Page 63 of A Love of Wrath and Rapture

She smiles meekly.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

From the front of the room, I hear a cough, as one of the older humans clears his throat.

“Well, now Miss Evangeline, if you wouldn’t mind escorting your pet back out,” he says. “Or perhaps we can have Ephemera do that for you?”

A rage unlike anything I’ve ever felt in her rushes over her. I expect her to take one of the flames and burn the room to the ground.

Instead, she speaks calmly and mercifully.

“I don’t think that will be necessary. Do you?” she asks. “After all, this trial is about him, isn’t it?”

How is she so capable of containing her fury? I think if I were a human, I’d be ripping their throats open for this.

It feels like the goal of this trial is to humiliate her. She’s being shamed for her association with me.

And yet she could easily renounce me and have these men and women back on her side, if she wanted it.

“If I may speak,” I offer, looking up at the council.

Their faces contort into scowls.

“I don’t think that will be necessary. Do you?” the elderly man says, repeating Evangeline’s words back at me with mockery and sarcasm. “After all, your testimony is quite biased.”

He turns his attention back to Evangeline, as I resist the urge to cleanse this room of its wickedness.

“This is not a trial, Evangeline,” the man reiterates, as the other people at the table sit quietly, merely observing. “We merely brought you here to discuss the fate of your pet.”

A smile crosses my face.

I’ve never heard anybody call me ‘pet’ before. It amuses me that with all my power, I could leash and bridle them. And yet they consider themselves above me?

Are they not afraid that I’ll lash out? That I’ll crush them all?

“I was under the impression that meeting with somebody to ‘discuss their fate’ was the definition of a trial,” she says. “But then perhaps I’m out of touch.”

A silence takes hold of the room.

“Apologies for the confusion, of course. Maybe you ought to consider renaming things to better fit their definition.”

“Miss Evangeline, you’re out of line!”

This time, one of the women speaks. Her nose hooks downward like a beak, and her eyes are bright even in this dim room.

She doesn’t deserve that light.

By now, the crowd has stirred back up into a frenzy. I step back toward the podium as I feel hands reaching for me, trying to pull at me.

If I didn’t have Evangeline here by my side, I’m not sure what I’d do to these humans. I was always under the impression they were superior to the dark elves in conduct. After witnessing their behavior in groups, I’m beginning to question that conclusion.

“Am I out of line?” she asks loudly, not in anger, but in order to be heard over the crowd.

Perhaps my presence here has inspired confidence in her. But the woman I see before me, fighting to defend a creature even though it might jeopardize her safety, is a beacon in this darkened room.

“Maybe you consider Xeros to be different in a legal sense. Maybe you don’t think he deserves a trial. But if I wasn’t brought here to defend him, I’m not sure why I’m here at all. Feels like you could have done this without me.”

I can see the elderly faces at the front of the room contorting in rage.

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