting for a neat knot rather than the elaborate bows that Tsubame was so fond of. She slipped on a pair of dressy hard bottomed sandals with gold chains before summoning Tsubame’s staff in her hand. Even after all these months, it didn’t feel right in her hand. She opened the door and stepped out the bathroom and found Devdan standing in front of the television as they analyzed again and again what happened a few days ago. The footage had been heavily edited before its release, playing off the explosion of the drone as a malfunction while the real footage had been leaked and gone viral on the internet by conspiracy theorists who continued to insist on its authenticity even as mainstream media continued to try to debunk them and put out the fire MaLeila started. It made MaLeila wonder just how many other events over the course of history were edited by mainstream media to hide the existence of the Magical World; how many civilians, military personnel, leaders had been defamed and called crazy when they tried to get the truth out.

Devdan clicked off the television and turned to look at her.

“Ready?” he asked.

MaLeila nodded and resisted the urge to grab his hand or arm or let him put his arms around her while they cautiously made their way to their opponent in uncertainly about what they would certainly face. She turned and went to the door instead, pushing her personal fears, desires, and thoughts aside. Instead she focused on the rage she initially felt over a week ago, the hate, the anger and channeled it until her aura flared with power and dominance; until it was clear that her single goal wasn’t to talk, wasn’t to be diplomatic, wasn’t a treaty, wasn’t even a seat on the council.

She wanted revenge.

22

Tsubame took it upon herself to transform Farah’s grand ballroom into a simple but elegant congress hall.

“Don’t worry,” Tsubame said when Farah walked into the room and saw what she had done. “I’ll put it back afterwards.”

Already in the room were only one representative from multiple officially recognized magic families from the Registry of Magic Practitioners. All of them had been invited and but man who had been invited hadn’t come. Off the top of her head, MaLeila knew The Thornes weren’t coming as they now had the country they called their turf embroiled in war with the Romanovs, much to the adamant dismay of the smaller magic families who also called the United States their home but lacked the international political and economic clout the Thornes had. The Romanovs and Hou Clan of China weren’t present for much the same reason. China wasn’t directly part of the war yet, but Marcel told MaLeila that he was absolutely positive that that China would join the war on the side of the Romanov Clan, if only to spite the Thornes.

MaLeila talked to Irvin personally. He’d wanted to come but his own family was scrambling to save their economy after they’d lost control of their non-magical government in a vote that removed them from the European Union and as a result they’d technically lost all their European alliances, both magical and non-magical. They were still trying to figure out how to rewrite treaties and alliances as quickly as possible, while at the same time his mother had called on the Thorne’s for help to avoid war coming to their country. MaLeila didn’t understand all the logistics and politics of it, nor did she ask, but Marcel had offhandedly commented, “And here comes World War III again. This time a full decade and a half early than in our world. Only Tsubame could pull this off. And since you’ve a version of her I guess you count in that too.”

In fact, most of the more famous (or infamous depending on who answered) families weren’t present. And of the hundreds of families listed, many of them from the same countries, only an additional hundred or so apart from the African Families already present had thought it important enough to respond to the summoning. That suited MaLeila just fine. She figured they wouldn’t. A little over a hundred ignored, disregarded, and dissatisfied magic family matriarchs and patriarchs were all she needed.

As promised, Marcel did the research and helped with the official summoning of the Magical Council to commence an official emergency meeting of the International Union of Magic Families. The last time this many leaders of the magical world were gathered in one room together, they removed a Magic Council member, gave Anya her seat and tried at least a dozen magic families involved in and linked with war crimes in both the non-magical and magical world. In the last few weeks, Marcel, with Tsubame’s help here and there, extensively coached her on what to say, how to say it and how to debunk anything the Magic Council would say.

“Did you go through this?” MaLeila asked Tsubame at the time.

“No,” the woman replied. “By the time I faced the council, I’d conquered the majority of the world and gone to war with the Thornes and soundly defeated them. They couldn’t dispute my power.”

They could dispute MaLeila’s though. Any sorcerer could call a meeting, but not all of them could influence anything to happen at them. The Magic Council was required to show up, but the other magic families could reject the call. Many had rejected her call for the mere fact that she had no name besides the derogatory “nigger witch,” had no political or economic clout, nor was she politically allied with any other prestigious family. But what MaLeila lacked in all that, she had in boldness and courage, even though inside she was trembling.

