TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of a dead body, familial heartbreak over major character death, guilt over committing the murder

  Chapter 8

  Scorn

  Alex's eyes are wider than they were at the foot of the Amethyst Throne as I held her back when a Guard shot arrows through her brother. Her gaze looks between my blood-stained hands and Grey, his body. I can see her mind spinning, putting the pieces together.

  Alex stops hesitating and rushes over to Grey's body and dives to her knees, touching his shoulder, pausing for only a moment before making the first contact. Her hair swishes around her shoulders, lifting enough to reveal a diamond earring dangling from her ear.

  She gasps at what I can only assume is Grey's cooling skin. Maybe it doesn't feel like she thought it would— like his skin had felt in life. Maybe it's the blood that covers far more of his body than it does not. Maybe it's the wounds that stopped bleeding when he stopped breathing. Maybe it's the bruises that sprouted beneath his skin like disturbing flowers.

  I look away. I tell myself it's because I want to give Alex a moment of privacy with Grey, but my subconscious tells me it's because I cannot make myself look at Grey's body any longer.

  Why don't you just leave if you're so guilty? the snake taunts. Oh, that's right. You don't have any reason to be guilty. Kill the Wolf, and they'll both be dead and Bryant will have his reign secured.

  Alex is grieving. It's not right.

  That's right. It would be right at a certain time. When were you thinking?

  What? No, it's not right. She hasn't done anything. Has Alex even really tried to stop the King of Ragdon?

  What she has done doesn't matter. It's what she will do that's the most important. The threat she poses is too high.

  "What are you still doing here?" Alex croaks, turning to meet my eyes. "Are you just going to stand there? Are you going to gloat? Are you going to attack me?"

  "N-no," I whisper in reply, dropping my gaze. I cannot bear the anger in Alex's eyes. She doesn't blink, only fixes me with so much heartbreak and fury in her eyes that makes my stomach twist.

  "What did you do?" Alex repeats, orange gaze burning bright, just as the malachite medallion had done as it struggled in vain to heal Grey from his fatal wounds.

  "I-I..." I choke on my words, unable to speak, unable to admit to what I have actually done.

  "What did you do? Tell me," Alex says, face contorting into something firm and determined.

  She furrows her eyebrows, taking a step forward as I take one back. Twigs snap beneath my feet. I take in the trees around me out of the corners of my eyes, the very trees that Grey had flown through before he crash-landed here and I took his life.

  "He... the King... Bryant said to-." I choke up on the words.

  Alex's hair swirls around her shoulders, as if responding to her anger. "Bryant told you to do-do that?"

  I scrunch my eyes shut and swallow, saliva sticking like gravel in my throat.

  I want to say yes. It's the truth. I don't want to lie. But I can feel even without speaking how wrong that one little word sounds. I can feel the searing heat of Alex's bright orange gaze fixing me in place with simmering anger. I'm surprised she hasn't exploded in rage.

  Maybe I deserve it. I did something I shouldn't have, right? I should have spoken to Bryant. I should have explained that Grey wasn't fighting back. I shouldn't have taken his life. Not when I still had questions.

  You did the right thing, the snake shoots back, venom dripping from its jaws and burning my mindscape. Grey was the Dove. He deserved it.

  He didn't even get a quick death, but he shouldn't have died when I still had questions.

  He was the Dove. There was no quick death for him, not with his healing powers. The malachite medallion guaranteed him a slow death.

  You don't see anything wrong with this situation?

  No, because there is nothing wrong with it. Bryant, the King of Ragdon, asked you to kill the Dove, and you did so. There is nothing wrong there. Aren't you supposed to trust me?

  "Did Bryant tell you to do that?" Alex repeats, bringing me back from my thoughts.

  I cannot speak, cannot get my mouth to form the shapes of yes, and my silence is answer enough.

  But Alex only snarls.

  "You can't even speak? Tell me what happened!"

