I’m Not A Mutt – Chapter 1

15 Beltane 2000

“But my family-” the chained man blurted out. “What’s to happen to them?”

Gretall stood up, facing the jury. Her black hair was coiled around her head like a snake. “I have enough to live on and raise my daughter,” she began, only to be cut off.

“Tara! No! She needs-”

“Tara needs honourable people as her role models,” Gretall snapped. “Not traitors like you.”

“Gretall, you don’t understand-”

“I understand more than enough,” she spat. “I do not see you. I do not know you.”

“Daddy!” Tara screamed as the man sagged. She tugged at her mother’s hold. “I’ve got to go to Daddy! He’s sick. Can’t you see that?”

Gretall tried to hush the young girl but was unsuccessful. She finally resorted to picking the six-year-old up and, with hissed instructions to Tara, balanced the child on one hip and continued. “Canne of Emika, you are dead to us.”

Tara screamed and fought her mother’s hold. Gretall tightened her grip on the girl and walked quickly toward the exit.

Canne didn’t look up. There was no point. He’d gambled and lost everything of value.

“Canne of Emika, you are charged with treason, dereliction of duty and conspiracy to overthrow the governments of both Tielen and the World Beyond A Gate. How do you plead?”

Canne ran a hand through his sandy hair until he could rub the back of his neck. It’s difficult with chains around your wrists, he thought.

I thought she was the better of the two choices,” he said slowly. “I was wrong. If I have done as you charge, then I must be guilty. I can only plead ignorance of Dahila’s ultimate plans.”

Dekalar looked from the retreating woman to the man. The woman had looked and sounded cold and hating; the man contrite and beaten. The child obviously adored the man. How to punish without punishing? he wondered. Then the words came to him.

“Canne of Emika, you are banned from Emika and from using the Gates for ten years. After that time, you may return to your family.”

Canne looked at the retreating figures of his wife and child. Ten years was a long time His head came up as Dekalar’s words sunk in. Can’t stay in Emika? Can’t use the Gates? I can walk to wherever I want to go, and I have ten years to get there? Had he heard right? He stole a glance at the High Councillor.

Dekelar’s eyes crinkled and he gave the prisoner a slight nod. His face returned to its normal neutrality.

Canne returned the nod and mentally started making plans.

***

“I want my daddy!” Tara wailed “Where’s my daddy?”

“Your daddy was a bad man and now he’s dead,” Gretall explained.

“No, he’s not! I saw him,” Tara contradicted her mother.

“Don’t contradict your mother,” Gretall snapped, tapping Tara lightly on the cheek.

Tara stared at her mother in shock. She’d never been struck before. Admittedly, it was a tap, not a slap, but still. It was enough to keep her silent.

“Your father was Sidhe-Nameunde, an evil man who worked for an evil woman. She killed him because he was Sidhe-Nameunde, more evil than she was. Shape-shifters get killed by ordinary people. I don’t ever want to see you hanging around with shape-shifters.”

Father wasn’t dead. I saw him, Tara fumed inwardly, only half-listening to her mother. He’s not dead. I won’t believe that. I’ll find him. One day. I will!

Tara was driving her mother insane with her constant referrals to her father. Canne had joined with Dahila, gotten caught and was punished, such as that was. Gretall wasn’t impressed with Dekalar’s response to her ex-husband’s pleas. He wasn’t exiled from Tielen, but from one province only. He should, she thought, have been banned from Tielen for life. There was no way he was going to see his daughter ever again, she vowed. To her daughter, she constantly drove home the thought that shape-shifters were evil and that anyone in her family that was Sidhe-Nameunde would be killed.

***

Five years later:

15 Beltane 2005

“Mother,” Tara began cautiously. “Do you know where my father is?”

“He’s dead,” was the abrupt response. “He died five years ago. Why?”

“Oh. I thought I remembered differently. How did he die?”

Gretall gave her daughter a hard look. “Why do you need to know?”

Tara shrugged. “We’re doing a family tree in class, and I wasn’t sure how to find out about my father and his family.”

“Your grandparents died before you were born and your father wasn’t interested in talking to his siblings after we got married. I don’t know how to contact them,” the older woman lied. She didn’t want her daughter associating with that filth, shifters and humans, the lot of them.

Tara nodded, sombre. She didn’t think her mother would be any help, but finding a reason to go to the Capitol was going to be hard. The Records Secretary would have the information she needed, she was sure, but Mother wasn’t going to let her go without supervision.