“Remember,” Marcel muttered to her as he fell into step next to as she made her way to the center of the room to long table across from another long table where the Magic Council sat looking much like a jury with all the magical leaders in seats surrounding them. “You don’t have to know everything about politics or the history of the magical world. You just need to incite the fear of ‘what if?’”

MaLeila nodded and then she and Devdan continued to the table and sat in the middle. Marie was next to her and on the other side of Devdan was both Ezra, the new leader of the Ethiopian Family, and Farah.

“Let’s get this over with,” Absalom said, sighing as though MaLeila was five. “What do you want?”

She was supposed start off diplomatic, to ease into her accusations, to ease into her transition and lay it on them after she had made her case. MaLeila changed her mind when Absalom didn’t extend her the same niceties.

“The indefinite removal of the Magic Council,” MaLeila said.

Out of her peripheral vision, she saw Devdan frown and somewhere in the room, MaLeila knew Tsubame’s eyes were twinkling with nearly uncontained glee and curiosity.

Absalom laughed. “That’s a bold statement.”

“It is,” MaLeila agreed and it scared her how much she sounded like Tsubame. “But not impossible. You wrote the law into the charter yourself, something about if you’re incompetent or putting the magical world at risk.”

“And you’re accusing us of that? You exposed us when you redirected that missile.”

“So that you wouldn’t kill a hotel full of magic leaders that you knew were in the building, as well as your own council member,” MaLeila snapped back, her temper getting the best of her.

She felt Devdan’s hand on her thigh under the table, and it was the only reason MaLeila sat back in her seat.

She took a deep breath and said, “You knew magic leaders, leaders included in your own treaty, were in that hotel. You’re the one who influenced the Algerians to deploy the U.N. forces to kill us.”

“After you all took Anya hostage.”

“After she told you that the African magic families were gathered and you sent forces to forcibly disband them, after which Mekonnen, who you bribed to spy on me, tried to kill me,” Devdan pointed out.

“You threatened to bring an attack to the Magic Council,” Anya accused.

“I offered to give you a taste of your own medicine. Hardly a reason for a coordinated strike,” Devdan said with a shrugged.

MaLeila was the one to touch Devdan this time. She poked him in the leg as a warning to behave and not jeopardize their goal because even she still wasn’t clear what happened to make the Magic Council send the U.N. forces and to be honest, Devdan wasn’t sure what order some of the event happened either. But if anything sounded like they were in the wrong, if it looked like anyone on their side made the first offense, the Magic Council could use it to show how they were justified in their reaction and they’d fail.

“And hardly any reason to kill the heir of the Voss Clan in your careless missile strike,” Marie said passively.

No doubt she had spoken to Tsubame about that one. Dominik wasn’t dead. He had been, but he was alive now, if not awake yet. It was one of those lies Tsubame liked to use that weren’t lies by a technicality but still a lie by omission of additional critical information. Still, the Magic Council used those kinds of lies all the time, so MaLeila didn’t feel particularly guilty about it.

“That could have been any heir. Those could have been any leaders. And if you can do that to people minding their own business, doing nothing against the rules of our world, then what’s to stop you from doing it again when any of the families in this room gain too much power and prominence, or more than you’re willing to let them have anyway?” MaLeila asked. “Are you going to call them names like the nigger witch? Turn a blind eye and allow your allies to send deranged sorcerers and magical beasts to kill them or test their abilities until you figure out what to do with them? Force them to fight and kill before dropping their dead bodies at your doorstep at the Vatican? Shoot another missile when they get too troublesome.”

“Those are baseless accusation,” Absalom said, trying to stay cool but face practically boiling in rage.

“Are they? Want to ask any of these other families if anything similar hasn’t happened to them when they began to gain prestige? Or we can talk about how many magic families have gone extinct under your watch in the last thousand years when they fought back against you? Your choice?” Farah said lightly, a wide smile on her face.

No one would defend them, at least not any of the leaders in this room, many of whom MaLeila had become friends with over the years of magical disturbances in her life and many of them friends with others who had the same experiences she had. She never thought she’d need nor want to call the favors some of the families owed her for destroying a magical threat that had plagued them before, nor did she think she’d ever benefit from the fact that the more powerful families had no respect for her to even come to a summoning by her.

“So what are you saying?” Absalom asked.