  I run a hand through my hair. Alex's voice is rising, and the snake is spitting at me in my head, and my own thoughts are hurtling through my mind, and it's too much, and I am confused and overwhelmed, and I cannot think. The trees around me blur and twist, warping as I lose myself to

  "How could you do that?" Alex demands. "How could you hurt my brother? How could you take his life and send him to Lucius?"

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  "I was-I was... I was just doing my job. It was my order."

  But the words feel flat even to my ears. I can hear how weak they sound. How unconvincing, even as the snake whispers yes and tells me that I'm finally understanding.

  "Your job?" Alex roars the words, unblinking orange eyes flaring with a rage that has me taking a step back.

  My bad ankle gives, and I drop into a low crouch, hands coming up as I drop my sword. It clatters on the ground, but I barely hear it. I hold my palms toward Alex, and she scoffs, shaking her head as the tears in her eyes swim and brim and well up. Hurt blooms in her expression like Grey's blood had on his clothing before he collapsed and died.

  "You think... Did Grey do that? Did Grey cower like you're doing and plead for his life? How can you hold up your hands when my brother is dead behind you at your hands, the very hands you are holding up in surrender?

  "How can you, Scorn? You seemed like the Soldier who maybe had a bit of a heart."

  That digs in deep, jabbing in straight between my ribs, because Grey had said something similar and I still took his life.

  Behind my eyelids, I can see the flickering images of him falling, of the blood seeping through his shirt, him seizing, the myriad of injuries he sustained as the malachite medallion tried so hard to save him and I wouldn't let let it do its job.

  I lower myself to my knees, but the snake begins to fight for control.

  No.

  I push back against it. I already took Grey's life and murdered him. I don't want to attack Alex. It retaliates for a few more moments before slinking back a body length or two, as if testing my defenses.

  Alex stands up, her back to Grey's body.

  I watch as fear curls in my gut as the constellations across Alex's skin begin to glow. All thirteen come to life with orange light as her eyes start to dance with stars and planets in their depths. I take another step back.

  "Stay away from Grey," she snarls, something low and echoing in her voice, like several voices speak all at once from her lungs.

  "I'm sorry," I stutter, holding up my hands.

  "Tell me what you did."

  "I-I-I..." I trail off as fear seizes me.

  Look-y here-y, you are feeling what you made Grey feel. At least Bryant will know that you are capable of following orders, though, the snake mutters, slinking up into a tight coil in my mind.

  I didn't want to. Grey has to know that.

  He doesn't. You never told him. You were too busy attacking him. You know, trying to kill him?

  My lip quivers. My hands tremble as I begin to call upon my powers. Dust swirls around my ankles, but I take a step back, ignoring the pain in my ankle that has now become a steady throb. It's a familiar sensation, one that reminds me of my own shadow— always following, always there, something to be counted upon.

  Kill her, the snake insists. Kill the Wolf. Two in one blow. You'd secure the reign of the King of Ragdon. You'd make it so neither the Wolf nor the Dove can attack

  "Is that what you did to Grey?" Alex snarls, something deep and echoing sounding in her voice. "Did you attack him with your magic?"

  She looks between me and her brother.

  I took his life. Isn't that answer enough?

  You'll soon understand that sometimes they'll have more questions than they should. We'll just have to teach them not to ask too many questions.

  The snake encourages me to use the power of the Dust Devil. It eggs me on, eyes glowing with eagerness and the heat of desire. Blood, it wants, and it makes no secret of that fact.

  "You're going to use your magic?" Alex asks. She looks so angry, yet she also doesn't look surprised beneath the layer of hurt, and somehow that hurts, too.

  What have I done?

  What Bryant asked of you. You are doing the right thing. Now get over the hurt, because you shouldn't be feeling that.

  Alex looks back over her shoulder at Grey's body, still positioned between me and him. The sun beats down overhead, hot and searing, and I sweat beneath my armor.

  "How much did you hurt Grey for him to look like that? What did you do to him? What did you do to my brother? Why did you hurt him? What ever did he do to you, Scorn?"

