At Liliana’s shout, Jared finally paid attention to his daughter. She had been trying to get his attention for a while now, but he had been to busy arguing to hear her. Now his face was pale, and he seemed to have forgotten about his anger as his voice quivered as he spoke.

“Lilian, i-i-is that you? W-what happened to you?”

“Yes, it’s me, father. I’ve been trying to get you to listen to me this whole time.”

“But baby girl, I always listen to you, I,” Jared seemed to want to appease the girl, but the words were cut off by Lilian’s anger.

“No, shut up dad, and let me speak,” it seemed to work as Jared shut his mouth immediately, but his anger seemed to creep back as a scowl formed on his face again at Lilian’s next words. “You always do this, you only care what the rest of the village think of us. I have had enough, no matter how much you may want to fit me in some mold I’m not like that. I like reading and hunting and…” This time it was Jared who interrupted, his face red and absolutely livid.

“You ungrateful, stupid, little BITCH!” Lilian jerked back at this, and the light around her seemed to dim slightly, but Jared wasn’t done. “I have worked hard to put a roof over your head and food on our table, I even arranged for you to marry that boy you seem to like when you come of age.” He gesticulated wildly and seemed to grow more irate by the moment.

“Has it ever occurred to you that I don’t want to get married? I want to follow my own dreams.” Lilian said in response, but Jared only scoffed and dismissed this with a wave of his hand.

“Oh, I know all about your dreams, but I won’t allow it as long as I live. You would throw away your life to go off to some stupid university. Isn’t that right Gemma?” Jared seemed confident that his wife would support him but when she didn’t respond, he turned his attention to her, “well say something, we should have disabused her of this notion from the start, and we wouldn’t have this problem now.” Gemma sighed at this and disentangled herself from Lito’s protective grip on her shoulders to approach Jared.

“What would it hurt to let our daughter spread her wings a bit, she could come back when she’s finished and then we can have a conversation about her plans for the future.” Jared’s scowl surprisingly disappeared at Gemma’s words, and he seemed to grow calm, but he looked at his wife as if he was disappointed in her.

“I married you despite knowing that the taint runs in your family, and now that our daughter has turned out to be a freak too you want to encourage her, you disgust me,” and just like that Jared punched his wife in the face. She fell unconscious to the ground, a nasty bruise forming on her face. Jared continued his tirade not even noticing that Lito had quietly removed Gemma from the ground to get her away from him. Jared also didn’t seem to notice that the wind had grown unnaturally strong and that the light coming from Lilian was practically blinding, I had to raise my hand in front of my face to shield my eyes it was so intense. I could no longer make out the shape of the girls in the shining ball of light only hear her voice, it seemed to echo as if more than one person were speaking at once.

“You will not lay a hand on my mother ever AGAIN!” Lilian’s voice erupted, and a jagged bolt of energy shot from the light hovering in mid-air to strike Jared in the middle of his chest, sending him hurtling back into the house. There were a crashing and a thudding sound that must have been Jared hitting a wall and breaking something in the process. The courtyard grew quiet after that, with the wind briefly dying down only to pick up again ten times stronger this time. The people in the yard seemed to murmur uncertainly, but as the wind started buffeting them again, they grew panicked and fled in all directions. Houses creaked in the storm if this went on for much longer, I feared the wind could do a lot of damage.

She needs to be stopped, try to calm her down, Lubus voice resounded in my head as clear as if he had stood right next to me in normal weather. I approached the glowing ball of light, keeping my head down against the wind I said.

“Lilian are you in there? You need to stop, your hurting people,” I tried and waited for some sort of response, but nothing came.

Lubus, what should I do? She can’t hear me from here, the pause this time was much shorter, and the answer gave me a bit of hope.

Try speaking to her like we are now, use your mana. Hey red, do you know how much mana Eshanai has managed to gather up until now?

Scanning…

Vessel currently has 13 points worth of mana circulating through her body

Calculating…

That should be enough for about 30 seconds of mental communication at this distance

Thirty seconds is not very long, is it? I asked my two mental companions when the words had faded from my vision.

No, it isn’t, Lubus answered. Too bad we don’t have a mind mage with us, but this is the best plan we’ve got to try it already. Lubus was right I realized, we didn’t gain anything from just standing here hesitating. I gathered my mana and took a firm hold of it, it might have been a minuscule amount but it felt like the sun itself was sitting in my belly. That’s good Eshanai, now think what you want to say in your head just like you do with me, but direct it towards Lilian, and the magic will hopefully form a connection. I did as I was asked and thought at the glowing ball of light.

