Excerpt: Not As Your Daughter

((New excerpt- it goes after my previous one, which is at the bottom of the page. Housecat is Dmitri's code name within the spy system. And Athra broke his leg during the kidnapping scenario, which is why he's on crutches. Khy has been arrested as 'Knight Skye' and Athra would like to prove his sister's innocence. Dmitri has cast her out of the family.))

“Father, you know this is wrong!” Athra shouted, hobbling into Dmitri’s office, his crutches making clicking noises on the floor. “Khy is not a serial killer. She doesn’t have the nerve to become a killer!”

Dmitri looked up from his paperwork and fixed his son with an icy glare. “How have you figured this out? Do you know?” he asked, and continued writing.

Athra matched his father’s glare. “I’ve known Khy for ten years, Father. Dmitri. A person doesn’t change their entire personality and morals that quickly. Especially if they’ve just become an adult. And someone who had changed as you think Khy had would not have risked her life to make sure the other children got away from the kidnappers. Someone who had changed as you thought Khy had would not have let herself be arrested—she would have killed you instead.” He leaned forward on his crutches. “Khy, my sister, your daughter, is not a killer.”

“My daughter is dead,” Dmitri said without looking up from his writing, but his hand tightened around the pen. “She did not recover from her wounds after saving the children.”

“Your daughter is sitting in a jail cell, wrongly accused of a title she never laid claim to!” Athra dropped his crutches and stood unsteadily on his feet. He stumbled over to Dmitri’s desk, and leaned until he was looking directly into Dmitri’s eyes. “Your daughter got caught up in political power plays, just as you have been. She’s not immune, you know! As soon as she became an adult, targets were trained on her. She was naïve and innocent and had no idea how to deal with it.

“And you were so distant! You never made it seem as if you loved her- she was scared of you. You with your bookishness and cold face. So she asked me.” Athra smiled bitterly. “And I had no idea either- I’m five years younger than her. But I suppose it’s a good thing. Because now two can play your game.” He leaned on Dmitri’s desk, waiting for a reply.

Dmitri looked up from his papers, setting the pen down carefully. Athra realized just how much emotion he had to be concealing because of the lack of emotion on his face. “She was scared of me,” Dmitri said quietly, “truly?” He rubbed the scar on his left wrist.

Athra interrupted Dmitri’s thought. “She’s not the only one. There’s something behind your bookishness that makes people wary of you. “

Dmitri looked down.

“And they’re right to be, aren’t they Father? There’s a reason the Ellisand family isn’t targeted by the petty folk , only the big schemers, isn’t there, Housecat? ”
Dmitri surged out of his chair, his right hand plunging into a desk drawer.

Athra held his breath. Had he gone too far?

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Khy's amulet lay in Dmitri's hand, the broken chain curling in and around his fingers. He looked down at it, seeing it without really seeing it.

His daughter had betrayed him. There was no other explanation for it. His daughter turned her back on all that made her an Ellisand, and brought her family to harm. Her brother had nearly died, and Dmitri's cover was compromised. At least until Adara and Ilani could think of a suitable explanation.

He closed his eyes, calling his magic, and closed his hand around the amulet. When he opened his eyes again, her amulet, the thing that had protected her since she was a baby, was merely a couple shards of amber and dust. He brushed it off of his hand.

She was no longer his child. She was just another criminal. And he would treat her like one.