  I'm not Scorn, I want to say. I'm Luke.

  But I hold my tongue, because I don't know what to say to the rest.

  A lot. I hurt him a lot. I hurt him a lot. He did nothing to me, but he was the Dove, and the King of Ragdon couldn't have that. I'm his Soldier. I'm his Dust Devil. I'm his righthand man, and I'm supposed to carry out his wishes, a part of me knows I should be saying, but I cannot. Don't you know I was just doing my job?

  But I can't get it out of my head how weak that sounds. It doesn't convince even me. Every time I blink, behind my closed eyelids I can only see Grey in the minutes before he died, as I took the last pieces of him until the malachite medallion could no longer keep him in the hold of Erebus and Lucius came to take him to their realm.

  "Answer me," Alex spits, venom in her voice that reminds me of the snake.

  We are not the same, the snake hisses, sharp and deadly.

  How dare I make such a comparison.

  "I... I-." I try to answer, but the words get stuck in my throat.

  I cannot force them out. The words are lodged in my throat like thorns, stuck in deep.

  In a flash, constellations burn to life across Alex's body, fiery and bright, as she snarls with anger. They shine on her arms, her legs, with such an intensity I can see them beneath her clothing. She doesn't blink, despite the brightness, only staring at me with rage.

  A vaguely triangular constellation shines brighter than the rest.

  It crosses my mind that I have not seen Alex blink once in the entire time she's been here.

  But before I can contemplate that, twin fish spiral from the back of Alex's neck, coiling around each other as they swim into the air in shimmering lights. One has black scales that seem to soak up all light around it, shimmering with the stars of a thousand nights. The other has white scales that glow with a myriad of rainbows, reflecting the light in dazzling arrays of colors.

  I take a step back, wincing when my bad ankle twists on a rock, and eye the fish with open distrust.

  Are you another version of the snake?

  How dare you compare me to such creatures. That's Pisces, the snake hisses.

  Alex shakes and trembles, panting as her hair billows around her. The constellations on her body flicker and glimmer. Her hands spasm and curl into partial fists before relaxing, then repeating the same action. The diamond hanging from her ear glints in the light from the constellations and the starry magic emanating from Alex.

  Over Alex's shoulder, a sparkling woman clouded over by billowing swaths of stardust swirling amongst the cosmos lingers, blindfolded. She inclines her head to one side, then to the other as she lifts one arm, then the other, slowly weighing each of the golden scales in her hands. The weight in the scales seems to change every moment, but the woman doesn't seem to notice.

  Pisces wind around each other, each fish curling in smooth movements and swimming through the air, wide eyes taking everything in, yet remaining locked in on me.

  Pain pulses through me in a steady rhythm like my heartbeat. A part of me wants to run, yet the other part wants to stay in talk. The snake wants me to fight and kill Alex, but I don't want to do that. Grey's body lays right behind her, and it's nearly all I can see.

  His blood dries on his skin the longer we wait, and I know the array of injuries that lay beneath that thick coating of scarlet.

  The fins of the Pisces fish sway as they swim, arching toward me in graceful movements that I wish I could have. Soldier training taught me to be harsh, brutal, anything but graceful as I went after what the King of Ragdon told me to with a single-minded focus.

  But what if I was wrong? the thought comes slowly, and my gaze finds the ground as I begin to ponder.

  Yet before I can, a searing heat scorches through my body, emanating from the back of my neck. Pisces touch their noses to my skin and soak into my body like a scar.

  Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please comment your thoughts and consider a favorite/follow!

  Up top are the Pisces fish and how I imagine they look as they make their way to Luke's neck.

  What will happen now that the Pisces fish are on Luke's neck?

  What are all the constellations on Alex's body?

  What will happen now that Alex has realized that Luke has killed her brother, I suppose is another question before even the Pisces fish- she's very reasonably very, very upset, to say the literal least

  I hope you're having a nice day, and if not, I hope tomorrow brings something nice for you

  -Werewolf14- :)