Lilian, are you there, can you hear me? There was only silence at first, but then something seemed to click in my mind, and Lilian’s thoughts crashed into me.

I KILLED HIM, I KILLED MY OWN FATHER! He was right, I really am a freak. Her thoughts bombarded me, panicked, but I quickly got over the shock of having someone practically scream directly into my mind, conscious of the little time I had.

Lilian, you have to listen to me. Lilian’s voice sounded surprised when she heard me, still possessing that echoing quality.

Ah, who’s there? Don’t come any closer! I can’t control whatever’s happening to me.

It’s alright, it’s me Eshanai.

Eshanai? Get away from here, before I kill you too.

No, I won’t abandon you, I can help you, but you need to calm down first.

But I… I killed him, I’m a freak.

You’re not a freak Lilian, you’re a mage, like me I guess. I don’t know if you did kill him or not but it wasn’t your fault. Besides, your mother still lives and all the villagers, if you can’t calm yourself, they might be hurt too. I had a hard time understanding why she was so upset about possibly killing Jared, I personally thought he was an asshole, but I also didn’t understand the bond between a parent and their child.

I don’t know how Lilian said in despair.

It’s ok, just take a couple of deep breaths and, but then my mana ran out and my connection to her faded. I waited for a while, hoping that Lilian would get herself under control. It only seemed to get worse however as big clumps of dirt ripped out of the ground and started floating in the air as the wind bit harder into my exposed skin and ripped at my clothing. I looked around frantically for some sort of solution, behind the house which Jared had been thrown into I could see Gemma fighting to get to her daughter and Lito quickly supporting her against the wind. I made my way over, not without trouble, and supported Gemma on her other side. We made it to the glowing ball of light, supporting each other, and Gemma collapsed to her knees in exhaustion before saying.

“Lilian please, I just want my daughter to come back to me. I may not understand what’s happening, but I will love you no matter what.” She shouted into the wind, seeing her mother seemed to have an effect as the wind died down and the clumps of earth fell back to the ground. The light faded around the child, and Lilian slowly lowered to the ground, she seemed to hesitate before her mother opened her arms and smiled warmly at her daughter. This broke the tension and Lilian rushed into her mother’s arms, and they both embraced while crying their eyes out.

“How can you love me? I killed father,” Lilian said holding Gemma at arm's length.

“Oh my sweet child, you are the only good thing to come out of that marriage. You only saw the good sides of him, but, well you saw how he was there at the end. I can’t say I’m happy about his death, but I’m not sad either.” Gemma said and smiled warmly at her child.

“I’m scared mom, I have this power now, and I don’t know what to do with it. What if I lose control like that again? I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“Lilian, many of the women in our family have the gift. It was weak in me, and I was forced into an unhappy marriage, but it seems strong in you and can open many doors that previously were closed to you. If you don’t fear it the gift can become your greatest tool.” Gemma hugged her child again and kissed her on the forehead as she let go. As if to contradict Gemma’s words one of the guards that had escorted us here ran up to our group and out of breath said.

“Lilian, you are hereby under arrest for the murder of your father Jared,” he approached the child with rope in hand, but there was a thumping sound, and the guard fell to the ground unconscious. Standing behind him was Burnie wielding a thick stick, he shrugged his shoulders as we looked at him and Lito nodded as if he had understood something.

“You’re right Burnie, many people saw what happened, and word will eventually reach the city. Some time away might be good for her, does anyone have a place where Lilian could go to lay low for a while? I was thinking about escorting her past the northern mountain ridge, but that is no place for a child,” he turned to me, a question on his face.

“Well I did plan to go back to my island, and I even know someone who can teach her to control her magic.” I turned to Lilian and her mother for an answer, “what do you say?”

“Some time away would be good, and she will need a teacher,” she knelt back down in front of her daughter again and hugged her fiercely. “I will miss you terribly my child, but I think it’s best you go with Eshanai. You’ll come back and visit me, won’t you?”

“Of course I’ll visit, and I understand.”

“I think it’s best you go now before the townsfolk come out to gossip, we’ll take care of your mother while you’re gone,” Lito said, and Lilian hugged her mother one last time before she walked over to me and took my hand. We made our way into the woods, and Lilian waved to her mother until she was out of sight.