“I’m calling for a vote for immediate and indefinite suspension of the Magic Council on the grounds of magical crimes to the general magic community,” MaLeila stated.

“And who would rule in our steed.”

“Me.”

A woman with long thick silver hair thrown over her shoulder in a braid and sitting next to Absalom threw her pen down.

“You have to be fucking joking. Who would vote you in? Who would listen?”

“We would,” someone just in line of MaLeila’s vision said and a group of them stood to their feet, followed by a majority of the others in the room.

It wasn’t unanimous, nor did it need to be. Nor did they need the approval of any of the hundreds of leaders not present for the vote. For once the unfairness and backwardness of the magical world worked in MaLeila’s favor. And finally, MaLeila understood what Tsubame meant when she insisted she was meant for something greater than hiding away and trying to stay out of trouble. Not with the favors she’d unknowingly done, the infamy she’d unwittingly gained, the grudging respect her stupid courage had gotten her over the years as well as the power given to her by being Claude Thorne’s heir even though there were many days she cursed ever hearing his name. All this power at the palm of her hands. It was time she truly flaunted it right in the face of the Magic Council rather than dodging them as they flaunted theirs.

“Well then,” came Marcel’s voice from the somewhere in the room. “It looks like everyone has spoken today. She followed your protocol and your procedure, the rules some of your fore parents wrote. The Magical World has a new leader. A queen, technically, by the rules of the International Magic Charter. Honestly, some of those laws really need to be updated.”

MaLeila knew it wasn’t going to be this easy. Technically she had officially suspended the Magic Council, but she had technically done a lot of things when it came to the council over the years and every time she ended up having to fight and spill blood to establish her dominance. So she wasn’t surprised when the Magic Council resisted. And when they did, she hadn’t been afraid to go on the offense first.

It hadn’t been so much an offensive though as it had been an attempt to restrain and subdue them. They were the ones now resisting their own law. She tightened the space between the air around the council members to keep their bodies and hands stiffly in place. Then with power she didn’t know the old man had after years of attempted diplomatic encounters with him, he broke from the restraint and shoved his hand in her direction. A dark blast shot her in the chest and threw her back into the group of sorcerers and sorceresses behind them. Black daggers formed in the air in front of Devdan, his grey eyes just gleaming with his yin magic right before they shot through the air at the council.

Absalom summoned a large steel mace into his hand and knocked the knives away. One flew backwards and struck Devdan in the arm. He didn’t bother reaching to take it out, instead using all his energy to duck the mace. As he ducked, he tackled Absalom to the ground so that the man just missed slicing Marie’s arm off with the mace. The woman with the long braid thrown over her shoulder summoned an ancient sword into her hands and swung it downwards towards Devdan. He rolled off Absalom and out the way at the same time as MaLeila recovered and crossed the room in one large bound, propelled by the manipulation of wind at her feet. She landed on her feet in front of the woman and magically grabbed hold of the metal blade, much to the surprise of the woman wielding the blade. It was a power MaLeila had slowly but surely been quietly developing. Sorcerers and sorceresses typically had powers that allowed them to wield the forces of nature, right down to rearranging the elements that made them up to transform them into something else. But what most couldn’t manipulate, or at least without an external force like telekinesis, were forces of nature that had been manipulated out its natural state into something manmade, something like the fine polished sword that the councilwoman used as a conduit for her magic.

It strained her magic, the same way lifting a heavy weight strained a person’s physical muscles, but MaLeila had practiced the technique enough to be able to stop the woman’s sword in her hands. Not grab it with the wind or create an invisible shield that with enough strength and physical might, one could fight through, but actually grabbed the sword, imbued it with her magic as though the sword were an extension on her body like her staff had been before Tsubame destroy it.

She snatched the sword from the woman’s grasps and threw her back in to the wall, grabbing the sword in her hand and twirling on her feet to block Absalom’s mace. MaLeila didn’t let herself feel guilty about the fact that she had taken another sorceress’ magical conduit, even though she knew it was an act fairly frowned upon even as commonplace as it was. However, she figured it was revenge enough for the many times her staff had been stolen, even if it usually backfired for the one doing the stealing. Using it to defend herself also wasn’t as awkward as using Tsubame’s staff, maybe because it was such a far cry from her own previous staff that she wasn’t constantly reminded that the sword wasn’t hers.